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

[User]
[Borderlands]I just found sanctuary in Sanctuary(Heh) and everyone seems to hate that little Hyperion bot. Why?

Sure, he's awkward and a bit annoying, but he only tries to fit in. What's wrong with that guy? Is he dangerous?

[Assistant] Spend five minutes with him and you'll find out. You'll come to despise his voice, his attitude, his constant self-references, his coloration, the fact that he's ALWAYS under foot, and the entire concept of high fives.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can Ethernet data speeds be far greater than its bandwidth.

I'm currently doing a report on networking and have become really confused when it comes to the difference between data rate and bandwidth within Ethernet cables. Online it says that digital bandwidth is the amount of electrical pulses in 1 second. If that's the case, shouldn't the maximum data rate be equal to the maximum bandwidth? How can a Cat 6a Ethernet cable have 10 Gigabit speeds at a 500Mhz bandwidth? Maybe I've misunderstood this entirely.

[Assistant]
At it's most simple, each pulse is one bit per wire. But a cat 6 cable has (for Gigabit and 10Gigabit) 4 pairs. Each of those pairs can carry one signal at a time. And since it's not strictly restricted to digital signals (that is, it can be more than a 1 or 0), they can use pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) to make each "signal" represent more than one bit by encoding.

So while the most simple scheme might have +1V equal a binary 1 and 0V equal a binary 0, a simple PAM scheme might allow for more signals to be valid. Let's say a PAM scheme as four distinct levels, and they encode two bits per level. -1V might be 00, -.5V could be 01, +.5V could be 10 and +1V could be 11. Now each symbol represents two bits rather than one. 10GB Ethernet uses a scheme that allows for 16 distinct levels. It also uses other schemes to enable more symbols to get transmitted than one would expect at 500MHz rated cable, it actually sends at a peak of 800Msymbols/sec, and that's per pair.


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

[User]
[Watchmen] Why has no one ever tried to recreate the experiment that created Dr. Manhattan?

If Dr. Manhattan is the result of a man being disintegrated by a quantum field, why has no one ever tossed another guy in there to try and make Dr. M 2.0?

[Assistant]
Because while it appears to be a freak accident, Dr. Manhattan's creation is a lot of very carefully-placed parts coming together with picture perfect precision.

Jon Osterman is a nuclear physicist and engineer, and grew up gearing up to take over the family watchmaking business; a profession that requires knowledge, finesse, precision, and patience.  He leveraged these skills into his career, making him successful enough to work on the intrinsic field generator that would eventually rip him apart at the atomic level.  And if Dr. Jon Osterman knew anything, he knew atoms.  While it's still unclear why he lived when everyone else to fall into a similar generator died, it's clear that Dr. Manhattan had to piece himself back together atom by atom, tissue by tissue, bone by bone and piece by piece.  There were more failures than successes on this road.  But at the end of the day, Fate asked a man to put structures *in his wheelhouse* together using skills he'd had *since he was a boy*.  Nobody else in the world could've had that those cards to play at those times.

Dr. Manhattan is, in summary, the only one who *could* have become Dr. Manhattan.


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

[User] ELI5 How difficult is it to create silicon chips and why?

[Assistant] Silicon chips arent just silicon, we print on the chips using a process called photolithography, and this printing is incredibly precise. The details we lay on those chips are only a few atoms wide nowadays, and being able to get this level of precision is crazy hard.


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

[User] Why do we have two of certain organs while only one of certain others? What would an evolutionary reason to reject two hearts to one lung or one kidney to two livers for example be?

[Assistant] During embryo development there are lateral and midline structures.  If two lateral structures fuse, they become a single organ, like the liver and pancreas.  The heart starts as midline tube that folds on itself.  Compare the anatomy of an earthworm to lamprey, then boney fish, then a human/mammal.  This is very simplified.  Evolution does not favor efficiency or effectiveness, it only favors what worked in the last generation.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we need patents?

[Assistant]
First point to understand is that it is way easier to make something than it is to come up with the idea to make it.

People and companies often spend a lot of time and money thinking,  modeling,  prototyping, testing,  rethinking, etc before they come up with something people like enough to buy.

The government has decided that it appreciates this time and effort.  That because of this time and effort,  the public gets to have lots of cool stuff.

But there is a problem.  People go through that effort and invest the resources in large part because they think if they do end up worth something that the public wants,  they will be able to sell it and make money for themselves and their family or their company.

But remember point one.  The hard part of most products isn't making it,  it's coming up with it.  Without patents, people would just wait until an invention happens,  buy one,  make lots of copies, and undercut the original inventor (after all,  they don't have to make up for years of investment cost, so they can sell them cheaper.

If that happens too much, the government fears people will stop inventing.

At the same time,  one of the ways society progresses us improving on other people's designs.

So. .. patent us the compromise.  The government says "you tell us exactly how your product works,  we will make sure nobody copies it for a few years,  and in return,  when your time is up,  society can take your invention and tweak it to keep us progressing.


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

[User]
CMV: as a Mexican: People from "my culture" living in the US get way too mad about things that don't really bother us to an extent it is actually offensive.

Seeing "latino culture" defended by people as far from it as any other around them because it "belongs to them" just because of their ancestry has made me look into it as people pushing towards stereotypes harder than everyone else. Someone from another culture wants their tacos made in a way that they like? We get to see a buzzfeed article or video from a "Mexican" (who has clearly never been in Mexico) get mad about it while we eat carne asada sushi. As most of the countries in the continent, we have a wide mix of ancestors and races and some people just ignore that.

[Assistant]
This is an incredibly broad topic with nearly nothing to go on in the OP.

Is your view about a specific, real-life example? Can you link to it so we can review and respond to it?

Or do we have to conjure equally vague hypothetical scenarios in which someone is rightfully upset about latino culture being appropriated until you shift your view or abandon the thread?

If you truly want a discussion and are interested in changing your view, give us something to work with here.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the point of cutting up cancelled credit cards?

Unfortunately, I got my wallet stolen, but I was able to retrieve it back two days later with nothing taken (yay). The only annoying thing was that I had to call all of my credit card companies to cancel my cards the moment I found my wallet missing and request new cards to replace them.

In the midst of disposing my cancelled cards, I was thinking to myself what is the point. The cards are cancelled, so wouldn't it be useless if someone were to copy the information off these cards anyways? The best thing they can copy is probably my name, but it's as generic as John Smith.

I cut up all my old cards properly in the end, but I got curious: Is there a good, credit-threatening reason to cut up cancelled credit cards, since they are obsolete and shouldn't even work anymore?

[Assistant] It can be used to establish an identity, for one thing.  For example, a bank account requires two forms of I.D. (in the U.S).  A credit card with printed name is an acceptable secondary form of Identification.  Also, IIRC, the magnetic strip still contains the information on your account, and many identity thieves have machines that can read/manipulate the magnet strip.  The machines with the power to do so are sold on the free market.


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

[User]
[MCU] Why aren't there more Falcons?

My uncle was in the Air Force while the Avengers were active, and he said he was on base when Captain America and the Black Widow "allegedly" broke in and stole a high-tech wing suit *very* similar to the one used by the Falcon.

He said there were at least two of those things though, and probably more than that knowing military manufacturing. So why aren't there more Falcon-style operators out there? What happened to those other suits?

[Assistant]
Didn't they introduce him as a part of a unit? But then talked about an experimental piece of equipment he was training to use, I'd say you have the men to do it around the air force, but the equipment isn't that safe or easy to use by anyone, he's probably one if not THE best airforce pilot around, that's why he's able to use it.

BUT, it's worth considering that the Falcon kinda devoted himself to Cap's team over the Army, unlike Rhodes, so the suit was probably enhanced by Tony to get where it is now.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do guys like boobs?

I know not everyone likes the same size of boobs. and I'm sure there are some guys out there that don't like boobs. But in my experience we males typically like boobs. Why is this? Is there some kind of evolutionary advantage that certain size boobs have over other boobs? Or is it just a convenient place to have a fat deposit?

[Assistant]
Back when we were walking like apes on all fours, we could easily look at each other's butt, and judge the fertility, but once we started to walk upright, it wasn't in plain view anymore, so we started selecting based on what we could see instead. Breasts are a nice indicator for fertility, because they promise more milk for the baby and fat storage, so the females evolved to always have large breasts, instead of only during pregnancy like other mammals.

So boobs are basically a replacement butt. We still like butts, though, because nature never cleans up old code.


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

[User] [Marvel] Taskmaster can instantly and perfectly memorize and duplicate other people's fighting techniques. If he watched a few experts playing Halo or League of Legends for a bit, could he sit down and be a master of those games?

[Assistant]
Taskmaster's skill is defined as:

>Taskmaster injected himself with SS-Hauptsturmfhrer Horst Gorschts primer, an elaborate modification of the adrenal steroid cortisol designed to unlock the minds procedural memory potential. The Taskmaster thus gained the ability to absorb knowledge instantaneously. This ability is linked to his muscle memory, allowing the Taskmaster to instantly replicate the physical movement of peak-level humans. Using these "photographic reflexes", the Taskmaster is highly skilled in various forms of combat, as an exceptional martial artist (mimicking Elektra, Iron Fist, Shang-Chi), a skilled swordsman (Black Knight, Silver Samurai, Swordsman), a deadly accurate marksman (Captain America with a shield, Hawkeye with a bow and arrow, Punisher with firearms, and Bullseye with various projectiles) as well as displaying a strenuously honed athletic ability (Black Panther, Daredevil).

Because he is able to use this person's skills as they would normally use the skill, in reaction to stimuli that trigger the response, it seems that Taskmaster could immediately become a master of any video game after watching an expert.


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

[User] [Death Note] Did the Death Note reveal Light's true character or did it corrupt him by twisting his ideal of achieving justice?

[Assistant]
I always viewed it as that It brought the flaws in his moral compass to light (no pun intended) whether you consider what happened after he started using the death note more intensely if it was 'corruption of self' or 'flawed character' is more a philosophical debate without a clear answer.
He lacked empathy and compassion for those he considered in the wrong.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why exactly are back pains so common as people age?

Why is it such a common thing, what exactly causes it?
(What can a human do to ensure the least chances they get it later in their life?)

[Assistant] Keep in mind that humans are pretty unique in our vertical torso set up. Most other animals have the weight of their bodies relatively evenly distributed across 4 points. We put all the weight of supporting our upper half on our lumbar. Even in the best of conditions, problems are bound to happen.


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

[User] [General Fiction] Why do so many characters throwaway a sword just cause the tip or top half of the blade os broken when the rest of it is still useful as a blade ?

[Assistant]
Often enough when a blade is broken, there are larger structural damages going on. Seldom do you see a perfect clean snap, usually there's issues with the tempering, a bad job at welding, or a bad fold somewhere. Delamination is also possible resulting in a weak point. In any case, even if *part* of it broke, you can't be sure that there's no *other* damage that could cause it to fail catastrophically at some point.

Often in these cases, the character is either on a battlefield were they can grab a different weapon from a fallen combatant (not that they do all that often) or else in a situation where they have to run away. If they need to run away, the extra weight is just a bother and again, a risk to use in combat.

Now there's plenty of cases where perhaps the sword may still be fine after being broken, especially in a case of emergency, but it's generally not the sort of thing a trained warrior is going to rely on. Much better to discard the broken weapon and rely on a secondary weapon, grab a fallen weapon, or get away and get a new one when it's safe.


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

[User]
CMV: It should be illegal for US Senators or Congressmembers to hire a tax accocuntant or tax attorney to do their taxes.

These people are responsible for writing the tax law in the first place. That's an important part of thier jobs.  If they can't do it without help then either, 1) they aren't competent to be writing tax laws, and they should be fired, or 2) they are writing laws that are far too complex, therefore, they are just doing a poor job and should be fired.

If they try to make the argument that they *could* do it but it just takes too much of their valuable time, see #2 above. Everyone's time is valuable. Make simpler tax laws.

edit:  \[Thank you to everyone who posted comments & questions here. This was my first attempt at posting on CMV and i'm happy with the result. It has helped me think about my views on this. Clearly I admit "make it illegal" is a step too far. My feelings are rooted in two basic problems, the tax code for individuals is far too complicated as a result of being incrementally modified over years and years of tweaking. The results are 1) is wastes the time of everyone who files taxes 2) it makes it easier for unethical filers to hide things. If members of congress did thier own, i think this would incentivize them to re-write from scratch and simplify the tax system.

I have some homework to do... to study more about the delta system on CMV. I'll make sure to do that before the next time I post so that i can hand out some deltas to deserving comments nest time.

Thank you.\]

[Assistant]
Do surgeons perform surgeries on themselves?

There is a big difference between drafting tax legislation and utilizing tax legislation. Drafting tax legislation is a highly political process, while the preparation of taxes is a highly technical process. These two processes require different skill sets and that is why politicians need to hire the respective individuals to assist them. Additionally, there is also a difference between a tax accountant vs. a tax attorney as they are not synonymous occupations and consequently require different albeit similar skill sets and certifications.


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

[User]
[Avatar] Does Bumi personally pass judgement on every single crime that goes on in Omashu?

Aang and his gang were merely a bunch of kids messing around but that seemed to warrant the judgement of the head of state.

Also bear in the mind that Bumi did not know it was the Avatar until he saw Aang's face.

[Assistant]
They may have been a bunch of kids messing around, but they were messing around with critical city infrastructure when they were riding the chutes. This is what got Bumis attention.

Think of it like how (at least in the US) what would normally be misdemeanor larceny suddenly becomes a felony on the federal level when it involves mail delivered by the US postal service.


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

[User]
ELI5:When training anaerobic exercise over a period of time, what physiologically is changing in your muscles that causes imroovement?

I have been working on improving my health. I read about glucose, ATP, oxygen delivery etc. But when I am cross training and pushing myself, what is happening in my muscles? Do you grow more capillaries to deliver more oxygen to clear waste? Lactate forms, and exercising with lactate present improves muscle "tolerance" to it. But again, what is improving? Does your body produce more enzymes?

Edit: I want to differentiate the training I am talking about versus traditional "over loading" weight lifting (muscles get bigger)

[Assistant] You've probably heard of 'mitochondria' which are the power convertors in your cells. The analogy is a bit simplistic, but you can think of them like batteries. Aerobic conditioning causes your cells to make more batteries, connected in parallel, so you can maintain effort longer. Anaerobic conditioning causes mitochondria to fuse together. In other words, it takes the batteries and joins them end to end, in series, so you can produce higher peak effort.


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

[User] Do any planets in the solar system, create tidal effects on the sun, similarly to the moon's effect of earth?

[Assistant]
Yes, but it's very, *very* small.

The reason is that while the tidal force scales linearly with the forcing body's mass, it also scales inversely as the distance *cubed*.

Let's scale our units so that the **Tidal Force of the Moon on the Earth = 1**. In those relative units, the rest of the planets' tidal forces on the Sun shake out as...

Planet | Planet/Moon mass ratio | Distance-to-Sun / Earth-Moon ratio| Relative Tidal Force
:--|:-:|:-:|:-:
Mercury|4.47|151|1.30 x 10^-6
Venus|66.3|282|2.96 x 10^-6
Earth|81.2|390|1.37 x 10^-6
Mars|8.74|593|4.19 x 10^-8
Jupiter|25800|2030|3.08 x 10^-6
Saturn|7730|3730|1.49 x 10^-7
Uranus|1180|7480|2.82 x 10^-9
Neptune|1390|11700|8.68 x 10^-10

In other words, **the largest tidal force on the Sun comes from Jupiter** (with Venus a close runner-up), and **it's 325,000x weaker than the tidal force exerted on the Earth by the Moon.**


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

[User]
[Avengers: Infinity War] if it came to it, would the Hulk let Banner die?

In the first Avengers, Bruce talks about a suicide attempt that the Hulk stopped, would he save Bruce again if he was actively dying at Wakanda?

[Assistant]
I feel like Endgame confirms that, regardless of what they think of each other, Hulk and Banner *are* the same person. It's natural that Banner wants to think of his rage and capacity for destruction as not him, and for Hulk to think of the milquetoast wimp as not *him*, but it's not the truth.

Professor Hulk in Endgame is not just Banner's personality in Hulk's body, the two are at peace and *one* now. That's why he's more boisterous and likes to interact with fans; Hulk enjoyed being a celebrity on Sakaar, and so BannerHulk enjoys it now.


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

[User]
[MCU] Could Mantis be an Eternal?

There are some captivating theories that Mantis could be half-Celestial, one of Ego's "battery children" and technically Peter Quill's half sister. While I find those interesting, I ultimately think Mantis would remember the attempt to use her as a battery; she is familiar with the countless attempts on Ego's other children.

However, there is something I find interesting about her backstory. Ego has discarded countless numbers of **his own children**, so why was it that he came across an orphaned bug girl and it somehow melted his heart? Mantis was in her larval state, according to her own recounting of the story. Would Ego have known she had useful powers? The story definitely does not add up the way Mantis recalls it.

I guess I am wondering whether it is possible that Ego, as a Celestial himself, may have had access to an Eternal or was able to corrupt one that he encountered. Their memories seem particularly susceptible to tampering, so even though Ego is not Arishem, could he have repurposed one of the Eternals for his own ends? Could Mantis be an immortal space robot?

[Assistant] That's actually not a bad theory. We've already seen one Eternal who can interact with the minds of others, so it would he a good explanation for her powers. And it would explain why she was able to calm a being as powerful as Ego; much like what happened with Tiamut, she formed a link with Ego and that enabled her to draw on his power.


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

[User]
ELI5 how nature shows are filmed.

I was watching a polar bear show where they showed a wide angle shot of the bear chasing a seal and you couldn't see a camera anywhere else; the next frame was from the polar bears point of view. There are a lot of other things I couldn't explain.

[Assistant]
Look for "Planet Earth Diaries" on YouTube to see some behind the scenes footage of a high budget nature doc.

Also keep in mind that these docs tend to play a lot looser with editing than you are allowed with normal shows. If you cut from a shot of one human to a shot of a different human from another day, we notice. Do the same with a bird or bear and it just looks like a cut to a different shot.


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

[User]
CMV: Defunding the police may boost other aspects of life, but it doesn't solve the police issue. It makes it worse.

I see many people saying that police need to be better trained, better recruitment standard and better equipment (non lethal options and nonstop bodcams). I see the same people saying to defund police.

Better training costs money. For example, the police academy for ATL PD is 35 weeks I've learned. That's eight months. How do you suggest we offer better training with less resources?

Better recruitment requires better incentives for more highly qualified candidates to apply. I dont understand how we can attract better candidates with less resources to incentivize them with.

As far as equipment goes.. same kind of question. How do we make these options plausible with less resources?

I am a big advocate of reallocating funds to a lot of the important areas that people say defunding police will impact. I do not think that defunding the police, however, is an acceptable place to take those funds from.

Asking in good faith. This is not a gotcha post.

Edit: super interested in this post, will be back in a couple hours to answer all responses! Thanks for all the feedback so far!

Edit: got through another round a responses, more to come in a bit! Thanks again!

[Assistant]
Even if we doubled the amount of training police receive, they would never catch up to the amount of training that social workers have, which is one of the reasons it doesn't make sense to make police the first responders with people who are having mental health crises, homeless, or suffering from addiction. Social workers are the ones who have expertise in understanding those issues and communicating with desperate, vulnerable people.

Sometimes we *will* need someone armed, but that's not actually the majority of these calls. Let's say a department's current practice is to send 2 officers whenever they get a call about a person having a mental health crisis. One possible defunding option would be to send 1 cop and 1 social worker instead of 2 cops.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What was the "point of no return" in the book series when the ministry of magic could still have won the war against Voldemort? What actions would have been necessary and what strategy would have worked?

It is often stated in the books that the ministry wasted a lot of time and power with covering up events, to "keep everyone calm".

So, was there a "point of no return" in the book series before the ministry of magic could still have won the war against Voldemort? When was it?
What specific actions would have been necessary? What general strategy would have worked?

Bonus question: If Dumbledore had just accepted the offers to become Minister of magic, and thus giving him all the ministry's ressources, could he have found and destroyed all horcruxes to defeat Voldemort?

[Assistant] Dumbledore as Minister would've been bogged down with managing so many idiots. He knew that the best thing he could do was help the next generation *not* be such a bunch of turd-mangling buttheads. Which kind of answers your main question. No way was any kind of progress going to happen with that incumbent crop of incompetents.


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

[User]
[Red notice] how did the car have gas in it .

How did the car  in the nazi vault have working gas in it?

[Assistant] The Nazi treasure chamber was pumped full of high-pressure inert gas and sealed to protect some of the more delicate pieces from degrading. This stopped the gasoline in the cars from oxidizing and tires from leaking over the decades.


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

[User]
ELI5 If in most cases "death" directly implies the lack of oxygen supply to the brain then why can't we develop a technology that directly provides oxygen to the brain in worst-case scenarios to prevent any shortage at all?

I'll make my question a little more clear. As far as I read, whenever a person is about to die, all that's happening is that their heart stops beating which in turn stops the brain's access to oxygen.

I read that it is possible to revive a dead person within 3 minutes of heart-beat-stopping as the brain usually has a 3 minute backup oxygen supply.

Why have there not been any research or investments in developing a technology like the "defibrillator" which revives the heart, but instead to keep the brain alive?

Also, question part 2: why does the brain die in 3 minutes? Why can't it be revived?

[Assistant]
There are technologies that provide oxygen to your brain/body after your heart has stopped.

How do you think they keep people alive during heart transplants that take hours?

The problem is that these machines arent small or portable. And to use them you have to tap into the blood vessels that travel to and from the brain. In order to artificially pump oxygen through the brain.

So, even if you were able to take the large machines in hospitals that replace hearts, and make it small and portable. You would still have to have emergency responders cutting open the patients neck in order to insert the tubes in the necessary vessels leading to the brain.  This would be a very dangerous and complex thing to do, even in an emergency room.

This is why chest compressions, which pump the heart by hand, are recommended for any amateurs/normal people trying to help someone with a stopped heart. Its an easy and minimally invasive way to keep blood flowing to the brain.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes my brain go "I don't know how to do this therefore I don't want to do it"?

[Assistant]
1) Fear of the unknown.  An evolutionary instinct we are born with.

2) Fear of failure.  A sociological reaction we learn.

3) Sloth/Laziness.  Don't want to invest the effort required to learn this new thing.

4) Combination of 1, 2, & 3.  Most likely answer.  Nothing is so simple.


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

[User]
ELI5 Why do hangovers get markedly worse as we get older?

Currently feel like a jackhammer is going thru my skull. Curious about the science behind it.

[Assistant] More acetaldehyde (extremely toxic and makes you feel horrible) is released into the blood because the liver can't process alcohol as efficiently with age. Drink lots of water (with electrolytes added) and try something like Drinkwel. Works wonders for me.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why was Anakin in on so many Council meetings during the Clone Wars?

He's in on many of the hologram messages and informal meetings between Council members, and he's there for most of the military meetings. Was he on some war council or somethint? Were the Council keeping an eye on him? Grooming him to one day join the Council? Was it because he was the Chosen One?

[Assistant]
> Were the Council keeping an eye on him?  ... Was it because he was the Chosen One?

Sort of. He's a protege of a member of the Council - Obi-Wan, and a powerful and (relatively) competent Jedi Knight in his own right. He has ear of Chancellor Palpatine, and one of the most prominent generals in the war. So his input is valued, and when it isn't it's better to know what he's up to immediately, and not post-factum.


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

[User] ELI5: How can drinking your urine in a survival situation save you if your body has already discarded it as waste?

[Assistant]
Urine is almost entirely water.  Other than water, it has a very small amount of urea and a measurable but insignificant amount of other stuff, like salt, in it.

Urea is the big thing that your body tries to get rid of by peeing.  Your body produces urea, which is harmless at low concentrations but poisonous if there is too much in your blood.

Your kidneys have the ability to process a huge amount of urea - far more than your body normally produces.  When you drink urine you reabsorb that urea and your kidneys have to filter it back out of your blood.  But because of how much excess capacity your kidneys have, they're able to keep the amount of urea in your blood low despite drinking a few urinations worth of urine.

That being said, every time you drink urine the concentration of urea in your urine increases.  Eventually you will get to the point where the urea in your urine is so concentrated that your kidneys can't deal with it and it rises to poisonous concentrations in your blood.

Urine is also essentially sterile, and so its otherwise safe to drink your own urine.  In fact, one of the ways that people cheat drug tests is by injecting urine from someone who doesn't do drugs into their bladder.

Its not necessarily sterile if the person who it came from has a bladder infection or certain diseases, such as hepatitis, so while its normally safe to drink urine its not a good idea if you don't know the person who it came from.


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

[User] What exactly is happening when my ears "pop"?

[Assistant] Inside your ear canal is a flap of skin that closes the inner ear off from outside world called the ear drum. Behind the ear drum is an enclosed air space. The pressure inside that air space can be different from the outside air and this causes pain. When the pressure is finally equalized the ear drum snaps back into its regular place and you hear a "pop".


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

[User] ELI5: Why is our brain programmed to like sugar, salt and fat if it's bad for our health?

[Assistant]
As humans, we're only separated by about ~20,000 years from our hunter/gatherer ancestors. That period of time is extremely short in terms of evolution so although we live completely different lifestyles, our bodies have not changed much.

We crave sugar, fat, and salt because they were "healthy" back in those days just because of how rare those things were to our hunter/gatherer ancestors. Being able to eat the calorie dense sugar and fats means that we would be able to survive more days without food, improving our overall "health." We needed salt to replenish all the salts lost through sweat because humans are built for endurance running (early human hunters would jog along until the prey runs out of energy). The humans who didn't crave sugars, fats, and salt would not build up enough energy and wouldn't survive as well as those who did crave them.

Nowadays, the food industry takes advantage of our primitive brain cravings to sell us more food. Normally, a person only eats a constant amount of food. If that was the case, for the food industry, the profits will never increase. They have to make people eat more food to generate profits. Thus, there is a strong incentive to put more sugars, fats, and salt in our foods so we eat more of it, regardless if it was healthy for us.


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

[User]
Could multiple Earth-like planets form in the same band of a habitable zone?

Could Mars have turned out nearly exactly like Earth? Basically what would answer my root question is "How many Earth like planets could be crammed into a single habitable zone?"

[Assistant]
I believe Venus and Mars are both technically inside of the sun's habitable zone, but Venus has a runaway greenhouse effect and Mars' core is dead and unable to generate a magnetic field meaning it is unable to retain an atmosphere due to cosmic radiation stripping it away.  So our sun has 3 planets that under different circumstances could be habitable.

As to how many planets could fit inside a zone, it depends on the type of star and what its energy output is.  Also, Having too many planets inside the habitable zone or in close proximity to one another could cause long term problems in their orbits as they tug on one another over millions of years.


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

[User]
[Warhammer 40k] What is the least Grimdark part of 40k currently?

In the grim future where there is only war, what is the least grimdark part of the universe in the modern age of 40k? I do not mean what was once not so dark, I mean currently what is the least not dark. This can be a person, group, planet, item, food, city, animal anything. As long as it is the least grimdark, it does not have to be bright and happy, just not as soul crushingly awful as most of the galaxy in current 40k.

[Assistant]
Specific example: The Orders Hospitaller is a division of the Adeptus Sororitas that is dedicated to providing medical services to all (loyal and human) who need it. They're often attached to armies, where they're the most compassion a soldier can receive, and deploy to disaster areas or war zones to provide emergency care and relief.

On the big scale, the galaxy and Imperium are *systematically* awful; the constant war, oppressive rule, ceaseless threats, massive tithe burdens, and uncaring bureaucracy are terrible. No doubt about that. Genocide, oppression, a universal mindset of superstition and xenophobia, billions dying a day as armies of billions more are raised, and - worst of all - it may all be necessary.

But lots of people don't live that day to day. Most don't even know that space travel is possible, let alone keep up with the horror of current events. Their lives are much, much smaller than that. Little moments and little people are where you find the least grimdarkness.

Shopkeepers who believe in an honest deal and are looking forward to closing up for the night so they can play with their kids. A squad of guardsmen wordlessly pass around a bottle of hooch they found in a ruined building. A hive dweller surprises his wife with a special meal he's been saving up for - real meat and vegetables. Old friends run into each other on the street and grab a caff to catch up. Void dwellers solemnly paint wards on their skin in preparation for a funeral. A battle-hardened ganger in the underhive, who's never seen sunlight and has fought to stay alive every day since birth, cracks dirty jokes with their gang buddies. Clergy in the Imperial Cult - between litanies of hate for the xenos, mutant, and witch - work in soup kitchens and alms houses.

A Company of Space Marines give their lives guarding an evacuation of a strategically useless civilian city. A merchant captain sells his shipment of wheat well below cost to alleviate a famine. A planetary governor tirelessly pushes through reforms to provide for the most destitute of her people.

Even the most paranoid, hateful, overburdened (even if justifiably so) Inquisitors occasionally have to take a day to just lock the door, turn off the vox, soak in a hot bath, read a book, and go to bed early.

The Imperium is inhumane, but it's still a *human* empire, and in between all of the hate and fear and death and poverty are human beings doing all the other things humans do: making friends, building families, having sex, trying to grab the bar tab from each other, putting little kids on their shoulders, gossiping about neighbors, and just sitting quietly together for a few minutes.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do cookies that start out as cubes become round when they are baked?

[Assistant]
As it bakes, the cookie flattens and expands in all other directions more-or-less equally. Because it's basically melting rather than growing, it expands from the center of mass and not from the edges.

Note, this only works with cookies that start out relatively thick and have a good amount of fat. If you cut prepackaged cookies in half, or made cubes out of a leaner dough, they'd end up more square.


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

[User]
[Aliens] Gorman is replaced by a seasoned vet lieutenant.

How does the mission on lv-426 play out? Would the squad survive?

This might be the wrong sub. Give it a go anyway.

[Assistant]
Gorman actually didn't do too bad with the information he had.  Some mistakes, sure but some of the key stuff wasn't really his fault.
The first big blow was the loss of the dropship.  He had nothing to do with that, and no way to know to tell them to do anything other than follow standard procedure, so that part still happens.
A more seasoned officer might have been better prepared to go after the colonists, but that was kind of a no-win scenario for anybody, what with the inability to use any kind of effective weaponry down there combined with the fact that you do have to go check it out.
Of course, a seasoned vet wouldn't have flipped out and let Ripley take control of the APC, keeping her from blowing the transaxle, and preserving that bit of equipment for use the rest of the time.  That would've helped a lot.
Burke's fucking about is another key factor in the mission's outcome that Gorman had nothing to do with, so a lot of the end game probably plays out much the same.
At the end of the day, it's hard to say that it would've gone that much differently under different command.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do submarines have to surface at all? Can't they just operate underwater for the entire length of the mission, especially if they are nuclear-powered?

I have heard that diesel engines cannot remain submerged for a long time, so they have to surface very frequently. But what is it they actually do by surfacing?

Also, I understand that nuclear submarines can stay underwater for a long time, but even they do surface once in a while. My question is - why? Why do they have to do that? Can't they remain submerged during the entire mission?

[Assistant]
A diesel engine needs a source of oxygen, to burn with the diesel to power the engine. They can't store enough oxygen for long term running. Indeed, most diesel subs only use the diesel engines when at the surface or at periscope depth, pulling air down to run the engine to power the craft and to charge batteries, and when submerged they run solely on battery power.

But nuclear subs can stay submerged for as long as they can keep the crew fed (and sane). They can generate water by desalination, oxygen by electrolysis of water, and the CO is removed by scrubbers that are regenerated using heat - all driven by the power output of the reactor.


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

[User]
CMV I think that Personality test on job applications should be Illegal.

I think that they are not designed to find the best applicant for the job, rather they are designed to find the most docile persons so that they can be exploited harder without any resistance. Consistent questions asking about if you feel that "Rules are meant to be broken" and so forth are not there to see if you are able to reason, rather to see if you are a candidate for total subordination. This means that people that are best suited for the job are less likely to have a chance at that job, and it only encourages people to lie to get a job.

Also they are simply intrusive into the personal live of the applicant, which is where they go from simply despicable to needing to be regulated. They ask personal questions that will be kept on file regardless if the company will hire the applicant and could be used against that person in a later time possibly. The right to privacy to the individual is needed to be protected at this point.

I also think the argument of " well simply don't apply to those places" is false. The large corporations that have implemented these programs have also used there lobbyist to create laws that have given them massive advantages. Those few company's control so many jobs that large populations areas are many times left with those jobs being the only ones available. So it is in fact cohesion, and they have all acted as a trust to implement such things and insure there is no job competition that would not be doing the same.

[Assistant] Honestly, you're reading way too much into it.  Most employers who use that test are retailers, and they only use it for entry level/minimum wage type jobs.  It's more there to test if the person applying for the job is paying attention and/or an idiot.   Think of it like a dumbed down version of "what's your biggest weakness" in interviews.  No one cares, it's just to make sure you know how to answer.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the car engine sound louder and high pitched in reverse?

[Assistant]
It's not the engine that makes that noise in reverse, it's the gear box

Reverse gears in cars are often straight-cut gears which make that characteristic whining noise.

Forward gears are usually helical meaning that the gear teeth are cut at an angle. This makes them stronger and quieter.

Straight cut gears are a lot easier to make than helical gears and since Reverse is rarely used by comparison of the forward gears then can get away with using cheaper gears.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] What do the witches and wizards use for birth control?

Muggle contraceptives? A spermicide potion? A fetus deletus spell? Also, how do the teens learn of these things?  Is it from older students, a library book, their parents?

[Assistant]
Simply put, we don't know.

It's likely that there are contraceptive charms, as that'd be the most practical choice. Alternatively, since it could be dangerous for an unpracticed witch/wizard to cast charms at their own reproductive organs, there probably are products that are vetted by the Ministry of Magic for contraception, such as contraceptive potions (similar in effect to Muggle pills but easier to use/more effective)

Since the wizarding community seems kinda culturally behind the times, talking about sex and contraception could be taboo, so teenagers would have to learn it on the down-low from older friends or books they check-out from the library under the judging gaze of a tutting Madam Pince.


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

[User] ELI5: Adderall and Xanax are both addictive substances. Why is it that Adderall causes mild withdraw symptoms, if any, while Xanax induces a potentially lethal withdraw?

[Assistant]
They have different mechanisms of action, the common denominator of being addictive doesn't really say a whole lot.

Xanax is GABAergic, which is something most depressants share: they act on a specific type of receptor causing disinhibition and sedation because there's more GABA (a chemical that stops and slows down processes so to speak) floating around.

Adderal/amphetamine is a stimulant which causes more adrenaline, and dopamine most notably to be produced, responsible for increased energy and in many cases anxiety and agitation opposite to that of a GABAergic drug.

Withdrawing from adderal normally just means you feel shitty and crave more from the dopamine crash; not immediately life threatening. GABA on the other hand is essential for tonnes of important functions in your body, and if your body's used to having more of it, then it doesn't work as effectively at baseline.


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

[User]
[MCU/DCEU/FOX] As it stands right now, what is the most conceivable way for a crossover to happen between the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DC Extended Universe (+ TV Shows), and the Fox Marvel Universe?

Assuming the studios decided to do a huge crossover, who would be the most 'realistic' catalyst to make it happen?

The TV Flashes? Doctor Strange? The Flash in the Justice League? Or a Mutant from Fox? Could someone from the MCU with an Infinity Stone do it?

[Assistant]
The easiest would be the tv Flashes, as they have already been established as being able to breach the dimensional barrier between parallel universes (eg, when going to Supergirl's universe).

Of course, select mutants or Doctor Strange or the right Infinity Stone could also probably do it, but the Flashes are easiest because they definitely have already done it before. If a catalyst for conflict is needed, then there's even 'evil' speedsters that could be the ones to breach into the other universes as well.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do movies turn into hispanic soap operas on my HD television?

Do they just up the frame rate? Do they forge it into 1080p? I just don't get it, and it really bothers me for some reason. I'd rather just watch it standard--it changes the whole feel of the film, especially with this whole pseudo-3D thing.

[Assistant] You have motion interpolation turned on. Go through your TV menu and turn it off. (The name given to the process varies from TV to TV. Sony calls it Motionflow, Samsung call it Automotion, Panasonic call it IFC, LG call it Truemotion.)


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

[User]
ELI5: How do beer cans (and pop cans) open without a sharp edge?

I've cut aluminum before and that stuff can be sharp. Yet I have never cut myself on a can. How!?

[Assistant]
The amount of engineering that goes into the opening on coke cans and coke bottles is mind boggling. Ever single line is at a very precise angle to make it work. When you lift the tab on a can it flexes the top. If it was just simple leverage the tab would bend before the can opened, but the flexing of the top causes the score to break first.

When you cut something you pinch down on it till it shears. This pinch creates an edge. A coke top basically rips open along a scored path. There is no pinching action.


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

[User]
[MCU] Considering how different yet similar the MCU is to our universe, which big events that happened in our's did not happend in their's?

For example - did 9/11 happen? Was Osama killed? Did Hitler still kill himself? Were the big protests around the world a thing?

[Assistant]
Tony was selling the US weapons in Afghanistan, so 9/11, or some variation if 9/11, probably happened.

The major point of departure for MCU earth seems to be Tony Stark going public as Iron Man.

There are others, of course, including the Asgardians fucking around in Norway a few hundred years ago, but the impact seems to be limited. Even the differences in World War II had relatively little impact.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does a pigeon's head move when it walks?

[Assistant]
Notice that the pigeon has its eyes on the side of its head, not two at the front like we do. They are effectively looking out each side, but with one eye. Two eyes are required for depth perception. You, with binocular vision (two eyes at the front), can tell how far away something is because your brain calculates the angle yours eyes make when you look at an object.

Pigeons can't do this, because their eyes can't see the same objects. They're on the opposite side of thier head. To percieve depth, the pigeon bobs his/her head. This makes close objects move more than distant objects in the pigeons view.

Try closing one eye and moving your head side to side. See if you can tell how far away things are, relatively. Now try bobbing your head forward and back. It doesnt work, right? You need to move in a sideways direction relative to the line of sight for that eye.


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

[User]
How exactly do electromagnetic waves carry data through the air?

I've been under the impression that radios signals are turned on and off rapidly to represent 1's and 0's. Am I correct or is data transmitted somehow else entirely?

Edit: To clarify, I'm talking about all wireless technologies, such as wifi and Bluetooth.

[Assistant] Turning the signal on or off (or more precisely varying the amplitude) is called amplitude modulation (AM) and is one way to transmit data. A more common way for high data rates is frequency modulation (FM), where the frequency of the signal is shifted a fraction of a carrier frequency. E.g. in WiFi the main signal is 2.4 GHz, and the signal will modulate a few MHz around that carrier.


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

[User] ELI5: what is the difference between a producer, executive producer and director?

[Assistant]
Generally speaking, the executive producer is the one who brought a fundamental piece of the equation with them. Usually, that means funding, but it can also be intellectual property or copyrights. They may or may not be hands-on with actually making the media.

The Producer is the person who actually coordinates the production. Things like budgeting, hiring managers, negotiation, supervision- the business side primarily, although they often have creative input. They sometimes finance, sometimes don't.

Directors are the creative side. They oversee the actual shooting of the media. They position cameras, dictate how shots will flow, tell actors where to stand, how to act, and when to say their lines. They tell the emotion, the lighting, where the sound guy is putting his mic, etc.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40000] As a first Lieutenant in the Navy what are my expected duties, perks, benefits and conditions of life?

[Assistant] "Execution hour" is a formidable source of info about the life style of high command aboard Navy ships. You are a mere cog in the machine and are utterly expandable like any other guy in the Imperium but you have a private cabin and decent meals. Tradition says you can keep a whore locked in your room for your free time (no, seriously). For the rest, you basically belong to the ship and follow orders to the letter. Or face the ship commissar.


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

[User] ELI5: why do we tear up when we laugh for a long time?

[Assistant]
It is because the drainage (lacrimal) duct is compressed from us screwing up our face, therefore your normal amount of lacrimal (eye) fluid cannot drain away and thus it overflows onto your face. This duct goes from the inner eye to the nose (thus why you get a runny nose when you cry).

In reply to the hormonal response, tears do contain endorphins that make you happier.


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

[User] Do most flying insects share a common ancestor? Or did multiple different species evolve to fly independently?

[Assistant]
True flight is an extremely rare and difficult feat in terms of evolution. All known instances of flight in animals can trace its origin back to one of 4 sources (insects, birds, bats, and pterosaurs), and of those only birds are particularly **efficient** fliers.

All flying insects can trace their wings to a single source.


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

[User]
Do people require acclimation for descending into the earth the same way they require it when climbing a mountain?

First, Id like to say Im not sure if the flair Im using is the most accurate and appropriate for my question. Ive started out with biology, but if another flair would be more appropriate please let me know and Ill change it promptly.

Ive always wondered what sort of acclimation a relatively straight descent into earth would require. When I Google underground acclimation, however, I mostly hear about acclimating to the heat as you descent (which is another good thing to learn about and an important factor).

I understand that as you descend underground, you get an increase in pressure. My question: would you need to make occasional stops to adjust to the change in pressure as you go deeper underground? And an additional question, if Im allowed: on your way up from being underground, would you need to make occasional stops for the same reason?

[Assistant]
You don't need to acclimatise to higher pressures in the way you need to do for lower pressures.

An extreme example is diving.  Divers can go down at the rate they like without many issues (gas mixes may need to change) but need to be careful coming up so they don't reduce pressure to quickly and get the bends.

If you went down a deep enough hole you would need to be careful coming up.


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

[User] ELI5: How did courier birds throughout history know where to deliver their letter?

[Assistant]
Courier birds were usually "carrier pigeons". You put a "coop" - basically a box with some straw and a few small doors - up on your rooftop and raised a pigeon in it, and it made that box its home.

Then comes the secret. Pigeons have excellent sense that help them navigate long distances. They can use the earth's magnetic field to find their way home once released from pretty much anywhere else, even if they don't have anything visual to look at as clues for direction.

So, once your pigeon makes your coop its home, you take that pigeon to some other location, maybe send it to the front lines of the current battle, or to a different city. There it stays until it's needed to carry a message. Then your agent at that location ties a message to its leg and releases it, and it flies home, delivering the message.

Fun fact: pigeons also make excellent smugglers, and have been used to bring small quantities of drugs over borders.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Can a Jedi/Sith use the force to press the "off button" on an opponent's lightsaber?

[Assistant]
Technically, yes, Yoda turned off Ventress' sabers in an early episode of  The Clone Wars.

The real issue is: can they do it in the middle of combat? That answer is probably no - the effort and concentration it takes to locate the switch and flip it while at the same time blocking and avoiding attacks is too much for most.

The Legends novels dealing with Darth Bane added passive shielding to the abilities of trained Force users, which prevents direct telekinetic assault on the user and their weapon. However, that's not an ability shown in any other sources before or since.


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

[User]
[asoiaf] Were purple eyes and silvery/gold hair a unique trait of the Targaryen family?

Or was it common among Valyrians? Or just nobles?

[Assistant]
It was super common among all Valyrians.  The Velaryon family and Celtigar family also have it.  The Targaryens weren't a particularly special family in Valyrian, comparatively.  They were one of the weakest of the 40 dragon lord families.

But, about 400 years prior to the series begins, Daenys the Dreamer had a dream.  This dream led her father, Aenar, to leave Valyria and take up residence on Dragonstone.  Most of the other families were convinced that he'd only left because he was afraid of competition from the other families.  Aenar only took 5 dragons with him, out of which only one was alive by the time of Aegon the Conqueror.

Prior to the Conquest, it was not at all unique to the Targs.  Even in the current books, it's still not common to Targs.  Velaryons have it, Celtigars have it, Gerold Dayne has it, and at least one Hightower probably has it.


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

[User]
What forms of renewable energy are available to us in space, other than solar energy?

On Earth we can utilize geothermal, hydroelectric, solar cell, and wind turbine technologies to generate some of our energy needs. Would there be any practical use with similar technologies applied towards all the radiation and other forces more prevalent in open space, particularly near-Earth?

Edit:Thanks for the responses! I'm still going through them all and it seems I left the assumption that I'm asking about propulsion and used "renewable energy" as an ambiguous term. I should have just said "energy sources". I'm not so much asking about space travel, but maintaining a sustainable energy source off-planet (not on Earth), but within our solar system-say anywhere between Earth and Jupiter respectively. The application in mind for the energy source would be anything from exploratory probes to colonization structures.

This is for a paper. I'm taking a COM 102 course and am assigned to write a paper on "sustainability". Sustainability of what? That wasn't defined to us. Many of my peers are writing about environmental conservation, while I'm going a different direction in arguing that environmental conservation will only effective as long a Earth is able to sustain our population. In my argument, so long as mass euthanasia, genocide, and global disaster are ruled out, sustaining human civilization in the long game will only be possible if a part of our collected population ups and leaves the planet, and a large portion of current resources being applied to environmental conservation should be directed towards colonization. To support my thesis, I'm looking for ongoing research on energy and food production that could be applied to making extraterrestrial colonization a practical real life solution. I came here to see if I can be pointed in the right direction on ongoing research.

[Assistant]
Most forms of energy available to us on Earth are indirectly solar, which comes from nuclear fusion. Wind power comes from a small fraction of solar heat that results in air currents. Fossil fuels give us access to chemical energy from plants that have been building up for millions of years.

Geothermal and fission both come from unstable heavy isotopes that originate from the previous generation of stars that formed the matter from our solar system. These isotopes exist throughout the Earth, and cause heating that we extract as geothermal. If collected together, certain isotopes can produce a sustained fission reaction, which is vastly more power and energy dense then passive decay.

If by renewable you mean that you would like to collect energy "on the way" as you travel the universe, nuclear fusion is a good bet. Deuterium can be found throughout the universe, mixed in with normal hydrogen. If you can hang out by a gas giant, or catch some icy comets, you can get Hydrogen.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can the quality of films and tv shows be 'upgraded' to HD without reshooting the whole thing?

Basically what the title says. Recently I watched the tv show friends in HD and wonderded this. How is this possible?

[Assistant]
They originally shot it on 70mm film which has a ridiculously high resolution.  Then they reduced those to 35mm film with a resolution of about 4000x2000 then compressed it for VHS.

They're not taking the VHS to make the new BlueRays, they're taking the 35 mm or 70mm film.


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

[User]
[Pacific Rim]Why was the Jaegar program so extensive?

When Stacker is showing Raleigh around the Shatterdome, he says it used to house 30 jaegars. This is only Hong Kong too, there is at least one more base in Alaska, and probably a lot more

Seeing as it was as least 7 days between incidents, and there were no double events, why did they need so many?

[Assistant]
I believe military doctrine would dictate "fair fights are for idiots".  Jaegars are not unbeatable, and a tough fight can require extensive repairs.

So more Jaegars means more shoulders to carry the load.  You can deploy multiple Jaegars to kill each Kaiju and you can have a rotating schedule of who is on duty to keep your pilots well rested.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are animals with slightly different genetic traits considered separate species but humans with slightly different genetic traits are not?

Definitely not implying that any group of people are more human than any other.

[Assistant]
The general test is do they normally interbreed in the wild in a way that results in offspring that are health enough to breed in turn.  If they do, species, if not 2 species.

Human can all interbreed, so all the same species.  And our genetic diversity is shockingly small compared to most species dues or a fairly recent evolutionary bottleneck.  ONe of the reasons racism is stupid.

An average family group of chimps had more generic diversity than all of the human race.


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

[User]
Professors, what qualities do you like and dislike in a student who's doing a research project under you?

I always happen to annoy certain professors even if I don't mean to. And they seem to like me for my dedication at the same time (maybe).

This time I am going to do a research project under a Senior professor. However, I'm planning on asking him for a letter of recommendation once it's over. Therefore I really don't want to make any mistake regarding his relationship with me.

He already worded his liking towards me for my prior experience and motivation. Please help me in not spoiling this up.

[Assistant]
Do not be afraid to look stupid. Ask questions if you have a problem. Do a little work in trying to solve the problem. Then ask before it turns into a big problem. There have many research project utterly ruined that could have been solved in minutes by the PI if those doing the work came forward sooner.

Although, from your statement it seems like you might have the exact opposite problem. The researcher might be very pleased if you show that you did due-diligence before distracting them with a problem that could have been solved with a couple Google searches or asking questions on a forum.


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

[User]
ELI5:How do they sync a voice to cartoon characters?

How do they sync up a characters voice in a cartoon?  I don't me CGI stuff, I am asking about the hand drawn material.

[Assistant]
Storyboard artist for a 2d kids show here,

The dialogue is recorded first. We listen to it while working out the acting and staging and draw the important poses and expressions that feel natural to the performance of the voice actor. This is called "blocking". From here the board artist might add some more detailed acting (as you do in television cartoon production, to make for a faster animation process), or if you work in full length features, pass it off to the animator to figure out the really detailed expressions and mouth shapes.


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

[User]
Does human gut flora evolve significantly over the course of the human's life?

I know bacteria and what-not tend to evolve fairly rapidly due to their short lifecycles but do the bacteria that we have to digest our food evolve much over the course of our lifetimes?

As a related question does our diet affect them significantly enough to cause them to evolve?

[Assistant]
Yes and Yes.

The research on this field is quite young and just beginning to return useful data, but it's already clear that our gut microbiome is incredibly diverse, even for closely related people in the same environment, and it changes over the course of your life. It's also clear that everything from diet to the way you were born (vaginal or c-section) can have an impact on what populations are present at any given time of life.

Unfortunately, we don't really know exactly how diets affect these populations exactly (there's some data from small numbers of subjects), and we don't even know what the "ideal" population balance is. Hell, we don't even know all the species that are present, most of the studies that have been done just look at the total gene profile *en mass*. Most of the microbes in are gut have not been cultured in a lab.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is the lion called "King of the Jungle" if they actually live in the savannah?

I googled and all I could find were variations on "it's a misnomer", which is useless for me because I already knew it's one. Maybe Reddit can help find the history of this term.

[Assistant]
Because they are kings of the "jungle" if you go back far enough in etymology.

The origin of "jungle" is from Hindi/Urdu "jangal," which refers more generally to an uncultivated wooded area. This in turn comes from the Sanskrit "jangala," which is just an often dry uncultivated area that would cover savannas or deserts where lions are relatively common.


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

[User] ELI5: What are the sources of income for a country/government other than taxes?

[Assistant]
The government can directly own resources that they sell (oil, lumber, food, diamonds, lithium, titanium, etc).

The government can own factories or companies that make things that are sold.

The government can sell debt as a secure form of investment, this is normally done in the form of treasury bonds that have set maturation dates and interest rates.

The government can sell land to its citizen, or to other countries like the Louisiana Purchase.

The government can sell services that it may have,  such as advisers to help write a constitution, or use of its military to protect a country that does not have a military of its own.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do pilots tell passengers the cruising altitude? What can I do with this piece of information?

[Assistant] I think you're supposed to marvel at how amazing it is. Also, the little pep talk from the captain is supposed to improve the customer experience - you certainly hear people talking about how good theirs was. If the captain didn't have something to talk about then he'd end up showing you his holiday snaps - and that really would be bad.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are wave farms and other sea-powered stations so uncommon and experimental, compared to other renawable sources of energy?

[Assistant]
Waves are pretty hard to harness energy from. Most of our systems of producing power involve spinning turbines. This is a nice and fairly straightforward way to make electricity. The spinning gives a smooth flow of power. Waves go up and down, so now you need to convert that up and down motion to rotary motion, which isn't particularly hard, but it's a pain in the neck. Plus the wave height and position will vary a lot with weather and tides.

The ocean is also a terrible environment to build anything, especially complex moving machinery. For one, salt water is extremely corrosive to most metals. Your options then are very expensive alloys of stainless steel, or constant maintenance and repairs. And then there's debris and ocean life to worry about getting into your machines. And ocean front property tends to be pretty expensive. It's very desirable for housing if it's pretty, or for ports if it's not. For all that time, effort,  and money, you could put windmills in fields or solar panels on roofs.


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

[User] Does anyone have any book recommendations pertaining to environmental economics?

[Assistant]
A Course in Environmental Economics: Theory, Policy, and Practice by Daniel J. Phaneuf and Tilman Requate.

I took a couple classes with Professor Phaneuf and hes absolutely brilliant. This book does a good job of laying out the theory behind the models used and provides real word context of how we use them.


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

[User]
Do shirts shrink due to being washed in hot water or due to being dried in a hot air dryer? Why?

Title is all that is necessary.

[Assistant]
Textile Engineer here (yes, there is such a thing):
Most the clothes that shrinks is cotton.  The reason cotton shrinks (normally in the dryer, but some in the washer) is because the heat of the dryer adds energy to the polymer chains.  This will return the amorphous regions of the polymer chains to their natural, unaligned state.
When textiles are dyed, they are normally under a good deal of tension, so when heat is applied, the amorphous regions somewhat align.  The heat of the dryer counteracts this.

On a related note, the reason steam and heat helps get rid of wrinkles is because weak hydrogen bonds are formed between different polymer chains.  The heat and steam break these bonds, allow the fabric to return to its natural, unwrinkled state.


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

[User]
ELI5: What causes people to sleep walk?

This morning I woke up to a kitchen full of snack wrappers and sugar all over my counters; but neither my bf or me remembers getting up and snacking in the middle of the night (or why the sugar was out and everywhere). So either one of us sleep walked or someone broke in last night and helped themselves to some snacks. Either way, its made me wonder- what causes people to sleep walk?

[Assistant]
You dont dream right away during a sleep cycle.  Right before your dreaming period begins, your body releases chemicals that have a paralyzing effect.  So when you dream, your body doesnt really move much, just your eyes (REM stands for rapid eye movement).  For a typical person, dreaming ends before the paralyzing effect wears off.

In a sleep walker, the dreaming period outlasts the paralyzing effect.  This is usually caused by high serotonin levels (the natural version of melatonin).  Most peoples serotonin levels decrease as they approach puberty which is why most sleepwalkers are children.  High stress can trigger your body to produce more serotonin because your body thinks you need more deep, restful sleep.


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

[User]
CMV: Ethnic/Racial diversity for its own sake is unnecessary.

**CONTEXT:** America. I work at a small company with 10 full-time employees. I am one of 3 men, and the other 7 employees are women. All of us are white (one of the men, our CEO, is half-Asian). On our website and our other online listings wherein we have pictures of our team, we've received multiple comments and outreach demanding "more women of color" or "more ethnic diversity" in our staff. I think that that's complete bullshit.

**OPINION: Ethnic and Racial diversity in business for the sake of having some "people of color" is unnecessary, petty, and could even be considered racist.**

**We** shouldn't have to hire anyone based on their skin color or ethnic background because **you** think we're "too white." We hire people based on their skills, their ability to fit into our culture, and their personalities **only.** Whether or not they're white has no bearing on their hiring status.

Some people in my company have gone so far as to specifically target the local university's minority groups with recruitment materials and internship openings, just to appease these online demands, and I think that's wrong. Excluding white people from even applying for certain positions is the **definition of racism.** Everyone should have equal opportunity to apply, interview and work with us regardless of their race. If it turns out that a new hire is white, it's because he or she had the best skill, best fits into the company culture, and has the best personality.

If there was a company which was completely owned and run by black people for instance, I wouldn't demand for them to hire more white people because "it's too black," That sounds ridiculous, right? That's more than ridiculous, it's racist. Just the same, demanding that we hire more non-white people because we're "too white" is ridiculous and racist.

**EDIT**: Our company culture, into which candidates for any position must fit: **HEART**. **H**ear (listen to your team and your customers) **E**nthusiasm (energy, excitement) **A**ttitude (positivity, optimism) **R**elax and have fun (casual, comfortable) **T**enacity (strong belief in yourself and the company's products).

[Assistant]
You may be hiring people on merit in perfectly good faith, but unconscious bias is a very real thing, especially when "fitting in with the culture" is one of the criteria.

Music critics played the exact same piece of music by the same women wearing different outfits gave consistently higher marks to the woman wearing a concert gown.

Have you tried hiring completely blind?


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

[User]
ELI5:How do soldiers in the military not go deaf after about a week of deployment?

I've shot an AR15 before without earpro and I had ringing ears/impaired hearing for about an hour afterwards. I can't imagine several of those things going off at once on full auto. My ears would just explode.

[Assistant]
The military has something called a teeth-to-tail ratio, which is the ratio of guys who normally pull triggers (infantry, artillery, armor) to those who support them (truck drivers, mechanics, cooks, supply folks and the like.)  The majority of most military forces are in the "tail" and they aren't dealing with loud noises most of the time.

Even the the troops in the "teeth" aren't in combat all the time, and when they do, they usually are wearing ear protection, or popping it in when things are going to get loud. (that is, if the NCOs are doing a proper job disciplining their troops.)


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

[User] [dragonball]why does goku use a tractor to plow when he could do it by hand at near light-speed?

[Assistant]
- It makes  Chi-Chi happy to do it this way.  She can brag to her friends that her husband is an honest hard-working farmer and not a freakshow that punches the earth into being plowed.

- Plowing by hand with his martial arts skill probably does unintended damage to the ground that makes it harder to actually farm.

- Plowing the ground by hand probably isn't as fun as fighting or conventional training, so Goku isn't too eager to go and do it that way.


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

[User]
[Crysis] How do you put on a nanosuit?

In Crysis 2, Prophet puts dying Alcatraz into his nanosuit to save the man's life. In Crysis 1, we see US Delta operators and North Korean soldiers also wearing them. It might be a trivial question but I've always wondered how do you actually slip into the thing? There are no visible zippers or anything and it basically looks like a second layer of one's skin. Crysis 3 actually mentions that in order to get out of it, you need to actually be "skinned". Does that mean that getting into a nanosuit is basically a one way ticket?

Also, I know that it is supposed to be an in-game mechanic, but how does a nanosuit operator switch its modes (Armor, Active Camo, Speed, Strength, etc). Does it have some kind of a small touchscreen control hidden somwhere or does it actually read your thoughts?

[Assistant] It's probably a living machine that physically can change it's shape and attach itself like a liquid onto a new operator since prophet was dying and the suit could sense it needed a new operator. It just melted off prophet onto the other man and healed him.  As for switching modes it's either mentally linked to the operator and controlled mentally or it's similar to other proposed exo suits that use chin movements and careful muscle movements in the throat and forehead with eye movements to activate specific functions.  Or has a arm/wrist component similar to predators to control more complex functions and save on helmet space.


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

[User]
[In Time] How exactly do people get the countdowns in their body? How did a monopoly of "time" as money even get started?

Like seriously, how?

[Assistant]
The Clockstopper biotechnology company introduced the Lifetimer app, which allowed users to reset their body clock via micropayments for the first time. The ability to trade time between users was originally a minor, secondary feature; the primary purpose was for people to (pay through the nose to) get the kind of life-extension treatment that before now had been confined to the mega-rich.

Obviously, it was immensely successful as a product, reaching levels of saturation comparable to cars or cellphones within months. Within a generation - an increasingly meaningless term - a full Lifetimer account was declared a human right for all citizens of the United States over the age of eighteen by the Supreme Court. Within two centuries, wealth and lifespan had become identical, as the most cautious survived to accumulate wealth over the course of multiple lifetimes; and this agenda visibly dominated the political landscape.

Federal currency was technically abandoned five centuries after the Clock started, but it had been almost entirely replaced by the digital "currency" of Time.

Of course, this is all ancient history. The Clock has been running for millennia, and it easily survived each ensuing regime change.

Oh, and the biomods involved are hereditary, although they originally required a wireless connection code to activate your account.


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

[User]
cmv: New year eve is sooo overhyped.

This year, it strucks me how everybody was so excited about this new year. If you think about it... the earth did a full circle around the sun ans thats it! Everybody wishes to everybody some success, health and wealth. Therefore making these wishes meaningless because you just keep on repeating the same thing over and over to everybody. Resolutions are plain stupid because if you need to wait for the earth to do a circle around the sun to cut a bad habit or to start doing something, it just doesnt make any sense. I really feel like the Grinch of new year eve but i wanna know why people are so hyped about this "eve", because all i can see is robots repeating the same thing over and over.

[Assistant]
Do you enjoy parties?

New years eve is fun because it's an excuse for everyone to party. To spend time with their friends and family and just have a good time.

Obviously the day itself is meaningless, but it's the same for birthdays and really any other holiday. But that doesnt mean people cant enjoy it, party, and havea good time.


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

[User]
If the speed of light is a constant independent of the speed of the observer - why does the doppler shift occur?

Is it that the light isn't slowed down or speed up, just that the wave itself becomes stretched or compacted yet propogates at the same speed?
EDIT: Sorry I am not sure how to add the appropriate science tag - but I think it is a wonderful idea! Keep up the great work mods!

[Assistant]
The Doppler shift occurs with light because regardless of the speed of light, it is still a wave.

Changing your reference frame causes you to perceive the 'peaks' and 'troughs' of the wave at a different rate.  Consider driving a boat over ocean waves.  If you drive towards or away from the direction of the waves, you can alter their perceived frequency.

This is true of any wave.


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

[User] [Wandavision] Why couldn't Wanda keep the hex over just that house to keep Vision and the boys alive? Why did she need the hex and to bewitch other people just to keep the family extant?

[Assistant]
Remember, she might not have consciously cast the spell, but it was still her greatest desire. Not just a family, but that perfect life. The one she saw on TV as a scared child, as an experiment in a lab, as someone learning they were going to a fight a monster that gods cowered before. The one she'd always wanted.

Throughout the entire show she violently shuts down every hint of the truth- from vision to monica to the beekeeper to "quicksilver". Even when the town is begging for freedom or death, she's still trying to tell them they're fine and happy. Ultimately, *this* is what she wants deep down. Something she's willing to hurt and imprison to preserve. And she knows this.

If she stayed, she'd always know she could get everything she wanted, at the cost of nothing but a wave of her hand and 3,892 people's silent agony. And she knew she couldn't trust herself to resist that forever. So she did the only thing she could do besides becoming a monster.

Tear herself up by the roots, however much it hurt, and leave completely.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do people usually hold tobacco cigarettes between their index and middle fingers, but hold marijuana cigarettes using their thumb and index fingers?

[Assistant]
It's because if you hold a joint with your index and thumb finger you can smoke it all the way down to nothing without burning your fingers opposed to the cigarette way. Since a cigarette has a filter you have space for your fingers.

EDIT: Punctuation.


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

[User] [Harry Potter] Why is the patronus charm consistently hailed as the #1 spell?

[Assistant]
It's called the 'best', not the 'most powerful', of spells (and, on a side note, I'd argue that the 'most powerful spell' is the one that does what you need at any given time - what use is the Imperius Curse if you fall off a mountain while hiking alone?), and there are at least two reasons for this status.

One, it's a difficult spell to master.  Most wizards never attain the wisdom and knowledge necessary to cast the Patronus charm successfully.  Being able to manifest a Patronus shows that the wizard casting it is not just of average competence but *exceptionally* skilled, and every wizard knows it, making the Patronus one of the wizarding world's status symbols.

Two, it does something no other spell can do - protect you against Dementors.  Every wizard knows that Dementors are *fucking scary* and that they will *eat your soul* if you disobey the Ministry of Magic - this is a threat the Ministry uses to force compliance with the Laws of Magic, after all.  Even if you obey all the Laws of Magic religiously, and even if you can't summon a Patronus through Azkaban's wards anyway, being able to defend yourself from Dementors implies that you're on a higher level than the lowly plebs that the Ministry pushes around.

Think of the Patronus Charm as the '#1 spell' the same way that gold is the '#1 precious metal' among Muggles.  Is it practically useful all the time?  No.  If you're starving, you can't eat gold or a Patronus Charm.  But it's seen as valuable and special, and has had that valuable and special status for a long time, because of what it represents.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do most signs say persons instead of people?

I always see signs like the ones saying that a pool shouldn't contain more than x persons. Why does it say persons instead of people?

[Assistant]
I think "persons" has a slightly different common usage than "people." "Persons" is used when 2 or more individuals are specified as *separate entities*, while "people" is used when they are referred to a as group where individuality is unnecessary. Kind of like "he and she" vs. "they."

Why bother to make this distinction? IMO, when talking about rules or laws, it makes more sense to consider everyone as separate entities with different behaviors rather than as a uniform collection with implied uniform behavior, hence "persons" instead of "people."


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

[User]
CMV: Donald trump is not 'Draining the Swamp' but rather doing the opposite

For a few weeks now Donald Trump has been preparing his cabinet and so far he has chosen a wide variety of businessmen from multi billion dollar companies such as ExxonMobile's CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State. This cabinet seems to be either under qualified or filled with businessmen that could have conflicts of interest, even if they 'cut' all ties with the company they were previously affiliated to. It seems that the American people were concerned that Hillary Clinton would cater to the wealthiest class, but yet Trump seems to be doing just that with his cabinet picks.  Is Donald  Trump 'draining the swamp', and why are his cabinet picks wise choices to help him lead the nation?

[Assistant]
When Trump promised to "drain the swamp", he followed up by explaining that he wanted to prevent government officials from becoming lobbyists, not the other way around.

You are arguing that he isn't doing something he didn't say he would do.


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

[User]
Is it weird for an undergrad to hang out right outside professors' offices?

I hate living alone and don't get any work done in my house, so I like to bring my laptop and books to a nearby academic building (the one for my major), stake out a couch or table and work there for hours. I do this most days. I've chosen my major's building as my 'headquarters' because I like it.

Now, for me, it's kind of fun to bump into professors and say hello. But, I never see other students hanging out in this building, and I'm afraid the local professors now think I'm a stalker. Professors, if you see your student camped out with their laptop on a couch just a few doors down from your office almost every day -- like, late at night and for hours at a time -- would you feel slightly uncomfortable? Would you feel like they were stalking you? Should I stop doing this, or is there any appropriate way to say, "hey, prof! FYI I'm not stalking you!"

[Assistant]
absolutely no problem at all.  A friendly 'Hello' or a wave is nice.  However,  if you say "hey prof i'm not stalking you' then it gets a bit weird, imho.

You can also find other places too,  libraries are great,   your cafeterias, student halls,  etc.   You might meet more people in those areas as well, and make some great friends.


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

[User]
Do undersea creatures experience any sort of weather?

On land there is wind, rain, snow, and more extreme weather such as floods and storms.

Do ocean creatures experience anything analogous?

Edit: Thanks for the great responses.

[Assistant]
Yes. Visibility under water changes constantly (comparable to "under water storms"), different algae bloom at different times a year - changing the eco system, water currents change temperature and oxygen levels. You can find "dead water" below water, which could be compared to - lets say deserts? The marine life is just as diverse as that above water, and if the weather affects us - it will affect marine life as well.

Source: PADI Diver.


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

[User]
[Batman] At what point in Batman's career did each of the respective Robins join up?

For that matter what about Batgirl and the rest of the Bat-family?

[Assistant]
It is not an easy thing to answer.  For example, the current Batman has only been crime fighting for five years, but managed to go through three Robins (one of whom died and was reborn) and have a ten-year-old son who is the youngest Robin with one of his adversaries.   You can never tell how the current pan-universal threat will rewrite the universe.  Some fair it better than others.

So this is very general:

* Dick Grayson gets adopted somewhat early in his career.
* Barbara Gordon becomes Bat Girl around the same time.  Sometimes even before Dick joins, though rarely.
* Jason Todd, sometimes, comes around and gets adopted after Dick graduates to Nightwing.
* Tim Drake enters the picture after Jason gets killed by the Joker.  Often portrayed as forcing himself onto Batman while the latter is recovering from the loss of either Dick or Jason.
* Damian Wayne comes in after.  Sometimes he comes in as Tim decides to go solo.  Sometimes he comes in to be the Robin when another Robin (Dick) has to become the new Batman.  By this point Batman is usually well established and experienced.

These tend to be the most reality resetting resistant of the Robins/Batgirls.


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

[User]
[MCU] In Avengers: Endgame, would the time heist have been (as) successful if the heroes had been replaced by those who had been snapped away in IW?

Let's say that Stark is there (since he was needed to make the time machine), but beyond that everyone who was snapped in IW is present, while those who weren't snapped previously aren't there (i.e., they got snapped instead).

Is the time heist as successful?

[Assistant] If the snap is inverted, then the Pyms are there and the good guys have all the Pym particles they could hope for so they could keep trying until they succeed. Assuming that someone other than Ant-Man comes up with the basic idea to attempt time travel. Brilliant as Stark is he still needed Scott to make the initial suggestion.


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

[User]
CMV: Being outraged about people wearing fur whilst eating meat most days of the week is hypocritical.

In the same way that you could argue that wearing fur is unnecessary now because of the wealth of alternatives that are available, it could be argued that eating meat is also unnecessary because there are so many alternatives out there and we don't ***need*** to eat meat to comfortably survive. From an ethical point of view, we kill animals for their meat which we then buy to consume (mostly) in one meal.  A burger can be eaten once, but a fur coat can be worn over and over again. How can the outrage against fur be justified when as a society, we (for the most part) kill animals so we can have the instant gratification of eating something that we think tastes nice? Would killing an animal for a coat not have more purpose than killing an animal so the end-consumer can have a few pieces of chicken in their curry? Furthermore, how do we morally justify killing an animal for one purpose and not another? If you're not OK with animal fur being used in clothing, why are you OK with eating meat with your meals or using animals to make gummy bears?

Disclaimer: I'm a vegetarian edging towards veganism. I'm not trying to come across as patronising and/or preachy - I'm just genuinely curious and am looking for some arguments that can challenge my views.

[Assistant]
>	Furthermore, how do we morally justify killing an animal for one purpose and not another?

So lets hypothetically say we have 3 animals that are killed. One is killed for sport, its head chopped off for a trophy and the rest left to rot. One is killed for meat and feeds a family for several weeks. The third is killed and used for meat, its bones are used for other things - say ground up to fertilize crop, and its skin is used as fur or hide.

Do you see all of these as equal, simply because they all start with killing an animal, or are there meaningful differences depending on what the intended use is?


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

[User] ELI5: Why does the Left-wing of US Politics tend to still be very right-wing and conservative in comparison to European political parties (including the UK even tho it's not a part of the EU)

[Assistant]
Communism. No, seriously.

Remember that Communism started in Europe. Marx and Engels were European. They wrote for a European audience. Communism took root very strongly in Europe, much more strongly than it ever did in the United States.

In Russia, it led to a revolution. In the rest of Europe, governments pulled farther to the left to appease the Communist sympathizers in their countries and (hopefully) avoid what happened to Russia.

That planted the seeds for it. Then you had World War II, the bloodiest battle in the history of the world. Germany had almost 10% of its population killed, and in Poland it was closer to 20%. Europe was devastated economically, morally, physically.

In the aftermath of WWII, the causes of which were complex but many of which had a lot to do with Right Wing nationalism, Europe pulled to the left, eager to avoid ever having a war like that again.

At the end of the day, the Europeans discovered that being that far to the left wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Europe has an older population (due to declining birth rates), and so a strong social safety net for the elderly was considered a boon. Socialized medicine is more efficient by practically every metric. They do some things wrong, but they do some things right. The United States tends to feel that if things are done differently from how the US does it, it's "wrong", even when that's demonstrably not the case.

Another, harder-to-quantify difference was the urban/rural/frontier split between the United States and Europe. For centuries, Europeans had relatively centralized states and were used to dealing with the government. In the United States, there were still frontiers (the Wild West, etc) and the government was often a distant entity that the average person didn't interact with as much. This fomented a distrust of government and statism in the United States among portions of the population.


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

[User] If the planck length is the shortest distance possible, does that mean that a singularity is just one cubic planck length?

[Assistant]
The Planck length is not an exact measure. It is just an estimation of the *order of magnitude* of the length scale in which quantum gravity effects are expected to be important. Its value even changes depending of the normalization (using 4G=1 instead of G=1 leads to a different value of the Planck units).

Physicists say that our current laws of physics break down around this length scale because we don't yet have a single accepted theory of quantum gravity. All our current theories assume that spacetime is continuous (that there is not a minimum length).

Anyways, a gravitational point singularity is not special in regards to having zero volume. An electron is, as far as we know, also a point particle (in the sense that it has no interior structure), and all experiments to this date have confirmed this with big accuracy. It's of course possible that electrons (or singularities) have a nonzero volume, but to the date no experimental data suggests that this may be the case.