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

[User]
Are the Unions actually to blame for the 1970s UK economic crisis (stagflation,winter of discontent, end of post-war consensus)?

Had the Unions really caused the end of the post-war consensus by driving up wages too high? Or was there another way? Could Keynesianism have survived in some form? What is the truth of the matter?

[Assistant]
I recently read Greenspan and Woolbridge's *Capitalism in America*, and in it they discuss the 1970's inflationary spiral here in the United States. They seems to pin the blame on, in order of importance,

1. Oil supply shock, caused by the OPEC embargo
2. US financial system hitting the gold ceiling
3. inefficiently structured managerial systems and firms
4. extractive union negotiations

I can't give specifics on the UK, but in as much as the parallel crisis in the US gives insight into what's happening in the UK at the time, strong and extractive unions don't seem to be to blame.

For some cross-sectional evidence, look at West Germany in the 1970's (or Germany today) which had a higher rate of unionization (and has a higher percentage of it's workforce unionized today) than either the US or the UK. Along with Japan, West Germany was the major center of firms and conglomerates which were out-competing US firms internationally. It's not definitive proof, but this trivia seems to point the finger away from strong unions as the general cause of economic malaise. At best, perhaps strong unions can compound and exacerbate problems already current.


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

[User]
How can Radon be dangerous if it's a noble gas?

I understand that it can be broken down from different radioactive elements, but how come it's still radioactive once it's a noble gas? I thought noble gasses didn't react with anything?

[Assistant]
There are two types of reactions at play here. Noble gases do not react *chemically*, that is to say that they don't easily form molecules with other atoms. On the other hand, radioactivity has to do with the stability of the atomic nucleus. The two don't have much to do with each other.

The radon atom has an unstable nucleus (so it's radioactive) but it's still "full up" on electrons (so it's a noble gas).


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

[User]
Everyone has projects, no one has funding

As I'm coming to the end of my PhD I've noticed a pattern emerging in my postdoc search.  Everyone I talk to has a project for me, some more interesting or high impact than others, but no one has funding.  I'm wondering how everyone else (in the social sciences) deals with this type of conversation? I don't want to be rude, and I am genuinely interested in working with many of these projects, but I can't afford to work for free and I'm getting tired of having meeting after meeting that lasts half a hour only to end with the suggestion that I apply for external funding, or I conduct a pilot study and publish it to increase funding opportunities.  How can I make it clear from the beginning that I'm not interested in more projects unless they can put food on the table (and at least the team is willing to do some of the leg work getting there) without coming off like a jerk?

Edited to reply to comments: Wow! I love the feedback this post has gotten and the conversations this has inspired!  Just to clarify, I have applied to external funding and won it for both of my graduate degrees (two sources for my Masters and one that fully funded my PhD) so its not that I dont have a history of winning funding.  Im also not approaching PIs asking for a funded project, im finding PIs approach me, throwing projects and material at me, and then expecting that I source funding relatively unsupported.  Many of these projects are in regions or time periods in unfamiliar with, so applying for funkend requires a large time dedication just to get up to speed on the research being done currently, in a broad sense.

[Assistant] I don't know if this is true in your field as well, but in mine, even if you would get hired on a funded project now, this would backfire in the next applications after that \-\- beyond the doc level, one of the requirements is almost always "proven ability to obtain third party funding". Depending on your further aspirations, this may be something to keep in mind now.


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

[User]
[KND] How do you keep morale up in a system like kids next door, where, as far as the common operative knows, everyone is guaranteed to become essentially a traitor.

There are some operatives who only get fake decommissioned, but the common member doesn't know that. So you are looking at a perceived turnover rate of at least 80% from member of the KND to a member of the teenagers/adults.

The 20% leftover being neutral adults, like the adults of sector V.

[Assistant]
Aside from the few people who have gone through lengths not to be decommissioned, such as 274, once they become anything else than Kids they voluntarily give up their memories - their identity - as members of KND. Essentially, they are a different person than the one that you fought beside.

So you could say that it's not really a "timer to betrayal" as much as an enforced retirement plan, when their privileges are revoked and they will have to find another place in life - even if most at that point still are loyal, KND has a policy of it being better to be safe than sorry and so they instruct agents to do it as they become 13.

---

Honestly, going off on that tangent, there are those of us who believe that the system would work better if you weren't forced to decommission *only* because you turned 13. If we look back at the case of 274 again, the *fear of forced decommission* drove him out of KND and made him an enemy simply by desperately trying to *find a way to stay*. If he had succeeded in his plotting, chances are that he would have upheld his position for several years, kept up fighting against the oppression of Adults and (other) Teenagers, until finally admitting that his time had come. Think of all the wasted talent and leadership skills that went to waste because of the current policies!

Better would be a personal evaluation of agents that are coming, or have come, to that point in life. In order to figure out if they still put Kids first. Of course, at some point the scale tips over even in that respect - but who says that *has* to be at 13?


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

[User]
[The Jetsons] How does the Jetson universe rank against other sci-fi universes?

In terms of weaponry, basic living etc.

[Assistant] bad, it is pretty much worse than anything that isn't an actual dystopia. no weapons to speak of, they live above a cloud of smog, no space travel, they still have traffic despite having flying cars, exercise is often lethal because of lax safety regulations.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does fresh water pond life travel from one body of water to another?

I have a bucket with water in my garden growing pond weed for my fish tank. There are no ponds in any of the gardens on my street, and the nearest body of water is a river, 400m away through multiple streets, yet there are now molluscs and aquatic insects swimming around the bucket that weren't there to start. How did these creatures get there?

[Assistant]
Thats what a love on fresh water organisms, suddenly its there. There are various ways how they could have gotten in your bucket.
First we have water living insects that are capable of flying, they sometimes choose to abandon theyre original habitat and look for a new one (most bugs living in fresh water for example).
Then you of course have insects that lay eggs in any fresh water that looks suitable.
Then some animals like molluscs travel by insects or birds. Their eggs or larvae stick to a vector (like a water living bug). Then once a new habitat is reached they drop off and develop normally.


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

[User] ELI5: if Borax increases the effectiveness of laundry detergent why is it not a default ingredient in laundry detergent?

[Assistant] It is a common ingredient, but it's very alkaline.  That gives it water softening properties, but also side effects.  It also doesn't dissolve well on cold water, and hot water can have other side effects on clothes.


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

[User] Does the number of other groceries in my fridge affect how long it will take for a room temperature pitcher of water to cool down?

[Assistant]
The less space for air in your fridge means less heat transfer every time you open the fridge door.  This means that a full fridge (containing already-chilled groceries) has a head start when you first place the pitcher in, while an empty fridge needs to spend extra energy cooling the air down again.

That said, assuming the starting conditions were somehow identical (as in, you teleported the pitcher without opening the door), then the extra air would aid in cooling, as it can circulate the heat away from the pitcher better.


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

[User]
Why do we need to boil pasta? Why isn't it enough to soak it in water?

When I make pasta, I usually microwave it with other ingredients afterwards. Is there any reason why I should boil the pasta beforehand rather than just soak it?

[Assistant] You need the heat from the boiling to cook the starch/flour which is an ingredient of the pasta. Try this at home. Take some flour and mix it with cold water. do the same with boiling water. you'll notice the difference. only by cooking the pasta gets soft but still sticks together.


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

[User]
ELI5: Eye Color Genetics

ELI5: My mom has green eyes, my dad (RIP) had blue eyes. I also have blue eyes, but my sister has brown eyes. I understand basic eye color genetics (blue and green eyes are recessive, brown are dominant) but how can two parents with recessive eye color traits have a kid (my sister) with a dominant eye color trait? No, she is not adopted, theres no scandal here. No milkmans baby or anything like that as far as I know. Is this possible? Please ELI5, thanks.

[Assistant]
Eye colors are a bit more complicated. There's a separate set of genes that controls how melanin (the protein making your eyes brown) is packaged. If this gene is mutated (double recessive), you will have light colored eyes even if you have the dominant brown eyes gene.

For example, let's say P is dominant good packaging and p is mutated bad packaging. B is dominant brown eye and b is blue eyes. You need at least one capital P and capital B to have brown eyes.

If your mom was Ppbb (blue eye due to two recessive color) and your dad is ppBb (blue eye due to mutated packaging), your sister with PbBb would have brown eyes with a 25% chance! The other 75% chance would have blue eyes.


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

[User]
ELI5 : How do companies go public?

And more specifically, what drives that decision and who pursues the IPO for that company?

[Assistant]
The biggest driver behind going public is the need for funding. At some point, a company may not be able to fund their growth with their existing financing (investors, bank debt) or, more importantly, it's too expensive. That's when management and the board of directors explore going public. To do this, they seek the help of an investment bank, who then determine a valuation and court investors. Investment banks actually hold the risk for the shares, meaning they buy the shares first, sell what they can and hold what they can't.

Market conditions drive supply and demand which drives company valuations up or down. Lately, companies have decided that there is too much risk to go public.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] After the Jedi were defeated and the Empire took control of the galaxy, why didn't Darth Sidious try to rebuild the Sith Order?

The Sith remained in exile, only two members existing at any one time, because 1000 years before The Phantom Menace, the Jedi wiped almost all of them out. They were forced to go into hiding.

However, Sidious had won, the Jedi, most of them anyway, were dead. Why didn't he and Vader try to restore the Sith to their former glory? After all, the Sith once commanded an Empire thousands of years ago. By the time of A New Hope, 20 years after Order 66, Sidious and Vader are still the only Sith in existence.

Now, I know that the Inquisitors existed, and they were sort-of Sith, but they were a temporary measure to hunt down any Jedi who survived Order 66, they were eventually disbanded.

The only explanation I can think of is selfishness, Sidious didn't want any Sith rivals who would threaten him. This explanation makes sense, but, in hindsight, it was kind of a dumb decision as all it took was to defeat Sidious and Vader to wipe out the Sith for good.

Was this ever expanded on in canon? Do you guys have any alternate explanations?

[Assistant]
Palpatine believed he was the culmination of thousands of years of Sith philosophy. He replaced Bane's Rule of Two, which he thought his victory made obsolete, with his own Rule of One, which stated that he was invincible and would rule the galaxy forever.

He would go on to take many lesser dark side apprentices and agents, but never brought them truly "into the fold," as previous Sith lords would have - they were taught to revere Palpatine as a master, or to serve the Empire faithfully, or some other motive other than "accumulate power for power's sake" that was the motivating force for both master and apprentice under the Rule of Two.


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

[User]
[Raimi Spider-Man] Couldnt Doc Ock arm work without Otto?

Otto used the inhibitor chip to stop the AI from controlling him but if the AI was so smart couldnt it just operate without Otto at all? Just disconnect from Otto and just be a set of AI octopus arms?

[Assistant] The arms move while he is unconscious so they definitely don't need him to move.  However they are fused to his nervous system so they cannot disconnect from Otto.  Also, they seem to care about him.  They instinctively protect him from harm and convince him to continue his work.  It is unknown whether the arms require a human body/mind connected to them in order to function fully or if Otto somehow got pulled off (which would be very messy and almost certainly fatal to him) if they would simply wander off to do their own thing.


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

[User] ELI5: How come USDA says you can't eat pizza after it has been sitting for 2 hours at room temp, but you never hear of any problems from people who eat it the next day, and most are doing this often and have been for years?

[Assistant]
Most of the meats on a pizza are *cured* meats that are heavily salted or smoked. This reduces the rate of spoilage. In addition, unlike some meats, they come very well cooked.

That doesn't mean you are definitely safe, but it's better than (for example) a burger left out all night.


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

[User] [Dc comics] if I was being attacked in Gotham and I called out for Superman to save would me would he hear me and come save me even though I'm on Batman's turf?

[Assistant] Superman will save a life even if it makes Batman a little grumpy. The trick is that Superman can't answer every cry for help on the planet, because at every instant there are multiple people calling for help from Superman in different nations all over the world. And in general, Superman prioritizes the places that don't have superheroes of their own. He trusts that Batman and his allies will do their best to help Gotham. So while on occasion he will fly by and save someone in Gotham or Coast City, there's so many people to help and he tries to help the places that don't have heroes of their own.


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

[User]
ELI5: What will pot businesses look like in Washington and Colorado?

So I understand that the stuff is going to be legal (or is), but what will that customer experience be like? Right now, in Oregon, we have the dispensaries, but they're closed-off, very weird places I would feel weird entering. What will the stores in Washington State feel like?

[Assistant]
Coloradan here. The dispensaries, or medicinal marijuana stores, here are not weird or shady places. Many neighborhoods have multiple dispensaries. The recreational marijuana stores will be modeled after dispensaries. In fact, current medicinal dispensaries will have first dibs on licenses to open recreational stores. A customer will walk into the store and wait in a waiting room until they are next to be served. An employee will make sure the customer is over 21 years old by checking ID. An employee, perhaps the same one, who knows a lot about marijuana use will help the customer determine what product or products they want to buy. Customer A gets a half ounce of marijuana to use over a few weeks because they already know what they want. Customer B gets a recommendation for a specific strain of weed to help him or her fall asleep easier at night. He or she gets a quarter ounce of that and also buys a new vaporizer model to vaporize and inhale the marijuana.
These recreational stores will be different from a street dealer or buying from your neighbor because there will be dozens of strains of product available with slightly different effect and there will also be pipes, marijuana-infused baked goods, marijuana drinks, hash (a condensed, smokeable marijuana product), and a number of other marijuana and lifestyle products. When it's time to pay, there will be a 25% excise tax on the price of the recreational marijuana that is in addition to the sales tax of 7 to 8%. A half ounce of medical marijuana is around $90 for premium product here. The recreational marijuana policy makers want the experience to be similar to shopping in a liquor store for marijuana with personalized help.


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

[User] ELI5: What can a GPU do that a CPU can't and vice versa?

[Assistant]
A CPU is like a master carpenter who makes cabinets. The carpenter works much faster than an unskilled worker and can take into account custom requests and odd angles. The downside is that they cannot produce many cabinets since they are just one person.

A GPU is a manufacturing factory full of unskilled workers mass-producing cabinets. Each individual worker is slower but because there are so many, the factory produces cabinets much faster. However, they need some oversight by a master carpenter/engineer and the process needs to be well designed so that unskilled workers can produce it. It's not like you can tell the line to make a modified cabinet without changing the overall workflow.

CPU is good for general tasks and tasks that is just one process. GPU is good large tasks (like vectors and matrices for display and graphics) but need to be carefully structured.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do remote controls use infrared light instead of other wavelengths?

[Assistant]
Very low wavelength bands are already occupied by radios and microwaves and have a lot of noise.

Visible light is visible of course.

Ultraviolet is too energy intensive to generate, and you definitely don't want to be shooting x-rays around the living room.

So the near-IR it is.


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

[User] ELI5: What is international law and who enforced it?

[Assistant] "International law" is the set of treaties, compacts, and conventions to which various nations have all agreed. It is enforced through lawsuits and through international regulatory agencies, such as the World Trade Commission, the International Criminal Court, or the like. Sometimes, the suits can be filed in a country's domestic courts, as well as the courts of the other nation, as well.


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

[User]
Eli5 Impossible colors/forbidden colors

How this work i was trying to read wikipedia page but topic is to hard for me to understand in english and I could't find explanation in my native language.

[Assistant]
Some colors cannot be perceived by our eyes, but we can trick our brain into "seeing" them.

An easy trick that work for most people is to rely on "color fatigue" (after watching the same color for a while, your brain will adapt to it and try to compensate by shifting your perception toward the complimentary). This can allow to see over-saturated colors when you then move your sight on something else, as the signals from your eyes gets further shifted by your temporary brain "adjustment" from color fatigue.

Mixing separate inputs from each eye can also lead to seeing "impossible" color combinations. If your left eye is screaming "red" and your right one screams "green", your brain can understand "reddish-green".


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

[User] [Star Wars] At the start of A New Hope why doesn't Vader realise that Leia is force sensitive when they're face to face, yet later in the movie he can sense Obi-Wan from the other side of the Death Star?

[Assistant]
Because she hasn't awakened to the Force like her brother has.

Likewise, Vader had over a decade of being close with Obi-Wan - He's recognize the way Obi-Wan feels through the Force over a long distance easily.


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

[User]
How can DNA code for instinctive behaviours such as building nests, recognising preys, finding the mother's breast...?

Or how can DNA code for a brain with basic programmed behaviours?

[Assistant]
DNA doesnt code for any behavior, just proteins that make up cells. Some (all? Not a devo biologist here) basic instincts, babies grasping a finger in their palm, for instance, are reflexes. The DNA codes for the proteins that guide the formation of neurons in that reflex pathway through the central nervous system. Other behaviors are learned from a young age. Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of the brain to reprogram itself, and young things have very neuroplastic brains. Through this neuroplasticity, young animals can quickly pick up on the behaviors that keep them alive. This process is imperfect and the animals that dont do this will die.

TLDR, the DNA doesnt encode behavior, but it can encode reflexes via neuron development.

Hope this helps!


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

[User]
ELI5:How is it that old Japanese houses seem to be made mostly of paper, but don't seem to experience any problems during rain seasons?

Just generally curious as to how this works. For example if one of these were built in, say England would it survive the rainy weather?

Edit:wow I got a lot more responses than I expected! thanks everyone.

[Assistant] Traditional japanese buildings are built primarily of wood and wood products, the use of stone being reserved for special buildings such as pagodas. The large roofs,  usually made of tile or thatch, we're built to over lap the furthest extremities of the base, providing excellent protection from the elements.


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

[User] ELI5: How does your brain do complex calculus and physics calculations to determine trajectory, velocity, and acceleration of objects you see (like catching a football) without using numbers or variables?

[Assistant]
It doesn't.

Our brains are very good at pattern-matching and extrapolating from previous experience how things will behave. We don't calculate the trajectory so much as just compare to our previous experience and guess about how it will behave under the conditions. We aren't calculating so much as thinking it will "kinda sorta do that".


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

[User]
ELI5: How is a countries military strength is measured?

Followup: What makes America the worlds superpower?

[Assistant]
There's not really 1 measure, it depends what the military is intended to be used for. Countries like Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, all these countries have a military built around immidiate defense against known enemies, they don't intend to go far from their own country. Or there are countries that have force projection in their priorities (the US) who want to be able to fight overseas

Then it also depends on what role it will play, Ireland doesn't really have much need to repel invasions or stop blockades, but they want to contribute to peacekeeping efforts. This means they probably don't have that much heavy firepower. As opposed to South korea, Taiwan, Israel, these countries have neighbours who want to take them out, powerful neighbours, and they know that victory isn't garenteed (as opposed to the US who knows no-one can invade them). So these countries will have a lot more heavy firepower, they might need it.

On your point about the US, because of money, they spend more on defense then the next several countries combined, there's a lot of talk about how the US defending Taiwan would go down, the views are split and this shows how strong the US is, why does this mean they are strong? Because in a theoretical war they have good odds of defeating a country with 4 times their population in that countries backyard. Remember that Taiwan is just off the coast of china, and the US still has good odds of winning.

What is it that the US spends money on, everything, they have good gear (not always the very best but always good) and they have a lot of it. And their ability to move troops/their navy, troops and tanks and planes are useless if they are in a base at home, the US has the ability to send them all over the world. Carriers too are important, they allow the US to quickly intervene in a war, they can instantly launch massive air and missile attacks on enemy troops within a very short time. The sheer firepower of just one carrier group could change the outcome of almost any war.

tldr; money spent, troop numbers. No best way since not all armies are built to fight the same wars.


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

[User] ELI5 why do websites have different endings (com, net, org) what do they mean?

[Assistant]
Rewind back to the very early days of the internet, when it was mostly academic institutions that decided to connect themselves together so they could share information and email.  They decided that it would be useful to give connected sites a label, so that as people communicated with one another, or downloaded information from somewhere, they could tell who (or what) it was they were downloading from... So the "top level domain" was born.

.edu was for educational institutions.

.gov was for government.

.mil was for military

.com was for commercial organizations

.org was for non-profits.

.... And then each country got their own TLD as well....... .us for United States, .au for Australia, .uk for UK, etc. etc. etc...... And back in the original version of all this, you actually had to provide documentation to prove you were what you said you were, in order to use anything except a .com

But.. Now you had a way to rapidly identify what kind of entities you were interacting with.

I suspect if the internet could do it all over again, TLDs wouldn't exist.. and the entire DNS and URL schema would be made way simpler than it is..  But it's so baked in now, this is how it will still be working for the rest of our lives.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are all doctor's handwriting so messy, and how do pharmacists decipher what the prescriptions say?

[Assistant] Pharmacy side: If we aren't 100% sure, we call and ask.  That being said, there are fairly standard dosing for most medications and standard anotations.  For example, Z-paks are 99.999% of the time  2 tabs on day 1, 1 tab daily days 2-5.  So even if the doc writes iiT PO OD D1, we know s/he meant QD instead of OD. (QD being everyday, OD being your right ear)


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

[User] What's the width of one spectral line?

[Assistant]
Unfortunately, we can't give you an answer like "spectral lines are ___ nm wide". The width of a spectral line *in a gas* depends on many things, including environmental factors:

* **Natural line broadening**:  This spectral line broadening arises as a result of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle between energy and time.  The lifetime of the excited stated produces uncertainty in the energy of the state in a way that a short excited lifetime results in a large uncertainty in energy and vice a versa.  This is the width of the spectral line in the absence of any perturbations to the emission process.

* **Doppler (or thermal) Broadening**:  This is a result of the fact that the atoms emitting the light are whizzing around with some speed.  You will observe a photon emitted from an atom whizzing toward you to be blue shifted while a photon emitted from an atom whizzing away from you will be red shifted.  The collection of blue shifted and red shifted photons serves to broaden the spectral line.

* **Pressure (or collisional) Broadening**:  This is the result of atoms colliding with one another.  If an atom in an excited state collides with another atom, it can prematurely emit a photon.   This interrupts the natural emission process as described by natural line broadening and effectively shortens the emission lifetime of the excited state, producing an uncertainty in the energy of the released photon.


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

[User] ELI5: when the moon comes up, it's gravity is strong enough to rise the tide. How come small particles don't go flying as well?

[Assistant] Probably the biggest thing to understand is that the moon's gravity doesn't create the tides "all in one go".  As the Earth rotates, the pull of the moon has a constant very small effect that over time builds up a sort of standing-wave front that we call the tides.  It's the cumulative effect that causes the tides, not the 'instantaneous' gravitational pull.


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

[User]
Eli5: What causes leaves to fall off trees?

Obviously gravity, as well as the leaf dying as the tree moves into its dormant phase. This morning I was outside before the sun came over the horizon. It was pretty windless, and cold, and the Norway maple in my yard was holding its leafs. 10 minutes after the sun hit the tree, leafs started falling down very regularly, as if it was snowing.

My theory is that there is a small scale freeze/thaw cycle that encourages the leaf connection to weaken, causing the snowing effect I witnessed. Id love to learn more!

[Assistant] When temperatures drop and the days shorten, trees detect that and produce a plant hormone called ethylene. Ethylene signals the leaves to stop growing, break down their chlorophyll and send nutrients back to the tree, then die. At the same time, a plant hormone called Abscisic acid (ABA) starts to form an abscission layera small area at the base of the leaf thats designed to break easily and cleanly so that the leaf drops without breaking anything in the twig. Once the tree has retrieved any nutrients it can from the leaf and the abscission layer is complete, the leaf will drop without much force. A gust of wind or a change in temperature or a little rain will snap off the dead leaf on the breakable abscission layer.


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

[User]
I get it; fish cant breathe out of water, but WHY?

To be more specific I tried looking for answers online, but only found things talking about the fish needing water to pass over their gills to extract the oxygen from the water. Okay, but why? Why can fish not breathe in open air?

There is oxygen in the air and yet they can only utilize it from the water? Is it that fish actually *can* breathe out of water, but their gills collapse or flatten (cant think of a better way to describe it) without being submerged in water and make it too difficult/laborsome to do so? (Like reduced surface area/capacity of the gills)

[Assistant]
You know how, when underwater, a persons hair can just kinda float freely, each individual hair flowing separately from every otherbut when they come out of the water, their hair flattens against their head and sticks together in thick clumps?

A fishs gills are kinda like lots of thin filaments. In the water, they float apart and water can flow between them, but come out of the water and their gill filaments clump together like so many wet hairs. This means most of their gill surface area is packed inside other filaments, with too little still-exposed surface area to oxygenate their blood as much as they need to live.


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

[User]
Is the "Island of Stability" possible?

As in, are we able to create an atom that's on the island of stability, and if not, how far we would have to go to get an atom on it?

[Assistant]
The current theoretical best estimate for the location of the island is Z = 114, N = ~~126~~ 184. We have produced some isotopes of the element with Z = 114, but they have less than ~~126~~ 184 neutrons.

The nuclides near and at the island of stability may exhibit enhanced stability relative to their neighbors on the chart of nuclides, but they will not truly be stable.

Unless nuclear forces do something totally weird and unexpected at high A, the alpha separation energies for all of these species will be negative relative to their ground states, so they will always be able to alpha decay, if nothing else.

Technologically and logistically, we are far from being able to reach the island of stability. We don't know of any nuclear reaction mechanism which would allow us to produce nuclides so neutron-rich, for such high atomic number.


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

[User] ELI5: Why isn't our heart tired after beating for so long?

[Assistant] The muscle the heart is made of is different from regular muscle fibre. Normal muscles store energy inside them which gets used up as you exercise and (slowly) replaced by chemicals carried by the bloodstream. They get tired if you use up that energy faster than the blood can provide it. Heart muscle, on the other hand, is directly fed by the bloodstream for sustenance and oxygen. This means it never tires, but on the other hand, means things go very badly wrong if the blood supply is interrupted even briefly, as happens when you have a heart attack.


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

[User]
[One Piece] How does the world gouvernment and the Marine exist and police the place?

From what I understand, it's basically almost impossible or really hard to travel between East, West, North and South Blue. The Grand Line can only be entered at one point and can only be navigated in one direction or predetermined paths, meaning if you travel to one island, you can't go back where you came from. And the only way to leave the grand line is to presumably reach it's end.

Am I missing something? This seems to make it almost impossible to have any kind of command structure or military at all, since any boat that travelled too far could not get back to base. I know there are some technologies for travelling the calm belt, but those are described as something new, while the world gouvernment was around for hundreds of years. And from what I can tell, nothing in the series really explained how one could travel more openly around the grand line. I assume most information, like the updated bounties are transferred via radio signals.

[Assistant]
One travels along the Grand Line traditionally with a Log Pose, which point you to the next island along the chain, but remember that there are also Eternal Poses, which always point to the same island. This allows you to travel back and forth along the Grand Line, at least to specific locations. That's the main answer to your question. The World Government almost certainly has many of these, for any island of interest that they have control over.

It possibly also allows you to travel across the Calm Belts to specific locations, although you are correct in saying that the technology of coating ships with seastone to not attract Sea Kings in the Calm Belts is relatively new. It's very possible that even before this tech, there were still attempts to cross the Calm Belts, just with less consistent success. At a certain level of strength, Sea Kings stop being a threat to you.

It's likely that they also use certain locations to transport people between the Grand Line and the Blues, although we have not seen it directly. We know that ships are lifted above the Red Line to reach Mariejois, so if that's set up, they could likely also drop them off a little up or down the Red Line to reach any of the Blue Seas.

Consider that moving many ships between the Grand Line and elsewhere is also not particularly necessary. There are plenty of kingdoms and populated islands to recruit from within the Grand Line, and because the Grand Line is where most dangerous pirates go, there's more need to move forces into the Grand Line (which is always possible) than to move them out.

Overall, the level of control you see exerted by the current World Government is also not necessarily what they had for the past several hundred years.


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

[User]
ELI5 why does the body store unhealthy amounts of fat

So I know the body store fat for survival reasons, but why does it let it's self go to the extreme on storing fat to the point it risks its own survival?

[Assistant] If you get stranded somewhere without food those unhealthy amounts of fat is going to be the thing that keeps you alive. It is only in the last few generations that food is pretty much guaranteed at all times. So too much fat have just recently become unhealthy.


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

[User]
ELI5 : How is 70% Alcohol more effective in killing microorganisms than 90% or 100% concentration?

I don't know if this applies to ALL organism, but papers i just read stated it's more effective in killing co*id and some other bacteria.

#But HOW?

[Assistant] 70% percent of alcohol is ideal to a stronger solution. Pure alcohol coagulates protein in contact. Suppose the pure alcohol is poured over a single celled organism. The alcohol will go through the cell wall of the organism in all direction, coagulating the protein just inside the cell wall. The ring of the coagulated protein would then stop the alcohol from penetrating farther from the cell, and no more coagulation would take place. At this time the cell would become inactive but not dead. Under the favorable conditions the cell would then begin to function. If 70 percent of alcohol is poured to a single celled organism, the diluted alcohol also coagulates the protein, but at a slower rate, so that it penetrates all the way through the cell before coagulation can block it. Then the entire cell is coagulated and the organism dies.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does melted ice taste different than regular water?

When I drink water with ice in it, the taste changes when the ice melts. Why is this?

[Assistant] The water you get from your fridge is pulled straight from your plumbing, and doesn't have time to absorb taste from the plastic and refrigerant in your appliance. When your fridge stores the water and freezes it however, not only does it absorb material from the plastic that it's frozen into, but each time you open your fridge, the air is cooled, and whatever enters the fridge settles onto the things inside after you close it. The cold surface of your ice attracts moisture settling in the air, so when you melt the icecube and drink it, you're getting the same water, except it's accumulated additional material that it's been sitting out in your fridge, and that can be enough to alter the taste of the water as a result.


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

[User] [Superman: Red Son] Where are Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters? How would this change the dynamic of a Soviet Superman? What would a conversation between Uncle Sam and Soviet Superman go like?

[Assistant]
Haven't watched the movie but in the Red Son comic a lot of superheroes simply don't exist in that universe.

Besides the fact that Superman landed on the USSR, there are some major differences between that timeline and the main one. >!Krypton doesn't even exist in that universe!<


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

[User]
CMV: Cyberattacks on infrastructure are terrorism

With the recent cyberattack on a major fuel supply pipeline in the eastern US, the question comes to the forefront.  If there was an act of physical sabotage against a pipeline that caused that pipeline to be shut down for several days, it would be treated as an act of terrorism. The perpetrators, if caught, would be subject to terrorism statutes in the US.

With ransomware attacks becoming prolific in the US against hospitals, companies, utilities, and even governments, the only thing we are showing is that it's relatively easy, low risk, and also a good way to destabilize the US.  Even worse, the attacks can come from foreign actors, or even foreign governments.

Since low-intensity warfare against a country is basically the entire point of an insurgency (or even a foreign government), we can expect that these kinds of infrastructure attacks are going to happen more and more often.

Creating hardening a decentralized network such as the United States infrastructure is basically impossible, the only real answer is to make the risk significantly higher.  Getting away with a few million dollars is one thing.  But,if you get caught, finding a Hellfire missile knocking on your front door is something completely different.

If you commit a cyberattack on US infrastructure, you should be treated as a terrorist.

Change my view.

[Assistant]
Its a yes and no type thing. Technically it is a yes but also a no if the only motive was just for money. If they where targeted specifically then yes however if they where targeted by accident (some dumb ass plugs a random USB they found into their work computer) then its a no. Will they be charged with Cyber Terrorism.... Eh maybe but they have to prove it was for political aims/ politically motivated.

cyberterrorism

\[sbrterrizm\]

NOUN

cyber-terrorism (noun)

the politically motivated use of computers and information technology to cause severe disruption or widespread fear in society.


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

[User]
ELI5: how do glasses get smudged so fast? Where does it come from and what is it made of?

It seems like I can sit down at my computer with fully clean glasses, and then find myself needing to clean them again after only an hour or so. I make a point to avoid touching my lenses, and am not abnormally greasy or anything.

If it's grease from my face, how is it getting from my skin onto the lenses, since they're not touching? If it's stuff condensing / settling from the air around me, how come I don't notice it on my windows or other glassware?

[Assistant]
Its shedded skin and oil, your eyelashes may be touching the glass.
Acrylic lenses can have a slight electric static charge on them which attracts dust
It helps if you use some wax on the glass after you have cleaned it, dirt cant stick as easily/


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

[User] ELI5: If an electron can be two places at the same time, how do we know those are not two different electrons?

[Assistant] We know because when we do these types of experiments we can limit the number of electrons to one. If there is only one electron in the experiment but you can show that there is an electron in both places at the same time you know that it is the same electron. The theory is then that the same electron is in all its potential states (places) and can interact with things as if it were in those states as long as you do not observe it as it would then force the electron to be in one state.


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

[User]
Which, as a %, is more "empty" - an atom or the Universe?

The recent question on the scale of the Universe prompted this somewhat related question.  We know there is a lot of "empty" space within solar systems, and between star systems and galaxies.

But I also remember reading that the actual nucleus of an atom is an amazing small amount of actual "matter."  So it led we to wonder which has a greater ration of "space" to "matter."

[Assistant]
Answering this in the spirit it was asked,  an atom is empty to about 13 orders of magnitude.  That's pretty empty to be sure.   If a hydrogen atom were the size of the earth,  a proton would still only be about 200 meters across.

That is still nothing compared to the universe.  The universe is empty past 20 orders of magnitude.   Our best estimates show about 1.1e57 cubic meters of stuff, keeping it all at its current density as compared to 2.7e37 cubic lightyears of space in the observable universe.  There is fewer than 5 atoms of "stuff" for each cubic meter of space in the observable universe.


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

[User] ELI5: How did old school shooter gun games like duck hunt or arcade shooters accurately track your shots with only the gun and without a sensor bar or camera?

[Assistant] When you point at a duck and pull the trigger, the computer in the NES blacks out the screen and the Zapper diode begins reception. Then, the computer flashes a solid white block around the targets youre supposed to be shooting at. The photodiode in the Zapper detects the change in light intensity and tells the computer that its pointed at a lit target block  in others words, you should get a point because you hit a target. In the event of multiple targets, a white block is drawn around each potential target one at a time. The diodes reception of light combined with the sequence of the drawing of the targets lets the computer know that you hit a target and which one it was. Of course, when youre playing the game, you dont notice the blackout and the targets flashing because it all happens in a fraction of a second.


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

[User]
[DC] Can the Joker be made sane?

In the comics, the Joker briefly becomes sane on two occasions - once after entering the Lazarus Pit, and once after being aided by Martian Manhunter. These instances only grant him temporary sanity, after which he reverts back to his sociopathic self, but his time spent in the realm of the sane shows him deeply regretting his crimes.

Is there any known way to permanently "fix" Joker, or is he irreparable?

[Assistant] In Kevin Smith's arc, at the tail end Joker is restrained and doped up with anti-psychotics. In the doctor's words he's as sane in that moment that he's capable of being. Batman has a conversation with him in this state. The Joker says that what Batman fails to understand is that he doesn't hate Batman because he's crazy. He's crazy because he hates Batman. He suggests that if Batman were to die, he'd call it quits, and go about his day to day existence as plainly as anyone else. Something about Batman is deeply disturbing to the Joker. At a guess, it's that a man can put on an outfit and persona, and act out a power fantasy instead of confronting reality, and the world will give him a pass, as long as what he's doing is convenient. More basically that mental unhealth or insanity is permissable under a set of circumstances. The Joker acting out may be an attempt to accomplish one of two things-- either forcing Batman to kill, at which time his activities would no longer be permitted, or force Batman into a place where he has to confront his own mental issues. That these things have not happened -- maybe this is what drives the Joker insane.


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

[User] [Star Wars] In ESB Vader is like "Luke let's team up and whoop the Emperor's ass," and then in RotJ he was just like "Nah I'm Palp's bitch." What caused the change of heart?

[Assistant]
Proximity.

In ESB, Vader's off on the outer rim backwater mining outpost of who-the-fuck-cares, umpty-odd zillion parsecs from Coruscant. In RotJ, Palpy's never more than a few dozen miles away, in orbit. (On a Death Star. A Death Star full of loyal soldiery. And that's before you mention the fleet with active-if-less-powerful bombardment weapons, and a complete set of shield override codes...) It's one thing to offer to join up and go against the Emperor when he's on the other side of the galaxy, and you can easily claim when-and-if you go back that 'I was lying to the kid to get him to turn,' should the issue arise. It's another thing entirely to do it when he's (literally) sitting right there watching.


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

[User]
CMV: The US should adopt the Popular Vote for Presidential Elections

CMV: Every voter would be better represented by the Popular Vote in a Presidential Election.

The general argument against the Electoral College is that it gives voters in rural states proportionally higher amounts of influence than people in high population states. For example, someone's vote in North Dakota is more powerful than someone's in California, because the electoral votes per capita is higher in ND than in CA.

Currently, most states do "winner takes all" Electoral votes, which has created "blue" states (i.e. California, New York) and "red" states (i.e. Alabama, Texas). This means that the millions of Republican voters in "Blue states" lose major value in their presidential votes, and vice versa in "Red" States.

Wouldn't a person be better represented if their vote was compared nationally, instead of potentially being worthless if their candidate loses the state?

[Assistant]
>The general argument against the Electoral College is that it gives voters in rural states proportionally higher amounts of influence than people in high population states.

this isn't what produces the difference between electroal and popular vote.

Hilary didn't lose on account of the increased voting power of people in nebraska.  She lost because despite winning 75% (or whatever) of california's votes she only won 49% of ohio (or whatever).  After you get 51% in a states the additional votes count for nothing.  Those millions of votes in california didn't count.

Instead of eliminating the electoral college, you can just have each state prorate their electoral votes by the percentage of population.  Hilary could have gotten 49% of ohio's electoral votes instead of zero percent.

This still gives a little leg up to low population states, which seems fair enough, because that little leg up is very small.  It resolves the huge problem.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes some wines better than others? Why can some bottles be 10 bucks while others over 100?

[Assistant]
Let's say a vineyard makes a wine that's generally considered good (note- it's kinda irrelevant whether it is objectively good or not). This increases demand as people want to buy this famously tasty wine.

Unfortunately vineyards, communes and chateaux can only make so much wine with the land they have. If they want to increase production, they need to buy up more land. However, the microclimates, microflora (the natural yeasts) and the soil quality that all affect how wine tastes can differ literally between fields. Also, the processes for making wine have to be scaled up, which again can affect the taste.

So, if they increase supply to keep up with demand, they end up making a different product that falls out of favor, and nobody wants it any more. Instead, the price just rises.

Simple economics right?

Here's the rub - high end wines are luxury goods. This means that high prices actually *increase* demand. You're not just buying any old wine, you're buying a famous product. It's the same as with brand name clothes or luxury cars. You're paying for increased quality, sure, but you're also paying for the name and the connotations that come with it- of exclusivity, of sophistication, of connoisseurship.

On buying it, you're part of an exclusive club of people who appreciate the finer things. Being a member is desirable enough that people are willing to fork out some extra cash for the privilege. A Chteau Lafite Rothschild is sold as much on reputation as it is on the quality of the wine inside.

**TL;DR :** Some wines have reputations for being good, which increases demand. Increasing supply is difficult, so prices rise. The wine now has the added bonus of being "exclusive", "expensive" and "rare". Demand remains high.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly happens when someone is accidentally infused with the wrong blood type?

[Assistant]
Blood types are basically just a shorthand for "this person's blood has these flags on it." When your body sees blood with the same flag as all the other blood (or no flags at all), it just assumes it belongs there and everything moves along happily.

When blood with the wrong type is introduced, your body sees all these strange blood cells with foreign flags invading. It then does what anyone would do when they see an invader: it attacks the strange blood. This causes the rapid destruction of the newly introduced blood cells and all this havoc and mayhem in your system will also trigger secondary defense mechanisms, like clotting. Clotting in your small blood vessels leads to oxygen deprivation, organ failure, and death.


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

[User]
How does COVID damage the lungs?

Read a lot about how harmful COVID can be to the lungs.  Heard from an XRay tech that COVID lungs are almost white on the XRays.

Don't understand how it can cause that.  What is in the virus that harms the lungs?

And how is it different from other diseases, like pneumonia?

[Assistant]
**Pneumonia is a bigger term which covers the inflammation of lungs.** This can be bacterial or viral in origin. Covid-19 **can cause pneumonia**, this is the respiratory infection component of the infection. It can also leave you vulnerable to get pneumonia from other sources such as bacteria or other viruses. The virus can cause host of other symptoms also, which is why precautions are required and the list of symptoms health officials ask you to look out for are extensive.

Virus enters cells and hijacks them replicate itself, until the cell breaks down releasing the viral particles or our own immune systems deals with the cells. This damages the area and the organ causing inflammation. Inflammation in our bodies is basically just liquids collecting to an area, these show on the x-ray as white areas.


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

[User]
[Mad Max] Why were classic cars the only vehicles to survive the apocalypse?

I understand that they look much more interesting than modern vehicles, so it may just be a stylistic choice, but is there any realism to all these classic and muscle cars being the only ones left?

[Assistant]
When resources are scarce, the simple and rugged machines are easier to keep running than the more sophisticated and complex ones.

Modern cars are full of electronics - central locking, integrated GPS, touchscreens, keyless ignition, etc. The post-apocalyptic mechanics take one look at those, then go back to the ones that they can keep running by whacking them with a hammer a few times.


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

[User]
[Witcher] How many higher vampires have been successfully killed?

According to the Witcher bestiary, "the number of higher vampires killed can be counted on one hand." With the exception of Geralt, what other Witchers managed to kill a higher vampire?

[Assistant]
I believe the quote is *actually* "Those who have faced them in combat and survived can be counted on one hand.". It's extremely unclear as to whether any Witchers or humans (besides Geralt) have managed to slay a Higher Vampire. There are only 6 *known* Higher Vampires in existence, and Geralt is responsible for killing 3 (possibly 5 depending on quest choices and alternative media). The only Higher Vampire known to not be slain as of the end of Geralt's adventures is The Unseen Elder, who is powerful enough to instantly kill Geralt before the latter can react.

Due to their rarity, power and limited infamy, you can assume that most Higher Vampires dwell in secrecy. Hell some Higher Vampires can even elude the Witcher Medallion and pass for human. As Witchers tend to take up all contracts involving murders that Higher Vampires would likely be responsible for (and the lack of dead Witchers suggests the HVs haven't engaged Witchers in combat frequently), it can be suggested that Geralt is one of the few Witchers in recent years (or even decades or centuries) that discovers and battles Higher Vampires.

It's problematic that Katakans, Bruxae and Alps are *also* classed as Higher Vampires (and would pollute the pool of those who have killed Higher Vampires to include those who have slain the above other Vampires). As for Higher Vampires as we would know them, we can only guess. There isn't any source material explaining who else besides Geralt has tangled with a Higher Vampire and lived, let alone slain one.

I'd suggest Vesemir might be up there, and Lambert's familiarity with Vampires like Ekimmaras could suggest he's been able to track down and slay some Higher Vampires. It's all theorising though, as Geralt is noted by even the Higher Vampires themselves for managing to uncover their true nature *and* slay some of their number despite the many generations of power they have built up.


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

[User]
[Doctor Who] All of Galifrey is time-locked. How do the people living on the planet experience this?

The entire planet is Time-Locked. At first I thought that meant the entire place was just permanently frozen in time. But then that one Christmas episode showed that Galifrey, despite being time-locked, was still capable of actively trying to return to the universe.

So does the whole Time-Lock thing mean that Galifrey is somehow stuck in its own little pocket dimension somewhere by itself, cut away from the rest of the universe, but is still a perfectly inhabitable, functioning, active planet? Does the average Galifreyan now lock up at a night sky without stars, since their own planet is alone in this little pocket universe?

And since the Time Lords were a pretty isolationist culture anyways, do they even really mind this state of affairs all that much? After all now they can be all by themselves, completely untouchable, forever.

Or is there something about the Time-Lock (besides the isolation) that makes the situation unpalatable?

[Assistant]
We see how a time lock functions in the series 4 finale when the team at Torchwood III activate one to defend themselves from a dalek. It's sort of like a little bubble of time that can't be traversed in any of the four dimensions. From inside the bubble looking out, everything is frozen in time, but relative to inside the bubble time still flows as normal. We don't get to see what happened from the dalek's perspective though.

>And since the Time Lords were a pretty isolationist culture anyways, do they even really mind this state of affairs all that much?

I'd imagine time lord society is split on the issue. There are definetly those who are OK with the time lock (Mostly those supportive of Romana's presidency), but there are certainly Gallifreyans who preferred being the dominant power in the universe and would like to go back.


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

[User] Since the rotation of the earth is slowing down, when will the day be twice as long as now?

[Assistant]
Unfortunately, it's not a strictly linear figure that can be easily calculated out. There are, for instance, forces which accelerate the rotation of the earth, or slow it differently, than just the tidal interactions with the moon. For instance, the Indian Tsunami may have accelerated the rotation of the earth by as much as 3 microseconds, due to changes in the earth's moment of inertia. Similarly, the redistribution of significant mass caused by ice ages/end of ice ages also affects the earth's moment of inertia.

If we were to ignore those significant factors, and just look at the last 100 years in average, we seem to have picked up 1.7 milliseconds.

So it'd take around 50,823,529 more centuries to pick up an extra day, or 5 billion years, by which point the earth is potentially being destroyed by the sun, events calamitous enough that they will severely mess with our rate of rotation, assuming anything is left to rotate.


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

[User]
Why aren't there pure ATP supplements available on the market as energy boosters? What would happen if you took these?

As ATP is often referred to as the energy currency of the cell, what would happen if one ingested ATP capsules? Would the person experience an energy boost, or would it prove to be toxic?

[Assistant] Funnily enough, not a thing.  The moment ATP hits the acidic environment of your stomach, it begins to hydrolyze into phosphate and adenosine (and probably further into adenine and ribose).  In order to harvest the energy from this hydrolysis reaction, you need an enzyme or protein that can accept it.  In the absence of that, the energy of hydrolysis gets wasted as heat.  Very, very, very expensive heat.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why would somebody sue the gun manufacturer after a mass shooting?

Unless the gun manufacturer sold the weapons to a known criminal how in anyway are they liable for what some crazy would do? You wouldn't sue Budwieser or ford if a drunk driver hit you. So why would you sue the manufacturer  of a gun if some crazy used it?

[Assistant]
You have the right of it with your mindset.  Unfortunately, in the 1990s and early 2000's, anti-gun groups filed tons of law suits against the gun manufacturers and retailers on behalf of gun violence victims, with the express purpose to try and bankrupt the manufacturers and retailers.

Even knowing they wouldn't win the suits, they kept piling them up, one after another, after another, to make the manufacturers and retailers lose money paying for lawyers, expert testimony, investigative staff, and the like.

That is the reason the Gun Manufacturer and Retailer law went into place, to block these frivolous law suits.  The lawsuits bankrupted small retailers, and made the potential cost of entering the gun manufacturing business too high to be worth it unless you were already a huge company.

Many people on here are trying to justify it, by saying things like "it will make them act more responsibly" and so on, but the truth is, the manufacturers are already acting responsibly.  They do not sell to individuals in almost all cases, only to retailers, who are licensed dealers or wholesellers.  They make their items to meet all standards and regulations.  If they don't meet standards and regulations, they can be sued for negligence, as any other business can.

Retailers are where it gets a little more dicey.  People want to be able to blame them for selling a person a gun if that gun is later used in a crime.  The issue is, if the retailer did everything by the book, did the background check, and so on, then they legally shouldn't be held responsible.  If they didn't do their jobs, then the law shielding them from a lawsuit doesn't protect them, and they can be taken down by the ATF for failure to follow the law.


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

[User] What are the other differences besides temperature (boiling points etc.) between water and oil that makes water 'boil' food and oil fry?

[Assistant]
While we mostly think of the oil as a medium for frying food, don't forget that it's also an ingredient - as is water, for boiled foods.

Oil generally tastes good, and some compounds are soluable in oil but not water, so they'll be amplified and that may be desirable.

There's also another thing, which is that frying in a way requires *both* oil and water, it's just that the water is already inside the food. When that water starts to boil and turn to steam, it will start to try to escape from the good, which has the benefit of keeping excess oil from coming in from the outside.

That keeps things from going soggy, which isn't possible cooking in water, because the outside water will be boiling before the inside water.


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

[User]
[Skyrim] Why are the dragons underutilising their own language?

I've seen the dragonborn and the greybeards do some amazing things with the dragon tongue. Like super speed, controlling the weather, or even slowing time itself.

But every dragon I encounter just uses some elemental attack. Why aren't there dragons zipping towards you at impossible speed, or stopping time to bite off a few heads, or using mind control techniques?

[Assistant]
For the same reason you can't run as fast as Usain Bolt, or do math as well as Einstein, or swim as well as Michael Phelps, or eat food as fast as Takeru Kobayashi, or cook as well as Gordon Ramsay, or sculpt as well as Michelangelo, etc... Just because it is possible, does not mean anyone can do it.

The words, by themselves, are not what gives them power. The words are simply a means to project that power and intent. The actual "technique" is entirely internal and inseparably tied to their own willpower and deeper understanding. That's the reason something like a dragon-hierarchy can even exist in the first place. That's why a dragon like Alduin can even be considered "special" in the first place. If every dragon could just tie words together to summon lightning and meteors, and control minds, and move impossibly fast then there is no way that they could ever be defeated. They would be a virtually unbeatable force.

It is clear that when it comes to offense, most dragons appear to choose a single type of attack to focus on. It is better to be really really good with one or two things than it is to be sorta, kinda good at a bunch of stuff.


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

[User] [Rick and Morty] What would Prime Rick think of Cronenberg Jerry?

[Assistant]
I imagine his reaction wouldn't be too far off from the Citadel Ricks who crash the party when Morty and Summer get stranded on Cronenberg Earth; Jerry's bulked up, but the firepower difference means Rick can still treat him with the same sort of disdain and contempt as he'd show any resident of the Jerry Day Care. Cronenberg Jerry is at best a curiosity, and at worst a speed bump to be swept aside with one pull of the trigger.

Could Cronenberg Jerry potentially get the better of Rick? Yes. Suicidal overconfidence and self-destructive cockiness is a common Rick trait, as is underestimating opponents; many Ricks have wound up dead because of it, and the number would be significantly higher if Rick didn't have the tech on hand to cash the checks his mouth keeps writing.


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

[User]
CMV: Morality based on religion cannot expect to be taken seriously.

If your foundation for a moral claim is based on a religious belief, then you have not met the burden of proof and as such you cannot expect others to take your claim seriously. For example, you shouldn't be allowed to harm others only because your religion allows it, defines you as superior to the victim or even encourages you to do so. In reality religion has been used in the past and is used to this day to justify violence.

Genuine question: How can I count on religion to provide a just moral framework? Additionally, what is keeping me from defining and practicing my own religion in order to justify violence or make other moral claims? What makes my new religion less valid than, say, Christianity? The other religions have holy books to outline their moral framework, but these don't provide any proof for their moral claims. I could just as well come up with my own book and claim that some transcendent power granted me the wisdom to do so. That does not amount to proof.

To me, it seems crystal clear that a person making moral claims based on religion cannot expect these to be taken seriously.

EDIT:

Some misunderstandings that arised:

* **I claim that** morality based on religion cannot expect to be taken seriously. **I do not claim that** morality based on religion can never be taken seriously.
* Im not arguing for any one moral philosophy, I am merely arguing, that since religious premises can neither be proven nor disproven, nor even debated sincerely, they should not be the foundation one provides in social discourse.
* I respect theological theorists. They can obviously be just as intelligent, intellectual, logical and systemic. I merely have a problem with premises that cannot be disputed by worldly facts since they hinder the moral social discourse .
* I do not expect (nor do I think I believe in) moral objectivity.

I encourage you to read through the other posts, I tried to answer a lot of them.

[Assistant] What would you determine was a legitimate source of a moral framework? The obvious alternative to religion is a some of philosophy  but if you boil those down to their basic tenants (often something amounting to "other people and their lives have value and deserve moral consideration) they aren't really provable either.


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

[User]
[Minecraft] Why does Steve need to kill the Enderdragon?

Shes not harming the overworld, and doesnt seem to be that terrible in the End as well, she just flies around. Are we the baddies?

[Assistant]
- Steve tracks the Endermen back to the End because they're hostile to him in the overworld.  Yes, this is only after he looks them in the eyes, that's not a good reason to attack someone.
- Once Steve gets to the end, the Enderdragon is aggressive towards him.
- retreating isnt an option, the portal home only spawns when the Enderdragon is dead.

The Enderdragon isnt necessarily a baddie, but Steve is justified in finding and killing it from an in-universe perspective.


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

[User]
Why is breastfeeding so difficult and unintuitive for many women? Why aren't humans like other animals that seem to do it with ease?

It seems that many new moms and babies have to struggle to learn this basic function. How does this make sense evolutionarily?

[Assistant] It seems that evolution conspired to make breastfeeding something that has to be learned for all primates. There are studies that show monkeys, chimps and apes all have to be shown how to breastfeed successfully. Humans are in that group as well, and because of modern life we have other problems that confound what should be easy.


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

[User]
[X-Men] Isn't kind of weird how jacked Magneto is?

I mean the guy's a 70 year old Holocaust survivor. If he had super strength or some other physical power it might make some sense but his power is *magnetism*. He literally doesn't have to lift a finger (dramatic posing excluded)! So why is he so buff?

[Assistant] Magneto would never rely solely on his powers. In a way, it's driven by fear. Considering how helpless he must have felt during his time in the camp, and how little his powers helped him then, he's going to make sure he's never in such a position where he can't do something. It's not perfect, obviously, but even if his powers aren't useful, he'd want to be able to do *something*.


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

[User] Does adding bubbles to a bath create any type of insulation or a thermal barrier that would help keep the water warmer for longer?

[Assistant] Generally, yes; any foam blocks convection from reaching the bath surface directly. Instead, a temperature gradient arises where heat must transfer through the air bubbles via conduction, creating a thermal barrier.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some old plastic appliances fade to an off yellow colour after many years?

[Assistant] Most plastics contain substances that make them burn slower, for safety reasons. These flame retardants use the element Bromine. When the Bromine remains bound up as the flame retardant, it is colourless, but when it breaks down, the remaining bromides are a bright yellow. The main thing that breaks these flame retardants down is ultra-violet light, but heat and other chemicals can also do it.


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

[User]
[The Purge] What would some examples of landmark supreme court cases be in this universe?

A landmark supreme court case usually happens when two laws//amendments are contradictory, or a loophole is used, and a court case goes to the supreme court. Can you think of any purge-related supreme court cases?

[Assistant]
*Eulenburg v. New York*: Jeffery Eulenburg was a wealthy media tycoon accused of raping and then killing a twelve year old girl. During the 2003 purge, Eulenburg took a vacation to a secure compound in the Caribbean, leaving his mansion protected by armed guards. On purge night, Jonathan Ross, the father of the alleged victim killed the armed guards and used plastic explosives on a bedroom safe in order to steal half a million dollars and a collection of videotapes which showed, in graphic detail, the crime in question along with eight other previously unknown victims.

All of that fell under established purge law. However, Ross then turned the tapes over to the district attorney of New York, who promptly indicted Eulenburg once purge night was over.

At issue was the question of whether Fourth Amendment protections extended to purge night; purge night by its nature includes a near-total suspension of law enforcement, but if an actor receives significant overt or covert encouragement from the state, as it was argued Ross did, they become a de facto (and de jure) state actor and subject to the same Fourth Amendment limitations.

The case was narrowly ruled in favor of Eulenburg, causing the tapes to be ruled inadmissible and collapsing the state's case against him. (Eulenburg was later drawn and quartered by Ross during the 2007 purge.)


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

[User]
[Dungeons and Dragons] So what do good-aligned dragons actually do?

The metallic dragons (gold, silver, brass, etc...) are all good-aligned, and hugely powerful, what with being freaking dragons. Since "good" suggests active benevolence, as opposed to just minding your own business and not bothering people, how do they spend their time and why is it usually up to puny little adventurers to save the day?

[Assistant] They're generally just sticking to their corners of the wilderness and managing their own affairs. If say an evil dragon or a pack of lycanthropes sets up shop in a town they visit they'll help. Even if there's no danger posed to the good dragons they'll still put themselves in harmd way to help others. They may use their abilities and wealth to position adventurers to save the day or they may fly in with wings and talons themselves. Evil dragons care only about themselves. Neutral dragons care only about things that affect them and good dragons care about anything that effects the world around them. They're still slaves to their natures but they'll do things simply out of the good of their hearts rather than being forced to or only because they'll be rewarded.


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

[User]
[LOTR] Do the Wizards have old man problems?

Things like arthritis, slow urine stream (from benign prostatic hyperplasia), and farsightedness? Did the Valar actually make them into old men or are the Wizards at a human's peak performance with just a facade of age?

[Assistant] Most likely just a faade. Gandalf is seeing complaining about typical old man stuff from time-to-time, but he's also able to ride bare horesback for miles, frontline in war, and knock orcs over with ease.


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

[User]
What would happen to a cadaver left in space?

Would a body decompose, freeze, mummify, or remain essentially "fresh"?

Not sure what triggered this question, but I've never heard this question answered.

[Assistant]
pressure differential would not cause any significant deformationo of the body, the human body is surprisingly good at holding together under negative pressure. Should the body be perforated in any way however expect the corpse to depressurise, liquids would boil and escape and would leave behind only freezedried residue.

Assuming the body is not perforated however then there is assumed to be a certain amount of time gut fauna and bacteria could function on the corpse before dying. This would result in some bloating and decomposition, but not overly much. Depending on where the body is in relation to a star it could very well experience extreme cold or be kept at semi normal temperatures.

After that we look to long term effects on the body in space. Exposure to UV radiation would no doubt result in continuous tissue damage to the exposed areas, however deprived of any biological function one expects that the destroyed tissues would simply turn to dust or otherwise break down.

Exposure to high velocity objects in space is the highest threat to the corpse, though unlikely an impact would rip the thing assunder.

In deep space, far away from the gravitational influence of other larger bodies its anticipated the corpse would accumulate a surface of hydrogen, water and dust, loose leftover protoplanetary matter. However this would be negligible.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do washing machines always say they have one minute remaining, but it always takes so much longer to finish?

[Assistant]
When there's one minute remaining, what the washing machine is doing is spinning to remove water

One reason it could take longer than expected is load balancing: for the washer to spin the clothes at high speed, they need to be evenly distributed around the drum.

If they're not balanced, the resulting vibrations can be quite destructive.

So the washer will spend some time to balance the load, and how long this takes really depends on the type and quantity of clothes. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's impossible and the washer gives up without actually spin drying the clothes. Most of the time it's somewhere in between.


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

[User] ELI5: How is it that music can grow on you but you don't like it initially?

[Assistant]
It's called the "mere exposure effect." Simply being exposed to something will make people like it more than something they've never been exposed to.

In terms of evolution,  this makes sense. Things that are familiar are more likely to be safer than things that are unknown.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] What happens to planets the Imperium loses to the Tau if they are conquered back?

I'm having a bit of a dilemma here, you see, we recently were assigned by to reconquer a planet lost to the Imperium generations ago by the filthy Tau. We succeeded in pushing them out, the planet is under the Emperor now. All Xenos were gloriously purged.

Except we've had a hard time explaining this to the locals. For one thing, they don't speak any Gothic period. They only speak the heretical Xeno tongue the Tau speak. Additionally, they've become accustomed to the lifestyle the Tau provided for them and are unwilling to adjust to the hard work and demands of being a good Imperial citizen.

What can I do? I would exterminatus the planet, but wouldn't that remove the point of working so hard to conquer it?

[Assistant]
If there truly are no loyalists who preserved their love for the Emperor under Xenos oppression, then that is a planet full of heretics. Since you managed to secure the planet without the support of the local populace, you will easily be able to arrest the entire populace and transport them to labour camps. No Exterminatus necesssary.

Once the planet is free of such misguided individuals, you may recolonise it from the nearest Hive World.


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

[User]
[X Men Days of Future Past] How did the Sentinels take over the entire North American Continent without being stopped?

I know Sentinels are good at what they do but there are too many way OPed mutants and heroes to allow this I feel. On top of this the Celestials want to foster the mutant population so the sentinels are a threat and would conceivably be wiped out. My final point would be that Dr. Doom would never allow anybody other than himself to kill the Fantastic Four, But give me your reasoning.

[Assistant]
I will try to tackle this point by point.

1. Sentinels have bee shown to be incredibly efficient and adaptive. Master Mold constructs sentinels of varying sizes some of which can reassemble after being destroyed. Some are built for the sole purpose of hunting a particular mutant, such as nonmetallic ones to hunt Magneto. All of this, coupled with the death of Charles Xavier early on in the DoFP meant that there wasn't a well organized response mounted by mutants and the adaptive and powerful sentinels were able to take over. All other heroes would similarly be unable to tackle such a massive threat without the aid of the X-Men and their expertise in fighting Sentinels for so many years.

2. Celestials don't do jack. If they cared, they would be intervening all the time and they don't. They set up their little experiments, mess with out genetic code and step back and watch us run like rats through a maze. Assuming they are multiversal, the demise of one experiment in one universe would not likely warrant their intervention.

3. Doom would not be able to prevent the FF from being killed. He is incredibly powerful, but again, the Sentinels would overwhelm him. Perhaps he escaped to a pocket dimension and was planning a return, but he isn't omnipotent. Unless the FF killed Doom in this reality before the events of DoFP took place. Remember that in just about every universe we have seen in the multiverse, aside from Earth-616, Reed Richards ends up being evil/crazy. Maybe he was already on his downward spiral and killed Doom, and then fell victim to the Sentinels.


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

[User]
[General] How would a 4 armed alien race's martial arts differ from our own?

4 armed martial artists are common enough in fiction, but when they're depicted fighting their style is usually similar to human martial arts but with more punching. But if a race has 4 arms naturally, how would their technique evolve to best make use of their extra limbs?

[Assistant] I imagine grappling would have a larger focus. Four arms would give plenty more ability to grab ones opponent, and plenty of opportunities to do damage while grappling. It also means that long-range punching will likely become less-effective, as the alien species has more arms to block more of its body. Considering both of those facts, wed likely see a more close-range fighting style that prioritizes immobilizing and then repeatedly attacking their trapped opponent. However, things also depend on other factors of their biology.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is Death Valley the hottest place on Earth? I thought it would be somewhere on the equator.

[Assistant]
Low altitude, very dry weather.

Air gets cooler at high altitudes and warmer at low altitudes, which is why you see mountains with snow capped peaks, and Death Valley is 282 feet below sea level (far enough that you could have a 20 story building in Death Valley, and it's peak would just be at Sea Level), so that helps it get extremely hot.

Additionally, death valley is in the middle of a desert, and there is almost no humidity. Water vapor in the air, tends to make things not as hot in terms of peak temperature, and not as cold in terms of low temperature. Dry desert air on the other hand can have wild temperature swings because the solar energy all goes into changing the temperature (sensible heat) rather than changing the levels of the water in the air (latent heat). There is over a 30 degree temperature swing in Death Valley from night to morning, in other hot, but humid, areas like New Orleans or Houston, that temperature swing is closer to 20 degrees. Bigger temperature swings help with reaching higher high temperatures.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can a cactus in the desert live without water for 2+ years, but the cactus on my desk needs to be watered regularly?

I've heard it has something to do with conditions, but this seems counterintuitive since the desert conditions are much harsher (hotter, drier) than those in my house, so if anything you'd think it would require less water.

[Assistant]
Saguaro cactus are the only species of cactus that can go for more than a few months without water.  Very old, very large saguaro *can* live for years without water.  That doesn't mean that all old saguaro will survive - just that some will.  It also doesn't mean that younger, smaller saguaro will survive those conditions.

Most indoor cactus are not desert species - they come from the western regions of the US and Mexico that have a fairly unique climate.  Those regions get tremendous amounts of rain between October and April and 0 rain for the rest of the year.  But just because there is 0 rain doesn't mean there is 0 water in the soil.  The soil only totally dries out for a few weeks in August and September and those cacti store water all year in preparation for that.

Prior to August there is still *some* amount of moisture in the soil and one of the ways that cacti have evolved to deal with that climate is that they will develop root systems that are dozens of times the size of the cactus itself.  Those gigantic root systems allow the cactus to extract enough water from the soil to survive as long as there is some moisture in it.

When people grow cacti they typically give them the exact same amount of space as they would any other plant.  This prevents the cactus from growing its root system enough to survive on soil with a minimal moisture level like it could in the wild.

If you planted a cactus in an area where it had 200 square feet of soil all to itself then you would be able to just dump few feet of water on that area once a year and forget about it.  If, however, you treat a cactus like you would any other plant - IE, you plant it in a small area and give it small amounts of water at a time - then its going to have needs that are similar to other plants.


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

[User]
[BTTF] How did Biff originally help George and Lorraine McFly get together?

Okay so at the beginning of BTTF Lorraine claims Biff is the reason her and George are together.

But we later found out they met and fell in love after George fell out of a tree and got hit by Lorraine's father.

How exactly did Biff play into this?

Now, after Marty changes things, it's obvious how Biff played a part, as disturbing as it may be. But the only reason Biff showed up at that point in time and tried to force himself on Lorraine is because he was looking for Calvin Klein, whom did not exist in the original timeline.

[Assistant]
Biff was pursuing Lorraine aggressively and George allowed her to claim him as an S.O. to get biff off her back. In the alternate universe she tries to use marty for this purpose but fails and that causes biff to rape and "claim" her, likely getting her pregnant so he could control her.

The real question is what the fuck happens to Biff in the final timeline?


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

[User]
[The Hobbit] What was the Dwarves' Plan for Killing Smaug?

Did they even have a plan? They just show up to Erebor planning on taking some treasure and apparently never considering the problem of the giant near-indestructible dragon. What was Bilbo's involvement in their plan for killing Smaug if they had one?

[Assistant]
They didn't really have a plan to kill Smaug.

There was a remote hope that Smaug was dead, he had not been heard from for a while, so it was possible he had died.  Short of him being dead, Bilbo was brought to steal as much treasure as possible.  It was not a well thought out plan.


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

[User] ELI5:Why does Warren Buffet want to give all his money away to charity when he could just give it to the people that made it for him....the people that work in all his companies?

[Assistant]
It's because he knows the money will benefit MANY MORE people if it's given to charity than if it's just distributed to people that will spend it randomly and likely on exotic goods that just concentrate the wealth to the rich even more.

Warren's a philanthropist (someone that benefits causes through investment without getting a personal financial reward out of those gifts). His behaviours indicate he doesn't want to do or be the same things as many other rich people are - they defend their fortunes and enrich their kids as a primary goal, whereas he wants to give his fortune away.

So he doesn't want to create more rich people which is what financial gifts to his peeps would do. He wants to help as many people as possible, a much larger goal and a much larger gift of philanthropy.


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

[User] ELI5: How were cartographers able to make increasingly accurate world maps as early as in the 16th century, when we weren't even airborne?

[Assistant]
They used *triangulation*, or measuring triangle shapes. You start by picking two places, and measuring, with a measuring chain, rod or a trundle wheel, the distance between them. Then you choose a third point that you can see from both places, and measure all the angles. Then using mathematics, you can calculate the location of that third point. Then you keep on measuring angles from your known points to find the location of further points.

Eventually you have mapped out triangles all over your country, you know the shape of the triangles and the location of every point, and you can draw an accurate map of your country.


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

[User] [Star Wars] In The Last Jedi Yoda appears as force ghost to speak with Luke and make lighting strike a tree, setting it on fire. What stops him from appearing next to Kylo Ren, Snoke or even Darth Sidious and do the same but right on them in an attempt to kill them?

[Assistant]
Calling lightning from a cloudy sky on a rainy planet is one thing. Calling lightning from thin air inside a climate-controlled environment such as a spacecraft is quite another.

Nudging the weather a little sounds like it would be a lot easier than spontaneously manifesting lightning, especially when you've got no body and therefore no bioelectric field.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Why doesn't Ravenclaw win every House cup?

It mentioned in the first book that Slytherin had consistently won the House cup for many years before Harry's first year. If the main thing you get House points for is answering questions right in class, and the main thing you lose them for is breaking rules, why wouldn't Ravenclaw consistently dominate, since the most intelligent and academically inclined are (mostly) sorted there?

[Assistant]
So, you ask: "why don't the Ravenclaws win every time?"

But the real question we must consider to answer that question is: "Why does the point system and the house cup itself exist?"

They exist to act as both a carrot and a stick to students, in order to generate peer pressure to act better in class as a form of collective reward or punishment. We see this effect *directly* when our Heroes are shunned for losing a large number of points early on.

In other words, the house point system exists in order to leverage house-based competitiveness for the purposes of making students more engaged in classes.

Several conclusions can be drawn from these statements:

1. The system is not designed to deal with Ravenclaws. Ravenclaws are the students for whom academics is *already* their number one focus. Regardless of point gains or losses, standing within the house and acceptance within the house is already dependent on actually fulfilling the ideals of the house. That is: the house is defined as being a bunch of overachieving swots.

2. Because the system is not designed to deal with Ravenclaws, and will have little effect on a Ravenclaw's inherent swottyness, the professors are *intensely* aware that actually apportioning points based purely on student-swot-levels will inevitably lead to Ravenclaws winning every time.

3. Ravenclaws winning every time defeats the purpose of the entire point system, as it would quickly become apparent that no one else can win. If no one else can win, then there is no point in caring about the House Cup (as one can never win it) and thus there is no point in caring about house points. This is also why quidditch points feed into house points. To prevent Ravenclaws from dominating.

4. Therefore, Professors use the house point carrot and stick approach on the three houses that actually will respond to it. They may award Ravenclaw some points, but as everyone *expects* Ravenclaws to do well in class, them actually answering correctly is expected of them. When you are at the top of the Academic tower, the only place to go is *down.* Ultimately, the professors don't give Ravenclaws many points, because the other houses must always at least have the impression that they *could* be in the running for the point system to remain viable.

5. Ravenclaws are likely aware of this fact. Their only options are basically: Accept it and move on, or become less of a bunch of swots. Becoming less of a bunch of swots means becoming un-Ravenclaw. Therefore, the only real option is accept it and move on.

6. The above points are likely clear to at least older Ravenclaws, who likely explain it to the younger ones. The point system and the house cup are like someone putting a gold star next to your name: pure emotional manipulation without any actual reward. And it isn't even all academic: The only way Gryffindor and Slytherin are in the running is that they are better at Quidditch. The biggest reward a Ravenclaw can strive for is to **RUTHLESSLY CRUSH THE OTHER HOUSES ON THE O.W.L AND N.E.W.T EXAMS** because then we will show all these merlin damned mouth breathing idiots who is *truly* the better student *and* the better house. ^Morons ^taking ^the ^house ^point ^system ^seriously... *ahem.* Moving on.

Gryffindors like house points because they are competitive. Slytherins like house points because Gryffindors like house points, and damned if they are going to let Gryffindor have anything without a fight. Hufflepuffs enjoy the tiny bursts of endorphins from someone actually acknowledging their existence.

Or, to put it another way: Remember how the entire castle fell into anarchy and the point system lost all meaning when Umbridge was around and Slytherin was the only house with points? *That* is why you can't let one house dominate too much.

**TL;DR:**Ravenclaws accept that they will never win the House cup, because the entire system exists as a form of childish encouragement for the three houses where the children who have traits other than "smart" go.