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

[User]
[Jessica Jones] How does Jessica Jones' abilities rank in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

It appears to me that she probably wouldn't survive against a well-trained SHIELD agent or any super-powered humans in the MCU except for some of the Inhumans. Like she is clearly not bulletproof and can't dodge bullets any more than the average person. What sort of level of strength does she have? They do show her half lifting a car and picking up a huge porcelain sink with one hand as well as breaking locks. Has she been holding back on her strength? Also is it clear that she can properly fly? There was only one scene where it seemed like she did fly but it was kind of off screen. Otherwise they just show her making huge jumps. Like it seems that there are normal humans that have far better natural abilities. Examples of which are Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton, or Grant Ward (who seems so overpowered). I love her character so much but it seems like they didn't really portray her abilities as being particularly impressive.

[Assistant]
Jessica is strong but she's entirely untrained. That's why she struggles sometimes fighting multiple people, she punches badly and throws people. She has no idea how to really fight properly. Someone like Cap would utterly destroy her in a brawl (Cap with his shield could more than likely beat Luke Cage even though).

She's probably a 1-2 tonner at her max.  She only lifts up the back of the car which some very strong people can do.  She's still very durable and can likely fly if she learns how. If she was trained how to fight and use her powers more effectively she'd be a force to be reckoned with for sure. But right now she's low street tier.


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

[User]
[Arrival] Why doesn't Ian learn the heptapod language as well so he can see his daughter?

We're told the reason Ian eventually leaves Louise is because she gives birth to their daughter despite knowing she is going to die. This is made worse by the fact that while Louise has the ability to go back and "visit" her daughter in a sense, Ian can't as he doesn't seem to know the language in the future. My question is why not? He worked on the language right alongside Louise, and his wife even wrote a book teaching people about the language. Shouldn't he be able to see time non-linearly too and know the truth about Hannah?

[Assistant]
It's not just that she learned the language, but that she became so deeply involved in it that it changed the way her brain processed the world around her.

The short story goes into this phenomenon more, setting it up with examples like a culture that doesn't use relative directions (left, right, etc), only absolute (North, South, East, West), and as a result, seem to have an innate awareness of those cardinal directions. But it's not from simply learning the words of the language, but from the way the language requires you to think.


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

[User]
[Star Wars]Why does C3P0 refer to R2D2 as his "counterpart"?

Is it standard for droids to have a partner droid?

[Assistant] Droids that work together on a regular basis can, over time, become so accustomed to each other that they are considered counterparts. They essentially both develop code that forms a kind of "shortcut" when they're interacting, letting them function together much faster than normal droids can. They can also use that code to develop complex encryption codes that are virtually impossible to break for anyone but their counterpart.


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

[User] [LoTR] What if Morgoth and not Sauron had been the one to have the idea to create the One Ring and vest the majority of his power into it as Sauron had done?

[Assistant]
Morgoth *did* in a sense create a Ring of Power. Tolkien says that because Morgoth invested so much of himself into corrupting the material world, *the world itself was his ring*. Hence the name of Morgoth's Ring, one of the books of the History of Middle Earth. Because of this investiture, his power over the physical world was greatest than all beings, though eventually he squandered so much of his influence he was severely diminished. Still, it was this Morgoth-element that polluted everything which allowed foulness like necromancy to work.

In more prosaic terms though, the Rings of Power were a plot by Sauron to make the Elves enslave themselves to him. He would teach them to make these amazing rings with the power to slow down decay (the thing the Elves were most interested in, as they wanted to preserve the fading primeval beauty of the world), but secretly there would be a backdoor that would allow him to control all Ringbearers through the One Ring.

It wouldn't really make sense for Morgoth to attempt something like this. He was at open war with the Elves from the start and couldn't take a fair form like Sauron did, so he could scarcely trick them the same way. He also didn't care to dominate, he wanted to destroy: when he took over an elven kingdom he had it sacked and burned, its prisoners taken for slaves to toil in Angband; he didn't want to govern anything, just ruin it.


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

[User] ELI5: What is meant by right-wing & left-wing in politics?

[Assistant]
So the actual origin of the term goes back to the French Revolution where people who supported the revolution literally hung out on the left side of the room while supporters of the king hung out on the right side of the room.

So the left wing was the more liberal side of the group as a whole so now any group that really does want to do something "new" is probably going to be called "left wing". Meanwhile a more conservative group that either doesn't want to change or maybe wants to change back to the old way of doing things is going to be called right wing.


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

[User]
Are you at greater risk of sunburn up on a mountain?

 I remember being told that sunburns are more likely when you're up in the mountains because the air is thinner. And that's why Andean peoples wear wide brim hats most of the time. And I think my own experience matches that. I've burnt pretty quickly when up in mountainous terrain.

But I also know (believe) that UV is mostly blocked by the ozone layer. And the ozone layer goes from 33,000 feet to 165,000 feet. So even on top of Everest you're fully under it. So it shouldn't matter how high you walk. You should still be protected.

So what's going on? Which part of what I think I know is wrong?

[Assistant] The ultraviolet spectrum is pretty broad (400 nm  10 nm) and is divided into three sub-bands. Ozone is really good at absorbing the short UV-C wavelengths and moderately good at absorbing the medium UV-B wavelengths. UV-A and UV-B (which are responsible for sunburns and skin cancer) are mostly absorbed by water vapor and other atmospheric gases, which is why being at sealevel offers more protection than on a mountain.


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

[User] ELI5:What makes a tree live on, while plants such as corn die off quickly?If a tree grows on and on without disturbance,is there a limit to its lifetime?

[Assistant]
#Slow and steady vs. Fast and furious

The main difference is how each handles reproductive events. Reproduction is the most energy and resource consuming event any organism can live.

Herbs (what you would call "plants") have chosen the strategy of tanking stressful environment as a seed or tubercule, gather resources during the favourable weather and use all their resources in a single reproductive event, this killing then because they don't have any more resources to keep themselves alive.

On the other hand, trees have chosen the strategy to slowly gather resources, even during stressful conditions (like bad weather) and use only a fraction of their resources in each reproductive event, meaning they keep some resources to themselves, letting them stay alive.

Neither strategy is inherently better than the other, they're just different ways of solving the same problem.

---

---

#How to live forever

You might have seen that after cutting the main trunk of a tree, little branches grow back, ultimately making a new tree again. This is due a "stem cell like" property of trees, where they always retain their merismatic cells (the equivalent to stem cells in plants) after each growing event which grants trees with the ability to regrow or repair any organ.

If met with theoretical ideal conditions (always good season, no predation, no competetition), you can argue that a tree can live forever.

The next challenge comes from within the cells of the tree. Just like humans, trees have chromosomes (which are may bundles is compacted DNA), at their end they have a strand of DNA known as telomer. Each replication event of the cell shortens the telomer. When there's no more telomer left, the cell dies.  So, unless you have a way to repair that telomer loss, your days as a tree are counted.

Some trees, like some types of pines, have the ability to repair that loss with an enzyme that "rebuilds" the telomer after some replication events, thus, granting the tree with eternal life.

---

---

#Could this actually happen?

The dynamic nature of Earth and its ecosystems represents a huge challenge to any organism that aims for eternal life.

You have catastrophic events that are cyclic, some unpredictable bad seasons, constant competition with other organisms like you, constant predation and parasitation, internal mistakes (trees can get cancer too!) and such.

The oldest trees we know are around 5000 years old, although a whole lot of time, it's just a moment in the history of Earth.


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

[User] ELI5 why is it that you can break a piece of a tooth and it doesnt need fixing, but if you have the tiniest cavity it has to get filled ASAP?

[Assistant] A cavity is decay-it is dead and dying areas with bacteria, and can spread if not taken care of. A cracked broken piece of tooth, depending on how deep the break is, won't cause increasing problems over time.


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

[User] [Warhammer 40K] Can you boost the collective intelligence of the Orks by telling them books make you more killy?

[Assistant]
I mean, "collectively" orks are already as smart as any other space faring race. They've collectively got the knowledge to build spaceships and other technology on par with anyone else.

Besides, most orks can't read, so not like books are gonna do much besides get thrown around or lit on fire.


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

[User] ELI5: What is quantitative easing?

[Assistant] Quantitative easing is a tactic used by a countrys central bank (eg. The federal reserve) to add money to the countrys economy, primarily in times when the economy is slow or have collapsed. Because the central bank cannot give away money for free, it makes large purchases of government bonds or financial assets(Billions of dollars worth of assets). Once the bonds are purchased, the money is then used to fulfill the purpose of the bond (build roads, develop systems etc). This now means that people will be hired to build the roads, materials will be bought and so forth, so that money will now be circulated in the economy thanks to quantitative easing.


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

[User] ELI5 how does freeing up storage space make your computer faster?

[Assistant]
In general, it doesn't.

If your hard drive is almost completely full then it can have an impact. Your operating system may temporarily dump some of the values it's tracking in RAM to your hard drive to make use of RAM for something else to speed things up. If there's not enough space on the drive to do that, it could affect performance.

If you have 1 tb drive and go from using 700 gb to 500 gb it won't make a difference with respect to performance, though.


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

[User]
If a woman doesn't get her period and is not pregnant, what happens to the eggs?

For example, taking contraceptives that may stop a woman from getting a regular period.

[Assistant] Nothing happens to them. When a baby girl is born, she already has all the eggs she will have for her whole life in her ovaries. If she doesn't menstruate on any given month, it just means no egg(s) exited her ovaries.


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

[User] ELI5:What are the strings in String Theory made of?

[Assistant]
They're made of strings.

In string theory, the strings are the most fundamental object in the universe, so they can't consist of anything else. It's like asking what an electron is made of, it's nonsense because (as far as we know) electrons are just electrons.


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

[User] [General] If the multiverse has every possible outcome in all existences, and it is possible to travel between universes in it, shouldn't every universe be filled with multiverse travelers everywhere?

[Assistant] There would be infinite travelers, so there would be universes full of them. There would also be infinite universes that had none. And infinite universes that never spawned them. By definition, one possible outcome is a universe with just one traveler. And another with just two. And another with just two but they're slightly to the left. And one where you are the first to go there, or others leave exactly as you arrive. Or one where an infinite number of travelers arrive at exactly the same time, instantly filling all space and collapsing that entire universe into a black hole.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do animal brains tend to operate far more efficiently than even the best computers?

Brains occupy a low volume and use very little energy compared to computers. How is this possible? What's preventing computers from becoming more efficient than the brain?

[Assistant] What makes you think they are less efficient? Computers are vastly more efficient than brains, at some tasks. Running a modern game requires billions of floating point calculations per second. Even if you drafted the entire population of the planet you couldn't get that kind of throughput. We win at other tasks like path finding, but not by much any more.


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

[User]
CMV: On social media, more people should attack bad ideas/posts from people from their own tribe

Couple of semantics to get out of the way.

1. By social media, I am talking about forums/websites such as facebook, twitter, reddit where people exchange ideas and debate about different topics.  I am hoping that this CMV does not devolve down to arguing over what is and what isn't social media.
2. By "attack bad ideas/posts", I am referring to the act of vehemently arguing against the person/post in question while being level-headed and abiding by the proper decorum of public discourse.
3. By "tribe", I am referring to common groupings that people use for certain conversations.  For example, when it comes to US political debates, this might be Democrats vs Republicans.  When it comes to certain religion debates, this might be atheists vs Christians.   As such, an example of attacking people from their own tribe online would be a liberal attacking a fellow liberal who makes a bad post (or conservative attacking a fellow conservative).

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

So with the semantics out of the way, let's get to the point.  When it comes to important debates and topics (e.g. police violence in the US), there are usually two groups of people who come in contact virtually (e.g. in this case, liberals and conservatives), and heated argument pursues.  Inevitably, there are various different types of people jumping in on the debate from both sides.  What is commonly observed in these online debates is that bad arguments and intellectually dishonest posts made by someone from some group A are usually only attacked by people from some other group B.  It is rarely the case that people from group A attack their own when it comes to bad arguments/posts (now, for the CMV, we can discuss whether my observation is true, and I would be ready to reconsider on frequently this occurs).   In many of the cases, the smart people just ignore these bad posts from their own side and attack the other side.

Now, I am not saying that this is necessarily wrong and I think there is a good argument to be had on why one should be tribal (e.g. need to focus on winning the war of ideas).  But I am thinking that it might be healthy if people who are pretty level-headed and intelligent about certain topics actually attack these bad posts from people on their own sides.  The main reason being as follows.

(1) Truth and intellectual honesty matters.   Many times, these fringe people from our own sides resort to dirty tactics, distortion of facts, strawman tactics to attack the other side.  And I believe that there needs to be some sort of base level agreement amongst the majority that this should not be tolerated regardless of the said person is on our own side or some other side.  And it doesn't take too much of an effort to point this out if you are a power user (e.g. "I am actually in group A but here, your data is wrong, and you should consider editing your post.").  It only takes 2-3 seconds to type that up.

(2) Attacking bad ideas would demotivate these fringe people.  In social media, I would not be surprised if there is a certain level of confidence instilled in these posters knowing that roughly 50% of the people will "back them up" due to the tribalism.  As such, there is not much of a social penalty of being shunned by 80-90% of the people in a given forum for creating bad posts.  However, if it were the case that people attacked bad ideas from their own group, then I suspect that people would be more careful about making good/bad arguments.  This would clean up the conversations quite a bit as a good filter will be in place to penalize/criticize bad ideas.

(3) Negative feedback loop that leads to more tribalism would be reduced.  Sometimes, I think people overrestimate the degree in which there are extreme voices amongst different groups.  When I talk to people in real life, most are normal people who can have a healthy conversation.  However, when we view social media, the bad actors from both groups get amplified and even the average person (due to the amplification) might think that there is much more dissent amongst the groups.  This leads to a nasty feedback loop that leads to more dissent as people think that the disagreement is much more heated than what is actual.  By nipping the bad actors initially, it would cool down the conversation and reduce the unnecessary temperature rise in conversation.

Conclusion:  rarely is the case that smart/level-headed people attack posts/people from their "own side" when it comes to online discourses.  This should be encouraged as there are benefits to it (my points (1), (2), and (3)).

[Assistant]
Let's view this from a game theory perspective. If your group does this, and the other group does not, you could run the risk of the other group abusing this by driving a wedge between the sub-group, making your group splinters, and weaker.

A temporary example would be Russia, China, and Iran, using online trolls to exacerbate the current situation. Or in a 2 party system, if one party is more united than the other, the more united party could take a more moderate stance, to absorb more moderate voters from the opposing party, without risking losing their fringe voters.

This is most successful in divide and conquer, divide the opposing group into sub-groups and make the sub-groups fight one another, just like in in colonialism.


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

[User] ELI5: In a few billion years when the sun expands and grows into a red giant, how fast will it expand and "swallow" the inner planets?

[Assistant]
The sun is expected to last another 5.4 billion years before the hydrogen in the core runs out.

When that happens, the core will start to collapse in on itself due to its own gravity, and will increase in temperature. This allows for hydrogen fusion outside the core to happen (the strong temperature gradient doesnt allow the layers outside the core to mix with the core and supply more hydrogen to maintain it; the core needs to grow in size for the next step) This is when the sun enters the subgiant phase.

In the subgiant phase, the core is having a battle with itself. On one hand, its so dense and heavy that it wants to collapse in on itself. But at the same time, its way too hot to make that possible (heat makes atoms move faster, so its harder to get them to collect at a single point). At this point, the core gets so hot, that even outside the core it gets hot enough for hydrogen to fuse. Hydrogen that fuses turns into heavier helium which then grows the core a little again (the boundary of the core isnt very exact). The energy thats produced in this process pushes the outer shells of the sun farther out. The sun grows to roughly three times it size, becomes a little dimmer as the same amount of energy is spread out over a larger outer surface to radiate off. This is called the subgiant state and this state lasts for about 2 billion years for our sun.

After the sun has been a subgiant for a good long while, suddenly an event happens: the core does no longer contract. This is called core degeneracy. At this point, the repulsive force of the electrons around the helium nuclei give enough backpressure that gravity can no longer collapse the core any further. So now all the energy being fused around the edge of the core cant go anywhere, what now? The sun starts to grow in size tremendously, growing to 100x its current size. Lots of hydrogen is fused into helium at the edge of the core and a lot of energy is convected to the outer layers of the sun. The sun becomes a lot more luminous, too. This is the first red giant phase, and lasts about 100 million years.

As the core continues to gain more mass, slowly but surely it eventually reaches a point where the core reaches 100 million Kelvin, at which the core finally can start back up again, fusing helium into carbon. This happens in an impressive explosive called the helium flash. In a matter of minutes, most helium in the core is converted into carbon, releasing a tremendous amount of energy. Because of this energy, gravity is overcome and the core expands again. The star decreases in size to around 10 times the size it is today in a very short period and it stays this way for about 50 million more years, while it fuses helium into carbon in the core.

When the helium is all used up and the entire core is made of carbon, the core once again goes into hibernation and something like the earlier red giant phase happens again. The core starts to collapse again and becomes hotter. Now there are two layers around the core, the inner layer is so hot that helium is fused into carbon, and the outer layer is fusing hydrogen into helium again. As this happens, a lot of energy is produced thats not going in the core, but is used to expand the sun again.

The sun now finally enters the real red giant phase, in which it grows to about 250x its size today. This is the point where the Earth may very well be taken up by our sun. This phase lasts about 20 million more years, in which the instability of the sun will make the sun pulsate, throwing off enormous amounts of its outer shell material until finally, the hot carbon core becomes visible, at which point we consider the sun to no longer be a red giant, but a white dwarf. The white dwarf is still tremendously hot and it radiates a lot of high energy UV light. This UV light pushes and illuminates the old outer shell thats veered off into space, and that creates a planetary nebula.

So, when and how fast will the planets be consumed? Mercury should be seriously concerned in the first growth. Thats in about 7.4 billion years. We have another 150 million years roughly until were finally taken into the outer edges of our sun. Which is really no time at all in astronomic terms.

Better enjoy the sun the way it is today while it lasts.


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

[User]
My manipulative professor

I have been manipulated by my professor for about 2 years now.

He always threatens me with my scholarship. He knows I cant afford living without it.
He denies me basic PhD merit like having my own study, using our labs databank or even attending conferences.
He always like to put his name first on all papers and he likes to suck up to the dean and put his name last. So basically, despite how much I put into my research, he will always be first author.
I only get salami sliced data or remnants from other studies to work on. So basically, I cant publish in high impact factor journals.
I went to the harassment center in my university but they told me that they can report this incident, however no one can protect me, even the university itself.
I really am stuck and don't know what to do. I don't know if I should continue sucking it up or quit or what. I have nowhere to go.
My colleagues warned me about him when I came to this lab but I didn't understand what they meant at the time. All of them are leaving him as soon as they finish working with him, but I cant wait that long. I still have 2 more years. I need to find a way to cope with this.
Please advise!

If anyone has experienced dealing with a professor that is dark and manipulative, please let me know about your experience.

*Edit: All I am asking for is an advice on coping or to hear from someone else's experience to learn from. I might be right or wrong, but what I know for sure is that in a PhD you shouldn't be suffering that much and that your professor should be your mentor not your nemesis!

[Assistant]
Get out. Find somewhere else. Not necessarily in that order.

You're not going to learn anything from this professor that will make you a better researcher, and they are not giving you the opportunities you should be getting.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are everyone in '50s & '60s photos so thin?

[Assistant]
In all seriousness, because people are fatter now.

Children moved more in school, and we're much less likely to be driven to school, more likely to walk or ride a bicycle to school.  Play was much more likely to be outside - no video games, no computers, no mobile devices.  Oh, yeah, talking with friends?  You gotta walk or bike over to their house.  Children don't use the phone much in the 50's and 60's.

Adults got much more exercise, too.  Many more professions were physical, like manufacturing and such.  But even daily life was much more physically demanding.  No dishwashers, most food preparation was done by actual cooking, less by take-out, or pre-made stuff like Hot Pockets, or frozen pizza.  Even activities like typing were more calorie-burning - modern keyboards require much less human energy than manual typewriters, especially if you had to punch each keystroke through three or four layers of carbon paper.  No remote control for the TV set.

And perhaps a little more somberly, we don't really realize how much easier it is to be in poverty today, in 2015, compared to the 1950's and 1960's.  The biggest nutritional problem for the bottom 20% in the USA was finding enough food.  Period.  People were medically underweight because of malnutrition.  They literally were so poor, that the couldn't buy enough *rice and beans* to get to a healthy weight.  Today's main nutritional problem for the poor is obesity.  That's how great our society has been the last 60 years.


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

[User]
CMV: Public exams in schools are relics of an outdated system and should be removed; they serve no useful purpose in preparing children for real life.

As children we are taught that we are essentially the same under the eye of authority, and that what determines one's worth is a number on a written assessment. Children are shown that it's the one that memorises information and retains it the best that achieves the most, or the one that can work under timed conditions. This type of erosion of the individual is not uncommon by the school system, but that is a whole different fish to fry.

Exams create a very stressful experience and a negative view of education in children. The former is caused by timed conditions, an emphasis on memorisation \(which is a flawed mechanism, as no matter how much you study you will still forget something\) and a huge well of information taken from various sources, many of which children will have little to no care for \(the average student in England will take around 7\-11 GCSE subjects, many of which they drop immediately after they finish them\).

This informational cramming is very stressful during a period which the child is developing into an adult, a time when they should be focusing on how to form relationships, meeting new people, finding new hobbies to enjoy. This starvation of free time and added stress has many knock\-on effects, namely addiction to smoking, video\-games and alcohol.

Furthermore, education begins to be seen as a series of hurdles one has to jump over, where your worth is not determined  by the sum of all your various qualities, talents and interests. Due to exams' incredibly narrow\-dimensional nature, only one or two qualities can be tested at one time. This would be fine \(given the 20\+ exams taken by students each year\), except some of these skills need to be developed over a long period of time, such as critical thinking and deriving conclusions from observation.

Take physics, for example. Pupils are expected to know the bare minimum about electricity \(literally about three formulae\) in order to pass the electricity section of the exam. The most problem\-solving that is done is rearrangement of a formula. True understanding is not really needed, as the student who remembers the formulae and the students who remembers the formulae and understands the material will have scores that both put them on the same level of "problem solving and understanding", despite only one of the two truly understanding as a result. Students are thus dissuaded from "trying too hard", because the exam only demands so much from an individual and further knowledge is neither a necessity nor rewarded. Thus, being "good enough" is good enough, as far as the child sees.

Essentially, there needs to be some reformation of the exam system, or it must be dissolved altogether. It squanders a child's development into an independent adult and sets up mental barriers and unrealistic expectations for the future, where the skills gained from exams are either not needed or fall short in light of much more important skills they could have gained, such as social skills and pursuit of individual interests.

EDIT: Having read all your replies (which I must thank everyone for) and gotten a good night's sleep, my perspective has shifted. It's evident that exams have stuck around for so long for a reason, not just because we don't have anything better. It's also important that there is some sort of standardised testing, given the large variety in students across the country.

However, I still believe that the structure of exams is flawed and definitely could use improvement, gravitating towards open-book exams where appropriate, and perhaps downscaling the volume of knowledge required per exam. Following a coursework structure could also be a step in the right direction.

Nevertheless, consider my view changed.

[Assistant] Allow me to challenge you: How can you know if a student is proficient or they need additional practice in an area, if not for an exam?  How can you compare students' performance for merit-based scholarships, if not for exams?  How can you compare students from different classes, different schools, or different states in college applications if not for a standardized exam?


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

[User] [Generic Fantasy] What makes iron so poisonous to Fae? I figure they're creatures of the "natural" world, and iron can be naturally found all over in ore veins and such.

[Assistant] Naturally occurring iron ores are generally bonded with other stuff in the form of magnetite, hematite, etc. This is different than refined irons and steels which are not naturally occurring and instead a product of civilization. So, the way I've generally understood it is it's only the processed/pure stuff which is harmful to them.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is bread more nutritious than flour?

[Assistant] Really really simple explanation. The energy in bread and flour is contained in little batteries (sugar molecules). But, the batteries in flour have a coating over the plus and minus terminals that slows the electricity that can flow out of the battery. If you cook the flour (bread), the heat removes the coating on the terminals and the batteries in bread can deliver a lot more energy.


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

[User] ELI5: Why aren't Nagasaki and Hiroshima nuclear wastelands? Surely they would still be inhabitable due to the radiation?

[Assistant]
Movies have lied to you about the effects and duration of radiation. Most of what movies show about how radiation works are distorted and exaggerated.

This will also blow your mind: over 500 nuclear bombs have been set off in the US back when we still tested nuclear bombs, some as close as 65 miles away from las vegas or other cities.


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

[User] [Marvel & DC] How strong is the Hulk compared to Superman?

[Assistant] The very strongest Hulk has ever been (World Breaker Hulk) is much much weaker than normal Superman. Superman is approximately 6.5x10^19 times stronger than base Hulk (Hulk is a 100 tonner while Supes benches the weight of the Earth).


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

[User]
ELI5: Capitalism vs. Communism during the Cold War, why does America care so much how other countries are run?

It's been a few years since high school. I understand the Cold War and Vietnam Conflict existed because of the spread of Communism, but I still don't understand why America was so threatened by a different ideological view.

[Assistant]
It was less about ideology and more about rivalry.

The US and the USSR were struggling for global dominance.  Since communism and capitalism were largely incompatible, they were useful tools to force countries to pick one side or the other, and to stay on that side once it was picked.

If instead of Russia, communism had taken hold in say, Greece or Argentina, the US probably wouldn't have cared nearly as much.


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

[User]
Why is teaching in academia looked at so badly?

I'm a PhD student hoping to graduate next Spring. I've got quite a bit of teaching experience over the course of PhD, and my goal after I graduate is to land a teaching-focused position at a university.

I talked to my department chair today about becoming a lecturer in our department after I graduate next year (I will have to hang around this city for a year or two after I graduate due to some family things). He laughed and said "If that is what you want to pursue, then ..." and went on to talk about it. It was pretty obvious that his response was implying that me *wanting* a teaching position was a bit absurd.

I have experienced similar scenarios over the course of PhD. Just recently, a professor in my lab asked if I was happy to be done with teaching now that the semester was over. I responded saying that it was nice to be able to get a lot of research done, but I enjoyed teaching so I wasn't really that happy. He laughed and said something like "Oh you like that? Well okay". My advisor routinely puts down my teaching ambitions with talks of why research is so important.

I know this is nothing new, and everyone knows there is a stigma against teaching. But...is there anything I can do to be taken more seriously as someone that wants to have a teaching-focused career in academia? Or will I be laughed at for the next 30 years by research-oriented professors?

[Assistant]
Academic snobbery and elitism. I've encountered a lot of PIs, usually the stodgy older ones, who look down on alternate career pathways, industry positions, pre-medical undergrads, etc. simply because they're not interested in an academic research career. I've known many people who have hidden their true career goals from their PIs and secretly sought out mentoring elsewhere in the department for biotech/industry related career trajectories for these reasons.

I'd suggest not talking too much about it too much with those who clearly aren't interested in supporting your career goals, seeking out the best training resources available to you, and looking for mentors within teaching and faculty development programs who you can follow up with for support and input on your career trajectory.


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

[User]
[W40K] Why are ground troops still relevant?

Today, outside of territory occupation, most of the war is fought by drones, airplanes, etc; with ground forces being used only for small guerrilla style operations (special forces). Sure, a lot of troops are deployed to actually control land in hostile countries (eg occupation of Iraq by the US, or the current Centrafrican Republic deployment of the French). But where does it happen in W40K? If Chaos attack, wouldn't it be easier to bomb them from airplanes/spaceships than deploy thousands of guards and space marines? Same with Tyrranids, or Necrons, or pretty much everything else. If a large number of troops are deployed at any point, they would be bombed and destroyed easily.

edit: I was not clear. I am not talking about specifically carpet bombings or exterminatus, but if say a bunch of Chaos space marines deploy in a given place, wouldn't it be easier to send W40K F16s to deal with them rather than a large number of guards?

[Assistant]
Firstly these drones sound an awful lot like AI which is a big no no.

Your enemies also have spaceships so you cant really just perch and fire unabated.

You might not want to destroy everything in that area. Retrieving a relic or securing a position doesnt always necessitate orbital bombardment.

Its also about resources. The Imperiums greatest resource is the sheer number of people they can throw at a problem.

They also do use orbital bombardment and Exterminatus... frequently. Shockingly frequently. Its just we dont hear about the heroic battle of Feral World C3498-Alpha because a ship pulled into orbit evaluated the situation, dropped a bomb that destroyed all life and called for a new settlement to be sent because the last colony started growing dicks on their heads from worshiping chaos.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do right wing Americans support Israel so much?

I tried searching with less that great results on ELI5. Basically, what is the cause of the right wing republicans in the US to have such a strong support for Israel; even expecting military action in some cases while being opposed to increased military presence in the american embassy in Afghanistan. I don't understand what is special about Israel. I could see if it has significance from a religious perspective but even then wouldn't an all powerful god be more than enough support? I feel like I'm missing something here.

[Assistant] It's not just right wingers. It's liberals as well. Republicans typically support because of the necessity for a strategic ally in the Middle East. Democrats typically support because the Jewish traditionally have a high voter turnout and not backing Israel will probably lose them enough votes and enough campaign contributions from wealthy and connected groups to lose an election.


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

[User]
ELI5: China vs Porcelain vs Ceramic vs Earthenware

Some of these may be overlapping categories but I have no idea.

[Assistant]
All of these are examples of Ceramics, which covers the entire set of the other items you are asking about. Ceramics are typically any sort of hard shaped material formed at least partly out of Kaolinite Clay.

The main differences between the types of ceramics are:

  *  Earthenware, fired at lower temperatures than other types. It is not shiny, and is permeable to water.
  *  Stoneware, shiny types of pottery like toilet bowls, not permeable to water.
  *  Porcelain, which contains a high content of kaolinite. It's heated to the highest temperature resulting in a very hard shiny non-permeable surface.
  *  China, which is a type of soft-paste porcelain that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material, and kaolinite. These extra ingredients give it a high strength relative to other types of ceramics, allowing for thinner products (dishes etc...) Other than that it is prepared the same way as Porcelain, and in fact many items referred to as "China" are actually "Porcelain" instead.


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

[User]
CMV: All drugs should be legal

Yes, I mean crack and LSD etc. I wouldn't touch substances such as these for health reasons but I don't think I or anyone else has the right to forcibly prevent another adult from voluntarily using a substance. I think the effect this prohibition has on law enforcement is huge, meaning it puts a ton of cases on the department which takes away man power that could be used to lock up actual criminals (murderers, rapists, thieves, child molesters). As we've seen with the prohibition of alcohol, making substances illegal drives legitimate businesses out of the industry, i.e. only gangs, mafias and thugs will take part in the sale of such substances. This provides jobs to degenerates and gang members, and a source of revenue for organized crime. If all drugs were legal, Walmart and Amazon would put MS13 out of business.

[Assistant] Drug use have a lot of externalities that go beyond a single individual "voluntarily using a substance".  Addiction is a chronic health problem that society pays for in many ways. They are less productive and often can't hold a job. They require a lot of public health services that society has to pay for. Addicts are more likely to harm themselves and others while under the influence. Finally, addicts will commit crimes to fund their habit if need be.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why cant Jedi or Sith use the force to crash/crush enemy vehicles or starships during battles?

[Assistant] It takes practice and concentration. Something like a starship or large vehicle is usually beyond the capabilities of your average force users. In the middle of a battle there's too much going on to try and create a force crush unless you're a powerful force user and not busy trying to not get hit.


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

[User]
I believe that authoritarianism is preferable to democracy, CMV

There are a few key points that my opinion is based on:

* I don't trust other people enough to vote for the future; as far as I'm concerned the vast majority are somewhat-educated Luddites who really don't care what happens as long as their head is on their neck and their pockets have some loose change (I know I'm the same). An authoritarian ruler is not concerned with such troubles, only in the running of their country/life's pleasures.

* A King/Queen is far more efficient than voting once in a while. You don't need to wait four years to get another shitty party in power, but just hold a few demonstrations/public campaigns to raise awareness of issues for your monarch to act on as they see fit, at any time, from the next day to perhaps years later.

* The illusion of actually having any power will be gone, for really, it *is* an illusion. Your government doesn't actually care about individuals, their opinions, or their troubles. All they care about is votes. Once they have them, they will do whatever they wish, namely, keeping themselves in power. If you have an authoritarian ruler who has no competition, the will seek only to improve their own legacy and country. I'm talking about a monarch here, not dictator; someone who has been raised by leaders, to lead.

Edit: Sorry guys but I think that's it for the night. I've got tonnes to do and sleep to catch up on. I've dished the deltas and argued with the aggressors, and all in all it was a good first post to this sub, personally. Thank you for the time and effort.

[Assistant]
All of your points work on the assumption that the leader of your country is going to be (for want of a better phrase) a 'good person' responsive to the views and interests of their citizens. Sometimes that'll be the case, sometimes it won't be; in an absolute monarchy, there's no guarantee that a good king will follow a good king. At least in a democracy, you're not stuck with some guy ineptly ruling over you for fifty years and no means to challenge his authority.

Your points seem to touch on a deeper issue: that democracy is inherently flawed. In that sense you're probably correct but that means we have to work on improving democracy rather than switching to a system that completes removes the already fragile political agency of citizens.

In this light, we can offer a non-authoritarian answer to each of your points. For point 1, we should make sure citizens are better educated about politics and government. For point 2, we should make sure our leaders are truly accountable to the general wishes of the people. For point 3, we should again make sure that governments do not possess absolute power in between elections.


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

[User]
[Giant monster films in general] Whenever a giant monster attacks a city, why do military pilots almost always fly right next to the monster?

Why would a military pilot fly right next to a giant monster destroying a city? For example in Pacific Rim, at the start of the movie, some F-22 Raptors flew so close to Trespasser that one of them literally flew under Trespassers armpit and got destroyed. Why would military pilots do such a thing when they can engage such a large target from hundreds of meters away?

Edit: Or hell, in Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, the human/alien alliance military were literally fighting Godzilla Filius with what I assume to be pretty advance fighter scooters/bikes. Why did *they* engage at such a close distance? Wouldnt those bikes have missiles or something?

[Assistant] It's to keep down civilian casualties. If you manage to distract the monster by flying close to it (like that mosquito that annoyed you while you were trying to work), you give the civilians in the city time to evacuate. Of course you're taking a huge risk on your own life - but so do firemen when they go into burning buildings to save people trapped in them.


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

[User] ELI5: Why does vibrato "sound good?"

[Assistant]
Here are a few things i can think of

- vibrato hides some pitch problems. With a straight pitch, intonation is more obvious

- it gives the music more "texture", so theres more to listen for

- vibrato is variable (in speed, pitch distance, etc), which allows more expression without changing the notes of a piece.

- this is more theoretical, but i believe that music ultimately derives from the human voice/language, so adding vibrato may sound more natural/emotional than the "perfection" of straight tones.

Source: about to graduate with a music degree.


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

[User] [Star Trek] It's been said that Q aren't really "gods", just really advanced aliens who have technology that makes them damn near omnipotent/scient. The Borg stumble across a fatally injured and weakened Q and manage to assimilate it. Could they succeed at this? What would the Borg become?

[Assistant]
Honestly, this feels like a scenario that could be best metaphoricalized by asking "A slightly brain-damaged pygmy lemur happens upon a smart-phone with no charger. How long until it becomes the CEO of Facebook?"

Q and the Borg are so unutterably distant in terms of development that an assimilation attempt, even on a fantastically weak and injured Q, would seem a lot like a moth attempting to have sex with a blue whale.


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

[User]
[Avengers] Could Antman actually explode Thanos from the inside by crawling up his ventilation shaft?

I'm dead serious, would Antman even have the time to get to max size before being snapped away? Or would he even be able to get close? How would this all even play out?

[Assistant]
Reality, power and space stone could easily deal with the issue - time stone could rewind on the off chance that Scott managed to get large enough to actually start doing damage.

Of course that's not taking into account the fact that vanilla Thanos is so fucking durable that he can tank punches from Hulk - so no, regardless of the situation, best case scenario Thanos would use the gauntlet, worst case scenario Scott would be **crushed between those mighty purple buttocks**


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

[User] ELI5: Why do US cities expand outward and not upward?

[Assistant]
They expand upward when land is scarce or expensive, and they expand outward when the opposite is true.

In most cases, it is the later.  The US is _huge_ and available land is not a problem that we have to deal with.  Most major cities have more than enough surrounding land to expand on to at a fraction of the cost of a skyscraper.

There are a few exceptions, like New York where the value of being on Manhattan Island warrants the cost of upward expansion, but it just doesn't make financial sense for most cities.


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

[User] How does MOND make dark matter unnecessary for explaining the movement of galaxies?

[Assistant]
The idea behind MOND is that at very long ranges, the strength of gravity falls off at a lower rate than the one predicted by newtonian gravity (and general relativity). This would mean that the higher velocities of stars around the edges of galaxies could potentially be explained without the need for (a lot) of invisible mass, which is the first observation tl hint at dark matter.

However, this is not the only reason we have for believing in the existence of dark matter, and MOND has a much harder time explaining the other ones; chiefly that dark matter seems to be necessary for the early clustering of mass we observe. Also, it's hard to introduce a new theory that does not mess with all the other predictions of general relativity.


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

[User] I have read group theory is used to study a molecules symmetry but why would you want to know its symmetry in the first place?

[Assistant] The symmetries of a molecule affect its chemical and physical properties. For example water, H2O, is slightly asymmetric (looks like ^H O ^H ), which leads to it freezing in a crystal lattice instead of staying a fluid, and it happens in way higher temperatures than it otherwise would. Contrast CO2, which is symmetric (Looks like O C O ), leading to the fact that it's a gas in room temperature and is very hard to turn into a solid or liquid.


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

[User]
How do strawberries get infected with hep A?

Title. Is it something to do with the fertilizer like ecoli? Or is Hep A something that survives in the soil?

[Assistant] Hep A is transmitted through fecal particulates from an infected individual either directly or through contaminated sewage. You can contract Hep A by eating food that has been prepared by an individual with Hep A or had direct contact. Unfortunately studies have shown washing produce does not fully disinfect from Hep A contamination. The current strawberry outbreak was most likely due to direct contact from a positive individual and unfortunately many farm settings do not provide employees access to proper restrooms and hand washing stations.


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

[User]
eli5: How did philologists (people who study ancient languages) learn to decipher ancient texts, if there was no understandable translation available upon discovery?

To me it seems like this would be similar to trying to learn to read Chinese with absolutely no access to any educational materials/teachers.

[Assistant]
Two ways: 1 finding cases where it's translated into another language, that's why the rosetta stone was such a big deal, it had several languages all saying the same thing on it, one of which was ancient greek, which we already knew so they could use that translation to work backwards.

The other way, is what another commenter said, you look at where words pop up, if you keep seeing a word show up on things at greengrocers and farms, it's probably a plant of some kind.

And once you know a few words it starts to become possible to work out the others through context.


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

[User] [Marvel Cinematic Universe] When Cap's shield is thrown, why does its edge sometimes (elastically) bounce off things, while other times it (inelastically) gets lodged inside things? I've watched numerous movies carefully but I can't find any pattern or governing principle. Thanks!

[Assistant] Its all about edge alignment. If the edge is oriented such the it strikes on the surface of the shield's 'dome' then it bounces elastically. If it strikes on the edge in a scooping motion it cuts. Cap is just so proficient with it that he can control which alignment will strike the desired target.


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

[User] ELI5: Why when I use a pen and it stops writing, I can go to another place on the paper and continue to write, but when I come back to the spot it stopped working at, it doesn't work?

[Assistant] Sometimes there's a tiny bit of grease on your paper, in an invisible layer. This grease (finger oil; french fry grease; maybe some dripped from a roller at the paper factory) stops your ball-point pen's ball from rolling, which stops the flow of ink.


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

[User]
ELI5:How do guitar pedals work?

I'm teaching myself how to play guitar on an acoustic, but I'm saving up for an electric. I want to know everything about pedals, and how they work with a guitar because I feel like it's necessary. If it helps narrowing it down I'm saving up for either a Fender Strat or Tele. Thank you!

[Assistant]
An electric guitar, as you probably know, uses a magnetic pickup to transform the vibrations of the strings into an electrical signal. This signal is then carried to an amplifier and in turn a speaker (of course there can be PA systems and such but let's keep it simple.)

An effects pedal will take this electric signal and manipulate it in some way. Exactly what the manipulation is will depend on the effect itself. So the pedal could modulate the signal, duplicate it, repeat it, alter the phase, distort it, boost it... basically whatever you want really.


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

[User] [Star Wars] Would Luke had turned to the dark side if Han and Liea had died if they were killed instead of being captured twice at the battle of Endor?

[Assistant] At that point, yes. Absolutely. He was *inches* away from falling by the mere threat to Leia. If his friends die, there's no way he doesn't succumb. At that point, he wasn't even near to becoming the wise Grand Jedi Master he would be destined to become (talking Legends here, of course. In canon... well, you know).  It's interesting to note that in the Legends continuity **[SPOILERS]**, he became so resilient that his wife was murdered by his nephew and he *still* didn't fall.


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

[User] Why does an RH+ mother's cells not attack their RH- baby?

[Assistant]
Hi, Rh positive mothers will not have antibodies to the RH protein. If they produced antibodies, they would attack their own cells.
The issue with Rh occurs when Rh negative mothers produce antibodies against the Rh antigen in their babys blood. The Rh antigen in this case will be recognised as foreign by the Rh negative mother.
Does that make sense?


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

[User]
Can executive functions be improved?

Hello. Apparently fluid intelligence can not be improved, yet. Can we do something about executive functions? Wikipedia article about executive functions says it can be improved at any age.

I am 22. Perhaps, I can specifically do certain things since the prefrontal cortex gets myelinated between ages 20-30? Can adults above 30 do something to improve their executive function?

[Assistant]
Studies show that meditation builds executive function.  The most useful part of executive function is that it controls impulsivity, and that is something that meditation helps with.  The less executive function you have, the more you are on autopilot when it comes to your emotional control and decision making. Meditation helps you recognize the physical signs of emotion, which allows you to head them off, or put a gap between feeling and action in order to make a conscious choice.  "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Kahneman covers a lot of this, definitely worth a read.  Essentially, your brain is lazy and wants expediency and efficiency, so it tries to spend as much time on autopilot as possible.  That time on autopilot does nothing to build executive function, so being conscious of, and questioning your automatic reactions to things and automatic thoughts and beliefs are also ways to build executive function (in addition to meditation).

Gallant, S. N. (2016). Mindfulness meditation practice and executive functioning: Breaking down the benefit. Consciousness and cognition, 40, 116-130.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan.

Luu, K., & Hall, P. A. (2017). Examining the acute effects of hatha yoga and mindfulness meditation on executive function and mood. Mindfulness, 8(4), 873-880.

Short, M. M., Mazmanian, D., Ozen, L. J., & Bdard, M. (2015). Four days of mindfulness meditation training for graduate students: A pilot study examining effects on mindfulness, self-regulation, and executive function. The Journal of Contemplative Inquiry, 2(1).

Tang, Y. Y., Yang, L., Leve, L. D., & Harold, G. T. (2012). Improving executive function and its neurobiological mechanisms through a mindfulnessbased intervention: Advances within the field of developmental neuroscience. Child development perspectives, 6(4), 361-366.

Taren, A. A., Gianaros, P. J., Greco, C. M., Lindsay, E. K., Fairgrieve, A., Brown, K. W., ... & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Mindfulness meditation training and executive control network resting state functional connectivity: a randomized controlled trial. Psychosomatic medicine, 79(6), 674.


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

[User]
Are there any aspects of the mind/consciousness that have never been changed following brain damage?

Are there aspects of personality that remain constant no matter what?

[Assistant]
It's been the model of structure creates function in brain medicine and neurosciences for a good long time. This was the "Astonishing Hypothesis" by Sir Francis Crick.

There is not any function of neuronal brain without structure to create it.


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

[User]
[ the matrix] would the people in the program see neo as some kind of terrorist after he takes the red pill?

when i think about it, everyone sees morpheus as a god in the real world or a terrorist in the program. since all the stuff he's probably done to the agents. but when neo takes the red pill and he did all the stuff in the matrix and in the matrix 2. would there be news coverage of it? would the police investigate all his hacker friends and his family? he would be nowhere to be found until he pops back in again for probably only a few hours at a time. so like what does everyone in the program think of these leather clad group of domestic terrorists?

[Assistant]
Firstly, in the real world Morpheus is seen as a bit of a crackpot, he just has a bit of a following.

Yes, in the Matrix there are "news" reports that label them as terrorists. Sure the police might investigate stuff (we see them break in on Trinity) but once it's clear to the Agents that there's RedPills involved they take over, similar to how the FBI takes over.


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

[User] What causes a burning sensation when you get salt in an open wound?

[Assistant]
It is just basic electrophysiology. When you have an open wound, the solution around nerve fibers is directly accessible. Nerve fibers work via gradients of sodium and potassium inside vs outside the cell. If you really boost the sodium concentration outside the cell, it becomes hyperexcitable. Now, it is a wound, so C fibers (nociceptors) are going to be active anyway. The salt is going to act like an amplifier.

It is different from the case of lemon juice, which alters the local pH. The C fibers are directly sensing the pH and sending a signal that your brain interprets as pain.


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

[User]
Why does having diarrhea cause pain in the intestines?

I understand why constipation is painful, but why is diarrhea painful?

[Assistant]
Diarrhea usually is caused by irritation to the intestinal lining. Your intestinal lining has pain receptors but your brain has difficulty localizing it specifically. The casing around the intestines (peritoneum) has pain receptors that your brain can localize. Irritation causes inflammation, which involves the release of chemical messengers that tend to have a spill-over effect. Inflammed intestines lead to irritated peritoneum. Intestinal lumen pain is a deep dull pain that is difficult to specifically point to as coming from "here."  Instead, the answer will be more like "all up in this general area."
Interesting corollary: Pain from appendicitis develops as the appendix becomes more and more inflammed. The appendix itself does not have awesome pain receptors, but its inflammation irritates the peritoneum.  This causes a dull diffuse pain, mainly around the umbilicus.  As the appendix gets worse, the pain will actually localize to a place called McBurney's point, the point where the appendix physically comes in contact with the peritoneum.  This is usually in the right lower abdominal quadrant for most people, 1/3 of the distance from the anterior superior illiac spine to the navel.


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

[User]
Why are there no Chihuahua or Great Dane sized cats?

Why is there less variability in cat breeds as compared to dog breeds?
If there is selective pressure in a village or area to have a huge or tiny dog, why wouldn't the same pressure apply to cats?

[Assistant]
Because nobody's tried to breed them for that.

Dogs were purpose-bred for specific tasks.  None of them were specifically bred to be large or small, it's just that the slightly larger or smaller ones were better at some job, so those were the ones that were used for breeding.  Repeat for a couple dozen generations, and you've got a larger or smaller dog.

Cats were not bred for a job.  They were already doing the job (catching pests in barns and granaries) pretty well.  Early farmers noticed this and let them stay.  The only selection going on was for cats that were not afraid of people.


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

[User] ELI5: Why is saltwater marine life usually so much more colorful and vibrant?

[Assistant]
If youre talking about aquarium fish, it isnt because theyre saltwater. Plenty of saltwater fish are boring. Its because theyre tropical. Animals throughout the tropics are more colorful  and if you were going through the trouble of having a saltwater tank (which is very difficult to take care of), then you might as well select the most colorful and interesting looking ones. And in the ocean, there are way more to choose from.

People think the reason tropical animals are more colorful is that given the biodiversity and density its more important for species to find each other for mating than to avoid predators.


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

[User]
Why is it that we as humans generally dont eat carnivorous animals

Apart from a few cases we tend to eat vegetarians and as far as I know carnivores don't tend to eat other carnivores. Why is this?

[Assistant] It's easier and cheaper to domesticate and farm herbivores.  The higher you move up the food chain, the more energy you need to sustain life because of the energy loss between levels.  In order to feed a pack of wolves, you have to first raise some sort of food source for wolves.  You also don't have to worry about cows eating farmers.


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

[User]
ELI5:How are the courts able to try a minor as an adult?

I always thought law was pretty rigid, so if someone is a minor and they're being charged with a crime, they would be tried as a minor. However, there are many cases where a minor gets tried as an adult. How do they do this? What's the law that allows them to do it, and is it only with specific crimes?

[Assistant]
IANAL so pinches of salt.

It's basically a matter of severity, intent, and the individual circumstances.

Consider 2 hypothetical incidents involving a minor (Lets say about 7-9 years old).

In the first, a kid somehow gets hold of a gun, and shoots someone they don't like - killing them in the process, but makes no effort to hide or destroy any evidence. When interviewed and asked why they did it, they either don't really know why they did it or didn't think it'd kill them (they'd go to hospital and get better).

In the second, the kid keeps a diary where they detail and plan killing someone they don't like. How to get the weapon, where the target goes, how to cover up their tracks - the entire thing is pre-meditated and planned to deliver the result. They know they're doing something wrong and plan to evade getting in trouble for it.

The reason we separate trials for minors and trials for adults is because it's generally accepted that children have less understanding of the consequences and severity of their actions, and as such need to be handled differently. In the second example, they've demonstrated through their actions that they understood the consequences of their actions - and as such it may no longer be appropriate to try them as if they didn't.

There are also a few caveats that would apply more to children. If in the second example the person killed was an abusive family member, then despite the pre-meditation and understanding of consequences they'd be more likely not to be tried as an adult since it's difficult for a child to escape abuse from a family member.

However an adult doing the same may be more likely to charged with manslaughter rather than self-defense (assuming they were not in immediate danger, and were reacting to a history of abuse by someone) as they are assumed to be better equipped to deal with the problem through legal means.

So that's for the why. The 'how' is basically a case of 'if it's necessary, then do so' - but a judge can't just turn around and decide to try a minor as an adult. There are a lot of checks in place that have to be satisfied before it can happen.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do old jazz recordings sound better than other records that have been released later on?

It seems to me as if most jazz records of the 50's and 60's sound way better in recording quality than most of the other music at that time (e.g. blues, country, rock, etc.) or even later on. Why is that?

[Assistant]
**Why do they sound better than most of the other music at that time?**
Jazz music, including its crooner singers and big bands, was some of the most popular mainstream music at the time. As a result, they had more budget and resources for good recordings.

**Why do old jazz recordings still sound better than newer music?**

From a music perspective, many of the musicians who were playing on the jazz records of the 50s and 60s were seasoned live performers and session musicians. The way records were recorded back then involved the whole band to be in the same space performing the music.

As a result, a lot of these musicians had lots of experience and good chemistry with each other, which meant they could groove better and bounce off each other musically.

In later times, as studio technology evolved there was less of an emphasis of capturing the perfect recording of the performance in the room, as session musicians could be swapped in and out and record on completely different days, multiple performances could be cut together and edited to fix mistakes, etc.
Some people would regard say that as a result, some of the soul and imperfection was removed in favour of higher fidelity and perfect performances.

Speaking of music technology, the actual equipment was very different in the 50s and 60s.
Because they couldn't record lots of microphones at once, often bands would have to perform around one or two microphones and members would have to physically move back and forth in the room to adjust their volume. This made the sound of the room a very important basis of the sound.

Modern recording methods favour multiple microphones allowing for the complete isolation of each member of the band, meaning that only the pure instrument is captured, allowing for greater fidelity, but without the character of the shared sonic space being in the record.


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

[User] ELI5: During conception, are there hundreds of thousands of different, unique potential people who don't get the chance to be born?

[Assistant]
Here's the thing that gets me: it's not even enough to have a particular sperm and egg combination to determine a self. Identical twins come from the exact same sperm and egg, but are different selves.

Even after the enormous improbability of your particular sperm and egg meeting up, your parents could still have ended up with someone who wasn't you. We really don't understand what makes a self.


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

[User] [Animal Crossing] How do you end up in a world of anthropomorphic animals?

[Assistant]
If you're asking how the player character got there, in their world anthropomorphic animals are simply normal. It's pretty consistently implied that they moved there.

If you're asking how to get into such a world, you need some kind of interdimensional portal or something.


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

[User] [Star Wars] How many separatists were there? If you would take away the droids, how many actual people were opposing the republic?

[Assistant]
The Separatist Movement was thousands of worlds which aligned with Dooku, but the majority of the "senate" were leaders of guilds and corporations, not government. And their main motivation was money - the Banking Clan loaned to both sides of the conflict, and the Trade  Federation sold droids to their side.

But there were standing armies that weren't droid based, and these were the most difficult battles for the Republic to fight (Geonosis, Umbara). And there were independant groups who were allied with the Separatists, most notably the terrorist group Deathwatch from Mandalore.


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

[User] [star trek]suppose I replicate some ...fish and ships. If I looked at the fish meat under a microscope would I find actual codfish DNA, or is there no need to make the recreation that elaborate?

[Assistant] It wouldn't be that accurate. The replicator is a combination of a bunch of technologies. One of those is the protein synthesizers that used to be the only option in the past. In short it doesn't just blindly reproduce a single pattern like a transporter, going full matter replication is the last resort. There's no need to capture DNA.


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

[User]
CMV - I believe that Biking will never be a viable, large scale mode of transport in the United State's and investing in infrastructure for bikes is a waste of resources that could be better spent on other things.

CMV - Biking sound's good at first glance, but when all of the factors are considered, it has some serious flaws when used as a large scale transportation system. The biggest flaws that I can think of are listed as follows.

1. A large segment of the population are not physically able enough to ride bicycle for long periods of time because of legitimate reasons other than being "Fat Americans" such as being disabled or being a member of our increasing elderly population.

2.  Winter weather make's biking almost impossible in the northern parts of the country that are also some of the most densely populated regions that would otherwise be the most viable places for biking.

3. The distances that many people need to travel are just too long for people that don't live in the most urban city's.

4. People that have kids would have it very hard using a bike as transport in a safe and practical way. Also transporting the food for a family on a bike is not very practical.

5. Most of the target poor people that are supposed to benefit from this infrastructure are already excluded for reasons posted above. Making the biking infrastructure largely a playground for young white "Yuppie Types"  that are using it for fun, not as transportation.

8. One of the biggest reasons not to invest in bicycle infrastructure is that it is inevitable that the majority of passenger vehicles will be Electric powered in the near future, with City's having fleets of self driving Electric buses.

[Assistant]
What biking infrastructure? Bike lanes? It's just some extra paint and a law not to drive in it.
Raised bike paths? Can be walked too. Any biking path can be walked except the painted ones on the road.
Bike racks? Every single one I've ever seen got a lot of use out of it.


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

[User] [Marvel] Could healing mutants like Wolverine provide an endless supply of donated organs and blood?

[Assistant] No. Your immune system will reject organs it doesn't recognize. Healing factor includes a hyperactive immune system, so Wolverine's blood will fail to recognize you and fight you off. His blood is poisonous. Wade Wilson was given his healing factor, but that was a much more complex process than a blood transfusion.


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

[User]
(Marvel) What were scientists looking for when they found Captain America's body?

We've all heard he is a man out of time, frozen for many years. What was it the scientists were looking for when they found the body of Captain America?

[Assistant] In the MCU the scientists were most like looking for lost Hydra technology after WWII after discovering a weird signal coming from that location.  Shield has been known to be researching Hydra tech before the New York Invasion and was most likely following some leads.  Finding Captain America was a byproduct of looking for technology.


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

[User]
Why is it that humans can regenerate skin, bone and muscle after an injury but can't regrow lost limbs or eyes?

It's not clear to me how the body "knows" what the difference between healing a cut in your leg or burn on your hand and the loss of a hand or ear, etc. Obviously the severity of the wound is more severe in the latter case but isn't the process the same (regrowing cells that match the cells around the wound based on the person's DNA)?

As a follow up would it be possible with stem cells to grant the body the ability to regrow any lost body part or would the body part still need to be artificially grown in a lab and then grafted onto the body?

[Assistant]
The regeneration process for each tissue type in our body is very different. Some types of tissues are able to regrow very fast either because the cells they are composed of are proliferative, or because they have adult stem cell pools associated with the tissue. Skin is an example of a tissue that is composed of highly proliferative cells (fibroblasts and epithelial cells). Muscle has an associated stem cell population called satellite cells that are activated during muscle regeneration and differentiate into (that is, change irreversibly into) muscle fibers, while also maintaining their own population. Bone is somewhat special among tissue types in that it is composed primarily of a hard, calcium-based extracellular matrix that is secreted by cells called osteoblasts rather than of the cells themselves, so when bone is injured, osteoblasts secrete more matrix to heal the bone. The adult stem cell precursors of osteoblasts (and several other cell types), bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, are also found in significant numbers in adults. There is an obvious evolutionary advantage to these tissue types' ability to heal quickly: skin, as our outer layer of defense against the pathogens of the outside world, needs to be able to cover any abrasions quickly, while muscle and bone accumulate damage as they are used (especially muscle - damage and subsequent repair is the mechanism by which muscle grows after exercise).

Other cell types, such as nerve cells or pancreatic islet cells, are post-mitotic, which means they no longer proliferate under normal conditions. This means that if these cells die, new cells are not formed. Also, the structures you mentioned, limbs and eyes, are very complicated structures composed of more than one tissue type arranged in specific geometrical relationships with one another. Regenerating an entire structure like this requires coordinated action between different cell types. Studying the mechanisms by which these complicated structures are formed during embryonic development, and hopefully discovering ways to apply them to adults using stem cell therapies (either embryonic stem cell therapies or stem cell therapies leveraging the populations of adult stem cells that are present in our bodies), are active areas of research central to a discipline of biomedical research called regenerative medicine.

Source: Bioengineering student at UC Berkeley, with a focus on cell and tissue engineering. Working in a stem cell lab.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why doesn't Tumblr receive child pornography charges even though it's full of nudes of minors?

As many of you know, tumblr's main demographic is  underaged teenage girls. A large portion of their contributions are selfies and nudes. There's many different tags for this, notoriously topless tuesday. With all the jailbait drama that's been going around, surely tumblr would be noticed?

[Assistant] These sites can't police every single post. If one is brought to their attention they deal with it, but sites like Facebook and Tumblr get literally thousands of posts a minute. Users are generally responsible for the content they post, not the hosting site as long as they've got policies in place to handle inappropriate posts. If you're a 16 year old girl posting nudes to your Tumblr feed you're more likely to get in trouble for than they are.


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

[User] [The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug] In the movie, Bilbo almost tells Gandalf he has the ring right before they enter Mirkwood. What would have happened if he had told him?

[Assistant] In all likelihood, nothing. Gandalf knew Bilbo had some kind of magical ring for many years before he discovered it was actually the One Ring. In fact, Gandalf was probably *more* suspicious of the ring's potential influence because Bilbo would never have ordinarily tried to conceal its existence or lie about how he acquired it.


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

[User]
ELI5: why do you always feel better after a shower when you're sick?

Is there something actually happening or just a placebo?

[Assistant] More than likely your body is dehydrated from trying to make you not sick, and a shower helps rehydrate you, if only a little bit. Plus, if your ailment has something to do with your sinuses, the hot steam of the shower will help alleviate some of the build up in there.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why did Sidious go from a caring father-figure to some distant "master" figure to Vader?

I mean, after he wore the hood and everything, their relationship didn't seem as close as Anakin-Palpatine. I get that Sidious just revealed himself as a Sith lord, but he and Vader could've still had a good relationship right?

It seems all that happens between them now is Vader gets on his knees and becomes Sidous' bitch everytime a holo appears. Couldn't Vader be carefree around him? Equal footing at least?

[Assistant]
Well, one thing to keep in mind is that Palpatine completely coaxed Anakin out of his shell only to manipulate the young jedi's vulnerability and fear (which the Jedi's could not help him quell). Right here we see that Sidious does not care about the person the is Anakin, but the tool that is Vader. there is no true relationship.

Additionally, Vader is subordinate to Sidious per rule of two. They are not meant to be "allies", but adversaries to ensure the strength of the Sith.

Lastly, the light within Anakin was severely dimmed when he became Vader. He had slain children, his master had "betrayed" him, and the love of his life, whom he would betray the Order for, had died.


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

[User]
[DBZ] Why doesn't anyone ever start a battle with their most powerful ki-based attack?

Every battle I've seen, every fighter (with the only exception maybe being Kid Buu) starts the battle off with a series of punches and kicks against their opponent who they clearly know won't be down for the count. This makes sense for villains who like to toy with their opponents, but for Goku & Co, they're DEFENDING the earth against people who want to destroy it and instead of just busting out the big guns early, every fight they have seems to be a war of attrition.

tldr; Why doesn't Goku start off every battle against an villain by powering up to full strength and launching his most powerful Kamehameha?

[Assistant]
There are a couple big things at play here:

1. Even when defending the Earth, Goku usually doesn't start the fight seriously. It's usually implied that Goku spends at least a portion of the battle holding back and testing his opponent to get an idea of their capabilities before seriously attacking. Other fighters tend to do something similar. This has both personal enjoyment reasons (most of the fighters enjoy actually fighting, particularly Goku who is a fighter first, and a hero second) and serious reasons. At the start of the battle each fighter is trying to determine just how powerful and what capabilities their opponent has. Both fighters usually begin the battle in a suppressed power state masking their full capacity. Without knowing what their opponent can do they might waste power, particularly relevant versus weaker foes who are being fought prior to a major enemy, but also versus a major enemy who might be capable of dodging an opening finisher.

2. Opening with a game ending Ki blast is risky. Powerful attacks often have a period of charging which telegraphs the technique, and this is further exacerbated by the fact that even attacks with little to no chargeup time can be avoided. Further, full powered Ki blasts, unlike punches and kicks, seem to use up considerable amounts of endurance. It's usually after using one of these finishing techniques that characters tend to state that they've lost a substantial amount of energy. Not going all in before you've put your opponent in a position where they have to take/oppose the attack insures you don't spend your energy pointlessly. Also if you miss, if you're a good guy at least, you have to make sure your ultimate attack isn't going to hit the planet.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why does the the republic/empire change the look of there troops/ships/fighters so often? When other factions rarely (or never) did, like rebels and the trade federation.

Seems like they are always changing up troop armor and star ships. Changing out millions (billions?) of troop armor and thousands of star ships can't be cheap. Does the republic/empire lease and not buy?

[Assistant]
Evolving requirements.

The initial launch of clonetroopers came from and were at least in part trained by -- or had their training regimens shaped by -- Jango Fett. Their armor bears many similarities to his own armor, no doubt due in part to the nature of what he was accustomed and trained to do.

Fast-forward over the course of the Clone War and the initial launch of the clones has now had time to identify field-tested flaws in the original armor design. In order to ensure maximum effectiveness of its troops, the Republic continually refines the armor to account for these deficiencies and also to build-in new features that troops may find useful as the war progresses.

During the Imperial transition period, purpose-grown and designed clonetroopers saw decreasing use in favor of somewhat more conventionally sourced and trained stormtroopers. The Clone War was over; the stormtroopers' purpose wasn't fighting a massive symmetric war, but rather peacekeeping and asymmetric warfare against guerrilla resistance forces. This calls for different equipment, too. War armor doesn't provide what stormtroopers generally need. And, to be clear, what we see in documentary footage is fairly *atypical* of the usual stormtrooper assignments; the Rebellion was *tiny* in comparison to the breadth of security responsibilities the Empire faced.

The same is largely true for ships. A space superiority fighter you purpose-build to fight droid fighters just doesn't have the same requirements as an all-around, quick-deployment, high-mobility fighter. That exact same purpose mismatch travels all the way up the chain to the star dreadnought super ships like *Executor*.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do stars, including the sun, shine? What makes the light?

[Assistant]
The light comes from the upper layers of the sun. They shine because they're hot, just like lightbulbs and toasters do. The sun is so bright because at 5500 C/ 9900 F, the effect is pretty big, and the sun's photosphere is more than 100 kilometers thick, all of which is shining. That adds up.

You may hear people say stuff about photons from nuclear fusion in the core. ~~Don't believe them.~~ Read their comments with polite skepticism. That is not the light that reaches your eyes.  Underneath the photosphere, the gas doesn't really let any light through. If you are interested in where stars get their energy from, you should read those comments, though.

*Edit: phrasing*


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

[User] ELI5: Does holding a shirt or cloth up to your face during a fire actually keep you from breathing in smoke? If so, how does that work?

[Assistant]
It works to a degree, because the cloth filters out some of the particulate matter - that's all smoke is at the end of the day - airborne particles as a byproduct of combustion.

BUT, there is a diminishing return with them - same reason dust masks are disposable and shouldn't be reused.

A filter will block some of what you're breathing in, but over time they get clogged with crap, so it actually concentrates what you're trying to avoid.  Ditto with things like water filters - at first they filter out the shit you don't want in your water, but after a while they've got that much shit in them that they make the water quality worse.


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

[User]
What actually is happening when you fold paper? What makes it go from bending to creasing at a certain point?

The same can apply to other materials, but I fold paper all day at work. Which reminds me, I should get back to work.

[Assistant] A lot of materials have a yield stress. Including paper. When enough force is applied, the stress in the paper can exceed its yield stress. From that point on the material is plasticly deformed, which means when you stop applying force,  the paper will not bend back into its original shape.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Why doesn't Xavier walk?

Watching *Wolverine and the X-Men*, where Prof X is sent to the future somehow and constructs himself a pair of bionic leg braces that help him walk. Why has Forge never made the Prof some working leg braces?

[Assistant]
Part of life is accepting who you are. This goes double for the professor who regularly is seen in public arenas and by prospective students and their parents.  It would not do well to be seen as Robot Xavier.

He could switch back and forth between the chair and robotic appendages, but he's found contentment with his current situation, and he even draws some reflective thoughts on how he came to be in his current situation by allowing it to be a reminder and perhaps even penance for past choices.


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

[User]
ELI5: How are lumens and candela related and what each represents.

In trying to learn more about each, I was curious if my analogy was appropriate. Is candela sort of like a decibel? In the sense that you can double the lumens, but that doesn't double the intensity of the light. Like four hands clapping isn't twice as loud as two hands clapping.

[Assistant]
A lumen is the total amount of light coming from a source; its "luminous power."  It's equivalent to Watts, the measure of power, but weighted for human vision, e.g., an infra red lamp could put out 100 Watts but, if we can't see it it would be producing zero lumens.  It's a similar idea to the special A-weighted decibel scale ("dBA") for sound that only considers sound pitches that people can hear.

A candela is based on lumens but takes into account how focused the light is.  A plain 1000 lumen light bulb will spread its light evenly in every direction giving about 80 candelas of "luminous intensity" (you divide by 4×π because that's the surface area of a unit sphere).  Or you could have a 1000 lumen flash-light that sends almost all its light in one direction, giving off 1000 or even 10000 candela, but only directly in front.  The extreme example is a focused laser beam which can have very high candela ratings with very low lumens.


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

[User] [DC Comics] Does Superman become weaker at night?

[Assistant] Theoretically  over time and if the night lasts forever yes. But keep in mind that he has been absorbing sunlight for decades so he has more than enough power inside him to last an entire night fighting.


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

[User]
[X-Men] With their healing factors, how strong could Wolverine or Deadpool get by constantly working out?

The way strength is built in the gym is by stressing muscles, and after micro tears in the heal, you get stronger. But the process takes time. People who use steroids can speed up this time, allowing them to work out longer and more intensely.

With their healing factor, Wolverine and Deadpool could basically work out continuously, increasing their strength, with the only limiting factor being calories to fuel the work and healing.

How strong could someone with a healing factor get from constant working out? What is the upper limit of human strength when you can recover nearly immediately from any workout?

[Assistant]
This is actually a major reason for both Wolverine's strength and athleticism, since the adamantium coating his skeleton happens to add just over a hundred pounds onto his frame; he'd weigh 195 without it.

Because he's hauling that extra weight, his body is constantly healing his muscles to make him strong enough to compensate; he can lift 800lbs with effort, but is also stunting his growth and height.


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

[User]
I don't think piracy is bad. CMV

I "know a guy" who pirates plenty of software, and I don't think it is bad to do so because:

1. He would not buy the software regardless, but he is able to use it through piracy. If there was no way to pirate the software (let's use Photoshop as an example here), then he would either not use it or find a free alternative (GIMP), but he would not buy the software (especially with Photoshop, which is hundreds of dollars).

2. He is not actually taking resources or materials from a company. Most of the time, he is downloading a trial from the real developer, and then extending the trial period to never ending (with a keygen or crack). It is not like taking a toy, where the company is actually *losing* money, which would be the metal, plastic, batteries, etc.

3. Because of the two reasons above, he can actually help the company. If no matter what, he would purchase Photoshop, but he pirates it and tells me, "hey, Photoshop is great. Look, I made it look like I'm banging this hot chick!" And I say, "That's awesome, bro! I'm going to check out Photoshop!" Then I download it, use my trial, and then end up buying it. My friend just *gave* Adobe another purchase.

Now please, try to CMV!

[Assistant]
Because he isn't taking something tangible doesn't mean he isn't taking something that belongs to someone else. Intellectual property has value, and it has an ownership, and that owner should have the full to do with it what they want.

 Is it ok the NSA takes people's information? They're not taking anything physical from them, so they're not really losing anything by them operating. Maybe sometimes they do tap in through backdoors in software that we were trying to keep private(keygens), but c'mon, we have so much public information on social media(free alternatives) that they would get our information regardless.

But hey, they can actually help. They can just let other government agents(friends) know if anything is interesting about this person(product).

Intellectual property, even though it cannot be felt with the hands, has a value, and a value people hold closely and deeply. Taking other people's stuff, REGARDLESS of what happens to them, is STILL taking other people's stuff!


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

[User] [Star Wars] Why doesn't the rebellion use more captured Imperial Equipment?

[Assistant]
Servicing captured equipment is annoying at best and impossible at worst. Part of the Germans' logistical problems in World War 2 was that their trucks were scavenged and stolen from so many places that nothing was interoperable and they lacked the ability to source spare parts for many vehicles. This led to absurd attrition rates.

That was with the equipment of the 1940s. Star Wars takes place in a fantastical space opera setting, where the complexity of the technology being used is impossibly far ahead of even what we have now. Using captured equipment for anything other than one-time, specific uses is just not feasible.


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

[User] Is there clay anywhere else in the solar system?

[Assistant] Curiosity found clay minerals on Mars a few years back. We've gone back and forth about whether they could have formed without water, though other evidence for water on Mars does point to it once being a much wetter planet, probably with a global ocean early on its history.


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

[User]
[LOTR/Hobbit] How long does it take for an elf to mature?

With such long life spans are they children for longer periods of time or another maturation process completely different from ours?

[Assistant] Mentally, elves actually develop more quickly than humans; for example, elves learn to walk and speak before they're a year old. Physically, they age at the same rate as humans until around the age of 3, after which their growth slows greatly. Elves only finish growing between the ages of 50 and 100.