[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Fallout] Were cancer rates through the roof in pre-war America?

Fallout takes place in an alternate history where nuclear power was adopted as the predominant technology and power source, for about 150 years. Robots, transportation, computing, energy. All nuclear powered.  Consequently, a huge amount of technology must be emitting radioactive particles, no matter how safe it was engineered to be.

Soldiers wearing power armor were walking around with a small fusion battery on their back.

Hell, wearing a pip-boy meant walking around with a nuclear powered computer on your arm all the time.

Were cancer rates for the average American sky high during this period?

[Assistant]
Actually fossil fuels were the predominant energy source in the fallout universe, it was only due to its scarcity by the time of the Resource Wars that nuclear power became more common.

That being said, radiation shielding was very advanced by the time of the Great War. Power armor offers a radiation resistance bonus, so it can be assumed that pip-boys can shield their radioactive power source (if they are indeed nuclear powered).

Not to mention that drugs like Rad-X and Radaway made minor radiation absorption a rather trivial and easily cured affliction. Im sure cancer rates were through the roof, but thats more likely due to carcinogens in tobacco smoke and processed food than radiation, for the average American at least.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Marvel Comics] Rogue gets a symbiote. What happens?

[Assistant]
There's precedent for Rogue consuming an alien's power and identity (Captain Marvel, a What-If story with Thor).  So, even if the original symbiote dies, Rogue would effectively become one.  Result would likely be similar to Carnage, a united being with enhanced strength, reflexes, and webbing.  "Rouge" might finally be accurate!

Better: "We are Sugah."


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Why are strawberry seeds so nicely devided over the strawberry?

[Assistant] The fruity fleshy bit of a strawberry is jummy and sweet. The seeds are not. If you were a bird and had the opportunity to eat either the jummy and sweet bit or the seeds, you'd only eat the jummy and sweet. By spreading evenly arcoss the strawberry you make sure that as many seeds spread as possible. Thus creating an advantage over clumping your seeds into one particular part of the strawberry.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why are drugs out of our system after five half lives?

Why not 4 or 6?

[Assistant]
They aren't.

After 5 half-lives, an uncomplicated drug will be down to 1/32 of its original concentration. (Because 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/32.)

1/32 is generally considered to be a negligible amount of a medication, because most medications cease to be effective well before their concentration drops by 32-fold.

However, there are cases when this rule doesn't work  for example, if you overdose, you might be down by 1/32x after 5 half-lives, but you that might still be a toxic amount of drug left.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
If there is Electromagnetic radiation (light) and Gravitational radiation (gravity waves), is there Strong 'radiation' and Weak 'radiation?'

Gravity and Electromagnetism have a type of 'radiation' associated with them, but is this true for Weak Interaction and Strong Interaction being the other 2 of the 4 Fundamental forces?

[Assistant]
Yes, but gluons ("strong radiation") are subject to QCD confinement at low energies, and W/Z bosons ("weak radiation") have very large masses, so unlike photons, they can't be produced "for free".

Furthermore, W/Z bosons are unstable with a mean lifetime of only a small fraction of a second. So even if you produce them in some high-energy collision, they don't last long.

So they theoretically exist, but are not of any relevance to most things.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Cannabis is just a plant, however there are hundreds of different strains. What is the difference and why are they all different?

[Assistant] Think of cannabis like apples. There are red apples and green apples and even yellow apples. Each Apple tastes a little different, some are sweet some are more sour, but they are all still apples. Cannabis is the same way.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] How do frogs avoid getting poisoned when they eat poisonous insects?

[Assistant]
Let's flip it around.

How the hell can you eat chocolate and NOT die??  To dogs, eating enough of it can kill them straight out.

"In large enough amounts, chocolate and cocoa products can kill your dog. The toxic component of chocolate is theobromine. Humans easily metabolize theobromine, but dogs process it much more slowly, allowing it to build up to toxic levels in their system."

In summary,  those frogs have built up a way to process those insects and not be poisoned.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Difference between determinism and superdeterminism?

Ive been reading up a bit on these topics lately as Im going through Sean Carrolls new book Something Deeply Hidden which talks primarily about the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Im wondering what difference is there (if any) between determinism and super determinism.

Carroll seems to think theres a distinction. I tried seeing his position on this matter, but all I can concretely find is that hes not a fan of super determinism. This doesnt make sense to me since I dont see how its distinct from regular determinism.

Thanks for your time. (Even though you had no choice in reading or answering this ;) )

[Assistant] In determinism, what we observe is determined by a cause whereas in super determinism what we observe is just determined (without a cause), such that no counterfactuals are possible. For example: If you roll a dice, the result is caused by the way you throw the dice. Here you can ask, what the result would have been if you threw the dice differently. If you roll a quantum dice, some people think, the result is determined by a big "list" or sequence which contains all the results of quantum experiments  that have been and will be done. Here, there is no way of manipulating the result, because we don't have any access to the list of results.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why do we turn pale/green when we're sick?

[Assistant] because your body diverts blood away from the skin on your face and towards the areas where the infection is in order to mount an immune response against the virus or bacteria. You never actually turn "green", that's just an expression for looking unwell. Pallor (turning pale) is caused by a decrease in blood flow to certain areas.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Halo] How many plasma grenades would I need to destabilize or structurally compromise a Halo installation?

Asking for a friend of a friend.

Bonus round: how many fragmentation grenades for the same task?

Lightning round: how many Scorpion tank shells?

[Assistant]
The correct answer is four. Four well placed grenades for the four fusion reactors onboard the Pillar of Autumn.

If we're going without the Autumn, adding all frags, plasma grenades, and Scorpion tank shells in existence, you probably couldn't destabalize the ring. The Forerunners built these puppies to last!


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How do mammals that dive deep into the ocean such as seals and whales not get decompression sickness?

A human dives to a depth of 1500 ft and has to spend hours resurfacing so the nitrogen in their blood does not bubble. Does a sperm whale have to take the same amount of time ascending from depth or do they have physiological mechanisms to mitigate that?

[Assistant]
Decompression is only necessary if you breathe compressed air while beneath the water. It also depends on depth and time under.

Because seals and whales don't breath compressed air, they don't need to decompress.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: When using the English language, we should refer to "Mumbai" as "Bombay" for the same reasons that we refer to "Deutschland" as "Germany."

A few years ago, the Indian government decided that certain cities bearing colonial names should henceforth be referred to by their precolonial names --- e.g. Mumbai instead of Bombay, Kolkata instead of Calcutta, Chennai instead of Madras, etc. The reason for the change was that some nationalistic parties gained political power and decided that this would be a good way to appease their voters. This change somehow caught on not only within India, but all over the world. It is enforced so extremely in India that the censor board recently decided to ban a music video simply for using the word "Bombay" instead of Mumbai.

My problem with this is that no government (or any authority) should have a hegemony over the English language. One of the most beautiful things about the English language is that there is no authority in the world that can prescribe rules for it. I think it should not be perverted to pander to some particular authority's parochial interests.

CMV.

[Assistant]
>This change somehow **caught on** not only within India, but all over the world.

There you go. This is *fait accompli*, a thing already done.

The word "germany" caught on so we use it.

At this point, "Mumbai" caught on - so we use. Why expend effort hanging it again?


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What does the vote to defund planned parenthood mean and how is it related to the govt. shutdown?

I've tried to look around, but most of the news sources I've found are hopelessly vague in their explanation (something I sometimes wonder if intentional)

I understand it was voted to defund planned parenthood for 1 year. What does this mean for planned parenthood to be defunded? And hoow does this vote relate to the threat of a government shutdown that keeps being mentioned?

[Assistant]
So, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would remove government funding to Planned Parenthood. That bill would then need to go to the senior half of Congress, the Senate, and pass there. Then it would go to President Obama, who has the power to veto it and will almost certainly do so.

Several Republican congressmen have said that they will refuse to vote on any US budgets that give money to Planned Parenthood at all, and since the Democrats are not going to just give up on funding Planned Parenthood, this means that it is likely that no budget will be passed for the upcoming year, and thus no federal funds will go anywhere and the US government will shut down until negotiations result in Congress approving a budget.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How do we know what the universe looks like today when all the light we see is from millions or billions of years ago?

Shouldn't the universe we see be like a fun house mirror with everything distorted? in fact, shouldn't it be worse than that? Wouldn't it be like looking at a fun house mirror, but in addition to everything being in the wrong place, your head might be your current age and your feet look like they did when you were a baby? The Milky Way is 120,000 light-years across, and that's just one galaxy. Can we really extrapolate through billions of years to get an accurate picture of the universe now?

EDIT: Thanks to everyone for all the great answers!

I just want to say that I think it's legitimate to ask what the universe looks like "now," even with the lightspeed barrier. Saying that it "doesn't matter" or that there is no "real now" or that "now has no meaning" because the idea of "now" is defined by what information can reach us at the speed of light, I think is a cop-out answer.

If we ever discover warp drive, or wormholes, or whatever, then it certainly WILL matter. Plus, things we can't see presumably do still exist. I don't see how the lightspeed barrier affects this.

Lots of things  quantum computers, nuclear fusion, teleportation, artificial intelligence  are beyond our scientific capabilities now (and perhaps forever), but it's still worth thinking about.

[Assistant]
The picture we have of the universe is a picture of the past universe.  The reality is that what the universe is like **now** is irrelevant, because we won't experience that in any menaingful way until the future when the light reaches us.

We can of course make predictions about where these galaxies/stars are **today** even though we're seeing them thousands or millions of years in the past.

The only "real" universe is the one we can observe, and that's the one that's limited by the speed of light.

**everything** is limited by the speed of light, even your kid's soccer game, but the difference doesn't really matter because it doesn't impact us.  The same thing applies to space.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[DCEU] Didnt Clark Kent die the same day Superman died? How did he come back to life?

People saw him his a damn coffin.

[Assistant]
In the original Death of Superman story, Clark was listed as one of the hundreds of people missing after the battle.

Few if any would find this suspicious. Clark is a reporter after all and he no doubt has gone into dangerous situations with no guarantee for his safety.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Superman] Can Superman see when he is shooting lasers from his eyes?.

I mean I assume he he has to in order to aim, it doesn't seem to make sense otherwise. Yet no other superpower seems to work like that, you can't perform a normal task under similar circumstances. If I am flying I can't walk at the same time, if I am shooting energy blasts from my hands I cannot drink a cup of coffee at the same time, and so on. And if he can see at the time is everything tinted red?. And as a side question, I assume Superman can control the lasers intensity. Can it be quite underpowered so as to just heat up the coffee I mentioned?, and in the other direction how strong can the laser vision get?.

[Assistant]
He could look, and aim before he shoots.
His hearing would be a big aid if he can't see, and if he needs to, he could turn it on and off imperceptibly quick to see in between firings, looking like a continuous stream.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What is the science behind an acquired taste? Is it as simple as your tastebuds getting used to that specific taste?

[Assistant]
Nope, it's all about your brain learning to perceive it differently.

Have you ever been eating something, and then somebody compared the food to something really nasty, and then it started to taste less appetizing? Or noticed how your favorite food doesn't taste that good if you're completely full?

Our taste buds send information to the brain, but the brain decides how to interpret it.

Some foods have a flavor that our brain thinks is potentially dangerous.. Bitter compounds, for example, are more likely to be poisonous. So if something tastes bitter, our brain is suspicious. But if we've eaten it before without getting sick, our brain decides that this particular bitter food is OK, and so it tastes better to you.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5 what is pre-workout and how does it work?

[Assistant]
Preworkouts are combinations of chemicals intended to do a few things (depending on what's in them).

1. Make you feel more energetic. Thinks like caffeine or ephedrine are usually used for this.
2. Ensure you get the most out of your workout. Things like creatine and beta-alanine.
3. Ensure your body has the things it needs during a workout. Things like sugar and various amino acids are used for this.

In general, pre workouts DO help, but the effect is a lot smaller than people would like you to believe. In most cases you can get most of the effects with a proper diet and a cup of coffee.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Harry Potter] I'm a British muggle, and my child has begun displaying signs of magic. Is it mandatory that she attend Hogwarts, or can she just keep going to her muggle school with all of her friends?

[Assistant] No. There is no requirement that she learn magic, and if she does she doesn't have to at Hogwarts. You can get private tutors, though that's not cheap. But it's worth it if you ask me. Have you heard about what's been happening at Hogwarts?


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How come we perceive sunlight as essentially being invisible until we split it down into seperate wavelengths?

We don't see light until it's reflected off something and depending on what the thing is, it absorbs some wavelengths and not others and that's how we perceive colours. But why? How come we just don't see all light all the time (when exposed to it)?

[Assistant]
We see sunlight when it hits our eyes. You can definitely see direct sunlight, ie when it doesn't reflect off of something - when you look directly at the sun.

We don't see random rays of light all the time because most of them don't reach our eyes.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
If you were to hypothetically manage to turn all the lights out in a major city (ex. New York City) how long would it take to see the stars? Or would it be instantaneous?

And what would cause the delay, if there was one?

[Assistant]
It's practically instantaneous.

You may get a little delay from clouds reflecting the light for a fraction of a second longer than if there was no clouds or atmospheric conditions which reflect light back.

Then you'd have to wait for your eyes to adapt to the darker conditions. This is the part which you'd notice without some equipment.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What actually happens inside the throat when you have a sore throat?

[Assistant]
A virus is hijacking cells in your throat to make more viruses.
You immune system is going around killing all the cells that have been hijacked.
Because a lot cells got hijacked, your immune system is doing a decent amount of damage.
This damage hurts.
A lot of the other symptoms are the immune system improving its response in the area and the rest of the throat trying to repair the damage.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Dc Comics] Why build the Watchtower? Why not just use the fortress of solitude?

It would have been more cost effective, less timely, and to the best of my knowledge more secure right?

[Assistant]
Why would we use the gym to play basketball, why can't we use your apartment?

Same argument. Superman's fortress of solitude is *his* spot, for him to be alone and be Kal-El instead of Superman or Clark Kent.

If they need a Earthbound spot to meet, there's always the Hall of Justice.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: I believe children can be told about sex from the get go.

I don't think there is anything wrong with children knowing what sex is at any age, even if they are too young to fully grasp it. Obviously I'm not saying that children should be exposed to sexual situations, I'm just saying that they can know: what sex is; that their parents have sex; that gay sex exists; and that sex is where babies come from, and that that doesn't rob them of their innocence or damage their perceptions in anyway (assuming the information being shared is accurate).

I was raised this way and grew up knowing what sex was in the same way that I knew what pooping was. I never felt especially weird about sex and was bored in sex-ed because I knew it already. Those are the only differences i could perceive in my approach to sex in comparison to my peers and I think suddenly springing the knowledge of sex on a kid is far more likely to manifest a weird relationship to it.

Edit: I am assuming this argument from a secular perspective, Ie; assuming  consensual sex isnt immoral in and of itself.

[Assistant]
Do you mean that they should be told a plain but broad version when asked or that you should make a point of telling them as early as they can understand it?

The former makes sense to me, in order to, as you say, prevent it from becoming weird or shameful, but the latter doesn't, because there's no reason to have a child think about the mechanics of something that will only become relevant to them in years, they have enough to worry about that's actually immediately pertinent to their lives.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] Have their been any attempts to altruistically free the victims of sarlaacs, or kill the sarlaacs to put them out of their misery?

Not that many in the Star Wars universe would be aware of sarlaacs or how their stomachs work, but there would likely be at least some societies such as those near the Ancient Abyss on Felucia. Did anyone ever try to stop the centuries-long suffering of people who were eaten by sarlaacs? And would you be in favor of doing so if you were in the Star Wars universe?

[Assistant]
I don't think there's actually any need or benefit to attempting that.  As the most recent installments show, Jabba via 3PO was being somewhat more dramatic than he was biologically accurate.  Most victims are quite dead quite quickly.

Being generous with Jabba's description, it's a one then the other thing, not a concurrent thing.  You will experience a new definition of pain and suffering, (then die), and you will be digested over 1000 years.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How can radiation cause burns?

I wouldn't guess it transfers much heat so why does it cause skin "burns"?

[Assistant]
Others have responded in complex terms, but here is a very simple one.

Radiation kills cells by destroying their DNA. The body reacts as best it can. The results look like a burn because it's the same response. Just in this case the cells aren't physically destroyed by excess direct heating.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Can you mix vaccines in blood and let misquotes eat it, then they will transfer the vaccinated blood?

[Assistant] Typically mosquitoes breakdown the blood, and excrete whatever they cannot use. So no. Part of the reason why a mosquito would not give you AIDS. Also, there's no 'flowback' of blood from the mosquito's needle, nor would there be a significant amount of the vaccine left on the outside of the needle.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
(Mass Effect) What effect on Earths economy did converting to the Galaxy wide currency have?

as earth has multiple currency's at one time each worth different amounts to the other what happened when earth converted to the "Credit"?

[Assistant] We didn't convert. Supplemental materials explain that "credits" are a currency standard that dollars/yen/space rocks are converted to by omnitool as a conveinence for interstellar business. Exchange rates are managed/regulated by a department of the Council on Citadel with branches throughout the galaxy.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Batman/Demolition Man] How would Batman feel about the cryo-penitentiary subliminal rehabilitation program?

Would he put any of his rogues in stasis?

[Assistant]
Well Batman's son has been imprisoning villains without trial and then using magic to alter their personalities and he is on a collision course with his father for when he finds out about it. So no he would likely not support a prison that, more or less, brainwashes criminals as that's ethically terrible.

How is it better than Arkham which seems to be a revolving door? Well Arkham (and normal prisons like Black Vate) have received immense funds from Bruce Wayne to go towards increased security and rehabilitation. So if a villain can escape from the high tech fortress island that Arkham often becomes, they likely will be broken out of a cryo prison too.

Rehabilitation wise, there are success stories of criminals going down the right path (not including all the generic goons). Clayface became a hero and Killer Croc is often an antihero towards the poor and forgotten children of Gotham.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Why do we enjoy killing people in video games or think it's "cool" when we see people die in movies?

[Assistant]
Play fighting is a natural thing. Watch puppies for a while and sooner or later they'll start biting at eachother. The winner is usually the one that wraps his mouth around the other's neck first or at least the one that commands a submissive gesture from the other.

Often this includes a chase as well.

It's not a coincidence that what they're doing mimics hunting and going in for the kill.

Humans do this play-fighting too. Give two kids some sticks and before long it's a sword fight or a some mock guns.

It's instinctual to train in this way for what evolution thinks we will have to face. Video games, movies and to a degree story telling generally, though, are relatively new and not something evolution has ever really had time to account for. It's just sort of our weird human mixture of these instincts and our great communicative powers that we enjoy sharing it in art as we do just as we enjoyed making a game of it as kids.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[MCU] Abomination (possible spoilers for some movies)

I know Tim Roth is not cast in any of the avengers movies, Do you think the abomination will appear in a non speaking capacity? He's a powerful resource and it'd seem like a weird waste in an all out war.

[Assistant]
They considered it when the Avengers were being out together but considered him too unstable and thus kept him in Cryo Sleep, recruiting Banner instead who is more useful as a scientists and is far less willing to use his powers.

Abomination is a danger to everyone around him, he fights for himself and will kill people jaut to test his limits.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Star Wars] How could Ziro the Hutt speak Basic and the other Hutts could not?

[Assistant] Hutts absolutely can speak Basic, there's no physical reason they can't. They just view it as an inferior language to Huttese so they generally refuse to, plus it can help to intimidate and mess with people in business dealings. A proper Hutt will take every damn chance they can get to have the upper hand.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Why do things get darker when they get wet?

[Assistant]
Cloth actually becomes more transparent when it gets wet, which is why it looks darker (because there is usually no light source on the other side of the cloth).

Next time you get a piece of cloth wet, hold it up to a light and you will see that more light is able to pass through.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Kingsman] Does someone get promoted to "Arthur" in the event of his death or retirement? Is there any supervisor agents below him?

Also, what would a female agent be named?

[Assistant]
All the Arthurian names are positions. If the holder is no longer around, someone else gets it.

The exact rank structure isn't terribly clear, but Merlin seems to be some kind of supervisor.

Female agents use the same names that male ones do.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [DC/Marvel] What are some unique powers that heroes or villains have that no other being have?

[Assistant]
B'Wana Beast famously has the ability to merge any two animals together, to create a chimerical being with characteristics of both

(Technically one other guy had this power but he was BB's direct successor)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: why do words start to look unfamiliar or misspelled when you look at them for a long period of time?

[Assistant]
It is called *semantic satiation*.

If you look at a word long enough, you stop seeing the word, and start seeing letters, which have nothing to do with the word.  The is nothing about the letters c, a, and t that connects them to a cat, so they start losing that meaning.

If you look longer, you stop seeing letters, and start seeing squiggly shapes that have nothing to do with what the letter means, further alienating you from the word.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What happens with the water that ends up in your lungs when misdrinking?

Sometimes we drink and it goes "the wrong way", ending up in the lungs. What happens to that water? Does it evaporate? Is it slowly absorbed?

It can certainly not be stored there forever, we would feel it.

[Assistant] The cell walls of your lungs are coated with a thin layer of water to aid oxygen absorption, but the layer is highly controlled excess water can be absorbed back into the cells, alternatively there are tiny hairs cilia which sweep away debris which is collected in the lungs and these can also remove excess water.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why isn't the gas tank fill port standardized to be on the same side for every vehicle?

Wouldn't making the port be on the same side for every car make getting through gas stations more uniform/efficient? Seems like this would be a no-brainer. Is there some practical reason why they aren't?

[Assistant]
Simple engineering. There is no uniform standard, so automakers move it around based on what's best for the design of the vehicle. Older cars can have gas caps behind the license plate, to accommodate gas tanks below the trunk.

The location of the gas tank is a big challenge when designing cars, especially more compact ones.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Star wars] is Ashoka Tano a Jedi at the end of the Clone wars season 7?

[Assistant]
No.  A Jedi is a Force-wielding member of a very specific religion.  Ahsoka Tano *is* a Force user, Ahsoka Tano *does* use Jedi weaponry, and Ahsoka Tano *does* have considerable Jedi training, but she is not a Jedi.

>!Rex even attempts to use this loophole to get her out of Order 66, but nobody buys it.!<


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELIF: Why are nail salons so frequently operated by Asian women?

I realize it's not exclusive, but really, they just have a knack for it?

[Assistant]
It's mostly due to family and ethnic networks.

Many of the first Asian immigrants to the US started business, they went for simple service sectors with low cost overhead in areas that weren't already saturated by Americans, such as nail salons or bodegas or small convenience stores.

Years later, when new immigrants come to the country, they tend to settle either with extended family or in ethnic pockets along with other recent immigrants from the same areas (ie, Little Italy, Chinatown, etc) and learn the trade from  them.  So they work in existing nail salons for awhile and eventually learn enough about it and make enough money from it to open their own place.  In their new locations, they tend to "pay it forward" by providing jobs to newer immigrants or newer family members and the cycle continues.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5:Do black men actually have bigger penises? And if so, do black women have deeper, wider vaginas?

[Assistant]
From metapedia:

A 2007 peer-reviewed study appearing in theTropical Journal of Medical Researchhas noted that contrary to "the popular belief that the black people generally have longer penile sizes" that in reality "there is no convincing scientific background to support the ascription of bigger penile dimensions to people of the Black race". In fact the study discovered that "the average erect length of the American Caucasians was surprisingly longer" thanNegroidssampled, but that the latter were longer flaccid.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[ATLA] Why does the Fire Nation have tripwire trap rooms installed into their ships?

In the pilot episode Aang trips a wire in an empty room of an abandoned Fire Navy ship, which shoots a signal flare and locks them inside the room. I think I understand the intent of this (as a security measure for the Fire Navy to quickly notice a captured ship and maybe trap the captors, as the captors are more likely to trip something they don't know about- I've seen some old jails that have a similar mechanism along the wall) I'm just curious why they would spend space on what seem to be empty trap rooms when that space could be used for artillery or officer barracks or any myriad of more useful, less situational things. Is there just one of these trap rooms on a ship? How do they hide this mechanism? If all the ships are uniform, intel about the booby trap is more likely to make its way to the enemy.

EDIT- So rewatching the scene I noticed this isn't even an empty room, it's the ship's *bridge*, which makes this WAY more impractical of a design. Why put a tripwire in the middle of what is likely one of the busiest rooms of your naval vessel? Especially one that sends an SOS and locks everyone inside the room?

[Assistant] It's very unlikely the trip wire was set up during day-to-day operations. It's more like part of the evacuation procedure in case of the ship being captured. Remember that the waterbenders did not fight their way onto the ship, they surrounded it and encased it in ice, pushing it out of the sea. The firebenders, now run-aground, abandoned ship and set up the tripwire so that if the waterbenders come aboard, they will be unable to retrieve sensitive information and would signal nearby fire nation vessels. As it happens, the southern water tribe did not have the means to launch a counter attack, all soldiers having already left to fight, so no one bothered going aboard to scavenge.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: If I am allergic to peanut butter and I eat a jar everyday, will I become un-allergic?

[Assistant] There are some allergy therapies that try a version of this.  You can build up resistance to peanut butter if you are exposed to VERY SMALL amounts ever day.  Starting with a jar will just send you to the morgue.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Agile methodologies in software testing

In general terms, how does this methodology work?

[Assistant]
The basic concept is that you decide on details regarding implementation and testing while developing.

In more classical methodologies you generally spend a lot of time in the beginning of a project to plan everything on a high detail before writing the first line of code.

In agile developement you make a very rough plan and decide the details as you go along. It is more of a "Try and error" method that is a lot more flexible but have some other drawbacks.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did the Rebels not evacuate Yavin when the Death Star was approaching?

For comparison, when the Imperial fleet launched a surprise attack on Hoth they managed to evacuate almost everyone, while under enemy fire.

Yet on Yavin they send up 30 one man fighters, then just sit there waiting for the Death Star to get close enough fire.

[Assistant]
The Yavin IV attack was more surprise than the attack on Hoth. Though Leia Organa Solo was suspicious that Millennium Falcon was being tracked, the tracking beacon was never found. When the Rebels received the Death Star plans they began analysing them for weaknesses. When the first Death Star fell out of hyper space in the Yavin System, the Rebels had a battle plan ready to be put to use. The Empire did not know of any weaknesses to the station, Grand Moff Tarkin viewed the fighter attack as a futile effort.

The attack on Hoth was not a surprise attack. The Imperial Recon Droid gave away the element of surprise. As Commander Solo indicated after he destroyed the droid, it was a good bet the Empire knew they were there.

There was also a significant difference in fire power between a Star Destroyer and the Death Star. The Death Star could fire any transport vessel out the sky on an attempted escape. Hoth's Ion Cannon was able to temporarily disable the Star Destroyer's offensive capabilities allowing transport ships to get through.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Alien] Can you save a infected person with surgery after a facehugger releases him/her?

[Assistant]
From the avp wiki:

>>"Arguably the most biologically intriguing stage of the Xenomorph's life cycle, the Chestburster is not implanted into the host as an embryo but is in fact akin to a cancerous growth; it begins as a tumor that causes the host's body to literally construct the infant creature from its own biological material.[1] This process causes the developing embryo to take on some of the host's physical traits via a process known as the DNA Reflex,[2] including bipedalism, quadrupedalism[6] or even possessing the mandibles of a Predator[7] and other body structure changes. Over the course of 124 hours, and sometimes up to several days in the case of some Queens, the tumor develops into a Chestburster, at which point the creature emerges, violently ripping open the chest of the host, killing it. Owing to its cancerous nature, Chestburster development is typically fatal for the host even if the growing organism itself is surgically removed.[8]"

Relevant citation (8):
Dave Hughes, Lee Brimmicombe-Wood. Aliens, Vol. 2 #11, p. 31 (1993), Dark Horse International.

So...

Typically, no. It'd be like treating Cancer by removing the individual tumors. It helps, but the problem is more complicated than that.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[LoTR and Middle Earth] Elves that chose not to leave for Valinor and stayed in Middle Earth, what would of happened to them and the areas they lived on

What I mean is, lets say everyone in this sub reddit were Noldor Elves and resided in Rivendell. If we chose to stay in Rivendell for the entirety of the Third Age into the Fourth and so on, what would of happened to our bodies and ultimately Rivendell.

[Assistant]
Ultimately, our spirits (far) would consume our bodies (hrar), and we would be left as houseless spirits, a kind of wraith.

When Men die, their far depart the circles of Arda for whatever lies beyond - the Gift of Iluvatar. The far of Elves, on the other hand, are bound to Arda until its ending. If slain, the fa of an Elf can go to the Halls of Mandos in Valinor, and ultimately be reincarnated into a new hra.

This weakening of the hra is due to the marring of Arda by Morgoth, and the cause of a great deal of grief to the Elves. The Rings of Power were made to prevent this; when their power was lost with the destruction of the One, this process can only be avoided in Valinor. This is why Galadriel told Frodo that, no matter what happened, the time of the Elves in Middle-Earth was over. If Sauron was overthrown, it meant that the power of the Three would be undone, and in time the bodies of all the Elves in Middle-Earth would be consumed by their own spirits.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Star Wars] What do Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader do during their 'off-time'?

[Assistant]
Vader sits in a bacta tank, trying not to think of his dead wife and kids and wallowing in his own negative emotions.

The Emperor probably gets about 5 seconds of true down time in any given year, and spends it working on his evil laugh.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What is the use of a birth certificate?

[Assistant]
It proves you were born here and are a citizen.   Without one, and without a record of one, they could try and deport you as an illegal immigrant.

It also, you know, proves your age. For age-related things like getting into public school and getting a drivers license.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Matrix] Why does 01 have so much defense?

So, the humans are all underground. The machines know exactly where they are, and wipe them out every 120 years or so. There's maybe a dozen hovercraft that leave the city, which can be easily destroyed by a small group of sentinels.

Why the hell does 01 have about 200 heavy battleships just sitting there for a threat which, except for Neo (which would never have been predicted), nothing is going to approach?

[Assistant]
One of the problems with having full intelligence and independent, but still artificial, personalities, comes the issue of personality disorders and problems. Even though the machines don't have genetics and brain chemicals affecting their moods, they still can get caught with faulty logic, endless looping cycles and blatant lying. This means the machines can still fall victim to horrible human issues like rampant paranoia. This paranoia makes them constantly prepared for another war with humans they logically know will never happen, but are still terrified of losing.

They have SOME precedent of being afraid of humans, even if they seem to be completely under machine control. Humans displayed unpredictable, savage and horrible behavior before and during the war, so it would be a mistake for them to think humans were still incapable of such things. This underlying fear of the human capacity for violence, a logic loop keeping them paranoid long after the war, and an entire planet's worth of resources to build their defenses and you end up with a single city being defended by giant battleships.

(Plus, on top of all this, there's a short story that says the machines are also aware of hostile aliens and are defending Earth while at the same time dealing with humans. That could also explain their overwhelming physical firepower.)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra] How much authority does the Avatar have?

I think we can all agree that the Avatar (a living god) is very much widely respected throughout the world due to their role in maintaining balance as well their predecessors doing noble things like stopping a genocidal Fire Lord from burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground.

But how much authority do they actually have? On one hand, theyre treated almost like royalty and people will gladly hear them out. However, then theres Korra, who was (unfairly) kicked out of Republic City by order of President Raiko, despite the fact that she was instrumental in stopping a violent, revolutionary anti-bending terrorist organization as well as saving the entire world from the Avatar universes equivalent to what amounts to Satan/the Anti-Christ (who was gonna put the world under 10,000 years of darkness and chaos until the next Harmonic Convergence). This would be like if George Washington came back to life at full health and was of sound mind but then Trump suddenly declared him to be persona non grata.

[Assistant] The Avatar doesnt have explicit authority to order any world leaders around, but between their unparalleled bending prowess, the wisdom that they gain during their travels around the world, and their near-universal respect that they have among the general population, it would be foolish for any world leader to ignore them if the Avatar took any kind of stance on an issue. Their word would have a great deal of influence globally, even if they dont actively intervene in political affairs. Also, if any kind of global crisis occurred, world leaders and civilians alike would be looking to the Avatar to provide guidance and support in dealing with that crisis.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What happens to fish during a hurricane?

And can they predict it coming?

[Assistant]
Sharks can sense the falling barometric pressure associated with a hurricane and leave the area. But other creatures are stuck. Fish and invertebrates can get driven onto land and stranded by the storm surge. Fish nurseries may be upset. Coral reefs can be completely destroyed; those that survive can take years to recover. Hurricanes have been known to kill fish, sea turtles, crabs and many other marine organisms.

ELI5: its like when you make splashies in the tub. The top is all wavy but under its not as crazy. You can feel it on your toes though, can't ya? Well, your toesies are the fish deep down and your fingers are like the fishes at the top.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: Churches don't do enough for the secular communities

My personal (anecdotal) experience with churches is that while they may do a lot of charity works, a lot of those works are religious in nature. For example, providing daycare to their religious members, or providing funeral/wedding services, or providing religious counselling sessions.

I argue churches don't do enough SECULAR works, such as helping people WITHOUT all the religious baggages. For example, even when churches feed the homeless, they often add in bible reading, which implies if a homeless doesn't want to be taught the bible, they cannot receive the food.

And don't get me started on the growing trends in megachurches where their donations don't even go towards the communities but instead use for flashy concerts and expensive buildings.

To change my mind, you would have to show me DATA that MAJORITY of the activities that a church does with its money is beneficial to the NON-RELIGIOUS folks (or people from a different religion, e.g. Hinduism).

[Assistant] Battered womens shelters dont help homeless men. Cancer charities dont help homeless veterans. The Red Cross doesnt build houses in third world nations. Charities dont help everyone, they help who they are set up to help. If you dont like churches because they dont help all people while refraining from mentioning religion, then you have to be mad at all other charities.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
With the connectivity of the modern world and mediums like skype and gaming, could local accents begin to fade out?

Hi social scientists, I've been sort of scratching my head this afternoon trying to put a locality to my accent after someone asked me what accent I had. I realised that my accent didn't at all fit with the accents of other locals in my area and when I first arrived at university the same problem arose in that nobody could tell where I was from. So after a bit of thought I came up with the theory that I may have pieced together an accent from years of talking to people online, I'm 20 now and from about age 12-16 I played a ton of world of warcraft, this meant skyping with 19 other guys from all over Europe almost every night for around 5 hours a night. I'm wondering if I picked up on different pronunciations and accents from here and pieced it together into the way I talk today. I don't mean to say that regional accents would die out atall but I'm from Somerset in England and I have an alien accent for the area. So my question is, Is this the case? could increased connectivity in the world begin to create broader accents? and is there any published research into the subject? Many thanks! :)

[Assistant] the latest research into the effect of online virtual communities suggest that the rate of accentation is accelerating. world of Warcraft and eve online are developing their own unique dialects that tend to isolate the communities.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Would a microwave heat up heavy water (deuterium oxide) just like regular water?

I tried to find the answer on Google but couldn't come across anything.

[Assistant] Yes, they have almost the same electrical dipole moment. It wouldn't be _exactly_ the same, since H2O and D2O have ever-so-slightly different properties (specific heats and so on), but that applies no matter how you heat them.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: what happens when a pair of shears hits that creamy smooth glide-cut and what causes this?

[Assistant]
The first thing that you need to understand is that when you use scissors in the open close motion, you're not really "cutting". You're tearing the paper. You're just doing it really really.... really precisely.  Put a piece of paper on the edge of a desk. Hold it down with one hand and pull the part hanging off in a downward motion and you can see it "cut" along the edge of the desk. And this is the same process that scissors use.

Now the thing about the scissors themselves is that they're just two knives bolted or riveted together. So, when you find that sweet spot where the scissors glide through,  this is where the blade of the scissors is actually cutting. The paper is no longer being ripped between two edges, it's hitting one of the blades and slicing to either side of that blade. Just like if you took a sharp chefs knife and sliced through it.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How sunburns occur, and why they can cause pain for days after receiving the sunburn.

The only thing I know about the burns is that the UV rays cause the burn.

 I have no understanding of how the pain occurs, or why it lasts days after getting the initial burn. On top of that, why (when the burn is bad enough) your skin may secrete/drain(?) fluid from the burned area.

[Assistant]
When you get a burn, what you are doing is causing damage to the DNA in your skin cells.  There is a chemical called thymine that is one of the bases in your DNA.  When it is hit by UV light, it can get knocked out of place and attach to a thymine next to it.  This forms what is called a dimer.

When many dimers form in your DNA, your body knows something is wrong and starts the process of healing.  Several signals are sent using proteins.  Among these is a trigger for the area to get increased blood flow (resulting in redness and warmth) and increased sensitivity to pain.

Intense sunburns can cause blistering as the living tissue underneath the skin dies from heavy DNA damage.  This causes layers to separate and the empty space to fill with fluid.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Why do fruits get sweeter the longer you wait?

[Assistant]
The sugars in fruit are there to encourage animals to eat it.  The idea, evolutionarily speaking, is to have an animal, which can move, carry the plant's seeds far away.  The seeds will eventually end up in a new place, most likely in a nutrient-rich pile of manure.  This benefits the plant by helping it to reproduce and disperse.

But the seeds take time to mature, and if an animal eats the fruit before the seeds are ready then they won't be able to grow, and the plant will have wasted its energy.  So unripe fruit is full of starch instead of sugar.  It doesn't taste as good, so animals don't eat it, but when the seeds are mature the plant can easily convert the starches to sugars using enzymes.  The longer the fruit has been ripe, the more starch has been converted to sugar.
 Fruits are also often sour before they ripen, which further discourages animals from eating them too soon.  Some fruits, like peppers, even have chemicals that discourage mammals from eating them by being "hot," but don't affect birds (which travel farther).


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: I think putting jelly on first when making a PB&J is the superior option.

Just a thought that popped into my head while making today's lunch: the sandwich maker should always put the jelly on first. My main reason for this is that it keeps jelly out of the peanut butter jar and vice versa. Jelly is easier to scrape off the knife or spoon than peanut butter, leading to less cross contamination. This is both me being picky and me being practical. My wife is allergic to peanuts, so if she went to put jelly on toast and there was peanut butter in the jar, she could have an allergic reaction, which is a very bad outcome for something easily avoidable.

To CMV, I'd probably need to see the benefits of applying the peanut butter first outweighing applying the jelly first. In my experience, I have yet to find one.

Edit: In this scenario, like most I would assume, peanut butter goes on one slice, and jelly on the other.

[Assistant]
As someone who took many a bagged lunch back in the ole school days, if you're talking about the "superior" way to make a PB&J there is no better construction than a light layer of peanut butter on both pieces of bread, with the jelly nestled safely in between. There are multiple reasons for this.

1) A traditional PB&J sandwich (one on each side) must be consumed fairly quickly. The jelly will soak through the break and create a soggy mess of a sandwich. Creating a barrier of peanut butter on both sides prevents this from happening, and allows for maximum lunch box storage.

Not all PB&J eaters are school-goers however. Which brings us to...

2) The aforementioned PB pocket keeps that jelly in there. There's nothing worse than picking up a sandwich and realizing you put a bit too much jelly on that sumbitch because it leaked out the bottom and ruined your freshly cleaned pants. Nobody wants that. It's no way to live. Putting PB on both sides insures that the edges will somewhat stick together, providing maximum jelly spillage prevention.

And finally...

3) Have you ever tried to make a PB&J, you scoop some cold jelly out onto your bread, but in trying spread it around evenly half your battle is just making sure the bread itself doesn't rip? Look, we're eating PB&J in our homes, on a weekday - we're probably not springing for any fancy, thick cuts of hearty Italian wheat. We're talking traditional PB&J white bread here, and that stuff breaks apart faster than a Kardashian marriage. Jelly isn't smooth; it just globs there requiring some effort to spread it around. Get a good layer of peanut butter down first, lay that ground work, and the jelly goes on just fine. It's like pouring the concrete foundation, and now that jelly isn't going anywhere except into your belly, and not onto your pants, because of reasons we fully covered in point #2.

And that is why the truly "superior" way to make a PB&J is to not only put the peanut butter on first, but also second, followed by the jelly. Good day.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [marvel] since ghost rider can detect innocence, has he ever become a lawyer?

[Assistant] Likely not, as the Spirit of Vengeance is a little more Old Testament in its thoughts on innocence and punishing the guilty while the justice system probably doesnt accept whats essentially eyewitness testimony from a flaming skull.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: Nationalism and other forms of tribalism are counterproductive. For all.

Most of our bigger issues can't be solved effectivelly as long as different human societies dont get together under some sort of coordinating body.

Examples of the issues I'm hinting at: Achieving world peace, terminating world hunger, effectively fighting climate change, stopping the biodiversity loss: Managing working conservation policies, etc.

 A succesful case where this has been performed to an extent is the E.U.

As a Spaniard born and raised in Brussels I can tell you that E.U. influence has been very succesful in raising our economic level, political stability, introducing democratic values, augmenting our opportunities and a whole lot of other things. I'm sure citizens of  other southern European states (set back because of fascist authoritarian regimes) or Eastern Europran states (set back because of communist authoritarian regimes) will share my views on this one.

Some ways in which a tight international coopertion and coordination (which in the end is some form of world federation) might serve to fight the aformentioned causes:

A) If we interwine the different economies, promote mobility (and hence have people from all over working and making ties with all places) and have a coordinating body, war becomes very very unlikely (just like war hasnt broken within E.U. since its inception). You also create an umbrella world identity to which people can appeal instead of the classical tribal approach of hating the neighbourg.

B) If all food production ultimatelly falls under the authority of a single organization, its easier to pass policies that adjust food production and repartition to the needs of the population.

Etc.

[Assistant]
Well, how are you going to unite the entire world? How are you going to make it so all cultures and races can coincide with eachother peacefully?

When Hannibal Barca attacked Roman land in the Second Punic War, it is said that one of his greatest achievements as a general was uniting multiple cultures and races under his banner due to making them loyal to them, how do you hope to achieve this in a world wide, permanent scale?

Also if food production falls under the authority of a single organisation then you have incredibly dangerous prospects of authoritarianism.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: Why do big banks refuse to raise their interest rates for savings accounts? Is there no incentive to at least coming close to the 2-3% online banks offer?

[Assistant]
Banks offer interest on savings accounts to attract customers to deposit money, because then the bank can loan that money out to someone else for a higher rate.

Banks are flush with cash right now, and fewer people are looking for loans. They don't need more cash.

Before the pandemic excess cash reserves of US banks hovered around $1.5 trillion. At the start of 2022 excess reserves were more like $4 trillion. WAY more cash than they need. Right now that number has dropped closer to $3 trillion as the result of the Federal Reserve's efforts to combat inflation. That's better, but still higher than it should be.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Green Lantern] Why is it so many humans are chosen to join the corps?

Are  humans just that willful of a species compared to others in our sector? Also are there other species out there that get so many chosen from their ranks to join the Corps?

[Assistant]
This is a relatively new phenomenon. Prior to Hal's joining no human had ever been selected into the corp. With his great success it is speculated that the rings/guardians have decided to test more humans to see if humans in general can be that successful. Additionally Kyle's selection was more from desperation rather than design.

As far as other species are concerned it is highly rare to have so many of a species in the core at the same time, but many species have histories stretching back millennia of Lantern membership. So countless species have had many more lanterns than the measly 5 that the humans have produced.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Flash] Why doesn't he just take Captain Colds gun off him?

There are many different versions of the Flash and many stories that don't quite all match up, but in all of them the Flash is phenomonally fast and can usually move faster than a normal person can blink. Another consistency is that Captain Cold is just a guy with a fancy gun.

So why doesn't the Flash just run up to him (taking a slightly roundabout route so he comes up behind him) and just take the gun out of his hands? It seems like that would solve the problem pretty quickly. You could follow up by running away a bit and hiding the gun or dropping it in a handy ocean. The same solution could probably apply to Heatwave, Pied piper, Trickster, Weather wizard, Captain Boomerang.

[Assistant]
The Flash has a lot in common with Superman in this regard. Both are akin to overwhelming elemental forces of nature that could operate 24/7 on levels that are staggering for us to comprehend but because they are also human/human-like they dial themselves back towards our end of the spectrum. Free Will matters to them and letting people decide to do wrong when you have the power to prevent it (literally nano-seconds before youve finished contemplating it) is a type restraint that is alien to us. You might think less of them for not swooping into Gotham City seconds after the Joker escapes to toss him back into a cell but being godlike and acting godlike is a slippery slope.  Kingdom Come gave us a preview of a possible future where the Flash decides to let go of his humanity and operated as a god who lives between the ticks of a second.  In fact all of the JLA seemed to slide towards god-like behavior. GL became Hephaestus creating an Olympus in the heavens from which they scanned the planet. Superman became Zeus, dictating order to the lesser gods and the humans on how to behave. Wonder Woman was the militant enforcer of his will.   By crossing over that line taking action at a speed and level beyond comprehension they made humans afraid of them. Villain and Hero alike banded together to end it all.

So, if the Flash ripped the gun from Captain Cold, stripped Boomerang of his gear before he even said a word or stole the Wand from the Weather Wizard before he even slipped his boots on it would unnerve the good and the bad alike.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[DC] Does Superman have to work for his strength?

Let's say superman just stopped everything and he ate crap food for a few months would he lose muscle mass and get fat? If this happens will he get weaker?

[Assistant]
It depends, but in most versions no; his strength isn't a function of his muscles, its sort of an energy field, and his perfect physique is somehow automatic. It's all expressly a function of his superpowers in some way or another.

He does, however, seek out *combat training,* because in the DCU, a really good martial artist can hold their own against a person who has infinite strength and no idea how to use it. He's often shown to need to practice to get fine control with his flight, as well.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[Dragon Age] The Grey Warden that recruited me got completely wasted at the local tavern and blurted out what actually happens during the Joining. Is there any way to increase my chances of survival or is this completely random?

The grey warden that recruited me got completely drunk and confessed that the Joining consists of drinking Darkspawn blood and that most recruits end up dying.

I was a criminal before he used the right of conscription on me so if i try to leave him I'll get arrested or worse, and in all honesty i still want to help against the Darkspawn threat because if they win i won't have anywhere to go either.

So, is there anything I can do to increase my chances of surviving the Joining?

[Assistant] Yes, many. All of which will be done in advance of your joining, some seem to be totally natural parts of training, some seem slightly odd like being given potions or herbs, some like having magic users around doing unknown things and some trainees being disqualified without reason given seem extremely strange. At the end of this process the joining happens, and frankly most people still don't survive.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What stops whales from dying of dehydration through osmosis when they gulp in multiple gallons of salt water at a time when they catch fish?

[Assistant] Baleen whales (filter feeders) don't swallow all the water they take into their mouth. They push it back out through their comb-teeth, and then swallow just the stuff they want to eat and a smaller amount of water. But, they do end up swallowing a lot more salt water than you could - they have big, super-efficient kidneys and excrete a lot of salt.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What is freemasonry?

[Assistant]
They control the British Crown, they keep the metric system down.
They keep Atlantis off the maps, they keep the Martians under wraps.
They hold back the electric car, they make Steve Guttenberg a star.
They rob cave fish of their sight, they rig every Oscar night.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [QUANTUM MECHANICS] Is the famous double slit experiment widely accepted - does an observer really have an influence on physical reality? I just can't understand how a single particle can be in multiple places at the same time. My mind is raging with curiousity.

[Assistant] It's not in multiple places at once, it just doesn't have a well defined location until it is forced to. The word observer here doesn't mean a dude looking at it, it's just something that forces it into a specific state.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why does switching the batteries around in a remote make it work for a little bit?

This always seems to work with most electronic, battery-powered devices.  The most obvious reference being a remote control.

[Assistant] The electrical contacts on the battery and/or battery holder build up a thin layer of corrosion that resists current flow. Moving the batteries around scratches the contacts and exposes fresh metal, improving conductivity.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: How do Mattress stores stay in business?

In my town (of ~100,000) they're about 20 mattress stores. How do they stay in business? It seems like a front.

[Assistant]
Sloppy math explanation:

Let's say a mattress gets 10 years of life. (Manufacturer recommendations and consumer behavior both vary between 5 and 10 years).

Let's also say that the average person owns one mattress. (Yes, many couples share, but many also have guest beds... so let's stick with one mattress per person to keep the math simple).

That means, in your town, there are around 100,000 total mattresses in homes, and about 10,000 of them are replaced each year. If there are 20 stores, then each store sells on average 500 mattresses per year, or more than one per day. If it's an owner operated business with no additional staff, that means he only needs to make $200 profit on each mattress (after rent and other expenses) in order to have a six-figure income. As others have noted, profit margins are often much higher than that.

Another critical factor:

Cars, homes and mattresses are about the only things that consumers won't buy online, both because shipping is problematic and, more importantly, because they want to actually test it out in person before buying.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: There's not a single thing that conservatives in the US advocate for that liberals and progressives don't have a better plan for.

When it comes to healthcare, education, judicial issues, criminal justice issues, fiscal responsibility, taxation, the environment, foreign policy, the American left has got a better stance than the right.

There's a lot of fucktards on the left, but they're generally just the loudest, most viral assholes. When it comes down to the issues and policies, the average liberal is in the right more often than the average conservative by a wide margin.

Most often, I hear conservatives talk about how liberal spending and tax policies are why they vote conservative. But when it comes to actual wasteful spending, spending that goes unchecked and is irresponsibly dumped into wasteful programs with horrible ROI, it's by and large people on the left that want to reign it in.

The tax cuts the right vehemently advocates for disproportionately benefit the ultra wealthy and harm the lower and middle classes. The actual economy sees little to no benefit, but the stock market booms and the rich get richer.

Edit: Gonna take a break from replies for a bit. It's late where I am. Hope that doesn't upset the mods. I promise I'll get back to replies in a bit, I just want a clear head when I do.

[Assistant]
This rather relies on your definition of 'better' don't you think?

>The tax cuts the right vehemently advocates for disproportionately benefit the ultra wealthy and harm the lower and middle classes.

If you are a wealthy person, and don't really care about the lower and middle classes, this is most definitely the 'better' policy.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
I do not think that non-essential charities should exist until every person on earth has their basic needs met. CMV.

When I say non-essential, I mean things that are not providing food, water, shelter, or health-related services to the less fortunate. While I think that the desire to help people in non-essential ways is great and should be encouraged through specific volunteer work, I simply cannot see a justification for charities that provide toys to children in Africa when there are children in the next village over who will die from malnutrition or dehydration. I believe that all the money that goes to such charities should be repurposed for meeting the basic needs of all people before it can enrich the lives of those who are already, by definition, more fortunate.

I recognize that this is an unpopular view. I am friends with many who monetarily support charities such as Operation Christmas Child but no charities meeting the basic needs of the impoverished, and I have been met with anger and opposition when trying to express my views and to understand why they ought to be changed. Reddit, please help CMV.

[Assistant]
Do you, therefore, give all of your money, save only that amount that is absolutely necessary for you to live in poverty, to help those who need it in order to live?

Because you are the smallest non-essential charity there is, or that there can possibly be. If you're giving yourself a nice meal or a haircut, you're literally taking money away from those who need it in order to simply survive, for "non-essential" reasons.

Or not... you see, it's ok for people to have different priorities and to please themselves with the fruits of their labor. If someone is pleased by giving gifts to less-disadvantaged children than those starving in Africa, praise them for prioritizing *anyone* above themselves.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
What is the purpose of eyebrows?

I was pondering this question earlier today while thinking about extremist groups that shave their eyebrows. What is the anatomical function of eyebrows?

[Assistant] Eyebrows are hypothesized to have two main functions: to prevent debris, such as dirt, sweat, or dust, from falling into the eyes from above (in addition to the protection offered by eyelashes) and to offer an additional means of facial expression.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [The Terminator] What would have happened if Sarah Connor named her son "John Reese"?

[Assistant]
There's fundamentally no change. Ignoring the entire paradox situation John is the destined destroyer of skynet. It will always know his name even if it's changed. In fact the only reason skynet even knew where to find John in the sequel was because of his foster paperwork that would have any name changes listed as well as his birth and adoption records. We even see in the Sarah Conner chronicles that using altered names and alias doesn't work as Skynet still finds records of him existing pre-judgment day.

The only real changes would be Kyle Reese may suspect that there's more to his appointment as Sarah's protector than just a coincidence that they share a name. It still wouldn't dawn on him that he's John's father until he goes back to 1984 but he may clue in faster.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: Why are giants always shown as being so slow in movies? I know they would be heavier and need to move a lot more weight, but dont they have the proportions of a normal person? Their muscles would be bigger allowing them to move at a normal speed.

Sorry if this is stupid. Its just been on my mind for ages.

[Assistant]
In movies, it is because it looks right. But it is also realistic, due to the 'square-cube law' - that strength increases by the square of length, but mass increases by the cube. So you'd expect animal 3 times bigger to be 9 times stronger, but 27 times heavier - proportional to it's mass, the bigger animal is 1/3 as strong.

This is why small fleas can jump so high, but elephants can't jump at all.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: why don't taxi drivers just become Uber drivers?

[Assistant]
Because Uber drivers are paid less, have to use their personal cars, get no insurance, and are increasingly being cracked down on by cities for being unlicensed taxis.

Uber sold the age-old concept of unlicensed cabs with a lot of hype to convince people they were doing something new. All they did was make an app and then convince a bunch of chumps to take all the risk while they rake in all the dough.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: What is it that gives a material the ability to be polished?

I've always wondered what it is that allows you to polish metals to a mirror finish, but not wood or plastic, for example? I assume its something to do with light scattering and reflection from the internal structures of the material?

[Assistant]
There are two things that go into why a material can have a mirror finish.  First, is whether light that hits it reflects straight back or gets scattered in many different directions.  Smooth surfaces scatter less of the reflected light, and will be shinier than rough surfaces.

Any material can be polished.*  Polishing is just making the surface smoother.  Generally, the smoother a surface, the shinier it looks.

So the real question is, why are smooth metal surfaces extremely shiny and other materials not so shiny?

The second part of the story is that light is reflected any time it encounters a boundary between two materials with different indexes of refraction.  The bigger the difference in the index of refraction, the more light gets reflected.

For visible light, metals have very large indices of refraction.  The huge difference in the index of refraction between the metal and air can result easily in over 90% of light being reflected.

Explaining why metals have such high indices of refraction for light is a little more complicated.   Metals have lots of free electrons that can move around inside them (that's why they conduct electricity).   All these electrons interact strongly with the electric field of light.

Things like wood and plastic do not have many free electrons so they don't interact nearly as strongly with light.  For example, when travels through air and hits a glass surface, only about 4% of the light will be reflected.

* It turns out that it's a lot easier to polish a metal than it is to polish wood.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
The brightness of the actual dark side of the moon?

With the extremely thin atmosphere on Earth's moon, and a complete absence of cloud cover, foliage, etc., what sort of luminosity would the various stars and Milky Way provide on the moon's night?  Meaning - if both Earth and the Sun were 'behind' you as you were standing on the moon, would it truly be pitch black, or could once expect a level of light to at least, say, see enough to not walk into a boulder?

[Assistant]
Not much darker than a "dark sky" spot on Earth.

The Earth's atmosphere mostly reflects back urban light. But go out in the desert, or out at sea, at least 100 km away from any city and town - it's a pretty dark place. Luna wouldn't be very different - a bit darker maybe, but not much.

Most people have lived in cities their entire lives and have no idea how dark a moonless (and Venus-less) night can be at a dark sky site.

Dark adaptation is very important. When at a very dark site, it takes something like 20 or 30 minutes for the eyes to fully adapt to darkness. Even a short glance at a light annihilates this adaptation.

> could once expect a level of light to at least, say, see enough to not walk into a boulder?

You could avoid big boulders, but there will be plenty of rocks that will twist your ankle - as many astronomers fumbling in the dark around telescopes will attest.

Human eyes in low light have very, very poor resolution. But boulders should be big enough to distinguish, for a dark-adapted pair of eyes. Fist-sized rocks, not so much.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Does being exposed to confrontation/danger on a daily basis naturally increase testosterone levels?

[Assistant]
Perhaps it's not the question you are really trying to ask, but the implication would be women and children who have lived with threatening partners or parents for large portions of their lives would then have extremely high levels of testosterone. Not sure that pans out.

Testosterone isn't the stress hormone, cortisol is, and some studies indicated constantly elevated cortisol suppresses testosterone.  Probably more of a balance between the two and whichever has control will determine whether you fight or fly.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
I think Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, isn't that good, and nostalgia blindness has led to it becoming one of the most overrated games of all time. CMV

As someone who didn't play the game upon its original release in 1998, I recently got around to playing it. After all it is the highest rated video game of all time on metacritic, and I did really enjoy the few other zelda games I played (Twilight Princess and Link's Awakening). So when I played it, while the controls were tight, the level design was intuitive, there was plenty of side content and things to do which was great, and the world really felt populated and dynamic. Like I said, a good game. However the best game ever? Not even close, this game had some pretty glaring flaws, the pacing was slow at points, the story was dull, the characters came in two shades, either over the top and stupid or bland and uninteresting. The side quests were dull and often pointless, the combat was fairly repetitive and lacked variety and it all tied together to make a good, but limited game. Let me know if there's another reason for people being in love with this game other than nostalgia!

[Assistant]
Games like twilight princess take so much from ocarina that they couldn't exist without it. OoT brought the series from top down adventure without a whole lot of character to 3d adventure. Along with Super Mario 64 they were the driving forces to push us into the 3d world for videogames. It's combat was revolutionary at the time, nothing else had done anything like it, something that they're still using for the 3d zeldas. It's world feels somewhat unpopulated because of the early restrictions of the system, but at the same time the world was huge. The map was so expansive for its time that really proved you could make a world that just felt gigantic.

It's popularity isn't merely for nostalgia, it's for being revolutionary. It was one of the big driving forces of gaming and all LoZ games that have come after have been almost carbon copies of the game, TP especially.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How does a spacecraft Measure its speed in orbit around a planet?

So I was just watching an episode of sci-show space, where they talked about the Juno probe and the work it is doing while orbiting Jupiter.

They mentioned that one of its jobs is to map the gravity field of the planet, and it does this by detecting speed changes in the orbiter, with higher speeds meaning higher gravity.

How does a probe such as Juno measure its orbital speed to such accuracy that it can accurately map the gravity field around Jupiter? It isn't like it has GPS out there.....

[Assistant]
Speed is typically determined by measuring the location at different times. This is done by measuring the location of (or more precisely the perceived angle between) certain celestial objects on the sky.

When only the change in speed (acceleration) needs to be known that can be done with accelerometer sensors (that measure the forces felt while accelerating)


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How well supported is this claim made by my economics textbook?

My economics textbook states this as a fact: "Income redistribution discourages productivity, thus actually aggravating poverty." As it did not really couch this as an opinion nor offer evidence, I would be interested in seeing what research or theories support or dispute this statement. Thanks!

[Assistant] Certainly iffy. The more sensible statement would be that redistribution could lower total output, but that doesn't necessitate an increase in poverty. Total wealth could decline while the poor still end up better off (depending on the size of the wealth transfer and the losses due to decreased incentive to work).


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5: What ecological disaster happened on earth in the movie interstellar  ? Is it an actual possibility ?

[Assistant]
There was a fungal or bacterial blight that was killing off crops. In the movie they mention that it "breathes" nitrogen, or something like that.

They don't really go into detail (nor should they have), but basically all of the food crops.were dying off because of the blight.

It's a possible scenario, but largely improbably.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Star Trek] When the Captain needs to make it somewhere fast, they usually tell the helmsman to kick the engines to warp 9.9, but all other times, they'll just casually go warp 5,6, etc. Where is the speed threshold where you're overclocking the engines, and damaging them long-term?

[Assistant] This is true up to a point in the canon, afterwards it's not an issue: but use of high warp factors were found to damage space time via subspace tears, so "speed limits" were introduced to limit damage except in special cases.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5: When I boil water, why am i supposed to use cold water?

Wouldn't warm or hot water just speed up the process?

[Assistant]
This originated in countries with municipal hot water that was run through metal piping. The hot water is a lot more reactive than cold and pulls all sorts of crap from the metal pipes with it. For example lead piping was still used in some parts of Russia in the 90s. You would definitely not want to drink hot water that ran through that.

If you have a fairly modern local water heater and plastic piping between the heater and the tap, it makes no difference.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] ELI5, How is the immortal jellyfish immortal, and why is it not a major point of research?

[Assistant] Im gonna use an vague analogy but hopefully this makes sense: imagine a caterpillar that grows into a cocoon which births a butterfly, now when the butterfly is at the end of its life cycle, it sheds all the parts that make it a butterfly and become a caterpillar again repeating the cycle.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Does a substance at -1C and the same substance at 1C heat up and cool off at the exact same rate when placed into an environment that is 0C?

[Assistant] Nope. Heat exchange rate by conductivity and/or convection changes *non linearly* based on the temperature of both the substance and the environment. Even in the same environment, the same substance does not behave the same at different temperatures, it's not a simple linear proportion. Also, this is more thermodynamics and phisics than chemistry.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
I'm having trouble grasping the concept of energy.

I understand all the equations that I have been given and see how they all relate, but I can't help but feel that it doesn't exist. Energy to me feels like a common variable that is used to relate other variables together. Can somebody help me materialize what energy is? I think if I have a mental image of what energy is or looks like I will be able to understand it better.

[Assistant] In general, conserved quantities result from a symmetry in the problem. For example, angular momentum conservations comes from rotational symmetry (like how a sphere looks the same from all directions). Conservation of energy comes from time ~~inversion~~ *translation* symmetry. That is, if you replaced time with ~~(-time)~~ *(time + deltatime)*, the equations that govern the evolution of the system will still act the same. In a sense, it is just a construct that humans made up, some combination of variables. But it is a combination of variables that is conserved because of time symmetry that is inherent in the processes involved in the problem.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] Why specifically does consuming too much sugar make one experience nausea/vomiting? What's going on in the body to upset the stomach and cause an adverse reaction?

[Assistant] Excess sugar in one location, in this case your stomach, draws a lot of water from surrounding tissue to balance the solute concentrations on both sides. That influx of water in your stomach causes nausea and vomiting. Burgers and other things aren't broken down as fast so you don't have such a huge shift in sugar drawing in water.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Godzilla] So a kaiju is attacking my city/town. What are the best actions I can take in order to beat ensure my safety?

[Assistant] It depends on the town. Ideally you just stay in one of the skyscrapers and they all get lowered through the ground. If your city doesn't have the budget for that, they likely have shelters for this. And if it's the first kaiju attack or they don't have the budget for even that, then try to evacuate before it gets there, and if that's not possible, I'd say do the same thing you'd do for an Earthquake. There's nothing you can really do to avoid being stepped on, but there are things you can do to avoid being killed by debris or by the building you're in falling over from the ground shaking from it stepping too close.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
How do you decide when to call it a day? And how many hours a day do you spend doing "real" work?

I've tried leaving school/ the library at a set time, but I could never get what I want to get done done.

I've tried only finishing the day when I've finished what I intended to/need to get done, but I end up losing sleep and getting a bit burned out.

And no, I am not aiming too high or being too hard on myself. I track the time I do "real" work and it's usually not that much. Also I basically can't get any work done if I'm not at school or at a library, even coffee shops won't do (which might be a positive in some way) so now I feel bad every day about not getting things done and yet I still stay up really late doing non-work and end up getting up late and starting the day late and just don't know how to break this vicious cycle.

I know I should probably build some routine into my life but I'm simply not tired enough to fall asleep at maybe even 2 am, and if I make myself get up really early then my brain just won't function for the day and I end up drinking too much coffee just to get some reading/writing done and then can't sleep due to the coffee. Tried working out in the evenings and at night, didn't help much.

Help?

[Assistant] A good friend would say that if he did 4 hours of pure productive work a day, excluding everything else, from coffee breaks to bureaucratic meetings to surfing the net, day in and day out, hes happy and as productive as he could be long term.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Marvel] Will the fingerprint of the Hulk be like a bigger version of Bruce Banner's fingerprint, completely matched or something else entirely?

[Assistant]
It will probably match the overall pattern, but the proportions may be distorted.  Hulk's fingers are stubbier relative to the length of his hand than Banner's are.  Everything is stretched laterally.

There also may be ridges or striations from the underlying musculature.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
[James Bond] Do the M in the Brosnan universe and the M of the Craig Universe just both happen to look exactly like Dame Judi Dench? Or are these two characters the same person?

I just can't figure out any way that Die Another Day could be canon with Casino Royale. Let alone if we go back to *Goldeneye*.

These are just two separate timelines with equivalent people becoming M, right?

[Assistant]
The Craig era is a reboot, a totally separate continuity to the 'classic' continuity from *Dr. No* to *Die Another Day.*

Judi Dench plays two separate characters. In *GoldenEye,* the implication is that M is a political appointee, a bureaucrat with little meaningful experience in intelligence, especially working in the field. Contrast this with *Casino Royale,* where M hints that she is a veteran of the intelligence community who remembers the Cold War. On top of this, *Skyfall* states that M was chief of station in Hong Kong in 1997, the same year *Tomorrow Never Dies* was released and is presumably set.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
ELI5  Why is the Christian year (2012) used by
everyone around the world, including Jews and
Hindus and Muslims?

[Assistant]
In short, because of Western-European cultural imperialism and dominance.

In what we now call the year 525, a Christian monk named Dennis the Short (Dionysius Exiguus) devised an era system based from the birth of Jesus, and deemed (erroneously) that Jesus was born five hundred and twenty-five years ago from that standpoint. He prefaced all years from the year "1" onward with the phrase *Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi* (Latin: "In the year of our Lord, Jesus Christ"), which eventually became shortened to *Anno Domini*, and then abbreviated as we know it today; *AD*. That is why we call the current year 2012 AD.

In the 8th century, Saint Bede the Venerable was calculating the dates for Easter, and came upon the necessity to tabulate years prior to 1 AD. He called those years *Ante Christum Natum* (Latin: "Before the birth of Christ"). He knew not of the mathematical concept of "zero", so the year immediately prior to 1 AD was deemed 1 ACN (later translated to English as "Before Christ"; abbreviated to 1 BC).

This system quickly became the predominant year era system in the Western world, and as the West's influence spread, so did the common use of the era. There are other eras in existence (Jewish year*5772 AM*; Islamic year*1433 AH*), but they are secondary to the Christian era for convenient civil use in virtually every civilized country on Earth.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
Why is radiation contagious?

I understand radioactive decay and how that can damage cells by polarizing the DNA.

What I don't understand is how a non-radioactive material can become radioactive to a dangerous point.  I would think that the material would get hit by the decaying particles, get damaged and that's it.  Instead, the material can also become radioactive.

For example, Marie Curie's notebooks are reportedly still too radioactive to be safely handled.  How does paper become radioactive just by being exposed to radiation?

[Assistant]
There are two ways in which objects can be 'activated':

The first is that radiation from the original radioactive material hits the nuclei of the object, and through the reverse process of radioactive decay create an unstable nucleus. This however very rarely happens, unless you put something in a very intense radiation field (near the core of a nuclear reactor for instance).

What probably happened with Curie's notebooks is that radioactive material got transferred to her hands, and from her hands to her notebook. Where they still radiate. This is why radiation hygiene is very important when dealing with radioactive materials. For instance, the same radioactive particles were probably transferred to food that she than ingested. Inside her body is where the radiation could do most damage.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: Affirmative Action should/should've been based on economic status rather than (mostly) race.

Although I feel like Affirmative Action had a good intention, I feel like it has failed and has actually done more harm than good.

I have two reasons for this

1. I have difficulty seeing why it is in society's best interest to help a black person suffering in poverty over a white person suffering in poverty. While I understand what institutional racism has done to the black community, I feel like most issues facing the black community are more correlated with income than race; or rather, I have difficulties seeing how Affirmative Action could effectively combat the issues that are truly the result of racism. For example, how would Affirmative Action deal with unfair treatment in the justice system?
2. Affirmative Action has made some white people feel like, "the real racists are X race and not white people!" I do not believe this; in fact, I find it extremely childish to even think something like this. Yet, considering Affirmative Action has failed in its goal, I feel like changing Affirmative Action would help certain individuals in this country feel like X race is not out to get them and maybe reduce the amount of negative racial discourse in this country.

I am generally a very liberal person and really do want my mind changed regarding this. I just feel like it is really hard to justify why black person X should get the Bill Gates Scholarship over white person Y when they came from similar economical areas and the income of their families is similar. I understand that example is not Affirmative Action per se, but I feel like the same principal applies.

[Assistant]
> Blacks/minorities who benefit/benefited from Affirmative Action rarely use their money/influence to restore their communities

That's a pretty bold claim.  Can you provide a source for this?


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User]
CMV: The plural noun guys is gender neutral in most situations

Like in several other languages, it is common to have a plural noun that is used when talking to a group of ambiguous gender. (For example the Chinese tmen (plural form of he/him/she/her/it.)) however, English doesnt have a specific word that fits this description in every way. They/them works when talking about a person/group but doesnt work when you are talking directly to the group. The slang yall fits this but what I want to argue is that the term guys also works.

Since English speakers outside of Some American states dont use the phrase yall when talking to a group of ambiguous gender, I think it is acceptable to use the term guys instead. However, this only applies if the gender of the group is either majority male or ambiguous. I think girls is the right phrase when talking to a majority female group or fully female group. The ambiguous situation is the one I think is open to debate. But my argument for it is that it is not disrespectful to simply call a group Guys when you talk to them because there is no simple alternative.

[Assistant]
If it is, and we agree that the singular guy is masculine then were going back to asserting male as default.

The reason guys works as neutral is the same reason Latino works for groups that include women: because male is dominant. If were goi g to use guys the same way, then its *exactly* like using congressman or policeman to represent both men and women.


[System] Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:

[User] [Comic books] Could Deadpool catch Covid-19? Who else would or wouldn't have to worry about catching it or spreading it?

[Assistant]
In theory, yes.

In practice, he has a healing factor, so it probably won't bother him much.  Also he wears a mask all the time, which covers his nose and mouth, and he has no compunctions about killing people with swords, so people are probably keeping a safe distance from him, so the odds of him infecting someone else are lower than average.