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

[User]
ELI5: if we're conscious of our own addictions why do we still act on them?

Things like pornography, alcohol, nicotine are what common addictions are. If we are not proud of them and want to quit why do we still fall in the trap of them even if we are truly conscious of our own behavior at the time of consumption?

[Assistant] Probably because of the PHYSICAL discomfort that comes with the absence of certain addictions. Alcoholics feel terrible if they don't drink because their bodies need the fix at that point. Smokers don't feel "pain" by quitting but their emotions do end up being thrown out of whack in the early stages of quitting. Sometimes it's easier to just smoke the cigarette instead of yelling at your friends/family. Not too familiar with porn addiction but that doesn't seem like it would kill anyone or ruin anyone's life either way.


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

[User]
[James Bond] It takes 2 kills to become a 00 Agent. Why?

Does this mean if any agent who wants to become a 00 has to go out and kill 2 people, or is he ordered to assassinate 2 before he can be promoted? Also, what if a lesser agent kills people by accident? Is that against MI6 regulations?

[Assistant] Its ordered by command as a test, that you're capable of doing the deed and still function normally afterward. Someone could be the best at sneaking around but completely fall to pieces after the first kill, so they make you do two to be certain you won't break in the field.


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

[User]
[Batman] So did The Dent Act mention Batman at all?

In the 8 years that have following since Batman cruelly killed our wonderful white knight Harvey Dent, we;'ve seen sweeping new powers incarcarate many criminals, without parole. But my question is, and I'm too lazy to read it myself, did The Dent Act contain any new laws regarding Batman?

[Assistant] No. DA Dent, while agreeing with the Batman personally, always maintained that he was an illegal vigilante, that would one day answer for his crimes. The Dent Act itself was solely focused on combating organized crime.


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

[User]
[Dr. Who] Why did every race show up to Trenzalore to stop the Doctor from bringing the Time Lords back?

I thought the Daleks were the only other race in the Time War. What are the Sontarans (sp?) and Cybermen doing there?

Somewhat related: Why were the Daleks and Time Lords even at war in the first place?

[Assistant]
The others are worried what the return of the Time Lords would mean. The Dalek's cannot accept loss or stalemate, and the return of the Time Lords would mean that the Dalek's last major enemy was still around. It would mean, by necessity, that the Time War begins again. That's not good news for anyone.

As for why they fought in the first place? It's not exactly clear... likely because the Time Lords were an affront to the Dalek's and their perceived perfection.


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

[User]
What in the brain gives certain memories for a rememberer a sense of 'sureness'?

How are some memories rated by witnesses to an event from unsure to sure?

[Assistant] You can think of it as listening to the chorus of a room full of people. If everyone is saying the exact same thing in synchrony, it will be loud and clear and you will be sure of what you are hearing. The less synchronized everyone is, the more there will be other voices saying something else, or just plain noise, and you can no longer hear a single loud and clear chorus and you become less and less sure.


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

[User] ELI5: How come, most regular users can type without looking at the keyboard, but can not recite the order the letters are in beyond QWERTY?

[Assistant] It's called muscle memory. It's a subconscious nerve+brain+muscle pattern that has been learned where we can easily repeat behavior. It's the same reason why practicing shooting a gun at targets improves our ability or how playing a game improves our abilities. Or more specific to why this exists: why we can throw a spear at a target better after practicing a lot.


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

[User] ELI5: For example, we have a bottle filled with water to the point when theres no space left in that bottle, is the water still moving as we shake the bottle?

[Assistant]
Mechanical engineering PhD here with significant study in fluid mechanics.

Yes the fluid will move around internally, mostly due to any rotation of the bottle. It you rotate the bottle at all (i.e. anything other than perfect linear motion) the inner walls of the bottle will cause drag against the water thats closest to the edge. But the water in the middle of the bottle will be stationary due to inertia. The difference in momentum (edges are moving, center is stationary) will cause internal currents.

Note that this can be due to even very small-scale rotations to the point that this will always happen in the real world.

If you dont believe me... put some food dye in a full water bottle then seal it. Shake it up and youll see the food coloring move around very quickly.

If youre more interested in this, two important concepts are Laminar flow and viscous drag.


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

[User]
ELI5: what is the difference between rubbing alcohol and drinking alcohol

EDIT: to specify I am asking mainly about the chemical difference.

[Assistant]
First, all alcohols are poisonous; ethyl alcohol (booze) is just the least poisonous, and our bodies are able to clear it out before it kills us, unless we try very hard.

Rubbing alcohol is either a different alcohol (commonly isopropyl alcohol), and/or it is "denatured," which means that something vile has been added to it to make it taste bad and/or be more poisonous.

You really don't want to drink rubbing alcohol.


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

[User]
CMV: Communism is a fundamentally unworkable economic system

To start with, I am defining communism as an economic system where all property is publicly owned, and resources are given to citizens to fulfill their needs, as described by Marx.

This system, however, has a number of fundamental flaws that are inherent to it and cannot be escaped.

Its largest problem, by far, is that it stifles innovation and growth. If your rewards are guaranteed, and are guaranteed to be equal, then there's very little motivation to work harder and innovate more, because there's no personal reward from it.

To provide an example, I'll use chickens and eggs. If you're a farmer with a chicken coop and you make enough eggs(let's say 100 a month as a totally arbitrary number) to fulfill your quotas, off of 20 hours a week of work. You *could* raise more chickens, maybe bump it up to 200 eggs, but why would you? You would need to build a bigger coop, spend more time caring for them, shovel more waste out and more food in, and it's just generally a lot more work. Maybe if you did double the number of chickens, you'd be fed up and you'd try to make an automatic chicken feeder, so it took less time for you, and maybe you'd even bump it up to 300 eggs with this new-fangled chicken feeder, but if you're on 100 eggs, there's just not much pressure. The entire point of communism is that whether you get 100 or 300 eggs, you are still rewarded about the same, so why put in the extra effort?

There are, of course, proposed solutions, often quotas- but those have a very poor track record, for the simple reason that setting quotas is *really hard*. Set them too high, and your citizens can't reach them and they hate you, and set them too low, and just don't get very much stuff done, and figuring out how much is too high or too low is really, really difficult. There's a million factors that go into determining the maximum amount that a person can reasonably produce, and such a top-heavy approach simply cannot account for them.

To step higher up, planned economies like this(and communism does demand a planned economy) have *really* bad track records. Markets and environments change dramatically and quickly, and it's very hard for top-heavy economies to respond well to those sorts of changing circumstances. It's very hard for people to respond to change, generally, especially if there's no personal stake. If the central planner goes home at the end of the day no matter what, then they probably aren't gonna get super invested in whether or not all the stuff that they're responsible for is performing optimally.

Additionally, they're simply much worse at creating that innovation that drives the world forward- as outlined, they decrease personal desire to innovate, but even for the people who *do* want to make something new, it's much more difficult. Creating something new and exciting is, at the end of the day, going to take resources and time, and if you have to petition a bureaucrat a hundred miles away to let you do this, that's a huge barrier to entry.

[Assistant]
> Its largest problem, by far, is that it stifles innovation and growth. If your rewards are guaranteed, and are guaranteed to be equal, then there's very little motivation to work harder and innovate more, because there's no personal reward from it.

People innovate and work hard all the time without getting lots of money from it.  This is just knee-jerk cynicism, assuming that the only thing that'll motivate people is personal, financial gain.


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

[User]
[DC/Injustice] Why did majority of the Justice League join Superman's world dictatorship?

Green Lantern, the Flash and Wonder Woman, among MANY other league members, have been heroes for a long time so why exactly do they decide that joining Superman's dictatorship is a good idea? I get the idea that when you see an insanely strong person forcing others to do their bidding that you'd be tempt to join rather than fight, but these aren't regular guys they're the JUSTICE LEAGUE. Their whole point is to fight for the greater good and stop tyranny, why would the turning of one man (albeit one of their brethren and one of the most powerful among them) cause them to give up all the ideals that they've stood for for so long?

Also Bonus Question: Why didn't Batman use his contingency plans for rogue League members from JLA: Tower of Babel?

[Assistant]
Because they are or at least see themselves as doing more good now than they were before. All wars have ended. Crime is at an all time low. The world is technically at peace.

Bonus: Remember, this is a different world from the regular one. Batman probably never developed any plans in this world.


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

[User] ELI5:Where do comets come from?

[Assistant]
Same place the planets did: interstellar dust and gases.

The universe started out as almost pure hydrogen, the simplest atom out there. Stars began to take shape by clumps of hydrogen collecting and mashing together so tight that the hydrogen started turning into heavier atoms like helium, lithium, oxygen, carbon, silicon, and Icouldgoonforalongtimeium.

Those early stars eventually reached a point where they blew up, scattering all those new more complex atoms into space... and some of those new atoms combined into stuff like other stars, water-ice, dust and rock.

Clumps that were close to new stars became planets like our Earth, and clumps that formed way far away from the stars became comets... and there are lots of them.

There's billions and billions of water-ice and dusty bodies way, way out there past even Pluto, hanging around in a very loose formation called the "Oort cloud" (cool name ain't it?)... and once in a while when one bangs into something or gets pushed around by gravity, it falls toward the sun and heats up to start boiling away, and make a long bright tail that we can see.


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

[User]
If I were stranded in space, could I propel myself throwing rocks?

Imagine I'm floating in space, trying to reach a space station 20 km away. Lets assume I have unlimited water, food and oxygen supply thanks to the unobtanium reactor in my backpack. I have a bag of rocks, samples from my mission. Could I reach the station throwing rocks in the opposite direction? if so, how many rocks would be required?

Edit: grammar and such.

[Assistant] It would require a single rock (assuming you have really good aim). There is no friction in space, so as long as you are willing to wait a while, throwing a single rock will give you a non-zero velocity that will get you there eventually. Let's say the rock is 1 kg, and that you weigh 70 kg, and that you can throw the rock at 20 m/s. Conservation of momentum tells us that you will recoil with about 0.3 m/s which will get you to the space station in just 18 and a half hours.


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

[User]
Are there any good YouTube channels that talk about economics in a fun way?

I enjoy watching youtube videos about economics on my free time, but i dont know if they are just opinions or actual good research based videos.

I enjoy watching Economics Explained is that a good channel or is it not really good for economic knowledge? Any other suggestion?

[Assistant] I highly recommend Jacob Clifford. Hes an AP Micro/Macro high school teacher that has the upbeat/fun approach youre looking for while still giving great explanations on many economics topics in his videos.


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

[User]
ELI5: The recent Obamacare decision ruled by the Supreme Court, without bias.

Mandate upheld, mandate struck down. Either way I don't know what it means for the American people.

[Assistant]
There were 4 questions before the court:

1. Can the court hear these arguments before anyone is actually penalized for not having health insurance?

2. Is the Individual Mandate to buy health insurance constitutional?

3. If not, is the rest of the law constitutional without the mandate?

4. Unrelated, can government require states expand medicare since the government is giving them money.

The decisions were as follows:

1. Yes, they can talk about it. This was unsurprising

2. The Individual Mandate is really a tax, not a fine. This is an important distinction because everyone agrees Congress can tax people but few people thought Congress could force people to buy stuff. This was the big question.

3. Moot point due to 2.

4. The court decided that if states take federal money they have to go with the federal rules, but states don't have to take the federal money and can then ignore the rules that come with the money. This was not terribly surprising.

The interesting thing is that the case was decided 5-4, with Republican appointed Chief Justice Roberts being the deciding vote. NOBODY expected that - they were expecting 5-4 against, 5-4 with KENNEDY the deciding vote, or 6-3 with Roberts joining so he could write the opinion.

EDIT: The entire health care reform was upheld. You will have to have health insurance in 2014. There are a bunch of other provisions that were better explained elsewhere.


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

[User]
[SW] Why doesnt the Millennium Falcon have an astro droid?

Seems like one would come in handy. Does it simply not need one?

[Assistant]
**Complete answer:** A Navicomputer is used by most ships to chart courses through hyperspace. Many small ships, like X-Wings and Y-Wings, dont use Navicomputers and instead rely on Astromech droids to control the ships hyperdrive (essentially acting as a removable Navicomputer). The *Millennium Falcon* not only has an on-board Navicomputer controlled by the pilot or co-pilot, but it also has (as we learned from *Solo: A Star Wars Story*) the vast array of navigational data downloaded from L3.

In Legends (Star Wars expanded universe), its also stated that the Falcons on board computer uses a trio of linked droid-brains that allow its Navicomputer and other computerized systems to run even faster than an Astromech droid (which itself has only one droid brain).

**Simple answer:** The *Millennium Falcon* doesnt need an Astromech droid.

[Edit: Formatting]


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

[User]
[Looper] How does Abe know that a loop has been broken?

Within a few hours of a looper breaking their loop, Abe has men out looking for them... but how does he know? Why don't loopers who break the loop just pretend that they killed their future-selves and disposed of the body as they were meant to?

I guess not having the gold could be a clue, but in that case, why didn't old Joe (for example) leave young Joe the gold? It seems way too easy for a looper to cheat the system by checking their targets before killing them and planning to let their older self go free.

[Assistant]
This actually takes a bit of thought, but the reason the mafia uses Loopers is because people in the future have some sort of transmitter in their body that starts broadcasting once they die. Part of a Looper's job is to destroy that transmitter.

By letting their older self go free the Loopers fail to destory the transmitter and once the older self dies and the tracking software is invented in the future the Mafia will know that the Looper failed to close their loop. After that, it's a simple matter to send the info back to Abe who hunts the Looper.


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

[User] ELI5 What makes garlic and onion bulbs special that makes them so good to cook with? Is there a reason other than taste that stops me from trying to cook with all the different species of bulbs?

[Assistant]
The fact that they're both bulbs doesn't mean that anything bulb-shaped is either tasty or safe.

Onions and garlic are both in the same family, "allium".  Several other alliums are also edible and share broadly similar flavor profiles: scallions, shallots, and chives, for example.  To be clear though, there are poisonous alliums too - the entire family isn't generically safe.


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

[User] ELI5: why is there a "terms and conditions" for using a website or program, but not for more 'real life' things like eating at a restaurant?

[Assistant]
Because websites and programmes can be used everywhere in the world, where local laws may or may not be the same as those applicable to the location of the programmer / issuing company.

You know where a restaurant is located, and it follows local laws and regulations (or should, anyway), and its customers are also supposed to adhere to those laws.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is it that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump seem to be the leading presidential candidates when it seems that public opinion of both is very low?

[Assistant]
First, this is how it always is this early in campaign season. Anyone with a little bit of name recognition immediately is at the forefront, regardless of their quality as a candidate or likelihood to do well long term.

But more to the point, it's because we don't cast negative votes.

If 20% of the people love you, but 80% hate you, you don't get a score of -60. You get a score of +20. Those 80% who hate you are going to be divided up among a bunch of other candidates, or will just be left undecided. +20 is enough to be the frontrunner early on in primary season.

Note that general elections are different. A negative opinion often converts into a vote for the other guy. So now, those 80% who hate you vote for the one leading opponent and you easily lose.


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

[User]
[Pokemon] Why the heck is Blaine allowed to have a pokemon gym inside a volcano filled with magma?

I traveled to his gym and my pokemon got beat pretty badly by his Magmar. His Magmar was about to knock my pokemon into the lava but I forfeited in order to save my pokemon friend. Blaine let me know that I made the right call because if my pokemon had fallen into the lava and perished, I would have lost my pokemon license.

What the heck!? How would it be my fault if my pokemon died if he's the one hosting battles in a volcano and he's the one ordering his Magmar to knock opponents into the lava to begin with!? This entire scenario seems nuts. Do I really have to battle this psycho again? Can I report him to anybody?

[Assistant]
Gym leaders aren't subject to any kind of safety standards, they can trap their gyms any way they want. Fortunately for you, it's in the gym leader's best interest not to kill people (people will stop coming to your gym if it's a deathtrap).

And yes, if you or your pokemon die he *can* get disbarred by the Elite Four if they can prove that he was at fault (although it really only happens if humans get killed, since pokemon die somewhat frequently). This kind of stuff is taken quite seriously.

Of course, *you* traveled out to a remote island and climbed an active volcano, so he probably assumed that you were up to the challenge.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why exactly was Anakin lauded as some tactical genius?

At least Vader seemed to be hot on the trail of Han and nearly won it all in the end and was basically a Magnificent Bastard in that film, but Anakins whole strategy basically seems to be Let me go ahead and kill the enemy with my saber/starfighter because Im completely invincible due to a prophecy loophole!. I honestly feel Rex is a better strategist, he actually has to command the clones, idk what Anakin does beyond getting intel and fighting. Does he have to do paperwork? Hes literally a general, after all.

[Assistant]
Part of what made Anakin such a renowned commander was his willingness to leverage his own abilities to his advantage, damn the danger. Compared to many other Jedi generals (Pong Krell being the most direct antithesis), Anakin relished being in the thick of the fighting and was damn good at it, which gave his forces an immense tactical advantage. Jedi have a history of hanging back from the fighting because of their emphasis on peace and serenity, but Anakin's inherent dark tendencies also made him ideal for charging into battle and putting all of his considerable Jedi advantages at his troops' disposal. Jedi as a whole don't make great generals, as their skills with the force and talent in combat are counterbalanced by their pervasive mentality of patience, peace, and stoicism. Anakin had all the advantages of being a Jedi, and rejected many of the drawbacks.

Along with that, Anakin actively encouraged creativity and out-of-the-box thinking amongst his subordinates. Consider, for example, his decision to attack the Malevolent through a nebula, a bit of stellar geography normally considered impassible, or his use of AT-TEs in space combat in the Battle of Bothawui to supplement his outgunned fleet. In a war that was often defined by traditional tactics, Anakin fostered ingenuity amongst his forces.

Finally, as you mention, Rex is an excellent strategist, which helps both of Anakin's previously mentioned traits. A good portion of any legendary general is his or her equally talented support staff, and having Rex, a clone trooper who stood head-and-shoulders above many of his comrades in terms of tactical and strategic ability, allowed Anakin to delegate more of his commanding to Rex and other such troopers, giving him greater tactical flexibility.

In short, Anakin could fully leverage his Jedi abilities, something few of his peers did, actively encouraged creative solutions in a war where that was not the norm, and had a support staff just as talented and capable as he was, which allowed him to make full use of his abilities.


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

[User]
[Dune] - How did the freeman bring jihad to so many people and planets with so few soldiers?

In the first book they estimate the freeman population at 5 million. In the second book it is said the hundreds of planets were conquered over 12 years causing the deaths of over 60 billion people. I find it hard to fathom that so few could conquer so many is such a short time, no matter how blood thirsty and tough they may be. Is there something I'm missing? I mean there were more combatants in World War 2 than the entire freeman population.

[Assistant]
Remember that Paul had prescient abilities and knew that the only way for things to move forward was to be bloodthirsty and ruthless. With his power, he guided his Fremen soldiers to planets where they would be most effective. With the ability to see the future, he could have easily struck vulnerable targets and left before a response arrived.

It wouldn't take long for many Houses and armies to surrender after enough attacks of that nature. Some were indeed exterminated completely.

Also, Paul saw through his visions that the jihad would spread Fremen culture to various planets, which could have swelled the ranks of soldiers over time.


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

[User]
ELI5:Why don't drug cartels, street gangs and other criminal groups just merge instead of competing?

It seems like a monopoly is best, because you can control the prices of whatever illegal stuff you're selling, and there's no inter-group violence. Aren't antitrust laws the only reason competing corporations don't all just merge into monopolies? Why don't organized crime syndicates do it?

[Assistant]
You may as well ask why everyone everywhere doesn't get a long.

They aren't in it for anything but the money, and sharing that money with someone else is not appealing.  Basically the various gangs and cartels could never stick together long enough to make this work.  They'd stab each other in the back and go back to the way things are.


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

[User] [Batman] Does Batman deserve blame for the people Joker has killed due to his refusal to kill Joker?

[Assistant]
No.

We're used to thinking of Batman as a god, or at least someone with a higher moral responsibility. But that's because he's a protagonist, he's a superhero.

The reality- he's just another person.

You know who else could have killed the Joker? The State. Any police officer. Any Arkham employee. Any human being with the opportunity to.

Batman doesn't bear responsibility for Joker's actions, any more than he does if he captures a mugger, and that mugger mugs again.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Why is SHIELD so inept at keeping super criminals in jail?

Seriously, how many super prisons have there been over the years? The Raft, The Cube, Pleasant Hill, hell, wasnt there one in a whole different dimension one time? Time and time again, criminals are allowed to break out or cheat the system to go and cause more havoc. Why is SHIELD so bad at this?

[Assistant]
SHIELD mostly arent. Theyre an international espionage and law enforcement agency, not a prison service. They operate a few facilities, but most incarcerated super criminals are in government-run or even private prisons.

Even Cyclops - about as high-profile and high-risk a prisoner as you can get - was held in a private prison.


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

[User] [Avatar] How did the fire nation kill the entire air tribe but never took out the earth and water tribes?

[Assistant]
In addition to the Air Nomads being relatively small and only having the remoteness of their temples for defense, the Fire Nation killed the bulk of their population during the weeks that Sozin's comet was enhancing their firebending. Even a relatively small company of firebenders would have been able to wreak devastation on their numbers.

With that in mind it points to how much of a badass Gyatso must have been to take down several comet-empowered firebenders with him.


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

[User]
[Magic School Bus] How does Miss Frizzle get the permission to take children on such crazy field trips?

Like, how in God's name did she get the okay to take her students into other countries, shrinking them into the size of insects, going into the human body and into out space, MULTIPLE TIMES for both of the latter 2? What is wrong with the school or district she's employed at that they're totally fine with all of this?

[Assistant] What the school administration doesn't know can't hurt them.  The Bus is the personal property of Miss Frizzle.  Parental Permission slips are not used, and no one is going to believe the kids anyway.


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

[User] [DuckTales]in southern schools do they teach ducks evolved from Dinosaurs? Which side won the Scopes raptor Trial?

[Assistant]
Ducks are known to have not evolved from Dinosaurs.

When Scrooge went back in time, and they ended up bringing Bubba the cave duck back to the present, you see him living alongside dinosaurs. In fact, Bubba saved Scrooge from an attacking T-Rex.


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

[User]
Would wires made of anti-matter have the same electrical properties?

Would the right hand rule still apply or would it be the left hand rule? Would electricity be propagated with positrons and would this change how the magnetic fields would be generated?

Is it the same, but opposite or the same in general?

[Assistant]
All the same rules and formulas would still apply;  with the definitions we use, a current going in a given direction can be the flow of positive charges in that same direction, or a flow of negative charges in the opposite direction.  Or both!   Magnetic fields are the same for the flow of a positively charged antiparticle (like a positron) as for a positively charged particle (like a proton).  But, like you suggested, in an antimatter wire the moving charge carriers would be the positively-charged positrons, with the anti-nucleons forming the fixed "lattice" of the solid wire.

Slight aside:  there are a variety of sign and handedness conventions baked in to our laws of E&M.  The sign of charges, the direction of current, the direction of magnetic field, and whether to use the left or right hand rule are some of those.  The choices that we use are largely due to choices made by people muddling in the dark trying to figure things out as they went along (like Ben Franklin assigning positive and negative charge).  The physical observables of course don't care what choices for those we make, as long as we're consistent.

Note that we do have experience with "antimatter currents" in the proton-antiproton and electron-positron beams at various particle accelerators.  We also have experience with the flow of positive and negative charges in electrolyte solutions and plasmas.  We of course don't have experience building solid antimatter wires;  connecting those to our instruments (or even suspending them magically in a pretty good vacuum) would be... a bit too exciting.


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

[User]
[Chronicles of Narnia] what exactly is the deplorable word and what was the price Jadis paid to learn it?

To be clear I'm not asking what it does or how it works, but what the actual word itself *is*. Like the letters and syllables of it.

[Assistant]
We don't know the word and we don't know the price. All we know is:

* it was a well-kept secret that had long been known about
* Jadis had to "pay a terrible price" (the only description) to learn it
* it had to be spoken "with certain ceremonies" to be effective
* it destroyed all life on her planet except for herself.

Aslan also warned that an analogous power to the Deplorable Word was soon to be discovered on Earth. Shortly after that, nuclear weapons were developed and used for the first time.


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

[User]
ELI5: How can scientists prove the big bang if it happened 13.7 billion years ago?

And how did they come up with 13.7 billion years as opposed to 14.7 billion or 12.7?

[Assistant]
The basic premise relies on the fact is that light and other electromagnetic waves have a travel time, its just that they move really really fast.

By turning our telescopes to the parts of space that are both empty and very very VERY far away we can then "listen" to electromagnetic waves (like static on your TV). The big bang itself created a kind of "cosmic background radiation" which is a fancy way of saying that it's static exists everywhere.

We can then make a guess at the age by knowing how far that point we are listening is away from us and by how fast light can travel. This is not a perfect system but it is mathematically correct (hence why its 13.7 billion years instead of an exact number like 13,726,432 years. We can only be accurate to within 0.05 billion years.)

Thus we look for areas that are the furthest away that we can hear the cosmic background radiation. Because that radiation from that area of space still has to travel to us we can guess its age.

As an interesting point this holds true when looking at planets. Whenever you look at something you are actually viewing it in the past because light, again, has a travel time. Thus whenever a scientist finds a new planet and says something like "It is 40 light years away from us." what this means is that we are viewing the planet as it was 40 years ago because it took light 40 years to travel from that planet to our eyes. Because of this any alien looking at earth from, say, 77 light years away, would be watching WWII, and an alien looking at earth from about 65.5 million light years away would be watching a meteor smashing into a planet full of dinosaurs.


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

[User]
[Guardians Of The Galaxy] [SPOILERS] Sticks.

Vague title because spoilers.

At the end of Guardians when Groot 'dies', we see Rocket grab a handful of sticks from an even larger pile of sticks and say "I called him an idiot".

I'm not saying that Rocket took more than one, but **if another Groot grows from the stick that Rocket took then what about all of the other sticks? Wouldn't they also grow into separate Groots?**

[Assistant] Note that Rocket is still holding that one stick when they do the Infinity Stone Kumbaya at the climax. He's not holding any of the other sticks that are on the ground. Perhaps exposure to the stone's energy is what caused that stick to grow back?


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

[User]
CMV: The minimum eligibility requirements for employment in law enforcement and politics are way too low.

Most law enforcement jobs only require a high school diploma, and to be over 21. To be president the main requirement is to be born in the US and be over 35.

Any idea how qualified those 2 astronauts had to be to take a ride in a spaceship that flies itself? And not to diminish those astronauts, they are the real deal, but how much influence do they have over your lives?

Obviously people shouldn't need to be as physically and mentally fit as an astronaut to become a cop or president, but usually a simple way to ensure a job is done by qualified people is to ensure they meet some minimum eligibility qualifications.

So if people are unsatisfied with the quality of service they are getting from those fields, that is one simple thing that could actually bring real and lasting change.

[Assistant] It's not an issue of credentials or education why these people suck who are in these jobs, but that the incentive structure's of these jobs make it so that non-sucky peoply don't last. They either leave or adapt into sucky people.


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

[User] ELI5: What causes the sick to the stomach feeling?

[Assistant] Blood rushing from the stomach to other parts of the body. Depending on the situation you're in depends on how the body reacts, so for example if you're scared, you're body will divert the majority of blood to your limbs in order for you to fight or run more effectively. The same for when you see your crush, the your body will divert blood away from your stomach to your genitals...for obvious reasons.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do they reduce fat in things like peanut butter?

Is there a low fat peanut? Is there a fat removal machine that I need to step into somewhere?

[Assistant] Peanut butter normally has added oil. To reduce the fat, you don't add the oil. To further reduce the fat, you spin it (in a centrifuge) so the lightest partthe peanuts' own oilfloats to the top, and then pour it off.


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

[User]
Which of the basic forces of nature is the strongest?

A few years ago my physics-chemistry teacher asked my class which of the 4 basic forces of nature was the strongest. I answered Gravity because of black holes. They are gravity at its maximum, and them being the most powerful things in the universe, it made sense to me that gravity would also be the strongest. However he corrected me and said it was actually the strong nuclear force the most powerful and that gravity was actually the weakest.

So my question is: if strong and weak nuclear forces are technically more powerful than gravity, how can neutron stars come to exist? How can gravity overcome nuclear forces and start fusing the atoms in the core of the stars together in ways that are not "natural"?

(I only know the very basics of what happens to create a neutron star, so if I'm saying something wrong, please feel free to correct me)

[Assistant]
Yes, your teacher is correct.

The reason why gravity seems to be the strongest over large length scales is that the strong and weak forces have very short ranges (~ 10^(-15) and 10^(-18) meters, respectively), and electrostatic forces tend to cancel each other out when you have material that is macroscopically neutrally charged.

So for material which extends over a large region of space, and has no net charge, gravity tends to dominate. That's why gravity is a very important force for astronomy/astrophysics/cosmology, but it's totally irrelevant for things like atomic/nuclear physics.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come continuing to eat a spicy food keeps the spice at bay until I stop eating it?

It seems many spicy foods have a delay between my bite and the heat, but if I continue to eat, it doesn't get hot until after I stop.

[Assistant] Your saliva and the movement of your mouth is keeping the capsaicin  (spicy stuff) from staying anywhere for more than a second. Once you stop eating, it has a chance to stimulate your nerves and start making your mucous membranes cry.


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

[User]
[Ubisoft] Is Rainbow Six a Templar organization?

There's hints that Ubisoft games share a world, Sam Fisher recently joined Rainbow Six, you can find Abstergo crates on the Rook Islands and in Kyrat. There's an Assassin's logo embossed on the Villa map. So if this is the case does that mean that Rainbow Six, a globally powerful counter terrorist organization would be likely to be a part of the Templars? And if so how deep does it go? Are the operators in on who they are working for, or is it only certain higher up members like the woman who reactivated it or the "therapist" who manages the group?

Also would this mean that Ded\_Sec is affiliated with the Assassins?

[Assistant]
Jumping off that

The white masks as a terror group aren't given any ideology, just that they've commited poison gas attacks and wear maks... And hoods.

There's been a theory for years that smoke has some involvement in the white masks, as their smoke resembles smokes grenades an awful lot.

So it's possible that the white makes are an assassin-like false flag designed to let rainbow crack down on assisns in the open.

The fact that these operators are at the tippity top of thier respective nations security structure, and often very well educated means they are probably aware of the tempars and agree with them

This would also explain why operators like Iana (an astronaut) and amaru (an archeologist) are in the team. Their templars first, and trained for combat by the templars.


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

[User] [DC] If Kal-el landed in Wayne Manor and was taken in by the Wayne's, would he have ended up as a tyrant villain after seeing his parents get shot in the alleyway?

[Assistant]
There's a comic with this exact premise! Speeding Bullets.

He stars off as essentially a far more brutal version of Batman, viciously attacking criminals with super-strength and lasers. But over time, his innate goodness (and lois lane) leading to becoming a more conventional superman.

Dude just keeps being superman.


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

[User]
Why is a rounded nose on an airplane/rocket more aerodynamic than a pointed nose?

I remember asking my high school physics teacher this and he didn't know the answer.  Here's hoping some kind redditor out there can answer my question 15 years later.

[Assistant]
If it's not aimed directly towards the air flow, a pointed nose can produce flow-detachment, turbulence and drag.  A rounded nose is more immune to this effect.  Specifically, the front stagnation point in the flow diagram needs to land on a flat surface.  As the fuselage changes relative angle to the oncoming wind, the stagnation point can just move along but without any large outbreak of turbulence.  The same explanation applies to the round leading edge of wings vs. the sharp trailing edge.

Designs for supersonic flight are very different, so the above doesn't apply very much to rockets and fighter planes.


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

[User] [Marvel] Is there an upper limit to the beings Rogue can absorb energy from?

[Assistant]
Yes - certain beings are sufficiently powerful that they can resist her outright - for example, most proficient wielders of the Power Cosmic would be able to prevent themselves from being absorbed (though doing so tends to be painful).

Another limit to consider is that if she attempts to absorb the powers of somebody sufficiently powerful for too long, she runs the risk of their personality overwhelming her and taking over. She actually struggled with this for a time after absorbing Carol Danvers' (Ms. Marvel's) powers.


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

[User]
Can light come in anything other than a sine wave?

If not, can other waves be approximated? Such as a square wave... and if so... what would it look like to us?

[Assistant] Mathematically, any wave can be broken down into a linear combination of sine (and cosine) waves (Google Fourier Series to see some visualizations of this) . So all electromagnetic radiation (including e.g. a square wave) is a superposition of sine waves, because all em radiation satisfies a wave equation.


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

[User] ELI5: How does one forget something in conversation, only to miraculously remember it a few seconds later? What causes that delay?

[Assistant] Memories are not stored in your brain like information is stored on a computer. Memories are built by associations. Sometimes those associations need to take a round about route to get to the place it needs to be. So you have to try a couple different paths before you find the right one.


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

[User]
Eli5: TV commercials cut out after 1 second and play another?

Is it a problem in the control room of the TV station? Is it overbooking of commercial spots? Why do I sometimes see a commercial play for about 1 second, and then it cuts out and another compliantly different commercial plays instead?

[Assistant]
Commercials could be from two or three sources. The network has a commercial there and the local station then cuts that one out and places a local one in its place. There are signals that tell them when a commercial is starting and sometimes the equipment starts the local one a little late.

In Canada we see this more as a lot of commercials are replaced with Canadian versions vs US versions.

In Canada we see very few of the US commercials during Superbowl and the US stations are replaced with Canadian ones.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do animals like horse deal with smaller creatures controlling them?

Even large dogs, who can easily overpower their owner. Why don't they remove them and act out their own will?

[Assistant] What's missing from these other answers is the fact that horses are herd animals. We are hijacking the fact that they are hard-wired to follow a leader. We take that instinct and exploit it to the nth degree training them to follow our commands.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are automatic cars less fuel efficient than manuals (stick shifts)?

It surprises me that automatic transmissions are typically significantly less fuel efficient for the majority of everyday drivers in the most common cars in comparison with the manual equivalents.

After years driving automatics (and a Prius - which is CVT rather than automatic, so we shall ignore this) I have returned to manuals not least to save money and have noticed the difference already. Petrol costs around $8.22 per gallon (US) in the UK at the moment.

I had sort of assumed that automatics would change gear at a point that was good for efficiency as they are not generally seen as optimum for performance. I guess I am completely wrong. Surely it cannot just be from the additional weight?

EDIT: fantastic response all, thank you very much. Will be interesting to see if the inefficiencies and overheads can be addressed in due course.

[Assistant] These days, they aren't. They used to be, because the torque converter was always slipping and the transmission took a fair amount of energy to run. But modern torque converters are locked when the vehicle is at speed, and they have become much more efficient.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does our brain choose 'random' things?

Let's say that i am in a room filled with a hundred empty chairs. I just pick one spot and sit there until the conference starts. How did my brain choose that particular one chair? Is it actually random?

[Assistant]
Human brains are extremely bad at being 'random'.

We can't actually be really random even if you try.

If you tell a bunch of humans to randomly generate a sequence of numbers some very obvious non-random patterns will be quickly apparent.

When a human has a sequence they will look at the sequence and subconsciously try to make it more balanced if the number seven has come up multiple times already they will try to avoid it as the next number in the sequence because that looks more random to them.

At best we are not trying to act randomly and simply not thinking consciously about what makes us make the choices we do. At worst we try to act randomly for some reason, but fail to be truly random which may endanger the actual purpose of our trying to acting randomly.

This failure to act truly randomly even if we try to can and has been exploited by others.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why was salt so valuable in the past?

Why was salt so valuable in the past if people already knew that salt came from the ocean and could be extracted via evaporating sea water?

[Assistant] There's not a lot of real estate that's suitable for extracting salt from seawater with ancient methods.  You need clay soil (so the sea water doesn't seep out of your evaporation pond).  You need a long dry season (so the rain doesn't keep filling up your evaporation pond), ideally with a lot of wind.  You need to be on the coast, so you can get seawater.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] So, Hoth must be pretty warm, far as planets go, right?

Sure, the entire surface is frozen, but it can support life on the surface, meaning it can't be colder than Earth's polar regions. Although Earth's polar regions are extreme to us, they're quite bearable far as extremes in the solar system. The characters can breath on Hoth, meaning the ice and snow is simply water, not only that, but they survive with their faces uncovered. In our own solar system, Mars alone is cold enough to have frozen carbon dioxide in its polar region, Titan is cold enough to have liquid methane lakes, and Neptune's moon Triton has frozen nitrogen on its surface. All in all, Hoth is pretty warm for an ice planet.

[Assistant]
Yeah, it could be on the outer edge of the habitable zone.

Atmospheres trap heat, so maybe Hoth is like Earth but with a thin, but breathable, atmosphere.

I think Mars could be habitable if it had an atmosphere as thick as Earths, with an ozone layer too.

Either way, the areas we see in the movie must be the temperate or tropical areas of the planet. The poles may be too cold to support life.


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

[User]
Why are large telescopes, such as NASA's James Webb, considered so fragile and extra precautions are taken before flight, but can survive the forces of acceleration and vibration from a shuttle launch?

I've seen news outlets report on the "drop" that happened with the telescope, and how it delayed it a little bit. It seems like everyone is so worried about the fragility of the components within these telescopes and their parts, but how are they able to survive the sustained vibrations and forces of a rocket launch if people have to be so careful with it even prior to the launch?

[Assistant]
Spacecraft are designed to resist launch but only launch. In practice that means that they have one hard mounting point where they are mounted to the rocket and where all the force is applied. The rest of the structure might be really fragile. It means that it is also designed to resist to the precise type of vibration a rocket puts out and only for the duration of the launch. When designing spacecraft equipment you often optimize a lot for the launch. But just because it can withstand high g for 8 minutes doesn't means it will be able to survive the transportation loads. Just the vibration from road transport over hours can cause problems (which is why shipping boxes for spacecraft are very complicated).

So when there was this unexpected shock during integration you have to check everything again because it's unlikely that this precise case was ever simulated. Or even if it was simulated you need time to find out if it was the same thing as what you simulated.

For launch they are also locked into a specific position. Antenna and mirrors will be folded and latched, the solar panels will have tie downs. This is actually one of the biggest mission risk for the telescope. It is folded up so much for launch that the deployment is something like a 300 steps process and needs dozens of latches to come free.

You can kind of think of it like an umbrella. An umbrella can take quite a bit of abuse if it's folded and you hold it by the handle. Once deployed the whole canopy is pretty fragile.


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

[User] How do vets perform surgery on aquatic animals?

[Assistant]
Marine mammals are usually lifted into a sling of some sort to support body weight, and given anesthesia in the usual way for mammals (inhaled isoflurane, or injectable ketamine mixes). Fishes and amphibians are given a compound called MS222 (related to cocaine!) mixed into the water, then during surgery are intubated with a hose providing fresh, oxygenated water over their gills.

Source: I've done surgeries on fishes and amphibians, can't speak personally to the marine mammals.


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

[User]
ELI5: What does it mean when they say a burger uses 1300 gallons of water to make? Isnt water renewable?

I saw an ad for being vegan saying either dont flush your toilet for 6 months, dont shower for 3 months or dont eat a burger once. But isnt all of our water basically renewable and no matter if we do any of these things, it just goes back into the water cycle and well reuse it eventually, even if we have to clean it somehow? Whats the big deal?

[Assistant]
Water can be renewed, but that requires energy. Water treatment plants use a lot of energy to make sewage into drinkable water again.

Nature can do some of the work, but it does so more slowly than we need, and because of that we are fouling more and more of nature and making it less effective at the water cycle every day.

So the big deal is that we either need to spend much more money to purify water, we need to use less water, or we need to be prepared to die as a civilization because we refuse to do either of those two. And of course, that also applies to a lot of other environmental concerns as well.


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

[User]
ELI5: what happens if a muscle knot is never released?

Clarification: What happens physically if a fibrous muscle adhesion is never broken up?

[Assistant]
A knot restricts your movement. Your movement would be permanently restricted and your body would adapt around it.

Some Indian fella held his arm above his head for decades. You can be sure he got some knots in his arm and shoulder along the way.

What happened along the way? It basically got stuck there and now he has a bizarre, whithered arm that's jammed in position. Presumably making his efforts a lot easier than they were before.


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

[User] [Doctor Strange / Marvel] Where do beings like Dormammu get their power and energy?

[Assistant]
beings *like* Dormammu?  There is nothing like Dormammu, he's the master of a universe.  And not just any, the dark dimension, which devours other dimensions.  This means Dormammu has more power than our entire *universe*.

Dormammu is.

Really the most similar being i can think of is Mojo, but he's much more limited in power.


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

[User]
ELI5: When we learn a new word/term from a T.V show or game, we start seeing it frequently after that. Why does that happen?

It happened to me a lot. I find a new word, I look it up and then I start seeing/noticing in other stuff a lot.

[Assistant] TheBaader-Meinhof phenomenon, also known as thefrequency illusion, is a psychological effect that causes newly-discovered concepts to seem to pop up in an observer's life with increasedfrequency. It is a combination of selective attention and cognitive bias that appears to increase the likelihood of an occurrence.


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

[User]
Could electrolysis be used in a matter to purify water of radiation?

I have been playing a little too much fallout at 2am I will admit. But I got wondering during fallout3 on their project to purify water.

 Using electrolysis, splitting the hydrogen and oxygen and then having them reform in a separate container. Would it treat the water of radiation and other impurities as well?

[Assistant]
I think this is like building a death ray to kill an ant; there are filters that can remove radiation from water. If water is contaminated, then the ionizing particles are dissolved in it (like strontium-90, radium-226 etc.). A proper filter should remove these particles through reverse osmosis. Adding procedures such as activated carbon or ion exchange would possibly even remove gaseous contaminants like Iodine-131.

What you are describing sounds like combustion; burning hydrogen and oxygen gases creates water.

2H(g) + O(g)  2HO(g) + energy

You would then need to condense it to get liquid water, and it should be free of radioactive contaminants.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do wasps seem to be more aggressive in the fall?

Growing up I had pear trees, wasps LOVE rotting pears. During the fall, when there was hundreds of pears on the ground youd think theyd be less aggressive because of the abundance of food, Compared to the only 20-30 ish pears on the ground during the summer. The wasps seemed angry in the fall, does anyone know why?

[Assistant]
#They are drunk on pear wine.

Wasps undergo a four-stage life cycle that starts with eggs and ends with adulthood. An adult wasp isn't likely to live longer than a few weeks, though it is possible for some workers and drones in the colony to survive for several months. The exception here is the queen. The average queen lives for about a year (queens have been kept alive in lab settings for several years though).

Having said all that, the average queen has stopped laying eggs by mid-summer. By the end of summer, a nest typically goes dormant. That leaves surviving workers with nothing to do and, more importantly, no food.

Older wasps are no longer capable of eating other insects, like flies, due to a restrictive band around their abdomens. The insects they do capture are chewed up and fed to larvae in the nest. In turn, the larvae secrete a sugary substance that acts as a food source for the adults.

A dormant nest is no longer producing food for older adults because there are no more larvae making it. Those adult wasps are forced to find food elsewhere. One source is rotting fruit found out and about. It is this rotting fruit that makes wasps more aggressive.

Rotting fruit ferments as it rots, so although no big deal for us, it's not good for wasps. They essentially get drunk just by feeding, which makes them more aggressive. It turns out that wasps are not happy drunks; they are more prone to taking a defensive position even when not provoked. They are also more prone to attacking.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why are humans sympathetic toward a crying animal, but find crying children annoying?

Shouldn't my animal instinct be to help the child?

[Assistant]
One theory is that the child's cry is meant to induce a sense of urgency. Puppies have no reasonable expectation of human help, but babies do. So they can skip being pleasant, and get right to being urgent.

Another theory (unproven) is that there is an evolutionary advantage to a baby making life unpleasant and sleepless for its parents for a year or so after being born: it makes the conception of a new sibling less likely because the parents will be too tired and crabby to have a lot of sex.


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

[User]
[Alien Series]Shouldn't the Xenomorph Queen give birth to a baby(chestburster)queen, instead of a royal facehugger?

Through out the alien series, all the xenomorph queens look almost exactly alike, excluding the one from Alien Resurrection(which was cloned from Ripley). It is shown in the films that the only way a queen is created is by a royal face hugger impregnating a host.

 All these xenomorph queens definitely did not come from from the same host, yet, they all look the same. It would make more sense that Queens directly gave birth to another future queen, while also producing face huggers for creating drones and warriors.

Xenomorphs that use humans as host resemble the body shape of a human, however, the queen has an all together different, more dinosaur like, body shape. This led me to believe that maybe the xenomorph queens were their own breed and that it would make more sense that the queens directly gave birth to a queen chesburster.

Using a royal face hugger to create a new queen could also create lots more obstacles for the queen, as seen in Alien 3. It is also possible that the host could also be a bad host and will create a faulty queen.

The creation of a xenomorph queen is of vital importance to the creation of a whole hive. I think it would make more sense that that Queen should give birth directly to a new heir so it will be a controlled system and it can easily receive protection from the previous queen until it grows up.

What are your thoughts on this? It seems that for a queen, genetic variation does not matter. Please tell me if I am missing any facts.

[Assistant]
Royal Facehuggers have a more stable genome that does not react to the host.

Normal Facehuggers produce Xenomorph Drones, who are responsible for acquiring prey and protecting the Hive. It is advantageous for the Hive that these drones be well adapted to the environments that the Hive develops in, and as such the gestation in a host assimilates some of their genetic characteristics to allow for better adaptation. This is why the host of a Chestburster influences the end result of the Xenomorph Drone life cycle.

The Royal Facehuggers, on the other hand, are intended to produce a Queen. Queens do not need to be as responsive to their local environments, because the Drones serve as their suppliers and protectors, allowing them to exist in relatively static conditions. Thus, they produce an Egg/Facehugger/Chestburster with a more stable genome, to produce a new Queen. They all appear the same because they are, for lack of a better description, pure-strain Xenomorphs.

As for why they don't just give birth to a live Queen... They can't. They have the biological apparatus to lay eggs, not give birth directly, and they aren't able to control their genetics in such a way as to allow that kind of directed development. Certain gametes produce Drones, and when the Hive reaches a particular population density (likely triggered by certain pheromone concenrations) the queen automatically produces one or more Royal Eggs to allow for expansion of the colony.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter Book Series]What would have happened to the Wizarding World if Harry hadn't forgotten about the Taboo in Book 7?

The scene in question is Harry forgetting Voldemort's name has a locating enchantment on it. A Snatcher group captures them and takes them to Malfoy Manor where Harry rescues Olivander and Griphook. Bellatrix implies and then Griphook confirms the location of the last Horcrux located outside of Hogwarts.

So how would Harry have beaten Voldemort if he never forgot he shouldn't say Voldemorts name?

[Assistant] It's doubtful because by the time that the trio would have figured out where the last horcrux was, Voldemort would have probably figured out that Snape was not the true master of the Elder Wand, and likely would have traced it to Draco, consequently killed him and then truly claimed the wand for himself. Without Snape's memories, Harry would have very likely gone in with the intention of dueling Voldemort, thus invalidating the whole Horcrux caveat in the book and subsequently died due to both Voldie's skill, and use of the Elder Wand.


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

[User]
ELI5: why can people visit Chernobyl without effects of radiation today?

I've seen pictures that people have taken quite recently that reflects a considerable amount of time spent there. How come they aren't in too much danger?

[Assistant]
Visitations to Chernobyl are highly regulated, and can still be very dangerous if you break the rules that are in place.

For example, you're only allowed to travel along certain routes, as some areas are more contaminated than others.

You can't touch anything, or bring anything out with you.

There's a dress code, and what you wear needs to cover you as much as possible.

And when leaving, you and your clothes need to be checked for radiation.

As long as these rules are followed, any irradiation should be well within safe limits.


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

[User]
How can freezing water break matter?

I'm not sure how to put it exactly so here is a simple, "ideal" scenario:

If I put a bottle of water in a room and start removing heat from the room, the water will first lose its sensible heat until it gets to 0 C.

Then, the water will give up its latent heat and start freezing. Since ice is less dense than liquid water, it will start to expend in volume as well.

But if my bottle is closed, the ice will build pressure inside it until it breaks. The ice will do "work" on the bottle.

My question is: how could the formation of ice break the bottle if the water is already giving up energy as heat? Is there a force known as "work energy of crystal formation" that would explain it? How could it be explained on an atomic level?

Thank you for considering this. I couldn't find a satisfying answer by myself.

[Assistant]
Phase transition "water -> ice" produces heat, but it doesn't mean that it *has* to produce heat. Unless heat is actually taken away from the water, it will not freeze. Unlike, say, a radioisotope source which constantly produces heat as a result of radioactive decay of its fuel, and will just heat itself up if left fully insulated; a bucket of water in the process of freezing will not heat itself up though.

Freezing happens because as you continue to take energy away from liquid water around 0C, its molecules can collectively occupy lower energy states by becoming a part of crystal lattice. The phase transition can only happen if this extra energy will dissipate, usually through thermal contact. However, there's nothing that prevents you from using the energy to do work instead! Stretching the bottle and heating the freezer around the water bottle are not two independent processes, they use the same energy released in the process of crystallization.


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

[User]
[MCU] How will the Pym Particle Disk affect the following?

Seeing that pym particle are usually contained when shrinking humans, like it will only work while in a suit or in a car.  How will it work in a given scenario

1.  What will happen if the disk was thrown to iron man or war machine? Will it turn Tony into a pink gloop while shrinking the suit?

2. How it affect the Terminator T800 series since it has an outer organic covering?

3.  How does a gun fight work in a miniature world.  Will it render guns useless?

[Assistant]
1. No, Pym particles have shrunken vehicles with people inside with no ill effects.

2. Same thing. You get a little Terminator.

3. Maybe. Pym particles are weird. Sometimes the shrunken object is dense and other times not so much. There's probably a setting that would allow bullets to work when miniaturized.


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

[User]
[The Purge] What is the legal status of personal property stolen during the purge? Does it become the property of the thief post-purge?

Like if someone stole a car/TV etc. and managed to survive and hide out with it long enough, would they become the legal owner?

[Assistant]
Overall yes, at least when it's poor people and minorities stealing from one another. Remember that the purge exists solely to "weed out undesirables" and keep the rich and powerful in their positions of power. If someone steals a highly valued or sentimental object on one purge year, the original owner might seek revenge next purge, which could create a cycle of violence that the New Founding Fathers can exploit.

Stealing from someone with even the smallest amount of government clout or enough money, would mean that the item will be returned to them, and the perpetrator dealt with to the fullest extent of the law. Which likely means summary execution.


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

[User] The Joker and Mr. Rogers sit together in an empty room. How does their conversation go?

[Assistant] The Joker thinks Rogers is a villain doing a routine at first, and cackles in delight at how evil he must be to hold such a deceitful aura. However, he quickly realizes that Rogers is sincere, and becomes frustrated. He gets angry with Rogers and tries everything he can to break his calm demeanor, to do anything that could shake his faithful kindness toward others. He laughs about all the evil he's done and makes aggressive threats and jokes, but nothing phases Rogers. He simply smiles and retorts kindly and meekly. The Joker is now hell-bent on proving to himself that Rogers can be broken, but nothing works. Over time, his exposure to Rogers begins to affect him like a reverse-corruption. Slowly his mannerisms become more polite. His laughter becomes desperate and manic as the Joker knows he's being changed and he can't seem to stop himself. Given enough time, the Joker will eventually come to regret the harm he's done, causing him to fall into a sadness that Roger himself pulls him out of with forgiveness and kindness. The Joker has completed his transformation, and is now an agent of chaotic... *fun*. His goal is now to delight the people of Gotham and make them laugh with chaotic, fun antics on a city-wide scale.


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

[User]
Can someone help me better understand solipsism?

I've been interested in it for a few years now but don't fully grasp the concept. Any help is appreciated.

[Assistant] Solipsism in the strict sense is the belief that there are, necessarily, no other minds besides one's own. Though sometimes it is used in a broader sense to refer to the denial of anything other than one's own mind, so that it also denies that there are any non-mental things as well.


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

[User]
[Dracula] How to stop the Counts return?

Okay so its been established (mainly by the hammer horror series) that it is possible for Dracula to rise from the grave. Hes been burned, drowned, staked, impaled, you name it, and each time hes able to come back. So that leads to the question, how do you finally kill Dracula? Like kill-kill, wont be seeing him again killed? And is resurrection a him only sort of deal or is that the case for all that become a vampire?

[Assistant]
You could feed him to a cat maybe

Dracula does appear more resilient than the common vampire. Across a number of universes he has fought a bewildering variety of foes including the other classic horror staples, Abbot and Costello, Batman, a good chunk of the Marvel universe, Chinese martial artists, Sherlock Holmes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Monster Squad, Billy the Kid, famed international porn star Emmanuelle. That's not getting into the possible connection between him and his many imitators like Count Orlok, Count Yorga, Kurt Barlow, Vlad Carstein, Strahd von Zarovich, General Mattias Torgo, and many more.

It's strongly suggested in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series that the only thing that could finally do him in is forcing him to confront the irrelevance of his own existence... and even then he might return anew, reincarnated into a new dark form.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do people often get sick after pushing themselves?

I have noticed that oftentimes after prolonged physical and/or mental stress there is a tendency that people get sick. Is there a pattern here and if so, why does the body react this way?

[Assistant]
When you're under stress, your body releases the hormone cortisol, which helps in the fight-or-flight response. It readies your body to be amped up to react in stressful situations - but if you don't react accordingly, the cortisol builds up with nowhere to go.

If you keep elevating the levels of cortisol without using them, it throws your body out of balance and can adversely affect bone density, memory, weight gain, healthy heart function, cholesterol levels, and so much more.

Think of it like a dehumidifier in a room. Its purpose is to collect water from the air and collect it in a bucket-like thing. If you empty it regularly, it can keep performing like it's supposed to. But if you forget about it for a while, it keeps collecting water and will eventually spill over.

The body favours being in a state of homeostasis; it's also remarkable in that you can throw a lot of crap its way and it'll adjust. But homeostasis is where it's happiest and keeping it in an extreme state for too long without relief will cause it to "voice its displeasure" with you and it'll show that displeasure physically.


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

[User] Does anyone actually understand [Garfield]? He only communicates in thought bubbles.

[Assistant]
Most of what Garfield says and does is a projection of Jon's imagination. To everyone else, he is an ordinary cat, but to Jon, he is an ubiquitous force that consumes his joy, (and dinner) yet also provides him with a certain amount of comfort.
It's sort of like a pathetic Calvin and Hobbes: Garfield cannot exist without Jon, but Jon is nothing without Garfield.
an interesting thing emerges here. Garfield takes on a life of his own, so to speak, and has some thoughts that Jon cannot understand. Of course, it is all run by Jon's subconscious, but both cat and owner believe Garfield is sentient. The sad fact is, that the actual cat Garfield died years ago, but Jon's fragile psyche couldn't take it. Now the thing that exists is pure projection.
All of Jon's world is a hallucination that takes place from the darker corners of a mental institution. Liz is not the vet she is his personal doctor. Odie is not a dog rather, he is Jon's mute roommate, who Jon sees as a dog. Not just any dog, but *his* dog. What a horrible, depressing comic.


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

[User]
What is the difference between "legalization" and "decriminalization" of marijuana?

?

[Assistant]
Decriminalization = taking away CRIMINAL charges. In most countries, that term is tied to a criminal record. Instead, you can be fined, but it's kind of like a parking ticket... Pay the fine and you're done. Still not "legal" but no criminal charges, criminal record, trial, potential jail time, etc.

Legalization = adding laws to govern the sale and distribution of marijuana. This would mean that marijuana would get the same treatment as alcohol in most of the world.


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

[User] ELI5: Why isn't America's massive debt being considered a larger problem?

[Assistant]
US debt is not the same as personal debt. US debt is sold as a point of investment in the form of government bonds. It is also one of the safest forms of investment as the US has never defaulted on any of its bonds when they have come due, and they do not all come due at once.

We also have a better debt to GDP ratio than most developed countries and half that of Japan.

Also 60% of our debts owned by the US. Divided up among various parts of the government, corporate investments into bonds, and private citizens investments into bonds. The rest is distributed among dozens of countries with China owning about 8% of our total debt.


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

[User] [DC] Which DC villain is pettier: Lex Luthor, Eobard Thawne, or the Joker?

[Assistant] Eobard Thawne narrowly wins out. Lex Luthor needs to constantly flaunt his superiority, but when Thawne doesn't get what he wants, he goes straight to murder, erasure from existence, or, if neither is an option, ruining every single aspect of your life.


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

[User] ELI5: How does bug spray kill insects so quickly?

[Assistant] Bug spray is a mild chemical weapon (It will cause false positives on military chemical weapons detection gear) which causes insect nervous systems to cease working.  Without nerves firing to keep the insect alive, it dies quickly.


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

[User]
ELI5: What is the purpose of prison bail? If somebody should or shouldnt be jailed, why make it contingent on an amount of money that they can buy themselves out with?

Edit:  Thank you all for the explanations and perspectives so far.  What a fascinating element of the justice system.

Edit:  Thank you to those who clarified the prison vs. jail terms.  As the majority of replies correctly assumed, I was using the two words interchangeably to mean pre-trial jail (United States), not post-sentencing prison.  I apologize for the confusion.

[Assistant] Bail is for when a person has not been tried or convicted yet. It's basically collateral to ensure that the person shows up for trial. If they fail to appear, the bail money is forfeit. If the court decides that a person is likely to flee or just not show up, they will deny bail and hold them until trial.


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

[User]
ELI5: If feminists are fighting for gender equality, then why call themselves feminists?

Doesn't this title imply superiority of women over men? It's an honest question not meant to be mean-spirited; I certainly agree that gender equality is an important issue.

[Assistant] Well, historically, equality required building up the status of women. You might argue, or not, that it's still required today. But the name, at least, is historical and made perfect sense when it was coined at a bare minimum.


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

[User]
Were superconductors theorised first or discovered?

The title say it all really.

Were they mathematically predicted first or just discovered by accident or similar?

[Assistant] In the early 1900s, there were competing theories about what would happen if a sufficiently pure metal were lowered towards absolute zero. Some thought that the trend of lower resistance would continue all the way down, others that electrons would become immobile and resistance would increase towards absolute zero. Heike Kammerling-Onnes tried to test this using mercury, which was easier to purify than solid metals. He found something totally unexpected, that the resistance didn't just smoothly decrease, but that there was an abrupt drop to zero at around 4 kelvin.


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

[User]
CMV: Bernie Sanders's propensity to cut people off and not directly answer questions is getting annoying.

I was and tentatively still am a Bernie fan, if not necessarily a direct voter. I like his energy and enthusiasm to right the various wrongs in our present society. However, I think his most ardent and perhaps therefore least critical supporters are ignoring a pretty big orange flag; he almost never allows anyone to finish a sentence, and frequently either gets sidetracked from answering questions or just plain doesn't answer. It honestly leaves a bad taste in my mouth, because I absolutely HATE talking to people like that in my life. But it almost seems like he can do no wrong and no matter what actually comes out of his mouth it must be the right thing. Honestly, it's just getting annoying to me. CMV and tell me what I'm missing here.

[Assistant]
Not sure anything can change your view about what you find annoying, but you do realize that's how the game of politics is played, right? You have to spout the platitudes and you can't just sit there and let an interviewer push you around and control what you say like some kind of noob.

Now hopefully behind the scenes you can get stuff done, but in front of the cameras you have to play the game.


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

[User]
Did the Apatosaurus have any true predators as a threat?

I mean, let's face it, she was monstrous even by dino standards.  I get starving desperation could take one down, but I mean just every day threats, any critter have its number 24/7?

[Assistant]
Yes!

Apatosaurus and the closely related genus Brontosaurus were early diplodocids and lived alongside such terrors as the four ton, eight metre long Allosaurus and Saurophagnax. We also find the slightly smaller Ceratosaurs.

We know the sauropods of the Morrison Formation laid large clutches of eggs in large egg nests. We also know the landscape wasn't nose to tail with them, so very few made it to adulthood. Of course, once they did, they were immune to any predation.

This means their young and juveniles had an enormous attrition rate. The infants would be preyed upon by the likes of Coelurus and Ornitholestes, the early coelurosaurs. Once the animals were the size of a horse or so (around a year's growth!), they were too large and strong for these, but they'd be a prime target for the larger theropods, the allosaurs and ceratosaurs, until they reached ten to fifteen years.

Edit: It's also worth noting that Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus juveniles had a much larger disparity between fore and hindlimbs than adults did. This is interpreted to mean they could run on their hindlimbs alone. As the coelurosaurs are known to be fast and agile, it'd be sensible for their prey to have a good set of running legs too.


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

[User]
[Walking Dead] Why do the skulls of the zombies seem so easy to destroy?

There's been a few occasions when zombies are killed with knives or machetes, is it really that easy to put a knife through someones head? It seems like it would be more difficult then it's portrayed. Maybe something with the virus making the skull much weaker?

[Assistant]
They've been decomposing for a year. You'll notice that when the infection first broke out, we had a more difficult time killing them. Nowadays, you can stomp the sons of bitches' heads thanks to the putrification. Long live bacteria, man.

You must be a sheltered little flower from Woodbury if you don't have the hands-on experience.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] How closely do the borders of Magical Britain match those of Muggle Britain?

Is everything in the United Kingdom considered part of Magical Britain (Northern Ireland and the British Overseas Territories), or is it only the island of Great Britain that marks the border?

How about other countries?  Do the Magical and Muggle borders line up, or do they differ?  When one changes their borders, does it effect the other?  And how much of a role do the wizards play when it comes to war or other forms of territory acquisition (like the Louisiana Purchase)

[Assistant] Based on the presence of Seamus Finnegan and the fact that during the Quidditch world cup many British fans (among them the Weasleys) considered supporting Ireland nearly as good as supporting England or Scotland, it's entirely possible that wizarding Britain includes not just Northern Ireland, but *all* of Ireland.


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

[User]
ELI5: How does a currency become "stronger" or "weaker" with respect to other currencies?

How do countries ensure that their currency remains stable?

[Assistant]
Mostly the best ways to keep your country's currency stable are to:

1. Make sure there is a market for your country's goods and services abroad. Foreigners will want to buy your currency so they can buy your goods and services. This demand increases the value of your currency.

2. If the demand for your currency starts to get too high, it will become too expensive and foreigners won't be able to buy your country's goods and services any more. If this happens, your government can print more money to buy your people things like roads, hospitals, schools, or bombers. This increase of your money will lower the value of your currency.

If you are good at balancing these two strategies, your country's currency should stay fairly stable.

I hope this helps. Please rule your people justly and kindly.


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

[User]
How do you write a very efficient code?

While doing some LeetCode exercises I noticed that they also included the total runtime of my algorithm. Quite disappointing that I write a runtime inefficient code.

I noticed that most of the fastest running algorithms used data structures, some are very compact code. Although I noticed that some of the fastest algorithms are copy pasted from the net, which I guess defeats the purpose of LeetCode (for me LeetCode is to test you algorithm writing skills)?

Also any reading materials for Big O notation?

[Assistant]
This comes with experience. Note that Big-O notations can sometimes be misleading due to the way hardware is designed.

At the end of the day, if you really want to write very efficient code, learn how different data structures mean to cache locality, registers, heaps and SSE. This is not an easy task either.


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

[User]
ELI5:If sodium benzoate mixed with vitamin C creates cancerous benzene, why is Sriracha sauce considered safe? AFAIK chilli contains insane amounts of vitamin C.

I've been asking this myself for a long time, and internet has zero answers about benzene in hot sauces.

[Assistant]
Because only a tiny amount of sodium benzoate would be used as a preservative, much of the vitamin C will be destroyed by the cooking process so there's less for it to react with, benzene doesn't always form just because the two molecules are present in the same food and food itself is a lot less efficient as a chemical factory than an aqueous solution - which is why there is a lot more concern about benzoates in drinks than in food.

Also, you inhale a lot more benzene than you're ever likely to ingest and there are 'safe'  limits set where exposure to toxic chemicals below that amount are unlikely to have a noticeable effect.


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

[User]
[Back to the Future] Wouldn't the DeLorean need some kind of positioning/location device to account for the movement of the Milky Way?

I just watched BTTF and it dawned on me that if they went back to 1955 from the same location, wouldn't the Earth be somewhere else in the universe due to the movement of the Milky Way, causing Marty to wind up in the middle of space? Or even the Earths orbit might have an impact. Did the DeLorean have some feature to explain this or am I wrong and this wouldn't be an issue?

[Assistant]
What no one seems to understand here is that there is no absolute metric from which everything else can measure it's position and velocity from.  That was proved back in 1887 by Michelson and Morley showed there was no luminiferous aether that matter traveled through.  This lack of absolute position of velocity was further cemented in 1905 with Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity which showed that the speed of light was the same from any reference frame.  Then Einstein's Theory of General Relativity in 1915 laid the framework for Emmet Brown to create the General Theory of Time (unpublished) which he used to then design the Tri-Flux Capacitor.

What Dr. Brown understood was that mass, energy, space, time, gravity, and velocity are *all* relative.  This enables the Tri-Flux Capacitor to warp space-time so that the worldline travelled by the Delorean intersects with its position in the past or future.  As it warps spacetime along the time dimension, the fold naturally follows the already-existing surface of the gravitational space-time Reimannian manifold, so that the Delorean doesn't have to account for motion like the rotation of the earth, movement of the earth around the sun, motion of the sun in the Milky Way, the motion of the Milky Way in our galactic local group, the motion of our local group compared to other galactic clusters, etc.  Since the fold naturally follows the already-existent geodesic, the worldline of the Delorean simply intersects at a different location along the geodesic manifold, so that the Delorean (and it's passengers) have effectively traveled through time *relative* to its surroundings.


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

[User]
Why do surgeons use intermittent pneumatic compression devices even during short surgeries?

Sorry if this is the wrong subreddit. A couple years ago I had a surgery that only lasted about 1.5 hours, but my surgeons put an IPC machine (the leg squeezy thing that prevents blood clots) on my legs anyway. wouldnt it take more time to develop a blood clot than lying down for a few hours? Is it more of a liability thing?

[Assistant] Yes the chances of a dvt or blood clot are likely low, but there is virtually no harm in using the compression devices, so you might as well use them. If patients are expected to be bed-bound for days post-op, then anticoagulation drugs are often used as well.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why is a 50hz TV considered bad?

I just bought a 50 inch TV for a very affordable price, the only "downside" is that it's 50hz. I'll use the TV to watch Blu-Rays (which are 24hz) and play PS3.
Why do people say 50hz is bad? I personally hate the smoothing effect that some high frequency TV's have.

edit: I'm from Finland, that's why it's 50hz, not 60hz.

[Assistant] There isn't a major problem with 50Hz screens. They will display movies fine, as well as most console games. However, these screens are pretty poor for PC gaming, as you can't achieve higher than 50 frames per second.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Would it have been more productive if Voldemort made Harry's name taboo

We learn near the end of the great Wizarding War that Voldemort made his name taboo so that any who dared speak his name would be quickly found and killed. Obviously, he did this for two reasons. 1, to create fear, as most people were already scared to speak his name and now anyone who did would be killed. But secondly, people who would speak it would most likely be part of the order so they could find more info on Harry. But wouldn't it work even better if he made Harry's name taboo? Are there limitations on naming taboos? can you not do someone else's name?

[Assistant]
No one really knows where the Taboo came from. We have absolutely no idea how it works. Fan-canon points to it being a personal invention of Voldemort's, but again, we simply don't know. Therefore the only real way to answer this question is (you guessed it) to wildly speculate.

Harry Potter is a common enough name that you would get unfortunate misfires irritatingly often. In addition to that, most people close to him are going to use his first name, which is even more common. Seriously, the one person who refers to Harry by his full name the most is Voldemort. Not entirely helpful. The first two points combined open up a 3rd possibility; Resource allocation. The Death Eaters had to deploy "Snatchers" to round up every instance of someone saying "Voldemort." Can you imagine how many people they would have needed to check up on every instance of people saying "Harry Potter?" Even with Ministry resources, it seems a bit outside of their scope.

Voldemort's name already had a stigma on it. Telling people it's illegal to say Voldemort's name is basically telling them not to do something they already weren't doing. As you pointed out, at that stage, the only people left using the V word were members of the order. And while the Death Eaters did manage to (temporarily) capture Harry with the taboo, its true goal was just to cast a wide net. Finding Harry was a happy coincidence.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Do reality warpers (Wanda, Mad Jim Jaspers, Franklin Richards, Reality Stone) only create an illusion of reality or do they actually change reality?

I am assuming there is a difference between them according to their power level, but this question stems from Thanos using the reality stone to mask his destruction in the collectors hideout.

While the stone was being used, the room was as if nothing had happened, but then it switched back to the real reality. In this case, reality manipulation is really just a really good illusion. If the reality stone manipulates reality itself, couldnt he manifest a reality where his opponents dont exist?

We move to Wanda, who creates the hex where her constructs are so powerful they can fight with real beings like the Vision fight. But as explained, its also all an illusion, or a spell.

Now if we move to Mad Jim Jaspers, or Franklin Richards, they manipulate reality on an cosmic level. Is what they do really binding? Meaning couldnt they just wish for example Thanos to not exist and he just doesnt exist anymore. Or is it all an illusion while they maintain control? If they alter reality, can they reverse death?

[Assistant]
They actually change reality.

The reality stone by itself *does* alter reality, it just doesn't alter reality *permanently.* Thanos could manifest a reality where his opponents don't exist- and he does, he effectively makes Drax and Mantis disappear- it's just that when he stops concentrating it snaps back. Wanda, meanwhile, is actually altering reality with the Hex- the fact this isn't just an illusion but an actual changing of reality is a major plot point.

The more powerful reality warpers can and do change reality, including reversing death and erasing thanos.

Basically, yes, there is a difference between an illusion and a reality warp, even a temporary or localised one.


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

[User] [Fallout] with all these raiders out there it makes me wanna know where are their numbers coming from?

[Assistant] The raiders aren't a single cohesive organization like the Enclave or the BoS or the NCR or whatever, it's a catch-all term for all the random assholes out there in the waste who take up the raider lifestyle. Anyone who foregoes the traditional concept of civilized society and runs around the wastes to be an asshole-at-large, whether out of choice or circumstance, is a raider.


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

[User]
[Skyrim] Why did skeevers increase in size?

Quoted from a talk page on wikia.

>Skeever Size

>So, that one guy in The Winking Skeever mentioned that Skeevers used to be smaller.  Not quite sure how old he is, but assuming he is around 30, that means Skeevers apparently got larger (not quite sure how larger, but I would assumine it is a very noticable difference, like maybe 200-300% their original size) in the last 20-30 years in Skyrim.  Now, seeing as how its a Video Game, I am going to apply Video Game logic and assume this is not natural.

>So, the question.  Has anyone found anything that might imply what made them big?  I have considered the madman in Honningbrew Meadery, who made those Venomous Skeevers (From what I can tell), but that seemed to be focused around Venom, not size.  Considering the time discrepensy, I sort of think that the Aldimeri Dominion caused it, because Skeevers are annoying and so are they.  Giant Skeevers are more annoying, and the more annoyed Skyrim gets, the more primed it is for a fight.  Because, you know, mostly Nords.  And I am sure you all get where I am going with this.  The Aldermiri Dominion was clearly already supporting keeping the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloaks at war based on the evidence of the dossier found in the embassy.  The Great War ended 30 years ago, which fits the time constraint.  I am just wondering if anyone has found anything else that supports this explanation or another one if I am wrong.  So, any ideas/evidence?

[Assistant]
Nothing as nefarious as that, it was simple natural selection.  Skeevers are seen as pests, as sources of food for people and other species, and as a source of alchemical ingredients (such as their tails).  This led to skeevers being hunted quite extensively.  As a result, only the biggest and meanest skeevers could avoid being killed by exterminators, hunters, and alchemists.

The idea that the Aldmeri Dominion would create giant skeevers to annoy people is cute, but does not fit their style.  They see themselves as the rightful rulers of Tamriel, and would not deign to use rodents for their purposes.  They are also careful planners and schemers, preferring to know the causes and effects of every step of their plans.  "Release giant rats to annoy people" is far too chaotic and unpredictable a method for the likes of the Thalmor.


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

[User] ELI5:Why we tend to have less friends as we grow older?

[Assistant] Fewer.  As we get older, the number of responsibilities in life grows.  At the same time, we also spend less and less time in environments surrounded by other people in the same life stage.  What this means is that we spend a lot more time with people in different life stages, and those people we do spend time with often have growing responsibilities that impede the amount of time they can just hang out.