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ELI5: How was it decided that people became "adults" when they turned 18? Why is that age significant?
| 2,751 |
In the Middle Ages 21 was considered the age of adulthood because that’s when young men were capable of wearing a full suit of armor. 21 stuck until the 20th century. The need for soldiers for WWII, Korea, and Vietnam wars saw 18 years olds drafted and an outcry that they could serve their country but not vote. This led to passage of the 26th amendment lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 in 1971.
Source: Children and the Law class in law school and accompanying casebook
| 3,679 |
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ELI5: Why do Most Heisman trophy winners not do well in the NFL?
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Is it just a lot of hype for the players who then can't handle it? Or something more?
| 2,127 |
Quarterbacks at the college level deal with a whole different type of defense and game then the NFL. That's why a lot of those quarterbacks who can scramble for big games in college turn out to be a bust. Players in the NFL are too quick and the defenses are too much for a scrambling quarterback to do very well, especially right after college.
| 1,466 |
ELI5: When measuring the blood pressure nurses often say numbers like"120 on 80". What exactly do those numbers mean and why do you die when they coincide?
| 58 |
The first number is the systolic pressure (when the heart is actively pumping), and the second number is diastolic (when the heart is resting).
120 over 80 is the a borderline healthy measurement on the high side.
High blood pressure is bad because it puts an undue strain on your heart, and comparing systolic and diastolic numbers can help determine exactly what the problem is.
| 39 |
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I rinse my fruit and veggies and pat them dry. are they really clean or is this just theatre?
| 223 |
Rinsing fresh fruits and vegetables is a good idea for getting rid of dirt. I'll let others handle the discussion of how it likely doesn't remove pesticides. Just make sure not to rinse them ahead of time--only just before eating. Many leafy plants wilt from getting wet after they've been picked.
| 63 |
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ELI5: How are graphics still improving on consoles that dated hardware compared to gaming PCs?
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Just looking at GTA V stuff and this came up. You would think with hardware that is 8 years old that things would have plateaued a while ago. What is going on? Are things becoming more efficient than I thought, hence the improvements?
Edit: Forgot to put "have" in the title, sorry!
| 20 |
Its pretty simple really. Think about legos. When you first start playing with them you can build some stuff, a car, maybe a house. After three years of using legos youve gotten pretty good. You can build the big sets no problem, your still following patterns and diagrams but your improving alot. After six years of playing with legos, your the master now ; capable of building complex pieces just using your imagination and some creative uses of novelty pieces you can build whatever you damn well please.
| 18 |
[Star Wars] Could a Jedi survive until the end of the Empire by hiding in the lower levels of Coruscant?
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I know some might say they would be right under Palpatine's nose, but it still seems like a much better place to hide than on some distant planet. The distance between each planet isn't such a big deal for Vader and the Empire considering Hyperdrives are a thing. If Vader finds out a Jedi is hiding on a far away planet it wouldn't be that hard for him to fly over with some troops and have the search around.
On Coruscant this would be impossible. The place is made up of thousands of layers and each one covers the entire planet. I can't imagine its layout is easy to navigate, and the Empire wouldn't be able to rely on hyperdrives to cover great distances. Much of it probably isn't traversable by vehicle at all.
The manpower that would be needed to search for a single Jedi in such a labyrinth would be unimaginable. And this is all assuming the Empire knows that a Jedi is hiding there. If the Jedi were to keep a low-profile then it would be that much more difficult for the Empire to find them.
| 122 |
Highly unlikely. The empire heavily leveraged gangs as an unofficial branch of the imperial military. They funded and ignored syndicates willing to work with imperial space for a small tithe to weed out more disruptive gangs. A jedi bounty is worth too much for a gang seeking imperial favor to ignore. Every syndicate would be looking high and low on coruscant for Jedi refugees so it's unlikely a jedi could survive for long in the lower levels without exposing themselves or using the force or light saber training they knew.
And in legends the emperor ordered a sweep of the lower levels following an attack on the surface by gangs following the crash of grievous' capital ship. Thousands of clone troopers and coruscant police went level by level nearly 200 levels down to find hostages and punish any criminals found. A Jedi wouldn't be able to find safe haven in those levels after that. Further down it's even more dangerous just to be there without a syndicate protecting you or a ruthless reputation proceeding you.
| 88 |
Saturns rings - are they "temporary"?
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I recently read "Bang!: The Complete History of the Universe" by May, Moore, Lintott and there was a casual mention that humanity is lucky to be around to see Saturn's rings. They implied that the rings had "recently" (astronomically speaking) formed or will "soon" dissipate. They mention something about the rings being inherently unstable. I haven't been able to find any other references to this concept. Is this true?
| 33 |
Yes, even in space there are solar winds, as well as frictional, tidal and gravitational forces acting on the rings that will continue disturb and little by little, will ultimately destroy the orbits of the particles composing the rings.
Note: Even Earth had rings for a good long time after the formation of the moon... but with our moon being a relatively large body, and the Earth being a relatively small planet, and all of it being so close to the sun, the particulates were rapidly swallowed by the moon, the Earth, or just swept out into space. Saturn is in a much more ring-friendly situation, but they will dissipate as well.
| 15 |
ELI5: Why if I sleep with the fan on I wake up with a sore throat?
| 21 |
I think its because you keep air circulating that it will become dry, as a result when you breathe in it will dry out your throat, making it sore in the mornings, take a glass of water to bed with you for just before you fall asleep and as you wake up, it will make a difference, alternatively turn the fan off and sleep with fewer sheets.
| 10 |
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CMV: I am not being unethical by not cutting down my personal CO2 emissions.
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I believe that climate change is a big threat to future generations and that the world needs to reduce its CO2 emissions, by yesterday.
But in my personal life, I continue to go on intercontinental flights, I continue to drive a big car and live in a big house with patio heaters in the garden. Why don't I scale down on those things? Because it wouldn't make a difference. Even if I were to live like a monk, not a single additional gram of carbon would stay in the ground.
Before you say "but if everyone acted like that...", consider the nature of the global free market economy. The latent demand for energy is almost limitless. What is limited is the global supply. Who ultimately determines how much CO2 ends up in the atmosphere are not the consumers but the producers.
Thought experiment: What would happen if 200 million people in a rich country like America were to refrain from flying because of their concern for the environment? The oil price would drop temporarily, the price of plane tickets would drop, and the remaining 100 million (who are not concerned about CO2) would say "thank you, suckers" and buy bigger cars, take more flights, etc. Soon, oil consumption would go back to previous levels. The only thing that would change is how the energy pie is distributed.
Even if we could persuade 95% of the world population to reduce their personal energy consumption, there will always be millions of people, somewhere in the world, who simply don't give a shit. They would all own personal 747 if they could afford it.
What do we learn from this? That CO2 emissions can *only* be tackled on the supply side. There are two realistic ways of achieving this. Government intervention (taxes, regulations) and investment in alternative energies.
I am a consequentialist. Since me *individually* conserving energy will not significantly alter the global outcome, I don't consider it unethical to "waste" energy.
What I can and should do as an individual is to vote for political parties who impose carbon taxes and invest some my savings in renewable energy startups. Those actions are of real consequence, and am an not being a hypocrite for going on a beach holiday in Bali (though I will not lament when I can no longer afford it).
| 28 |
Your argument implies that supply is completely independent of demand. If 95% per cent of the population stopped using oil products, the price of oil would drop significantly, and there would be less incentive for companies to continue searching and extracting more oil.
| 14 |
Why can't I weigh the earth by putting a scale upside-down?
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PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE ANSWERING
This is a theoretical question about gravity not just a stupid question to be funny. Gravity pulls two objects with mass together. The force of gravity is equal to a mass of the object multiplied by an acceleration of a body (in this case, the acceleration of gravity). Both earth and the scale experience the same gravity acceleration because they are both on earth. The force of the scale on the earth should be it's mass multiplied by the acceleration. Conversely, the force the earth exerts on the scale should be it's mass multiplied by gravity acceleration.
But Newtons second law states there are equal and opposite forces so the force the scale exerts on the earth should be equal to the force exerted by the earth on the scale. It seems that this case is true because the scale doesn't rocket off into space when you turn it upside down but stays in place.
So is force really mass x acceleration? Where is this discontinuity coming from?
EDIT: I hate edit chains so I will keep this short. Thanks for all the answers guys!
EDIT 2: Well this blew up
EDIT 3: Wow front page thanks guys!
EDIT 4: RIP inbox hahhaha
EDIT 5: Thank you so much for replying I read **all** the answers and every post in this thread
EDIT 6: Wow its my top post of all time thanks guys!
EDIT 7: Alright this has been great but I have to go now
EDIT 8: Ok I'm back again
EDIT 9: Brb going to the bathroom
EDIT 10: Back again
EDIT 11: My cat just sneezed
EDIT 12: I'm going to bed now, good night guys!
EDIT 13: I'm up again, couldn't sleep
EDIT 14: Ok now I am really going to bed
| 3,437 |
This is a brilliant question because in some sense you *are* measuring the earth's mass.
By Newton's third law, the force exerted on the scale by the earth is the same as the force exerted on the earth by the scale - you know, the 'equal and opposite reaction' law.
In this case that force is the force of gravity. The force between two objects of masses *M* and *m* separated by a distance R is equal to
F = G M m / R^2
The key point is that scale just happens to be calibrated to measure the mass for an object experiencing earth surface gravitational acceleration - i.e. it assumes *GM/R^2* is a constant value (which is equal to g=9.81 m/s^(2)), and then returns the value for *m* that when scaled by this constant is equal to the force the scale measures.
If you had a scale of a known mass and you turned it upside down you could then calculate the value of this constant - *GM/R^(2).* Then, with known values of *G* and *R*, you could calibrate your scale to measure the mass of the earth rather than the mass of the scale :D
----------------
And to clarify an important point - the earth and the scale don't experience the same accelerations. Use Newton's second law:
m a_1 = G M m / R^2
and find the acceleration of the scale is
a_1 = GM/R^2
Conversely, the force of the earth is
M a_2 = G M m / R^2
So the acceleration of the earth is
a_2 = G m / R^2
Since M is the mass of the earth and m is the mass of the scale, a_2 is much much much smaller than a_1.
| 4,014 |
How or why do babies know how to start breathing once they are born, yet they can live inside a fetus and breath no liquid in?
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Does this mean, if some how we could oxygenate our blood and rid our selves of carbon dioxide via a machine. we could stop breathing?
| 36 |
When babies are inside the womb, oxygen is provided via maternal circulation. The mother breaths in and oxygenates her blood, and some of that blood is shunted towards the placenta, where gas exchange can occur with the fetal circulation. Fetuses have a different type of hemoglobin (the oxygen carrying molecule in red blood cells), that bind oxygen tighter than adult hemoglobin, which allows this exchange of gases from one circulation to the other. The fetal circulation avoids circulating blood to the lungs by shunting blood from the right side of heart (pulmonary circulation) to the left side of the heart (systemic circulation)
When babies are born, there is a tremendous amount of stress, and babies will often cry. This influx of air changes the pressure inside the lungs, and it will inflate the lungs. Also, over time, those shunting mechanisms will close or atrophy, allowing normal right sided-->pulmonary, and left sided-->systemic circulation. This all occurs gradually over a matter of days to weeks as the baby will begin relying on its own circulation.
Yes, technically, if we can oxygenate ourselves via circulation and rid CO2 some other way, we can not breath through our lungs. But this isn't very practical. Having an IV access would be open access from the circulation to the outside world (increased risk for infection), and having a machine to remove our CO2 sounds a little silly, when our body is doing a damn good job!
Patients who often cannot breath on their own either because of disease or trauma are often mechanically ventilated, but it usually just assisting the ventilation-perfusion mechanism that we already have.
| 11 |
[Star Wars] In what ways did the Empire do nothing wrong?
| 43 |
It provide peace, prosperity, and order to the Core Regions of the Galaxy. Petitions for the betterment for the citizens of the Empire are no longer hampered by bureaucracy and corrupt senators.
Military-wise, the Stormtrooper Corps and the Naval Corps are both meritocracy instead of relying on political connections and being a warrior monk of a debunked and fraudulent religion.
| 35 |
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CMV: Nature isn’t just wild plants and the animals that roam the wilderness. Humans are a part of it too. Even our modern cities and technological advancements are “natural”
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This very interesting discussion came up in an environmental anthropology class that I recently took. It’s something I never thought of and this idea started to change my idea of what we consider the “natural” world. After all...
Humans aren’t separate from nature. We are a part of it just like any other biological organism. We have made massive technological advances but we and everything we do is natural. Nature allowed for us to make said advancements and everything traces back to it.
The modern cities we live in are just as natural as the small settlements our ancestors made out of wood, for example. A modified stone tool is just as natural as the smart phone I’m using to type this.
| 583 |
The things made by mankind are, by definition, not natural.
> existing in or caused by nature; **not made or caused by humankind.**
Regardless of the fact that humans arose from nature, having a word that differentiates between the things humans have made and the things humans have not is useful in a variety of contexts.
| 181 |
ELI5: how do watchmakers ensure that the second hand moves at the correct speed of exactly one second per tick?
| 460 |
Digital watches uses a crystal that vibrates a specific number of times a second. Mechanical watches use a balance wheel which is basically a wheel attached to a spring. The springs strength is calibrated so the wheel winds the spring in 1 second with the energy given to the wheel
| 111 |
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ELI5: When memorizing people are told to memorize in chunks (7 chunks is what I always heard as a kid) because information outside those chunks are harder to recall. If so, why is it easy for most people to memorize complete songs?
| 198 |
Couple of reasons:
- You memorize the song in chunks too. You memorize a verse or a chorus (or even just a line in the verse/chorus) then you memorize the next one.
- Tying it to music helps **a lot**. Our brain is much better at remembering if you can tie information to other senses or sensations.
| 213 |
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ELI5: Is Google licensing its Fiber Optics?
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I just noticed today that AT&T is also offering gigabyte internet. Coincidentally they are offering in the same cities as Google Fiber.
First I thought Google was licensing, then I thought that would be introducing their own competitions to the cities. So who owns the Fiber Optics in those cities?
| 32 |
Google isn't licensing their fiber optics. What's happening is that Google is succeeding in their goal to force ISPs to step up their game. Google believes fast, affordable internet should be available to everyone. The current market is happy for a single ISP to have a monopoly over each area. Google is breaking that pattern by building their own fiber optic network, offering blistering speeds for a relatively low price. This is spurring the competition to make changes to stay competitive, so companies like AT&T are building their own fiber optic networks to compete with Google's.
| 18 |
[LOTR] Why wouldnt Strider tell the hobbits about Gilgalad and Elendil while on their way to Weathertop?
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He says that he doesnt think it should be told with enemies so nearby, but gives no reason for it.
| 43 |
Middle earth is very superstitious when it comes to the Enemy. The story of The Last Alliance can't be properly told without mentioning Sauron, and with the Nazgul so close, and the Ring right there, Aragorn probably believes that dark magic would happen, leading the Wraiths right to them.
| 49 |
If China is keeping its currency artificially low, how does it avoid inflation from printing more money?
| 51 |
The Chinese government pegs its currency in order to control its money supply. The Chinese government decides upon an exchange rate and purchases foreign reserves through a process called sterilization in order to maintain the predetermined exchange rate. Sterilization is carried out by the Chinese central bank by exchanging US dollars for Yuan and then purchasing back the newly distributed Yuan through selling Chinese government bonds. Government bonds do not create inflation, while Yuan in circulation do. This is a technique that China has used for several years to ensure a stable currency. This process is used by several other countries, including Switzerland, Hong Kong and Tawain.
| 38 |
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Is the effect of electric field extending to infinity like the gravitational field? If no, to what distance do they extend?
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I might be terribly wrong but I just thought of this based on Coulomb's Law. The r or radius/distance in the equation could be replaced by any large number and the electric force would still not be zero albeit so low that it's negligible.
| 88 |
Yes, in theory the electric field has unlimited range. However, there's a fundamental difference between the electric field and the gravitational field and that is the presence of two opposite charge polarities and the mechanism of "screening" that is a result of this.
When it comes to gravity, the "gravitational charge", being mass only comes in positive quantities (as far as we know). But electric charge exists in both positive and negative quantities. Because the electric force causes positive and negative charges to attract each other, a "naked" charge will eventually be surrounded with oppositely charged particles it has attracted and these oppositely charged particles work to "screen" the electric field to the outside world.
So while there's no fundamental limit to the electric field and it follows the same 1/r^2 falloff that gravity does, in reality constant long range electric fields tend to not last indefinitely.
| 84 |
ELI5 What is the differences between Hepatitis A, B, and C?
| 625 |
The hepatitis viruses (including D and E also) were identified in a time when biologists and medical professionals knew very little about viruses, or where able to classify them appropriately. The word hepatitis means "inflammation of the liver," so naturally this is what all the hepatitis viruses have in common. They all cause some form of inflammation in the liver which leads to symptoms that are similar.
Hepatitis A is in the picornavirus family of viruses, same family as polio. It's an illness that people get by drinking or eating contaminated foods (this is refered to as fecal-oral transmission) often in third world countries where sanitation is poor. It looks and feels way worse than it is, lasting only one month and almost never killing anyone who gets it.
Hep B is a member of the hepadnovirus family. It's transmitted through sex and needle sharing, making it a blood borne pathogen. It looks much like hep A at the onset of illness, resolves, but unlike hep A which has no carrier state, hep B has a carrier state which often times develops into chronic hepatitis (chronic liver inflammation) over the course of many years, and often presents with kidney failure and even liver cancer. whether or not this occurs depends on the persons immune system. Unlike hep A, when we find hep B infections we treat them aggressively with antiviral medications.
Hep C belongs to the flavivirus family, same as West Nile virus. It is transmitted only through blood, which makes it most common in people who share needles. Unlike hep B, hep c infections become chronic most of the time, leading to liver cirrhosis (hardening) and also liver cancer, same as hep B, but much more commonly. Infact, hep c is the most common cause of hepatocellular carninoma. We treat hep c as we do hep b, but cannot vaccinate against it (as with hep b) because the virus itself is too variable in the way it coats its outer shell.
In summary, the hepatitis viruses are not a family of viruses. They are a group of viruses from different famililies that all happen to affect the liver in some way.
| 556 |
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ELI5: What was the Wirecard scandal? and what does Germany's current chancellor Scholz has to with it?
| 17 |
Wirecard was a whole big convoluted mess which boils down to a simple fraud. Essentially, in order to secure investments from outside sources, Wirecard claimed that it had about 2 billion dollars in cash reserves that it just...didn't. And it manipulated financial disclosures to make it seem like they did.
What did Scholz have to do with it? Not really anything *directly*. But at the time this happened Scholz was minister of finance for Germany and oversaw the governmental apparatus that was responsible for preventing this sort of thing.
Scholz wasn't involved in the fraud. But his political opponents claimed he failed to do his job and discover it sooner.
There were a lot of questions whether this would impact his political future. Spoiler alert, it didn't, as Scholz is now the German chancellor.
| 36 |
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[Horror films general] Why is God so absent while His followers get tortured, mind-fucked by the Devil?
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The Devil and his minions can always toys with humans and the only way to stop them is to hire a Priest with specific knowledge about exorcism, even through it's not 100% guarantee of success.
It seems like God is not even caring about His creation, he never hear the cries and pleas of the priests begging for Him to help the poor soul with a demon in his/her body.
| 32 |
Because Satan makes a bet with God to test the faith of humanity. God takes up the bet and lets Satan put humanity to the test to see if they remain faithful even through suffering.
See the Book of Job for another example of this.
God allowed Satan to kill Job's wife, children, and servants. Not only that but Job's wealth was taken away and he was afflicted with horrible diseases.
And all because of a bet. God can't seem able to turn down a bet. He's a gambler.
| 34 |
CMV: Donald Trump saying that pregnancy is an inconvenience to businesses is not only fine, but true.
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Hi Reddit
First let me skip the qualifications about how awful Trump is--I agree much of what he says is awful/untrue, but this is about something I think is overblown.
[This video](https://youtu.be/ESH49gTcaAU) came up in my FB newsfeed and at about the 1:50 mark one person conveys disgust that Trump suggested pregnancy is an inconvenience to businesses. I know this person is not alone in the way they feel. But it seems like Trump is correct. [Here is the clip with him saying it](https://youtu.be/Q6qkJhbA7p0). It seems like one of those things we accept--like sleeping.
I could get so much more done and see so many other things if I didn't have to sleep, but 1/3 of my life is dedicated to it. It is a major inconvenience (I realize others may take issue with this analogy--try to see it for what it is and not get lost in the weeds).
How can a person argue that pregnancy is anything but an inconvenience for a business? Even if someone points to human reproduction as necessary for a society to survive, so what? It being necessary has no bearing on whether or not it's inconvenient to a business--it's closer to the sleep analogy in that case.
You have an employee who will get paid without producing work (assuming the business offers maternity leave--a separate topic). They will then be distracted by obligations to the child--let's be honest, unless you never see your child, working 'round the clock is less likely (work-life balance, etc are all separate issues) and let's assume the person isn't a completely absent parent--most aren't.
So CMV: pregnancy is an inconvenience to a business, and there was nothing wrong with Donald pointing that out.
_____
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| 870 |
The problem is not whether pregnancies are inconvenient for businesses, it's that businesses see women as inconvenient because of it. In a world where women and men are truly equal, men will take just as much time off work to take care of their kids which will not make women look like they're a problem as a potential employee.
| 1,203 |
[xmenmovies] Are the mutants always destined for extinction due to time travel paradoxes.
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So in Days of Future Past the future is mess and the Sentinels have won. The mutants are on the brink of extinction and it doesn't appear like it is gonna get better. Wolverine however travels back in time and changes the timeline. This causes mutants to be exposed at an earlier date to the world. We know the world and the people in it have changed when Logan wakes back up in the present . A few years later all the mutants have been hunted to extinction in the new timeline after we leave off in Days of Future Past. Are the mutants always destined for extinction ? Does time want to happen and that even if they fix this timeline it won't really matter ? Will the end result be the same ?
| 80 |
It's the nature of mutation. Because of random mutations, each mutant has a random power set and power level. Eventually mutants will be born with the power to destroy all life on Earth. Either all the mutants die, or Earth suffers an apocalypse.
| 45 |
CMV: If someone can legally enlist in the military, they should be able to legally sign themselves up for potentially inhumane and unethical scientific experiments.
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I'll preface my view by stating that an unwilling subject should never have to undergo torture of any kind. This isn't a political observation about any country's foreign affairs. If I can willingly enlist into the military and risk my life for the sake of my country, I should be able to risk my life in a scientific and socially productive manner.
That being said I think there is still a lot to be learned about humanity in many different aspects of life. Humans have performed countless unethical science experiments in philosophy, psychology, biology, and chemistry on each other since recorded history.
I think its fair to say some of the experiments we now view as unethical, early mental health treatment for example, was only done to compound a preexisting prejudice. Anyone with an education can see whats wrong with experimenting in LGBT+ conversion therapies and truly destructive, harmful fields.
To sum it all up, dying in consensual unethical experiment has much more potential to do good than dying fighting someone else's war.
| 438 |
While we might agree that the post-WW2 use of US military force has been.... ethically questionable, the fact that sovereign states *need* a military is pretty well established. Indeed, the ability to defend one's territory from invasion is among the major requirements for asserting sovereignty.
Ok -- so countries need militaries and militaries need troops. Put another way, our society broadly understands that having people in uniform is a necessary evil but that allowing kids to participate in that institution is an unnecessary one. Consequently, kids aren't allowed to serve in the military.
What you're doing is saying that we allow people to participate in military service which is dangerous and (sometimes) unethical and problematic -- **evil**, if you will -- so why don't we allow them to participate in other self-destructive things which are also ethically questionable, dangerous, and, not to put too fine a point on it, **evil**?
And the answer is: those other evils aren't necessary evils.
We've determined that we, as a society, are going to get by perfectly fine without encouraging scientists to engage in depraved exploitation of human subjects. We don't need to facilitate that for our society to go on existing and so there's no situation in which we need to make an exception to the more general rule of "profiting by paying people to engage in self harm is wrong" rule.
| 79 |
[vampire lore] If I drink enough holy water, will my blood become toxic to vampires?
| 17 |
I know of no Catholic rite that involves *consuming* holy water, and vampires have been shown to be able to drink the blood of those who have been subject to the rite of baptism anyway, so... no.
Note that being splashed with holy water does coincide with the Catholic rite of baptism, so that should help you understand why it causes vampires pain.
| 26 |
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ELI5 - How do Open Source recreations of games stay alive?
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Stuff like Open Morrowind, the browser Diablo game, the handful of Doom games, and others more seem like they'd be taken down immediately by the company owning the IP.
I mean sure, the maker built everything from scratch and from the ground up, but if it looks, walks, talks, and plays like an already existing and beloved game, how come companies don't take note?
| 42 |
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they just don't care about old IPs or the company that held the IP is defunct. Sometimes the company will feel like it's good advertising or an indication that these old IPs are still valuable, and they might try to do something with that information later on down the line like making a mobile game, or remastering a golden oldie.
Game Freak, for example, is pretty notorious for using cease and desist orders against romhackers and fan game makers.
| 29 |
[Marvel] How many characters in-verse are aware of Stan Lee’s existence?
| 15 |
In the 616 Marvel Universe, pretty much everyone. Stan Lee was a celebrated biographer and journalist, who along with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, published comics about the real life adventures of the Fantastic Four, and other heroes. Stan Lee's work in adapting the early adventures of the Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and even those outlaw heroes the X-Men, based on news reports, interviews with heroes when possible, and a little bit of creative license, made him one of the most famous people on the planet.
While Stan Lee is no longer with us, the legacy he made of Marvel Comics publishing the most accurate comics, based on the amazing, fantastic, sensational, and incredible real events happening around us, and the great work he did with amazing co-creators, will last forever.
Excelsior.
​
Or, to get back to your case, anyone who pays attention to the news and can identify an important journalist would know about Stan Lee and his team at Marvel Comics.
| 24 |
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How does space affect heat-seeking munitions/weapons?
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Really three questions.
Hey folks. I'm a SciFi Writer. I have a few questions, to inform a short story I'm working on. Thank you in advance.
Anyhow, on to my questions.
1) I can remember reading or hearing that heat travels through space via radiation. How would this affect heat seeking missiles (suppose a craft is targeting another craft)?
2) Since, according to Wikipedia, heat is a form of electromagnetic radiation, how would electromagnetic pulses affect this? Assuming the characters did some faraday cage stuff, could an EMP be used as a countermeasure (even if they can't directly disable the munition)?
3) In lieu of using heat to track, would it be viable to have weapons that track via light (ie the light of engines)? I've written it in so far like this (assuming heat is a no go), and the Humans use fast-moving reflective flachette to reflect light from their engines and the sun to fool such devices.
| 80 |
Heat seeking missiles / munitions detect infrared radiation to home in on their target.
Every object emits so-called thermal radiation, which is just electromagnetic radiation (just like light). The amount and wavelength of this radiation depends on the temperature of the object. Hot objects will emit more thermal radiation that has a shorter wavelength (= more energetic). On Earth, almost all objects we encounter emit most of their thermal radiation in the infrared part of the spectrum. This is why we often associate infrared with heat.
If an object is hot enough, its thermal radiation will start to shift more and more into the visible part of the spectrum (which has shorter wavelengths than infrared). This is where the expression "glowing hot" comes from.
Heat seeking weaponry detects the infrared radiation being emitted by the engines, which emit far more IR radiation than the surroundings. This will be the same in space as it is in our atmosphere, though the temperature of the engine of a spacecraft isn't necessarily the same as that of a jet engine.
While it's true that thermal radiation is a form of EM radiation, blocking it with a Faraday cage is effectively impossible. A Faraday cage requires the mesh width of the walls of the cage to be smaller than the wavelength of the radiation. IR radiation starts with wavelengths of the order of magnitude of a micrometer (and the range runs up to about a milimeter, but for hot objects like a running engine, this part of the range is not very relevant). So you'd effectively have to build a solid cage around the engine. In addition, the cage would, through heat transfer, heat up due to the engine it is surrounding. Unless the cage is very large (and heavy) compared to the engine, its thermal radiation spectrum will becomes just as obvious to detect as that of the engine. So no shielding thermal radiation.
As for your last question, yes, in principle that is possible, but the light emitted by the engines may be shielded in some way, by keeping the engines within a largely closed housing. Thermal radiation can't be shielded and the only way to become undetectable by thermal radiation scanners is to lower the temperature of the craft to be equal to that of the surroundings. Which is not going to be comfortable in space.
| 38 |
Can I be a "picky" Wittgensteinian?
|
I have noticed that sometimes I will take a (late-period) Wittgensteinian approach in response to questions; other times, however, I won't. For example, in response to the question "When does a mass of sand become a 'heap'?", I'd just dismiss the question on Wittgensteinian grounds. But if I were asked about being, then I'd turn to Heidegger; if I were asked about gender, I would turn to Foucault or Butler.
Is my approach contradictory, or am I "allowed" to only take Wittgenstein's approach to certain problems? If so, is there any way to delimit which problems I can dismiss in a Wittgensteinian way?
(Apologies for any lack of clarity in my question.)
| 32 |
I feel that a lot of philosophers do that (think that some but not all problems arise from linguistic confusions), but I'll stay with a P. Horwich quote from *Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy*:
> One doesn’t need to endorse Wittgenstein’s general anti-theoretical
metaphilosophy in order to appreciate that some problems in philosophy are
spurious—based on muddled presuppositions and calling for dissolution.
I'd see no problem with that as long as you try to be consistent on your use of wittgensteinian methods (and not just use it as a tool for easy refutation while maintaining other positive views that could be just as easily dissoluted), because there are two distinct theses at hand: (1) *ALL* philosophical problems arise from the "bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language"; (2) only some problems do.
| 23 |
CMV:I shouldn't have to say "East Indian" when talking about Indian people, and it makes no sense to call Native Americans "Indians."
|
I am Canadian, but I think this applies to all of North America. I just don't understand why people, even educated, sensible people, still refer to Native Americans as "Indians" or "American Indians." It seems to me that people from India should be called Indians, and they should have a complete monopoly on that term. It's really frustrating to me to refer to someone as "Indian" and either have people request that I qualify it ("you mean EAST Indian?") or, even worse, assume that I'M being politically incorrect and talking about an Aboriginal, but not saying anything and just judging my ignorance. I realize that many Native Americans have accepted the term and refer to themselves proudly as "Indian," but honestly to me this doesn't change the fact that there is a country called India and citizens of that country are the only people in the world who really are Indians.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*
| 169 |
"American Indian" is, obviously, an exonym, a name for a foreign concept invented in a language that those foreign people do not speak. And if you want to fight against exonyms in English, well, you're gonna have a rough time. Why do we call Deutschland "Germany"? Why do we call the city of Wien "Vienna"? Why do we call the people and language of Guangdong "Cantonese"?
Of course that's not precisely what you're arguing, but you have to keep in mind that "India" is also an exonym. Those people of south Asia have not and do not currently use that name for themselves or their country in their own language. So what exactly makes them the "true" Indians? Just the fact that they had that name placed on them by the West first?
And how exactly is "Native American" more correct? What makes a member of the Sioux "native" to America where the great-grandchild of German immigrants is not? And how is "America" any more correct as a name for the continent than "West India"? It's not like they got to pick the name we gave the place, and it's certainly not their name.
All the names are completely arbitrary anyway. So why would we not let the American Indians use the one they prefer?
| 76 |
[Star Wars] What does Boba Fett spend his money on?
|
He's clearly one of the top Bounty Hunters, rarely fails a job, and charges premium prices. Where does all that money go?
BONUS QUESTION: What does the droid IG-88 spend his bounty hunter money on?
| 95 |
>He's clearly one of the top Bounty Hunters, rarely fails a job, and charges premium prices. Where does all that money go?
You gotta retire one day. Plus his kit is not cheap.
>What does the droid IG-88 spend his bounty hunter money on?
His plan to take over the galaxy with an army of droids. They actually take over the second Death Star in the middle of the Rebel attack.
| 94 |
What happens when lightning strikes in the ocean?
|
Typically, when electric current goes through a small body of water, like a bathtub, the water carries current and results in someone sitting in the tub being shocked.
However, obviously when lightning strikes the ocean, the whole world doesn't get electrocuted. So...
How far does the ocean (or any large body of water) carry current? What determines this?
| 480 |
According to Wikipedia, an average lightning bolt consists of 30KA and 100KV, thus when it strikes the water it will need to go through 3.33 Ohms of resistance before dissipating. A meter of salt water at 20 Degrees C has 0.20 ohms, so assuming a straight path down, worst case scenario (think a string of resistors in a series circuit) will reach a depth of 16.65 meters. This is assuming that the lightning doesn't dissipate in more than one direction which is unlikely.
| 179 |
[King of the Hill] What is it about Bobby that Cotton likes so much?
|
Given that Cotton regularly berated Hank for his supposed lack of masculinity, why was he so fond of Bobby -- a boy who has shown time and time again that he ain't right?
| 30 |
I think it's sort of like all the surplus unconditional affection that Cotton withheld from Hank basically overflowed down to Bobby and Good Hank.
Plus Cotton seems to respect Bobby eccentricities and sensitivity because he totally owns it.
| 41 |
ELI5: What is the difference between the Classical concept of full employment and Keynesian concept of full employment
|
I am having a hard time on understanding the concept. I have minimal knowledge on economics and I am seeking here for an explanation about this. Thank you people.
| 232 |
In classical full employment, everyone has a job. In Keynesian full employment, everyone who wants a job has a job. If someone is moving from a Walmart stocker to spaceX engineer, it’s probably a good thing that they were unemployed for a month.
| 187 |
[Marvel]Is the Daily Bugle considered "fake news" because they report Spider-man to be a menace when he's obviously not?
|
It seems that the people of NYC know that Spider-man is a hero, but J. Jonah Jameson and the Bugle report that he is a menace to the city. How does the world treat the Bugle's credibility?
| 132 |
There's a legitimate reason to say that Spiderman is a vigilante and a menace . . . because he is. Spiderman goes about dispensing his own justice, often on petty criminals, and answers to no one for it. What if he mistakes someone for a thug? What if he seriously injures or kills one of them (both of which have happened)? What do the cops do if they just have some people webbed up hanging from a light post with no witnesses? They can't just arrest them without evidence.
And as Spiderman's fame grows, villains begin to come looking for him, putting the city in even more danger. It's the classic Superman problem--the more you save the city, the more it needs saving.
This doesn't mean that New York wouldn't be better off without Spiderman, but Jamieson isn't just spouting off steam about Spidey.
| 170 |
[Mass Effect] What would happen if the Vorcha were uplifted instead of the Krogan to fight the Rachni?
|
The Vorcha also seem like suitable candidates for the Rachni wars. They are tough, breed fast, insanely adaptable, and regenerate.
| 43 |
They would have gotten their asses kicked as Krogan are warriors from the moment they are born, and vorcha are nothing but scavengers.
The Rachni would have wiped the floor with them, proceeded to destroy the citadel species, and by the time humanity arrives to the stars they find it covered by an empire of homicidal spider things under control of the reapers.
| 47 |
ELI5: What's the difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance?
| 20 |
Tax avoidance is legally reducing your amount owed to the lowest you possibly can. This can be done thru itemizing expenses, qualifying for credits, etc.
Tax evasion is intentionally deceiving the tax system to get a lower tax amount owed. This is abusing and defrauding the system and can lead to significant penalties, charges, and jail time.
The main difference is that tax avoidance is legal, as you are avoiding paying unnecessary taxes or paying more than you should, while tax evasion is illegal.
| 41 |
|
[Sponsored Content] What sociological/economic/statistical evidence is there that always online DRM contributes to sustainable software development and innovation?
| 43 |
This is a very good question!
First of all, as the FBI has proven, piracy contributes to economic decline. This is due to the well known effect of sociological dispersion.
Imagine the economy like a giant oil tank, ferrying money throughout America! Now imagine that this oil tank was attacked by selfish pirates! The oil leaks everywhere, much like pirated software leaks throughout the ecosystem. And now the tanker company has to clean up these leaks, much like how our friends at Electronic Arts protect us from virus infected pirated programs.
DRM is like a metal shield for the oil tanker, but this is passive. The pirates really want oil, no matter what the costs, and so they drill through the walls of the tanker.
Now mind you, it's not the company's fault, but rather the pirates for drilling.
Studies have shown that always on DRM takes regular, passive DRM a step further by actually fighting back! Now imagine that the tanker was protected by the full force of the United States Navy!
This is what the online connection in the DRM in games like Sim City does - the servers protect the game from evil pirates, keeping your gaming experience safe, legal and economical.
| 30 |
|
CMV: Killing animals for pleasure is wrong
|
Hi all!
I've recently been thinking a lot about the subject of ethics and how they apply to the treatment of animals in the modern day and age (especially in the food/meat/dairy industry, obviously). I've come to the conclusion that I could get rid of animal products in my diet and go totally vegan without any health risks, so the only thing that is still making me consume meat is the taste of it. I also believe that due to how supply & demand works, I am paying for the animals to be killed.
And this is where this CMV kicks off, I believe that it is wrong to kill animals just for the sensory pleasure. The main reason why I think so is probably empathy and the fact that they are sentient in at least a similar way that we are. If there was overwhelming evidence to conclude with certainty that animals are basically like robots, are incapable of any psychology whatsoever, then I guess I would change my mind.
EDIT: Wow, there are a lot of responses and I will try to go through them all but I need to finish my work for today first :P
EDIT2: Im starting to respond more today. If I don't respond to a comment then it's probably because someone else already responded and stated something better than I could, I will likely just comment underneath that response and say that "I agree", for example.
| 1,801 |
what about invasive or overpopulated species? Would you be ok culling them in order to preserve the indigenous species?
Obviously it would be ideal use them for food, fur/skins, etc. but even if we don't, there would still be a benefit to preserving the other animals in the ecosystem.
| 351 |
I believe it's hypocritical for people to be fighting for gay marriage, while simultaneously disagreeing with polygamy. CMV
|
Someone pointed out to me that many of the arguments that are used to support gay marriage rights are also apply to polygamy.
I don't know anyone who doesn't support gay marriage, but the few that I've asked about polygamy are either reserved in making a decision, or outright disagree with it.
| 63 |
Polygamy destabalizes countries because of the ability of the top men to take a lot of women. Polyandry has never been able to take up the slack. Leaving 50% of your young male population with no chance of getting laid let alone having a family leads to lots of disgruntled violent men and subsequent instability
| 28 |
ELI5: How would a civilization that does not use money (like in Star Trek) work?
| 29 |
Assuming we're talking specifically about futuristic societies, they're post-scarcity - there's no longer that battle for resources. Because of virtually infinite energy, everyone and anyone can live a life of leisure.
If you look at Star Trek, Deep Space 9, you'll see a few examples of a place where money and/or barter -is- used - the black market. Ol' Quark trades the Latinum (which, canonically, is something which can't be replicated) for the assorted goods which can't be (safely, discreetly) replicated - weapons, stuff like that.
Similarly, take a look at Star Trek: Voyager - you've got limited energy on the ship, so people trade replicator rations back and forth for whatever people will trade for.
It all boils down to scarcity - as long as there's no scarcity, there's no need for money.
| 38 |
|
Why does your throat get sore?
|
This might be a really silly question, sorry.
When you get a cold, why does your throat get sore? I understand why your nose might run or get blocked and why you might have a cough or a headache etc, but I can't think of why your throat gets sore. What immune purpose does it serve?
| 583 |
Long story short, when your cells become injured or infected by bacteria or viruses they kill themselves. When it's dry out the mucus that normally lines your throat dries up faster than it can coat/keep your throat clear and clean and the cells lining your throat die or get killed by your immune system to prevent other cells from getting infected. Normally these cells come in layers, the outside layer is supposed to die but just like your skin if you go too many layers down it hurts or becomes sensitive.
| 669 |
[Assassins Creed: Origins] How can Bayek fire five arrows from one bow with no energy dispersion.
|
In [this trailer](https://youtu.be/cUuKIpCM2o0) from E3 (at 1:34) Bayek loads five arrows into the same bow and fires, killing five enemies. How can five arrows fly at what seems to be the same speed and power as one, when the energy of the bow would have to dispearse into each arrow? Wouldn't each arrow only have 20% of the bow's maximum draw weight? How do the arrows fly straight and fast enough to penetrate five people rather than just fall into the floor infront of them?
| 19 |
We have no idea what the draw strength is on that bow; the accuracy alone in that shot is superhuman, so it's entirely possible that his strength is also superhuman. Couple that with an abnormal bow (and something like that is entirely within possibility, given other Precursor artifacts and the technical knowledge they sometimes contain), and you've got five viable shots.
| 20 |
[Avatar] Did Ozai care for Zuko in any capacity outside of practicality?
|
Like, at *all?*
| 21 |
He didn't even care about Azula outside of a practical capacity.
also you know if you've ever played ck2/3 you know you'd have done the same as him (ie fucking over zuko to insure azula is your heir) in a heartbeat. In the game, not with real kids, unless you're actually also a sociopath, but point stands.
| 46 |
ELI5: What is the difference between Country A printing more currency, and Country B giving Country A currency? I understand why printing more currency can lead to inflation, but am confused about why the second scenario does not also lead to inflation.
| 7,212 |
Printing more money is like having a pizza that is cut as 8 slices, and you cut it into 16 slices. You have more slices but it's the same amount of pizza. Getting money from another country is like another country giving you a second pizza. Not right now, but down the road you need to give them back a pizza, or possibly more than just one due to interest, but hopefully by that point you have enough pizza to pay them back.
| 2,850 |
|
How is fresh water created on remote islands surrounded by the salty ocean water? In other words how did ancient societies get enough drinking water in Oceania? Do the islands just have to be big enough?
|
I was just watching a video about the Mahjapahit(?) and they mentioned how a certain island was important for its drinking water. What does that mean? What process occurs to let some islands have fresh water?
| 87 |
Freshwater isn’t so much created as collected on islands.
The term you are looking for is “freshwater lens”.
Essentially, if conditions are right, rainwater can collect in the soil of an island and float on top of the more dense seawater far below in the soil.
If this is a sustainable system, then everything is good. People can drill down and tap into the freshwater, plants can grow and rainwater will periodically replenish the lens.
If the sea starts to intrude (violently or repeatedly) into the lens, then mixing occurs and problems start. The freshwater becomes brackish (or completely mixes with the sea) and everything depending on freshwater is in trouble.
| 105 |
ELI5: Where does the cholesterol come from in shrimp, where is it located? They don't feel greasy or fatty.
| 20 |
The membrane of every animal cell contains cholesterol.
That being said, if you're worried about it, don't. Dietary cholesterol (e.g. from egg yolks or shrimp) have only a small effect on your cholesterol levels. It's the trans and saturated fats you have to worry about, so go easy on the cheeseburgers!
| 28 |
|
ELI5: If I broke my leg 5000 years ago, how would have my tribesmen have treated me?
| 43 |
Into the soup pot you'd go.
KIDDING KIDDING.
Five thousand years ago tribes and farming communities would have had someone specializing in medicine. You likely would have been splinted and doing something like bedrest while the rest of the tribe looked after you as much as they could.
However in some societies if you were already old and infirm, and there were shortages of food and such, and if the tribe was hunter/gatherer and had to move around a lot by walking, they might have abandoned you.
| 40 |
|
What do I say to someone who claims everything they claim or state is just their opinion?
|
I would get in arguments with people and then suddenly they would just say it’s their opinion and I should respect it. It’s very frustrating because it’s never goes anywhere.
| 46 |
You could ask them any number of things:
* Why are they presenting their opinion as fact if it is merely an opinion?
* Why should their opinion be respected if it is not rooted in fact?
* Do they have an obligation to update their opinion if the facts contradict their opinion?
| 74 |
CMV: Self defense is a fundamental human right.
|
I was listening to the podcast [Common Sense, by Dan Carlin](http://www.dancarlin.com/common-sense-home-landing-page/) and he recently touched on the topic of gun control.
He mentioned that recently some Jewish leaders in Europe have begun petitioning for the ability to arm some of their population for need of self defense. [[link](http://www.newsweek.com/change-gun-laws-europe-let-jews-carry-arms-says-leading-rabbi-299102)]
I believe that it is a fundamental right of these people to expect to be safe in their lives.
And if the government is unable to adequately provide for that safety, then people should have the right to pursue any reasonable form of self defense, including owning firearms.
There is no acceptable reason to prevent any group which is being attacked or threatened with illegal attacks from defending itself in any way reasonable.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*
| 63 |
>There is no acceptable reason to prevent any group which is being attacked or threatened with illegal attacks from defending itself in any way reasonable.
Nobody disputes this, and framing your argument as being about the right to self-defense is deceptive - you are actually arguing that guns are a "reasonable" measure for self-defense, which is highly contentious.
| 45 |
[Star Wars] Clone troopers have a brotherly relation with their fellow troopers, but they seem oddly unfazed when their brothers die right beside them. How come?
|
So I have been rewatching 2008 Clonewars and after watching countless troopers get slaughtered, surviving troopers seem oddly ok after watching their brothers get blown to pieces.
Are they engineered to suppress grief? It's just so odd that to say you love your brother and to be ok after watching them be gunned down.
| 34 |
Well we can't usually see the expressions on their faces. But they're trained to expect and cope with this sort of thing, it wouldn't do to break down in sorrow during a mission. Fight now, grieve later.
| 53 |
[Marvel] When faced with a global threat, why doesn't Tony Stark just outfit all the Avengers with their own Iron Man suit?
|
The members with no powers, like Widow and Hawkeye, would actually be useful and those with powers can seriously be buffed. What better than Captain America? A Captain America that can fly and shoot shield rockets.
| 22 |
He's outfitted a few people before, but they all end up ditching the suits eventually. By the time you're in Stark's radar, you've spent hundreds if not not thousands of hours honing your skills and abilities. Putting on a suit would add a new variable and you'd have to spend even more time training just to use it properly. It actually hampers their skills when they need to be at the top of their game.
| 24 |
ELI5: if wifi is just a different frequency of radio signal, why can't we broadcast free wifi to everyone from radio towers (like we do with radio)?
| 3,357 |
A radio station is like a man giving a speech to a crowd. If you want to make the crowd bigger, all you need is a louder speaker system.
WiFi is more like a conversation -- your computer asks a specific question ("Can you tell me the Wikipedia article on cheetahs, please?") and receives a customized answer ("The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is a large feline...") Even with powerful sound equipment so that everyone can hear everyone else, you just cannot do this with one guy on the stage. There is just no way he could hear everyone in the audience -- even if you gave them all megaphones, it would just be an onslaught of noise. Furthermore, he could only answer one person at a time, so it would take forever to get an answer to your question.
What you really need is lots of people on the stage to handle multiple conversations; that is, lots of WiFi base stations, each used by only a few people at once.
EDIT: Thanks for the gold and the nice comments. A lot of people are complaining that this explanation seems to rule out the possibility of cell phones or LTE. Well, no, it doesn't. It just says there is a limit to the number of people who can use a single cell phone transmitter at once. And yes, the frequency you use is important, as is the bandwidth. But this is ELI5.
| 4,682 |
|
[Marvel's Wolverine] Wolverine is over 200 years old, shouldn't he be extremely intelligent/wise or have a slew of people working for him. kinda like vandal savage but maybe not to that extent?
|
They make my boy wolverine out to be a bitch in these movies, first of all we need a rated R wolverine flick for the true fans who grew up watching him. Now that i got that outta the way, wolverine should be if not smart an extremely wise man, with friends in high and low places all over the world. Like in the last Wolverine movie we see he made a friend in japan many years ago (which didn't really turn out good for him) but still. So what, wolverine never made any money, never invested anything, never started a company? what did he spend all that military money on? He and his brother had to be high rank in the military until they fucked up and got killed(kinda). I'll give you guys 70-80 years of him being a "renegade" moving from place to place not holding a job for too long after that the man surely would of matured and grew to learn how to manipulate people and things for his personal interest. His story could be so much better. Oh and what no kids, no love or wife before jean? Am I the only one who wants to know or better yet recreate the hundred years wolverine lived before meeting professor x or before he met stryker?
| 73 |
why? He hasn't devoted his time to anything of that nature, he's suffered brain damage often, and he's a mutant so he's naturally got the public against him.
Life doesn't just fall into place for an old person, you've got to forge those relationships if you expect them to be there in the future, you've got to actually invest and or stock pile your money if you want to do anything with it, and if you want to fight in several wars, seemingly never aging, you've got to change your identity meaning no high ranking in the military.
| 129 |
CMV: Treating Gender Dysphoria by Gender Reassignment is cruel and counterproductive.
|
Let me make my point perfectly clear right off the bat: I am not open to debate about whether gender dysphoria exists. It exists and I don't wish to debate that. I hold that it's a mental illness which does sometimes cure itself in some cases, but not all. I also hold that gender reassignment regret exists, but is rare- it is very difficult to tell how many regret their change, but reassignment surgery to their original configuration has occurred and does exist.
Gender Dysphoria should be treated as it is; except that dramatically more research should be given to finding a cure which realigns the brain to no longer experience gender dysphoria in patients whom retain their body's sexual function at birth. By granting gender reassignment research is not given into those people and we are losing potential test subjects to hopefully cure this disorder.
It is cruel to subject a person to a society which detests their existence. We should not lie about the state of the world. We are not super heroes of justice and we cannot convince everyone to not hate them. We are subjecting them to an entire world which doesn't like them. Even if we come to acceptance within the Western world there are still countries such as Russia whom would either kill them or force them into endless pain. This on it's own would not stand as a good argument, but there is an alternative: we need to treat them as mental patients, put them in institutions to ensure their survival, and try our hardest using good science (not the stupidity that was Pray the Gay away) in ways that are safe. We must not treat them as horrible human beings, but as people who are in severe pain and distress. Whom need all the help they can get: this is an argument that might convince even gay-hating-Russia to follow. With this argument we can convince the world and we can take the steps necessary to help all of them.
I will end this by giving a counter argument to a common point:
> Ultimately, if an individual decides for themselves they wish to do a thing to themselves, and it causes no harm to others, then that individual should have right to act as they please. Even if it ultimately causes their death.
By this logic we should do the same for people who have suicidal thoughts. By the logic that surrounds this we should even encourage them to take their own lives like we do for transgender people to become their new gender. We know that this disorder results, or causes, changes in the brain the same as depression. By this logic we should remove suicide prevention because that would be the same as shaming gender dysphoria patients. This is horrible and cruel.
The reason that much of this argument does not apply to homosexuality is simple: there is no need to remove healthy organs in their cases (which then leads to a chance of infection and death) and there is evidence that suicide is not nearly as epidemic in their group as trans-gendered peoples.
In countries where it has not been accepted it would indeed be cruel and this argument would apply. For those countries we may still wish to gain sexual orientation alteration drugs, but here in the West it may as well be a cosmetic change.
This argument does not apply to peoples who are not born XX or XY. They are special cases and I don't hold any view concerning them.
> If there was a magic pill to give these people that would solve their problems than I'd have zero problem with it, but there isn't one.
Well, lets make one.
**EDIT:** Holy crap this blew up! If I don't respond to your individual points it's because the volume of points being made is... A lot. I'm super sorry if I don't get to all of you.
**EDIT2:** I never made the statement that SRS should absolutely never be done. I'm saying that it's horrible to press people into it or to make them believe that it's a good idea in our media. I am not talking about medical personnel who actively discourage it. I'm talking about the media's favor towards it.
**EDIT3:** A Delta has been awarded against the clarification of my points in EDIT2. As medical profession at large thoroughly believe it's worth the risk you can't very well tell the media to stop saying the same.
**EDIT4:** Most posts aren't arguing against my view when it comes to the following-
> we need to treat them as mental patients, put them in institutions to ensure their survival, and try our hardest using good science
It would be up to the medical practitioner which to do. In reality I made this point *horribly*. I'm talking about creating "safety-wards" for gender dysphoria sufferers. Places that can do both long-term and short-term aid. The reason I even mention this is because of transgender people I know in real life who... Need more help than most people admit. It would be best if they could far more easily slip out of society for a while.
Another point people aren't even arguing against my view is this- I'm not saying depression = gender dysphoria. I'm saying that both affect the brain and by the logic of the listed counterpoint you'd have to apply it. It's hypocritical thinking to try otherwise. It should not be their individual choice; that should be the choice of medical practitioners. **NOT family.**
**EDIT5:** Institution idea was shot out of the water and a Delta was awarded. Suicide rates are negligible when compared to the general population. This means that there is no reason to set up specialized safe-housing in addition to what's already done.
**EDIT6:** My head is spinning from too much debate. The only point remaining unchanged is that it shouldn't be their choice, but that of medical practitioners taking care of them. Except that then I remembered that half the US supports Hobby Lobby as it pertains to doctors. That makes supporting my position impossible.
I'm surprised no-one tried to point that out to me. I'm going to collapse now. My head is heavy. Congrats to everyone that got a Delta. Those were hard-earned because my belief was fairly solid. And to those who straw-manned my arguments to oblivion: Come on, seriously? I never said stop GRS/SRS until the pill was researched.
The only point that might be of contention is whether the pill should be taken *instead* of GRS once it's out. Options are cooler. I'm headed out. Peace.
**EDIT7:** I'm back. Ish. I took a nap. Another Delta was awarded because, honestly, expecting Russia to not horribly torture people is probably a bad idea. One that didn't really occur to me until pointed out. I also noticed that someone else deserves a Delta, but I totally completely forgot who or where. They essentially convinced me that GRS should not be phased out whatsoever unless another treatment had remarkable success and was cheaper. It was probably one of the people whom got a Delta though.
**EDIT8:** All possible Deltas are gone! All points have been rebuked and my view is fully changed.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*
| 346 |
It's a philosophical question. Are you your **body**, or your ~~brain~~ **mind**? For most people the answer is both, but if you had to choose between the two, which would you choose?
The most humane solution would be to let each person decide for themselves.
| 227 |
[The Boys] WTF was Stormfront’s lightning working on Starlight?
|
I know the real answer is the probably classic meta “we needed Stormfront to be winning the fight, so yes,” but I’m really curious if there’s any possible sane in-world answer that doesn’t involve absurd mental gymnastics.
After making a very fine point multiple times that Starlight is an energy absorber, Annie is mysteriously blasted around by Stormfront’s lightning and seemingly isn’t absorbing much, if any, of it. I’d expected Starlight to say, “Surprise, bitch,” and go to town, forcing Stormfront to fall back to hand-to-hand since her energy attack would power up her opponent. Really took me out of the story for a minute.
So how on Earth is Starlight able to pull enough energy from a car to kill a man and cauterize Hughie’s wound yet lethal lightning bolts are not only affecting her but not powering her up enough to turn Stormfront an Aryan corpse?
| 71 |
Too much energy way too fast. Maybe someday Starlight could learn to harness lightning and make use of it, but apparently not yet. Would be cool to see her learn this in future seasons tho!
Modern trolleys run on high voltage, but they have built in lighting arrestors in order to dissipate the huge spike of energy that comes from a lighting strike.
| 80 |
A very bright light can damage your sight, and very loud sounds can do the same to your hearing. Can a very strong odour damage your sense of smell?
| 2,685 |
Both a bright light and a loud sound are high concentrations of energy, but a strong smell is a high concentration of particles. That means the smell can get saturated to the point that it really can't smell any stronger.
[edit]: any smell that would damage your olfactory sense receptors would likely do so at any concentration. Corrosive chemicals cause less damage at lower concentration but there is no point where the damage would suddenly start like it does with light and sound. Furthermore extreme concentrations of chemicals and particles tend to experience state changes so you could argue that a high density of smell might drown you, but if you stick your head in a bucket of liquid and inhale it probably won't be your sense of smell that is damaged.
| 2,093 |
|
[Pokemon] Hey, so I've just caught the physical incarnations of every major cosmic principle in the universe. Is this bad?
|
So, you know the powerful cosmic beings who embody and control (at last count): earth, sea, sky, plantlife, knowledge, emotion, free will, time, space, antimatter, dreams, nightmares, Ying and Yang, life, death, order, the sun and the moon? Also the creator of the universe? So, in total, basically everything in reality?
Yeah, I stole a bunch of masterballs and now I keep them all as digital energy in a box in a pokecenter.
Is this bad? Is the universe going to go off the rails? Will new ones appear? Did i just undo the cosmos?
How important are these cosmic entities, and how much of a problem is it that I now own all of them?
| 714 |
Do you remember when you were playing a global match and you fought that other Arceus? Did that seem at all confusing to you?
Most often Legendaries you catch are not avatars of the godlike beings, but mere Aspects, slivers of the greater whole spun off to aid worthy trainers. You did not stick God in your pocket.
| 589 |
[Hard Sci-fi] What would an interstellar organization governing 16 planets look like?
|
I'm trying to create a somewhat hard, or at least justifiable, science fiction idea of what such an organization would look like. It is independent and has a population of 20 billion.
Furthermore I want them to sit somewhere between 1.15 to 1.35 on the Kardashev scale. I know it's a large range but still Given these parameters what kind of government would I expect to create, assuming it's very strict if benevolent to its citizens. What would be the average day in their lives?
| 27 |
How hard? In particular, is there FTL communication? FTL shipping?
If not, it would have to be very loosely connected. Even with FTL communication, if trade takes too long or is too expensive there likely wouldn't be a strong connection. Then again, maybe intellectual property is the only thing that's really valuable, so physical trade doesn't matter anyway.
The average day in their lives depends heavily on what technology is available and what their culture is like. Do they still have normal bodies? Are they cyborg? Do they live their lives in virtual reality? Do they live their lives on the internet, so disconnected from physical reality that whatever games and interfaces they use no longer seek to emulate it? Have they cured aging? Have they learned to prevent death altogether?
| 15 |
How do plants know which direction to lean towards in search of light?
|
For instance, indoors where there's minimal light coming from one window like 30 ft away. Does the plant sense the UV radiation similar to how we feel 'hot' vs 'cold'?
| 3,033 |
In a nutshell, yes. At the tips of the plant shoots are hormones called auxins, which are responsive to light and function in making the plant get taller. They auxins themselves are negatively phototropic, which means they migrate to the side of the plant that is getting less sunlight. So, shine a light from the north, all of the auxins go to the South. This causes the plant to grow more on the dark side, which pushes the stalk tip towards the light source.
| 1,840 |
ELI5 Does a medications half life continue to leave your body at the same rate after the half-life is reached?
| 26 |
For first-order elimination, half of it gets eliminated in the first half-life; another quarter gets eliminated in the second half-life; then an eight of it in the third half-life, then a sixteenth, and so on. The "rate" in terms of the length of one half-life stays the same, but the "rate" in terms of milligrams per hour steadily goes down.
Some drugs (alcohol as the most well known) instead follow zero-order elimination, where a fixed amount of drug gets eliminated per hour.
You can also have hybrids between those two - For example, a first-order drug may saturate the path your body uses to eliminate it, and act like a zero-order drug until your levels drop below that upper limit.
| 14 |
|
Why do google/microsoft/firefox care if I use their browser or not?
|
What do they get out of it?
| 20 |
Ad revenue. Firefox gets millions of dollars a year from Google for using their search engine for the Firefox start page and as the default search bar at the top right. Google increases it's own revenue by doing the same on Chrome, and Microsoft is pushing IE more now that they have Bing.
| 19 |
ELI5: the difference in time signatures, including the more complex (to me) ones used in jazz, like 6/8, 7/4, etc.
|
i have yet to find an explanation that can change the only example i’ve ever known which is 4/4. is it just how many notes can fit into a bar? why can’t the bars just be made longer? don’t all notes and bars have to eventually come back to an even number, like in 4/4? 12 is all i can thing about...
| 37 |
The bottom number indicates which type of note is a *beat*. Quarter notes (4), eighth notes (8), etc.
The top number indicates how many beats per measure.
So 6/8 says that eighth notes are a beat and there will be 6 beats per measure.
7/4 says that quarter notes are a beat and there will be 7 beats per measure.
| 11 |
ELI5: How do you store energy/electricity?
|
If i were to build a dam in a river, to focus the flow of the water and try to harness it. I guess i would create some sort of wheel that would be spun by the power of the water. How do i turn this into energy and eventually even store it?
| 23 |
Imagine you have a long line of golf balls, all touching and side by side. This is a wire, lets say its a copper wire because copper is easy to make into the long wire and its something the imaginary golf balls have an easy time rolling in (it could also be made from steel and some other metals). These golf balls are electrons, a metal, like copper, is an element whose electrons can "move" around.
If we push on the balls without them rolling (imagine on the other end something was blocking the way that will move if you push hard enough) we have just created Voltage, its the pressure pushing on the electrons. If they move we have Amperage, the number of electrons that move or flow down the line. How hard we have to push is the Resistance.
Now, we can't just push the golf balls into nothing, that would make empty spots in our line and it wouldnt be a line anymore. So imagine the line goes off into the distance and comes twisting back around so that the other end is touching our starting spot. Now you can see that by pushing the balls forward they will roll like a train and fill up the spot where you moved them from. This is the flow of electricity, electrons move out but simultaneously move in from the other way. We could say the direction they go is positive and the direction they come from is negative.
Now let's create some power. Magnets, or actually the magnetic field magnets make can gently push on those balls without touching them, very useful! If we spin the magnet we can push one ball forward every spin. This is nice but its not a lot, so let's take our wire, the long line of balls, and wrap it around outside the spinning magnet many, many, many times. Now when the magnet spins it can push alot of balls at once and with a lot of pressure. We need a way to keep the magnet spinning, we could do it by hand but that isnt a real job. So lets hook the magnet up to a big fan and spin the fan. We could use wind, or steam (coal, gas, nuclear all heat up water to make steam to push the fan to turn the magnet) or we can use flowing water. We could also make a special type of wire that makes sunlight move the electrons but we can focus on the basics.
Now we have a big spinning magnet and lots of wire pushing electron and creating electricity. We can do way to many things with it for me to cover everything, but ill be happy to answer specifics. As for how to store it, we can use batteries. We actually use so much electricity that our magnets are practically spinning all the time, but sometimes we need batteries. There's many types, but the basic idea is to take two different metals and submerge them in an acid. The acid has holes in it that want to be filled with electrons and the two metals have plenty to give. So if we add electricity to the battery it will "charge" and fill up all its spots. We can then take electricity from battery by connecting to it later. The actual number of electrons in the battery doesn't go up or down they just change locations from the acid to the metal and back.
| 18 |
CMV, a yellow card during in a football game should be followed by a 10 minutes suspension.
|
Having a yellow card during a soccer game has almost no impact on the game. In my opinion, the rules and the fact that there was no VAR until now encourages situations in which players will fake an injury (yes, I just saw Mbappé faking) to get a free kick. The only result, if the player is caught red handed as Mbappé was, is at worst a yellow card and the game will go on. It is also true for rough plays on certain players (for example, Griezmann has been a target during the whole game against Argentina, and except for one yellow card, there was almost no punishment).
Having a 10 minutes suspension like in rugby would really penalize the whole team which would need to run more and get tired faster. This would really discourage foul plays and would both protect the players and their health from tough plays and eliminate the aspect of soccer that every afficionado hates: simulation.
| 19 |
Yellow cards are a warning. Red are the ones that come with punishments. Your recommendation basically just eliminates yellow and turns them into red.
As for faking injury, that should result in ejection from the game, not a penalty in time.
| 11 |
[Marvel] In "Deadpool kills the Marvel Universe"
|
How did he kill Copycat, that X-man that he was in love with, that crazy lady that raped him by pretending to be the X-man he was in love with, Squirrel girl, Doctor doom, the Silver Surfer, Thanos, and the other guy(s) in the panel with the SS and Thanos?
| 26 |
Ironically, despite Deadpool's stated desire to break free from his creators' shackles, he was never doing anything but what they wanted. They allowed him to kill those characters because it amused them.
| 27 |
ELI5: How does putting someone in an induced coma prevent further brain damage?
|
When someone suffers a serious head injury, they can be put into an induced coma to reduce the chance of further brain damage. How is someone put into an induced coma, and how does being in an induced coma prevent further brain damage?
| 61 |
They generally don't just put you in a coma then say "good enough!" and walk away, they generally put you in a coma so they can do a thing to you that you'd not put up with if you were awake, like they cut part of your skull off and leave your head open or they cool your brain way down to stop swelling.
if your brain is sitting open or has fluids pumping in and out to cool it they basically need you to absolutely not move around for a couple days and do not want you awake ever till they put you back together.
| 37 |
If there is no memory of something is it of any value?
|
This thought occurred to me after I had a dream that I couldn't remember. The dream made me depressed, but now I cannot even remember what it was about. But I can still remember the feeling, so I would argue that it mattered even if I cannot remember it. If I didn't remember this feeling either, then did it matter at all?
To take it a bit farther, what if this could somehow happen in real life. Say we invented a way to 'undo' things. Say we torture someone, but they have no memory of it at all, and no information comes into the world about it. Does it matter? The person experienced the torture, there just is no information about it happening, even to them. But they did experience it.
Then this thought path caused me some existential questions. Once the world ends, or the universe 'ends' what if all of the information about its existence is lost? My general thought is that that is what is likely to happen, so why does progressing as a species even happen? Are we just playing a joke on ourselves?
| 17 |
I don't know about the last paragraph. But, some philosophers have what's called a 'desire-satisfaction' account of personal well-being, which entails not just that you don't need to remember something for it to have been good or bad for you, you don't even need to have experienced it. The classic example is this: imagine that, for all of Jones' 10 years of marriage, their spouse has been cheating on them. Jones thinks their marriage is happy, strong, whatever, but they are being lied to on a daily basis. Desire-satisfaction accounts of well-being think that Jones' life is *going worse for them* than it would be if their spouse were not cheating on them.
| 12 |
CMV: There should be a 72 hour waiting period to purchase any firearm
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Many states already have some sort of waiting period to purchase a firearm; however, I believe there should be a blanket 72 hour minimum waiting period to purchase and pick up a firearm. This law should not only account for purchases made in a store, but purchases made privately or at a gun show.
I recognize that enforcing the 72 hour waiting period for private sales is extremely difficult, but for argument sake, let's say we can manage it.
There is no negative consequence to this type of law, and the only thing that can come out of it is positive.
The leading cause of firearm death is suicide, about 60% of all firearm deaths in 2017. Over half of all suicides are gun related as well. According to multiple studies, the suicide rate drops between 7% to 11% with waiting periods. This equates to about 1,500 to 2,500 less suicides per year. Suicide is a crime of passion and guns are a top choice because they are quick and require little thought or action.
[https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/waiting-periods/suicide.html](https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/waiting-periods/suicide.html)
[https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/](https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/)
Implementing this type of policy would have no negative impact on anyone who owns a gun or wants to own a gun.
I recognize that there might be some issues with implementation in private sales and in gun shows, but I will not respond to people trying to argue against that. My main argument is that a 72 hour waiting period has no negative attributes and only positive ones.
Edit:
This applies only to your first gun purchase seeing as having a gun in your house already defeats the purpose. The CMV is still related to the idea of needing your first or only gun within this time-frame.
| 16 |
A partner files a restraining order and purchases a firearm after being beaten by their domestic abuser. They have to wait three days to practice the right of self defense protected by the bill of rights, and get confronted and beaten to death on hour 64...
| 16 |
ELI5:How did the Australians lose the Emu War
| 49 |
There were only a few soldiers assigned to eradicate the emu, a small amount of ammunition and their main weapon was a machine gun on a car, they were unsuccessful because an emu can often take more than one shot to kill and even then can run a long way before it does, making it difficult for the soldiers to assess how many they had killed.
Later, when the army gave up on the eradication (after a fairly lacklustre effort really) they opened it up to farmers who were much more numerous, effective, and overall more successful.
| 57 |
|
How does SARS-CoV-2 proof read its RNA replication?
|
I've read in a number of articles that SARS-CoV-2 has a low mutation rate because corona viruses check their copied RNA for errors.
I thought that viruses used the internal processes of the cells they invade to handle replication so what is "proof reading" the replication as before replication the virus has made no proteins of its own.
| 3,111 |
So, first you aren't really that far off here. Generally speaking viruses hack the machinery of the cell to replicate. But, just about every virus has a viral genome that encodes for a few, or in some cases many, proteins. It all just depends on the virus, it's evolutionary history, and the type of genome is has (Dna single stranded, DNA double stranded, +/- Rna). Sadly this coronavirus actually has the genetic code for creating an RNA proofreading protein complex (crazy right!?!) So in this case the virus itself is providing the proteins for proofreading during replication, causing the relaticely low frequency of mutations (which is still high generally speaking because it's a virus, they replicate fast and enter new environments fast)
This also makes it difficult to target covid with drugs as many of the best antivirals drugs work by tricking non-proofreading viruses into incorporating a bulky, not easy to work with nucleoside instead of a normal one into it's genome. These "nucleoside analogs" look to the non-reading virus like a normal ATCG but they are chemically modified to terminate the reaction. So if you as a virus incorporate a nucleoside analog then too bad, you are now prevented from replicating. Covid can tell that they picked up a nucleoside analog instead of a normal nucleoside, will kick the analog out, and thus our best antivirals can't stop covid from doing it's thing.
| 1,307 |
CMV: The United States should adopt the green running man pictogram as its sole exit sign.
|
Pretty self-explanatory, I think the United States should adopt the [green running man pictogram](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/PublicInformationSymbol_EmergencyExit.svg). It's used in most areas of the world(the EU, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China, and a few years ago it was adopted in Canada). It's green, the colour of safety, as opposed to red which is the colour of danger. Also, it's a pictogram, so it's easier understood if you can't read or don't understand English.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*
| 37 |
> It's green, the colour of safety, as opposed to red which is the colour of danger.
Or for us the colour of emergency. We have red fire trucks, red ambulances, red fire extinguishers... etc...
These things are usually also 1) Near a door; 2) Near a fire alarm; 3) Lit in a dark place like a theatre to guide you; 4) Bearing the word "EXIT" which is one of the most basic words to learn.
| 24 |
ELI5 why people with Alzheimer's forget things like their age, name, friend's faces etc but not how to breath, talk or walk?
| 45 |
Alzheimers is degenerative disease of the cerebral cortex. This is the part of the brain that deals with memory, attention, thought, language, awareness and the like. So the disease affects a part of the brain that controls a separate function from the examples you gave.
The Brain Stem is the part of the brain that controls things like breathing, circulating blood, digesting food.. etc.
As for talking, many people who have Alzheimer's do forget how to speak certain words. They won't remember what a word for something is or might not know what a word stands for with out having the object to use as a relation.
The Cerebellum is the part of the brain that controls voluntary movement, posture and balance.
| 34 |
|
CMV: Limes are superior to lemons
|
A quick google search tells me that lemon and limes are almost impossible to differentiate nutritionally. I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that limes are superior because they're tastier and more versatile than lemons.
Limes have a sweeter, more flavourful taste. Whereas lemons are more bitter and sour, overriding any sort of flavour it might have had.
Also, if we compare the drinks both are used in. Limes are in all the better alcoholic drinks: Mojitos, Margaritas, Moscow mules, Strawberrry & Lime cider and pretty much every cocktail uses lime, not lemon. And all the non-alcoholic drinks: Green tea, lime and mint coolers and Lime cordial. Whereas lemons are in what? Hooch, lemonade and dish washing liquid.
If we compare the foods both are used in. See the entirety of Mexican food. And Thai food. And Vietnamese food. For lemon, see the fish and chip shop down the road.
Change my view.
Also, key lime pie>lemon meringue pie.
_____
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| 57 |
Lime being more flavorful is its strength and its weakness.
Lemon juice is useful as a short-term preservative - slicing apples but then drizzling a little lemon juice can slow the browning of apple slices. Therefore, if you need to slice them now, but don't need them for ten minutes, Lemon Juice can be very helpful.
Lime juice has the same preservative properties, but has a strong flavor. As such, rather than ending up with preserved apple slices, you get preserved apple-lime slices, which isn't always what you want.
Same argument for ice cream. Ice cream can take a long time to churn. You don't want your milk to spoil while you are ice creaming it, so you add just a little lemon juice. Lime juice is quickly overpowering, and not great for this purpose.
| 24 |
[Game of Thrones] What were the salaries of the members of the Small Council?
|
When House Bartheon was the royal house, how much was each member of the Small Council paid for their role serving the Seven Kingdoms? Did they receive additional payment for their time spent on council or was is volunteer duty expected in their position?
Council Members include
* Hand of the King
* Master of War
* Master of Coin
* Master of Whispers
* Master of Ships
* Master of Laws
* Commander of the King's Guard
* Grand Maester
| 21 |
None of them get a salary, this is feudalism, baby.
Every member of the small council is a landed noble. They have lands that generate income. If they, or the king, feels that is insufficient he will assign them more as the king will have some estates in his name that are being managed by other nobles he can hand over.
Now because they are in charge of lands, and this is fudalism, they can absolutely direct stuff back at their own lands with abandon. The hand knows that there is about to be a tax issued on whiskey, he's exempt from the tax or he knows before hand and switches production well before anyone else. Master of Ships might have to pay less taxes on making ships, but also has to give the crown a special rate to transport its goods.
If an unlanded person got appointed to Master of Whispers, lets say, the King would give him estates sufficient to support him at court. The new noble, and he would be ennobled, wouldn't even ever actually need to visit there. The lands were managed before but the revenue went to the king, now they go to the new guy.
Big trick here, especially with the Master of Whispers I've created, is that the King can also remove those lands. So if the Master of Whispers pisses him off, the MoW is still a noble, but the King will take back all of the lands so he's now a landless noble. Master of Ships pisses him off, then he still has to transport the kings goods cheap but he loses the exemption for making new ships. They got creative.
Many of the people on the small council were of the type that it wasn't so much who the king wanted, but who the king needed to put there out of political necessity.
| 57 |
ELI5: Why do we believe an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs?
| 87 |
67 million years ago there’s dinosaur fossils everywhere in the rock layer.
65 million years ago there’s *zero* dinosaur fossils.
In between is a thin layer of ash and iridium. Iridium is very rare on earth, but common in asteroids. A global layer of ash would suggest something cataclysmic happened, incinerating forests on a global scale and/or setting off a massive volcanic event.
This theory was kicked around for some time, and then the real bloody knife was discovered in the Gulf of Mexico - an enormous crater that’s 66 million years old, obscured beneath the water and Mexican jungles.
| 416 |
|
ELI5: How come when some people get in contact with poison Ivy, oak, or sumac; they break out in blisters. What is happening for this reaction to occur?
| 56 |
I type this with a hand covered in poison ivy =(
It's caused by an oil called "Urushiol". Yes, Poison Ivy, Sumac, and Oak all have the same stuff that makes the rash, although it may be different amounts/concentrations.
In 5 year old terms, what happens is this oil gets in contact with your skin, and over the course of 1-3 days, it causes a reaction with your skin cells. It bonds with the proteins in your skin cells, which makes your immune system react as if it's an invader since it can no longer identify it as skin. In an effort to get rid of this foreign substance, your body forms the itchy/blistery/flaky "dermatitis" that we know so well.
TL;DR Urushiol oil messes with the proteins of your skin cells, tricking your body into thinking it's not skin. Your immune system tries to get rid of it, resulting in the itchy/blistery/flaky skin.
| 24 |
|
[Star Trek] Telepathy is an uncommon trait. Yet the universal translator reads brain waves to translate speech, doesn't it? How is such a technology common?
|
And why does it work on the Ferengi, who are supposed to be immune to telepathy due to their unusual brain structure?
| 69 |
The Universal Translator does not read brain waves. It looks for (or interpolates) common language structures in a given language, then uses that structure to provide a translation map to/from that language. The concept is probably best demonstrated on the DS9 episode "Sanctuary" where the Gamma Quadrant visitors' language was so unusual that it took the station's universal translator significantly longer than normal to be able to break it down.
"Classic" Star Trek lore (defined as "everything before the Abrams reboot") leaves a lot to the imagination when it comes to the UT. A more realistic interpretation happens in the Abrams reboot where UTs are shown on the collars of people, translating their spoken language into English in real time as their users speak (so you have an amalgam of English and Alien), although the mechanism that determines how the UT knows what language to translate into has yet to be learned.
| 68 |
ELI5: How do heatwaves, like the one currently affecting the UK happen?
|
One week, we can have a cloudless sky and the temperature be no more than 20-25°C. This week we have a cloudless sky and the temperature has reached approaching 40°C. What factors cause the huge difference in temperature?
| 22 |
Air on Earth doesn't heat up evenly due to the angle of the sun, weather, and geography (eg. water and land heat up at different rates). Sometimes a heated air mass from a warm region goes places where they normally don't - like to the UK. It's usually hard to predict where air masses go, but they have patterns. These patterns are changing - that's in part what we mean by climate change. So at the moment basically a hot air mass - which is more likely to exist as a result of climate change - is going to a place where they historically rarely go - which is also more likely to happen as a result of climate change.
| 29 |
ELI5: Now that we have hudreds of years of history to look back on, on top of computer technology--why is there such debate on how an economy should be run?
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I would think we could look throughout time and see things like varying tax rates vs. a countries economic performance (among hundreds of other economic factors) to figure out the proper way to run an economy. Is the fact that we have a huge globally connected economy and contact changes in technology the issue?
| 19 |
This is like saying that by now we should have more than enough data to fully understand and build a human brain. No. Just no.
An economy is a horrendously complex thing. You can't just look at a few variables like that and decide that you've figured it out. That would be very much like deciding that since we've figured out some relationships between blood pressure and heart disease or between hormone levels and whatever that we should now understand all of human medicine.
Some of the most brilliant mathematicians alive have devoted their lives to trying to model various bits of the markets, and none of them would have the hubris to claim that they've come up with a rigorous theoretical model that explains economics.
| 20 |
CMV: I think that we should abolish the minimum wage and replace it with universal basic income.
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We are rapidly reaching a point where automation will completely replace all entry level and medium to low skill jobs. As a result, it will be incredibly difficult for people to raise themselves up out of poverty in our current system. Only so many of us can become programmers and/or contribute on a financially meaningful scale.
I am not advocating that everyone should be given an extremely large amount of money, only enough for them to cover basic human necessities such as food, shelter, and some form of basic healthcare. Once these needs have been met, the individual should then be responsible to work for any additional wants/needs.
By meeting some of the most basic human needs, I believe this system would help relieve the biggest stressors on the individual and make them more competent to negotiate a fair wage. As a result, I think that minimum wage would no longer be necessary and might even be a hinderance to commerce and building wealth.
| 382 |
> We are rapidly reaching a point where automation will completely replace all entry level and medium to low skill jobs.
We've been saying this for decades, if not over a century at least now. We'll still have many things that humans do far better than robots for at least the next few decades. We'll even see a rise in mildly technical jobs of working on machines/robots because there will be far more breakdowns that robots themselves cannot fix for a long time.
But that aside, how does removing the minimum wage help? Perhaps you could lower it, but then that'd really depend on where you live still.
Also, have you figured out the math on basic income? There's too many people and no where near enough government income to pay for that, and until society has far more mechanical workers than humans, that just won't be feasible.
| 116 |
ELI5: If we can figure out secure online banking, why not secure online voting?
| 22 |
Because banking is almost but not quite the exact opposite of voting.
In banking you want a to keep a meticulous paper trail that allows you to tie every transaction to someones account. In voting you want to do everything you can to avoid a paper trail that lets you tie a voter to a specific vote.
| 25 |
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[Star Wars] Why are the surfice of star destroyers and other warships so greebled?
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For those who dont know, [greeble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble) is the process of adding details to a flat surfice to make them look[ more "scifi"](https://www.toolfarm.com/images/uploads/featured_images/xkuroyume_greebler_feat.jpg.pagespeed.ic.dsNU3cjD8h.jpg). Now, i understand *why* they are there, it looks awesome, and in some cases it can be justified, like how ships that arent made for combat or are a bit lower tech can have a bunch of important instruments on the outside, or armour has been sacrified for cost or speed, like how the rebels [Y-wing](https://www.rebelscale.com/wp-content/uploads/y-wing-variants.jpg) had all of its armour and most of its hull removed to make them cheaper and faster. Or how the death star is so massive that it surfice is more akin to a planet surfice than a ship hull. So there it can make [sense that its a bit greebled.](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VtDzm.jpg)
However, death stars are dedicated warships, yet [they](https://d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net/wp/wp-content/images/starwars-riseofskywalker-trailerbreakdown-heroes-charging-stardestroyers-700x291.jpg) are very [greebled](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/hOj-sJLIOhUaHkT2HBslcTY0NE6fO10RTLXHfVCvfk-iKTPXFB62MHlsR5YAf-pxkwcLPec6n4IkwrXfC8hns49q3Wq11a5h42etijWV7Z6D4WQ1Kh570BSf). Even more so in the [trenches](https://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/laserdisk/sw5/execbow02.jpg) and [towers](https://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/chron/isdface2a.jpg).
And i understand that some things might need to stick out form the hull for technical or practical reasons, stuff like shield generators, turbolasers or communication arrays, but not everything here can be communication arrays, can it? Wouldnt it be better to cover as many things as possible with more armour?
| 111 |
I’m guessing that a lot of the stranger aspects of Star Wars military tech can be chalked up to the fact that a lot of it was “recently” rediscovered on their time scales.
Starting from the Clone Wars, they had to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, regarding how to fight interstellar wars.
The 3 years of the Clone Wars, and the 20 plus years of the Empire, saw lots of trial and error and jury rigging as the galaxy reacquainted itself with the art of war.
Presumably, given a couple more decades of fighting, their military technology, theory and practice would be refined enough that it would take full advantage of the potential offered by their technology.
| 83 |
ELI5:US Supreme Court: King v. Burwell. Obamacare subsidies
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In light of the recent ruling on King v. Burwell (in favor of the Government, 6-3) and the number of questions it's already creating we decided to make this sticky thread. Feel free to ask any questions related to this ruling in this post or offer an explanation of the ruling and the background behind it.
| 221 |
"Obamacare" made health insurance exchanges. Each state had the option of making their own exchange, or using the federal exchange.
The part of the law in question gives federal money to people who are within 100% to 400% of the federal poverty line.
However, the law technically says the federal money can go to people who buy insurance from an exchange created "by the state" not "by the state, or by the federal government."
In the background of all of this, there is the fact that WAY more states refused to make their own exchanges, and used the federal exchange than Congress expected, because of negative reaction to the law.
So there are LOTS of people who got the federal money for insurance bought on the federal exchange.
If the "by the state" language meant just "by the state" the whole insurance scheme would fall apart, because there are so many people who rely on the subsidies and the federal exchanges.
However, the Supreme Court just decided that "by the state" actually meant "by the state or the federal government," essentially because the law would not work without that interpretation.
So people get to keep their federal subsidies now, regardless of whether they bought their insurance on the federal or state exchanges.
| 82 |
[Star Wars] Spoiler Question about Mandalorian and Moff Gideon
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After watching the episode and knowing the rules of the dark saber did Moff Gideon throw the fight with the Mandalorian to intentionally cause friction for him and Bo Katan since Mandalorian cannot just give her the dark saber
| 24 |
He might have given how much he knows about various things and that his dark troopers were on the way back. More likely he fought and lost but made sure din took the saber rather than leave it behind as an alternative way to split the team's priorities as the dark troopers returned.
| 29 |
Has Cancer always existed or is it a modern disease?
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Is cancer a product of our modernization? Or has it always existed even for much older generations like in the 12th century and the like?
Did it exist in a different name? Etc etc
| 72 |
Two factors make it seem more prevalent today. We are much better at detecting cancer, especially less apparent ones that don't form obvious masses. Secondly, people are less likely to die from other things. Cancer is pretty much inevitable if you live long enough, so if you aren't dying from infectious diseases, accidents, etc. there's a good chance it'll be what finally gets you.
| 93 |
[General Sci-Fi] What are some realistic reasons aliens would want to conquer Earth?
| 144 |
I really like the concept behind the aliens in XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
Spoilers ahead if you care about that kind of thing.
So in XCOM you slowly learn through the course of the campaign that all the different kinds of aliens you are fighting are not one species, but several, that have been heavily modified through genetic engineering and mechanical augmentation. Eventually you discover a breed of psychically active aliens, and learn that all of the various species are connected through a psychic hive-mind tha is organized hierarchically, with the more psychically active species at the top.
By the time you get to the end of the campaign, you have appropriated a ton of the aliens' technology, and eventually create your own psychic super-soldiers, culminating in one super-powerful psychic; The Volunteer.
It turns out that all the aliens you had fought and defeated were failed experiments, attempts at creating a species that was physically and psychically 'perfect', something the alien leaders were never able to accomplish.
But you were.
The whole invasion was one in a series of conquests in which the "Ethereals" used warfare to force the evolution of a species to the point where they became psychically active. Mankind was the first such species to be "uplifted" successfully, by creating soldiers who were both physically strong and immensely powerful psychics.
Had the aliens had their way, humanity would hen have been assimilated into the collective and the aliens would have achieved 'perfection'. Another piece to the puzzle is that it is implied that the alien leaders were themselves uplifted by a powerful forerunner race, who eventually transcended physical existence, and the alien's pursuit of perfection is an attempt to follow in their footsteps, having been left behind.
**tldr;** Aliens use warfare to force humanity to evolve rapidly in preparation for assimilation into a psychic collective.
| 178 |
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How do you concretely exploit the fact that a qubit can be in several states knowing that observing it is fixing its state ?*
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I think that I understand the superposition principle but I don't understand how can a quantum system can use it to explore more combination of qbit at once. For example factorisation ?
| 161 |
You mess around with it while it's still in superposition to get the answer you want to interfere constructively and the answers you don't want to interfere destructively. For example, suppose you have some function where if you plug in state A, it gives 1/sqrt(2)(C+D), and if you plug in state B, it gives 1/sqrt(2)(C-D). Either of those states has a 50% chance of returning C and a 50% chance of returning D. But if you plug in a quantum superposition of 1/sqrt(2)(A+B), then you get 1/sqrt(2)(1/sqrt(2)(C+D)+1/sqrt(2)(C-D)) = C. The C states interfered constructively and the D states interfered destructively.
| 45 |
CMV: Liberalism isn't anti-hate
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Advocates of liberal ideologies tend to explain the basic premise of their views to me as "anti-hate" or "anti-discrimination" (sometimes exactly like that, sometimes in more words). However when I look at liberal views, they seem just as hateful, just at new targets. We don't hate black people, we hate racists (and we use this umbrella term to cover a lot of people). We don't hate the poor, we hate the rich. We don't hate gays, we hate religious fundamentalists (and again, we use this term to cover a lot of people). We hate discrimination, but only against minorities (all black colleges, all LGBT (school) clubs...). I feel like there is another way to see this, please explain it to me.
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| 45 |
There are a lot of wealthy liberals, and a lot of Christian liberals, particularly outside of America. Those people don't hate themselves, or each other. Liberals hate power structures that benefit the strong over the weak. They hate the idea of forcing the unusual to conform with the strong.
Racism against non-whites is dangerous for non-whites, as whites dominate the social power structure. It creates a structure of power that benefits the strong and harms the weak. Similarly, the idea that the wealthy should pay low taxes or should be able to cut wages is about preventing wealth from becoming a power structure that harms the weak.
All-LGBT school clubs are in no danger of becoming a power structure, but all-straight clubs still can. Such a club can become a means to shut out the gay kids from general society or useful extracurriculars. Your school's only football team will never be gay-only, but it sure might become straight only, and that might hurt the gay kids' ability to win important scholarships or pursue a professional sports career. By contrast, your local gay support group isn't really going to limit your options at all if you can't join.
The same goes for all-Black colleges. If Harvard went all-white it would make it very difficult for black people to participate in government or Fortune 500 companies, but the all-black college is never going to do that - those institutions are both predominantly white.
No one is going to get mad at you if you personally believe that you don't want to have an abortion because God doesn't like them. That's 100% your choice, and a reflection of your religion. It's only when you believe that having the largest religion in the country gives you the power to force that choice on others through the law that liberals get upset.
Now I'll agree, some liberals, especially young liberals, do hate rich people or religious people, but liberalism itself is extricable from those views. Barrack Obama is rich and religious, for example, but most Americans would consider him a liberal. No one hates Warren Buffet for his money, either - they only dislike it when the rich perform or advocate actions that make the poor poorer. It is only when people try to leverage race, religion, or wealth to gain power that liberals become upset, or when the existing power of those groups is used to restrict the freedom of another.
| 52 |
For those who have sold programs, script or projects, how did you come up with the idea and how did you sell it?
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Im working on a program i wrote for automating some of the tasks as an insurance seller and my company is paying me 500$ a month (which is too cheap as my script is able to make the company tens of thousands a month)
We were tasked to prospect at home so that we had people to call the day after and i told my boss that i would make a program that did it for me. It went from a small python project to becoming much bigger with a lot more data handeling than i thought..
I was curious about other peoples experiences with something like this as i’m learning python at the same time as im making this project. I took the first offer i got from my boss as an extra motivation for learning the ropes of python.
| 33 |
I think you’re on the right track for how to build/sell projects. Find a _real_ problem, build a proof of concept, sell it to a few customers, then grow your business until you can sell the company. Next time you should work on it as a side project/business so your current employer doesn’t own the legal rights to it.
| 21 |
I don't think it's bad that many people don't vote, because it means the votes of those who are informed and committed count for more. CMV
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If someone doesn't vote, surely they either don't know enough about the issues for their vote to be worth anything anyway, or they don't have any issues that they see any party can solve. So their vote isn't going to be very considered, and is more likely to be chosen based on superficial factors.
For each person like this who doesn't vote, the impact of the vote of someone who does care and is knowledgeable is magnified. And surely this is a good thing.
Personally I'm glad when people don't vote because it means my vote counts for more.
EDIT - I'm in the UK and talking from a UK perspective, but also interested in perspectives from elsewhere.
EDIT 2 - I'm only including those for whom voting is not anymore of a challenge than for the average person in the 'don't care if they don't vote' category.
| 52 |
Apathetic, largely centrist voters are a good check against ideologically driven voters. If the majority of people voting are those with rigid views who strongly favor one side, then candidates have more incentive to campaign with less moderate views to appease their party and prevent a primary challenge. This is one driver of polarization.
Moreover, there's no reason to believe that the average voter is knowledgeable, or that this 'knowledge' is even a good thing. Someone raised a die-hard conservative and listens to talk radio every day would probably do better on a political quiz than a self-proclaimed nonvoter, but if the latter were forced to vote then they would probably put more reasoning into their decision than the former. Remember that in the US, voting is more or less zero sum, there are "informed" people who support both candidates and it's a 50/50 shot for every "uninformed" person, so it's not like their vote can do any damage.
| 16 |
CMV: Trump is most likely going to win re-election in November
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The writing really seems like it's on the wall for a 2016 repeat. We had multiple amazing candidates, but, in the end, it's most likely going to be the worst candidate picked in the DNC, Joe Biden, whom is barely more likable than Hillary Clinton. Buttegeig and Yang dropped out, and Sanders doesn't look like he'll get the nomination, despite those 2 being the only candidates who actually had a chance at beating Trump. Trump's base also seems stronger and more vocal than ever. Also, historically, incumbents have an easier time winning re-election, and he's a wartime president at that. It seems ever day we go further and further backwards and forwards and upside down, and, again. With Joe Biden being fairly unpopular, it seems unlikely that he could win against Trump.
Edit: and with coronavirus being a thing, and with the right wing trying to suppress votes by making vote by mail inaccessible, voter turnout will likely be even worse than in 2016, which was historically bad, which will likely win to a trump win.
| 18 |
Trump’s approval ratings are near the lowest of his entire presidency. He could barely fill 25% of an arena in a state he won by 32 points last election. Nearly every national poll has him down by 10+ points (well outside the margin of error) and he is losing by similar margins in most swing state polls.
Now, none of this is proof positive that he will lose, but it is pretty clear that he is in a much worse position today than he was 4 years ago, and he barely won in 2016. Things are so bad that reports are saying the RNC is panicking over the down ballot effects and they are scared they are going to lose the Senate and many State Governments as well.
Moreover, many votes for Trump in 2016 were votes against Clinton - she was a very disliked candidate with very poor favorables. Love him or hate him, Biden is no where near as divisive and is a much more palatable candidate for many voters.
To say that his victory is assured is just ignoring how much worse things are for him this time around.
| 21 |
ELI5: How/why are we able to physically feel emotions?
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This morning I was laying next to my boyfriend and I found myself missing him. Physically, my chest felt tight and buzzy. I remember in high school physically feeling my heart break after break ups. Or the butterfly in your stomach feeling. How and why does this happen?
| 28 |
It has been proven that the brain perceives emotional pain in a similar way to physical pain.
Missing someone causes stress and worry to which brain answers with the physical response of muscle tightness, increased heart rate and shortness of breath.
A heartbreak results into insane amounts of stress which activate the fight-or-flight response where the heart starts pumping more blood, muscles clench and you start breathing faster because you feel in danger and as though you have been hurt.
The brain is also taken aback by the emotional shock and is trying to take control of the situation, but it is stuck in a period of analysing and processing the shocking situation.
Butterflies in the stomach are caused by a reduction of blood flow to the organ as a result to anxiety or excitement. The adrenaline is released to increase the blood flow and rush more blood to the muscles to get you prepared for flight or fight.
We feel these intense feelings in response to our emotions in order to adapt to situations and prevent making the same mistake. You feel the heartbreak because the partner your brain and body has accepted as a potential mate has rejected you after you formed an emotional attachment.
| 29 |
ELI5: Why AT&T merging with T-Mobile is triggering antitrust challenges but Sirius/XM merging is not an issue.
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There are no other players in the satellite radio world so it seems like Sirius/XM have a monopoly on things there. AT&T/T-Mobile merging still leaves Sprint, Verizon and a bunch of local type carriers (Cricket, etc.) so that doesn't seem to be as big of a deal.
| 269 |
The argument for the Sirius/XM merger was that it competes with terrestrial radio (AM/FM/HD Radio), thus the two entities combining would not create a monopoly. Also, unlike maintaining the exorbitant cost of cell towers, it's conceivable someone could come along and start their own satellite radio service to compete with SiriusXM by just shooting a couple satellites in the sky.
| 105 |
Why are Europe and Asia considered separate continents?
| 61 |
Historical reasons. There isn't a strict definition of what constitutes a continent.
edit: It should also be mentioned that in some places, Europe+Asia are considered one continent, and in other places North+South America are considered one continent.
| 96 |
|
ELI5: why is the US the only country, apart from Liberia and Burma, not to have adopted the International System of units?
| 9,213 |
The short answer about this is that the US *has* officially adopted it. But nobody wants to use it. There's no public will to actually change everything over to standard units, so that doesn't happen.
But if you talk to scientists, or medical personnel, they will tell you that they use metric at work.
| 4,435 |
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ELI5: Why do salt water fish NEED salt in the water to survive?
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It was always my assumption that salt water fish and fresh water fish are the same, difference being salt water fish just have the ability to filter out the salt. But the fact that salt water fish actually die in fresh water has me wondering why if it’s just oxygen they’re extracting out of the water
| 27 |
Freshwater fish will die in salt water too. Marine organisms are adapted to the environment they are in - because they are surrounded by water, the osmotic pressure inside their cells is balancing the pressure of water around them. If you put a saltwater fish in water that has less salt than what’s in their cells, the cells will pump the excess salt out to balance it, and that will mess up the physiology of the cells (because it evolved to function with a certain concentration of salt inside). Similar things happen to humans who have unbalanced electrolytes - if you have certain conditions, your kidneys could work overtime and eliminate potassium out of your cells, which then causes a whole cascade of issues.
| 29 |
CMV: Pokemon, while not ruined by, is worsened by including IV/EV as a concept, etc.
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This CMV is based on my recent return to the Pokemon games. I haven't played the games since Black 1, and returned in Alpha Sapphire. Prior to that, I had played every gen from Gen 1 - Black 1.
As a kid, you are introduced to the games and a plethora of values and concepts. Among these are sometimes related to "flavor" (anything in relation to the story) and other surface level mechanics.
1. The player is introduced to pokemon and that pokemon will do better with love and care. (This is never elaborated on, really. And only through 3rd party sources did I ever find out that there *are actual things that will cause them to like or dislike you.)
2. We are shown *how* to battle. We know how to use moves, keep track of status effects, prevent fainting, gain XP, etc and etc.
3. We learn how to evolve our pokemon.
So, my issue then comes from these *hidden* facets of the game, that are undeniably part of the game. Even if you don't avail yourself of that knowledge, it still affects you. End game content becomes difficult to enjoy if you didn't select for perfect IV pokemon, or didn't bust your balls on EV's. Even the pokemon's *personality* can be wrong!
I'm just having a hard time seeing the value of these things because it almost directly contradicts sort of the "spirit" of the games. Which, I know can sound like a nebulous concept... but they pretty explicitly make it sound like a world of harmony and love where you embrace the pokemon you find for what it is.
Instead, we're sorta goaded into harvesting legions of pokemon X just to find that perfect IV and nature.
My view is this: Why make something that is only important to the niche competitive crowd, affect everyone. The worst part is, some people seem to think "just ignore it" type arguments are effective. That is not fair. Once you know how it works, or battle a friend who is savvy with it, then you *can't* ignore it. You will always be wondering if your pokemon wasn't effective because you didn't breed it for perfection. It literally sounds like pokemon eugenics.
_____
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| 174 |
Sun and moon introduced a system where by you can effectively increase your pokemons IVs. So you can still have the pokemon you used in game as power houses post game if you want to put in that effort. EVs are basically study for pokemon. If you train it in a certain way it gets better at that thing. Same as if you study maths as a pose to English you'll be better at what you spend more time on. Pokemon has never been more fair and balanced in terms of everyone having access to equal strength pokemon. In gen 3 through 5 you had to use manipulation of the games in built rng system to get good pokemon. Now you can train them up or use breeding which ever method you prefer.
| 50 |
Why does solar pressure cause rotations of the JWST instead of just pushing it away uniformly?
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I've been curious about this for a long time and I expected that when the Aft Momentum Flap was eventually deployed (as it was today), there would be more layman-accessible explanations of this; however, I've not found any.
My naive first guess about how solar pressure would affect JWST would be that the force would be uniformly in one direction: outward from the sun, and therefore cause it to move slightly away from the sun over time, but not cause any changes in rotations or orientation. So how, exactly, does solar pressure cause *rotations* of the JWST instead?
So far the only explanation I've found is what it says in NASA's blog, which doesn't explain how solar pressure causes rotations ([https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2021/12/30/webbs-aft-momentum-flap-deployed/](https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2021/12/30/webbs-aft-momentum-flap-deployed/)):
>"The aft momentum flap helps minimize the fuel engineers will need to use throughout Webb’s lifetime, by helping to maintain the observatory’s orientation in orbit. As photons of sunlight hit the large sunshield surface, they will exert pressure on the sunshield, and if not properly balanced, this solar pressure would cause rotations of the observatory that must be accommodated by its reaction wheels. The aft momentum flap will sail on the pressure of these photons, balancing the sunshield and keeping the observatory steady."
One explanation that occurred to me is that the telescope is running into more solar wind in the direction of motion (like how a fast runner runs into more rain droplets on their front than their back), is that on the right track?
Bonus question: how does the Aft Momentum Flap counteract the force? (Although perhaps the answer will be self-evident after one understands the reason for the rotation.)
| 20 |
If the force doesn't act through the center of mass it will induce a torque. If you push sideways on one end of a rod you won't move the whole rod in that direction, you would rotate the rod. The momentum flap provides a counteracting torque to keep the telescope from rotating.
| 22 |
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