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

[User]
CMV: Restaurants shouldn't have high-top tables.

I have noticed that more and more restaurants in my area (Cleveland) are changing their interior seating to mostly high-top tables. I understand some people don't mind them, but I think they're inferior to the traditional table.

* Because they are elevated, they are **not as simple for all types of people to get up on the chairs comfortably**. Notably children, elders, and overweight people. Bars will have these types of chairs as well, but children are not allowed to sit at the bar (at least here) so it becomes less of an issue. But a bar will have multiple options for seating. Not just the bar area, usually.

* Places to put your feet are typically just under your chair. And this length varies on the type of chair. A traditional table has the ground, where you can place your feet anywhere. Your typical bar has these high top chairs, sure, but there's always a place to put your feet that's separate from the chair. **It is meant to be comfortable to sit in.**

* **High-top tables are *not* handicap accessible** (This kind of goes along with my first point, but I felt it was important for it to have its own). Normal tables are the tried and true area for all ages and types of people to eat at. Anything superior would possibly be the floor, but then you have things like cleanliness come into factor with that.

* There is no doubt in my mind that** high-top tables are more expensive compared to a traditional table.** Higher price to replace, higher initial cost, and it uses more lumber and other materials. Higher cost for interior furniture for a restaurant could leads to higher menu prices to offset the (1) business they're losing because they cannot seat all demographics, as mentioned above, and (2) higher price of the actual tables and chairs.

* **Accessibility to servers.** High top tables make it more difficult to get around the customers and place food and drinks on the table. I have never been a waiter myself, nor do I know anyone close that was or is, but I've been to enough restaurants in my day to know that I have to pass plates or drinks to other people in my group if our waiter isn't tall enough, or if there isn't enough room for them to fit. Lower (traditional) tables allows the server to be many feet taller than the people sitting down and that gives them a better advantage to place the food and drinks onto the table.

**So to summarize, high-top tables aren't as comfortable to sit at, to sit in for longer periods of time, and restaurants lose business therefore lose money by using high-top tables instead of the traditional table. And at what gain? To look more modern? To segregate your clientele to disclude old people, children, and overweight people? That's just a bad decision and to see more and more restaurants in my area moving to them I can't see the point.**

Please, reddit, Change My View.

[Assistant]
In your summary, you get to the point of why high tops are desirable - people don't want to sit at them as long.  If people don't linger at their table after their meal, you can seat a new paying customer there faster.

Getting people to spend less time at the table is a feature, not a bug, from the perspective of a restaurant owner.


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

[User] [KotOR] The droids/guns/etc. in KotOR seem very similar to those of the original trilogy, even though they take place 4000 years after. How has technology advanced so little in 4000 years?

[Assistant]
During the time of the New Sith Wars, there was a massive war between the Sith and the Republic that had the Jedi taking more and more drastic steps like them directly leading the Republic, having children, and creating actual dynasties on planets which the Jedi Council threw a fit about.

In the meanwhile, the sheer stress of the war and rebellions led to the Holonet, the main form of FTL communications being not maintained properly and cared only for the core worlds, leading to many worlds having to fend for themselves.

What made it even worse was that there was also a massive plague going on at this time that devastated planets very severely.

All of this led to a lot of technological regression to the point where at the end of the war, people were fighting with spears and plate armor instead of blasters and high tech body armor. After this, the Republic was basically starting from a point where they had to rediscover a lot of technology that had been lost due to plague or war. This was called the Republic Dark Age.


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

[User]
[Pan's Labyrinth] Where is the Pale Man's lair?

Is it in Hell? Is it a part of Princess Moanna's Underworld kingdom? Or somewhere else entirely?

[Assistant] Since it was one of her trials and was accessible by chalk... we can consider it a limbo of sorts. If you do as you're told, you're golden, but screw up and you die. Considering there is an awful lot of evidence around his lair that suggests he eats kids and the Pale Man himself is an immortal being... we can also consider it a limbo between the mortal world and the Underworld kingdom.


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

[User]
Do animals procrastinate?

Now that I think about it, would it be possible to know that an animal knows they "should" be doing something but puts it off? idek.

[Assistant] I might be wrong but it seems one could setup an experiment for this.   Teach an animal (like a dog) to complete a task (like pulling a bedsheet off a bed).  Reward it immediately.   Once you accomplish that, leave the room while the dog is busy with the task.  When he comes for his reward, or to see where you are, bring him back to the bed demonstrating that you are just now finding out he accomplished the task. Reward him for it.  Iterate that out so that you leave for work in the morning, and if the sheet is on the floor when you get home, you bring him there and reward him.  Then setup a camera and see if the dog does it in the morning or when he hears your car pulling into the garage.


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

[User] ELI5: How does ovulation work in mammals that have multiple babies?

[Assistant]
Some mammals are Polyovulatory, which means they release more than one ovum (egg) per cycle.  Human females usually only release one egg at a time but sometimes can release more. A single egg can even split into two, forming two separate but identical twins.  Human twins occur at about 3 in a 1000 births.  There are even identical triplets formed the same way.

Other mammals can release many more eggs per cycle.  A pig's litter size is usually around 10 or so.


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

[User]
ELI5 How are bicycle wheels so strong with such small diameter spokes?

How does the apparently small amount of material which comprises the spokes provide the required sturdiness to handle the physics of a human on a bike?

[Assistant]
Tension.

None of those bars is ever pushed, even resting theyre stretched. When someone puts weight on the wheel, the spokes at the bottom see less tension, and the ones at the top see more, which effectively means that the center is hanging from the rim while all the spokes on the sides and bottom are keeping the rim circular.


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

[User] ELI5:Why do we get "second winds" after long periods of fatigue/being tired, and how do they work, physiologically?

[Assistant] If you keep pushing your body to keep going, it knows that you need to be awake/alert/not hungry in order to survive. So, it releases adrenaline, dopamine and other hormones/neurotransmitters that suppress hunger, sleep and make you feel better. It is the body's natural equivalent for man made stimulants like speed. Even though the body's response is chemical, the result is psychological stamina (which does come to an end when chemicals are completely depleted and you crash).


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

[User]
How do we know for sure that a species is extinct?

What are the criteria that must be met for these conclusions to be made? How do we not know that there aren't more of the species that we just haven't been able to find?

[Assistant] We don't exactly know, but biologists will be monitoring species that are near extinction and when they stop seeing any specimens/signs of specimens for a long period of time they will declare it extinct. Many examples of them being wrong exist too.


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

[User] ELI5: When rebooting a PC, how does it know to turn back on again after turning off.

[Assistant]
On a restart one of the last things done is there's an ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) command sent to the BIOS to get the machine on switch off to boot itself back up. It's as simple as that really.

The 'on' signal on a modern computer is just a soft button press. The motherboard always has a bit of baseline power as long as the power supply has power connected to it, so it's possible for the computer to send the signal itself to start the machine back up.


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

[User] [40K] Which is angrier, a World Eater in a full berserk driven by the Butcher's Nails, or a Blood Angel given to the Black Rage?

[Assistant] The Blood Angel. The Butcher's Nails heightens aggression in the World Eater, while the Blood Angel is hallucinating the assault on the Vengeful Spirit and Sanguinius was very, very angry with Horus for betraying them all.


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

[User]
In Marx's Capital, why is it that a machine only transfers value when working on materials, but a labourer working on the same materials creates value? And would this be true for a robot?

I am studying chapter 9 of *Capital* and am struggling with this particular point. Marx describes how the materials and means of production are *constant* capital (i.e. their value is not changed during the production process), whereas the *variable* capital is provided by the labourer. He points out that a consequence of this is that machinery never *creates* value. Instead, machinery only *transfers* part of its value into the product. It is always a part of the constant capital (i.e. C). This contrasts with the variable capital (V) provided by the labourer, which actually creates new value that is added on top of C.

I'm not sure I understand Marx's rationale for this. Doesn't a machine also do 'work', so to speak? If I perform work on a piece of material to make a coat, and in another factory a machine performs the exact same work on the same material to make a coat, why is the latter a fundamentally different act? Why is my work V, but the machine's work is C?

To embellish the example: imagine a realistic AI robot that looks like a human, talks like a human and can perform all the same work. If this robot and I both sat with the same materials and performed the same work on it, would a Marxist analysis still say that my work created new value but the robot only transferred it?

I would guess Marx's view here is based on a kind of categorical difference possessed by humanity, but I'm not sure I picked up that argument exactly.

[Assistant]
The work is still being done by labourers, but just pushed up by an order or two. If it takes me a month to knit a coat, and you make 100 coats of equivalent value in that time using a sowing machine, that doesn't mean the sowing machine is making the coats. It's just being used as a tool, so you and those that made the sowing machine are doing the labour.

The same is true of machines in a factory. Labourers design, build, and maintain the machine.

If an AI robot could do the same work as a human and we didn't consider it a living being, then whatever work it was doing would ultimately be work being done by those that designed and maintained the robot. If another robot designed the first robot then just push it up by another order.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do we have to sanitize our drinking water when other animals don't have to?

[Assistant]
Many streams are relatively safe to drink from. There are some diseases you could catch, so if you can, sanitation is best.

Most animals live a shorter life than humans as well, so any diseases they get may not kill them before the would die of old age.

For certain diseases we could get from water, long term exposure also builds up an immunity to the diseases in some cases. It's kind of like getting a shot to stop you from getting sick, but over a long period of time.

Lastly, animals do have bad things happen to them from drinking polluted water, most of us just don't see this because we don't interact with animals every day like we do with people. If a deer in the woods drinks bad water that should have been sanitized, and he dies from it, no one usually notices. If that happens to a human, it would be on the news that evening.


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

[User] [Doctor Who]Concerning the parallel universe, why didn't it have a parallel Doctor?

[Assistant]
I think it's likely, since Pete's World has a Torchwood and a still-thriving human population amidst so many hostile alien empires, that there WAS a Doctor. Everything happened the same to him, except a few minor details on Earth as that society went a slightly different way.

But Earth had nothing to do with the time war or his actions in it, so he still emerged from the final burning as the Ninth (tenth now) doctor. As we saw in our world, he was in a tremendous amount of pain at that time, and it really was Rose that began to pull him out of that darkness. Without her, he most likely killed himself in a spectacular fashion to save Earth one last time. (Just like he was about to do in the first episode of 2005)


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

[User]
[The Boys]is there a way to raise a kid with Homlander's powers that's safe but also won't result in an emotionally stunted adult?

so both Homlander and now his son were raised in isolation because, for obvious reasons, a small child with such incredible superpowers might be incredible dangerous.

So  the thing is the character they're both based on, superman, turned out the way he did largely because he had a normal childhood where he grew up interacting with other people in a normal way. I get why if you actually had a ten year old who can functionally do whatever he wants you'd be reluctant to have him in regular society, but it also seems like if you don't you get an emotionally stunted adult who can also do whatever he wants.

[Assistant] Yes but it's very tricky. The secret is that you have to dump them in a corn field with some older but loving farmers who will raise him to be a kindhearted everyman from small town USA who believes in the dream of Truth, Justice and the American way.


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

[User]
I've been asked to evaluate my thesis advisor for a Tenure and Promotion Evaluation. Is there anything specific I should say to help her out?

I got my B.A. in philosophy two years ago. During my senior year, I did an optional thesis project with an assistant professor in the philosophy department. I also took two of her classes.

Yesterday, I got an email from my school asking me to evaluate her as a thesis advisor for consideration by the Tenure and Promotion committee. I don't know exactly what kind of promotion or tenure she is being considered for. She was a great advisor and a great teacher in the classroom, and I'd like my evaluation to be as valuable to her as possible.

I've been asked to answer the following questions:
* Describe the project I did with her (my thesis)
* Describe what I am doing now (I have a full-time job that is completely unrelated to philosophy)
* Talk about her strengths and/or weaknesses as a mentor
* Mention specific instances that illustrate my evaluation

I guess I am wondering whether anyone here knows of specific types of feedback that would be most helpful to a professor who is up for promotion/tenure. If you have any thoughts on this, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I'm also a little worried about two things: first, that I am now in a career that is (at least on the surface) completely unrelated to my degree, and second, that it's been a few years so it might be hard to come up with specific examples of my advisor being helpful to me. I no longer have access to my undergraduate email account, which would have been the best record of our communications during that time.

Any advice would be wonderful. Thank you!

[Assistant] Even if you're not in a related career, you can explain how her mentoring affected you positively by helping you carry an idea through to a final product, look at a problem from a new angle, think critically, etc.  Those are the kinds of skills that all universities want their students to graduate with.


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

[User]
what would you make of this behavior?

in my first day of class at university, i'm in a night class with a male teacher. i walk in the room he's sitting at a student desk with his feet kicked up and scrolling on his phone, he kind of snickered when i walked in the room. i sit at the front, for most of the lecture he stands directly behind me talking over me. he said his brain is fried after teaching all day. then we do a group project, he paces the room smacking his glass juice bottle in his hand.

i'm still sitting in the front left corner of the room he paces around the class multiple times in a circle, every time he comes around his foot knocked against my table leg or backpack. when we did another group project, constructing a model he sits closely next to me while i'm working, scrolling through his phone.

when we do a group discussion of what we made he stands directly behind me the entire time while i'm discussing with my partner while he is scrolling through his phone. when we discuss among a larger group he sits near me again, breaks his wood toothpick/food skewer in half and places it on my desk. then makes a passive aggressive comment about my partners design which she designed based of what i said i liked...

what do you all think? have you encountered something like this before? does this sound like he's on drugs? what would this behavior be indicative of?

[Assistant] Sounds like an adjunct who really doesnt want to be there. Its a side gig, he works full time somewhere else or has multiple adjunct gigs at different schools. And he also sounds pretty awkward and unprofessional.


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

[User] How can Rabies still exist and be as prevalent as it is, if it's lethality is 99.99% and it's disease cycle is relatively short?

[Assistant]
Because rabies can infect a lot of different animal hosts, many of which can live a long time or indefinitely after being infected. These are known as reservoir hosts because they provide a stable source for infections of more susceptible hosts. Reservoir hosts for rabies generally include Carnivoran mammals (raccoons, skunks, canines) and bats.

Human-to-human transmission of rabies is incredibly rare. Almost all infections come from animals, either directly from a reservoir host or from another animal that was recently infected by a reservoir host.


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

[User] Would it have been possible to watch Neil Armstrong on the moon through a telescope?

[Assistant] No, not in 1969 and not today. The resolution required to make an image of the size of a human (~1m) over the distance from the moon (384.000 km) is just not achievable, and we are not even talking about athmospheric refraction that makes this even harder.


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

[User]
Reviewing the n-th paper about an overdone topic. What should I say?

I'm reviewing for a high impact medical journal. A group submitted a paper where they use artificial intelligence to solve a specific (technical, non-diagnostic) task. This task is perfectly suited for artificial intelligence. Indeed the first papers that tried it and succeeded were from 2016.

In this paper the authors try the latest fad in neural network design and they conclude that... this one works. Like the 200 previous others with less fancy techniques.

What can I say? It's technically correct. But if it were a math journal I'd be asking for many experiments to be performed so that it shows what are the differences between this solution and the state-of-the-art ones. But here it's a medical journal, no one cares about math. Should I recommend acceptance? Then why not another 200 ones that say "this thing that works also works if I paint my PC green"? Should I recommend rejection just because they bored me?  Should I ask for further tests? Which ones? They already demonstrated quite well that "it works". Just not that it works any different from how it's known to do!  And anyway... I don't want to be the asshole reviewer!

[Assistant] It is perfectly acceptable and appropriate that you recommend publication in a lower-impact journal if you feel the authors' work is correct but not sufficiently novel. You should substantiate this by comparing to other, similar works in your report.


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

[User]
ELI5: Is Africa as unstable as the media portrays it to be?

I was watching Blood Diamond, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Africa seems like a shit hole of total madness, and i would like to know if this is true or false.

[Assistant]
Africa's a pretty big place, and the experience can certainly vary depending on where you go. Blood Diamond was set during a civil war in Sierra Leone, so the shitshow factor is going to be pretty high in such a situation by default.

If you went to some place like Nairobi, Cape Town, or Johannesburg, it'd be more or less like most big cities - some nice areas, some middle-class areas, some touristy areas, and some places you'd probably want to avoid.


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

[User]
Why are hybrid animals like Ligers and Mules born sterile?

I've heard it is an imbalance of chromosomes from the different species that isn't so different that they can breed in the first place but different enough that their offspring can't produce eggs or sperm, but why is this?

[Assistant] Because miosis is a spectacular and very intricate dance involving long threads pulling around and organizing very long and potentially delicate pieces of chromosomal DNA. mismatches mean that the order can be disrupted such that the cell cannot properly create viable gametes with structured and complete genomes.


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

[User]
CMV: Transgenderism is mentally unhealthy for all involved, especially with regard to physical transitioning

UPDATE: My view has been changed thanks to some very intelligent, level-headed folks that I've spoken to on this sensitive subject. Although not 100% reversed, my opinion through this process has been changed. I hope that everyone felt as though I engaged them with respect in a fully conversational tone. I made profuse efforts to do so. On that point, it should be known by all participants that if a redditor is breaking the rules, you aren't allowed to tell them to stop, apparently. You aren't allowed to tell them why or how their statement is inappropriate, no matter how matter-of-fact it is and no matter how neutral your tone. You aren't allowed to tell them, no matter how neutral the statement, that they should seek a better approach. You aren't allowed to tell them that they should seek to be more emotionally detached. You aren't allowed to tell them to stop engaging you, either. You are, apparently, beholden to abuse the report button in this format, thereby breaking a rule of the site as a whole, since no other sensible option will stop the mods from deleting your comments and accusing you of things you are not guilty of. No matter what you do to try to get the mods to describe exactly what it is that you may have said that violated a rule they won't tell you and will just stomp their feet like little children. It's truly a sad state for a sub with such a great format and respectable intentions. Mods, if you want people to participate freely in this kind of format, if you want to retain any integrity, you are beholden to backing up your claims like everyone else under any post on your sub. Your approach with me was utterly ridiculous and I have no idea still why you deleted my comment only because you refused to engage me in as intellectually sound, respectable and emotionally detached manner that you require from everyone else.

It's analogous to accepting an anorexic's belief that they're too thin. The rationale for both transgenderism and anorexia are that they're built on social constructs that fluctuate depending on era and/or society. Both are in denial of physical realities and attempt to change that physical reality by trying to shape objective reality to meet their internal desires rather than accepting objective conditions. This is something no medical provider would ever do with an anorexic, even if there was a safe way of doing it (also analogous to heroin addiction, or people hearing voices in their heads). People playing along are reinforcing their disconnect from reality and fostering unfair demands on other people to do the same by shaming them.

Transgenderism wants to have things both ways (no pun intended) by saying that gender is only a social construct and also, somehow, that it's diagnosable on a psychiatric level. If it's a social construct then there should be no sexual dimorphism that lend men and women different roles. Men and women are physically different for biological duties whether they're ever realized or not, and there's no denying that. If it's only a social construct then what need is there for physical transitioning?

It reverses the work put in for decades by the homosexual community that says that social constructs \*aren't\* the determinant of gender. Many parents who are introducing their children to transitioning early are doing so on the basis that they seem to do things that are traditionally not appropriate to their sexual gender assignment. The homosexual community finally has experienced some liberation on this level and established that just because a man likes other men sexually or other things that straight women like that it doesn't mean that he isn't a man, or that just because a woman likes other women and tends to like things that straight men like that they aren't women. The transgender movement uses exactly these things to rationalize young children being transitioned.

The part of the trans movement that believes that young children should be allowed to choose to transition are (perhaps without realizing it) destroying the argument for the age of consent. Anyone who can be trusted to make a permanent physical change to their body at a very young age age must, naturally, be able to choose to have whatever sexual experience they wish to have. If not, they are making the irrational argument that a permanent choice is less of a commitment than a temporal one.

If it's not simply a social construct and it can be diagnosed, then there should be plenty of examples of people who are diagnosed with it who think of themselves as cis-gendered. If it was a legitimate condition that could be diagnosed such as something like schizophrenia, there should be plenty of doctors who, independently, can look at a case study and determine the treatment with some degree of consensus.

Finally, it demands untenable things from the rest of the world in a few ways:

It demands that the rest of the world play along. How is transgenderism not a way of inflicting a psycho-sexual fantasy on the rest of the world? Transgendered people have a sexual fantasy of being accepted as something they aren't. Now it's become a social rule in modern 1st world countries that if we don't role-play with them in this walk-around fantasy that \*we\* are the ones that are inflicting \*our\* interests onto \*them\* and I have a lot of trouble seeing it any other way. It's pretty gross, too.

Pronouns aren't personal. That's not how language works or is supposed to work. No one remembers pronouns because the subconscious practice of determining another organism's sex is many, many millions of years more deeply ingrained than bipedalism, and even primates generally. The language that we use associated with that is hardwired far below the conscious mind, so it isn't a choice to mis-gender someone.

There's a flaw within transgenderism revealed by this: It discriminates against people who can't pass post-transition. If you think you're a man because you have a short haircut and manage to grow a mustache but you still look like a girl, no one's going to call you a man. Your life as a man will continue to be unfulfilled. There's nothing you'll ever be able to do about being misgendered if you look like Margot Robbie but demand to to be addressed as a man.

Transgendered people, whether or not they ascribe to the diagnosable or social construct theories around it, can never truly be the other they choose because part of being what we are has to do with the process of growing up as that thing. No one who grows up as a female, lives as a female, and is protective of their body the way females are will ever understand the rough and tumble nature of how most men interact through a lifetime of gender-specific horse-play.

In effect all it does is render the term "gender" meaningless. It has no definition if it isn't linked to biological sex.

These points are most of what I think about when it comes to transgenderism. CMV by changing my opinion on them. I won't respond to arguments coming from the perspective of birth defects as they are in too severe a minority to warrant large-scale societal reform.

I feel I should add that this is in no way an argument against anyone living in exactly the way they want to, so long as they don't force anyone else to participate in their fantasies. The thought that anyone sees alternative lifestyles like furries, homosexuality, transgenderism, or any form of queerness as a reason for ridicule, judgement or limiting their inalienable rights as humans is 100% inexcusable and I will absolutely fight for you to live in safety and enjoy your freedoms. This is solely an exercise in testing the logical underpinnings of transgenderism because I see huge logical flaws in it. That shouldn't be taken as an argument that you aren't allowed to do it. In a certain way it's like breaking down the rules around psychics. You should be free to stare into a crystal ball or read palms and go on about whatever sense you have about anyone willing to give you five dollars, but it should be regarded as bullshit if that's what it is.

Transgenderism also follows the same pattern as a social contagion, not a medical condition. This would suggest that it's much more a fad that will largely subside, but this remains to be seen.

Fire away folks!

[Assistant]
The rest of the world refusing to 'play along', as you put it, results in trans people frequently killing themselves.

The rest of the world accepting trans people's desire to transition results in much less suicide.

How is the former 'mentally healthier' than the latter?


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

[User] ELI5:In its natural habitat away from humans, what is the use/purpose of a parrot repeating a noise it hears?

[Assistant]
Parrots are social and intelligent. Researchers are starting to learn that parrots in the wild form tribes and each tribe has it's own language or dialect. Like humans, the parrot chicks are not born able to speak the language and learn from the parents and other family members.

I have a conure and a ciaque who grew up together and they share the exact same sounds with each other, even though they are different species and have traditionally different vocalizations.... except when they scream, they use their native tongue, especially the conure!


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

[User] What determines the viscosity of oils?

[Assistant]
What kind of oil do you mean?

In general, the different molecules in the oil, their structures, and their interactions with themselves and each other affect the viscosity.

In engine oils, viscosity is tightly controlled to ensure consistent performance at different temperatures. All the additives (dispersants, detergents, antioxidants, etc) are carefully selected to give the right viscometric properties, and viscosity modifiers are chemicals that change how viscosity changes with temperature.


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

[User]
[Steven Universe] How did Gems come to be?

Like seriously, when and how did they come into existence?

[Assistant] Their means of reproduction are wholly artificial, so at one point they must have been an organic humanoid species who kept making iterative alterations and improvements to their race as their technology kept advancing. At some point they made the jump to synthetic bodies and artificially created minds, which is why now they resemble nothing organic or living while still keeping the same outward form.


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

[User]
[avatar TLA] is the avatar effected by the moon and sun like other benders?

during a solar eclipse fire benders lose their power same with water benders during a full moon. but is the avatar effected by this at all, or is the avatar it's own source of bending power?

[Assistant]
It depends. IIRC we don't see any fire bending from Aang during the eclipse, so it seems he's affected by it; ditto for Sozin's Comet, where he shows some of his most powerful attacks.

That said, when the Moon was injured, he was able to go into the Avatar state and use some awe-inspiring waterbending even when no one else could at all, so it seems a direct connection to the spirits kinda overrides that when used.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Tom Riddle successfully defeats Harry in the Chamber of Secrets and escapes Hogwarts. What happens now?

Does he go to revive OG Voldemort for double trouble or does he just rise again as the Dark Lord 2.0? Does he have all the memories of the Voldemort that made the horcrux or is he limited to his 16 year old knowledge?

[Assistant]
This is Voldemort were talking about. He would never work *with* someone else, let alone someone who could usurp him. He would burn down that Albanian forest the first chance he got to eliminate the competition.

He doesnt have OG Voldemorts memories. He knows what he knew at 16 and what he found out from Ginny.


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

[User] ELI5: Why do some odors (garlic, onions, cigarettes, smoke) cling to us -- especially our hands -- more than other strong smells like citrus, leather, gasoline, etc.?

[Assistant]
The answer is different for different smells.

For cigarettes the smell comes from the oils and tar that vaporizes when you smoke it. This oily substance will then settle on surfaces, your clothes, hands etc. Your hands especially since that is what you use to hold the cigarette.

Clothes and skin happen to absorb the oils and they don't wash out easily. So the smell lingers.

Other smells may be made of water soluble molecules for example, and will wash out easily.


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

[User]
Are we guaranteed to see inflation if lots of central banks around the world are printing money? Or, if all the central banks do it would it somehow cancel each other out so that we don't actually see an increase in the price of goods and services?

Trying to wrap my head around whether or not the stock market can truly be saved this quickly. And what are the implications for the value of the dollar in the future.
Thanks.

[Assistant]
Inflation is caused by an increase in the price level. The quantity theory of money states that MV = PY, where:

M = money supply

V = velocity of money (how rapidly money is passed around)

P = price level

Y= real GDP (the real value of things produced in an economy)

Inflation increases when P increases. However, because of the interaction of these variables, if V decreases, then an increase in M may still leave you with the same P and Y. So an increase to the money supply does not necessarily mean inflation if V drops enough.

I think the exchange rate is what you're thinking about here. To get to your question, though, all countries can experience inflation simultaneously. But if all of them inflate at the same rate, and everything else doesn't change, then there shouldn't be any change in the exchange rate.

Example:

Say that an apple in the US costs $1, while in Mexico it costs 10 Pesos. Therefore, in an economy of apples, $1 US is worth 10 pesos. If both countries have their price level double (equal to 100% inflation), then the apple is worth $2 or 20 Pesos. In this case $1 US is still worth 10 Pesos, leaving the exchange rate unchanged despite the inflation.


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

[User]
What are typically the first problems of a new society?

Say a new city was built that was totally self sustainable. Over time what problems would inevitably come in to the picture eventually.

For example big cities obviously struggle with homelessness, crime and the like. But what I'm curious about is are there certain things that unanimously happen first or is it just completely random historically speaking?

[Assistant]
property comes up a lot in hobbes, locke, and rousseau; specifically what right individuals have to land, how to earn that right, and how their right compares to that of the state over the land (Rousseau and Locke be loving labour, while Hobbes be all over the place on that sovereign power trip).

Early sovereigns would usually be in place to protect individuals' rights to land...and in this statement many questions arise that are answered differently by the three theorists.

edit: just remebered the city part....new societies don't really just pop up with self-sustaining cities, so it's hard to tell.


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

[User] [MCU] How much of Tony Starks intelligence and accomplishment can be attributed to the wealth he inherited from his family?

[Assistant]
His intelligence, none at all.  Even college, he's the sort of intellect that likely have gotten in on a scholarship.

Accomplishment is a lot easier for him because of his wealth.  When he has an idea he can implement it quickly.  No problem getting that gold-titanium alloy, it's just in stock.   Wants robot army, automated robot factory is a must.

Lawyers, Military and Government connections smoothed something like making an Iron Man suit over enormously.


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

[User]
ELI5:When people listen to the radio, do they all hear the song at the same time, or is there a delay when listening further away from the towers?

What is the speed of radio?

[Assistant] Radio waves are electromagnetic radiation just like light (just a different part of the spectrum); they move at the speed of light.  To answer your question, yes, there's a very, very, very, very slight delay.


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

[User]
[General] Are there any logical reasons for ship boarding and land invasions to be a viable tactic in the age of sophisticated defense technology and orbital weaponry (other than entertainment purposes).

What I mean is how are 'tactics'  like space ships ramming each other (like in Star Trek Nemesis), and ship boarding (like in 40k) a viable tactic?

In naval warfare, ships should be around thousands of kilometers from each other at minimum. So to begin with no one is at a distance to be ramming each other and sending boarding crafts. Even if the boarding crafts do enter range it's hard to imagine them getting past a ship's CIWS or shields for that matter.

Of course there are exceptions like stealth boarding craft, or teleportation. But at the vast majority of times (like in 40k, and Star Wars), normal boarding crafts are the norm.

Now for land invasions, other than to secure HVTs or minimize damage to infrastructure, how is orbital bombardment not the norm for planetary warfare? Let's take the Battle of Hoth for example. I think the decision to invade Hoth went like this:

"Hey Empy P there are some rebies in some remote ice world called Hoth, how bout we blockade the planet and blast em with our cannons from orbit for a couple of days then send our AT-ATs to clean up"

"NOOO you send AT-ATs NOW"

.....

Or how the Imperium in 40k, whose ships carry virus bombs and other planet cracking weaponry, don't use said weaponry (or smaller scaled weaponry not necessarily exterminatus grade ones) more often.

Orks in that ridge? Lets send SPESS MEHREENS! Great, now we've lost the Celestial Lions. Invading a Tau planet? We've 'exterminatid' planets for lesser reasons but how lets stage a land invasion anyway and hope 500 lasguns can diddly their way through Crisis Suits and Riptides.

Of course I'm not diminishing the entertainment value of the aforementioned (and other similar) engagements. But I really just can't wrap my head around them without getting a headache.

[Assistant]
I think that there are very simple explanations for both.

Boarding: There are a few reasons for this, but here are a few of the more common ones.

- There is something on the enemy vessel that our protagonists want/need and vica versa such as an artefact, a prisoner ect. Think the Star Trek movie, Star Wars episode 3 and 4. As such simply blowing the other ship out of the sky is not good enough.

- Our protagonist's ship isn't as advanced as their opponents, but their daring crew members are better fighters. The Ultramarines novel is a great example of this, the Space Marine Thunderhawks can't keep up with the light Dark Eldar craft and so in a standard space battle they get crushed. But by boarding they have a much better chance since the Space Marines are superior to the Dark Eldar in the closed in corridors where the Dark Eldar can't maneuver.

Orbital Bombardment: Again there are a few explanations for this.

- The defending force may have the technology to prevent/survive such a bombardment. In SW episode IV they expressly state that they want to bombard Hoth but can't because the rebels have a shield generator. That was the whole point of them destroying the "shield generator"

- Orbital bombardments aren't that effective. The antagonists can simply hide in bunkers and come out just fine. You will never 100% beat a prepared enemy with just bombardment. Just look at the Vietnam War or The London Blitz.


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

[User] ELI5: When taking someone's temperature, why is the underside of the tongue a reliable spot?

[Assistant] It is because of the amount of blood flow close the the surface.  Same reason anal is also accurate and the arm pit can give a decent reading as well ( though not as accurate and anything internal).  That is the reason the ear is good too (using infrared to get to the inner ear)


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Why are the Hutts so feared, I mean they are slugs they can't even stand up, what are they really gonna do to you?

They have to outsource to others to get anything done at all. Why doesn't anyone just take them all out given how useless every last one of them is.

[Assistant]
"Slugs that can't even stand up" but which are actually three to five tons of pure muscle on top of a brain that worked out hyperspace mechanics while the rest of the galaxy was banging the rocks together to make fire.

Hutts don't move fast because they don't *have* to move fast. When you see one moving fast, it's usually the last thing you'll ever see.


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

[User]
What does it mean to "go into shock"?

Im always hearing how people go into shock after an accident or something happens to them, but what exactly happens to the body/ mind? What causes them to feel no pain?

[Assistant]
There are two kinds of shock.  The first is circulatory shock.  It is basically an inability to get enough blood pumping around the body and occurs due to bleeding, trauma, major infection or a few other things.  This is the one that can kill people and needs to be treated by doctors right away.

The one that you are more probably referring to is acute stress reaction.  This is after witnessing or being a part of a horrible event.  Your body goes into overdrive mode (fight or flight reaction) and releases a lot of stimulants and painkillers so you are ready to react however necessary.  If you are running from a bear it doesn't help if your broken leg hurts every step you take as well.

Furthermore your brain might try and protect your mind and memory from the horrible event as well.  It does this by dissociating your mind with your body so it feels like you are floating in a daze and you are almost not even in your body any more viewing it from afar.

Treatment for both is WARTS.

Warmth

ABCs (airway, breathing, circulation)

Rest and Reassure

Treat injuries

Semi-prone recovery position.

-----

Remember that any altered state of consciousness means EMS needs to be called.


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

[User]
If you were to freeze an acid, would the solid still be acidic enough to eat through something?

This is a question that's bugged me for a little while and I've been curious to know. If, say, you took an acid and froze it into a solid state, would that solid still eat through something? Or would it need to melt first?

[Assistant]
Solids generally react only very slowly with each other, unless you put some energy into the system (e.g. by grinding them together) or the interface between them melts or liquefies somehow.

In the case of a frozen block of acid in contact with a piece of acid-reactive substance, there would likely be just enough melting or water vapour condensation at the surface to allow a reaction to occur -- this might in turn generate heat, that would keep the reaction going.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are bus steering wheels almost parallel to the ground, whereas car steering wheels are almost perpendicular to the ground?

[Assistant]
because the steering wheel is connected to the front wheel by a long column called *drumroll* the steering column

if you look at the side profile of a typical car,  the driver sits above and behind the front wheels.   hence the steering column needs to connect diagonally.

if you look at a bus, the driver sits very much vertically above and in front of the front wheels.   hence the steering column needs to connect directly downwards and backwards thru a seperate linkage.


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

[User]
ELI5: Scientifically, why can't blood testing using a few drops of blood (i.e. Theranos' purported and testing regime) work? What can we actually test for using single drop blood testing?

Completely putting aside the fact that the Edison machine didn't work, what is and isn't possible for pathologists to do in terms of testing using a few drops of blood?

It's currently most commonly used for blood sugar, and this particular video I watched said that it isn't necessarily reliable for some tests, and some require separation or the addition of chemicals. Another article I remember reading said it can make your potassium levels look like you're dying.

That can't really be it to why single drop blood testing can't work, right? As far as I've seen, no one really has seemed to clearly explain in layman's terms as to why it couldn't or can't work. And likewise, what can actually be done accurately using such a test?

Edit: Thanks for all the really thoughtful and clear answers. Even from the answers alone some people don't seem to agree with one another - hopefully Reddit will help parse out which of these answers are more correct than others!

[Assistant] In a single drop of blood, you can test things that are present in the blood in large quantities.  That's great for cholesterol or red cell count.  However, most blood tests look for molecules which are not that dense in the blood.  If you want to measure the level of PSA, a biomarker for prostate cancer, a traditional test measures in nanograms/milliliter; 1-4 is ok, >6 is a warning. A typical drop in 0.05ml, so you're looking for something in the range of 50-200 picograms.  That's only thousands of PSA molecules.  To get a good reading, your machine would have to work at an atomic level.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why does my brain ignore seeing the one thing I'm looking for when it's right in front of me

a.k.a "Male Refrigerator Blindness" as my mom called it

I'll be looking for a book on a shelf and will see every other book 5 times before I find the one I was looking for was right in front of me the whole time, what causes this to happen?

[Assistant]
Because you are using a template-based search.

Visualize the object, and compare to things you see.

It's really fast, but if the object doesn't look like you were expecting it to (eg, turned sideways, or a different colour), then you skip right past it.


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

[User]
Has there ever been a known case about your body's immune system detecting your eyes separate immune system? And how does that whole thing work?

I have read something that says your eyes have a different immune system than the rest of your body and if your body's immune system found out, than it will attack and you will go blind.

[Assistant] This can rarely happen in patients that have trauma to the eye, which exposes previously unknown eye proteins to the immune system. Immune cells recognize these proteins as foreign, and start to attack both the injured and unaffected eye in an autoimmune process leading to blindness.


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

[User]
How does speculative execution in CPUs work?

"Speculative execution" in CPUs has been mentioned in the news recently due to the Intel bug.  What operations can be speculatively executed at the CPU level and how does the processor know it has a likelihood of a speedup without any higher level understanding of the problem it is solving?

[Assistant]
Lets start with pipelines: Traditionally you would expect a CPU to execute one command, then the next command, and so on, one command per clock cycle. Unfortunately this would need very low CPU speeds. To get faster speeds pipelines were introduced: During one clock cycle only parts of the command are done and the intermediate state is saved, during the next cycle this intermediate state is passed on to the next stage, meanwhile the next command starts already. A simple pipeline might just have 3-4 steps, modern CPUs have many more. There are two cases where this leads to problems:

* a command needs the result of a previous command that is still in the pipeline
* the program logic depends on the outcome of a command: if x>5 do this else do that

The first case can be reduced by software that makes sure these dependencies are not too fast behind each other. For the other case: A CPU could stop executing commands and wait for the condition to be known (here: what is x), but that would take time. Usually these conditions occur in loops, where the outcome is the same many times (x is smaller 99% of the time). A modern CPU has extra logic that makes a best estimate what the result will be (which code to execute next) and start working on the following code. If the prediction turns out to be wrong then the result of this predictive execution has to be discarded. Most elements of modern CPUs are logic to determine what depends on what, what can be done in parallel, how to clean up if the prediction was wrong and so on. A bug there is not too surprising.


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

[User]
[DC]How do the Kent's discipline a young superman?

Say superman at the age of 5 on earth is playing baseball and accidental breaks a window his parents catch him how to do they punish him?Cause I'm thinking what are you going to do you give him a spanking how would you punish a child that powerful?

[Assistant]
In the timelines where he had full superpowers as a child, the official answer is "They withheld their love." Which is to say, they emotionally disciplined him, and because he was such a good kid, knowing that mom and dad were upset at him for breaking the rules was enough to make him feel bad and not do it again.

The Kents are REALLY good parents who raised a kid who didn't want to let them down or make them feel bad.

In the timelines where his superpowers didn't really kick in until adolescence, they probably had the option of punishing him physically, but likely never really had to.


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

[User]
Can a photon move in a straight line ?

Something like 0 Hz frequency  ?

[Assistant]
All photons move in straight lines.

I think, from your question, you are misunderstanding the wave nature of light.  The photon does not move along the wiggles of a sine curve.  That sine curve represents the strength of the electromagnetic field as the light travels through space.  But the light beam itself goes in a straight line.

(Incidentally, in general relativity, where spacetime itself is curved, light still follows the curved space version of a straight line, called a *geodesic*.)


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

[User]
[Buffy] Why didn't the Watcher Council abused the Slayer Linage loophole more?

The first time Buffy died for only a few minutes  and was brought back through basic CPR it triggered the activation of another Slayer, after that Slayer died her death activated Faith.

Since the biggest problem with the Slayer is the fact that there used to be only one and a whole world to protect from demons and apocalypses; why didn't the Watcher Council just kept killing and resuscitating the most recent Slayer to activate as much Slayers as possible?

I could understand that they didn't know about that possibility but after it was discovered why don't use it to it's fullest potential?

[Assistant]
Because magic is scary and dangerous and abusing loopholes like that tends to end very badly for the person doing it. Sure there's a chance  that it could work the way they planned at they could wind up with an army of Slayers, but there's also a chance that the magic breaks and they wind up with no new slayers at all. At that point, if the Slayer dies, that's it, no more slayers.

You can make that gamble when the First Evil is on the prowl and the world is going to end if you keep going the way you're going, but as long as the threats to the world stay at the level of a couple of really ineffective vampires, a preying mantis demon, and a suspiciously conscientious werewolf, the risk isn't worth the reward.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do humans develop so much slower than other animals?

Like dogs/horses/cows take almost no time (weeks) to survive in the wild while a human would take years to be self sufficient in the wild.

[Assistant]
Guys, guys, guys... it's not just brain size. You're forgetting the whole 'bipedal' thing.

Humans walk on two legs instead of four. This means that the bone structure of our hips is vastly different than most other animals. One side effect of this, is that the birth canal is much narrower for us than for other animals, and it also puts constraints on the size & position of the uterus.

As a result of these constraints, a human fetus is born when it is smaller than would be expected for closely-related animals of our size. Other animals (like horses & cows & elephants) get to gestate until they're nearly developed enough to walk. A human fetus is pushed out literally as soon as it can breathe (the hormone that initiates labor originates in the fetus' lungs). There is a recent parenting trend of saying a newborn child is in the "fourth trimester"--this perspective has some biological foundation.

In theory, humans could probably have evolved to be more self-sufficent (i.e. ambulatory) at birth despite being smaller. For example, Giant Pandas are stupid tiny when born (4oz--"the size of a stick of butter") and they're crawling around in 2-3 months, although they nurse for 18 months. Our evolutionary path developed social structures, rather than physical changes to newborns, to ensure the survival of such small infants.


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

[User]
ELI5: How do countries that are at war with each other interact in the UN?

 Do they still attend the same meetings? Do they cut all ties?

[Assistant]
So actually declaring war and breaking off diplomatic relations are two separate processes. You can cut off diplomatic relations with someone without declaring war on them and you can declare war on someone without cutting off diplomatic relations. In actual fact usually you cut off diplomatic relations with someone in order to warn them, and avoid a war; once war is joined that strategy clearly hasn't worked and so you actually start to rebuild diplo relations, because you need them to negotiate peace etc..

Often you don't want to lose face by reestablishing relations in public with your enemy and so the first diplomatic contacts will be secret. So for example Kissinger's secret first talks with North Vietnam.

The UN is different though. One of the great values of the UN is that even when countries aren't willing to have relations with each other, they both have relations with the UN. And so the UN becomes a mechanism for enemies to talk. Mostly indirectly, but occasionally ambassadors will chat in the corridors, or address each other in/through GA or committee meetings.

Edit: you might hear people talk about "track one" and "track two" diplomacy. Track one diplomacy is official discussions between nations. When those nations are at war track one isn't really possible except by formal peace talks. Track two is informal discussions, or discussions by non-state actors (NGOs academics etc..) on the state's behalf. Most peace processes start as track two initiatives.


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

[User] Did Marx ever use the concept of "base" and "superstructure" or is this just a simplification made popular via the "vulgarmarxism" of Engels?

[Assistant]
Typically "vulgar" Marxism is the view that the economic base fully determines the superstructure. The use of the terms "base" and "superstructure" is common across a lot of Marxist theory.

The terms show up in the Preface to _A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy_, and there he lays out what seems like a pretty one-sided deterministic relationship between base and superstructure, but it is a good question as to what extent the overview laid out in the preface is a simplification of the actually theory in the text.

I don't think one can read Marx's corpus and think he believed in a fully deterministic relation from base to superstructure, or that that is really the theory outlined there.

But, yes, he does use these words sometimes. "Vulgar" Marxism has to do with the relationship between the two structures.


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

[User]
[Dune 2021] Is there interstellar communications?

Is there FTL communications available or is everything relayed via Heighliner and surface to orbit and vice versa VHF/UHF radio?

[Assistant] FTL communication isn't possible. Information is strictly relayed through messengers and hand delivered communication. The Spacing Guild has a pseudo telepathic way to talk to navigators but it's not a widely used or available utility to anyone outside the guild. For everything else it's specially marked and unmarked couriers to try and control the flow of information between you and your allies and your enemies.


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

[User] Eli5: why do humans become so "stiff" as they get older?

[Assistant]
One of the main factors causing stiffness is the increase in fibrous tissue that restricts movement of muscles and joints.

Whenever we exercise vigorously at any age we produce microscopic tears in muscle and the connective tissues such as tendons, ligaments and fascia that keep our bodies in one piece. The tearing of tissue triggers inflammation. This is the process by which the body repairs itself. Part of the repair process involves laying down a scaffolding of collagen fibres, usually in a random disorganized manner rather than well aligned with the usual direction of pull on that part of the body. The matted fibres are what is called scar tissue. If we subject the newly deposited fibres to gentle movement, the misdirected fibres get either removed or re-aligned and we are left with correctly oriented fibres that allow our joints and muscle to function smoothly. However if we move too vigorously or erratically, we simply tear more fibres and re-commence the cycle of inflammation and repair.

Although the damage starts with vigorous movement, being sedentary does not help because collagen fibres also get laid down between adjacent tissues that are not moving, binding them together, so we would become completely moribund. If we then move forcefully the fibres will tear and we commence a cycle of inflammation and fibre deposition.

With age, there is an almost inevitable build-up of excessive collagen fibres and other debris left behind after multiple cycles of the repair process, and our muscle and joints become stiff.

The way to minimise this is to keep active in a manner that minimises tearing of tissues and promotes optimal repair of those tissues that do get torn. The strategies for achieving this are:

1) Build up exercise gradually ensuring that tissues are strong enough to resist tearing. Strength building exercises (either body weight or in the gym) are a useful adjunct to aerobic exercise such as running

2) Warm up at the beginning of exercise so that any poorly aligned fibres are gently re-aligned rather than abruptly torn apart creating a new cycle of inflammation.

3) Avoid erratic movements, especially movements that require strength near the limit or your current strength;

4) Massage, foam rolling or gentle stretching to remove knotted fibres can be helpful.


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

[User] ELI5: If a paramedic is the first responder at the scene of a disaster where there are many seriously injured people, how do they decide who to treat first?

[Assistant]
Triage.

They typically assist those who need assistance the most but who the help will actually end up changing the situation.

For example, if there's been a terrible car accident, and someone is clearly dying (maybe they had their entire lower body torn off or soemthing and their guts are spilled out everywhere) then a responder *could* spend time trying to keep that person alive but this will take a long time and also potentially be wasted since even *with* the help that person was pretty much screwed. It would make more sense to assist the person who has a metal rod through their arm, for example, since that person will almost certainly live. But if someone else maybe has some metal bits through their shoulder, they should get the attention first since the person with the arm wound can handle it for a little bit while the shoulder wound person gets attention so they don't bleed out.

So in short, it really depends. But deciding who to help is called "triage" and it is a way of figuring out a priority. Help those who need it most while minimizing harm caused to others as a result of choosing not to helm them.


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

[User] ELI5: Do dogs "miss" their mothers and siblings when they separated from them by humans? Do they still recognize them if they come back into contact with them later? Can they detect they are related through their scent?

[Assistant] We adopted our dog from a shelter after she was shipped up from puerto rico.  She had a sister.  We found out the person who adopted her sister lived nearby and set up a puppy play date at the dog park 3 or 4 months later. And.... They were totally disinterested in each other.


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

[User]
ELI5: A lot of people in the US want a governmental healthcare option. Why can't we just make Medicare an insurance option?

This might be too politically charged, but I really don't have an answer to this one.

[Assistant] Because many people in the US don't think it's fair for the insurance companies to have to compete with a government funded option that can offer insurance at very low rates.  It would cause the insurance companies to lower their rates to compete and thus lose revenue and force them to lay off employees.  As it stands, people under 65 who don't have chronic conditions don't have access to Medicare, so insurance companies don't have to worry about their much lower rates.  Any government "public option" is shot down on these grounds.


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

[User] ELI5: why do dogs die when they eat chocolate?

[Assistant] Chocolate contains a chemical in it called "theobromine." This chemical is also toxic to humans and has many of the same effects as caffeine, but we require a much larger amount to start to feel the effects due to (1) our size, and (2) we are able to process theobromine into something harmless faster.


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

[User]
[Star Wars] What if the Jedi Council chose to kill Anakin?

Say, they all discuss and look far into the future and foresee the end of the Jedi and just choose to kill Anakin while they still could. They don't tell Qui-Gon or anyone and call Anakin back alone and ignite their lightsabers; what would happen?

[Assistant]
Well normally Jedi wouldn't do it.

But if you insist on this scenario, then naturally Anakin would die. He's a goddamn nine year old. What can he do? Hell, in KOTOR comics, a Taris jedi council once went collectively mad on this very premise and killed the fuck out of all their padawans, and it wasn't discovered until Zayne blew the lid on this. If Jedi Masters set their mind on slaying someone, usually they can do it.


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

[User]
ELI5:What would really happen if bees went extinct?

This was a topic that was brought up in class a girl in class said "Everything in the world would die". I don't think this is true but would like a better explanation. Thanks!

[Assistant] I think they're major pollenators for almost 90% of our grown food.  Without them things don't grow.  We could find another way but it would be costly, not to mention all the other plants that would die besides human food resources.  Anything like lumber and cotton would become exponentially more expensive too.


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

[User] ELI5: What is the significance of Prime Numbers?

[Assistant] Mathematically speaking, you can define all other numbers purely by multiplying prime numbers. So we don't actually need any non-prime numbers, as we could simply define 4 for example as 2x2. Or 99 as 3x3x11. Obviously this would make daily life a lot harder, hence the other numbers having their own names and symbols.


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

[User]
ELI5: Can someone explain what wind is?

Where does it come from, what is it?

[Assistant] Some parts of the Earth's surface are hotter than others. The air above these bits rises, because it's hotter than cold air. This leaves a gap under the rising air, and something has to fill it, so colder air gets sucked into the gap. This happens on a *huge* scale, and is fundamentally how wind works.


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

[User]
If you dissolve a compressed spring in an acid where does the energy go?

You don't allow the spring to naturally go back to its normal, uncompressed, position (dissolving/disintegrating it before that point). The conservation of energy holds, so how/where does the energy go?

[Assistant]
The energy is converted to heat.

Many people are stymied by this question because they assume that it's possible to hold a spring in one position while it is entirely dissolved away.  This won't happen.

As the spring is slowly dissolved away, it won't be as well contained by whatever mechanism was once holding it in a compressed state.  As this occurs, areas of the spring will relax.  By the time all of it is oxidized, all stress will have been released. The spring will pop or jostle as material is removed, and the energy contained is released as kinetic energy (motion) which is then converted to heat.

But what if you keep compressing it so it can't move?  Well, you can't.  Even if you had a clamp and kept tightening it down to keep the spring "motionless", the atoms that make up the crystal structure of the spring are still able to move.  When the spring is compressed, energy is stored in the bonds between each atom in the crystal structure.  As each of those atoms are oxidized and removed from the structure, the bonds around it relax - this relaxation is the release of energy as motion or heat (the two terms are basically interchangeable at the atomic scale.)

TL:DR, the energy goes to motion/heat.  It doesn't happen all at once, but gradually as the metal is oxidized away.


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

[User]
[The Matrix] Cypher betrays the humans because he misses the higher standard of living in The Matrix. Can't he get those same things in one of their "training" programs?"

Cypher says that he's "tired of being cold, tired of eating the same goddam goop everyday." So he wants to have his memory wiped and be plugged back into The Matrix.

But we know they have access to other virtual realities besides The Matrix. If Cypher misses steak so much, can't they just make a restaurant program to use for "shore leave," basically? We know humans sometimes use the programs for recreation, it's implied Mouse has had sex with the Woman In the Red Dress.

[Assistant]
He doesn't just miss the little qualities of life that humanity had, he misses not knowing any different.

As he said, the code is telling him it's a nice juicy steak, but he knows in his heart of hearts that it's anything but.

Ignorance is bliss. Even "shore leave" is tainted by knowing it isn't real and knowing what you're going back to when it's over.


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

[User]
ELI5: why in 2016 do cell phone cameras still have a better quality one on the back and a lower quality one facing you? would it really up the cost of the phone to just put 2 good cameras in it?

I realize you don't necessarily need 12MP to take pictures of yourself, but it seems like it would just be easier to slap 2 of the same camera in there.

[Assistant] The front facing camera has to fit between the edge of the screen and the edge of the phone, and people like having the screen as large as possible, which means that the front facing camera has to be really small, and it's hard to make good small cameras.  The one on the back is behind the screen and can be as wide as they want.


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

[User]
ELI5: How come it is easier to carry a person weighing 150 lbs opposed to carrying a tank that is 150 lb of water?

The human body is 70% water, and yet it's a lot easier to lift. Why is this?

[Assistant] unless the person is dead, their natural need to balance themselves will help you carry the weight, and even though we are 70% water, the only slosh effect we get is the fluid in our stomach, bladder, intestines which is minuscule compared to a hollow tank full of sloshing water that is made more difficult to carry due to imbalance.


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

[User]
What is Critical Theory? What are critical theories?

Definition? Requirements? Are philosophers who call themselves "critical theorists" actually ideologues in disguise?

Also, other than the SEP and IEP, what would be some good resources for getting a very intimate understanding of Critical Theory/critical theories? Books? Talks? Specific individuals?

I suspect answers from people with critical theory and political philosophy flairs would be especially helpful. :)

[Assistant]
Critical theory typically refers to the work of thinkers who identify with neo-Marxist thought. In general, this work is devoted to explaining Marx's great failure: the predicted communist revolution that wasn't. Much of critical theory is devoted to explaining the nature and impact of ideological hegemony--the mechanisms of power and control the keep wage workers happy with the current system.

Contemporary critical theory often allies itself with feminist, post-colonial, and other emancipatory approaches to philosophy.

Critical theorists might be described as ideologies, but they are certainly not "in disguise." A central tenet of most critical theory is the idea that every philosophy has an agenda. If that's true, then critical theorists are more honest with their readers (and with themselves) in making that agenda apparent.

Slog through Althusser's Ideology and the State for a good taste of classical critical theory. Watch The Matrix movies for a somewhat accurate gloss of Beaudirillard. Watch Fox News for critical theory in action. Ironically, Fox News is probably one of the most successful and widely known ideology critics available.


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

[User] ELI5: What makes developing for Xbox and PlayStation so different from PCs. Aren't they also just computers?

[Assistant]
* Console pick a resolution and stick with it. If the target is 720p, the game will render at 1280x720 and upscale to 1920x1080 or downscale to 852x480. Games that have been scaled look like crap; PC gamers *demand* that games render at the native resolution of their monitor. Any game that doesn't is (properly) derided as crap. If there is only one resolution to render at, the designers can make a huge number of assumptions that greatly simplify development.
* Every user of a console game uses the same controller. The people that *don't* use that controller use a controller that emulates the normal controller. On the other hand, PC gamers not only demand that games work with whatever bizarre keyboard or speed pad or keypad or joystick they own, but they demand that the game allows buttons to be remapped to suit their similarly bizarre purposes. Ask 100 different WoW players what buttons do what and you'll get 150 different responses.
* Every console has the same CPU, the same video card, the same amount of RAM, the same storage medium, and none of them have any processes running in the background. If a game encounters a slowdown in a certain situation, the game will *always* slow down there on every single console owned by every single user every single time. You can then optimize that section or cut detail in that section. On the other hand, some PCs are CPU limited, some PCs are GPU limited, some PCs are memory bandwidth limited, some PCs are memory quantity limited, some PCs have more or less disk space or disk speed, some PCs have resident programs (malware, malware scanners, a browser that was left open with a flash animation running, crappy OEM software like picture organizers that are always running, the hideous monstrosity that is HP's printer suite) that sop up any given resource, and you typically can't predict the slow parts. You'll need to expose every detail setting to the user to enable them to configure it, and then you'll need to know when the user is a fucking moron and override some of their settings if you need to.
* Video cards from ATI and nVidia behave much differently. There are differences between each generation of video cards, sometimes drastic ones. You need a few different rendering paths, and need to pick the right one depending on what hardware is available. Consoles do not have this problem. Other devices can have similar problems (sound cards might perform certain functions slowly or at the use of a lot of CPU) and in all cases you need to be more tolerant of whacky inputs.
* PC gamers are, to varying degrees, tolerant of bugs at launch, console gamers are not. Console gamers are more tolerant of minor bugs that persist, PC gamers do not tolerate bugs that are not eventually fixed.


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

[User]
Where does helium go?

We know that helium rises because it is lighter than most of the atmosphere. However, it should still be held around the earth due to gravity. So, is there a region of the atmosphere that is mostly helium or has a greater concentration of it, or does something else happen to it once it reaches higher altitudes?

[Assistant]
Helium is so light and inert that it is eventually blown away by solar wind, earths gravity isnt enough to hold it. The only reason we still have it on earth is because its generated through radioactive decay and can be trapped underground along with natural gas.

Ultimately it ends up dispersed in space, where it is the second most abundant element after hydrogen.


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

[User]
Light doesn't have any matter, yet it can be bent by gravity...I don't get that :-/ Can someone explain it please?!

What the title says...It doesn't make sense to me:-/

[Assistant] As Einstein showed us with general relativity, gravity is curved geometry. The presence of matter/energy results curves spacetime. Particles (both massive, and then massless) then follow the shortest paths in this curved spacetime, which results in what we think of as gravity.


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

[User]
CMV: A Person Dying Should Not Exempt Them from Negative Opinion

This view has largely been sparked by the passing of xxxTentacion and has caused much controversy in my area.  The idea that "speaking ill of the dead" is wrong and abhorrent seems like an aged and counterproductive concept.  Why should someone, notably those of questionable character and impact, be suddenly free of all criticism simply because they are now dead?  I obviously understand the social implications of speaking ill of, say, someone's deceased son.  However, if that son were a character of questionable morality (criminal, warped views, etc) then perhaps I could see reason in doing so.  This taboo is certainly a sensitive subject but should find no place in constructive dialogue.

I hope I have made my view clear.

Edit:  Many different posts have all found a typical agreement that I can get behind: there should be a period of time, however long it may be, where the dead should be allowed time for family and friends can reflect and the world can reflect on the loss.  I still firmly believe the dead should not be exempt from negative opinion, but having that peace time feels important too.

[Assistant]
There are times to speak.  And there are times to refrain from speaking.

The hours and days after a person has died are a time for silent reflection on the life of the person who has died, on world we are left with that has a human sized gap in it, and on our own mortality.

To quickly fill that silence with chatter and opinions robs us and those around us with that opportunity for reflection.


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

[User] How do TV ratings work?

[Assistant]
Nielsen is the main company that publishes TV ratings.  They recruit people to volunteer to have their TV viewing habits monitored, and in exchange, Nielsen pays them.

TV monitoring happens a few different ways.  The low-tech method is a "TV journal" where everybody in the household writes down what they are watching and when (coincidentally this is still how radio ratings are done).  Most ratings are now recorded by more advanced systems.  Usually there is a box that attaches to each TV with a series of buttons corresponding to each person who lives in the house.  Whenever a person is watching TV, they press their button.  This gives a much more accurate sample of what people are actually watching.

Nowadays, live + 7 is the normal standard for ratings.  This means that everyone who watches a show live or who DVRs the show and watches it within 7 days counts in the ratings.  The day to day ratings are somewhat meaningless (just channels competing with each other for bragging rights).

Ratings become very important in selling ads, though.  This is done mostly through the upfront sell which happens in April/May.  The ratings during "sweeps" season, when shows pull out all the stops to entice people to watch, are very important, but average viewership, demographics of viewers, etc. is also important.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do physicists believe nothing can go faster than the speed of light?

It's like a staple law in physics, it seems. But why don't they believe anything can go faster than it? (And please, PLEASE explain as if I'm five...)

[Assistant]
That's not quite accurate.  The equations allow for things that move faster than light, but there's no evidence they exist.  What they **don't** allow is for something with mass to be accelerated to the speed of light.  As something moves faster and faster, more energy is required to continue to accelerate.  For anything with mass to actually reach the speed of light, literally infinite energy is required.

For obvious reasons, you can't ever pump infinite energy into something :)


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

[User]
[Star Wars] Would a Sith ever do something that doesn't benefit him personally but the Sith order or community as a whole?

I think the general idea is that Sith are selfish. So is there any bond among them beyond how it benefits them?

[Assistant]
Think of it like a Jedi in reverse. The sith are still human (or whatnot) and try to stick to their principles, but human urges infringe. True dedication to selfishness would actually be fairly hard for humans unless they are sociopaths.

A Jedi might commit a minor sin of selfishness from time to time, but strives to rise above it. A sith might give in to compassion or moral qualms, but strives to sink below them.


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

[User] ELI5: Why are children and sounds of children so creepy in horror movies?

[Assistant] We often think of children as sweet, innocent, and carefree. In horror movies, children are often tainted by evil. The child's laughter, when corrupted or used by an evil demon or other villain, twists what we're used to, which makes it creepy.


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

[User] Why doesnt the LHC use an extra electric field to curve its beams instead of relying on magnets and the Lorentz force? Wouldnt it be possible to have another electric field coming from the sides?

[Assistant]
Magnetic fields are more convenient for bending/focusing elements at high beam velocities than electrostatic devices. Electrostatic methods are used for very low-velocity beams (typical v/c ~ 0.05 or less). After the pre-acceleration is done and the beam has been injected into some larger accelerator, magnetic methods are used instead.

Additionally, electric fields will not just bend and focus, but also change the energy of the beam particles. Magnetic fields don't do this (neglecting synchrotron radiation, which is currently only relevant for electron beams). This complicates the dynamics. In a synchrotron, you want the energy increases to occur in the RF cavities, not also in the bending/focusing elements. And in a storage ring, you just don't want the energy to change at all.


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

[User] [SUPERMAN] Is there any real canon as to why Clark was sent to Earth?

[Assistant]
Well the most basic answer is because Krypton was about to die, so he had to send Kal El somewhere.

As for why Earth? Well that is a bit tricky because there are many answers depending on which universe we are talking about, but what we do k ow is that Jor El at least knew about Earth and that the people there were similar enough physically for Kal El to fit in.


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

[User]
ELI5:  Why hasn't free, plentiful, sunlight become a part of solving our energy problems?

Why don't houses and businesses have solar panel roofs generating and adding electricity to the grid?  Why don't electric cars have roofs/hoods made from material to gather electricity and charge batteries?  Is the prohibiting reason(s) insurmountable?  Is our government(s) investing in finding solutions why?

[Assistant]
Making solar panels takes energy. That energy costs *x*. The solar panel makes the owner *y* per year. If *y* << *x*, then there's no incentive to install solar panels, because they'll effectively cost you money overall unless you stay in the same place with no faults for several years. At the moment, *y* tends to be sufficiently small and *x* sufficiently large that the incentive is low.

This also holds for, for instance, your electric car idea. Good solar panels are expensive, as are batteries if you have an application where you have to store the energy for any length of time.

So overall, in the simplest case, solar panels are only viable if you envisage owning them with no problems/faults for a significant amount of time. This amount of time is decreasing as technology improves, and the cost may be further lowered by government incentives etc., but unfortunately solar panels do not automatically make you money yet.

Looking to the future, there is a lot of research into solar panel technology, and they are rapidly getting both better and cheaper. It's hard to say what the field will look like in a few years, but they may well be much more common as you suggest.


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

[User]
When exactly can we say a tree has 'died'?

Even when you chop a tree down it still has a root system, and in some species that root system can support multiple genetic copies of a given 'original' tree. When can the organism that grows into a tree be called 'dead'? If you cut apart the roots between two tree copies have you made two seperate organisms?

[Assistant] The key part of this question is "what is an individual organism?"  And the truth is that while the idea of individuals works pretty well for things like mammals, which in fact not dividable, for things like clonal trees or coral or whatever the whole idea doesn't quite fit.    So it's better to think about genets and ramets.  A genet is all the genetically identical organisms.  If you've got a tree that spreads by root systems (like Pando, for instance), the whole interconnected whole is a genet, while the individual trunks are ramets.  Colloquially, "tree" usually refers to a ramet, not a genet, so usually you'd say a tree has died if a particular ramet has died (IE, you've got a dead trunk and a bunch of dead leaves on it).


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

[User]
[Game of Thrones] Arya gets the brilliant idea of asking Jaqen to kill the Night King. Would he be able to do it?

Assuming that the price isn't an issue. Would this work?

[Assistant] A girl blasphemes. We are servants of the Many Faced God. When a girl looks upon the multitudes marching from the North, what is it she thinks she is seeing? From those thousand thousand faces, the same eyes stare back at the girl. Whose eyes does a girl think they are?


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

[User] [Batman] Does Wayne Enterprises even "feel" the cost of Bruce funding Batman?

[Assistant]
Yes, in the sense that the CEO is effectively embezzling millions of dollars every year. But he's not always just getting custom stuff built only for himself.

See a lot of the technology that gets funneled to Batman's purposes is just overbuilt of weapons and equipment that Wayne Enterprises makes available to its customers.

For example, WE mocks up a prototype of what sort of thing could be done if money was no object. They put all of the bells and whistles on it, and include every possible option.

Then their customers say "That's great, but we're trying to order 20,000 vehicles for the military and we can't spend that much per unit. Cut the price in half."

So WE strips out some of the stuff, redesigns things to make it cheaper to produce, and so on. That way they can hit the price point that they need to get under.

But the prototype doesn't just go into storage, and doesn't get used as an example for the production department, and it doesn't go on tour as an example for other customers, and doesn't get stripped and re-used.

Instead it gets a fancy paint job, they put some fins and shit on it, and Batman takes it for himself.

Don't get me wrong, some of it is built expressly for Batman's use. But he's rarely going beyond "state of the art" ... he's using components that are already built, even if they're not being made available yet.


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

[User]
[MCU] Are all Asgardians as strong as the royal family or are they mutants?

Rewatching Ragnorak, the hammer is supposed to control the power. But is Thor unique? Could another Asgardian throw around lightning? Are they all that ridiculously powerful?

[Assistant] In mcu it's hard to say why exactly, but in comics Thor is explicitly exceptionally powerful by asgardian standards, by virtue of being son of Odin And Gaia, the Elder God. In mcu it seems that all common asgardians are at very least super strong and nearly invulnerable to mundane human weapons, but it's likely that royal family has ancient magics flow through them, like Hela was said to draw power from Asgard , or Odin having Odinforce.


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

[User]
[Back to the Future] Who actually created Johnny B. Goode?

Marty goes back and plays it, having learned it from Chuck Berry. But...Marvin, Chuck's cousin, heard it and let Chuck listen to the "new sound."

[Assistant]
Think of it this way. Chuck didn't hear the whole song, and what he did hear probably wasn't too high quality, coming through the phone and all.

So, Marty played the song, Chuck heard part of it, and that small part inspired him to write the full song, which Marty went on to play.


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

[User]
[Harry Potter] Tons of questions about aiming spells.

0. Do you always have to wave your wand in order to cast a spell?
0. If so, how are you supposed to aim your spell while your wand is moving around?
0. Why aren't wands made to be more like guns? With sights on the top and a handle that's nearly perpendicular to the "business end". As a wand is right now it's impossible to look down the barrel to see where you're aiming since you'd need to turn your wrist in a very awkward angle.
0. Under ideal circumstances, how accurate are spells? Do they shoot perfectly straight forever?
0. How small of a target can the average wizard hit accurately?
0. Are there wizarding snipers? Or wizards who are trained to shoot spells from long distances with extreme accuracy?

[Assistant]
1. No wandless magic is a thing.  It just helps.
2. Depends on the spell.  Usually the last bit of movement as the spell is coming out.  Many just require you to think of the target.
3. The wand is a conduit, and it being the shape that it is is conducive to that purpose.  Aiming is also partially mental so a gun shape and sight wouldn't help much.
4. Again depends on the spell.  Avada Kedevra keeps going forever until it hits something, most spells will dissipate after some distance.
5. Human sized.  Since most spells don't matter where precisely they hit on the body, most wizards don't bother trying to get more accurate.  Spells meant for particular purposes have some manner of seeking to them.
6. The ministry has not cleared you for this knowledge.


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

[User] Until the discussion about SARS-CoV-2, I had no idea you could be infected by a virus and yet have no symptoms. Is it possible that there are many other viruses I've been infected by without ever knowing?

[Assistant] Yes. Just for example HPV and Herpes strains can be carried and transmitted for many years while someone is showing no symptoms, and thats just STIs. Nearly every virus has examples of carriers who dont know they get it and may further transmit.


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

[User]
[Marvel] Captain America has remained in fighting condition after being thrown into brick walls hard enough to break them. Isn't he at least bullet resistant?

It seems like he ought to be at least tough enough that a handgun at most bruises him. Rifles could be deadly maybe, but not your standard 9mm.

[Assistant]
Compare being punched really hard vs being lightly stabbed for the issue here.  Biological things are much better at resisting blunt injuries then piercing injuries- it's much harder to burst an organ by hitting it then by stabbing it.

Cap is better at dealing with bullets then a normal person- in the same way a 7ft wall of muscle is better at dealing with them then a 5 ft scrawny person, his body's more resilient-  but he's not bulletproof. Ultimately, peak human skin is no more bulletproof then normal human skin.


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

[User]
ELI5: Why do men have more blood than women of a similar size?

I had donated blood recently and was curious as to how much blood my body has. So I googled a blood volume calculator for a rough estimate and noticed that a man of my weight and height would have slightly more blood than me according to the calculator.

Edit: This got way more attention than I thought it would. And I want to thank everyone for their comments, they are very informative.

[Assistant]
1 - blood is inversely proportional to body fat percentage. And on average females have more fat then males at the same weight and height
2 - menstruation causes women to lose some blood, that needs to be replaced
3 - it has been shown that higher levels of  testosterone causes more blood production. (And faster clotting times)


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

[User] [Blade Runner] If replicants are bar-coded and otherwise manufactured, why do you need the Voight-Kampff test to identify them?

[Assistant] A mark can always be removed, or covered up. However, a real Replicant can't, or at least, shouldnt be able to pass a VK test. Also, the VK test is just as much for telling who ISN'T a Replicant as it is for telling who is. It's really the only way to distinguish us from them, other than longevity.


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

[User] ELI5: What exactly does the refugee bill Obama plans on vetoing say/claim to do?

[Assistant] H.R. 4038 states that the FBI, DHS, and Director of National Intelligence all need to certify that an individual refugee from Iraq and Syria pose no security risk to the U.S. unanimously. Further, they must certify that they have enough information to make such a determination. These certifications must be reported to Congress on a monthly basis. The Inspector General of DHS must conduct a review of all certifications made and report to Congress each year. ~~This acts as a back stop to ensure the vetting process is working properly.~~


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

[User]
[TMNT] Why would Master Splinter give Mikey the most complicated weapon?

Why the hell did he give him nunchucks?

[Assistant]
Michelangelo is canonically the most talented of the Turtles; he has more raw aptitude for ninjutsu than anyone else, and if he was disciplined, he would have been their leader.

But he *isn't* disciplined. He half-asses everything he does, and treats everything as a joke.

The nunchucks might be Michelangelo showing off, or they might have been a way for Splinter to prove to Michelangelo that he had untapped potential.