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

[User]
What happens mechanically when I activate eco-mode when driving my car? How about sport mode ?

Ive heard it firms up the suspension for sport mode, does that just mean the shocks get more compressed or something? Huge thanks to any replies!

[Assistant]
Only really expensive cars are going to have dynamic suspension control systems, your average grocery getter is not pulling any shenanigans like firming up the suspension.

Sport mode is typically just adjusted throttle response and shift points. The throttle will be a little more responsive/touchy and the transmission will hold a gear until higher in the RPM band before shifting. Eco mode is going to be the exact opposite of that.


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

[User]
ELI5; Negative Absolute Temperature

I understand the whole negative absolute temperature is not colder than zero Kelvin but actually hotter.. But I don't understand how this occurs or what kind of things might be possible due to this idea.

[Assistant]
This phenomenon uses a different definition of temperature than we're used to. Negative temperatures only apply in quantum situations, not everyday classical ones.

Temperature, in this case, describes what happens when you add energy to a system. Usually, when you add energy to something, it gets more disorganized - entropy increases. This is positive temperature. But in a quantum system that has "maxed out" its entropy, or in other words is "maximum hot", adding energy can only decrease its entropy. This is negative temperature. If a negative temperature system touched a positive temperature one, energy would flow from the negative to positive.


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

[User]
I think if a minor breaks the law off campus the school should not be able to take disciplinary action, regardless of whether or not the police are involved. CMV

So I was sitting about a quarter mile off campus at my brothers middle school waiting to pick him up and while I was twiddling my thumbs a kid riding a skateboard hops off and starts walking home. Several seconds later one of the school staff drives up in the school's golf cart and takes him back to campus to fill out disciplinary paperwork.

Now for the most part, I hate skate culture and all it entails. However; the one thing I do agree with that has been seemingly popularized is that it's not the job of the citizenry to police skaters. It's for the cops to handle. That kid wasn't wearing a helmet, but he was also off campus at the point he started riding his board at which I don't believe it's the job of the administrative staff to take action against him when he's distinctly off campus. I also feel giving him detention or what have you over the issue only hurts his educational future, as all it seeks to do is make the individual bitter towards the school for impacting his off campus life.

Consider if he actually lived across the street from the school (we were in a neighborhood). Where does his private life begin where he's not under scrutiny from the school? If someone wants police action taken against a kid for breaking the law, I'm all for it. However; I don't think disciplinary action from the school is necessary or positive when there is an external legal matter at hand. Let the kid hate the government for making him clean up trash after school. Don't make the kid bitter about having to get an education of some kind and make the school into a greater enemy in his eyes.

Edit: This is an American Public School BTW. So there's really no element of either prestige or scholarly reputation.

Edit: I was actually incorrect about the context of reporting violent crimes. Turns out if you aren't attached you can't be legally penalized for it. My initial idea though still mostly stands, because teachers are required to intervene in violent crimes involving students.

Also I'd just like to reel it back in guys, we're trying to change my view not circle jerk about weather or not I'm correct.

[Assistant]
This is actually very simple. For insurance reasons, the child is considered under the responsibility of the school from the moment he leaves his house in the morning until he gets home after school. Including in between school and home.

For this reason it is obviously in their best interests to deal with any delinquency at those times, they are responsible for it.

Even if the child had come home or something, they are going to treat the child as their responsibility if there is any question because the parents sure as hell would if it came down to insurance.


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

[User]
Why does killing animals seem to have a matter of degree (e.g., you can be a responsible hunter or vegetarian and it's better than eating tons of meat from the store) while killing or even physically hurting people seems to have a discrete ethical boundary?

I for example have been motivated to try to a "better" job at being meat-free. I'm going to the store today and picking up vegan food. But honestly I'm going to eat an entire dairy cheese pizza from my favorite place once in a while. And I'm not going to obsess over the odd animal byproduct in my non-food products. (My spare money just goes to books anyway.) Subjectively, it seems like I'm "doing my part". My vegan best friend says "the effort is enough".

This seems intuitively to be the case. Doing a little is better than doing nothing. Yet if I only eat a little bit of people, that seems to be unethical. If you restrain yourself to just punching people, you'd be a criminal.

Is this more to do with that status of animals, the relative ethics of living in an unjust system, or is there a bigger question of whether ethics is something you can do in moderation? Or is it simply that the common sense intuition is wrong, and vegetarians too are discretely unethical? Or something else?

I read a tiny bit of animal rights literature given to me by mediaisdelicious, but not in depth because the formatting was bad and one paper turned out to be just a summary of a book media had recommended.

Edit: I wrote this in the middle of texting my friend so I didn't explain myself well. Of course hurting people has a matter of degree too. But punching someone is "wrong" in most cases. But I don't think people would say vegetarianism is wrong. That's all.

[Assistant]
Singer would probably think you're asking the right questions. And he would *definitely* say eating any amount of animal meat is more unethical than not eating meat at all, for the same reason that eating any amount of human meat is more unethical than not eating humans ever. For Singer, animals have the same rights as humans, and especially important to his argument is the right to equal consideration of interests. When you say that it seems intuitive that someone who eats human meat *only sometimes* is still acting unethically, Singer would say, "Yep, and the same should go for animals too."

But he's a utilitarian, so he'd also probably be happy that you're at least trying, if the alternative was that you'd return to not having vegetarian habits at all.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do bugs flip over on their backs when they die?

[Assistant] Firstly, they dont *always*. But they often do. The reason why is pretty simple. It takes concerted effort and coordination for a bug that has fallen over onto its back to right itself. A bug that is in a weakened condition and near death will likely have neither this coordination nor the strength required. Furthermore, being in a weakened state makes it all the more likely that theyll lose balance and end up on their back. The result is that a lot of dead bugs are found dead lying on their backs.


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

[User]
[Ethical implications of memory manipulation.]

A common ethical dilemma regarding telepathy or technology that allows someone access to another person's mind is the manipulation of their memories. Some examples would include:

1. Overwriting someone's memories/personality as an alternative to the death sentence to make them a productive and safe member of society.

2. Forcing an individual to forget details or events that might put a person or organization at risk (e.g., the neuralyzers in "Men in Black.").

3. Implanting false memories or mental blocks as a means of deterring a certain behavior.

However, what are your thoughts on the ethics behind entering an individual's mind to assist them in encountering memories that may be the causative root for criminal or delinquent behavior? For example, entering the mind of a prisoner with multiple convictions for assault to assist him in facing the memories of physical abuse from a parent and obtaining closure?

[Assistant]
A few things:

* Modifying memories should always require consent. The right to remember is a basic human right.

* Modifying memories to change someone's personality, or as a correctional tool, would make sense. However, the most ethical way to handle it would be as an alternative to a prison sentence or other punishment.

* Cosmetic memory alteration would be a thing. You could use it to get rid of trauma, attempt to change your personality, or download recreational memories. Charles Stross calls the profession of a memory-eraser an "apologist," because a good apologist will argue in defense of your memories and who you are right now.

* Memories may be a valuable commodity. You would get people who perform wild stunts or other outrageous things so that they can sell the memories. You might also see news reporters release first-hand sensory reports on their streams. Crowdfunding models might lead to things like 24/7 sense streams, or people who act based on their audience's votes.

* If you can plant memories into someone, it will be used as a training tool. If the risk of brain damage is high, or varies from person to person, that may also be a factor (such as re-training your career being impossible, or a certain percent of the population being un-trainable).

* You can bet that memory manipulation would be used to protect trade secrets. Usually by willing parties under contract who are getting paid very very well.

* Copyright law should never extend to memories, because that would lead right into a dystopia.

* Criminal theft of memories can and will occur, especially for stealing passwords and other private information. Modifying someone's memories without consent would be equivalent to rape.

* This same technology makes brain backups and personality uploading possible, leading to immortality via cloning.


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

[User]
CMV: Serial killers cannot be rehabilitated.

Aserial killer, according to Princeton, is typicallydefinedas a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.

On the basis that serial killers have multiple murders under their belt and enjoy these acts, what incentive is there for them to stop if they obviously want to continue killing?

Yes; Dahmer confessed and supposedly "became a Christian." But these people tend to be convincing, charismatic, and well spoken. Who's to say it wasn't just an act to get sympathy so he could start killing again or gain trust?

Anyway, my view is that serial killers (such as Holmes, Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, Manson, etc.) cannot change and cannot be rehabilitated into normal society.

Change my view!

Edit: Rehabilitation meaning that the offender considers his actions as wrong, expresses remorse, and no longer pursues murder.

[Assistant]
Speaking in practical terms, once you kill 3 people with full premeditation, you're probably not getting out of jail, ever.

But for shits, let's use your Princeton definition of a serial killer.  Within the definition, there are elements of addiction.  The repetition, the high, the comedown.

Being that they're hard wired to enjoy this now after actually committing murders, they will forever have urges to go through that cycle again.  You're probably right in that this will never change.

Now, let's say there's a magic kingdom where triple murderers are allowed to re-enter society.  What is the contractual obligation once this happens?  Don't commit crimes, right?  In the end, they have a choice to succumb to their need to kill.  They won't die if they don't kill or else they would've died from that while in jail or killed more people in jail.

So does it really matter if they changed internally as long as they keep their shit under control in their own, legal way?

Your view on serial killers is actually rather comparable to the one that exists for pedophiles.  Yeah, they're dirty child touchers and they probably always will be, but you still have to release them back into society.

But yeah, the law's got you covered on serial killers, man.


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

[User] ELI5: What happens to a brain when you blackout and why don't you remember anything?

[Assistant] The alcohol stops the Hippocampus from creating a substance called glutamate which carries signals between the neurons in your brain. Essentially, the part of your brain responsible for making memories, stops doing its job for a period of time.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why would anyone use ground vehicles to transport important goods?

The Pyke Syndicate uses a rocket powered train to transport spice while the empire uses a regular train to transport coaxium. Remnants of the empire are also shown to use armored vehicles to transport highly volatile resources through areas filled with raiders.

Why are ground vehicles used to transport expensive or volatile objects? Would transporting them by spaceship be wayyy safer and also so much quicker?

[Assistant]
For the same reason that banks do not transfer money and gold via C-130 with a blue angels escort.

The spice arrives via space, but it still has to be transported around the planet. It is way way way more expensive to hire a ship and fighters to protect it and makes its a very obvious target.

Spice is valuable, but not That valuable.


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

[User] [BSG and Star Trek] Q drops in on the Battlestar Galactica and starts messing with Commander Adama and his crew. How does it go down?

[Assistant] Gaius and 6 show up, tell him to quit fucking around with their experiment, and then all three vanish for a million seasons, to turn up drinking coffee and bantering wittily about the nature of mankind in a city that looks suspiciously like NYC, but feels like disappointment and rage.


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

[User] [ATLA] Why hadn't the fire nation invaded the northern water tribe before the return of the Avatar with a navy similar in size to that which Admiral Zhao mobilized?

[Assistant]
The fire nation, while expanding, still has finite resources. During the 100 year war, they focused most of their efforts on expanding into the Earth kingdom.

It wasn't until Zhao and the Avatar that the northern water tribe became a priority.


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

[User]
[Pokmon] Does crossbreeding exist among Pokmon?

Like say for example a male lion based Pokmon mated a with a female tiger based Pokmon. Would they be able to produce a hypothetical liger Pokmon?

[Assistant] Nope.  Pokemon of different species are capable of mating, and they will produce a viable egg, but the egg always hatches into the mother's species.  (Or, if the breeding was done with a Ditto as one half of the pairing, the egg will hatch into the non-Ditto species).


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

[User]
Why doesn't neutron reflection cause a fission reaction?

So I just stumbled upon the "Demon core" story about the plutonium core going critical via neutron reflection. I was wondering though, why didn't the core undergo a fission reaction when the tungsten carbide bricks were placed around it? Wouldn't it just take 1 single neutron bouncing off the shielding to collide with the mass and cause it to go into fission? To my understanding that's how the atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima were detonated.

[Assistant]
A single neutron can only fission at most one atom, releasing a tiny bit of energy. If the neutron splits an atom then more neutrons are released. What happens then depends on the geometry.

If - on average - the neutrons from one fission reaction produce more than one fission reaction you get a chain reaction. If the neutrons produce less than one fission reaction then you do not get a chain reaction. That number is called criticality.

Neutron reflectors can increase that average, more plutonium closer together increases it as well.

You can make a nuclear weapon by simply increasing the criticality to above 1 and then waiting for a random neutron to start the chain reaction but that is unreliable. All nuclear weapons come with a small neutron source to start the chain reaction at the right time - normally close to the point where the criticality reaches its maximum, but in some cases lower yields might be preferred.


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

[User]
ELI5:How do computers organize their memory?

Is the memory on a computer like a bucket of water? when you delete something a little water is poured out making room for more water/memory.Or is it like a bookshelf were books are taken from certain spots leaving patches for new books/memory.

[Assistant] It starts like the bookshelf. However, from time to time the computer will momentarily pause other operations in order to push things together, in order to combine lots of little spaces into bigger, easier-to-use spaces.


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

[User]
Can aerosol spray cans used as flamethrowers explode at any time?

I have seen AXE deodorant cans lit up countless times without any problem but I have also heard stories of them exploding in people's hands.

[Assistant]
In order for a gas to ignite it needs to combine with (usually) oxygen.  There is no oxygen in the can so the flame cannot backup into the can to explode.

This is the same reason a gas stove does not send the flame back down the pipes.  The gas can only burn once it is in the presence of oxygen and there is none (or nearly none) in the pipes to your house.


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

[User] ELI5: How does starvation actually kill you? Would someone with more body fat survive longer than someone with lower body fat without food?

[Assistant]
Someone with higher body fat *would* survive longer because once people run out of fuel from food, their bodies switch over to something called "ketosis" which is when your body can eat its own fat to survive (this is what the keto diet is). Of course they still would need to find a source of vitamins and minerals ~~and fiber~~ and electrolytes. Albeit they feel absolutely terrible *while* switching over, but once the switch is done they usually feel much better.

The food you eat is broken down into tiny little parts. These parts give the your cells energy to function. Some parts are made into electrolytes (or extracted from) that allow your neurons to communicate with each other. Proteins from food allow your body to heal itself and grow muscle. When you cut off food supply, you are taking away your body's ability to not only fuel its cells, but also proper nerve function and ability to heal.

When you die of starvation, it's usually because you've used up all the body fat and the body then starts to eat muscle instead, pulling nutrients from organs. It eats itself until the heart (usually) is no longer strong enough to pump blood to your brain.


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

[User]
How much Delta-V did the space shuttles lose, having to gimbal its engines?

Those who are knowledgeable about the space shuttle missions know, the space shuttles gimballed there engines to balance the centre of mass.

My question: How much Delta-V did the space shuttles lose gimballing and jiving compared to a rocket (Ares, Titan IV) with a similar fuel mass, thrust and initial Delta-V?

**VERY IMPORTANT EDIT**:

What I meant was loss in **PROGRADE VECTOR**. I know it wouldn't lose any Delta-V. Poor wording on my part.

[Assistant]
When you say "gimbal" do you mean having them mounted at an angle so they look tipped out towards the top of the vehicle? They were mounted like that so the thrust vector of the engines passed directly through the center of mass of the entire launch stack of the Orbiter, external tank and SRBs.

The other rockets you mention also have gimballing engines. It just means they can change the vector of the thrust axis relative to the vehicle orientation.


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

[User]
ELI5: I tore my ACL/MCL years ago and it still affects me - What's really going on in my knee?

I tore my knee up playing soccer - got hit from the side when I was 18, felt/heard a pop and it swelled up like crazy. Went to osteo and was told that, since I didn't play school sports, I should just rehab it myself (those people are complete DOUCHE BAGS).

It is a wobbly joint, feels loose, and I've retore it at least three times and it has 'slid around' many more than that without anything drastic occurring.

What's going on inside my knee? ELI5!

EDIT: Thank you so much for your answers - really helpful, both medical and personal experience. I lost count of how many times I've 'tweaked' it. I used to be extremely active but now live a more cautious lifestyle. I love sports, but definitely feel limited. Likely going to speak to an Ortho specialist and see what my options are. Again, thanks all.

[Assistant]
Sports doc here.  The ACL helps stabilize the two load bearing bones of the leg.  That wobbly feeling is likely the bones actually sliding on one another, which is a major risk for a meniscus tear (the cartilage shock absorbing discs) on top of what you already have.  Some people can live without an ACL which is why most orthopods will consider conservative management ( non-operative) first.  You clearly are one who cannot.

You should get another eval, most surgeons would fix your ACL now.  I'd be willing to bet after the secondary injuries that you've got meniscal damage too which is ready enough to address during the arthroscopy (knee scope).  Your MCL has probably scarred in already as these rarely need fixed.

Tl:dr. Perfectly reasonable to get your knee fixed and most orthopedic surgeons wouldn't hesitate to iterate on you at this point.


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

[User]
How do we know the rate at which atomic clocks lose time?

If they are the most accurate means of measuring time, what are they being compared to when we say they drift x seconds in y million years etc.

[Assistant]
It's very simple, you compare them to each other. Because the error is random, calibrating a group of atomic clocks to the same time and seeing them drift apart gives you an indication of the individual error rate.

Of course, you don't know which one of them is right, most likely all of them will have lost time at some point, you'll only know how much on average they drift away from the right time. Which reminds me of an old joke: "A man with one watch always knows what time it is, a man with two watches is never quite sure."


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

[User] Is there any chance of there being an undiscovered simple machine?

[Assistant] Well - I'd say there are perhaps some chances as we work out the basics of nanotech. Some of those microminiaturised machines might exploit some small-scale properties of matter which are irrelevant at the macro scale.


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

[User]
Is the sheer size of the yellowstone magma chamber keeping it from erupting?

I think it doesn't matter how big it is,  it WILL erupt. But my brother thinks that maybe the sheer size of the chamber is keeping it from erupting. He thinks that the amount of energy required to erupt it is too much at this point.

[Assistant]
Supervolcanoes erupt differently from more conventional volcanoes. In a conventional volcano, the pressure builds until the rock above can't contain it, and it explodes. In a supervolcano, the magma chamber expands like a balloon, until it "pops" and the roof collapses into the chamber. It is almost (but not quite) like a really big splash.

Edit: That means that as the magma chamber gets bigger, it is *more* *likely* to erupt, because the roof gets weaker.


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

[User]
Does boiling water by lowering atmospheric pressure sanitize water?

We all know that you can sanitize water by adding heat and boiling it. Does the same ring true if the boiling it caused by a lowered atmospheric pressure?

[Assistant] Not an expert here, but from what l understand the heat is what kills organisms. The process of boiling is irrelevant. Like someone else said, a lot of organisms die before sea level boiling temp, some can survive above it.


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

[User]
[ATLA/LoK] How is the Avatar not revered as practically a god?

Spoilers up to season 3 (don't spoil anything after please, im in the middle of LoK) so don't read ahead if you haven't seen it.

In season 2, Korra pretty much defeats what seems to be a god and she basically becomes one as well. Yet people still treat her as a kid and talk down to her, what the heck? She can bend all four elements, is like a spirit guru, and can go into like Insta OP mode and do pretty much anything.

Why do people such as the Earth Queen not cower at her steps? It's not like anyone can beat her.

[Assistant]
Because, as history has shown, the Avatar is still a human and subject to flaws. As such, if an Avatar ever went bad the entire world would instantly put her on a hit list and attempt to have her assasinated. It's why the Avatar has so many enemies (Red Lotus, the entire Fire Nation in Airbender, Equalists, etc).

 If the Avatar goes against your interests, it's a huge roadblock and you want her/him gone. Kill her and you've got about 10-15 years before the new reincarnation is trained well enough to be a threat again. Of course, if you kill the Avatar, you pretty much make political suicide.

As a result, it ends up being a delicate struggle. The Avatar almost never tries to abuse their power, not just through living up to the name and the guidance of the past lives/Rava, but because they would put a massive target on themselves if they did. Furthermore, unless you're prepared to deal with the fallout, you don't go on a mission to take out the elemental messiash, leaving the world without a superhero for a decade. You'll end up looking like ~~Hitler~~ Ozai.  That's why the Earth Queen won't lay a finger on Korra, but at the same time the Queen knows that Korra won't lay a finger on her.


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

[User] [Star Trek] How do the transporters deal with the fact that humans are actually colonies ... with trillions of bacteria living in our digestive system?

[Assistant] The transporter teleports a given volume of space- if they're included in the volume of space in question, and the microorganisms in question are deemed to be non-dangerously located by the biofilter, they'll be transported along for the ride.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Was the Death Star intended to be used against any moderately rebellious planet once the Rebellion was wiped out, or would "conventional" means like Rods from God or orbital turbolaser bombardment been used more often?

[Assistant] It's an answer to "they can't arrest us all." Localized rebellions can still be dealt with locally, but if it gets to the point that an entire planet rebels, and resists occupation, now there's another answer. It's the reason the rebellion is rag-tag and not a full on Confederacy of Independent Systems, part two. Even if you rebel, even if you manage to throw back the invasion, you still lose.


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

[User] ELI5: How do countries like the US and U.K. know how much money to print each year?

[Assistant] Have you ever seen the movie Mad Money? Basically, Fed regulates it. Banks around the country send them something called "Mutilated" money. These are the dollar bills that should never see the light of day again. They are just replaced with newer bills and destroyed.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do glasses correct astigmatism?

I can understand how glasses fix myopia and hypermetropia, but I can't get around the fact that glasses can correct imperfections in the cornea and lens.

From what I could understand, astigmatism happens when there are multiple focus point on your retina, but how can glasses fix this issue without having to be uniquely crafted for each imperfections?

Thank you!

[Assistant] Ideally cornea and eye lens have perfectly round curvature. Astigmatism happens when either cornea or eye lens have elliptical (egg-shaped) curvature instead, producing two overlapping images on the retina. The precise shape of that curvature can be measured with the various instruments that ophthalmologists and optometrists have. Glasses can be made to compensate for the curvature imperfection.


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

[User] ELI5: How are small donations, like 10 cents, able to buy a meal for charity, where regular people can't get a stick of gum for that much?

[Assistant]
For one, they buy in bulk. You get much cheaper prices when you order for something like a kitchen than you do at your local grocery store.

They also tend to buy cheap things. Beans, rice, that kind of stuff.


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

[User]
[Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny] Did JB's parents never try to reach out to him when he bailed on his family? Did he really spend like 10 years trying to find Hollywood without any financial support or education?

By the time he moves out and we see him in Hollywood he seems to have aged like at least 10 years. What was he doing during that time?

[Assistant] They may have tried to reach out and save his soul a few more times, but by the time JB left he was the devil's puppet. It wasn't a total loss though, they had JB's brother, who was, like, 10x better. Jesus loved him more.


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

[User]
CMV: political parties bring nothing but problems to the political system, and only serve to divide people and make government slower.

In my experience, political parties have been nothing but poison. Political discussions are derailed the moment someone mentions what party they identify with, most people tend to only talk shit about the other party without listening to them nor trying to find any kind of common ground, and they create an "Us vs. Them" complex in government that does nothing but slow it down and outright stop it in some cases (see: Tea Party republicans in the Senate vs Obama). The only benefit I can see from parties is that they help provide easier funding for campaigns, but otherwise they don't help anything. It's convenient for grouping, but almost no one agrees 100% with another person on political issues, and sometimes people in the same party have complete different viewpoints, making the party identification somewhat arbitrary in my eyes.

So, yeah. I'd like to see an argument for why political parties are a good thing, either for society, for the government, or both.

[Assistant] Political Parties are essentially Unions for voters. It's collective bargaining for ideas, among people who share at least some core values. They don't need to agree with every position the Party takes because not every issue holds the same weight with every voter.


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

[User] How Does Maoism Differ From Mainstream Marxist-Leninism?

[Assistant]
Could you clarify whether you mean the difference between Maoism and the orthodox Leninism practiced early in the history of the Soviet Union or the difference between Maoism and the various modern intellectual Communist tendencies? Maoism is an "Anti-Revisionist" movement in communism which means they consider other communists (including post-Stalin USSR) to have lapsed into weaker, compromised forms of communism. Along those same lines, they're serious AF about communism. Mao wrote that "communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy."

Essentially, three of the core contrasting characteristics of Mao Zedong Thought are its intentional focus on agrarian (vs. industrial proletariat) organization, the idea that a revolution must be carried out by a party 'of the masses' rather than by a vanguard of the 'enlightened' class-conscious, and the idea that bourgeois ideology cannot be wiped out through simple political revolution, but must be destroyed in a continuing program of "Cultural Revolution" under the socialist regime.

Marx wrote about socialist revolution as a necessary byproduct of the industrialization of the working class. Mao saw the same revolutionary potential in the poorer farming classes and rallied them in great numbers (they were the vast majority of China's population) with promises of land reform during the Civil War against the Nationalists. Often when the word "Worker" appears in Maoist thought or in Chinese government policies and institutions it's as part of the "Worker-Peasant" pairing so valued by Mao. During the Cultural Revolution, after a period of intense industrialization, Mao even instituted a policy of "rustication" under which millions of urban children were sent to live and study in the countryside to instill proletarian values. A famous critic and political prisoner of China's communist party, Liu Xiaobo was sent to Mongolia under one of these programs and has written negatively about the experience. Mao did, however understand that educating the peasants and socializing agriculture would be especially challenging tasks due to the diffuse nature of the population and the differences in class consciousness and labor alienation between the farmer and the industrialized worker. He also recognized the need to industrialize China in order to move forward the processes of collectivization and to more effectively resist outside Imperialism.

>The present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China's central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves. Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.

Mao's theories of the "People's War" and "Mass Line" dovetail nicely with his focus on peasant farmers. The people's war is a protracted revolutionary guerilla war of attrition based on creating small centers of rebellion embedded with peasants in the remote countryside, eventually establishing political order there and linking and consolidating areas of control in order to force the government to fight the communists where they're likely to be at a disadvantage. The "Mass Line" is a related post-revolutionary tactic of embedding with the masses, learning and responding to their needs, educating them on communist doctrine, and consolidating support for the Party.

>We should go to the masses and learn from them, synthesize their experience into better, articulated principles and methods, then do propaganda among the masses, and call upon them to put these principles and methods into practice so as to solve their problems and help them achieve liberation and happiness.

Cultural Revolution is one of the more intense parts of Maoism. About 18 years after the revolution, Mao declared that Revisionists and Bourgeois Capitalist elements had infiltrated the Communist Party bureaucracy and that power would have to be consolidated through a program of Mass Movement to wipe out bourgeois values and replace them with socialist ones once and for all. Huge numbers of people participated in public shaming, and sometimes beating or execution of those identified as counterrevolutionaries. Millions took to the streets in public demonstrations against those suspected of advancing revisionism. This allowed Mao to purge the party of some of those bureaucrats considered to be revisionaries, including Deng Xiaopeng, who would later become Premier after Mao's death in a turn of events still decried by hardline Maoists around the world to this day.

>Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds, and stage a comeback. The proletariat must do just the opposite: It must meet head-on every challenge of the bourgeoisie [...] to change the outlook of society. Currently, our objective is to struggle against and crush those people in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic "authorities" and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art, and all other parts of the superstructure that do not correspond to the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system.


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

[User]
What was the most commonly held scientific theory regarding the origin of the universe and what observation led scientists to question this theory compared to the big bang ?

Can't find anything on the internet, all i can find is either "what is the big bang theory" or the bloody popular tv series.

[Assistant] Many people used to believe in a static universe, which had no beginning. Einstein actually adjusted the basic equation of general relativity by adding a constant in order to allow for such a universe to exist. It was only when Hubble collected data on the velocities of distant galaxies relative to us, and found that they were, in general, moving away from us with a velocity proportional to their distance, that people realized that, rather than being static, the universe was expanding. At that point, it was just a matter of running the math backward to realize that the universe must have been infinitesimally small at some point.


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

[User] ELI5: How do antidepressants wind up having the exact opposite of their intention, causing increased risk of suicide ?

[Assistant]
Some people think that antidepressants may work to restore motivation and drive before eventually reaching their full efficacy of restoring overall mood. So for the period that you are feeling more motivated, but still experiencing negative affect, you are more inclined to act upon those negative feelings.

That's a theory anyway. There is so much we don't know about how antidepressants work anyway. We know surprisingly little about what causes depression in the first place, so it's really difficult to work on a treatment.

Hope that helps.


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

[User] CMV: People should be allowed to express their religious freedom by not taking part in activities that go against their belief.

[Assistant]
>People should be allowed to express their religious freedom by not taking part in activities that go against their belief.

True.

However, no one is forcing you to run a business. When you open a PUBLIC business you agree to comply with a LOT of laws of general applicability.  Public business sell products/services to the public, and also hire people from the public to be employees. Hence why the public has a right to regulate such businesses.

If obeying those laws goes against your religious belief - simple! Don't open a public business. Problem solved.


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

[User]
eli5: retinol for skin care increases cell turnover, but doesnt increase cell cancer risk? ELI5!

If cell turnover is increased, Id assume these types of products encourage cell apoptosis. Id assume this is why Ive read that, clinically, it may be able to fight cancer.

But if cell turnover is increased, doesnt this mean theres more chances for a cell to exist which is cancerous?

E.g. (albeit a poor example)

Normal cell turnover = 3 cells live and die per unit (x) amount of time. Meaning that per x unit of time, 3 cells existed.

Retinol turnover = 3 cells live per x/2 amount of time, meaning that per x unit of time, 6 cells existed.

So this is 6 chances for a cancerous cell to exist, rather than the original 3, for the same (given) amount of time?

Ive tried researching but its a scary topic and hard to ask this specific question!

Thank you for any explanations!

[Assistant] While its true higher rate of cell turnover will increase the rate of deleterious mutations, vast majority of skin cancer is highly linked with UV exposure. Retinol is only used on a small part of the skin(ie face) so in theory while it may increase the rate of cancer by a tiny amount, without extra sun damage the risk is negligible.


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

[User] ELI5: How did Germany stop being Nazis after the end of WWII? Did everyone just "snap out of it" after Hitler's death?

[Assistant] There were a lot of politicians the Nazis had arrested or removed from office.  The first leader of West Germany had spent time in a Nazi prison. The US and the Allies had a specific 'De-Nazification' program they used.  It included things like forcing Germans to visit the death camps.


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

[User] ELI5: What goes on in the brain during an intrusive thought?

[Assistant]
Your brain doesn't stop. period. It constantly works to keep you alive.

But how it works is by exciting neuron groups. So when you are "remembering" something or "thinking" about a problem, the related group of neurons "lights up", you can actually see this on a MRI scan.

Unfortunately, unlike machines, sometimes you get a faulty activation, which lights up a unwanted patch, which becomes the unwanted thought.

There is also the fear explanation, you see a cliff, and you keep having thought about jumping/fall over it. some believe this is the self preservation mechanism kicking in, warning you to back off dangerous places.


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

[User] ELI5: If our bodies can heal cuts and open wounds, why can't we grow limbs back after being amputated?

[Assistant]
Scientist's don't actually know. The prevailing theory is because of where the cells originate and the difference between stem cells and simply having cells divide.

When we are a fetus, growing inside the womb, our Stem Cells are being used to build everything. It is building bones and muscle and organs and skin. Stem Cells are blank discs that hold the information to do anything in the body.

After we are born, we no longer produce stem cells in such quantities. Instead our individual cells will divide. This is what causes skin to grow back over a cut. It is just the skin growing back.

Why does this happen? Scientists aren't sure. Figuring it out would help amputees regrow at least rudimentary body parts and even organs. Most studies on the topics look at reptile DNA since so many lizards have the ability to regrow tails and even appendages.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is there such a negative stigma against nuclear reactors?

Ive done extensive research into them and all the evidence proves they are the safest and most efficient form of energy. Why does the public fear (literally and culturally) these reactors so much?

[Assistant] People tend to fear a small risk of a big catastrophe more than they fear a moderate risk of a small catastrophe.  It's the same reason that people fear plane crashes but not car crashes.  It's just a quirk of human nature.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does reading in a car make me feel sick, but reading on a plane/train not affect me?

[Assistant] Because planes and trains are much smoother rides. Motion sickness occurs when there's discrepancy between the  movement you're feeling in your inner ear and the movement you're seeing with your eyes. Cars bounce around a lot, causing you to feel a lot of movement that you don't see if you're reading.


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

[User]
Weird impostor syndrome... not passionate enough?

Im a fourth year PhD student in a neuroscience program. Ive started feeling this weird impostor syndrome... or maybe its real, I dont know  but I dont feel passionate enough about science to be a scientist. Im happy to do work when I work, I like attending talks and reading papers, but I dont like to work weekends unless I have something time sensitive. I dont seek out science in my free time (I enjoy listening to podcasts but I have never wanted to listen to a science one) and I never grew up liking science fiction. Im super confused about what I want to do post-PhD  Im not sure about academia, Id like to explore positions in industry/data science but I havent ruled anything out yet. Thoughts? Can I be a successful scientist if I dont want to live and breathe science all the time?? Is it normal to be confused?This sounds stupid but its genuinely been causing me so much stress of late!

[Assistant]
Its a job. You dont have to worship construction or build things in your spare time; if you're good at a job, do it. Dont believe the hype that you have to feel fulfillment and be overjoyed about your work 24/7.

Keep it up. Let others gush.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some plants have defense mechanisms like poison ivy and gympie gympie (called the suicide plant because it's so painful) and others don't?

[Assistant]
Plants develop all manner of elaborate defensive mechanisms to thwart their predators.

Some grow tall and encase themselves in armored bark.  Some are covered with nasty thorns.  Some pack horrible irritating oil.  Some fill their leaves with noxious alkaloids.

All these cost the plant time and energy though, which gives plants that pour all their effort into growth an advantage sometimes.  Yes they're defenseless against a wandering cow, but if you and 10,000 of your seedlings can overwhelm the slower-growing competition it's still a good strategy.

Basically, nasty thorny poisony plants are optimized to fight animals, fast growing leafy plants are optimized to fight other plants.


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

[User]
CMV: Cleaning my room is not an important enough activity.

I hate cleaning my room. It feels like a wastage of precious time which can be better used in pursuit of things that really matter like knowledge, money, health, etc. by reading books, working on paying projects, exercising etc. I know keeping my surroundings clean is really important but I can't seem to find a strong and motivating reason to do it, not only on a regular basis but even after my room has become the very definition of chaos.
The origins of this aversion might be rooted into the sheltered lifestyle that I received while growing up. I was always good at academics and my parents never thought it necessary for me to learn to do the menial chores of house. I wonder if all children need to be specifically trained in such fields as washing clothes, doing dishes, keeping their room clean on a regular basis, or am I just another lazy nerd. Any advice that might help me develop the right perspective is much appreciated.

[Assistant]
Firstly, it's not that much time.  Especially if you keep up with it.  If you do a good job of keeping it MOSTLY clean, then cleaning your room consists of like 2 minutes of putting things where they go and maybe dusting a little.  We both know that you've spent at least two minutes doing something entirely pointless TODAY, so the whole "precious time" thing might be a bit of a stretch.

As others have pointed out, it develops a sense of responsibility that you're really going to value at some point.  Doing something that isn't enjoyable at the time, because you know it WILL be better in the end, that's making yourself consider the future instead of just the present.  It's giving you a sense of investing your time into something that you know will pay off, which is essential to succeeding later on.

Most adults that have shitty lives can almost certainly trace that to never thinking more than about 10 seconds into the future.  Cleaning your room, as hilarious as it sounds, can break that mentality.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we still have court stenographers? Why don't they just record all the audio in the room?

[Assistant]
The purpose of the transcripts is that the lawyers and judges can review what was said at a later date, and then reference it in motions and briefs.

You might have a court hearing, then later file a motion saying something like, "As Officer Johnson said, 'The accused was nowhere near the scene of the crime at the time the offense was committed.'" Then you would cite to the page of the physical transcript where that was said. Since you cited to it, the judge and the opposing counsel can open their copy of the transcript to the correct page.

It also comes in handy in the case of appeals. When a case is appealed, the court of appeals gets a copy of everything that was said in court. It makes it easier for them to review everything.

Some courts do record sessions rather than have a stenographer, but it is not as smooth a process for referring to what was said. Think about if you were telling a friend about a song, and a particular set of lyrics. You could give them an mp3 file of the song, and say, "Check the lyrics from 1:24 to 1:58, they are really good!" Or, you could just send them the lyrics that have been written down.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter]Do Wizards ever carry backup wands?

I can understand why most wizarding folk wouldn't need one, but do Aurors ever carry a second in case their primary wand gets disarmed?

[Assistant] It would be unconventional, certainly, but not impossible. Most witches and wizards grow attached to their particular wand, and take very good care of it. In addition, it may be difficult to find multiple wands which all feel allegiance to one person - it may be that the only way is by forcibly stealing them from others, which has its own problems and difficulties. That said, I'd be willing to bet that Alastor Moody carried at least a dozen different wands on him at any given time.


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

[User]
[Star Wars]How would a Jedi fight non-lethally?

So, Jedi. Mystical Monk Knights of peace. Lightsabers kill or maim.

Let's say a Jedi Master runs into... hm... some rowdy rioters. If left unstopped, property damage and looting is guaranteed, there are good chances injury or accidental death, but they probably don't deserve to be slaughtered.

How does this Jedi Master subdue them?

[Assistant]
1. Ask them to stop.
2. Impede their efforts to do damage and harm.
3. Lead them somewhere less vulnerable and incapacitate them.
4. Annoy the shit out of them until they become frustrated and go home. Being insufferable is right up there with arrogance as a common Jedi trait.


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

[User] [Ubisoft/AC/Splinter Cell] Where does the Third Echelon fall in the fight between Assassins and Templars?

[Assistant]
Third Echelon? You mean the agency that operates under the NSA? They're so Templar, you can bet that "Lambert" clown has a red cross for an ass-tattoo.

Like any other government Agency, the Splinter Cell program is designed to enforce the dominant will of an elite over the poor people of the world who have dared think they have the right to "Self-Govern" and have any semblance of freedom.


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

[User] If a giant globe of ice (moon sized, let's say) had a chute cut down at an angle through its midsection, could you slide all the way through, or would gravity stop you at its center?

[Assistant] You would slide all the way through. If the ice was perfectly symmetrical, the gravitational force you would experience in the middle is zero, so you would speed up for the first half, then slow down for the second half.


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

[User]
How much force would it require to remove a cube from a container that perfectly fit the cube, overcoming the vacuum it would create behind it?

Assuming no external forces are involved other than whatever is pulling the cube out of it's snug wee box.

[Assistant]
Given a perfectly rigid container, cube, etc. and no friction whatsoever, the force required to extract the cube would be equal to the surface area of the opposite face times the external air pressure.

Just as an example, a 1 inch cube at 1 standard atmosphere would (given those ideal conditions) require 14.696 pounds of pressure to extract.

Obviously most of those conditions (lack of friction, perfect materials, etc.) are pretty much impossible to achieve though, so in any real world situation the answer would be more complex.


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

[User]
I believe that, starting at childhood, all people should be taught safe sex techniques, and should be encouraged to explore their sexuality in every way. CMV!

In the United States, abstinence-only programs are popular, especially where I live in the south. There is this religious idea that sex is dirty, dangerous, and should generally be avoided, and it has spread to the culture at large: slut-shaming, awkwardness, etc.

I believe that sexuality is inherent to our human nature, and we have also "domesticated" it with safe sex techniques, birth control, and abortion. I think that children and teenagers should have free reign to explore their sexuality, having been taught how to keep themselves safe. Horny teenagers should have a number of sexual partners without shame or restriction, other than legal limitations of age.

I would like to see the next generation grow up to be sexually open, active, happy, and talented. CMV!

[Assistant] Unfortunately, educated does not mean they're going to be safe and mature about it. Children and young adults are particularly immature and have a hard time thinking about the long term results of their actions. If we encourage them to have sex at an early age, when they don't have the maturity to be responsible about it every time, we could end up with pregnant 10 or 11 year olds. That would be traumatic on it's own for a child to have to go through.


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

[User]
What is the logic behind getting the determinant of a matrix by hand?

Really, who said (and when) "Let's duplicate n-1 columns of a matrix, multiply down-right, up-left, add and subtract, and voila!" ?

Makes me think it was a vision, dream, or something.

It's one of the things in Math I don't understand.

[Assistant] Determinants werent discovered by studying the properties of matricesthey were discovered by studying the properties of systems of linear equations, centuries before matrices were developed. Matrix notation just provided an easy way of calculating them.


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

[User]
We've taken photos of the night sky for some time now. Is it yet possible to see parallax from us moving through the milky way by comparing old and new observations?

Since we can measure stellar parallax by the earth position around the sun, I'd imagine that our journy through the milky way would give us a lot more parallax. Or are we moving with our stellar neighbours in such a way that we don't see much drift at all?

[Assistant]
This is what we call 'proper motion'. As the Sun moves relative to nearby stars, we see those stars have a net motion over time, in addition to appearing to move in little ellipses due to the Earth's motion around the Sun.

The key thing is *nearby stars*. Proper motion is easier to see for nearby stars, and these stars are all in a similar orbit to our Sun. So proper motions tend to be small. The scatter between the speed of stars in a similar orbit is like tens of km/s - not that different to the speed of the Earth around the Sun - although there are a few that happen to be particularly fast. Barnard's star is moving at >100 km/s relative to us, but this star has the greatest apparent proper motion out of any star we see.

Note that Gaia, the most accurate instrument for surveying proper motion and parallax, has only measured about 0.5% of the stars in the galaxy. It reaches a distance of 6,000 light years or so (there's no sharp cutoff - the data just gets less accurate and more sparse as you go further out), and it's like 25,000 light years to the centre of the galaxy. So even with Gaia, we're still looking at our nearby chunk of the galaxy, and we're mostly seeing motion relative to nearby stars in a roughly similar orbit, rather than motion relative to the plane of the galaxy as a whole.

I'll also quickly add that our speed around the Milky Way is less than 10x the speed of the Earth around the Sun, so it is faster, but it's not so extraordinarily fast that the Earth's motion gets washed out.


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

[User] ELI5: How come we don't use triangular head screwdrivers? Isn't it a stronger shape than a cross or square?

[Assistant] No. Triangles are strong in the sense that a hollow triangle will convert any force on its corner into compression and tension in the sides. It is not especially strong under shear, as is needed in a screwdriver.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Was General Kotas suggest of not killing The Emperor stupid?

Within Star Wars the Force Unleashed Star Killer ultimately manages to knock down and essentially defeat The Emperor, however before Star Killer has the chance of killing him General Kota says "if you strike him down in anger, you'll be right back where you began" However even if he did strike him down in anger its not like Star Killer would immediately turn on everyone and turn to the dark side.

If anything he would be doing the galaxy a favour. So was Kotas suggestion ultimately stupid and short sighted?

(p.s Im not sure if I am supposed to mark this post as a spoiler or not)

[Assistant]
Given how Palpatine immediately jumps right back up and is shooting lightning like no tomorrow, Starkillers chances of actually killing Palpatine are quite possibly in the *negative*. It was all a final ploy by the Emperor to turn the kid, and Kota was wise enough to recognize it.

Besides, Starkiller is a deeply, deeply troubled young man. His whole journey so far is abandoning the teachings of Vader and trying to do good because its the right thing to do. For him to strike down Palpatine there would have been in anger and hate for all that he had suffered, not simply doing what needed to be done. No Jedi worth their salt would ever let maybe doing the universe a favor get in the way of keeping someone off the Dark Side.


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

[User]
[X-men] Why don't mutants use power inhibiting collars for convenience?

It looks like mutant's who suffer from their powers (Rogue, Cyclops, others) could wear a power inhibiting collar (without a lock) during socializing, but I've never seen one do that, why is that?

[Assistant]
If you're short, maybe you should consider some like, little stilts.

Suffering from those extra pounds? maybe you should like, wear a girdle while socializing or something.

Feeling a little too ethnic today? Here's some nice peach colored foundation to put on, y'know, to fit in.

Yeah, power inhibiting collars. You freaking homo sapiens are all the same.

We do enough not to hurt or kill your soft asses. The rest you have to deal with.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does plastic turn white when you bend it?

[Assistant] Plastics contain lots of very tiny holes. When the plastic is bent, the stress inside the plastic makes the holes get bigger. The empty holes in the plastic scatter the light, and so now the polymer reflects all colors of light instead of its original pigment, and so the plastic appears white.


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

[User]
CMV: the State of the Union address should take a page from graduation ceremonies and tell everyone to hold their applause until the end

I watch the SOTU address most years - the last few being the exception for obvious reasons - and regardless of whether it's a Democrat or Republican in office, one thing that has always irritated me is the constant interruption of applause.

As it is, the speech is generally nothing more than show.  While it's sometimes used to announce proposed policies, it's usually more or less just a sort of "year in review" mixed with a wish list of "wouldn't it be nice" ideas that rarely take shape.  It's a well meaning address and I think we should continue to have it, but this behavior cheapens it in my opinion.  The constant pausing for people to clap, frequently with a standing ovation, is just jilting.  It gives it an even more "this is just political theater" feel, which in my view serves only to further diminish any semblance of being the sincere and politically relevant speech that it's meant to be.  It's like adding a laugh track to a sitcom.  Let the content speak for itself.

What is the useful purpose of this?  Can you convince me that it's *better* to interrupt dozens of times instead of just waiting for the end?  Or at least give me a good reason for it other than "why not"?

[Assistant] The SOTU address *is* political theater, and people often form opinions of the current administration based on Congresss reactions. Since most people only watch bits and pieces of the address, the only way to ensure that they are tuned in for the applause is to clap intermittently throughout.


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

[User]
ELI5: What *is* the space that gets taken up when I add "data" to my hard drive, phone, memory card, ect., and how exactly does it work?

I really don't know how to properly explain, but when I add, say, music to my phone, what exactly happens that limits the phones capacity? The phone doesn't gain any weight, and nothing actually goes inside it. There is no physical "empty space" inside of a storage device, correct? What is causing the phone to just "not process" the data? And what does data even look like?

[Assistant]
Think of the storage as being lots and lots of switches.

When your phone is empty, the position of these switches - whether they are on or off - really doesn't matter.

When your phone is full, the switches are all being used to represent the photos, apps and and music in your phone. You can't install more apps, because there are no free switches to move into the right position to represent your new app.

Some of the switches are used simply to keep track of what the other switches are being used for, as well as keeping track of which switches are free for use.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can 3rd-party sellers on Amazon sell their products cheaper than their standard retail price?

I'm talking about how some sneakers are cheaper off Amazon than if you go to the physical stores or how Ralph Lauren polos are cheaper on Amazon than in Macy's. Do the sellers get the products straight from the source or are these counterfeit? And if they are, why isn't Amazon doing anything about it.

[Assistant]
Places like Macy's or JC Penny have a set profit they are trying to achieve with the products they sell. They buy shirts from Ralph Lauren for $10 (probably a lot less than this) and sell them for $25, making sure they get maximum profit to pay their employees, brick and mortar locations, etc.

Places on Amazon don't have as many expenses and usually don't have a set profit margin they want to make on every product. This means they can charge whatever they want for the product.

Amazon doesn't do anything about it because they get a set % of what these sellers are getting, and these sellers are doing well because they are undercutting the competition.


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

[User] ELI5 How do animated shows like South Park and Futurama sync up audio and the animations? Whats the process here?

[Assistant] There are animation tools that do this automatically. You provide the tool with a library of mouth positions that correspond to different sounds in a language. Then run the voice actor's audio through the program, and the program detects what sound is playing at each moment, and selects the correct mouth position accordingly.


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

[User] ELI5: why do some rivers, like the Colorado, make deep canyons, while others, like the Missouri, dont?

[Assistant] as odd as it sounds the Colorado River was a wide lazy river snaking through a wide flood plain like the lower Missouri did (before channelization).  THe big difference is that (here's the mind blowing part), the land around the Colorado was uplifted *after* it became this old lazy curvy river.  As the land uplifted, the river essentially stayed at the same level; carving a valley through the uplifting land that became a really big canyon.


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

[User]
How has Hurricane Harvey managed to stay in the Southeastern Texas area so long when other Hurricanes crawling up the East Coast seem to go right through one place to the next at a quicker rate?

I went through Hurricane Matthew last year, and it seemed to pass through us in about half a day. Harvey seems to be in the same general area it's been for the last 2+ days.

[Assistant] It ran into a high pressure system to the west that prevented it from moving more inland, and to an extent, is sandwiched between another high pressure system to its southeast, just kind of holding it in position.  It is eventually going to slowly move to the east/northeast as it dissipates, but will dump tons more rain on the Houston/south Texas area before doing so.


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

[User] [EIL5] Why is it faster to delete a program than install one?

[Assistant] When you install a program, it's like writing a chapter in a book. You have to write all the words onto every page, and add references in the table of contents and index for that chapter. When you delete a program, you just cross out that line from the table of contents and white out the references in the index. The files are still there on the disk, and if you were able to just browse the pages you could still find the files. That's a lot harder to do on a computer than a book though.


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

[User]
How long a period of time has to pass between two clicks for the human ear to be able to distinguish between them rather than hear them as a single click?

Thank you.

[Assistant] Depending on the characteristics of the clicks, the usual threshold is 2 milliseconds (Hirsh, 1959; Patterson & Green 1970; both in JASA). It takes usually 15 to 20ms to tell what click comes first if the clicks differ by some property (amplitude, frequency, etc.)


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

[User] What exactly controls brightness? Is it just a denser concentration of photons, or are the photons more or less "active"?

[Assistant]
Both. Brightness (or more accurately, luminosity) is a measurement of energy per second. Fewer more energetic photons can have the same energy output as more photons with less energy.

In most cases though, an energy source radiates photons at fixed energy levels and brightness equates to more photons.


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

[User]
How does cuteness work in humans? Why are people often more willing to protect cuter animals?

Basically, why do people find certain animals so cute? Why will some people sometimes take unnecessary risk to save an animal they find cute? EG a kitten over like a possum, or rat, or something.

I've heard it's because they look like human infants, which is often true, but how about that baby duck, or even some insects? Or how about inanimate cute things, like plushie toys?

[Assistant] There's a relevant ted talk by daniel dennett that says essentially "cuteness is what we find cute, and cute is the quality of being something we want to help, like a baby. People who didn't find babies cute had their babies die so here we are"


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

[User]
ELI5: Would it be possible to make a sandbox style game using Google Streetview as a template for a real city?

So I know very little about game design (as much as a five year old, one might say). Could the images generated for Streetview be used to generate a gameworld for a GTA-style game?

[Assistant]
They could certainly be used as a framework for doing so.

However, you'd run into two significant obstacles:

1. Real life is boring.  There are good reasons cities end up arranged as they are.  Those good reasons do not include 'compelling gameplay'.  After the 100th time you have to walk past featureless tract housing that exists as only non-interactive scenery on the way to your real destination, you'll probably get very bored.  Sandbox games compress reality so you don't have to spend all your time commuting.

2. The images from Streetview aren't actually 'three dimensional' in a useful form.  Games render their scenes by starting from a wire frame outline and then pasting textures onto it.  But Streetview doesn't work like that.  Rather it's just a series of flat pictures which are morphed into one another.  You could theoretically come up with an algorithm to transform multiple two-dimensional images into a wireframe/texture structure, but it's a lot easier to just hire artists to design your structures - even if they're just trying to copy a real world location.


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

[User] Why can't countries with high inflation stop printing bills?

[Assistant]
Because they have bills to pay. Domestic and foreign. Every government has to pay its civil servants. If there is a high rate of inflation it makes sense for the government to maintain the loyalty of its bureaucracy. Governments can get into a cycle of hyperinflation where prices are raised every day by significant amounts. This means that the price the government has to spend for labor, supplies, etc. increases.

Oftentimes when central banks aren't independent of the political leadership (executive) in a country hyperinflation can result. For instance Robert Mugabe wasn't much concerned about the hyperinflation in Zimbabwe because his share of the economy remained the same. He was able to export diamonds and as long as he could keep adding zeros to the money his cronies were paid he was still king of the mountain. Hyperinflation wipes out savings but it also makes debts (in the hyperinflated currency) less burdensome. This however doesn't extend to debts in say.. the reserve currency of the world.


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

[User]
[ELI5] Why do Americans overwhelmingly support the troops; yet veteran affairs, benefits, and programs are depressingly lacking?

I have a feeling the TL;DR will be "Because politics" but I'd like a more satisfactory explanation.
Also, due to my terrible wording, i'm not asking as to why we support the troops. i'm asking why we don't actually put money where our mouths are.

[Assistant] because they are confused.  They believe that a politician saying "I support the troops" means "I want to help the troops" when it really means "I support the military industrial complex and war in general."


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is Africa so poor?

And what will they have to do in the next decades to build up 1st world standards?

Edit: thanks for all the replies so far, but I guess I'll be able to answer them next week, because I am not at home at the moment.

[Assistant]
Long story short: decades of being exploited and beaten into submission by European colonial powers, then having their borders essentially drawn without their opinions even taken into account.

Compound this with the fact that many leaders in Africa are highly corrupt, building on the corruption of the system which has gone unchecked since independence. This means less money goes into public works.

Finally, years and years of warfare and/or civil unrest among many nations or even within some nations has weakened their foundations and made the job for the governments extremely hard.


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

[User] ELI5: How does a phone vibrate?

[Assistant] It has a tiny electric motor attached to a weight which is heavier on one side than the other.  When the motor spins the weight, being intentionally off center, causes the phone to very quickly move back and forth - which is the vibration.


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

[User]
CMV: stricter drunk driving regulations need to be implemented nationwide.

Good morning all. This is my own personal view. I do have a slight bias as I have had a family member killed by a drunk driver.

I believe the United States needs to enhance the punishment for drunk driving offenses. driving under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants and illegal substances needs to be met with Swift Justice.

Tier 1: High two year misdemeanor with a minimum jail time between 30 and 93 days.

Tier 2: felony. For second time offenders or high BAC, or any type of accident. Minimum prison sentence between one to three years.

Tier 3. Felony. Use fun accident causes injury or death. Multiple time arrested for DUI. 5 year minimum sentencing. Longer if causing death or serious injury.

Tier 4. Felony. Mandatory 25-year sentence with a possibility of parole after 25. This would be used for an individual that injures or kills multiple people or has had three or more arrests for drunk driving.

[Assistant]
The punishment isn't the issue. Making stricter punishment doesn't stop people from committing crime.

The punishment for murder in some places is the death penalty, people still get murdered.

There are far stricter laws surrounding drugs, and yet people still do drugs.


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

[User] ELI5 Why we can't cure viruses (like herpes)

[Assistant]
Other parasites can be killed through either poison, suffocation, or destroying their cells. Viruses are not complete cells nor do they breath or eat like other organisms, they are just DNA or RNA invading someone else's cells, therefore killing them is very difficult without damaging the patient. Probably the most effective way of treating virus is preventing it from reproducing, and scientists are able to come up with drugs that suppresses the replication of viruses (but not eliminating the virus).

Another reason is many viruses mutates extremely quickly, by the time a cure is found it would be obsolete again.


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

[User] ELI5: why are diesel locomotive engine more of diesel-electric, rather than direct drive?

[Assistant]
Internal combustion engines operate at their maximum efficiency only within a narrow range of torque and RPMs. Electric motors on the other hand are essentially equally efficient at any operating speed and torque. When you have massive locomotive hauling a massive train and vehicle weight/size really isnt a concern, its actually more fuel efficient to have the combustion engine always running in its maximally efficient zone running a generator, and then use the electricity to run traction motors to drive the wheels.

This historically wasnt feasible to put in a small car, but now some hybrid vehicles can operate similarly. Part of a hybrids improved fuel efficiency comes from the fact that you can run the engine closer to its efficiency zone all the time, and charge up the battery some when the vehicle needs less power than the engine is providing, and vice versa when the vehicle needs more power than the engine can efficiently provide.


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

[User]
[Fullmetal Alchemist]How is Alchemy used to heal?

How do Alchemist heal people? Do they accelerate the growth of cells in the body to close wounds and etc? Doesn't this ignore equivalent exchange?.

[Assistant]
This depends on the Alchemy.

Amestrian generally can't heal except with the Philosopher's Stone because the Philosopher's Stone uses a powerful energy source to "violate" Equivalent Exchange.

Alkahestry from Xing can because it's based on the principles of chi, the natural flow on energy in everything from mountains to humans. It uses that chi to speed up natural human regenerative processes, strengthening and healing the body.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Is the Basilisk really as fearsome as everyone thinks?

So the Heir of Slytherin has released this massive, mythical and, apparently, viciously dangerous snake-monster to purge Hogwarts of muggle-borns and blood traitors and whatnot. And sure, it's big, it has magical death-eyes and large fangs (allegedly) filled with poison that can only be cured by Phoenix tears.

How come it's so useless then?

I mean, the basilisk itself slithers around claiming how it's going to rip and tear and kill and maim and whatnot... but there is very little tearing and ripping and killing. Sure, that one girl died, but everyone else was just a bit petrified for a while. And the girl who died wasn't even ripped or torn, she just died by looking into the death eyes when the snake comes out of the loo. Sounds more like an accident with the scary peepers than intentional murder.

I mean, all those petrified victims... why didn't the basilisk just kill them once petrified? Is it squeamish? Does it refuse to kill anything that's not alive? What's the point of the death-eyes then? If you're a huge-ass snake that only ever eats live victims, what's the point in having eyes that kill anything that looks at you?

It's not like the Heir of Slytherin or the snake itself **intended** to petrify the victims; clearly the victims all got lucky and did not look at the thing directly. Did the Heir of Slytherin go "Yo, Snake-eyes, go kill these peeps, but if you fuck it up and only petrify them then leave them be"? Or is the basilisk a bit dim, and thinks that petrified = dead, so it leaves them alone? Couldn't the Heir simply go "Yo Scaly, last mudblood you murdered didn't die so next time, after you give them the old death-stare, chomp on them a bit for good measure." You know, why wasn't there more ripping and tearing? With it's huge venomous fangs?

For a massive, legendary snake-monster that's been around for a few millennia, can get around through the pipes, can kill you by looking at you AND has huge venomous fangs to boot, it sure has a piss-poor record kill record, with only a single death attributed to it. Add to the fact that the thing dies if it hears the cry of a cockerel, and it begins to look like a relatively useless monster.

[Assistant]
You may be missing the point of releasing the snake. It's going to do what Tom tells it to do and he doesn't want it biting people. Once dumbledore would have known it was a basilisk he would have killed it.

He wanted to keep it hidden and get the school closed down. He didn't want his pet killed. It's possibly one of the rarest creatures in the magical world.

The idea of no one knowing what it was or how it was getting around and staying hidden meant fear ran rampant with finger pointing ensuing. Much like with Hagrid.


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

[User]
Einstein explained gravity as a distortion of space-time due to mass. Where does the graviton fit in?

A particle and a distortion of space-time continuum seem to be two opposing explanations for gravity.

[Assistant]
Don't think of it as a particle, but as a discrete perturbation in gravitational field. It's the same way that a photon is not a ball of light, but a discrete perturbation in the electromagnetic field.

If you have a gravitationally bound system that undergoes some sort of shift, gravitational waves are emitted, which inform the rest of the universe that the mass has shifted. These gravitational waves are propagating disturbances in the local gravitational field. Now imagine that the source of the waves, the system of bound masses, undergoes some sort of discrete quantum shift. The emitted gravitational waves that are emitted must also carry that information. That is what a graviton is, not a marble of gravity shooting around.


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

[User]
Liberals that argue that the NSA programs violate our 4th Amendment rights are guilty of the same modernized interpretation of the Constitution as those they criticize for using the 2nd Amendment to justify handgun possession of using. CMV

The title of the topic explains it for the most part. Let me add a caveat: I am fully aware that not all liberals are against the NSA program, nor that those who are also criticize 2nd Amendment activists using this justification. However, my experience in political science and pre-law has lead me to believe that there is much overlap between these groups.

My view is that people who make both of these arguments simultaneously are guilty of cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy, whether intentional or not. It does not seem consistent to me to argue that those who believe the 2nd Amendment should allow handguns are using a "modernized" interpretation of the Constitution when the original intent was to guarantee access to flintlock rifles and powder muskets, while simultaneously arguing that the 4th Amendment should guarantee privacy with regard to email, Facebook, message boards and cell phone calls.

I have not encountered an intellectually satisfying rebuttal to this view, and I am looking to expand my knowledge on the subject. Please CMV.

**EDIT:** I'm glad to see this sparked some interesting discussion. I wasn't as clear as I could have been, but then, people discussing constitutional interpretations rarely are. I had my view changed based on the following reason: I was interpreting the 4th amendment to essentially be a laundry list of specific things that are protected against search and seizure. I was not interpreting it as a broad guarantee of **privacy**, which several SCOTUS decisions have indicated, such as *Katz v. United States*. A person who argued that the original-intent of the 4th amendment was a broad concept of privacy could hold original-intent views of both the 2nd and 4th without being intellectually inconsistent.

[Assistant] I think the key difference here is that they want to dispose of the second amendment amendment through court systems and voting (which  has been done in the past) whereas the government violated our fourth amendment rights without our consent and knowledge.


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

[User] Would a black hole have surface irregularities of mere atoms? How does it's gravity affect how smooth it's surface is?

[Assistant]
In general relativity, black holes have no surface at all.  The *event horizon* that people talk about is not a physical barrier, it's a mathematical point of no return. In the current understanding of gravity (though alternate theories exist) the mass of the black hole is concentrated into a single point with no volume, and consequently no surface, called the singularity. Regardless of the theory, certainly there is no longer any atomic structure at all. The most compact objects (with surfaces) that we know about are neutron stars, which have envelopes and crusts of atomic species where the pressure is less, but which break down into a material that is even denser than the nucleus of an atom. Atoms certainly are not the structure of material deep inside of neutron stars.

Since neutron stars are the densest objects we know of with surfaces, we can answer your question in regards to them instead of black holes. The outer crust of a neutron star can have small "mountains" on it, and a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that they can't be reasonably be larger than ~1 cm because the gravity is so strong that it will pull down anything higher than that (similar to how there's a maximum height for mountains on Earth or Mars or any other planet based on the strength of gravity at the surface). As the neutron star spins, these "mountains" create an asymmetric moment of inertia and should emit gravitational waves. Instruments like LIGO are currently trying to detect these gravitational waves (in addition to much louder-but-shorter ones like merging neutron stars).


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

[User] If we are 99.9% empty space, along with everything else - Why can't we see through each other and see through walls?

[Assistant]
The oft quoted "empty space" idea is describing the space in between the electron shells and the nucleus, which is inside the atom.

However, if you get light with a short enough wave length then we can see through things. That's how x-rays work!


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

[User]
Will it ever be possible to bring back dinosaurs?

Like most people, after watching Jurassic Park I began to wonder how possible it would be to re-grow dinosaurs. Will the technology ever exist to make it feasible, or is it strictly fiction? I only ask because Compies look like they would make awesome pets.

[Assistant]
No.

DNA doesn't last very long, it doesn't survive fossilization,  and it certainly doesn't survive deep time.

Jack Horner talks about this in his book, How to Build a Dinosaur. He also did a TED talk about this which is worth watching.

The upshot: we don't have to bring them back because they're still here: they're called birds.


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

[User] ELI5: If Muslims commit murder like we saw in France, why is the media so quick to label it terrorism? If a Christian did it while screaming "Praise be to Jesus", would that also be labeled terrorism or would we just call him crazy? Is this biased Journalism?

[Assistant]
This is a very interesting question.

I would argue that the bombings of abortion clinics by Christian groups fall under Terrorism since it is defined as the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

So, if the killing of someone or group of people is to affect political change (in this case, the use of holy  christian or muslim  imagery in a manner they disagree with), then yes, it would fall under the basic premise of terrorism.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a radio station send metadata like song name to my car's radio?

I was driving in my car, and for the first time noticed that the name of the current song on the radio was scrolling across the little LCD screen, and I wondered how that metadata works from the radio station's perspective.

[Assistant]
Modulation became more efficient, which opened up space in the guard bands to transmit digital information on a sub carrier.

Edit : okay imagine that while recording the song the radio station was tapping out a special code in the background of the song that only your car radio could hear.  That code is the meta data.


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

[User] [40k & Lord of the Rings] Someone slips the One Ring onto the Emperor's finger. What are the long term ramifications to the Universe?

[Assistant]
I have a feeling that the Emperor is on a whole different level than Sauron, at the present time there is nothing the Emp cant do a thousand times better than Sauron. He would probably think its a cheap piece of warp damaged metal and destroy it.

Now if a lesser Demon or a psyker got their hands on it there might be trouble on their world but nothing the emperor couldnt handle.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are downloads and storage mediums so accurate, such as keeping billions of bytes without a shred of noticeable corruption?

I am fascinated by Hard drives, and how it seems most people take them for granted. I have had a 1 terabyte Hard drive, and I have had  it filled with games for about 3 years, and none have corrupted or needed to verify the game files.
My other question is how do downloads stay so accurate, as I thought while downloading a 200 GB file, with zero corruption? It dosent seem like it verifies the content after it downloads, so how do they avoid corrupt downloads?

[Assistant]
The drives themselves have on-board error checking that can remap bad spots out of "spare" space on the drive.  Your 200GB drive may actually have about 205GB space on it, but that other 5G is reserved for remapping those kind of bad spots (those numbers may not be exactly accurate, just an estimate).

The network transport protocols used to move the data between servers also have error detection and correction in them.  Your game download is made up of billions and billions of data packets getting transported to your computer.  Every one of those data packets is checked for an error via a checksum.  If the checksum fails, then the packet is flagged as bad, discarded, and your network card asks for a retry.

And finally, when you install your game, the installer itself verifies the integrity of the files you've downloaded via a hash or checksum.  This allows you to verify the file wasn't corrupted *and* sometimes it's validated against a cryptographically signed hash to verify that it wasn't tampered with somewhere between point A & B.


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

[User]
Can you really pull out pupil or cornea with your contact?

I have daily contacts and I have an appointment tomorrow. I am saving my last pair for then, and because of my prescription ran out I have a little less to make it. I am wearing my daily contacts for two days in a row. I heard a myth that if you do this, you can pull out your pupil or cornea with your contact. Is this true or a myth?

[Assistant]
You cannot pull out your pupil-the pupil is simply a hole in the Iris which allows light to pass through. And no, you would not be able to pull out your iris.

There is a risk of damage to your cornea depending on what type of contact lenses you have and the enviroment you are in-if its dry enough and your eyes dry out then the contact lenses can "stick" to the cornea which is pretty delicate and sensitive to tearing. On the plus side in the event of damage although very painful it shouldn't make you go blind as the cornea can repair itself.

Edited to add that chronic corneal irritation/damage will cause blindness.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] If a Pokemon does little to no battling, do they stay unevolved until death?

Evolving for most Pokemon seem to just be aging to a more mature form, but unlike humans, they mostly evolve by leveling up. So if they don't battle, would they just stay their pre-evolved form and age in that form?

There's a Pikachu named Puka that aged without evolving, but Pikachu needs a thunder stone to evolve, so one can argue that Raichu is more a mutated form by absorbing the thunder stone's power, while aging as a Pikachu is more normal.

[Assistant] It's possible. It's also possible that a Pokmon will simply choose not to evolve, like Ash's Bulbasaur and his Pikachu. Or a trainer will choose not to evolve a Pokmon, like an Eviolite Chansey in competitive.


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

[User] If you are in a vegetative state are you able to hear or able to understand given some parts of brain works?

[Assistant]
There is a large spectrum of levels of counciousness possible, it's not an on/off switch. In other words, not all comatose patients are the same. There are obviously some scoring systems we can use to measure this, the most common being the Glasgow Coma Scale, and the Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale, but they are approximations, and reality is there are countless possible mental states that constitute what we call "coma".

So it's entirely possible a comatose person can hear and understand what is being said, but truth be told, most conditions leading to a coma would make it quite unlikely to happen. Still, most doctors and nurses I've worked with prefer treating comatose patients as if they could hear them, e.g. greeting them, and such.


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

[User]
[Netflix Witcher] Renfri's gang

Why does Geralt slaughter Renfri's gang like butchering swine but goes so far as to allow Renfri to stab him twice before he finally gives in and kills her?  With all her spinning around like a ballerina someone of Geralt's skill could have ended the fight super early if he wanted.  Why didn't he even tell her gang to surrender?  As soon as the first cross bow bolt went flying he wrote them all off.

[Assistant] Because Renfri had the passive ability to attract people onto her side. Those men were 100% loyal and willing to die for her. They werent going to stop. Also, Geralt felt a sort of connection with her either it was from her magic or just he really liked her we dont know. She was like him in that they were mainly human but not at the same time. He didnt feel alone and kept warning her giving her chances but you gotta do what you gotta do.


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

[User]
[Star Trek] Archer had an Enterprise. Then Kirk had an Enterprise. Then they built Enterprise-A. Why wasn't Kirk's vessel Enterprise A?

And why, when Scotty told the holodeck to show him the bridge of the Enterprise, "...no bloody A, B, C, or D" did the computer show him Kirk's vessel, and not Archer's? Also, the computer said there were only FIVE vessels with that name. Archer's Enterprise, Kirk's, and A-D make six.

[Assistant] Archer's Enterprise was the NX-01 Enterprise, and did not start its life as a Federation ship, bug as a part of United Earths Starfleet. All subsequent Enterprises had the NCC-1701 designation and were Federation vessels.


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

[User]
[Big Hero 6] How does Baymax stay so clean and white?

For example, in the warehouse scene he doesn't pick up even a speck of dust, despite crawling through windows and ventilation shafts.

[Assistant] Baymax is a healthcare assistant. Able to help with thousands of treatments. He was built so that his "skin" is always cleaning itself.  That way he wouldn't infect someone that he was trying to help.


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

[User]
How does our brain generate a random number?

When somebody asks you: "Think a number between 0 and 100", is there a scientific reason to explain which number someone chooses?

[Assistant]
The answer is unfortunately that we don't know, but it's not random.

What we do know is that there are failsafes that prevent thought paralysis when given these tasks under a time limit... Some people do not have these mechanisms and when given choices between similar items, they cannot choose.