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

[User]
[Papers, Please] Arstotzkan border guards are paid in a commission format based upon the number of successful crossings every day. How was this a proper method of payment when bombers and anti-vaxxers can't be predicted? And don't just gimme that Communism card.

Glory to Arstotzka.

[Assistant]
Glorious Arstozka immigration machines are able to detect the appropriate answer automatically within a day of border crossing, and deduct mistakes from the border guard pay by the time they come home from work.  The only reason a human is at the border is to provide work for Arstozka citizens with skill set of checking paper manually.  If human is doing work, human gets paid based on performance.

There are no bombers or anti-vaxxers allowed into Arstozka.  Do not worry about such things.


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

[User] [Marvel/Mythbusters] What would the Marvel version of Mythbusters be like, taking into account the materials and alternative science available to their counterparts of that universe?

[Assistant]
The most obvious one, IMO, is fucking around to see just how "unbreakable" adamantium really is- especially to test how "unbreakable" incredibly thin sheets are.

Messing around with the absorption/reflection properties of vibranium.


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

[User] ELI5: A lot of outrage comes from companies stealing our data, what is an actual harmful outcome to me from a company taking my data?

[Assistant] Well, they can target their advertising very specifically, manipulating your behaviour by knowing how to subconsciously alter your spending habits. The data can be used to alter things like your chances of being approved for a loan, or how much your insurance will cost. They might reveal information you'd rather keep secret, for example gay people have been outed because their social media began sending adverts and messages related to that based off of their search history... there can be a lot of consequences.


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

[User]
CMV: Minimum Wage Should be Tied to Housing Costs

I believe we should start with determining a minimum number of work hours that would allow someone to be independent. I define "independent" as being able to afford single-occupancy housing on a single income.

Let's say my hypothetical society has agreed that working 50 hours per week should allow for independence. "Independence" is when that worker can afford a studio apartment within a 30 minute commute of their employer (where rent for the apartment equals no more than 28% of gross wages).

I think that we should work backwards from the cost of "independent" living, to determine the minimum wage based on the location of the job.

I believe using cost of housing is a more realistic and helpful adjustment factor than inflation. Inflation faces criticism from what it does and does not factor in. I think using actual housing costs tied to specific geographic areas would be most beneficial for the workers, because it reflects their housing reality. If a city's average rent goes up by $50 a year, the minimum wages should reflect that.

Currently, low-wage workers in sectors such as retail have to commute in to higher-cost cities. If minimum wage was tied to the housing costs in the vicinity of the employment, more workers could afford to live near where they work.

I am open to refining this idea, and welcome suggestions. I am sure I am overlooking some economic issues. The 50 hours per week was arbitrary. Personally, I feel like that number could be 32 - 40 hours per week. The commute length of 30 minutes is also arbitrary.

[Assistant]
Wouldnt housing keep going up in this scenario?

If everyone suddenly had $2K per month to spend on housing, wouldnt the shitholes suddenly be priced at $2 grand?  Landlords typically charge what the market will bear.


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

[User] [star trek]suppose you're a doctor or an engineer on the USS Bozeman (that 23rd century ship that crashed into the Enterprise D in Cause and Effect), do you get to keep your rank and title despite your knowledge of your field being 90 years behind the times?

[Assistant] You will keep your rank and title. After all, you earned them fair and square; they are genuine. But when a posting comes open, *Starfleet* decides who gets offered the job. You won't be offered another posting on a starship  or a posting doing anything, for that matter  until you pass the same modern-day certification tests as the people you're competing against.


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

[User]
Thoughts on taking a gap year before grad school?

I'm about to begin my final year as an undergrad English major, and I'm not sure yet whether I should take a year off between getting my BA and heading to grad school (I want to pursue an MLIS). The thought of applying to schools while writing my thesis and prepping a paper for publication is really overwhelming and makes me want to wait a year, but I'm also worried that my employment opportunities would be pretty limited with just a BA. Have any of you been in a similar situation, and if so do you have any advice? I'm feeling really lost and nervous, so any insight is greatly appreciated. TIA!

[Assistant]
Take the year.

- Avoid burnout.
- Make sure grad schools and entering debt is something you really want to do.
- Get other real life experience beyond college that will serve you will in lots of capacities.
- Make money.


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

[User] ELI5: Why on earth do leg cramps hurt so much, and why do they happen in the middle of the night sometimes?

[Assistant] Sodium deficiency is the most common cause, especially if you do endurance athletics. They hurt bc it is the full force of your muscle contracting without anything holding it back. Basically the nerve's wiring is cut off because sodium is the "wire."


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

[User] ELI5: How did sites like Grooveshark, Spotify, and Google Play get all that music available for free streaming?

[Assistant]
Grooveshark is currently in a number of lawsuits over copyright infringement.

Spotify has licensing deals with music studios so that they are allowed to stream music on demand.  On the free version, they pay for these license fees with ads.  In the US, due to streaming music laws, anyone can use music for Internet Radio, assuming that they pay a set royalty fee.  This is how Pandora and Spotify Radio work.

Google Play All Access is similar to Spotify in that you need to pay $10/month and they use that money to pay for license fees to the recording companies.

iTunes Radio is different in that it has worked out license fees with companies for streaming so they can operate in many more countries than something like Pandora.  Pandora only works in the US, Australia, and New Zealand.  While iTunes Radio is initially only available in the US, many people believe that because Apple's licensing deals span across many countries, it will be able to spread far easier than Pandora.


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

[User]
[Marvel Thor] How does Thor fly?

It doesn't seem to me that Asgardians can fly on their own. Does he just use the momentum of Mjolnir to propel himself?

[Assistant] He uses his supernatural strength to hurl Mjolnir forward and up, then hangs onto it as it goes. While clearly impossible by Earthly physics, Asgardians are magical and able to bend the laws of physics.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are fumes from gasoline visible to us in the air?

[Assistant] We don't actually see the fumes themselves.  Light waves travel at slightly different speeds when traveling through the vapor as it does through the atmospheric air which is what gives it that wavy appearance.  It's the same effect as when looking at pavement in a very hot day.


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

[User]
CMV: People who spend thousands of dollars on fertility treatment are selfish and should instead adopt a child already in this world.

There are roughly half a million children in the US alone who are in orphanages or don't have permanent homes. Yet people will spend thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands, for medical treatment and guidance to promote having a baby of their own.
I don't see how an orphan has any less value as a human being than anyone else. I don't see how they are any less deserving of a home and a loving family. They didn't choose to be born into the life of uncertainty that they live. Why *forcibly* bring another child into the world when you can vastly improve the life, present and future, of one already here? I'm not saying to never make babies until there are no more orphans. But why the hell would you spend so much money and invest so much time into something that should be natural in the first place?
I believe that people who are infirtile or require intense treatment yet choose that route over adoption are selfish.

*Edit:* I absolutely loved this guys. I think my view has shifted, not necessarily changed. I still think it's selfish. But now, I realize that humans are selfish beings, and that it's ridiculous to not look after your own happiness and fulfillment first and foremost. I totally understand where these parents are coming from, and I no longer blaming them for wanting to continue their own genetics. We are not responsible for the lives of others. Only for the happiness of our own.
A lot of people asked who I was. I'm a 22 year old American female with a family history of infertility on both sides. I may find out that I'm infertile sometime soon, so it's on my mind. And, if I was, I feel like I'd still adopt if I wanted a child. But I will no longer criticize someone for taking another path. I'm just as selfish as anyone else. And that's okay.

[Assistant] Either this applies to all biological parents, or it applies to none of them. Whether or not you can get pregnant easily should have nothing to do with it. This CMV is singling out people with emotionally damaging medical issues unnecessarily.


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

[User] Sorry if this has been answered already, but if Earth  were to collide with another planet like Jupiter, what would it look like to the people at the point of contact?

[Assistant] Every large celestial object has something called a "Roche limit" around it, which is the closest another gravitationally-bound object can be to it without breaking up.  What we would see is that Jupiter would get larger and larger, but before we got to it properly the gravitational forces would start to rip the planet and us apart.  We wouldn't survive to see the collision with an object that large.


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

[User]
[DC Comics] Superman is supposed to fight a major battle - but is incapacitated. He's taking on an opponent who's equally as strong but twice his size. Who would replace Superman?

This is *not* about who would win, this is about who Superman would get as his replacement if he was too incapacitated to fight in a battle. As for the opponent, assume it's a one-off, but powerful villain who's equal to Superman in terms of power but a human alien twice their size - and a character not in any current DC Comics continuity.

[Assistant] If he's trying to hide being incapacitated, which makes sense because his reputation is a deterrent, probably the Martian Manhunter. He's roughly as strong and a shapeshifter. He's impersonated Superman before to maintain the illusion that Clark Kent is not Superman.


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

[User] If I have a splinter that I can't manage to take out, what does my body make of it ? Does it consume it ?

[Assistant]
We are constantly making new skin cells and shedding the old ones, so there's a sort of 'current' running outward that will eventually push many foreign substances that are stuck in your epidermis outwards in a week or two.

Those that pierce further than that will take one of three paths. One, your body will surround the foreign object in pus, then try to expel it like a zit. Two, your body will build up scar tissue around it and will actually leave it there to calcify. Three, it will soften, and your body will eventually absorb the intruder.


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

[User]
A Question about Bergson

In his *Introduction to Metaphysics*, Bergson wrote that "This reality is mobility". To which he added in a footnote:-

> Let me insist I am thereby in no way setting aside substance. On the contrary, I affirm the persistance of existences. And I believe I have facilitated their representation. How was it ever possible to compare this doctrine with the doctrine of Heraclitus?

My questions are:-

1. What is the "doctrine of Heraclitus" and how is it different from the "doctrine" of Bergson?

2. What does this footnote mean?

Thank you for reading!

[Assistant]
The doctrine of Heraclitus is that everything is moving and thus all things must exist or be the same throughout their existence and non-existence.

I think the footnote is probably some sort of common ground for him to explain where his work stands (to give the reader a point of reference). But he's also specifying that his insisting on movement and mobility is not discarding substance and the persistence of past substance over time, which is a pretty big point for his philosophy.


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

[User]
Can microwaves harm you if you stand close to them while they are cooking food?

When I was younger, my mother would always tell me to stay away from the microwave oven when it was on, as she was convinced it would give you cancer if you were near it while it was cooking food. I took physics, biology, and chemistry in college, however, and there was never any mention of harm caused by microwave ovens.

Was this just paranoia on my mother's part? Or is there some sort of scientific evidence that microwaves can be harmful to the human body?

[Assistant] The microwave oven is perfectly safe to stand next to. The metal cage you see lining the inside of the microwave is a Faraday cage that prevents the electromagnetic radiation from getting out. Don't worry about the holes you see in the metal cage, their size is specifically designed to increase its effectiveness at the frequency that the microwave operates at (2.4GHz), so nothing harmful will get out.


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

[User] ELI5: In Chess, why are Female players rated lower than their Male counterparts for the same rank?

[Assistant]
Chess rankings use a system called the Elo rating system. Your rating is a mathematical value that represents how much more likely you're going to beat another player *in the same rating group*. The number itself is fairly arbitrary.

The system starts with every player joining at a specific rating, and then it gets adjusted based on wins and losses. The adjustments are zero-sum. However many points you win, the other player loses. That means if you took the average point value of everyone in the league, it would be equal to that starting point.

The more players in the league, the more points there are to spread up and down. This means that more players there are, the higher the high end is going to be. So if the male league has more competitors, its highest ranked players will have a higher rating than the top players in the womens league, but the actual value of the number is meaningless outside of the league.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why does the human eye can see just the colors blue,green and red, while you need yellow,blue and magenta to mix all colors if you're painting?

In my biology class I learned that the human only reacts to blue-violett,green and red rays. But in my art class I learned that you or a printer for example needs to mix magenta,blue, and yellow together to get every other color. So why humans can see all color and printers can print all colors?

[Assistant]
We see red green and blue, but since pigments are about removing light from white light, it uses different colored pigments which each selectively *remove* red, green, or blue from the light. Removing red light gives us cyan (which you refer to as 'blue' above). Removing green gives us magenta. Removing blue gives us yellow.

Since you are dealing with printing, four color process will also use black because it is difficult to get pure blacks by mixing real-life pigments together.


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

[User]
ELI5:What are the different programming languages for?

I only know that HTML and CSS are for webpages but completely clueless about the rest. Can they all be used for web pages? Or do they each do a different thing?

[Assistant]
In general all programming languages can all do the exact same thing. They differ in how easy, how fast and how efficient the process of doing the thing is.
The basic test for what a programming language can do is to see if it can do the same thing as a very simple computer called a "Turing machine" and language or system that can do that is called "Turing Complete". A language that is Turing Complete could do any computation task given an infinite amount of time and memory. This turns out to be a very low bar, for example people have built a turing complete computer inside of Minecraft.

Once that low bar is out of the way the languages begin to differentiate.
Some languages like Python are super easy to learn, but run really really slow. This allows you to focus on making you algorithm really good, but makes it nearly impossible to fiddle with the nuts and bolts of how the program is run.

Some languages like C are more difficult to learn but run really fast. Alot of the old operating systems were coded in C, because they really need it going quickly.

Some language like Java or C++ strike a balance in between them.

Other languages like MATLAB focus on doing one thing and doing it really really fast and easy, but are difficult for other thing. MATLAB does math and graphs really really well, but you would have to jump through some serious hoops to build a game out of it.

Also the languages differ in the "Libraries" that support it. A libary is a collection of code that a programmer can call upon to help him do something. For example rather than writing the code to draw a cube on the screen from scratch, he downloads a library and calls the function in the library to do it for him.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does the stock market drop after hearing the White House has been attacked?

Could it be because the White House is a major investment?

[Assistant]
If an attack were to happen on the White House, business and consumer spending would drop because in times of crises both corporations and people prefer to save money than spend it on big investments or luxuries.

Stock traders try to anticipate consumer and business behavior when valuing stocks and deciding when to buy or sell.  An attack on the White House would certainly hurt business and consumer confidence and cause everyone to spend less, buy less, and take out fewer loans.  Thus stock in most businesses would go down in price while everyone tries to sell it off.

The traders don't want to be stuck with stocks that are losing value both because they are trying to make money, but also because they too might be scared and would rather have the cash on hand.


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

[User]
How much of an impact does it make to complete your PhD in the US versus Europe/Oceania/etc?

I have read a few times here that US institutions prefer people who hold PhDs from the US in hiring, and I'm not sure if a similar idea holds for other countries/areas. I'm not sure if it'd be more difficult to be accepted to a grad program as an international student or a post-doc position as an international early-career researcher. Whilst I'll probably spend at least part of my career in the US due to how many research groups are there, I don't intend to live there permanently if I have an equal choice elsewhere. I may change my mind on that in the future.

After completing my undergrad + honours in Australia (in Physics, focussing on Astrophysics), I am also concerned that the "method of delivery" for the US PhD won't suit me. I'm already used to being pretty independent in research and am not looking to sit in heaps of courses anymore or do rotations; I'd prefer to identify a project and start research on day 1, if not earlier. So on that front alone, it seems like the PhD style for Australia + Europe (and maybe elsewhere) would suit me better, but I'm aware that there are other benefits for drawing it out over longer and getting more teaching experience.

**Is there any, even incredibly slight, advantage in the long term to taking either path in terms of an academic career?** There are places (and academics/groups) that I want to apply to all over the world, but the GRE requirement and processing fees for most US institutions are expensive, and I need to cut down the pool of places to apply to. Of course, I'm skimming over details for visas, funding, maybe language barriers, and even getting accepted to begin with, but those will largely have to be taken into account on a case-by-case basis.

[Assistant] Go to a school with a department that focuses on something you're passionate about that has funding and faculty interested in the same thing.  Write interesting and relevant papers published in credible journals.  Network and meet people in your field and collaborate with the best and most active people you can find.   The US vs Europe thing is small potatoes vs this stuff.  Chances are if you are relevant, you'll know people in Europe while working in the States, or visa versa, and those will be the contacts that hire you after you graduate.  If Dr. Awesomesauce at Cal Tech likes your work, he'll hire you no matter where you go.  So go where you can do the best work.


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

[User]
ELI5 how do people isolate specific audio tracks from a file without access to the master tapes? Such as when someone makes an isolated vocal or bass track of a song or when someone makes a mashup of instruments from one song with the vocals from another.

Such as when people make "isolated bass/vocal," tracks of popular songs or make a meme mashup of one song with he vocal line of another over it?

[Assistant]
To add to what the other commenter said, audio files are usually in stereo - there are actually 2 tracks, one for the left side and one for the right - and when a song is created, different sounds are usually placed in different locations in the stereo field. Lead vocals, kick drums, bass, and sometimes snare drums are usually placed in mono - the left and right channels are identical. Most other sounds are usually not in mono - the left and right channels are different. For example, a sound may be panned, where the volume on one side is louder than the other.

If your goal is to extract vocals, you can simply discard all the data that isn't the same on both the left and right channels. You will be left with less overlapping frequency information to try and cut the vocals out of.

There are also AI tools that can assist with separating tracks, such as Spleeter.


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

[User] Where does bubble gum flavor come from?

[Assistant] Flavoring chemicals, likely esters and aldehydes, possibly with actual fruit oils or extracts. Exact recipes are hard to come by, but basically it's a combination of things that smell/taste somewhat fruity, without mimicking any particular food.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does putting cold fingers or toes in comfortably warm water cause a burning sensation?

[Assistant]
A combination of two things working together:

1. Your skin doesn't sense the actual temperature of things, you sense the *rate* that heat is entering or leaving the skin.
2. The rate of heat transfer gets faster the bigger the temperature difference between two things.

When your skin surface is cold, the "warm" water is hotter by comparison than it usually is. When you put freezing hands in warm water, heat starts entering your skin at a fast rate, a rate that tells your brain "water 50 degrees warmer than skin temperature". Your skin temp is usually body temperature, so your brain goes "oh shit, nearly-boiling water!" Except your skin was way colder than usual and the water was only normally-warm. But your temp sensors can only tell temperature *differences*, so there's no way to tell the difference.

Extra info:

Think about how a metal railing outside in the winter feels colder than something wood like a tree, even they're both the exact same temperature. That only happens because metal is a way better heat-conductor than wood. So cold metal can draw heat from your skin's surface faster than cold wood of the same temperature can, so you feel the metal as being "colder" because the *rate* of heat loss is faster..

Another example in case you don't live somewhere with cold winters: wooden toilet seats vs plastic toilet seats. The wood ones feel warmer, right? Both are the same room temp, but again wood is a poor heat conductor while the plastic seat draws your heat away faster.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do human teeth generally grow in crooked?

[Assistant]
Because theyre ape teeth.

Our ancestors had nice big strong sets of teeth, to chew a lot of tough hard food (since cooking wasnt a thing). This is also why we have Wisdom teeth.

As humans have evolved though, our brains have gotten bigger, our heads have changed shape, which leads to a bit of a smaller jaw

Buuuuttt, we still have the same teeth, so the same teeth have to fit into a smaller jaw, meaning they all get squished together.

This is also why our wisdom teeth are such a problem, there just isnt enough room anymore.


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

[User]
If male seahorses are the ones that give birth, why don't we consider the male seahorse female? and the female seahorse male?

According to the dictionary females are defined as "of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs". By this definition, the sexes of seahorses should be switched.

[Assistant] They don't actually give birth to the young. Females lay their eggs in a pouch on the male. The male then incubates them and eventually when they hatch they emerge from his stomach pouch, almost like some sort of aquatic marsupial.


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

[User] [DC/Marvel] What does the FBI's most wanted list look like in the DC and Marvel universes?

[Assistant]
There'd probably be a lot fewer super-villains on it than one would expect due to 3 factors:

1) Due to their tendency to pick a city and stick with it (i.e. the "Rogues Gallery" of Batman operates in Gotham, Spider-Man's assorted pains in the ass stay in New York, etc), a lot of super-crimes don't cross into federal juristdiction. The big one would be if they fled the state after pulling off a super-crime; criminals who jump state borders is pretty much the whole reason the FBI was founded in the first place, and it is exactly in their wheelhouse.

2) Super-criminals don't often stay free long enough to merit a major manhunt, since they tend to wind up with super-heroes hot on their trail ASAP after a heist.

3) In some continuities, super-folk are explicitly removed from the FBI's wheelhouse and given to another government entity. For instance in Marvel, sounding the alarm that a super-crook is running loose is SHIELD's problem, not the FBI's.


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

[User]
[Coraline] How well does the parallel-dimension-mother-with-buttons-for-eyes see?

I mean, she seems to be quite aware of her surroundings, so I'm guessing she *sees* well, but let's be reasonable - she doesn't have eyes, she has BUTTONS!.

[Assistant]
Magic.

Her hand, once detached, still has the senses needed to follow Coraline and attempt to retrieve the key, so eyes aren't necessary (she isn't using the buttons as eyes in at least that scene, so there must be some kind of magic sense)


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

[User]
ELI5: What exactly does incognito browser do?

How incognito does it really make us?

[Assistant] It means that the browser will start a new browsing session and will not record anything during it. This means two things: it will not use identifying information (such as cookies) from your normal browsing session, and any information collected while browsing incognito (cookies, browsing history) will be discarded and not stored on your computer. This means that anyone using your computer later won't know what sites you went to.


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

[User]
Why is logical positivism so unpopular these days?

I read about it and I think the ideas of logical positivism (verificationism especially) are quite sensible. Could somebody please explain to me why is it so unpopular these days?

[Assistant]
> are quite sensible

As you know, it's not really sufficient to suggest a bunch of phrases that sound plausible, you're supposed to substantiate a thesis, refine it and revise it if necessary, explain how it works, and so on. Logical positivism can be thought of as an attempt to do this, some sort of loosely defined, informal research program. Even though this is clearly not a binary distinction, in most disciplines we'd say that such a program is either successful or not (not binary given that a "failed" program can be very valuable etc). But that's not usually a question of this one big KO ARGUMENT, and there probably is none. It's more an overall evaluation - where do we stand, what have we accomplished, how strong are our theories compared to the competition, what parts are unsolved or refuted? At some point, this evaluation simply didn't look too good for LoPo.

Overall, many people would simply say the program of logical positivism wasn't successful. It proved fairly difficult to provide a precise version of the verification principle that was accepted even by fellow positivists, related research programs that would have been convenient for positivism (such as logicism, the attempt to account for all truths of mathematics in terms of truths of logic) were seen as a failure or not concluded, attacks on underlying commitments and promotion of alternatives (such as Quine in 2 Dogmas and On What There Is) gained popularity, specific work of individual positivists that was carried out in the spirit of LoPo (Carnap's tolerance in the philosophy of logic, Reichenbach's quantum logic and work on probability) was seen unfavorably or alternatives were preferred by their relevant peers, the core tenets in the philosophy of science moved away from the rather simplistic picture of LoPo, and so on, and so forth.

It just didn't look good overall. At some point, even most logical positivists didn't seem to really be logical positivists in the original sense. They either moved on and largely stopped defending it, or were stuck trying to answer to critics instead of advancing their research program and finding solutions, then moved one as well. Whether something seems prima facie plausible or intriguing seems like a good reason to start a research program, not to ignore how this research program went, with history as a judge.


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

[User] If I only have five types of taste receptors, why can I taste a thousand different flavors?

[Assistant]
Layman here.

You don't taste a thousand different flavours - you smell them. "Flavour" is actually molecules of the food going up into the nasal cavity and being detected as smells. If you pinch your nose, you can only detect sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness and umami. This is why food can tastes bland when you have a cold and your nose is blocked up.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does my head produce a seemingly infinite amount of mucous when im sick?

[Assistant] When we get sick from an infection, the body produces an inflammatory response to protect us from the bacteria or virus. As part of this response, signalling substances are produced and released by the mucous-producing cells lining our nose. More blood flows to the area and body water leaks out between the cells of the membranes in an attempt to wash away the dead tissue, white blood cells, and bacteria/virus (hence the yucky yellow/green colour) leading to a runny nose. Unfortunately, swelling of tissues is also part of the inflammatory process, and that is why we get congested sometimes as well.


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

[User] [Frogger] Why do the frogs die if they fall in the water? Aren't they able to survive in water as amphibians?

[Assistant] They get carried away by the current, and get either eaten or drown. It's just no point in showing the death beyond the point when they hit the water since... well hitting the water might as be the same.


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

[User] Do rockets have to account for the gravitational pull of the Sun?

[Assistant]
If you're flying to the ISS or the Moon, "not really" or "not much".

So yes, a rocket is pulled by the gravity of the Sun. But so are the ISS, the Moon, and the Earth. Because we're all very close together, we all feel almost exactly the same pull from the Sun in almost exactly the same direction. If you're just worried about getting into low earth orbit, all you care about is your acceleration relative to the Earth, so you can ignore the effects of the Sun's gravity.

If you're talking about going to the Moon, we're starting to stretch this "not much" though. The Moon is far enough away that, depending on its position, it can feel about 0.5% more or less gravity from the Sun than the Earth does, or feel gravity in a slightly different direction. So if you're plotting a course to the Moon, the difference in the Sun's gravity is big enough to have make a small but potentially significant effect on your trajectory, and you'll want to take it into account if you really want to be accurate.

And of course, if you're going to another planet in the solar system, then the Sun is the main thing you care about. You want to escape Earth's gravity, and then move closer or further from the Sun, over a large distance where the Sun's gravity changes by a lot. Here you really must work against the Sun's gravity to move outwards etc, and you can't ignore it.


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

[User]
[The Incredibles] If the Incredibles couldn't escape the island could the Omnidroid V10 in the city been destroyed?

Would the army have been able to defeat it eventually or would they have to try nuke it if they can't stop it themselves.

[Assistant]
It's weakness to its own alloy, which was likely its only weakness, was only known by Mr. Incredible from his fight with the previous iteration.

Without that knowledge, the military would have had a tough time defeating it. Then again, this is the military. They have so many weapons and powers at their disposal that we can assume they would have defeated the Omnidroid eventually. By that point, though, the collateral damage would have be colossal and we can assume there would be a death count.


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

[User] [Hard SciFi] A generation ship finally reaches its destination star system. What would be the master plan for the colonialization?

[Assistant]
Let's assume Earth II, with seasons/climate/etc a close approximation of Earth.

We have been training the final generation in farming/hunting/gathering since birth.  Let's say we have 500 colonists ready to go, 50,000 young adults in 'cold sleep' and the potential for billions in the form of forzen ova/sperm.

We'll start with approximatly 250 for the first wave.  They will be testing the planet for suitability.  If they last one year, they will joined by the second wave.

While the first 250 are planetside the folks still on the ship will be mapping the planet for minerals, geothermal power sources, etc.

The second wave will be settled in the prime spots and begin the process of building new towns.  As soon as there is housing, a fresh bath of colonists is decanted and sent down.  AS soon as one group has achieved a little competence more are added.

It will probably be a decade before the final young colonist is planetside.  The older folks will be in orbit acting as back up.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Cradle of Humanity

 Does Star Wars have a known planet Human originally came from?   If not, are there any myths or legends about it?

[Assistant] They're one of the few species with an unknown homeworld, considering how LONG galactic history is in the Star Wars universe. That said, it's generally accepted as one of the core worlds and the most common theory has it being pre terraforming Coruscant.


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

[User] When heating something to high temperatures it becomes red hot and then continues to change color to orange, yellow, and then white; why doesnt the hot object start to glow green or blue after yellow?

[Assistant]
The "red hot" appearance of an object is due to its thermal radiation. This is EM radiation emitted by every object and the spectrum of which is determined by the temperature. Objects at room temperature emit thermal radiation in the infrared part of the spectrum, but once objects get hotter, the spectrum of thermal radiation shifts more towards the visible part.

However, this radiation is a broader spectrum, not a single line. So a red hot object will emit red visible light along with plenty of IR light. Since the red light is the only thing visible to us, we see the object as red. If you heat up the object further, shorter wavelength visible light gets added to the mixture, making the combined color shift towards orange.

If you heat the object enough, the thermal radiation will cover the entire visible light part of the spectrum, making the combined radiation appear white. At no point does the object only emit green or blue light. By the time it's hot enough to emit green or blue, it's also emitting plenty of light in other colors (with longer wavelengths) and what we see is the mixture of all visible light that is emitted.


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

[User] Eli5: Why do we puke when we *see* something disgusting, although there's no sign it has actually entered or interfered with our body?

[Assistant]
We have a very vivid sensory imagination, and it's pretty common that our bodies get their signals crossed a bit and respond in real ways to imaginary stimulus. For some of us, seeing someone get hurt badly can give us 'sympathy pains' in the same body part. For a lot of people, looking at or even *thinking* about a lemon, is enough to make their tongue and salivary glands tingle. It's the same with our disgust reactions.

Neurologically, we don't have a super deep explanation for this, but we know that there are these things called "mirror neurons" in humans and many other animals, which fire both when we do something *and* when we see someone else do the same thing. We seem to have some part of our brain and central nervous system which is basically hard-wired for the purpose of imagining ourselves in someone else's place. There are lots of evolutionary reasons why this might be the case.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why can mice be inbred?

Why can mice be inbred for 20 generations and stay healthy, while most other animals can't?

edit: answered. ty! apparently they're fucked up too.

[Assistant] Most animals have recessive genes that are damaging if you get two copies of the same one. However, if an animal is already inbred for many generations (like such a mouse) all the recessive genes have already been taken out of the gene pool ahead of time. Essentially, lab mice have been "bred" to be "inbred".


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the difference between serotonin and dopamine?

What are their roles too. What does dopamine do as well as serotonin.

[Assistant] Quick Answer. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with the pleasure centers of the brain. It is responsible for feelings related to love, joy, pleasure, reward and motivation. Serotonin is also a neurotransmitter and helps to regulate mood, irritability, impulse, obsession and memory. - Copied from Google.


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

[User] Could humanity, if it was so inclined, blow up the earth?

[Assistant]
No. But to add to the other answers, here are some (rough) numbers!

The Earth is held together by gravity, so to blow it apart you need to "unbind" the Earth. This means you need to input a chunk of energy larger than the gravitational binding energy of the Earth.

The binding energy for a sphere of constant density is U=-3GM^2 /5R. The Earth doesn't have constant density, but then again when you input this energy as a bomb it won't all go into gravitational energy for various reasons - this is just an approximate calculation to figure out vaguely how large a number we need (i.e. millions vs billions instead of 11.2 vs 11.3).

Plugging in the numbers for the Earth, the binding energy is around U=-10^32 J. A megaton of TNT is a few times 10^15 J. The Tsar Bomba was supposed to be able to get up to around 50 megatons, which is about 10^17 J. So to blow up the Earth, you'd need 10^15 of the largest nuclear bomb ever constructed. That is, over a hundred thousand Tsar Bombas for every single person on the planet.

The Tsar Bomba weighed 27,000 kg, so that would be about 10^19 kg of Tsar Bombas. That is close to the mass of all the rings of Saturn, and larger than one of its moons.

So... it's not likely any time soon :) It's probably "easier" to shift the orbit of an asteroid so that it collides with us than it would be to just blow up the Earth directly.

**Edit 2**: Looking at the numbers (see scottmcu below), an asteroid impact would not be big enough to destroy the Earth, unless you artificially accelerated it. Essentially, you need to produce the energy to give to the asteroid anyway, in which case you could either (a) move the Earth's orbit or (b) build a giant death laser.

**Edit**: What about Death Lasers? Well, a quick look on wiki tells us the entire power consumption of the Earth is something like 15.8 terawatts ~ 10^13 W. So to produce 10^32 J, it would take the entire world's power generation for 10^26 years. The universe is only 10^10 years old. So it would require 10^16 Earths to do it within the length of the universe. That is, if everybody on the surface of the Earth (all ~10^10 of us) has their own Earth, and each of those Earths produced the same power as our Earth, and within each of those Earths, every person in say, Nova Scotia, also has their own Earth (ridiculous Russian doll situation), which all produces as much power as our own Earth, then we would just have enough power to destroy the Earth within the lifetime of the entire universe so far.

**Edit 3**: Can we throw the Earth into the Sun? Not likely either, "unfortunately"... We would need to shed basically all of our planet's kinetic energy - otherwise we will just have a near-miss as we plummet towards the Sun. So that energy is 1/2 * m * v^2 . The Earth moves at 30 km/s around the Sun, and weighs about 10^25 kg. That gives a kinetic energy of 10^33 J. Check the binding energy of the Earth above. Yes, that's right, it takes less energy to *blow the Earth apart* than it does to fling it into the Sun.

It's actually worse than this. We have to take conservation of momentum into account. We have to fire mass in the direction of our motion to get the Earth to stop. We can do this with large mass at slow speed, or small mass at high speed. It would kinda defeat the point of throwing the Earth into the Sun if we could just split the Earth into two chunks flying in opposite directions, so let's say we'll fire a small mass at high speed into space, much like a rocket does. While this has the benefit of not completely destroying the Earth before we even get slow enough to hit the Sun, it actually takes *more* energy. This is due to the v^2 term in kinetic energy - everytime we half the mass we are launching, we must double the speed it's been fired out at. The v^2 means the speed counts twice, so we have half * double * double = double. So (speaking approximately), if we fire only 1/100 of the Earth's mass away, it would need to have 10^37 J of energy, instead of 10^33 J.

So funnily enough, it's apparently easier to blow up the Earth than to throw it into the Sun.

**Edit 4**: For anyone still reading this, it would take something like 10^15 kg of antimatter, similar to Deimos (the small moon's of Mars). Or alternately, every person on Earth has 100 tonnes of antimatter.

**tl;dr:**

**1) We will never have enough nukes to blow apart the Earth**

**2) Even an asteroid impact from the largest asteroid in our solar system couldn't blow apart the Earth - unless it was accelerated to a ridiculous speed**

**3) It would take far more energy than we have ever generated to blow apart the Earth with a laser (or anything that comes from any sort of power source we have access to)**

**4) It takes even more energy to stop the Earth in its tracks and let it fall into the Sun.**

**5) Even if antimatter were as common as uranium you'd need a ridiculous amount.**


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Would the Jedi Mind Trick work on a very strong willed normal person?

Let's say that a Jedi tries a Mind Trick on a normal human (so, not a species who is naturally immune) who is not a force sensitive but it's extremely stubborn and strong willed. Would it work or would the normal human be able to to resist it?

[Assistant] The jedi mind trick is said to work only on the weak minded.  A strong willed person should be able to resist the mind trick entirely, but they're gonna have to have a heck of a strong will.  Strong willed individuals may not be able to resist a collective mind trick, performed by multiple jedi in tandem, though. However this technique risks damaging the mind of the victim, noted by Cad Bane feeling immense pain when Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Mace Windu all mind tricked him at the same time.  But simple answer, a single jedi versus a particularly strong willed person may have trouble making effective use of the mind trick.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is it that, when pushing medication through an IV, can you 'taste' whats being pushed.

Even with just normal saline; I get a taste in my mouth. How is that possible?

[Assistant] The medicine or whatever is being pushed through the IV makes it way through your blood into your lungs. when you exhale, the stuff now in the blood vessels in your lungs passes out your mouth in small amounts, so you taste it.


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

[User] Why does fire produce light?

[Assistant]
Everything above absolute zero emits electromagnetic radiation. The more energetic (hotter) something gets, the more radiation it emits both in total and in more areas of the spectrum.

Visible light is electromagnetic radiation that falls in a narrow part of the spectrum that our eyes can detect. There's also ultraviolet, infra-red, radio, etc...

Stuff that's burning is usually so energetic that it emits enough radiation in the right parts of the spectrum for your eyes to see it clearly, especially at night when everything else in the surroundings is just emitting tiny amounts of (invisible to us) IR.


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

[User]
Why is it said that black holes have infinite density at a singularity, when they clearly have a volume defined by the event horizon?

Am I mis-interpreting something?

[Assistant]
The mass is not distributed throughout the interior of the event horizon. It is concentrated at the singularity. The horizon is just an imaginary line we draw in spacetime, not a physical part of the body.

It is also actually far from clear that a black hole has volume. How would you measure such a thing? Even defining it theoretically would be riddled with problems.


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

[User] If Mars atmosphere is primarily Carbon Dioxide, why isnt it succumbing to the green house effect that were trying to avoid on our planet (by limiting CO2)?

[Assistant]
There *is* a greenhouse on Mars caused by the predominantly CO2 atmosphere, but it's relatively small because the atmosphere is so thin.

For the three planets that experience a significant greenhouse effect, the amount of warming is strongly a function of how thick the atmosphere is:

- The expected global temperature of Mars from sunlight alone is -55^o C, but the actual measured temperature -50^o C. The greenhouse effect produces an additional 5^o C of warming.

- The expected global temperature of Earth from sunlight alone is -17^o C, but the actual measured temperature 15^o C. The greenhouse effect produces an additional 32^o C of warming.

- The expected global temperature of Venus from sunlight alone is -43^o C, but the actual measured temperature 470^o C. The greenhouse effect produces an additional 513^o C of warming.


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

[User] [General Fantasy] What can I offer the demon Abbadon (destroyer, King of Demons) in a deal?

[Assistant]
Oh, there's always the standard things.

Your soul, your first born child, the lives and/or souls of those that love you.

But, generally when you're making a deal with a demon (or any kind of outsider, really) it's not about what you have to offer, but what they want from you. For example, you might spend years getting someone to love you and having a child with them, only to find out this Abbadon wants you to sacrifice 100 innocents for his price.

The only real constants when dealing with devils and demons is that the price will be steep, but within your ability to pay.


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

[User]
[General Fantasy] What goods and services would a high magic fantasy world want to import from a world like ours?

So, assuming a stable portal between a high magic fantasy world and one like our own (either through magic or CERN figuring out interdimensional travel) what would be traded?

[Assistant]
This may sound weird, but...

Timber and paper. If the forests are all full of heavily armed Wood Elves, psychopathic dryads, and mischievous sprites who think it's funny to lead a hard-working woodcutter into the depths of the forest where the giant spiders live, wood and wood products are going to be much harder to acquire in bulk.


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

[User]
[Marvel Universe] With the abundance of alien species whose flesh is stronger than steel, why are organic starships not more commonplace?

I mean, seriously. A friend took me on a tour around a few galactic hubs (read: fucking kidnapped me) and he managed to get into a number of fights along the way and EVERY DAMN TIME they were bulletproof and could tear bulkheads apart like a karate student breaking boards. Why even bother with metals if they're so useless?

[Assistant]
It's waaaaay harder to make a hull out of living flesh than out of metal. First you need to find a supply of flesh that will withstand a vacuum and all the extremes of space (like hard radiation) then you need to cultivate it all, feed it, care for it, etc.

Besides, the alloys used by the various races is more protective than flesh.


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

[User]
I think an ideal society would be run by technocrats that heavily fund education, healthcare, and science. CMV

I know there's a lot of moving parts to this, so I'll try to tackle each part individually. Basically a society set up this way would heavily invest in human capital (education and healthcare) and technology (indirectly through scientific advances). I understand there are marginal diminishing returns to just "throwing money" at something, but I think that holds true for any government spending structure.

Please keep in mind that I'm not calling for bigger government or dramatic structural changes. This is just a redeployment of budget and a different focus.

**1) Education:** This would of course mean education in the traditional sense (stronger public schools, stronger affordable state colleges) with higher paid teachers that are held to higher standards (much like doctors in America's society). But not all people are best utilized by going down the "traditional" book smart path. So education spending would also be put towards technical schools. You don't have to be a rocket scientist or an english professor. You can be a plumber or an electrician or a mechanic. But be sure you'll go to an excellent school and learn a useful, real-world skill.

But what about the "crappy" jobs, like garbage man and fast food worker? There will still be those people who do not do well in learning/applying a technical skill. Those lower tier jobs will still be filled. The point is that an individual still has *access* to an advanced education. Whether they can succeed in that skill is still left to a capitalist way of thinking.

**2) Healthcare:** Again, we're investing in human capital. There's no reason why someone who thinks they have diabetes should avoid expensive monitoring and treatments (or not even know they have it), only to waste away within 10 years, racking up hundreds of thousands of hospital bills. Keeping people healthy and having a *preventive* view of healthcare will keep a society's best resource (people) healthy and ready to work.

But what about supply limits? There's only so many kidneys and hearts that can be transplanted. We can't give it to everyone. I agree, but that aspect would still operate as in a capitalist system. If you have the money you can still buy your way to that access. That aspect is exactly like the current american system (few haves, many have-nots), only the key to this is the simple *preventive* measures (oh you have pneumonia here's the treatment free of charge, now continue being productive, instead of, oh crap gotta work through this sickness, and now I wheeze and can't do hard labor anymore cause i never went to the doctor).

**3) Science:** This ties everything together really. Better science = better, cheaper healthcare. Better computers, better resources, better education, better everything. If you have any doubts why this should be a priority, read all the applicable commercial things available due to NASA spending alone (hint: it wasn't just tempurpedic). But also think what else science has done for our modern world. Plastic, vaccines, medical procedures, water treatment, agriculture, computers. All game changers.

**4) But why would we "waste money" on X, or Y, or Z?** Well, there's no such thing as "wasting money", just applying funds to different sectors. When NASA spent $2.5 billion on curiosity, they didn't just take that money and put it in a package and send it to Mars, never to be used again. That money paid the scientists, the engineers, the raw material for the rover, the mechanics to upkeep the machinery, the janitors, security officers, the land owners that own the space used for the project, etc, etc, etc. That money is going back to the public as a reinvestment into human capital. The economy is still a free market as it is now.

**5) What about military? What, we'll just let people invade our precious utopia?** No. Military spending is important. It just shouldn't dominate the budget. Military spending would be substantially less and limited to defending against attacks on our own soil (such as anti-missile defense, coastal defense, local ground troops... and think of how badass it'll be with all the... you guessed it, awesome science and educated and healthy troops we have!). Deterrence programs, such as 24/7 bombers and 24/7 subs with nuclear capability to threaten retaliation in the event of an attack would be fair game.

What about giving foreign aid in the event of another WW2 situation? We can still do that. We have the best science and therefore technology. And we can still deploy money to help allies.

**6) But you mentioned technocrats in your title... how does that come in?** I admit this is probably one that I can budge on, but the theory on this one is that our leaders are experts in their field. Why should we have some out-of-touch politician that got to their position by throwing money at it make policy decision on education when they have zero understanding of it? How about the 60 year old guy who was an amazing teacher for 40 years, understanding the system quite well, and is super educated and healthy and ready to make positive changes based on his real-world experience? Right now we have politicians making decisions based on memos written by staffers backed by a few studies. Why not have the guy reading it be someone who can be critical and truly understand the information?

I know there's a lot I didn't cover but for the most part, for the sake of argument, everything else stays the same. Free markets, capitalism, no bigger government, just a redeployment of budget and better (maybe) politicians. I'd be open to suggestions regarding taxation or wealth distribution. I think current monetary policy is good (not perfect) and that quantitative easing was a positive move.

[Assistant]
Your idea is the rationale behind the various administrative agencies.

Congress can't effectively run a space program, so we'll create NASA.

Congress doesn't know how to improve education, so we'll create the DOE.

Congress doesn't know how to regulate workplace safety, so we'll create OSHA.

Congress doesn't know how to protect the environment, so we'll create the EPA.

Each of these agencies is supposed to be subject experts in their area of expertise to be able to effectively administer and manage the subjects they have authority over.

This hasn't solved the problem of politicians, now we fight about who gets to appoint the leaders of these agencies (President) and how to dole out money to each agency (Congress).  Sometimes we fight about how much authority each agency should have (Congress + President) or whether the agency's actions are within the scope of authority (Judiciary).

We have a system similar to what you have described, and we're no better off for it.  The system doesn't improve efficiency, it creates more avenues for conflict.


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

[User]
[Frozen] Did Elsa just make Arendalle a strong and power city state/country?

Did Elsa just make Arendalle a strong and powerful city state or country by the end of the film? I mean, if enemy forces decided to descend on Arendalle, Elsa could just freeze their forces to literal ice statues. If she was feeling a little imperialistic, she could literally hold a nation at hostage by creating a massive artificial ice age.

Not to mention that in a quasi non-military fashion, having that kind of absurd power and the ability to create *sentient life* with just snow and ice would hold a lot of advantages in diplomacy.

[Assistant]
There was a sense that Arendelle was already pretty well off, perhaps as a trade nation; the interest of those looking for a piece of it indicates that it must have had some degree of wealth or influence in the first place.

But what Elsa definitely *did* do is render it invincible. Nobody will ever attack it without a death wish. Fortunately for the rest of the world, Elsa didn't seem the conquering type. But somehow, I'll bet that Arendelle will have the upper hand in a lot of trade negotiations anyway from that point onwards.


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

[User]
[MCU] What happened to Odin's spear?

Also could Thor effectively wield it or is it something only Odin benefits from?

[Assistant]
Gungnir was likely destroyed with the rest of Asgard, as Thor never had the chance to retrieve it (and there was no real point to having Loki do so when he went back to unleash Surtur).

There was no reason Thor couldn't wield it effectively, but it wasn't a weapon he'd specifically trained with, nor was he intimately familiar with any special properties of the weapon. So when he just picked it up for fighting Hela, he wasn't as effective with it as Odin would have been in his prime. But if he had kept it, he could have learned to be as deadly with it as he was with Mjolnir.


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

[User] [LoTR] What exactly made Frodo so qualified to bear the Ring? Sam says, "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you." Why can't he carry it?

[Assistant]
To some extent that was purely loyalty to Frodo.  Sam knew that carrying the Ring was Frodo's responsibility and had no desire to usurp that.  He carried the Ring, and Sting when it comes right down to it, for as long as he did only because Frodo could not.  Once they could be returned he did so, because they weren't his to carry.  Sam resisted the Ring's influence when it tried to convince him to claim it and when it tried to convince him to steal it from Frodo, his ability to fight the Ring's corruption was never in question.  But part of that resistance was Sam's inherent loyalty to Frodo and his unwillingness to take the Ring.  Frodo carried the Ring mainly because it was passed to him from Bilbo, that alone qualified him.

Frodo alone, of all the Ring's bearers, never stole it or had to take it from someone else, it was given to him.  Bilbo and Sam were the only ones to ever willingly surrender it.  Had Sam not been the sort to give it up of his own free will he would not have been worthy to carry it on.


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

[User]
What is the trade-off that requires astronauts to be able to withstand several Gs during launch?

I know about escape velocity, but in my mind it doesn't help much in knowing about the acceleration during launch, especially why the acceleration couldn't be made less. As a side question, how much as far as Gs during launch does it matter if we are headed to LEO or headed to the moon or beyond?

[Assistant]
It's a matter of efficiency. Consider the following thought experiment: What if you have a rocket that can just barely accelerate under gravity (it provides enough thrust to fight gravity, and just a little more)?  After 10 seconds, it has only picked up a few m/s of velocity, but it has spent 10 seconds worth of fuel fighting gravity. By the time you reach orbital velocity (or escape velocity, or whatever velocity you want), you will have to have spent a great deal of fuel just resisting gravity.

Now consider a high-g acceleration rocket. If it accelerates at 4G, then 1G goes to countering gravity and 3G goes to increasing velocity. It needs less time to reach the desired velocity, so it doesn't have to fight gravity for as long (once you are in orbit, you don't need to fight gravity any more).

A high acceleration rocket is much more efficient for liftoff. Once you're in orbit, it doesn't matter as much (for reasons I'll skip for the time being), so there are other factors that determine efficiency in orbit. But for liftoff, higher accelerations are more efficient (until you reach the point where atmospheric friction becomes significant, but that's another problem), regardless of final destination.


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

[User]
How can we have 4D objects?

It was my understanding that 2D used an axis on x and y...
then 3D used an axis including a third dimension, Z.

So how do we have 4D? Can we have 4D?

[Assistant]
It depends on what you call a dimension and what you call an object. In your example you have X,Y, and Z and you want to add another dimension (let's call it Aa and work from there), while that seems to be impossible to draw we could visualise it.

Imagine you are in a room, this room has three dimensions (X,Y,Z) and a bunch of other variables (heat, pressure, filled with a solid, liquid, or gas, you, light density...), for every point in the room you could determine these variables and draw them (using a computer) in colour. You now have a four dimensional drawing of an object.

Some people call the progression of time a dimension, here if your object changes over time it is a 4D object.

Now for some harder science, quantum physics tells us everything is a wave. And that every wave is orthogonal to every other wave (minor simplifications here, but the example still stands) and that there are infinitely many waves. So you have a wave oscillating in the X axis, one in the Y, one in the Z, one in the Aa, and so on until eternity.
Of course we can't see all these dimensions, but the maths say they exist. And really in science that is all you need.


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

[User]
ELI5: In many books, why does the first word or two at the beginning of each chapter have a different font (or bold/italics) added to the text that is unlike the rest?

I would post a picture to explain, but I'm currently reading Dune. I've noticed this for a number of other books, as well. I can make an example, here, actually. Each chapter begins and the first few words have a different font or is bold that is not like the rest of the text. On this book, the font is flatter, thinner, but a bit larger. Page 434 of Dune starts another chapter:

>"**Will you** look at that thing!" Stilgar whispered.

Another beginning of a chapter, page 397:

>**The smuggler's** spice factory with its parent carrier and ring of drone ornithopters came over a lifting of dunes like a swarm of insects following its queen.

_____________________

Is there any reason for this or is it simply aesthetics?

[Assistant] Dates back to ancient Rome.  In a lot of old languages, they hadn't invented the space or the period yet.  Like just long unbroken strings of letters.  So they started making the first letter of a word huge to indicate new paragraph.  The tradition kept, and in the middle ages, they'd hand write/paint a huge fancy letter at the start of a book or chapter to be fancy and as tradition.  Some people do it with the first couple words, or just the first word, or just the first letter of the first word.  They do variations, but it hearkens back to a time when big ass letters meant new paragraph.


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

[User]
[Avatar] Aang or Korra who was better at their job?

Look at it objectively who do you think did a better job of being Avatar?

Aang took a long time to master the elements but he also discovered a new bending style. Along with that he ended a long brutal war before it even began. He has other fears but those two are huge.

Korra defeated four psychopaths threatening to destroy balance. She also because the first metal bending avatar. Again like Aang lots of feats but I see those two as major.

Who do you think did avatar business better? Why?

[Assistant]
Aang stopped a genocidal war and neutralized a mad firebending overlord. At age of twelve.

Korra managed to almost destroy avatar spirit itself and lost all connection to previous avatars, since the cycle was reset anew. Effectively losing millenia worth of accumulated knowledge and experience. While she did establish relationship with Spirit World, it doesn't feel like she knew what she was doing while doing that...


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

[User] If I could somehow tie a rope around the moon, and hold the other end of the rope on earth, would I be able to pull the moon towards me?

[Assistant]
You would just end up climbing all the way to the moon.

Reason: for you to make a significant change on the moon's orbit, this force would have to be comparable to the gravitational force of the earth. Doing some calculations, that's about 10^20 N, which would mean 10^19 kgf...


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

[User]
ELI5: How running a marathon benefits a cause.

I remember as a kid sometimes we would solicit donation from family and neighbors, such as $1 per mile. However, I know many colleagues, friends, and family members who run
marathons/half-marathons/5ks/etc... and I've never heard of them doing that. Is it mostly to raise awareness? Or are my family and friends just jerks?

[Assistant] Pledging.  Families/companies say that they'll donate a certain amount of money if a certain number of people run the marathon.  Plus it is generally made into a big event so the cause gets publicity.


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

[User]
eli5, what exactly is 'GDP'/'GDP per Capita'?

When discussions about a country's economic power/standards of living are brought up GDP is often the go-to metric, but what exactly does it mean? What money is flowing where and to who that defines this number?

[Assistant]
Definitionally it is "the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period", or in a super simplified manner "How much money was spent on stuff made in this country over a given period of time". If you had personally bought all the products and services made in the country you would have spent about the GDP of that country.

It's used as a metric to estimate the strength of the economy and production of the given country. A country with a high GDP is producing a lot of stuff, and thus the economy is likely doing all right. A country with a low GDP isn't producing as much stuff, so maybe their economy isn't as strong.

GDP per Capita is just the GDP divided by how many people live in the country. It's essentially "the average value created by each person in the country". This allows us to compare the economies of different countries with respect to their population, because of course India with a billion people can produce more stuff than Iceland can with 360 thousand people, but if they two were the same size Iceland would have a GDP thirty times as large as India, which is a much better indicator of the economic realities in either country when ignoring the size difference. India produces more stuff and has a larger economy overall, but an average person in Iceland is producing more value than an average Indian, suggesting that maybe the quality of living or average wealth is higher for the average Icelander then the average Indian.


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

[User] ELI5:Why are there so many bad commercials? Aren't there teams of expert marketers who sign off on them? How can so many people approve something so bad?

[Assistant]
Because a "bad" commercial can sometimes be **hugely** successful.

The purpose of advertising is to get people to buy a product. That can happen by several means: entertain them, convince them your product is superior, manufacture a desire for that product, create something memorable and...

...attract attention to a target audience in a way that unfortunately annoys the piss out of others.

Some of the best and most successful advertising campaigns in history succeeded because they annoyed us, or because they weren't aimed at us. When that happened, they created an impression that lasted in SOMEBODY'S memory, maybe not our own but maybe their target customer's. So house-mom bought that infomercial utensil with the horrible jingle, or 30-year-old-hoping-to-look-younger bought the car that had the ad with the cute girls driving around attending completely unrealistic parties at night, or that horribly animated CheeseStrings ad showed handsome kids playing in a way that reminded mom of how little her own children actually go out and play now like she did when she was a kid.

Not everything's aimed at each and every one of us, and sometimes the aiming is just to raise awareness or create ANY impression at all, even if that awareness or impression comes with a healthy dose of irritation for some viewers.


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

[User]
CMV: the ending of Wall-e was tragic [spoilers]

The ship computer, Otto, did everything in its power to keep the humans on the ship where they would be happy. Despite this, the captain followed his naive curiosity into certain death. The humans have degenerated musculoskeletal systems and will not be able to perform the manual labour necessary to rebuild an earthbound society from scratch. Not to mention the scarcity of natural resources and the regular sandstorm that could kill everyone if not destroy any progress building infrastructure that they may make. The robots would be of very limited utility as they are all specialized to work on the ship, not build homes, water recycling facilities, and literally everything else that makes up modern society. This will take a tremendous amount of labour, a sharp contrast to the humans hedonistic life on the ship.

The only hope the humans have would be to give up on Earth and make it back to the ship before the next sandstorm, but that seems unlikely.

CMV!

[Assistant]
I don't feel like semantics are useful here, especially from a childrens movie.

I think the intentions of the story and the underlying message are what's important. Wall-e is about human curiosity and the way humans can become stagnant, or delude themselves.

Wall-e was basically just posing the question, is it better to live a lie, or a less whimsical truth?

But at the end of the day, you can have both, the ship is an endless supply of food and water, it would be very easy to simply be moderately dependant on it until infrastructure could be reinstated. They don't have to go back to the ship entirely to use it's resources. Also considering the great feats capable by the machines on the ship, human mastery of the machines once more is an inevitability.

So no, even in a realistic world the humans in wall-e would not have died.


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

[User]
[Fantastic Beasts]A Question About Newt's Wand (Spoilers)

Both Newt and Hagrid were expelled for similar circumstances, though no one died in Newt's situation, so how did he get to keep his wand? Could it have been the age in which it happened? Hagrid was in his third year. I have no idea when Newt was expelled, but it was also proven soon after that Newt was protecting a friend.

[Assistant]
Newt had passed his OWLs, at which point he was free to leave Hogwarts and do as he pleased as an adult wizard. He was expelled while in his NEWT years. Compare Fred and George Weasley, who passed their OWLs but left Hogwarts in the middle of their seventh year.

Hagrid was expelled in his third year, and was therefore not qualified as a wizard.


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

[User]
Are Dostoyevsky's novels such as "The Brothers Karamazov" and "Notes from the Underground" representative of the type of Dostoyevskian philosophy that is for example taught at universities?

I've never had a chance to study Fyodor, but I am a huge fan of The Brothers Karamazov, and so I am just sort of curious whether any of the themes in TBK align with Dostoyevsky's own philosophy he developed in his lifetime.

[Assistant] It is good example of (theological) existentialism and yes we read it at university. You can express philosophy in essay, novel, theater, movie form. Same is with Camus novels Strange, Fall and Plague they express his philosophy that he later write in essay form Myth of Sisyphus and Rebel...


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

[User]
Is sexual dimorphism (males and females having different sizes/appearances) a trait that arises independently in species or can we trace it back to an origination point on the evolutionary tree?

Large, more muscular males, smaller females.  I know there are exceptions, but it seems pretty predominant within a lot of the animal kingdom.  Can this sort of similarity all be traced back to a common ancestor?

[Assistant]
Nope, this is a thing that comes and goes depending on the ecology of the species.  And larger females are actually quite common as well, you just don't see it very much in mammals.

Generally speaking, males tend to be larger when the males defend territory or otherwise compete over access to females.  Being larger helps them win this competition, so males wind up bigger.  On the other hand, females tend to be larger in species that produce a very large number of eggs or young.  Big females are much more fertile and make many more babies, favoring females that are extra large in size.


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

[User] Is there a place in the universe where everything is so far apart that it would seem like complete darkness if you were floating around?

[Assistant]
Most of space is like that.

If you look at the sky, the majority of the lights you see are from stars within our own galaxy, and most of these are nearby stars less than a few thousand light-years away. Beyond that, you can't see individual stars - you can only see the general wash of faint light that makes up all the numerous stars of the Milky Way, our own galaxy. You can also see three other nearby galaxies - Andromeda, and the two Magellanic Clouds - but these are pretty faint and you need fairly dim lighting conditions to see them. They are also quite close as far as galaxies go - Andromeda is millions of light years away, and the Magellanic Clouds are hundreds of thousands of light years away. These are all galaxies within our "Local Group" of galaxies.

So if you left the Milky Way but stayed within the Local Group, you would lose most of the light (because it comes from nearby stars), but keep a few dim galaxies visible as faint splotches on the sky.

But of course we can do better than that. Groups and clusters of galaxies are small blobs where all the galaxies are concentrated. These blobs are arranged in "filaments", and there are huge voids between these filaments. The universe is mostly empty space, with clusters and groups of galaxies taking up only a small fraction of it.

So from one of these voids, you would not really see anything. You wouldn't even need to go very far away from a galaxy cluster for the sky to be almost completely dark. If the only galaxies that appear big enough to be visible with the naked eye are millions of light years away, then moving tens of light years away would cause most of those to disappear. We can't even see the Virgo Cluster with the naked eye, and that's only 65 million light years away.


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

[User]
ELI5 - Why i cant remember most dreams after i wake up

I can usually remember the more vivid dreams. I woke up this morning and i remember thinking wow that was a cool dream but now i can't remember what it was about.

[Assistant] Dreams actually use up memory in the brain, but it is not stored in long term memory, only short term - like a phone number from the chinese place. So when you wake up your brain starts erasing the short term for new memories. So, when you wake up most dreams get erased and new memories take their place.


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

[User] ELI5: How is it legal for gas stations next to Disney World and other amusement parks to charge up to $6/gallon for gas with price gouging laws?

[Assistant] because they're not exploiting a temporary weakness that's not within the control of people visiting. you can simply make sure you have enough gas to get there and away again without needing to tank up there. it's kinda like a stupidity tax.


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

[User] [MCU] What would happen if Thor tried to conjure a thunderstorm while Storm tried to dissipate it? What about vice versa?

[Assistant]
Storm as she is right now... Thor would be more powerful.

Storm when she wielded Stormcaster... I'd give the edge to Storm, actually, but it'd be close.

Storm if she were to develop fully into her magical abilities (she's descended from a sorceress supreme) - Storm no contest.


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

[User] [General] Are mirrors actually a good defense against laser weapons?

[Assistant]
They're good to the extent of their reflectivity.  A perfect mirror is a fine defense against any laser weapon you care to mention.
An imperfect mirror, one that is not fully reflective, or one that has a speck of dust or grime on it, can be easily compromised by lasers of sufficient power.
The problem with mirror-armor is that, assuming you can get a good enough mirror in the first place, it's very difficult to keep dirt and grime off your mirror in combat situations.


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

[User]
[Green Lantern Corps] i no longer want to be a member of the Corps, how do i get out?

EDIT: what about the other corps? can one get out of the Sinestro Corps? the Red Lantern Corps?

obviously you can't get out of Agent Orange's Corps.

[Assistant]
Not a problem, go speak to the Guardians and tender your resignation. The Corp doesn't force you to serve and you are free to leave if you choose. In fact at several points in their history, such as when they introduced the rule against romantic relationships between Green Lanterns, there have been mass resignations.

You will be returned to your world and your ring will find a new Green Lantern to serve in your place. Of course, revealing secrets of the GL Corp would then be a crime and the new GL would be tasked to bring you in to stand trial, so maybe just retire to a quiet life.


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

[User]
ELI5:If we can have 5" 1080p displays why can't we have 20" 8k displays?

This is definitely something I've wondered for a while..

[Assistant]
No one has demanded such a thing (i.e. mobile devices with this resolution), since 8k content is more of a novelty, "this is the future" thing right now, while 1080p is the mainstream standard.

~~It'd be 10", btw - as the screen is measured diagonally and it's "4 times bigger" as in 4 1080p screens arranged in a rectangle. It'd be perfectly possible to make a 8K 10" tablet by that logic.~~ was thinking about 4K.


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

[User]
CMV: Bernie sanders should have started a new party after 2016 instead of running for president again in 2020

My thinking is based of UK politics where parties can be small but influential if they have a powerful leader.

The 2 big parties are pretty much like vehicles for the rich, Democrats (liberal elite) and the republicans (conservative elite). They often seem to focus on issues that affect them, namely how to make more money.

There's no real party that kind of just represents the working class and tries to improve their lives. So a lot of the white working class end up just voting for republicans, because they tell them what they want to hear.

Bernie Sanders, ran for president on the platform of improving the quality of life for the working class. Which is admirable but from watching Obama's presidency and relationship with houses (congress, senate). It seems that it's the houses that really makes the laws and sets the rule.

I would think that the better strategy for helping the working class, having seen that there was a large appetite from the electorate for his type of politics was to start a party with the aim of winning seats away from the republicans in 2020 and aligning with the democrats in the house.

This way they could get more done in the house and have an advantage of the republicans.

[Assistant]
Unfortunately third parties are non-viable withing pluralistic voting system, like the one the US uses.

In the US, even if you win only 50%+1 of the vote, you win 100% of the power.

A third party siphons off some votes from the party most similar to it.

The consequence of these two facts, is something called the "spoiler effect". A third party guarantees that the party least like it will win.

Let's say that the Democrats and the Republicans are roughly 50/50 split. Sanders' policy is closest to the Democratic party, at least compared to the Republicans. He will take more voters from the Ds than the Rs. This leads to something along the lines of a 15 / 40 / 45 split, between Sanders, the Democratic party, and the Republican party. This gives the Republicans the win for free.

You need to change the voting system if you want third parties.


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

[User] ELI5: is there electricity in the brain, and if so how is it generated?

[Assistant] Yes.  It is generated along the cell membranes of neurons and its called an action potential.  Specialized proteins pump sodium ions outside the cell and potassium ions into the cell.  This creates an energy gradient.  When a nerve signal is sent, each individual cell opens their gates causing potassium to rush out and sodium to rush in.  This sudden change in ion concentrations causes a tiny electrical impulse which is passed along to the next cell and the next.


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

[User]
ELI5: What are the various different ways a website generates revenue?

More specifically, I want to know how your general everyday web user can passively generate revenue for a website. If they don't buy what the website is offering (or if the website doesn't offer anything to buy in the first place) how can that site still make money?

I ask because sites ask me to not block their ads, but I never click on ads nor do I buy things that are advertised to me. Am I an anomaly or am I still doing something to generate income for a specific website?

Thanks for any responses.

EDIT: Answered.

[Assistant]
Advertisers can pay site owners to display adverts even if you don't click them. Some sites have pop-up adds that count as a click even if you don't  follow them.

Some site hosts give free hosting to sites if they can display adds on there. Advertisers then pay the host which covers host costs.

An alternate advertising method is paying the user per view of an advert. Whether you click on them or not you are still viewing the advert (providing you don't have AdBlock). This is how YouTube pays its partners that allow adverts. Your view count is multiplied by a cost (very low, below 1 cent per view) and then the amount of users with AdBlock is taken away.

Some sites have surveys or polls which users can fill in to get access to certain parts of the site. Companies ask site owners to put up their surveys and in return pay the owner a set amount of money every time a survey is filled in. This is helpful for the surveying company because they are getting cheap and broad market research.

Donations. Some sites have donation buttons whereby people can give money to the site owner, often with nothing back out of it. People often donate because they feel like they are taking the site owners product but not giving any return.

Don't know the actual term for this: Selling the details of customers of the site. When you buy things online there is often a small print that you don't read, and it often says they may sell on your details to other companies. This doesn't mean bank details, it means home phone numbers/names. When someone from a call centre rings up asking to speak to Mr. X they often got these details through buying them from online retailers. A popular example would be Kate Middleton's parents' party site. They made huge money, not by selling their goods, but by selling on the details of their customers.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] Why couldn't humans reprogram machines in the real world?

If they could hack the matrix, why couldn't they hack machines to help them and use machines as allies?

[Assistant]
They did - Zion was full of machines, from the air purifiers to the hovercrafts to the local network be used for docking.

They probably understandably steered well clear of anything too complicated in terms of AI as it would be prone to infiltration from the sentient machines trying to kill them.


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

[User] ELI5: I saw an article today that said Lyft announced it will be profitable by 2021. How does a company operate without turning a profit for so long and is this common?

[Assistant]
> How does a company operate without turning a profit for so long

Loans & investments. The people who start a company will often put in their own money and/or sell a portion (a share) of the company to other investors to get the money needed to operate the company while it's still losing money. Funds can also come from loans, but those would usually be secured by assets (often, the founders' personal assets) during a company's unprofitable startup phase  if you can get a loan at that stage at all.

> is this common?

Yes, very. Generally companies will have a plan for making their operations profitable through progressive growth over time; this plan is provided to potential investors/creditors.


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

[User]
How do the Reavers keep their gorram ships running?

I have enough problems keeping my firefly class transport working, and that's with a damn fine engineer working full time on her. The Reavers don't seem to use any tools more complex than blades and I can't imagine them being able to understand what to do them, even if they had them.

[Assistant]
Reavers will attack any ship they can, and because they are so savage, they prefer to board the ship and kill the crew with their bare hands.  Afterwards they have a perfectly maintained ship filled with supplies.

So its not that they maintain their ships better than you, its just that their life style gives them a never ending supply.


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

[User]
How much 'energy' was involved in the Japan earthquake?  (11 year old is really asking and I thought an interesting question)

My son and I talked about the earthquake and the immense 'power' of the tsunami after watching the videos.  Is there a way to quantify the energy of the earthquake(s)?  If so, can you also explain the amount energy in a way that an 11 year old can understand?  Thanks!

[Assistant]
From wiki:

> This earthquake released a surface energy (Me) of 1.90.510^17 joules,[38] dissipated as shaking and tsunamic energy, which is nearly double that of the 9.1-magnitude 2004 Sumatran earthquake that killed 230,000 people. The total energy released (Mw) was calculated by the USGS WPhase Moment Solution at 3.910^22 joules,[39] slightly less than the 2004 Sumatra quake. The total energy released underground was some 205,000 times that on the surface.

To put this in perspective, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima released 5.4x10^13 J. Thus, the surface energy released by the earthquake alone was about 3500 times the energy released by the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Of course, the distinction between how the energy is released is important.


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

[User]
Does Baudrillard Support Suicide and Mass Murder as Legitimate Forms of Protest?

I'm almost finished with *Symbolic Exchange and Death*, and some of Baudrillard's depictions of resistance are... disturbing. "All death that escapes the state monopoly is subversive... hence the fascination wielded by great murderers... More and more commit suicide in prison... the rebellious Blacks setting fire to their own district... the death drive is the only alternative", (p.195-7).

I can understand death-as-protest in the form of hunger strikes and sit-ins. I understand martyrdom. I know when Baudrillard says "death" he is usually referring to loss and expenditure of all kinds, but he seems to have an evil kind of death in mind here. If he doesn't, I find it bizarre that he uses serial killers as exemplars of death-as-protest rather than MLK or Ghandi.

What nonviolent protest he does advocate seems utterly banal to me. I don't see how meaningless graffiti and poetry are supposed to change or improve anything. I understand that these refuse to play the "game of signs" and so are technically a rejection of the system, but if no one knows what they're protesting it's hard for me to see the point.

I'm having great difficulty understanding the final chapter, but maybe he makes sense of all this there.

[Assistant]
>hence the fascination wielded by great murderers

How are you getting an endorsement of mass murder as a legitimate form of protest from the mere *observation* that people are fascinated by mass murderers?