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aummh7
|
what are antagonists and agonists? specifically when it comes to antidepressants.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aummh7/eli5_what_are_antagonists_and_agonists/
|
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"Receptors are like little doors into a nerve cell for ions. An agonist is something that can unlock the door, with higher concentrations unlocking more doors. Antagonists are like guards in front of a door. They prevent agonists from being able to open the door as easily, either making it harder to open or blocking it altogether."
]
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[] |
[] |
[
[]
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||
ajxzez
|
how does hibernation work?
|
Why don’t hibernating animals need food or water?
How do they fight of sickness and bacteria? Do they pee or poop?
How is it different to sleep?
Can they just wake up if they are disturbed?
Is it different between alligators vs bears?
Edit:grammar
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ajxzez/eli5_how_does_hibernation_work/
|
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"I can answer a couple of these. (For bears) They don't pee or poop but do lose a lot of weight to breathing out water vapor. Sleep shouldn't affect any immune function. It's often not true hibernation either, just a period of their life when they stay in the den and do very little other than sleep. But you could wake them if you wanted, although what you hope to gain, I'm not sure."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
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|
8dupke
|
why does shaking soda release the carbon dioxide?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8dupke/eli5_why_does_shaking_soda_release_the_carbon/
|
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"A solvent can only hold so much solute (the thing dissolved in the solvent). Soda is pretty much maxed out for the amount of CO2 it can dissolve and maintain in equilibrium (CO2 in vapor space above liquid versus gas dissolved in liquid). Shaking adds more gas to be dissolved in the already saturated liquid (saturated meaning it can't hold more) which it can't manage causing the release of the dissolved gas. If you had a full to the brim bottle of soda, shaking would do nothing.",
"You're making tiny bubbles that serve as nucleation points for the dissolved gas. The liquid is basically saturated with dissolved gas that really wants to escape.",
"Soda is saturated with CO2 when it's in a can highly pressurized with pure CO2.\n\nWhen you pop open the can, this reduces the air pressure (specifically, the partial pressure of CO2). Suddenly, the soda is highly supersaturated with CO2.\n\nWhen the CO2 comes out of solution at the surface, you don't really notice, but when CO2 comes out of solution under water, a bubble of CO2 forms. The equilibrium state is a completely flat soda (leave an opened soda out for a few days - dead flat and no bubbles).\n\nBut equilibrium isn't reached instantly, it takes time. You can reduce that time by creating more nucleation sites.\n\nA nucleation site is an irregularity that allows a bubble to begin forming. Simmer some water and you'll see steams of bubbles forming at specific locations on the bottom of the pan. Each corresponds to a tiny scratch on the pot where the bubbles form.\n\nWhat's interesting is a bubble is itself a nucleation site. In boiling water, you can see the bubbles growing larger as they rise.\n\nShaking a can mixes air into the soda, creating more bubbles, creating more nucleation sites, and allowing the CO2 to fall out of solution faster.\n\nA mentos tablet has an extremely rough surface that also dissolves into more rough surfaces, putting ridiculous numbers of nucleation sites in the soda, allowing the soda to reach equilibrium nearly instantly. The result is all the CO2 turns to gas.",
"CO2 dissolved in the liquid will come across any liquid gas boundary once you let the pressure out, what shaking the soda does is drastically increase the surface area available for this to happen, and spreads that surface area throughout the whole volume instead of just at the surface. If you shake a soda and then wait for the bubbles to rise back to the top of the soda before opening it, it will be just like opening a soda that hasn't been shaken.\n\nAlso when you open a shaken soda, the bubbles grow as they accumulate CO2, further increasing the surface area. "
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5beldl
|
how do airtight containers work if there are is still air in them?
|
I wasn't quite sure how to word it but things that need to be stored in an airtight container (eg. crisps) dont have to be vacuum sealed? Wouldnt it be the same as putting it outside?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5beldl/eli5how_do_airtight_containers_work_if_there_are/
|
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"First, you need to understand what it means for a container to be 'open' with respect to some contaminant.\n\nA container is 'open' with respect to the air as long as there's a leak thats around the same size (or a bit larger) than the air molecules. In a similar way, your room is \"open\" to fruit flies if your window is open and the screen's mesh-pore size is larger than a typical fruit fly.\n\nSo, we put an air-tight cap on the container. Now, there are still air molecules inside the container and outside the container. But the cap we put on has no pores which are large enough for air molecules to squeeze through. This means that the air you 'trap' in the container will be the same air as when you open the container 500 years later.\n\nA vacuum requires one more step. In an air-tight container, all we did was put an air-tight cap on the container, preventing all future air molecule transfers between the container and the outside. For a vacuum, we still do this. However, afterwards, we suck out all of the existing air from the container. This leaves us with a container which has no air in it, and also does not let any air into it!\n\n",
"When you seal a container you are limiting the number of molecules that can come in contact with your food. A food that would normally dry out releases water into the air around it but because the space is so small, the air becomes saturated with water. No more water can move into the air. Completely different from being outside where the water is free to dissipate into the atmosphere. "
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4vjxtj
|
how do we "store" electricity?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4vjxtj/eli5_how_do_we_store_electricity/
|
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"text": [
"Very simply, we have potential and kinetic energy. You have a car up a hill and the breaks are engaged, this car has potential energy. You release the breaks and the car runs down the hill and hits a tree, this is converting potential to kinetic. \n\nTo store \"power\" with the car example, you simply push it up hill and turn on the breaks. \n\nWe store electricity by transforming it into potential energy in the same way. \n\nFor day to day usage, we store electricity via batteries. This is done by turning electric energy into potential chemical energy. \n\nThe standard battery looks like this. \n\nCathode + \nElectrolyte \nAnode -\n\nElectricity wants to flow from the anode to the cathode but cannot due to the electrolyte blocking it. Placing this battery into a device completes the circuit and allows electrons to flow from the anode, through the device and into the cathode. This in turn powers said device. \n\nBut batteries (chemical energy) represent a very small proportion of how energy is actually stored on a societal scale. For that we use pumped hydroelectric storage. \n_URL_0_\n\nWe essentially use electricity we have now to pump water up into a reservoir. This \"stores\" the energy, when we need said electricity, we simply allow the water to flow via gravity through turbines which can generate power. \n",
"There are various ways to store electricity, they generally take the form of converting it into chemical energy as in a battery or physical energy as in a flywheel.\n\nOne of the more popular techniques to save energy for the national power grid is to use it to pump water from a lake to the top of a mountain while the grid requirement is low. When there is high demand the energy company dumps the water back into the lake via a generation plant and feeds that energy back to the grid.",
"_URL_0_\n\nSimple terms, its a hydroelectric plant that fills its reservoir with pumping.\n\nWhen demand is low such as overnight the turbines pump water up and when demand increases such as needs for air conditioning in the hot afternoon hours the water comes back through under gravity and provides some extra megawatts for the grid to cover peak load needs.",
"While there are many ways to \"store electricity\", most of them don't store electricity directly. This is only useful for very small amounts and a very small time and not feasible for real power applications like buffering solar and wind power fluctuations.\n\nInstead, electricity is converted into another energy form, stored as such, and then converted back. And there are numerous ways to do this:\n\n* Batteries turn electricity into chemical energy while loading, and chemical energy back into electricity when unloading.\n* Water reservoirs are used to pump water uphill when electricity is cheap, and lead through turbines when it is needed.\n* There are plans for hydraulic storage, where water is pumped into an underground cylindrical room with a large and very heavy piston on top of it, and the pressurized water can generate power when run through a turbine again. Basically the water reservoir idea for flat landscapes.\n* Another short term electricity storage system used to e.g. cover the gap between a power outage and the starting of the generators are flywheels. Energy is stored as rotational energy, and the motor can be turned into a generator by the flick of a switch. The flywheels have magnetic bearings and are vacuum sealed to reduce friction losses.\n* In California (IIRC) they turned an old mining railway into an electrical energy storage system. When power is available, a locomotive pushes a heavy train up a steep track leading to an abandoned mine, and when power is needed again, the train rolls back down, using its engines as generators."
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||
21lmw4
|
what's the point of military exercises?
|
It seems like the relative military and economic strengths of each country would be common knowledge. Even if it wasn't, the military exercise of a few thousand troops in no way reflects on the strength of a country with hundreds of thousands of enlisted forces.
It just seems to me like a ridiculous and pointless ceremonial ritual rather than something useful. Ohh look I'm holding a military exercise near your country! Watch out I'm scary!
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21lmw4/eli5whats_the_point_of_military_exercises/
|
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"Practice. It's very helpful for the different units to figure out how NOT to shoot each other. ",
"\"The more sweat on the training field, the less blood on the battlefield\"\n\nDavid Hackworth - Bad Muthafucker"
]
}
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[] |
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[],
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25hdsj
|
scientific creationism
|
I would like this explained to me by a Christian not an atheist.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25hdsj/eli5scientific_creationism/
|
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"text": [
"\"Scientific creationism\" is no different than regular, ol' creationism (previous ELI5 [here](_URL_0_)). It's just another term for the same philosophy, and despite its apparent reference to the sciences, it is *not* the same as believing that the universe originated with God but that the big bang, evolution and other (actual) fields of scientific research are equally legitimate. Which is what I think some people might infer from the term \"scientific creationism\". Or put another, \"scientific creationism\" rejects a number of viable and legitimate fields of scientific research.\n\nAnd FYI, I *am* an atheist, but I went to Catholic school. And although Catholicism doesn't teach creationism, I am quite familiar with the views held by other Christian denominations.",
"Scientific creationism is an attempt to reconcile the literal genesis account in the bible with scientific observations. They will typically agree on the observations but disagree on interpretation. For example, a regular scientist would say that the reason fossils appear at different layers is that one fossil died and was buried and over millions of years, more layers formed and then a different animal died and was buried at a higher level. I creationist would say that they were all buried at the same time in sediment during Noah's flood. ",
"It is an attempt to wrap literal, biblical creationism in a veneer of science, so it could be taught in public schools as a part of science classes.\n\nIn 1980s, various Supreme Court ruling established it did not rise to the level of science, and was merely a tool for advancing religious beliefs.",
"As an atheist, I can't properly provide a Christian perspective on this. For that, I'd recommend the prominent evangelical blogger [Fred Clark](_URL_0_):\n\n > Yes, Ham’s “scientific creationism” is a wretched counterfeit of real science, so it’s good that he’s being challenged on the facts of science by someone well-versed in those facts. But Ham’s nonsense is even more a wretched counterfeit of Christian theology, and he also needs to be challenged on the facts of theology by someone well-versed in the Bible and in orthodox Christian teaching."
]
}
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[] |
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1z66ja
|
why is cyber-bullying such a problem? can't people just step away from their computers?
|
I'm not trying to be snarky. If there's a genuine aspect I'm not seeing, I'd like to hear about it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1z66ja/eli5_why_is_cyberbullying_such_a_problem_cant/
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"text": [
"By the same token, why can't people who are physically bullied just stay in their house? Answer: They shouldn't have to.",
"Demoralization is hard to scale or quantify because it affects everyone differently. Absolutely it would be great (and apparently logical) if we could all just shrug off verbal abuse because it seems less significant than physical bullying, but it doesn't seem to work like that in real life. Knowing that there are people who not only don't like you, but consciously hate you, and enact that hate into a tangible form is horrible, and not everyone has a support system/environment to bolster their spirits. ",
"Basically, why should someone have to disengage from the internet because someone is saying awful things about them?",
"I was bullied once. I dealt with it by fighting the guy who bullied me. Anger can make a person pretty damn strong.",
"An analogy: Can't black people just move away from white neighborhoods? The oppressed should not simply walk away from the oppressors. And for anybody who disagrees with my analogy, I know analogies are rarely the same as the actual event they mimic, but I think this one is a bit more accurate because bullying can be racist too.",
"When is the last time you went without Facebook or Reddit or Youtube or email or Twitter or whatever other websites you might use frequently for more than a day or two? In the modern era, it's nigh impossible to really avoid *all* of those websites.\n\nBesides, have you ever Googled yourself? We all have a fascination with the idea of being talked about by other people, and often the curiosity becomes overwhelming and overpowers the common sense.\n\nIt's pretty well-known that people don't tend to respond rationally when in emotional distress.",
"On something as integral to everyday social life as facebook it is hard to step away from it. So having mean posts on your wall can be very upsetting esspecially when everyone you know can see it. Also having a social media account hacked and then have people impersonate you and do mean things to others causing those people to dislike and alienate you is a common form of cyber bullying and is very manipulative and causes a lot of damage and pain to many people regardless of whether or not you're at a computer.\n\nDont get cyber bullying confused with a flame war in the youtube comment section, during a flame war nobody wins and both parties just look like idiots and need to walk away from the computer.",
"Getting off your computer to get away from the bullies means you have to leave someplace you want to be because of them \nIts the same as being chased out of a park because they don't want you there",
"As someone who has been a victim of cyber bullying, it never just ends online. I was bullied by older kids in and out of school to the point where death threats were levied against me. There was no place of solace I could go to and just feel safe. I was never friends with these assholes on Facebook but they could still contact me, even though my security settings were maxed, and blocking them wouldn't solve anything. They could still talk and bad mouth me online, just this time I wouldn't know about it. Not really that much better. \nMy 2 cents. ",
"Facebook and similar services play a major role in modern society. It's basically telling someone who is being bullied that they should just abandon those things, and give up on having relationships with people online. \n\nCyber bullying is also often an extension of real life bullying. Kids who get bullied at school are being bullied by the same jerks using technology. We're not just talking about an argument with a stranger on reddit.",
"Think of it this way: if someone hurts your feelings on the phone, is stepping away from the phone going to magically fix it? \n\nNo because the problem is the person and the interaction, not the phone. \n\nPeople need to quit acting like the Internet is some fantasy-land that isn't real life. It doesn't work like that. The issue is between people. ",
"The problem is that cyber-bullying is often just an extension of real-life torment. It can also be an invitation for other bullies to easily join in on the same victim, and spread slander faster and farther. \n\n_\"Heeeeey! Did you see that photoshopped pic of you on FB? Yeah, just about everyone in this school has Liked it! HAHAHAHA!\"_\n\nA victim doesn't even have to be _on_ the Internet to be affected by it. ",
"Someone bullies you on facebook. Can you just leave? For a lot of people, withdrawal from social media is maybe as severe as the bullying itself. So the choices are take the bullying, or withdraw from social circles. Some will choose the former.\n\nDisclaimer: I'm not saying any of this is wrong or right. But it's what happens",
"I was never a victimof harsh cyber bullying, but I saw a worse case scenario a few years ago on my newsfeed. It's not something that is only the bullies' work; people join in, sometimes even friends and family. Most think it's just a joke and others think it's only the internet, so it isn't a big deal. Hell no-one wanted to help till it basically was too late. He couldn't change schools, or houses, he was forever stuck as that one kid. Anytime he made new friends that one person would remind everyone who he was. If he hasn't already killed himself he probably gave up on having a normal life. Plus in the end I doubt the bully got any consequences, to their family and friends it's just the internet.\n\nIt's hard to realize someone is getting cyber bullied cause you never really get to see the real reaction of the victim. You think the \"STOP\" and \"FML\"s are just him joking or probably not caring. ",
"I think the difference between trolling and cyber-bullying (or harassment) is when it doesn't stop when you step away from your computer. Someone posting harmful pictures of you, for instance, or shaming you in some way, or posting your personal phone number, or trying to damage your reputation.\n\nAnd that's what a lot of bullies do. The only reason we call it \"bullying\" is because the perpetrators are children, but if they were adults their behavior would be grounds for criminal charges or a civil suit.",
"exortion isn't hard. If you use the internet for business/work, it is never hard to find your contact information, and threaten libel in exchange for whatever- tit pics, doxing or stalking, art, who knows what. And if anything embarrassing is involved, such as if the woman does cam shows or something(which are legal, but they may not want their, say, grandparents/the world to know), they have that leverage over them and such occupations are often targeted.\n\nIt's not hard to discredit/slander anybody with photoshopped pictures, or even simple claims. People want to avoid that drama.\n\n\"cyber bullying\" is a misnomer. It's harassment.",
"Because having to leave any social media to avoid harassment, flaming, defamation etc. excludes the victim from their peers. You might as well ask why isn't involuntary social isolation fun?",
"You shouldn't have to walk away though.",
"Think of it this way. In the days before computers, we had the bathroom wall. Someone would call Becky a whore and say that she takes it in the ass and likes threesomes and is fat and ugly and stupid and all kinds of things. Right? Becky could just not go to that bathroom, right? She could go to another bathroom, or wait to get home. Then she wouldn't see the terrible things people are saying about her. The problem is... Those things are still there. The list grows every day of what sexual positions she likes or how gross her pussy is. Everyone else reads it and thus treats her differently offline. No boys want to be near her because they think she has herpes and no girls want to be with her because they think people will think they're whores too, maybe there will be a list for them next week if they are seen with them. \n\nNow take this out of the bathroom and put it online so people at other schools can see how much of a whore Becky is. It can follow her for years. Total strangers can add more to the list. Becky's primary school brother can see the list. Becky's parents or friends' parents might see the list. \n\nSo going offline solves nothing. Just means you don't know what the list says. ",
"Imagine if I am prank calling you, sending you abusive texts, should you just 'step away' from your phone? Should you change you phone number? What if I find out the new number also?\nIt would take a psychological toll on you as any bullying would. ",
"Hi! Social Psychology graduate student here, most of my research focuses on cyberbullying, although I'm hoping to branch out soon. I may have some information that can shed some light on this, although it looks like other people have done a good job so far.\n Cyberbullying (CB) is typically defined as bullying that takes place through electronic forms of communication, and shares three features with IRL bullying:\n* repeated\n*imbalance of power b/w perpetrator and victim\n* intentional act of aggression\n\nThe interesting thing about cyberbullying is that the imbalance of power can come from the anonymity of the Internet, not from physical/social factors. \n The aspect of cyberbullying that your post touches on most closely is that of **repetition**. Part of the difficulty in researching cyberbullying is due to deciding whether or not one post (or one post only from multiple people) constitutes repetition. The post is not like words that are only said once. **The victim can go back and view that post multiple times, or the post can be repeated by others**. The experience of the cyberbullying may then be repeated, even if the incidence is isolated. \n One factor that plays into this, and that a lot of other people are touching on, is that the audience to the bullying is also potentially larger with cyberbullying than traditional bullying. This can increase the intensity of the experience, and make it more acutely embarrassing, as well as increase repetitiveness. For instance, if a cruel post is viewed by many people, this may be seen by the victim as further repetitions of the original act of bullying. This is particularly true on a site like Reddit, with upvotes and downvotes, where a post that might be bullying can be upvoted by others. \n It may also be the case that the victim is not able to turn away from the computer. So much social interaction occurs online nowadays that shutting off Facebook, texting, or what have you can be like voluntarily ostracizing yourself. For instance, in traditional bullying, it could be said that the victim could just walk away from/ignore/not hang out with the bully, but if the bully is part of the original friend group, this results in the social isolation of the victim. Is this a cessation to or continuation of the bullying? Is this person no longer being bullied just because they are no longer interacting with the bully? \n One other thing I'll mention about CB here is that it is often discussed in the context of school bullying, as a continuation of the bullying that happens among peers. This is not necessarily the case, although this is currently hotly debated in the research literature. Pyzalski wrote a great article in 2012 that breaks CB down into types depending on who the victim is, I believe the categories include the vulnerable (homeless, mentally ill, etc.), groups (a race, gender, religion, etc.), peers, celebrities, and random people known only online (YouTube comments. 'Nuff said- actually, I love these things, they are deliciously horrible). It is not merely a phenomenon of schools, and it's actually being found among adults as well (I think there are some studies on workplace cyberbullying, but I'm not sure where they can be found). \n Last points, I promise: I believe it was Kowalski that found that among students, removal of the computer/phone/device to prevent the bullying was seen by the students as a re-victimization, as so much of their social lives were online, that it felt like another attempt to isolate them. It is also being hypothesized that there are different forms of CB that are more common with different victims (see Willard, 2007), so it's possible that some may be easier to walk away from. Still, if you know about it, even if you can't see it, it will probably hurt. \n\n**TL:DR** Walking away from the computer may be another incident of victimization through the resultant social isolation\n\n**Suggested reading:** Kowalski, (2014? I think? Psychology Bulletin); Pyzalski (2012); Willard (2007); Olweus (2008 I think. He focuses on traditional bullying); Hinduja & Patchin (2008). There's also been some cool stuff put out by MIT Media Labs recently, trying to develop a tool to detect cyberbullying as it happens, Dinakar (2014), I believe. ",
"This is like saying 'why can't you just walk away from the playground'. It's a social environment that kids today are calling their own space. Bullying happening there or on the swings is bullying happening in a place that kids identify as the space they're supposed to be in.",
"Because Cyber-bullying involves using the internet to create a web of insecurity and fear around a person. With a push of a button every member of that web can be updated with something to bully or taunt you with. That web tightens until you feel that there is no escape, the bullying is all there is. ",
"It's not the \"cyber\" part of \"cyber-bullying\" that's the issue. It's the \"bullying\" part.\n\nBullying can take place via any medium capable of facilitating subjectivity; social media just happens to be this generation's newest technological boogie-man. Just as how the news media gets up in arms over violence in video games whenever teenagers do something harmful, acts of aggression that somehow marginally involve social media will always be given a headline that focuses on said social media outlet. You're absolutely right when you say people can just step away from their computers, block numbers from their phone, etc. Chances are though that if the problem is so extreme that someone needs to go to the trouble of deleting online accounts or blocking phone numbers, the bullying doesn't end in cyberspace.\n\n[Further reading](_URL_0_)",
"Even though you can't see their face our hear their voice, those painful words still burn in the back if your mind. They taunt you when you're alone. How is it fair that those being bullied should further close themselves off from the world? Why, when computers, smart phones, and technology rule our world, should those being bullied be the ones to step away, being punished? Shouldn't it be the bullies needing to grow up and step away? ",
"Okay. So bullying is a problem. We can all agree on that. Buy I hate the term cyber bullying. It is always treated as a different subject as bullying. People think that it can be fixed by laws and rules. It can't. It is bullying through a different medium. If I call you and talk shit about you, they don't call that phone bullying. If I send you a nasty post card, it isn't mail bullying. Stop. Using. This. Phrase. \nPs. The word \"cyber\" is so nineties that it makes me want to die. ",
"That's sort of like saying \"if people bully you when you go outside, why can't you just stay at home?\"\n\nYou can't just hide from the internet for the rest of your life, if someone is able to control you like that, they have power over you to damage your plans and activities.\n\nNot to mention, cyber bullying can be threats. If someone were sending death threats to you snail mail, and mailing you to let you know they were spreading lies and rumors about you, it's not as simple as just not looking at your mail.",
"Cyber bullying isn't just the victim being directly harassed over the internet. The internet allows the bullies to pass things around easier and manipulate things to taunt the victim with. It's often the case that the cyber bullies will use things they've said/done online to mess with the victim in person.",
"That's like saying why don't you stop going to school if you are being bullied?\nComputers and internet are a way of life and it's unfair to ask the person being bullied to give up their social media or computer to \"get away from the bullying\", it's not their fault but rather the bullies in question.",
"Cyber bullying should mean terminators are fucking you up for your lunch money and taking over humanity ",
"Here's my experience as someone who was cyber bullied. \n\n**Quick backstory:** I went on a few dates with a girl in college for about a month. It wasn't working out -- I didn't like her. No big deal. I told her it wasn't working out. \n\nFor the next 8 months or so, she cyber stalked/bullied me. I ignored her and didn't provoke her at the advice of the police and my family. Nonetheless, she managed to get me kicked out of two social groups I was a part of merely by spreading the lie that I had raped her. She harassed members in my local chess club and sabotaged my website.\n\nThese are just some of the highlights. As I said, this happened over the course of 8 months. There were a lot more things that she did (online) and affected my personal life.\n\nIt isn't as simple as just getting off of the internet. Just because the bullying takes place on the internet doesn't mean it doesn't bleed over into your daily life.",
"I think the research supports that our online identities are extensions of ourselves. Face threats from online attacks or personal attacks are still harmful. When something negative happens in our \"cyber\" self it still impacts us. It is also important to note that cyber-bullying is often a continuation of face-to-face bullying, not in all cases but often. I would also wager that many of the cyber bullying cases that are not face-to-face as well are places where face-to-face consequences are threatened or possible (nude pictures released, knowing where you live, etc.).",
"It would be allowing the strongest bully to prevail rather than make social networks a civilized place like schools and public places. \n\nWhy is street crime such a problem, can't people stay at home? \nWhy is pick-pocketing such a problem, can't people just not carry money? \nWhy is scamming such a problem, can't people just not do business? \nYou get the gist...",
"Cyber bullying isn't just the teasing done to your account or number, just like in real life it isn't just the jeers to your face or general direction. It's the spread of rumors to anyone anywhere that you may, or may not know, it's the exclusion from a certain group conversation where the subject matter is you. You don't even have to know about it for it to be considered bullying even. \nThere's also the fact that most people feel the need to defend themselves or have the last word in a conversation or fight. I don't know a single person that won't respond in some way to a negative situation, and that's all bullies want is a reaction. Even if you walk away they are still somehow winning because they see you went offline, or know you blocked them, that fuels the fire and keeps them going. And if you just simply don't respond they keep trying to get that reaction out of you, and if the cyber bullying bleeds into the real world face to face they will see a reaction out of anything and they feel a sense of success and continue to bully. \n\nThis is simply my opinion based on personal experience, but it's the best guess I have. \nTl;Dr- people feel a natural sense of self preservation and defend themselves, but people are cruel and will do anything and won't stop until they see you squirm",
"Because once you read the words, you can't step away from *those*. And when the words come from someone you have to face at school all the time and can't even escape after school, it's even harder. Because when you're young and insecure, words carry more weight.",
"I think a big problem is that is spills over into real life, since the internet can facilitate rumor-spreading and much worse. A pre-internet bully could spread their venom only as far as their gang of lackeys. Nowadays they can make their torment of someone into a freaking #trendingtopic",
"Simply put, for the same reason you can't just stay away from bullies in real life. Because you're still being made fun of and abused, and you know it, even if you try to ignore it.",
"Didn't read all the threads, but I am going to assume that this tack hasn't been sailed down just yet.\nConsider sexual harassment in the workplace. One of the basic tenets about it is that people...ALL people, have a right to be able to show up to work without having their ass pinched or somebody making suggestive comments to you all day, or even saying something as innocuous as \"you SURE look NICE today\" with a bunch of leering and smecking about.\nIn the same vein, everyone should have the right to be able to log on to whatever areas of the internet they wish, without the spectre of a group of shitheels stalking them around, trying to make them feel miserable.\nYour notion that they can just \"log off\" and not expose themselves to the harassment is true, they can. But FUCK that shit. Why should they have to curtail their online activity because of a pack of assholes?",
"\"Why was the rape victim at that party in the first place?\" \n \n\"Why is the kid who's bullied IRL still in that school?\" \n \n\"Why is cheating at monopoly an issue? Why not stop playing?\" \n \nNot all of those are as strong as the next but the point is, the person being bullied shouldn't HAVE to step away. Why make way for the asshole? ",
"Have you seen the movie Cyber Bully? Usually, cyber bullying starts at school and bleeds over into online life. Or it can be the other way around. There is really no way to step away from it.\n\nIn addition, like someone else said, technology and online communication are big aspects of this generation. You can't really separate from it without it seriously effecting school work, your hobbies, etc.",
"can you just step away from your phone when people are harassing you on it?\n\nwhat the fuck difference is there in the validity of feeling harm when it's a conference call instead?\n\nthe internet is a conference call. We should punish assholes who abuse it.",
"I'd say even if you walked away, you still know it's being said. Just because you aren't currently reading them type it, doesn't mean it won't sit on your mind like a cinder block",
"If you're a teen and your bullies attend the same school as you and are propagating hate for you online that spills into real physical bullying in your school life, then stepping away from the computer hardly solves the entire problem of what is happening online. Even if all people being cyberbullied stepped away from their computers, schools would still need to deal with the role of the internet in school bullying.",
"think of it like this: \n\n\"Why is bullying such a problem? Can't people just change [schools/churches/clubs/neighborhoods/communities]?\"\n\nyes, that is one way to deal with being bullied, but we've decided as a society that the onus is on the bully to change, rather than the person being bullied. \n\nbeyond this- i'd guess that cyber bullying is often one aspect of a larger bullying problem. IE - the weird kid is getting picked on at school AND on facebook.",
"usually cyber-bullying involves threats or blackmailing, not something you can generally walk away from",
"\"You are already a FAT, STUPID, UGLY, PIG! Why dont you do the world a favor and KILL YOURSELF already!!!!!!\"\n\nNow imagine statements like this coming in an ever increasing onslaught... to a kid with maybe home problems these bullies know nothing about to begin with. The future begins to become more and more bleak. You being believing these things they say. Maybe the world WOULD be better off without you? Maybe you would be better off if you could just end this pain?\n\nTHIS is what is wrong with cyber bullying.",
"Even if you just walked away from your computer, you'd still know that there are people laughing at, for example, photoshopped pictures of you. Perhaps even people you know in real life.",
"Just when you get out of school you think the tormenting is over until you get home.",
"I imagine that for lots of people, social networking has become an integral part of their life. In fact, it is part of their social circle. I hang out with dudes over Teamspeak that I play games with. Sometimes we meet IRL and hang out, it is also great when you can drive to another country and have a place to sleep etc. \nSo basically, someone is bullying you in your social circle, and it is not easy to step away from all that and the connections you have through it.",
"I think it's one of those things whereby you'd rather KNOW what people are saying rather than going insane and thinking \"What if they've sent me stuff now and I don't know what it says?\".\n\nImagine in a real-life scenario if you knew people were talking about you behind your back but you didn't know what they were saying. You would be desperate to know. It's the same with cyber-bullying, except it's easier to find out because the abuse is being hurled directly AT you.\n\nThe issue is that kids feel that they have no voice or a person to turn to in this situation because it's all on a computer screen and not really visible to anyone of authority. Once the victim has the courage to show his Mom/Dad or someone of authority the messages they're receiving, that is usually the first step to ending the abuse because the victim feels as though they have support.",
"My husband and I struggled through infertility and multiple miscarriages before our son was born. So when my ex-stepmother-in-law posted nasty comments about me (calling me fat, old, etc.) of a photo taken of me and my baby when we were playing at a park on Mother's Day last year, it was really painful. After recovering from the shock (I'm an adult, so I thought I was done with my junior high years of endless bullying) I looked at my baby and thought, \"I'm so glad this hateful person won't be a part of your life\" and made darn sure to remove the woman's access to my photo account. Some people never truly grow up.",
"Bullying is the problem. Focus should be on correcting the bully's behaviour, regardless of what platform they use.\n\nBut to answer your questions, peoples lives these days involve going online a lot more than what they used to so the potential exposure they'd have to being bullied is greater. Also, people tend to be more of a cunt when they think they could get away with it so the viciousness increases, and with it, the potential harm it'd cause.",
"You can step away, but when you get back, the problem is still there waiting for you.\n\nCuber-bullies have no face, can´t be reasoned with most of the time, and can´t be brought to justice easilly. GThey won´t stop if they don´t wan´t to, and they know how to keep doing it or force you back into a wall where if you communicate at all they will see and will taunt you again.\n\nInternet gives power to anyone, and there lies the danger.",
"I've still not seen any sort of explanation here as to why it's a problem. It mystifies me.\n\nCyber-bullying is just regular bullying but with **all the evidence recorded**. Bullies can't deny it, it's right there. Fucking show it to a teacher, parent, the police.",
"Based on my own experiences, cyber-bullying is bad because it's usually not the only form of bullying. Back when I was a kid and was getting bullied, at least it ended when I left the classroom. Imagine that now it doesn't as soon as they access your Facebook account, etc.",
"A person should not have to fear certain situations or locations. They have a right to use technology and feel safe at the same time. ",
"ITT: a whole lot of child developmental psychologists who know children should just stop being pussies and man the fuck up.",
"A lot of the time the bullying happens anonymously, and anonymity makes people especially nasty if they know there's no repercussions.",
"Because it's useless, cyber-bullying is often used by people the victims *knows*, to attack her in an anonymous way, not by directly speaking to the victim, but by publicly attacking her in order to destroy her reputation or whatever.\n\nE.g. let's say someone doesn't like you but has no way to do anything to you in real life, so he will attack you over your facebook account by first adding you with a fake account, and then posting fake pictures of you with another girl than your girlfriend or whatever, this is cyber bullying, but stepping out of your computer won't help you on this one.",
"Bullying has always been instances along a timeline which happen, then fade into history. Yes they may repeat, but those too whisk away into \"what was\" instead of \"what is\".\n\nCyber-bullying takes those instances in the time line and makes them, almost, permanent for all to see over and over again. Picture this.. Being bullied in the playground and another classmate video tapes it. Then that recording is played over and over again for the bully'ee to see.",
"I imagine that the big issue with cyber-bullying is that it eventually transcends into the real world. What may start as bullying over the internet spills over when it starts to spread to those you know in the real world, e.g. kids in your school. At that point, there is no escape - you can shut your computer off, but you can't shut off the physical world.",
"Its because the majority of people who use the internet can't handle it. Some can't handle the anonymity and go crazy. Some cant handle that on the Internet youre going to get insulted. \n\nOn the Internet the vast majority of people are idiots. ",
"They way I see it. Words hurt. No matter who they come from. ",
"It's only a problem for teens or ppl who never got out of their teens. Emotional stability or confidence is smth. you build up over time.",
"Ok - so all the responses I've seen thus far haven't really addressed your question correctly or given you an answer. Try this:\n\nThe problem with cyber-bullying isn't about the bullied kid perceiving the hurtful comments/hateful content of the cyber posts. *The problem revolves around the existence of this content*. \n\nSure it might be easy to say, 'Hey imagineATP if you dont want to see the bullying - dont look at it!' ....but that doesn't change the fact that its there. That doesn't mean I'm not aware that there is a facebook group dedicated to shaming me by highlighting a low point of my social life. That some millisecond in the near past was captured on camera and the embarassing photo is now pulling all the cyber-jerks out (who I may or may not know personally) to beat this horse into the dust and mercilessly mock me. \n\nOn the web, its not about Bully A mocks Victim A directly like you'd see in the school yard. Its more like Bully A posts embarassing picture of Victim A to his network of Bully's and Bully's B-F repost the image/thread and spread their hurtful pasttime that way. \n\nThen it leaks out into reality - kids in school have seen the thread, theyre whispering about it. Kids who were neutral in their relationship to you now have a reason to mock you or laugh at you, silently perhaps but its embarassing none the less. \n\nMaybe Victim A sees the thread the first day and is hurt, but not surprised Bully A is at it again. But after hearing whispers for a week at school they go on and check the feed again (couldnt stay away :/) Turns out, one of Victim A's peers who they considered a friend \"liked\" the post and now Victim A has gone from hurt/unsurprised to crushed and defeated. \n\nSo cyberbullying is pervasive and leaks into the real world and even before it leaks out of the web, it doesn't even require the victim to fully follow the chain of bullying personally, as it is a persistent mockery of the victim in the form of digital abuse. Stepping away and not looking at it doesn't make it go away, or prevent others from looking at it and laughing at the victim.",
"I am sorry but this question is so ignorant I am getting a bit mad. I think you have just never been in a bully situation before because you can not runaway from those. It scars you emotionally so turning off a computer wont't help.",
"I always ask myself this question. I don't want an ELI5 type of answer, I prefer reading up on extensive research to learn and understand.",
"Cyber-bullying, in most cases that get attention, are really just extensions of bullying that happens during the day at school. Kids go home, where before they'd at least be safe from the ridiculing there, but now get it online.\n\nSure one could just walk away, but stepping away from social networking in itself could be seen as a reason for targeting someone.",
"I can give you a semi-personal insight into cyber bulling the affects it has and how the authorities are washing their hands of it.\n\nOne of my very close friends is involved in a high profile missing persons case. She has been splashed across the news and various media outlets trying to find her missing friend via appeals, interviews, tv shows and newspaper reports. An unfortunate side affect to this is it attracts all kinds of people.\nPeople who think they're amateur detectives, people who think they're physics and have seen visions and people who simply just like to gossip.\n\nMy friend, like anyone young is on social networks. Shes received death threats, perverted messages and various other horrible stuff. \n\nRegarding the whole premise of \"cant you just not look\" its a human instinct to see what people have to say about you. Its hard to describe from her prospective, over the years this has been going on she has gained an incredibly thick skin so it doesn't affect her as much. For me, when an article appears on a news outlet I'll read the article and can't help but look at the comments knowing they'll make me mad. Its human instinct. \n\nThere has been a particular individual that has been persistent with his bullying. Over the space of four years he has on 5 different mediums posted daily about either my friend being responsible for her death or her parents or they at least had some involvement in her disappearance. He has posted about how he wants to travel up to where she lives and \"knock her off\" and how he talks to the missing girl a lot via his physic means. He has in fact traveled up to visit her village and where this girl used to live after threatening my friend. But, because these threats aren't directed at her and are posted as either statuses or tweets the police can't do anything. In fact their official response is \"the internet harbors people like this, you just have to ignore it\". This infuriates me. This man has inflicted more pain and misery on family and friends of a missing girl who are already grieving her loss.\nThe polices approach to cyber bulling is bury your head in the sand and ignore it. What will it take before they take it seriously? Another child to kill themselves? Someone to follow through with their internet threats? \nBut of course, if I was to insult a celeb on twitter and it got enough re-tweets I'd be arrested. This is the current state of the police presence on the internet, we won't do anything until we're forced to do so. Legislation needs to come in to stop this before more people hurt.\n**TL;DR Its human instinct to want to know what people think. Its no different from people coming up to you and saying it to your face. You could ignore it but its near impossible when you know its there. + Insight into how little the police care/do anything to stop it.**",
"Give this video a watch: _URL_0_",
"After reading the comments, I think people are missing a key factor. Young people, especially adolescents, usually don't handle social pressure like adults do. There is massive pressure to fit in and that pressure doesn't simply turn off with a computer's power button.",
"And why can't people just run away and die? \n\nBecause the bully knows the victim wont fight back.",
"Cyber-bullying is almost always an *addition* to other bullying. So it's not as if the victim is getting harassed online and if they avoid it then everything is peachy. It's more like this. Take your typical bullying victim from *before* the internet and cell phones were widely used. They get bullied at school or maybe out in public, but their home would be a refuge. Nowadays, it doesn't stop. They might feel as if there is no escape from the torment.\n\nSo it's not that the \"cyber-style\" of bullying itself is so bad. It's that it's an *extra* burden and often times unrelenting. ",
"It's too easy. You can set your looks, weight, height, age, intelligence aside for a quick jab at someone you will almost ultimately never have the chance to meet. \n\nCyber-bullying is just easy. Easy to do, easy to accomplish and not hard on the conscience. Not being able to see the persons' emotion makes it easier also. \n\nWhen people Cyber-bully where are they? Personal computer/phone/tablet, but more importantly where are they? Usually a place that is comfortable for them. Work, home, car, school etc etc. I feel as though it's easier for people to cyber-bully because they are in a state of comfort for themselves at least. --- Just my two cents. ",
"I think in addition to all that's been said, cyber-bullying isolates the bullied kids in a very specific way.\n\nThe online community is a very real and vital form of socializing for kids. If you're bullied within that community, you're less likely to participate in it because it's painful to do so (you \"step away from your computer\"). When everyone at school in the \"real world\" is then talking about what happened online, the bullied kid can't be part of that.\n\nThey want to enjoy being part of a social (albeit online) community, but can't because they're being harassed within that community.",
"Not just in school.\n\nRecall that very recently, the guy who made \"flappy birds\" was getting 50k$$$ per day (reportedly) and yet took it down because he didnt like the cyber-bullying. \n\nPersonally, I would have just gone on an extended holiday. Visit some family or a beach or something.\n",
"There are four factors that make cyber-bullying different/worse than playground bullying:\n\n1. When done anonymously, parents/teachers can't identify the bully. Can't help stop a bully who can't be identified.\n\n2. When done anonymously, kids are constantly looking over their shoulder. It's one thing to go out onto the playground knowing who the bullies are; but not knowing who the bullies are at all increases the sense of fear/intimidation/isolation.\n\n3. It's usually more visceral. People say worse things from a keyboard than face-to-face, especially when anonymous.\n\n4. It spreads really far, really quickly.\n\n\nSource: I work with schools on student issues.",
"When I was growing up, internet was still in its infancy, so essentially when you left school you could escape the bullying. You stay inside, maybe go online, and hey look, you're someone else. Social media changed all that, and now the bullying never stops. You come home, and they're talking shit about you on your facebook page or sending you FB messages. So, if you're rational (hint: if you're emotionally damaged because, lol, you're being bullied, you probably aren't rational) you step away from the computer. Sure, that makes sense, right?\n\nGuess who doesn't step away from the computers? Everyone else. So you go back into school the next day and all the people that talked shit about you yesterday when you stepped away, they're still talking shit. Except now, you can't even keep track of it. Before they were calling you names, now they're talking about some lies they told on FB about you? How can you defend against that? And that's all you can do, is defend. The only way to defend yourself against that is....yep, pay attention to what they're saying about you. Vicious cycles that don't stop until you get the fuck out of school.\n\nAnd that's the thing. You'll always deal with D-Bags, assholes, all that no matter where you go in life. But school era shit? Yo, I haven't so much as stepped foot in my high school since I graduated. Fuck all that.",
"Quick answer - Selfishness, narcissism, and immaturity. \n\nPerhaps as a 31 year old man, the angst of being a sensitive/emotional teenager is too far in my past to recollect, but at some point in your life others will laugh/talk about you when you are not in their presence. It is a fact of life. \n\nBeing so inwardly focused, being so eager to please others, and being so concerned about what others think of you is simply not worth your time. You need to live your life as you want to live it. Trying to please others, being so concerned about what other people may be saying about you, and trying to conform to what you think people would like is a miserable existence. \n\nTo answer OP's question, I think that immaturity and an unwillingness to \"walk away\" is a key cause to on-going bullying. Simply put - if someone/a group of people are making fun of you, continuing to participate in the ongoing online conversation (defending yourself, calling other names, etc.) simply \"ads fuel to the fire\" so to speak. By choosing to not continue to participate in the conversation, the bullies have nothing more to go off, so they will move on to some other victim. ",
"I used to be on a forum for young adults/ teenagers. I really liked the forum, liked the content and discussions, but there were a couple people that I REALLY did not get along with. We were always fighting, and it drove me crazy, but I always came back because I liked everything else.\n\nNow, I wasn't being bullied, but imagine if they had been bullying me. I always wanted to come back because I liked everything else, but they never left me alone and always harassed me. Eventually it gets to the point where the person being bullied stops enjoying the forum and discussions, because the bullies ruin it for them.\n\nFor a lot of people who are cyber-bullied, computers are their main source of entertainment/ social life/ life in general.",
"Cyber bullying is never the only form, in my experience. Your home used to be your safe haven. You could play video games or read or browse the internet.\n\nNow bullies can chase you past your door.",
"Let me see if understand your question. You are asking people of reddit if people can just step away from from their computers?",
"Why should the person being bullied be forced to step away?",
"You might aswell ask why bullying that's happening in a park a problem since kids could simply not go to the park.",
"Imagine you get bullied at school by a bunch of kids. In the old days you could go home relax, play some games and watch some videos. Within cyber bullying it never ends. It's on your phone in your pocket, it's in your bedroom. It's an extension of what is happening at school or work.\n\nI think encountering belligerent people online is not the same as cyberbullying.",
"I'm going against the grain here.. and agree with you (op).\n\nI was bullied in Jr and HS also..I never let it get to me. My friends were My friends, and the bullies could suck it. I just dont understand the cyber-bullying. It really is as simple as turning the computer off. \n\nBut its not that simple..people talk behind your back, and post nasty images, and talk about you in school later. Well..guess what happens in the work place. People talk about you behind your back to. And the ones that talk to you directly.. you can just walk away..talk is cheap.\n\nAs for physical abuse..punching, slapping kicking..etc. Simple answer, turn your phone back on. and dial 911. Physical abuse is assault. You dont need to worry about the principle, or parents or teachers at that point, if you're physically assaulted..its a crime. Dial 911 and have their ass arrested.",
"Turning off your computer isn't a solution, it's only a victory for the bullies that feel that they've actually accomplished something by not only being a hassle in school but also managed to bully someone when they are at home. These kids can't find a safe place anywhere. And your suggestion is for bullied kids to just accept that they're being bullied in new ways and step away from the computer? This is the most ignorant mindset I've seen yet. ELI5 your thought process.",
"Why should the kid have to turn off the computer? he's not the one misbehaving, why does he get to be bullied irl and also banned from the internet at home as well. To me that would really suck, that way you're punishing the kid that's being bullied, not the bully. ",
"It's not about if they could step away, it's that they shouldn't have to.",
"You're fucking kidding me right? You honestly believe you can just fucking \"step away.\" You're honestly so dumb its funny. Fucking kill yourself, faggot.\n\n\nNow imagine if multiple people are sending you those messages constantly. You cant exactly step away from that, you already know that (in your head) a lot of people hate you and think you're stupid and are willing to say it.",
"I think it's because **it doesn't magically stop at computers.**\n\nThey start by sending you death threats. Then they start using your real name, setting up fake Facebook accounts, and blogging about you so it shows up in Google searches every time you apply for a job. Then they begin threatening to call the police (or your workplace, friends, and family) to tell them you murder children or something. And that's before they even get serious.\n\nThe people who do this stuff are sick, they don't care about other people, they don't care about anything, and the fact they get away with each online attempt and see you get distressed so easily only gives them the confidence to push it all the more further in the real world. Plus, when they do it, there's a whole bunch of similarly sick onlookers ready to jump in and assist their attack to destroy another human being for \"giggles\". \n\nIMHO (possibly unpopular opinion incoming) cyber bullying is more of a serious problem for adults than children. Everyone wants to protect the children but somehow adults who have even more at stake (responsibilities, jobs, mortgages, and families, plus working against the natural distrust and wariness of other adults for any false accusations made) are utterly defenceless and just left to fend for themselves. \n\nI can't imagine walking into a police station to say I'm being cyber-bullied, they would probably fall over laughing before saying there's nothing they can do, especially outside of the country. Of course take the law into your own hands and it's jail time.\n\nWith that said I've seen the headlines of teenage boys committing suicide over this in the past year or two and that is absolutely heart-breaking and serious, I don't want to downplay that or act like it's not an issue.\n",
"The reasons that cyberbullying *can be* more damaging than in-person bullying is twofold... the scope of the audience and the permanence of the bullying. \n\nThe scope argument is the idea that *every student* in the school can see the bullying that is happening online. Even if they don't, you can bet that the victim will walk into school the next day and just feel like everyone else saw it and is thinking about it. \n\nThe permanence argument is that it is both relentless and everlasting. Getting bullied at school ends when the bell rings. Being bullied online means that the disparaging words/comments/pictures/videos are always there to haunt you. Even if you \"walk away from the computer\" you know it is there and that your peers/classmates could be looking at it any any moment. It also means that it won't necessarily blow over. In 6 months, that picture will still be there. Sure, people might not talk about it as much, but that's a small and too-rational argument to make if you are feeling bullied. But worse is the technical truth that even if you move schools or somehow changed peers, the evidence of the bullying would still exist online. In a bullied mind it may seem like it will always follow you wherever you go.",
"With today's society, you simply can't just *walk away* from something like the god-damned internet. \n\nConsider the following:\n\nDo you have a smartphone? They can bully you through there with Facebook, twitter, phone calls, text messages, etc. \nNormal phone? Sending anonymous texts and phone calls. \n\nThe computer. This is where cyber-bullying is the worst. When I was younger, I would open up my computer at my house, and I would be greeted with rash and hurtful messages on Facebook. Every day. It's not like I could just unfriend these people, because if they learn that they were blocked/unfriended, they would bully me in school (even more than they did). The thought process for me was this: I can't delete my Facebook. I have too many friends and family that I keep in contact with, so I would have to keep it. I couldn't block them, because then they would have another reason to bully me at school, which I didn't need.\n\nI can't just walk away from the internet. With today's society, there is no escaping the internet. Our daily lives are built *around* the internet. I can get the most up to date news, information for school, etc. The internet can provide the greatest assets of our generation. I can't just cut myself off from that because of some douche behind a keyboard. \n\nTo answer the first question that you made, it's because it is so easy. In this tech-heavy world that we live in, it makes it easy to talk to other people. This can be used in bad ways, so that can lead to the huge cyber-bullying issue that we have today.",
"Have you ever had a fly in your house that you couldn't catch and couldn't kill. Every time you sit down, it starts buzzing around your head. Every time you open a pack of cheese, he's there. You can't sleep because it constantly lands on your face.\n\nCyber bullying is like that. Yes, you can leave the house but eventually, you have to come back. ",
"* Posting/sharing unflattering pictures\n\n* Spamming your timeline\n\n* Spamming your phone/instant messenger\n\n* Hacking accounts\n\nMost of these are completely outside the victim's realm of control, and that's just a few.",
"I don't know, maybe I'll come off as ignorant to bullying like OP but I kind of agree. People got along fine without social media for a long time, kids don't NEED it. I've been tormented via MySpace and Facebook, girls are fucking mean. but my parents always made a point to teach me and tell me how little these people mean and how little high school means in the grand scheme of your life. My brother and dad would even tease me (in a loving, not emotionally abusive way) about how silly I was for caring so much about what someone had said about me. It's like the \"it will get better\" campaign says. Also, if I was parent I would make my child delete Facebook and get a new #. I don't see how that would be negative if they apparently had no friends on there. is that ruining there life? no fucking way. music, art, literature, even video games and movies, are all things that can bring you real happiness while being alone. oh, so you didn't party and act like a douche with friends in highschool cause you were bullied? bummer. but you did learn to play an instrument, read 100 books and are seriously probably way better off for it. I know it transcends social media into school, and I know I'm probably over simplifying it, but I think there should be anti-bully education AND how to deal with bullying education. you can tell a bully to stop, probably won't. so teach the kids\nhow ridiculous it is to want to end your life over people's opinions of you. they only have the power you give them",
"You seem to have gotten plenty of brilliant answers, but here's my two cents:\n\nA lot of people here seem to be forgetting that even if cyberbullying can turn into real life bullying, make real life bullying worse, or stem from real life bullying, that doesn't stop it from being cyberbullying.\n\nIt doesn't just stop happening if a bunch of people at school find out about rumors going around online and make your school life hell over it, they don't just stop using the internet once it's reached real life, it carries on in both places, both of them making each other worse.\n\nEven if you block them all, ignore their messages, or even get rid of all of your laptops and phones or whatever, it's still going to happen. People can still spread rumors, dig up things that have happened in the past, make threatening posts about you, make hate pages about you, the lot. Even if you do all that so that you don't see said messages and pages, it's still going on, it's still cyberbullying, and it can still effect your real life. *Again, if it's still going on online, it's cyberbullying. Regardless of how many people bully you in real life because of it.*\n",
"Defending ourselves is deeply rooted in our psyche. \n\nCouple that with social media addiction and an unreasonable young teenage mind and you have cyber-bullying victims as well as real life bullying victims. Both realities intermingle when you are in school. \n\nThe social scene at school is their whole life. It's the only world they know for many years. None of them really want school to be a social nightmare so they do their best to defend themselves when bullying occurs because they have no choice but to face it everyday. Ignoring it is difficult as the young teenage mind does not think about long-term consequences and they have a hard time seeing that if they ignore the bully, their problems might get better. They see the right now and react regardless of what it might mean for them later. \n\nI will say that parents play an enormous role in teaching their kids how to react to insults. If they don't see how you face those situations, then they won't learn. At that point, it's what you say verses what they experience. If a parent so chooses to allow social media, the responsible thing to do is to monitor their interaction. Too many kids are being left alone with this stuff. It's equivalent to leaving a child alone with a bag of candy. You can tell them all day not to eat it because they will be punished but you know they will try to sneak a few pieces even though they know they will get into trouble if they get caught. The reason behind this is because most kids don't keep the trouble they will get into in the front of their mind, so they go ahead anyway because what they want takes priority over the punishment for their actions. It's immaturity and that does not mix with social media. ",
"Kids also have the opportunity to say things on the internet or via texting that they would never dare say in real life, because there's no one watching them and it doesn't require as much courage.\n\n\nI'm a teacher and I've seen threats of bodily harm/death among just general bitchiness to each other. Kids don't all have thick skin. Some of them don't even have the self-esteem to fight back, or the skills to know how to get themselves out of these situations. Often you have to teach the bullied how to respond effectively.\n\n\nThat's part of why anti-bullying organizations in schools are extremely effective where they exist.",
"You're assuming that people can disengage, especially when they're being brutalized. In general, people don't disengage from computers easily. It's even harder to disengage in the case of being bullied. You want to stay and fight.",
"Because you wouldn't tell someone who is being bullied offline to just stay away from all people.",
"1. Cyberbullying is permanent. At a schoolyard, a kid could say something mean and it wouldn't get logged anywhere. Online, everything is permanent, public record for all to see. Imagine having a painful encounter IRL recorded and then passed around to everyone to watch again and again and again at their leisure. Your misery becomes repeatable.\n\n2. Cyberbullying can be anonymous. It's much harder dealing with a bully when you don't even know who he/she is. \n\n3. Cyberbullying is visceral. Bullies can go out of their way to post unflattering pictures of you or paint you in a negative light in ways they can't do face-to-face.\n\n4. Cyberbullying has shitty laws. Right now there's not a whole lot you can do about it. It's not like a playground where a kid punches you and you have obvious proof. Cyberbullying is still protected by freedom of speech, and as long as a bully isn't crossing over into obvious libel territory, they can't really be touched. Even then, if you had a libel case, it is costly, expensive, and hard to prove.\n\n5. Cyberbullying can reach a huge audience very fast. On a playground, you could get in a scuffle with a few kids and odds are nobody else would necessarily be aware. Online, someone can drag you through the mud so that anyone who Googles your name will see what took place.\n\n6. Cyberbullying can hurt your chances for employment. Unless an employer is willing to do a lot of extra homework in terms of digging through all the drama, odds are they'll be hesitant to offer an interview if they see questionable things.\n\n7. Cyberbullying is abusive and isolating. If you're being publicly harassed by an anonymous person, your friends, colleagues, and everyone in your network is going to hesitate getting involved with you out of fear of getting attacked themselves. Unfortunately, this means you have even fewer people to help you, and you remain an easy target for the bully.\n\n8. Cyberbullying doesn't end when you turn off the computer. Our real lives are so intertwined with social networks now that if you poison someone's network, it will poison his/her real life. \n\n9. You might just say \"Then don't use a computer or go online!\" This is a rather harsh demand for obvious reasons. The focus should be on fixing the bully issue, not putting the onus on the victims.",
"I had a good /r/changemyview thread on this topic and I got some very eye-opening responses.\n\n[Here's the thread](_URL_0_)",
"I dont really post, but I used to be bully all the time when I was a freshmen (senior now) through facebook/myspace all the time. People started bullying me because my pictures weren't cool or were \"too gay\". I was bullied alot for being my self. People just thought it was funny to call me fag and queer all the time. I deleted my facebook trying to stop the problem, but I started getting death threats, I would attend school and people would just laugh at me and call me names. Cyberbullying finally evovled to real life bullying. It wasnt just a group of students, around atleast 50+ people. I had people defend me at times, but I really wanted to commit sucide. I knew I could step away, from the computer, but not real life. Kids in our generation love to bully and if someone ever stood up for me, people would of followed, not just follow the bullys. I matured alot, People still make fun of me till this day. It's very minimal, but I can say those were the hardest times in my life when I had no one in my life... \n\ntl;Dr: Cyberbullying eventually evovles into real life situations espcially if you attend highschool still.",
"Let's pretend you're a fifteen-year-old girl. You go to a mildly populated high-school, you have a small group of friends, and you attend no extra-curricular activity classes. \n\nOne day, some boy asks you a question during class. A classmate overhears this boy talking to you and tells his girlfriend. Most teenagers lack the decision making skills to handle this correctly because that part of their brain doesn't fully develop until we're twenty-five. As an overly jealous girl, she wants to shut you down and make you feel like you are not pretty or worthy of talking to her boyfriend.\n\nIt starts off mild. She tells her group of friends that you're a slut and you like to sleep with a bunch of guys at once. Her friends giggle at you in the hallway. They'll mention it on Facebook a few times among themselves. They all have hilarious inside jokes just about you. \n\nYou start to pick up on the verbal abuse and maybe you tell an adult. Maybe you handle it yourself. Either way, she doesn't like that you want to defend yourself because it makes her feel like she's in the wrong for wanting to defend her relationship. She comes at you more aggressively.\n\nThey find you on Facebook and add you. You're probably thinking, \"Why not just delete the add and move on?\" Well, curiosity. You want to see what she has to say. Whether it's threatening to beat you up or saying they want to apologize. The first step is always engaging conversation online before knowing what the other's intentions are. \n\nBefore you can react, your Facebook wall is flooded with, \"redditing_since_1975 IS A HUGE SLUT\". You delete them, but you spend the next fifteen minutes slowly going through and deleting each cruel message from your wall. As you push the remove button, the word \"slut\" cycles through your brain once, twice, three times over and over. You have a slight adrenaline rush from dealing with the confrontation, but nothing to spend it on since the threat is gone for now.\n\nIt always groups of girls who do this. They'll laugh about how they wish they could have seen the look on your face when they posted those things on your wall. One of them comes up with the bright idea of searching your name into Google to see where else you are on the internet. Your name links you to a Twitter account called CatWhiskers98. Putting CatWhiskers98 into Google pulls up a profile for almost every account you have on the internet, because most teenagers use the same account name for everything. From here, they have access to your Twitter, your Xanga, your Livejournal, your Pinterest, your Reddit account, and maybe even some odd and end forum sites you visit from time to time. They have access to a whole other life that you live through social networking.\n\nThe frontier grows cold for awhile. You think they've stopped teasing you, but what they're really doing is reading through months of journal entries, old Twitter tweets, and forum posts about your hobbies, your likes, advice, and troubles. \n\nAfter a few days, they find it. An old post you made admitting you have a crush on Johnny Triviani in your math class and you often have dreams about him at night kissing you. You talk about how much you enjoy your dreams and wish you could sleep longer to endure them.\n\nImagine going to class and sitting across the room from this girl. You didn't get a lot of sleep last night because you had an exam that morning. The teacher's monotone voice is lulling you to sleep, when all of a sudden, your hear a hand slam down on your desk, snapping you awake. You look up into your teacher's face and he asks you, \"What seems to be the problem, redditing_since_1975? I need you to stay awake.\" That's when you hear it, the girl across the room, yell, \"It's cause she stayed up all night dreaming about Joooohnny.\" Maybe it doesn't sound like a big deal, but Johnny is sitting right next to you. Every thought you have ever had about him, every desire suddenly fills your face up with a strong heat. You feel like it's going to come busting out of your face and suddenly, he'll be able to read every emotion you have ever had about him and he'll hate it. The class all laughs at the joke, but you feel like they're all laughing at you. Johnny doesn't say anything and you can't tell what he's thinking. You feel sick to your stomach, but the teacher silences the class and doesn't allow anyone to talk. You now have to six forty minutes in class thinking about what everyone else is thinking and wondering if it's about you.\n\nWhen you get home, you see a message on your Facebook from a friend. It says, \"I think you need to see this.\" It's a link to a Facebook group for your school. Everyone can see it. You can feel a knot growing in your stomach, but you need to see what it is. Your worst fears are confirmed when you click on it. \"Hi, my name is redditing_since_1975. You may not know who I am, but I just need the whole world to know how much I love Johnny Triavani. I can't hold back any longer. I can't hide it. I'm ready for us to be married, to have children and cats, and to spend the rest of our days holding each other. My favorite things to eat are beans, artichokes, and raw onions. My favorite color is green, like your eyes. I worship Satan, but I think we can get past that, and I might have syphilis, but that's what condoms are for. If you feel anything for me, please reply.\"\n\nYour school removes it shortly after, but it's too late. A lot of students have already seen it. After it's removed, a new Facebook group is created with the same notes. A new hashtag is becoming popular on Twitter and now even people you don't know are joining in on the hate. The people who do seem to care about you are trying to send you links so you can remove it, but they don't realize the stress and depression it's putting you through just to see it. You stay up all night thinking about it. You haven't look, but you know it's there. You already know what it says.\n\nThis is where it gets worse. The school realizes bullying is happening and they start to step in. The students are brought in for a meeting and the girl is grounded. You think it would be happily ever after, right? Wrong. Now she feels like you're interfering with her home life and she wants to make you suffer for it. Now it's no longer about her boyfriend, it's about a personal vendetta she has against you because this is all your fault.\n\nThey start tracking your Foursquare. You don't even think their stalking is related to your check-ins. Every check-in you make, every tip or comment you leave, they start pulling up right behind you. No more long walks from school without having trash or coke cans thrown at you from passing cars full of her friends. No more sitting in Books-A-Million without getting dirty stares and giggling from across the hall. No more gym or library time because your every decision is being watched. \n\nWhen you start staying inside more and they realize they can't reach you through their own screen names, they start making fake ones. They find your regular forums and make accounts, pretending to be attractive boys from across the United States. They either pretend to be your friend to coax personal information out of you or slander your Facebook wall before you have time to realize what's happening. You don't want to go outside because they've made outside miserable, but now everything you've worked hard to relate to online is slowly disappearing, too. They make fake profiles of your already friends and add you with things like, \"Hey, it's just Katie. I made a new Facebook, so add this one.\" You add it just to realize they've made seven new wall posts for you. \n\nInternet bullying is not just on the internet. It's usually followed up with real-life. The reason it's so hard on teenagers who are depressed about their school life is because they use the internet as an escape. When your escape because a means to harass you, you feel optionless. \n\n",
"Why is traditional bullying a problem? Can't people just never go outside their home?",
"I wonder about this question too. I'm 41 and when I was a kid/young adult and people were teased or picked on the only folks who knew were the people who witnessed it and the handful of others that would be told in person. There were rarely pictures of it. We had polaroids, a single copy that could only be passed amongst a small group. \n Now that little moment gets posted on social media and it lives forever. Maybe that's the difference. \n\n\n",
"Humans are social creatures. Whether we interact with people over computers, telephones, in person... the same basic human emotions and actions are there.\n\nMost bullies don't just pick some random person on FaceBook to bully. Chances are they know that person in real life. Be it school, family, friends, work... Cyber-bullying is just an avenue to continue that relationship. And even if that person stops going on their computer, they will still be bullied through their real life social network.\n\nAnd turning off the computer is like saying someone should leave the school if they're being bullied. They have every right to be there as the bully.\n\nNow there's a few things that make cyber-bullying really more harmful. That is the spread of the bullying. This is also tied to digital photography and cell phones that arise at the same time as social networks. Someone posts something shameful about you, that is then shared not among the bullies, but to friends and family, and eventually even strangers and people across the world.\n\nThis part is really insidious. I remember the bullies back in my day. Yeah, they bullied and gossiped, and spread rumors/shame. But for example, I can't think of one that would go up to a kid's parents and say \"Misses Johnson, your son Bobby was caught sucking his friends dick\" But today, someone wants to bully via social media... and post something... and some kid has his mom on facebook and it just pops up on her feed\n\"Dick Move has posted about Bobby Johnson - Look guys... Bobby sucking his friends cock!!!! Look at the video\"\nMaybe it wasn't the bullies intention to ruin the kid's home life with her family, but that's the result. Back in the day, I just can't see that happening. The family and home was pretty much off limits for bullies.\n\nYes back in the day, things probably spread by word of mouth through school. But chances are photograph/video evidence was less likely and so there was more chance that people would treat rumor as rumor or there's always this doubt. \n\n",
"Why is drunk driving such a problem? Can't people just step away from the road?\n\n(sarcasm intended for introspection and educational purpose)",
"\"Why can't people just X\" is a question that has plenty of answers and still fails to solve the problem that prompted it. ",
"The issue is bullying is not just limited to the internet. The cyber-bully is also a real bully. You go to school and have to face the bully on a daily basis. Then you get home and you can't escape the bully is there online as well. ",
"My take on it is that you shouldn't have to step away from your own computer due to bullying. You could make that same argument about leaving your house; if you never did you wouldn't be bullied. People have a right to go to public places with out bullying, and the internet counts as one of those places. I guess it is a solution, but not the right one and it's not fair to the person being bullied.",
"That makes as much sense as stepping away from a bully in any other aspect of your life. Can't you walk into another room? Can't you not go that way to work? Can't you change who you hang out with?\n\nThe internet's not an optional part of life anymore, and I'd argue that even when it was, the suggestion that someone should have to hide from out for their own well-being is unjust.",
"We have become cybermen. It's time to drop the whole cyber bullying thing and just call it bullying. If you are being cyber-bullied, it's not because of the internet, and it might just be an extension of the real bulling happening in school or wherever.",
"A point many others have overlooked: Cyber bullying is often anonymous, but in many cases the perpetrator is someone who the victim knows. The idea that *anyone* they know could be the one who is doing this to them - even so-called friends - can make it impossible to trust anyone, and have a serious impact on their mental wellbeing.\n\nThis is especially troubling if there are threats of physical violence, because without knowing who is making those threats, it's impossible to tell if they can be safely ignored - victims may have no choice but to believe they are in danger.\n\nThey were talking about this on [Hack on Triple J](_URL_0_) earlier, the above point was made by one of the guests. The Thursday and Friday shows are both on this subject.",
"For a start, you misunderstand cyber bullying. It's not simply someone posting shit to your facebook wall. cyber bullying is a broad term for bullying that tales place through the cybersphere. That could be any games you play online, your facebook, myspace, twitter, instagram etc etc. This even includes your phone. Now lets examine society. In this day and age, all that kinda stuff is pretty well integrated into society (in the west at least) and functioning without them is a lot of work. Not to mention if you're being cyber-bullied you're probably being bullied normally anyway. Deciding to renounce even your mobile phone will just make you look like the weird kid at school. You also have to account for what others see of you online. Even if you were to renounce all technology and just deal with it at school, people could still post shit about you on social media sites except then you would only ever hear about it through the grape vine which would kinda make it worse. \n\nFurthermore in terms of your phone, most phones now automatically let you preview the message so if you get someone threatening you, you'll most likely have read half the message before you can even realise what is being said, after which natural human curiosity takes over and you feel inclined to read the rest. This of course would scare most younger children. \n\nYou also have to think about defending yourself on line. It's a lot harder to defend yourself with just words, especially if the person you're talking to is anonymous but seems to know a lot about you. You'll sound like a dick if they're rattling off all these specific insults and you're response is 'fuck off you fat fuck' \n\nUltimately (this is putting it briefly) but the cyber world is too closely ingrained in ours now for people to be able to completely ignore it, not to mention, who the fuck should have to? People who refuse to step away from their computers simply because others use it to bully them should be commended for standing up to it. ",
"Can't someone who is physically bullied just go to a different school, or never go into the lunchroom, or live in a bubble? Maybe, but that's not realistic or addressing the real problem. It's not practical to stay off the internet, and the victim of bullying shouldn't need to remove a very useful technology from their lives because they're being harassed. \n\nCyberbullying may happen online, but that doesn't mean it stays there. Someone at my high school posted a bunch of pictures of a guy in the locker room they took without his permission and some of them contained nudity. That's not only cyberbullying, but sexual harassment and resulted in verbal harassment in person at school, and to say \"just ignore it\" shows a gross lack of empathy for what he went through. Alternatively, things said about you online can affect your real world presence. A scholarship committee or future employer may google your name and see all the terrible things your bully has said about you that were never removed because you ignored it. No one should ignore abuse and bullying, because bullies should be punished, not given a free pass just because its online.\n\nEven cyberbullying from strangers you'll never meet in real life can be tormenting. Cyberbullies can discover your personal information, access your family through your facebook and social media profiles, create new accounts and constantly \"follow\" you online so you can't get away from them. I don't know about you, but social media is a job requirement for me and many others, and incredibly useful for school, I couldn't just \"stay away\" even if I wanted to.\n",
"Part of my job is working with middle and high school aged kids on this topic. What I find is that a) socializing online is a natural part of their life, more so than even we 20-somehtings can imagine. They are connected and reachable literally all day. b) Because of this, they feel a certain obligation to be present and available for communication.They have a real issue with blocking people; everyone is their own PR guy, trying to control the message. \n\nConstant connectivity is at the heart of this issue. Traditionally, kids had a sanctuary. They were bullied at school but only when the bully was around them and they had relative peace from them at home. Limited exposure and chance for interaction and the chance to avoid. Cyber bullying usually accompanies traditional bullying. So, they are essentially open to attack around the clock. There is no respite. Also, by nature it is possible for mass bullying. Example-( Let me preface this by saying that they aught to know better. Part of this problem is bad behaviors and choices by the bullies AND the bullied.) Someone sends a risque pic to their girlfriend of boyfriend at the time. They break up and suddenly that photo has leaked. How do you hide form that? How do you control that? You don't. And, there is the potential for the people targeting you to grow past one or two to hundreds of people. Your image and reputation then is compromised online AND in real life. Further, everyone who partook in that sending and receiving of the picture is (depending on local and state laws and if the subject is under 18) complicit in the distributing of child pornography.\n\nTl;dr - Kids can't get away form bullies. Behavior modification is needed concerning both the bully AND the bullied. ",
"Because in this day and age, a life without internet/social media is not a full life for a person in the western world.\n\nAlso, being denied access to something so fundamental because of bullying is wrong, and the bullying is illegal for a reason. When I was a kid not too long ago, I did not have the answer to every single question I can think of right in my pocket. Being denied that is an infringement on something magical, and for what? So that you can say that someone looks ugly? You and 50 000 of your new anonymous friends?\n\nSo much damage for no gain at all.",
"As adults, we're used to having a life outside / apart from social media. For children (and yes, I know adults can be the victims of cyber bullying too – I’m focusing on children where the problem appears to be worst) they’ve grown up with social media their entire lives. It’s how they communicate with friends, it’s how they make their plans, and it’s often how they spend a lot of their time “hanging out”. It is the fabric that encompasses their entire world. \n\nNow, imagine that everywhere you go in this world, everything you do, every time you try to go online, you’re harassed. You’re reminded of how ugly you are, how dumb you are, how completely inadequate you are in every way. It’s easy for us to say “just turn it off and do something else”, but many of them don’t have anything else. They’re alienated by the only world that matters to them. You may as well be telling them to ignore everything they know and start their life over from scratch.\n\nThis is exacerbated by the lens of social media – everyone’s life looks amazing on Facebook! Everyone is always having such a good time, everyone is so attractive all the time, and everybody is so happy with what they’ve accomplished! If all of these beautiful, awesome, talented people are saying these things about you… maybe they’re true after all? \n\nYou end up with a child who has nowhere left to turn but their family, and they often say the same thing – “Just turn it off”. Even when they do understand, what can you realistically do about it? How can you “fix” something that has gone viral. Even if the bullying stops, you deal with knowing exactly how everyone really feels about you while having to interact with them every day. \n",
"Well, a good number of people are heavily invested in their online lives and can have an astounding depth and range of real, significant, human interactions on the internet. I'm a \"functioning member of society\" as it were with a job, friends, go out to eat, take care of family, etc., but I'm still parts of online communities where I know and care about its members intimately, and was even more invested in the past. You can really build out entire networks of friends and have the bulk of your social life exist within the www.\n\nSo \"just stepping away\" isn't really so easy. The internet isn't just a casual tool to check your facebook with, plenty of people have built lives on it. Harassing and bullying can destroy that, and even more efficiently than in real life--increased anonymity and lessened repercussions for bad behavior make it easy.",
"The internet is probably the most used distraction from real life in the world. How many of you seek refuge in the internet the second you get home from work? Maybe you are looking at cats as you drink your morning coffee while dreading your work day. Hell, some people are on the internet all day while at work. How would you feel if you literally could never escape your problems, even mentally. If your main outlet of stress became just another reminder of how much you suck. You want to get up from the computer, and just walk away. Now what? \n\nMost people who are super affected by cyber-bullying are most likely also super lonely. Otherwise some person bugging them on the internet wouldn't be a big deal. \n\nTo put this in a context that a lot of people can understand; If you met someone new and dated them for a small period of time then decided you didn't want to talk to them anymore. They then text you endlessly with hurtful things. You try to ignore them, but every time you look at your phone there is more hurtful text. You just want to call your best friend to get lunch, but as soon as you unlock your phone its a lunatic ranting about how you eat them up inside. Even if you are an emotionally stable person that stuff will get to you. \n\nIts not much different in cyber-bullying. You want to just have this one slice of life that you can enjoy and forget about your problems, but then you can't even have that because someone is too selfish.",
"OH good, more victim blaming. Walking away doesn't fix a problem, there's still a bully out there that will continue their behavior. Instead of looking at a victim and asking them \"why don't you just leave your computer alone?\" We should be asking bullies \" why do you continue this behavior?\"",
"People are weak. I can only imagine what would happen if these groups of people had to storm the beaches of normandy.",
"Gotta make a distinction between \"trolling\" and \"cyber bullying\".\n\nTrolling happens online. You can walk away from it since usually they only have what you have put on the internet. Trolls are not people you know. They're anons fulfilling the greater internet fuckwad theory.\n\nCyber bullying comes from people you know from a community you are a part of. It might be an online community still, and you might be able to log off, but it's still there, and there are still people you know laughing at you for something. Quite often it's not entirely online and it bleeds into your real life. All you're doing by not going online is being a Luddite and cutting yourself off from the rest of the community, be it school, work, etc.",
"What does stepping away from the computer accomplish, aside from leaving people blindsided when they are slapped in the face the next day when they are hit with the aftermath of whatever was said about them in their absence?\n\nYou might argue that ignorance is bliss, if it was all contained on the computer, but it's not. Even in adult situations, people take it beyond online, they stalk people through facebook, contact them at home, contact employers or family members with idle threats or \"secrets\".\n\nHere's a secret for people, your average 14 year old has nothing on a bored and pissed off 50 year old housewife with nothing to do but troll the internet all day.",
"The \"can't people step away from their computer\" argument against the severity of Cyber Bullying is like telling someone with a broken leg to just walk it off. That doesn't solve the problem the persons leg is still broken i.e the victim of Cyber Bullying is still suffering from inescapable emotional and mental assault that they are facing on a daily basis. Computers are everywhere, there is no getting away from them. Especially for students who depend on the use of computers for completing their studies.\nA computer is now an aspect of everyday life, and for some people it's something they use majority of the day. It's not like years ago when a bully just saw you at school, but once the final bell would ring you knew you were safe. If you're a kid and sitting in your room trying to recover from the trials of the day and you started to be assaults via the computer in a place that is supposed to be safe and on a device that is supposed to be for you to use and enjoy it can become traumatizing, you'd have no shelter, no safe haven.",
"When everything in the modern day is articulated around digital communications technology, \"stepping away\" isn't the simple task you present it as. If someone's sending you threatening letters, how easy is it to \"step away\" from the postal service? If someone were to make threatening calls to your house, would you assume that disconnecting your phone is a meaningful long-term solution?\n\nI take serious issue with the logic that when people are harassing other people, the victims are the ones who should cut themselves off from the world. They're not the ones sending death threats, or sexually explicit messages; I think the dickheads and the assholes are the ones who should be made to step back. Who should be allowed to control the conversation here? The bullies, or the bullied?",
"It's different when the internet has become a person's only outlet. I am 21 years old. I have Cerebral Palsy. I was also a foster child for several years on and off, so I used to be pretty unsure of myself. As you can imagine, it's really difficult for me to keep up with my friends who can be very social. They're out at clubs ruining their liver, and getting hang overs when I'd rather play video games and actually have a conversation. So, I lost \"friends\". The internet has always been my window to the world. \nI had let someone know of my mothers passing, and unfortunately, \ngrown men and women were sending me pictures of burning babies, pictures of mothers holding their children close. That was entirely fucked up. I shouldn't have to step away from my computer because an asshole decides it's easy to hurt someone over the internet. And even after I had gotten off the site, my inbox was filled with slander and deaththreats. There was not a thing I could do except wait for it to die down, and hope that people are smart enough to not really say thos things in public.\n\nIt no longer bothers me, because I know me. And I know I can handle insults. But no on deserves to be hurt through a screen or not. Just raise your kids to be good people (especially in this day and age) and you won't have that problem.\n\nI was 19 when that happened. I lived alone, 5 hours away from family, no friends and no one to talk to. The internet was a great thing for me, and that really wasn't fair. So that's why it's a problem.\n",
"How old are you?\n\nSeriously, things we are able to deal with as adults are not the same for children. Remember, they are STUCK in school. They HAVE to attend. They don't have the life experience and developed emotional abilities to deal with it.",
"Kids are assholes.",
"I feel that people don't want to do that. People want the internet to be a welcoming place where they can expand their minds and meet people. Just like a public school, they want this place to be safe and welcoming.",
"This will be a really unpopular opinion here, but whatever.\n\nI think Cyber Bullying is a joke and people should just toughen up. I also don't think a 12 year old needs a point of constant access to the internet as well, it is just begging for trouble. \n\nSource: Was bullied growing up and also bullied others. Being a kid is a vicious cycle, but you just got to learn to take it and dish it back out. ",
"When I was in middle school, I made this mix tape for this girl that included a long, rambling confession of my affections. I gave it to her, being blissfully clueless of how embarrassing the content was. A few weeks later, one of her friends quoted a passage from the tape randomly as I passed by them in the halls. \n\nI was mortified, of course, but it was her circle, which was a dozen or so popular kids that I had no connection with. \n\nImagine the same thing happening, except that instead of a mix tape, it's something you didn't set yourself up for, like a Photoshopped picture or a video you didn't take. Now imagine that the circle of friends expands from 12 people who you don't interact with to every douchebag on the internet, both in your local community and everywhere else. \n\nEven if you get up from your computer, that's still there. It's hard enough to walk away from a polite argument with someone on the interwebs as an adult. I don't want to think about what happens when you're a teenager, awkward or otherwise, and the point you're defending is why you shouldn't just go and kill yourself versus everyone else on Earth with a superiority complex and a wireless connection.",
"Someone just took out a 30 minute ad spot during prime time telling everyone you know in the world horrible nasty things about you. They put up flyers in your neighborhood with photoshopped pictures of you ripping apart kittens and stabbing puppies and saying they heard intimate embarrassing details about all your neighbors. \n\nThey are trying to bait you out for a 1:1 so that they can be smart and witty. But even if you don't take the bait, you feel like everyone around you is going to turn against you.\n\nThis of course is not the case, but when you're young and struggling with your identity, these things are incredibly damaging mentally. ",
"you can, in the same way you can walk away from sports, or a hobby, or anything else you care about irl to escape a bully.\n\nbut that's the point, isn't it? the bully gets to control your life. in no way is that remotely acceptable. ",
"ITT: People confuse cyber-bullying with random trolling and name-calling.\n\nAn example of cyber-bullying: A 13 year old girl takes a picture of herself and sends it to a guy she likes. This guy shares it with everyone, and soon people are sharing it on facebook and making fun of her. She receives messages every day telling her that she's a dirty slut etc. \n\nIf this happens to me or anyone else who's an adult... Well, we're just idiots. But when it happens to children it's fucked up and it WILL damage them psychologically. You can't just \"walk away\" from the computer and have that solve the issue.",
"Bullying is just as much about socially ostracizing someone as it is about milk money shakedowns. It can be mental, physical, or both. We tend to say \"bullying\" when it applies to kids, but adults would refer to the same situations as harassment, gossiping, manipulation, gaslighting, slander, assault, battery, etc..\n\nCyber-bullying is a problem because it allows the non-physical bullying to become more prolific. Instead of having to talk to a lot of people to spread rumors or manipulate, all it takes is a text or a Facebook post.",
"If you know someone is posting smack about you on-line, and others can access it on the Net, and you can't refute any of it...it's corrosive and eats at you. I know a guy that is a bonafide asshole who loves to stir up, instigate trouble, & create havoc because he thrives on it. He began posting nasty things about another guy I know, destroying his reputation. My friend said \"where do I go to get my reputation back?!\" How do you explain to people 'out there' none of it is true? Think about it, as it's not as easy to ignore when it's about you",
"Part of the problem is that 'stepping away' from the bullying in essence means social isolation for kids. Think about it - no Facebook, no cellphone, no Twitter, no Tumblr, no Instagram, no Whatsapp, etc, etc. Cellphones are huge among kids now and play a huge part in how kids connect and maintain friendships. Parents don't want to do that to their kids (if they even know that the bullying is happening) and kids themselves likely won't want to entirely give up all internet connection because that means they're cut off from their friends, too. \n\nIt's similar to saying 'well, just homeschool if a kid is getting bullied'. That stops the bullying, but it takes away all social contact, too. Kids are vicious and persistent, more so than a lot of adults realise. So the bullying goes on at school and then transfers over to text messages, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc. It becomes a huge part of the victim's life.",
"To me it seems like it has become such a problem, because the internet has become a virtual extension of the classroom, the playground, the mall, the 7-11, all those places we used to hang out before we became glued to our computers all the time. The differences are significant and sort of terrifying - everything can be saved, screenshotted, and also publicly posted in view of countless people. While an insult can be hurled across a classroom and heard by anyone who listens, that same insult can be posted, linked, and shared by anyone who wants, ensuring that absolutely everyone is there to read it. \nWhen I think back to the dumb and annoying shit I did as a kid, especially my reactions TO being bullied, I cringe, but when I'm finished cringing and berating my 10 year old self for falling prey to being baited so easily, I thank my lucky stars that I didn't go through those years during the time of the internet. Every stupid thing I said and did could be photographed, documented, saved, and replicated for years and years and would completely destroy my ability to recover from the embarrassment, or move past the trauma. \n\ntl;dr: wider audiences, greater permanence, and even if you're not there to hear it, it's still written in e-stone for you or others to find.",
"Why is real bullying such a problem? Can't people just walk away from their bullies?",
"Why should people have to step away from their computers? Everyone has the right to use social media and no one should be forced away from it for fear of being bullied, especially since it's become so integrated in everyday life. It's like telling someone that if a person is bullying them in their own backyard they should just never go outside. ",
"Even if you stepped away from the computer, assuming the issue was school related, the problem would still be there. It's the exact same problem that is not usually solved by playing the pacifist and walking away from being insulted daily or beat up daily at school. When you walk away and continuously tolerate the bullying you make it fun for the bullies. \nNothing makes the problem go away except for either: \n(A) kicking the ever living shit out of your bullies, or \n(B) just staying strong and waiting until that part of your life is behind you. \n",
"The root of the problem is people going \"It's the internet, it's not real.\"\n\nWell.. Yes it is. Because these are real people you're arguing with. Personally, I'm extremely competitive. If someone wants to argue, they're going to be in for a day long battle. A battle in which I'll call them out on everything. Be it appearance, tone, intention, etc...\n\nI'm just one of those guy's who hates to lose. So I'll find *some* way to win. Even if it takes me a fucking week.",
"That's putting the onus on the victim. it's not my responsibility to prevent you from bullying me, it's yours.",
"It's a noob eat noob world out there.",
"When the internet started becoming popular, there was a very real disconnect between your real-life identity and your online identity. Online, one could be absolutely unfiltered. Since nothing really tied back to your real life, even the absolute worst behavior had zero consequences.\n\nA few years ago there was all this talk about Web 2.0. What Web 2.0 is is largely the removal of anonymity from social interaction over the internet. The problem is, most people are stuck in that pre-Web 2.0 mentality because when they first got online, everything was anonymous and consequence-free. So even though they have their real name being displayed for the world to see, they still think their words are anonymous. This is also true because bullying someone in real life is a lot harder than bullying someone over the computer because you literally don't think of the entity you're communication with as a person. ",
"The onus isn't on the bullied to step away/shut down their profiles/whatever, but on the bullies to stop being hurtful.\n\nThe reason it's such a problem is that it's really easy to hurt people anonymously, and sometimes people are a lot more vulnerable online than they might be offline.",
"The people that are getting hurt the most by cyber-bullying are generally not in situations such as getting flamed in online games, or getting aggressive anonymous comments on their posts on a site like reddit. Generally the big problem comes when kids are getting bullied online by the same people that bully them at school, in real life etc. \n\nI noticed there was a major difference between the culture when I was in elementary/middle school and when my younger sister was. I personally was not bullied to a degree that I felt like I needed to do something about it, but a few of my friends would get targeted by kids at school. Fortunately during this time, this type of bullying rarely escaped the playground. \n\nNow as for my sister, by the time she hit Grade 5-6, everyone in her class was already using facebook or other online social sites, she would often get targeted by some boys at school, but for her this didn't end when she went home for the day, because now these kids had another outlet available to keep bullying her. When you can't escape from bullying no matter where you go, I feel like it can really build up into something that is a lot more detrimental to a young persons mental state. \n\n\nTL;DR : major problem isn't just mean spirited anonymous comments, but that IRL bullies can keep up this pressure at any time from any place. ",
"You are victim blaming! people should be allowed to go on the internet without being subject to abuse, just as they should be able to walk on the street without being assaulted.",
"I've always seen \"Cyber bullying\" as an extension of *actual* bullying. I can't see many people getting bullied by random people online (it still happens), but it *definitely* happens with people you know and who you IRL. \n\nIt's like another tool for the bullies on top of all the normal shit. ",
"It's not that, it's that people still go after you when you are at home minding your own business. \nI used to get bullied in primary school, home was safe. \nWhen you are at home minding your own business and they keep sending you bullshit it undermines that. Luckily the internet was only barely a thing when i was a that young, and home was still safe for me. \n",
"Even if you can step away from your computer; you can't force your friends, family, and colleagues to step away. When it comes to things like \"revenge porn\" and other types of severe online harrassment, it can be incredibly damaging to your life if you don't fight back really fucking hard.",
"Here's part of the chain of why cyber-bullying is so effective.\n\nMost people care about what people think about them. \n\nMost people don't know what other people think about them.\n\nMost people want people to like them.\n\nMost people believe that they are right (what they do, how they live, what they think).\n\nCyber-bullying causes this chain reaction that forces a person to confront all of these things at once, on a personal level. Cyber-bullying becomes an intense, deep attack on a person's psyche.\n\nWhen you are cyber-bullied you see:\n\nWhat people think about you. (Something that matters to you and something you generally don't know)\n\nHow many people don't like you. (Something that matters to you)\n\nHow you are wrong. (Physically, emotionally, politically, etc.)\n\nYou can't look away because you care about what people think about you, so you want to know. You care that people don't like you, so what they say doesn't leave you. You hope that somebody out there will help you, so you keep looking back, to see if somebody has defended you (because you feel right).\n\nIt's ironic because reddit is a perfect place for passive cyber-bullying. Think about downvotes. I know when I get downvoted, in subreddits I care about, for ideas that I know are right, I get so invested in those votes.\n\nWhy can't these people understand that I'm right? Where are all the other people who think the way I do? They'll be here in an hour. Refresh. More downvotes.\n\nWhat has happened to me? Maybe I'm wrong. Man, this reply that is insulting me on a personal level has more upvotes than my comment, which wasn't even rude.\n\nMaybe I'm worthless.\n\nI can't be worthless. Somebody will help. Refresh. \n\nNo help.\n\nThis will stop eventually. People won't keep downvoting me. They'll forget this ever happened.\n\nRefresh.\n\nMore downvotes.\n\n\n",
"They spam you its not like you can ignore it",
"On the internet, people can pretend to be whoever they want to be. A fat old guy can be a suave, young business man. A young girl with braces could become a supermodel. Unfortunately it's become all too common for people to fake who they are and its like the internet strips them of their true personalities. People start to look down on others online and think they can get away with bullying because they don't see the consequences right away. I knew of a gaming site for girls that included a forum and on there, young girls would rip each other up, even the ones who said to stop bullying the girls. Its a power trip for many who don't have that kind of power in real life.",
"The way I've tried to think of it is... If you're over 25 right now, you can't really understand the social landscape as it is now.\n\nTo us, we've seen things like MySpace/Facebook/Twitter/Instagram as extensions or methods of adding on to our traditional social experience.\n\nFor those under that age, that's an integral part to their social experience. I mean, we're at the point where someone not having a Facebook account is a potential red flag... Anders Brevik, James Holmes, Adam Lanza all lacked a social media footprint.\n\nI'm not suggesting that's a legitimate indication, but that's the level that social media integration has come to with our social experience.\n\nSo, where we see an off-switch, that'd be like ripping out a large chunk of their perceived ability to socialize. It'd be tantamount to us saying to someone bullied in the 1980s to \"just blend in during school and come straight home and stay in your room until tomorrow\" as a solution.\n\nThe reason I think it's so impactful as someone who grew up in a bad home situation and was bullied at school... I mean, I could switch gears between the different types of stress. Catch shit at school, then switch gears and prepare for the nightmare of home. There was down time involved, too, where if I was out with friends on the weekends, school and home stress didn't impact me.\n\nI think that if I had that coming at me 24/7, it would have broken me. I can't imagine a world without that downtime, or at least without boundaries between home stress and school/bullying stress.\n\nIn any case, I think that while there's something to be said about the anti-bullying campaigns, the only way to really move the needle on this issue is to focus on teaching coping skills to kids (something people definitely need as an adult as well) and, as a parent, being more involved (even as an invisible hand) in your kid's social life, especially online.",
"Disclaimer: psych 101 bro here\n\nKids today have an internet persona that is an integral part of their identity; it is a significant pathway by which they receive reflected appraisal, find reference groups, and, build a personal identity. Attacks against that persona on social networks are not only humiliating, they are transformative. The frustration leads to maladaptive coping mechanisms. ",
"Before technology, bullying was done directly or by word of mouth. When you can hide behind a computer, it's all too easy to bully, without the fear of getting (immediately) punched in the mouth.",
"Typically one can ignore or walk away as you state, but when the person (troll) who is doing the bullying makes it personal by doxing you and threatening your loved ones that is when it is time to call the authorities in even if they were \"joking\". Threats to harm another are not jokes even if they are veiled. ",
"You should check out [this article](_URL_0_) to learn about how devastating to people it can be. The author isn't the only one this happens to, either. There are tons of people that this is an everyday thing for.",
"You should have the right to exist comfortably and without persecution, online or not",
"I have a nonprofit that's focusing on youth and social media, so let me take a stab at this. \nCyberbullying is just one of several intense issues young (and some not so young) people are facing these days. Unfortunately, anti-cyberbullying campaigns are this generation's version of 'stop, drop, and roll.' They are very reactive in nature, meaning they address problems after they arise.\nTo truly combat this issue, we need to get to the root. We need to have some open, honest and engaging conversations with young people about their online experiences. Fortunately, that's just what we're doing with Above The Fray (@BeAboveTheFray). We're halfway through our youth focus groups right now.\nWant a sneak peek at what's to come? Sure you do. It starts with the parents and the rules they lay down for their children about their online behavior. Just like the old saying, 'there are no bad dogs,' there are no bad kids. There are kids who were given iPads, iPhones, and computers without any oversight whatsoever.\nI'll stop there for now, because I could go on and on about this topic all day. I invite you to read more about our project online at _URL_0_.\n",
"Why should the victim have to deal with anything at all? Can't bullies just stop being absolute assholes and grow the fuck up? \n\nThe fact is what happens online ends up having real world impact in the way people act. \n",
"I mean, I was bullied in high school, some of it on line, the brunt of it in person. Ultimately, the only way to deal with it is to prove them wrong about you, or to move on to a new situation with a fresh start. Life is like colors, and the way everything melds together is like mixing paint on the paper, it muddies up. Basically, it is extremely difficult to escape it, even if you just step away from it because it bleeds into the rest of your life.",
" \"Why can't you just step away?\" puts the onus on the victim. For ANY act of aggression on one person by another, you could ask such a question, but it is never right; in fact is part of the problem. ",
"I think it has to do with the fact that the cyber aspect infiltrates the safety of one's home. Whereas traditional bullying situations only come around when the individual is at school or a public place, cyberbullying can make one feel like they truly cannot escape it. The dangers of connectivity...",
"Same reason they can't just walk away from bullies anywhere else. The bullying is part of your situation (home, school, whatever) and you have to break away from that situation completely to escape it. I think this is why bullying is much worse among kids than adults: the option of quitting your job and moving doesn't exist.",
"You moron. That's the dumbest thing I've ever read on this website! Did you even graduate first grade or does your mama still make you formula and change your diaper?\n\n...OK so I didn't mean any of those things and I'm sorry to use shock value to illustrate my point. But picture logging onto reddit every day and getting dozens or hundreds of messages like that or worse. Why should you have to choose between putting up with that and going on reddit?",
"I was cyber bullied while I was at school. It actually took a month of them uploading their pictures to piczo (this was back in 2005-6) before I discovered the pages. I tried to avoid looking at the pages to see what images they had and instead I told the school (the photos were being taken during school hours). The school told them to remove the pictures but they denied being the owners of the pages. Eventually I discovered they were attempting to share my home address (though it was wrong) in an attempt to intimidate me into not going to the school. Eventually the school got the police involved and had the pages taken down. \n\nWhen youtube became popular and phones able to record video started to appear then it became worse (this was in 6th form). I remember one time I came home and already had emails to my school email with links to the videos. I had to watch just to see what had been filmed. One was me after I had received some a bad grade for an exam in physics. I wasn't in a good mood and became angry at the people bullying me, so they filmed it without me knowing.\n\nIt wasn't simply a matter of ignoring the pages because for me, my curiosity got the better of me, I wanted to see what was being said and every night I would come home just praying that there was nothing new on there. I am glad we didn't have twitter back then as I imagine I would have been on there. With the youtube videos I had to email youtube which involved having to watch the videos in order to get them removed. If I had been trying to apply for jobs and companies looked for me online they would have found those videos.",
"This is like telling people to walk away from in-person bullying. It doesn't change anything and the douchebags will still be there when they come back.",
"Yeah, even if you quit using your computer for a month and put the bullies completely out of your mind, the one time your buddy sends you some information over Facebook (for a party or whatever), suddenly you see 20 notifications about how fat or ugly you are. So you get your bullying done in one lump sum, not in installments.\n\nTL;DR You're gonna have to use your computer eventually.",
"Lets say someone takes a dump on your online and it really gets to you. Sure you can get up and walk away, but the feeling lingers. Additionally, it's sometimes made worse if you don't know who they are. You can find yourself walking through the hallways at school wondering... 'is it my friend xyz? am I being laughed at right now?' \n\nIt is psychologically painful. ",
"I work at a high school where this is a big problem.\n\nFirst of all, young people are no more likely to just step away from their computer than you or I, as we are here reading Reddit.\n\nMore importantly, there is a strong bleed effect into real life. Even if a student spends the whole weekend offline, they are likely to come to school Monday and have a lot of people snickering and laughing at them, and a friend or foe will happily fill them in on why everyone is laughing at them.\n\nIt's a real problem. Kids think they have impunity, and despite ever more assemblies and other initiatives to explain the potential fallout, kids keep doing it thinking it's not real if it happens online.",
"Computers are a part of our daily lives as much as anything else is. Of course you can just walk away... but that is not the right way to deal with bullying. It doesn't work. It's a broken concept and it's about time people realize that.\n\nPart of dealing with bullies is sticking up for each other. The other part of it is sticking up for yourself.\n\nThe issue with cyber bullying is the anonymity aspect that real life bullying does not have. You can have hundreds of people mocking you without ever seeing who they are or being able to find them to confront them. It's an entirely new level of cowardliness.",
"An unauthorized used of someone picture used as a meme can be consider cyber bully. \n\nLook at the victim Ms. Scumbag Girl. She may be suffering emotional distress. ",
"Why is real bullying a problem? Can't you just change schools?\n\n/sarcasm",
"I want you to imagine that you can no longer use any device that someone can communicate with you on.\n\nThat's what you're suggesting people do as a solution to being bullied.\n\nIf someone were bullying your child in school, and the principal said \"Well, just stop coming to school! Problem solved!\", what would your reaction be?",
"Because cyber-bullying can happen to anyone. When bullying was confined to the kids who were \"different\" - nerdy, small, poor, etc - no one cared about it. Now that it is easier to publicly bully \"normal\" and popular kids it's suddenly a big problem.",
"I compliment to some good answers around here, you have to think that while you maintain you internet anonymity, you might be not giving a second though to what people say, but cyber bullying can turn extremely nasty when it turn from /u/redditing_since_1975 is a fat ugly bastard to, /u/redditing_since_1975 I know who you are, I know where you live and I'm going to kill you*.\n\nIt might be over a computer, and in most cases most likely they are just bluffing, but that's a murder threat, that shit's scary, it's against your person, your physical integrity and your families. \n\nOnce it gets to that point, you might not be even able to ignore it, in fact it has become a police matter, it can be very stressful and scary, and even if you can turn off your computer, the fear is still there.\n\n* Just in case this comes of wrong, this is definitely not a threat, just a example of course.\n ",
"Kids in school can get bullied by people they know irl. ",
"You can't step away from the computer. Kids these days take tests online, check grades online, major part of socializing is done online, etc.\n\nIt's really no different than being physically bullied. When being physically bullied you can walk away from a single incident, just like online, but eventually, you are going to have to go back to school or where everyone hangs out.\n\nIn fact, online bullying may be worse, because as we all know people lose their filter when on the internet.",
"Cyber bullying isn't just om the cpmuyer, there are many forms. Someone who is pissed at his/her girl/boyfriend who shares the others nude pics is cyberbullying, \n\nIt happens on phones, computers, games, anything that is attached to the net.\n\nYeah you can just turn it off and back away but really it would still affect you, would would eventually work ots way back to you... everything always goes full circle one way or another....",
"A lot of cyber bullies know their victims in real life. Many young people actually believe that they deserve to be bullied. And many young people are expected to develop their own web savvy skills without any parental guidance. ",
"Because children should not be taught to run from their problems.",
"Sometimes cyber-bullying is linked to IRL bullying and is done by people that the recipient sees on a mostly regular basis. Also, for many people, things like Facebook have mostly replaced the concept of even texting a person. Want to send a message to someone? Send it on FB, they have the app on their phone. Want to upload a picture and make sure they see it? Tag them in it.",
"Cyber bullying is a problem because it fucking hurts people's feelings and the instance of it may never go away, unlike schoolyard taunting, which may live on in memory, but resides in the past. But bullying--cyber or otherwise--doesn't stop when you are away from the situation: we have no control over what other people think, say, or do. We have to inoculate ourselves and loved ones from internalizing bullying behavior and internally gird our self worth so that we take away the power from bullies who seek to deliberately hurt us. Not to say that being bullied doesn't hurt. It does, and it's important to validate those hurt feelings so that you can move forward and heal from that hurt. Furthermore, if we could somehow foster compassion for bullies (who are really just acting out their own lack of self worth and are most likely also victims of bullying), I think that would be more empowering for the bullied. ",
"If you think it's that easy to ignore these things, you've clearly never been subject to them.",
"Sure, you can walk away from the computer. Then what? Never go online again? This puts the responsibility on the victim too. \"Well, you could have just walked away.\"\n\nGranted, bullies only have power over you if you allow them to. When you have several coming at you relentlessly and seemingly no one to turn to for support, you start to believe you're as worthless as they say you are. It's really hard to stand up to a group of bullies, especially when it has taken such an emotional and psychological toll. Teens can walk away from the computer only to see the bullies the next day at school. Changing schools isn't ways that easy and, if the problem persists online, it can follow. Perhaps they have a photoshopped pic of you or one that is not very flattering or is compromising. Maybe it's a video. Maybe it's just a rumour. It will still spread. It's hard to stop it. If someone is being cyber bullied, chances are that it's taking place offline too. ",
"\nThe person being bullied shouldn't have to stay away from their computer. That's like saying women should just wear long dresses instead of short skirts out in public to prevent being harassed or raped.",
"For many children cyber-space is the place where they interact most socially. Its not just part of their life, it sometimes IS their life. This is where all their friends are and where everyone \"hangs out\".\nThe problem with cyber-bullying is firstly that every single person you know probably witness it happening. Remember how shit it felt as a young teen if you're in an embarrassing situation and friends see it? In cyber-space EVERYONE sees it. To make matters worse, you cannot always see everyone else's reaction. You don't know who secretly agrees with the bully, or who is on your side. Unless someone speaks up, you don't know they have your back. On top of that, this will be there (online) forever...whatever is so embarrassing...that half naked photo they took of you in the changing rooms (or whatever) will be there FOREVER.\n\nIf you are being cyber-bullied, it might seem as if the entire world is suddenly against you... EVERY SINGLE PERSON you know and normally rely on might seem to have turned against you, or at least to be laughing at you...and the one place you could normally run to? Suddenly its not available. Suddenly that IS where you are being bullied...\n\nAnd you are just not used to relating to everyone else in the \"real\" world the same way you and your friends usually do in cyberspace...Now add to that the fact that most parents, teachers, etc have exactly OPs viewpoint...they just cannot see what the big deal is...because they did not necessarily grow up with cyberspace being an integral part of your life..\n\nMany kids simply do not understand that there is more to life than their online group of friends...they're being rejected in their \"place of safety\"...rejection HURTS.\n\nHell, many people on reddit just about burst a vein in their heads if someone shoots down their opinion in the wrong way...\n",
"Well cyber bullying just don't happen on computer, it uses a lot of different means for example cellphones and the internet.\n\nCellphones is something most kids use on a daily basis which is extremely hard to simply ignore, constant call/messages can be used for bullying too. \n\nAnd the internet makes it a a bigger public display in most cases, which can turn it into a much bigger deal when compared to face-to-face bullying.\n\nIf someone uses facebook to bully you there's very little you can do about and a lot more people will be exposed to it, and it will bleed out to real life: a facebook post making fun of you will might become jokes from a increasingly higher number of people and not just bullies, a youtube video can become viral and so on. \n\nIgnoring it is hardly a solution, and it quite simply to hard to achieve for most people.\n\n",
"I think it is because being online is such a major part of social lives and our lives in general. Leaving Facebook is just like leaving the lunch room at school now. Websites or Data can be thought of geographically. At school, the commons is a place where you can go sit and socialize, it is the same for social media. The only difference is the bully cannot physically follow you, but they still do in a certain way. You could say it is just as easy to leave the place where your bully is. I would bet in most cases that the online bully will be seen at school/work as well as online. The bullying does not stop online people take what they see and crack jokes, form opinions, and discuss what they see online in places and with people you know. Geography or your spatial location ties very closely with data and our online lives. Pretty soon we may even need to buy data storage just like real estate to have certain social media accounts, or pay to enter certain websites like going into a museum. Social media (Tech in any form) has a spatial element even when we are away from electronics. Tech shapes our lives everywhere physically, mentally, digitally, and geographically. When you say I won't go on Facebook because my bully is there is giving up a form of socializing just like not going to the lunch room, and that is hard to do.",
"Stepping away from the computer and your social network because you're being bullied is like no longer hanging out in a popular spot because you're being bullied. The bullies win. The bullied lose. ",
"Cybe bullying relates to a lot more than just messages that the victim recieves. Imagine something embarrassing happens to you, and someone sees it, maybe videos it. Now without the cyber element the bully would have to wait until they saw their friends in order to pass on the video. With cyber bullying it means that they can immediatly text, send the video, upload it to the internet, pretty much anything they like. People can make fake profiles on websites in other peoples names, then use it to spread rumors or lies.\n\nI think there are two big problem witgh cyber bullying, one is anonimaty (which makes people grow even bolder in their actions.) and the speed that information can be passed around, and over distance. It is crazy.",
"Because the \"computer world\" and the \"real world\" are not two separate things, they are the same thing.\n\nImagine if someone posted nude pictures of you on Facebook, or somehow found out a mailing list at university or work and mass-mailed things about you. \n\nAny person, who has compromising information can ruin your social and professional life. \n\nIn fact, it doesn't have to have compromising information, anyone can make anything up. Imagine someone says you're a child-molester on your office email group, with a photoshopped police warrant.",
"Simply put, cyber bullying is not limited to the computer, especially in schools. It extends from the computer screens to the classrooms.",
"I don't like that the solution to abuse is that the victim should be punished. I hear what you're saying, but I disagree that kids should be forced to back away from one of the primary means of contact with others because someone else is an asshole. heck, for some people, the internet might be the only place where they have people they can trust. They shouldn't have to abandon a support system or normal comforts when someone else can't control themselves. ",
"\"Cyber bullying\" is just a media hot phrase that invents a distinction that isn't real. \n\nThere are many forms of bullying. We don't invent a phrase for all of them. You can be physically bullied, verbally bullied, have mean pictures drawn on the board, bullied over the phone, notes passed in class, blah blah blah. Some kids are mean. Some kids get bullied. \n\nSure you can turn off your computer and walk away. You can also not look at the board, not read notes, leave the cafeteria, stay off the playground, etc. \n\nThe point is that no one should have to. Your question is sort of bizarre in light of how obvious the answer is. Why is 'bullied kids staying off of Facebook' or anything remotely similar to that an acceptable solution to you? ",
"My friends and I throw tomatoes at you every time you walk outside.\n\nWell, that's easy to avoid, isn't it?\n\n*Don't go outside!*",
"I think you're asking the wrong question. \n\nWhy should people feel compelled to step away from anything that they want to do or enjoy doing (within reason) because someone else is behaving like an ass?\n\nStepping away actually advocates the bullying behavior. \n\nA better question is: Why do we tolerate bullying on any platform? ",
"They can, but who cares? That's not the point, the damage is still done/being done. It's like telling someone to \"just walk away\" from a bully, which hasn't done shit since parents and teachers have been telling kids to do it for the last 40 years.",
"Part of it is that it allows bullying to follow kids home from school. Nobody's really safe anywhere. ",
"Its not that simple. Think about the kid who gets bullied for being bad at sports. If he keeps coming around the sports ball field then the kids will continue to bully him. If he doesn't come back he's bullied for not playing at all. \n\nWhen a large portion of your socialization with friends occurs online, not using the internet isn't exactly an option. \n\nKeep in mind, kids are killing themselves because they were bullied by random strangers on the internet. They are usually being bullied by someone they know in real life. The difference between online bullying and a school yard fight is that teachers and parents don't know it's going on. There's no way for them to break up the fight, so the kid just has to sit there and take it.",
"I think its mostly about content that is not directly send to the victim but rather things like public shaming, exposing of private and candid information to the victims friends, family, school or work, reputation damage, gossip and such. \nIf it's just some anon one on one chat, sure, you can log out or block the person but in those cases the bullies often know of the victims identity while staying anonymous, that greatly adds to feeling helpless and vulnerable ",
"Yeah, come to think of it why is regular bullying such a problem? Can't people just shut themselves off from the outside world completely and live as hermits?\n\n",
"A victim of bullying shouldn't be further punished by being denied access to the wonders of the Internet and social networking",
"It's easy to walk away when the bullying is in an online multiplayer game and the people are all far far away from where you live but the cases of cyber bullying that have resulted in death or attempted suicide have all been the result of kids and teenagers who lived within the same city and went to the same or neighboring schools. At that point walking away is impossible because kids and teenagers are heavily influenced by the mob mentality and in many cases even the closest of friends will turn on the one being bullied.\n",
"In my experience they keep finding you, lure you in with a promise of friendship under a different alias, and then shit on you. Didn't stop at accounts on sites, I have about 20 separate email addresses now because they'd keep finding them.\nBack when it was happening to me the only way I could contact certain people important to me was through the sites I was on so I couldn't walk away without sacrificing the time I'd get talking to those people. Then it got to be too much, I decided my mental health needed more attention than my loved ones and asked them if they wanted to talk to me they should contact my mother. And stopped coming online for about 6 months.",
"\"Can't they just step away from their computers?\" Yes, they could, but they shouldn't have to. The burden should never be on the victim to avoid the aggressor, whether it be on social media or in real life. The burden should be on the aggressor to stop. You could just as easily ask \"Why is rape such a problem? Can't women just stay inside?\". Rape and cyber-bullying are obviously on two different planes of severity, but you get the idea.",
"My wife is an inner city school admin and it's stunning just how truly terrible kids are to each other with Twitter, Facebook, etc... and at a young age too. The problem isn't that the bullying is necessarily direct either, kids can't step away. When half the class is sharing images of you, or a video of you getting beat up, etc... it really hurts kids. Then a kid gets to school and everyone's talking about how they saw the Fbook post about kid X, how he totally got destroyed on Twitter. You can't walk away because bullying is now socially networked, kids that wouldn't have been in the know or involved before now are.\n\nAlso you thought rumors spread like wild fire when you were in high school? Now imagine that every rumor is spread via notifications, email, text, etc... ",
"I think bullying in any form works on our self perceptions, when something hurtful is said about us we want to know what it is even though it will be painful. its kind of like the devil you know type deal.\n\nalso I've always found the most effective bully handling technique is to kick their knee in. very few people scare me after they have been maimed for life",
"I think the issue should be, why should anyone *have* to step away from their computers? The internet is another social window to the world and for some kids, kids who live in rural areas or are homeschooled, it may be their only window. Either way, everyone has a right to live their lives and go about their business without being harassed no matter where they're doing it.\n\nI think where people get caught up is in the idea of the internet being this imaginary place that doesn't truly exist. Maybe so, but the people you interact with and the feelings you get from them are as real as if they were standing in front of you. I had many friends online as one of those sheltered, homeschooled kids that I cried with, laughed with, and held dear to my heart. ",
"You can't exactly stop using your computer and the internet altogether. It's like telling someone if they don't like sexual harassment at their job, to leave it.",
"Everybody should have the opportunity to enjoy this wonderful internet. This is why cyber bullying is a problem.",
"Because even if you decide to step away from your computer and not look at what a bully is posting or saying about you, others (your friends, etc) will see it. If you step away from your computer you cannot defend yourself against the lies or whatever the bully is doing. ",
"Bullying, cyber or otherwise, is certainly not a two way street necessarily, I mean, yes, I'm sure the bullied might lash out or do things that hardly help their cause, but it's normally people who are socially weak or struggle to make hold decisions who are victims, and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, I'm just being realistic. Let's take something I have an in depth knowledge of, cyber bullying in schools, if your a kid at school and someone decides to cyber bully you, do you think that you have to be engaged in the use of the mediums through which others are bullying you? You don't. If a kid snapchats you, draws a cock on your head and sends it to everyone else in the class, have you participated in this? If someone makes a Facebook profile in your name and friends all the kids in the year two years bow you and then tells everyone your a peado, has THAT required your input into it? No - if your one of the horrifying number of kids who sexts and then someone sends a pic around of you via email, even if you don't log into it and or the email is deleted, are you not being bullied? Wouldn't knowing this was going on and that the people you would turn to for help are rather helpless to stop it promt you to consider trying to defend yourself by maybe signing up and ultimately getting involved where once you weren't?\n\nI think yes, as an adult and someone who is more able to deal with just going 'this person is a dick, I give a fuck what they think' and also knowing your friends are actually your friends not just a bunch of people your stuck with because of where you are and your age gives you much more power to disconnect from stuff like cyber bullying. But I think if you saw how mean and manipulative AND tech savvy kids can be these days, you could see that the victims of this kind of harassment can find themselves cyber bullied without necessarily interacting with the mediums through which they are bullied anyway - and let's face it, kids will be kids and make bad decisions along the way as we all do.\n\nWhen your life is school and those who go there, it's easier said than done to withdraw from the networks of your peers, weather your active on them or not.",
"Imagine being in a room full of people who know you, most acquaintances, schoolmates etc, and they all are whispering something about you. Would you just get up and leave? Cyber bullying is being able to talk shit directly to someone without it being face to face. The reason people read is because they are trying to fit in society, be a part of things. Someone sends you a message, post on your wall, starts a group, or tells someone else you will likely see/hear about it. And I don't know about you, but I'd not pass the chance to KNOW what somebody is saying. It's just the common social insecurity driven by immediate contact from safe distances. Leaving no violence and all mental battles. ",
"And having kids step away from the computer is like telling them not to go outside 20 years ago. Computers = the new outside ",
"Its not as easy as just blocking the person. Since the internet allows you to find pretty much anything, a bully can find information like phone number of you or family members/friends, other emails or profiles you use, address, etc and continue to bully more of your life. \n\nI know at some point its no longer veiwed as cyber bullying to a number of other things, with that still seems like local law enforcement isn't up to date on this type of harassment and not sure how to stop it, change it, so they kind of just shrug it off from what i have seen.\n\nAlso since you can literally make pictures and movies of anybody doing anything and people are soquickrp believe it and not question it and said \"evidence\" can follow you forever now it really causes emotional distress trying to disprove the \"evidence\" and \"clear your name\" from your peers and laughter that some veiw it easier to get rid of themselves.",
"The internet isn't yours to edit. Whether or not you are there to witness it, if mean and hurtful things are being said about you, that's essentially the equivalent of a \"kick me\" sign behind your back, and, unlike that sign, you usually can't remove it from the Internet. Cruel jokes *linger* for everbody to see, and you can't do anything about it. People you face in real life will be an audience to your ridicule, and probably the worst thing about bullying is when others are just there *watching* it, maybe even your friends. \n\nIn addition, on the Internet, there is always a removed, faceless, menacing atmosphere where \"the gloves are off\". This is especially harmful when your own friends betray you and you feel ganged up on through text, which you can't reason with. ",
"If kids you know and go to school with are bullying you, it extends beyond the internet. Its also the emotional feelings behind it and the thought that people out there don't like you. You can always walk away but what's been said has been said.",
"That's like saying that kids who get bullied at lunch shouldn't go outside for their breaks",
"So you're answer for people who are being cyber-bullied is to not use the internet? That is equivalent to not being able to control criminals in Detroit.. so the answer would be for the criminal justice system to walk away from the city entirely.",
"I did a paper on Cyberbullying a while back. The problem is that the bullying doesn't stop when you walk away from the computer. People are still looking at that picture of you, or talking badly about you. ",
"Because it primarily affects 12-16 year olds who don't understand how to resolve problems properly yet.",
"That's like saying, if you have bullies at school why don't you just not go to school? Also you're posted about staying away from your computers to an online community that has many jokes about how addicting it is, just think about that!\n\nCyberbullying doesnt mean it's just people online you don't know. It can be between classmates or other people in the same school or area. Also just because you are not online yourself doesn't mean people don't still make fun of you. It might almost be worse because then people at school will make references to things online that you have no knowledge of which I'm not sure would be worse.",
"Even when you walk away for the screen that shit just sits there in your inbox waiting for you. theres no escape",
"Its very unfair. Why should the victim have to change their lifestyle because of a bully?",
"I was bullied for a few months at the beginning of 12 and it got pretty bad. A lot if it was calls and texts. The worst though, back then there were applications on Facebook like honesty box and this absolutely terrible one called bathroom stall. You could anonymously post a topic (you got to chose your name), and other people in your network could anonymously discuss. Basically a school/town wide online gossip forum. It got really malicious and insulting, kids just making stuff up, I wasn't the only one targeted (my best friend was seriously struggling with anorexia, they were awful to her). Also I was pretty popular before, I found out my \"friends\" were the ones responsible for the prank calls and the anonymous hateful messages. Then I started doing really well in school, got involved in school/community activities, and they hated me even more when I got 7 awards at graduation. Can't hate them though, I don't even want to think about where I would have ended up had I stayed friends with those girls. \n\nTLDR; kids in highschool hate each other behind their computers or phones, and it's impossible to get away from these days. ",
"I'm not trying to be snarky, but I think you might either have never been psychologically tortured or are a sociopath with not emotions. \nSure, you can step away from the computer, but that doesn't help after you've read the hurtful comments! The knowledge that people are making fun of you and saying shit behind your back is a very real problem for people who are quite young. Now, you and I can brush away a rude or hurtful comment, but a lot of very young people can't take the kind of hard-hitting social torment that people can inflict upon each other through social network and the internet.\n\n-D",
"From what I noticed (at least from online gaming) the bullying won't end just because the victim of said bullying turns off the computer. You'd be vastly underestimating the motivation and options a person in the right/wrong state of mind has at his or her disposal. Various stories I've heard include:\n\n* Phoning false complaints about them at work.\n\n* Sending them packages containing images, letters, or various items to remind them of the abuse.\n\n* In the event said victim has a SO I've also heard stories of people trying to break up the relationship by bombarding the SO with stories and photoshopped images/letters.\n\n* And not too long ago a streamer on _URL_0_ had the cops called to his home multiple times with false reports of him assaulting someone with a knife. Eventually after enough calls he had to go down with the police to clear it all up.\n\nSadly just because you may want the abuse to end when you turn off the computer doesn't mean the abuser will want it to. But on a brighter note I do encourage people to not simply turn off the computer, don't give up something you enjoy because another person is using it to make you miserable or sad. If someone made fun of me for wearing pink shoes but it sincerely made me happy to wear said shoes I would not comply. In fact I'm sure I could find other people who share in my happiness.",
"Status. Suppose you are in high school and care a lot about what your peers think of you (as is typical for high school students). Whether or not you are at your computer some dick can be assassinating your character by posting various things about you. When you go to school in the morning you've lost status. Maybe everyone is giggling at you. ",
"Heres my thing: Yes, they can step away, but why should they? They should be able to browse the web without being harassed, and not have to sign off because of OTHER people. ",
"It is the same as a degrading picture of you in the School lunch room. Sure you do not need to look at it, or go to the lunch room at all, but you will know it is there, you will feel the effects of it and you will feel at unease whenever you go close to the lunch room. ",
"It's much worse. The comment lingers on forever. In the real world if someone is (I'm avoiding the word bully) teasing you, it's usually over once you aren't around them. Maybe somebody heard it and it was hilarious to them and it gets repeated once or so. Most likely dies off as a \"you had to be there moment.\" When it's online the insult can get piled on and go \"viral.\" Now it's become an inside joke and the entire internet (everyone) is in on it. So it spreads into the real like a Matrix flashback. The insulted can never escape.\n\nIn the past there was a reprieve. Go outside. Play with other friends. Your mistakes can be forgotten. In today's social media world that's impossible. You can never outshout or outshine the collective once you become a target. If you're lucky to have true/great friends they may soften the onslaught but nothing can stop it. Worse, by withdrawing from what every other teen is doing (being online) you only further isolate yourself. Making more opportunities for the next big joke at your expense. Privacy is gone. All the stupid, illegal, jerkface, dangerous stuff we did is only a memory to my generation. But todays kids will have there actions taped, recorded, and documented. That is why it's serious. When everyone becomes a minor celebrity there is no longer the separation between perception of others and reality.\n\n",
"Stepping away from your computer is just as valid as not going into public to avoid bullies.",
"Cyber bullying can be more damaging because the content is there forever in some cases and it's available for everyone to see. If I had been bullied in the schoolyard I would have simply stood up for myself and it would have ended right there. Now imagine that schoolyard, but with your parents, your future friends and acquaintances and prospective employers all watching from the crowd while your bully says hateful, untrue things about you, only your hands are tied and your mouth is gagged. Sound like a nightmare? Yep. Oh and the police can't help you when it's on the internet. ",
"As someone thad have been an \"target\" of cyber-bullying\n\n\nThnk about it like this, If you know someone is talking shit about you it is anoying. Now think that your hobby cant be used since anywhere on the internet you can be harassed by people from real life.\nNormaly when you come home you would feel safe from the bullying? Right? That is how it normal works. With cyber bullying it does not stop at home, it gets more intensives. Phone? Nope cant use that since you get harrasing sms/ims. Block them? They register a new account. They put up PS'd photos about you. They fake stories about you. They threaten you, normaly on internet you ignore threats. But these are people from real life.\n\n\nThis was poorly written since I tear up real bad from writing about this...\n\n\nCyber-bullying is a problem! Sweden is/was awful at doing something about it, school basicly laughed up my face, The sites they bully via do not care.",
"I honestly don't understand how some asshole on the Internet can hurt your feelings. ",
"For many, in addition to having a permanent record of being bullied forever saved on the internet to the point where you can't walk away, the introduction of social media and the internet has also made it easier for bullies to be bullies. In the past, a bully would have to speak their mind to other people, perhaps even who they're trying to bully, face to face. Now, these bullies can be sitting at home on their computer saying derogatory and hurtful things about people that are on the other side of town. ",
"Cyber bullying is more than a text just saying \"fuck you\" and then it's over. It is constant and inescapable (think how often you use the internet/your phone). It is also often done by lots of people to publicly degrade you and it continues into your life.",
"Computers are a platform for communication, not a replacement for it. The big difference between cyber-bullying and regular bullying is you're informed of regular bullying through your ears instead of your notifications.",
"I think oftentimes cyber bullying is confused with \"one time a guy on the Internet called me a fag\". Cyber bullying is usually persistent, where people will stalk you online, even after the victim has blocked them several times or made new accounts to avoid them. If you need an example, take Encyclopedia Dramatica for how bad it can get for some people. \n\nIn other cases, it's used in conjunction with irl bullying. Bullies will find out the victims number and send harassing texts and photos. Or they will tag mean pictures on Facebook for example. \n\nIt's a little more than \"just stepping away from the computer\" for some. Some people have their offline life affected as well. ",
"It can also hinder your relationships with friends and family. A girl once made a Facebook group about how I had a collection of naked pictures of my little sister that I would masterbate to and that I stalked girls. They invited all my FB friends including my family to this group. Ironically, this girl is now a huge antibully, pro mental health, suicide prevention adovate in the city.",
"The reason why it is suddenly a 'new' problem is because of the new tools available to bullies that never existed before. The pervasiveness of the internet coupled with the lack of maturity and coping mechanisms typical of a child has reinvented bullying. \nThe most notable quality that makes cyber bullying such an issue is the inability to escape. Kids (and some adults) have a choice between constant harassment through sms/facebook/snapchat/twitter/etc that never ends, or social isolation. \"Just turn off the computer\" is a really unfair solution for a generation that lives its life online - hello, we are arguing about this as part of a Reddit community. \nAdditionally, if you've experienced it before, you would know that the worst kinds of bullies are people you trust. Its too late to block the ex-best friend who is armed with your photos, secrets and sensitive information. With a bully like that, you can't just turn off the computer while they spread around photoshopped photos of you & laugh behind your back. That is what - more often than not - leads kids to suicide. \nI'm really shocked at the lack of empathy from so called past-bullied people. Kids all over the world are so desperate, so isolated, and need help so badly that death looks like the better option. If that was your little brother or sister, you wouldn't call it survival of the fittest. \n",
"The problem isn't that bullies are harassing you; it's that they are making you look bad in front of your friends and social circle; You might be able to block them, but that just makes it easier for them to say things behind your back that spill over into real life. It's a problem because it spills over into real life.",
"I think it is as simple as this: \nThings on the internet are mostly public, or easily accessible & the internet does not go away, even when you walk away from your computer.",
"**Niggers.** Did reading that word cause a reaction in you? It usually does in me and most people I know. It's just a word, right? But you can't unread it now. You can't un-feel the feeling you just had or un-think the thoughts you just thought. Yes, you can downvote me in retaliation for using \"the N word\", but it **did** just affect you. Walking away from the computer will not make you forget that you just read that word that I wrote. You will think about this post later.\n\nNot everyone can just turn off their feelings and walk away from a situation. More especially young adults and children who don't have a lot of experience dealing with emotionally harmful actions taken by other people. (Coping.) Add in the fact that many people (including adults) aren't mature enough to let things slide or have a thick skin, and bullying becomes a real problem for them to deal with. \n\nNow, IMHO, it's a *personal* issue. It's not one that \"society\" needs to deal with. It's an issue that needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Maybe the victim can be eventually taught through counselling or a mentor to let insults roll off them harmlessly and to avoid caustic situations in the future. Then again, if it's unavoidable, like at work or school, perhaps a good old-fashioned finding-out-where-they-live-and-getting-some-friends-and-family-members-kick-the-douchbag's-ass-as-a-warning-to-leave-the-victim-alone might be in order. Like I said: it's case-by-case. But ultimately, it's up to the victim to avoid or deal with the bully one way or another. Asking the bully to be a decent person doesn't ever work.\n\n**tl;dr: Some people are not mentally capable of not letting insults affect them.**",
"Cyber bullying is usually done by people we know. So when you decide to shut your accounts down and just walk away, they persist. Your school mates or whoever really, photoshop images of you, make inside jokes about you with keywords that they can say in school without arousing interest from teachers, and lastly corral people into it because it is the \"in\" thing. You become more and more ostracized by your peers because you become the lowest hanging fruit. They continue their online bullying without you ever logging on but the next day at school everyone has a new name to call you that seems innocent but said with such malice you know they are trying to hurt you. You log on again and become self destructive in reading the awful things about you to the point you start seeing them in yourself because you realize that's how other people see you. ",
"Let's say you check Facebook about as often as some of us refresh on Reddit. It is a large portion of your time, and you may consider it an extension of your social life. Or, for people that are a lot more comfortable communicating online, it may *be* your social life. Now, however, when you update Facebook, there are multiple people taking potshots at you. Some of these people you may hardly even know, but they just happen to kinda-sorta be in your social circle. Other people, who feel their small part isn't really all that harmful, take their pokes in order to feel part of the group. They likely either think you deserve this, or that there's not really any harm in it and it's \"just for fun.\" Most of these people won't express any of this in public, and you may only see them in passing. However, you *know* what they're thinking--and it's a lot of them. \n\nFacebook is no longer your refuge. \"Just close your Facebook account.\" Yeah? How easy is that for you to do if that is your primary way of trying to stay social and make connections with people--to influence their opinion of you. How easy would it be for you to just up and walk away from Reddit? I assure you, the former is more difficult. In most cases, yes, just unplugging would eventually cause it to go away. You just have to understand how difficult that may be for some people.",
"This is reddit, you should know that many of us are physically incapable of stepping away from our computers. In all seriousness, though, just turning your computer off doesn't help much. People on the internet can still say things about you when you aren't there. Therein lies the real problem with cyber bullying.",
"Well, I mean, people have the right to use the internet.",
"I was cyberbullied, and it escalated from AIM to myspace to facebook to her going through other friends' accounts after I blocked her to her calling my brother's cell phone (I didn't have one) to my house phone to having people I didn't know wait outside and call me obscenities as I walked to and from class\n\nIt's not always restricted to just the computer :/ ",
"The question is an example of ignorance or naivete about our own (human) psychology, in my opinion.\n\nThat is in no way an insult. It took psychologists and economists many decades to see through their own rationalizations of how people *should* act, to find that we are, in fact, irrational all the time.\n\nWhy care about what people think *at all*, beyond physical threats and rewards? Isnt it irrational to attach value to what is in another person's head, if those thoughts can't affect you at all?\n\nBut we do care. We care a *lot* about what other people think. Much of what we do is driven by improving or protecting our self-image and feelings of self-worth.\n\nIf a random person insults you online, it affects you. Even if strangers only downvote a post that you put thought and effort into, it feels bad. Now imagine that a person bullies you and insults you in ways that hurt; someone who knows you in real life. Walking away from the screen doesn't take away the psychological pain that person caused.\n\nIf the person does things publically, like on Facebook, in ways that makes other people laugh at you as well, other people who know you in real life... Well, it shouldn't be hard to understand how that can be incredibly hurtful.",
"It's like becoming a recluse because people make fun of you to your face.",
"I'll kind of explain what was going on for me to help you see it's not just a simple case of stepping away from your computer. \n\nI was endlessly hassled in school. They hated me so bad they wanted to infiltrate every aspect of my life, and they did. They would show up at my house. They would try to make friends with the few friends I had. At this point in time I played some online gaming and had my world away from these people. \n\nOne day, one of my friends decided to betray my trust and give them my usernames. Suddenly, they're in my games,they're in my messenger, they've made it so there is *literally* no safe place from these people. I got regular death threats and regular harassment after that, it got so bad I had to move. The police were involved, but they even admitted there wasn't much they could do. \n\nDo you know how it is when you're trying to get away from somebody and they're pursuing you? You don't know who told them, but suddenly you can't get away at all. Today, it's even worse with more of somebody's world online. People should be able to get away from bullies, and with bullies entering the online worlds, now they've ensured that many kids have no place safe from them. That's what leads people to suicide. It's much more than just closing the computer, especially seeing that's where many kids reach out to in order to escape. ",
"Gonna share a story of someone who DID \"step away from their computer\"\n\nI was part of a group of online friends throughout high school and college. One of my best friends that I talked to a lot was in this social circle.\n\nAnother \"friend\" in the group turned out to be a dick. The three of us actually all got together once and had a fun day IRL. Then one day for whatever reason, he started to bully her. It got really bad and eventually she just left the friend group.\n\nShe tried to find other communities online to make friends in. He followed her.\n\nIt really got to her and she stopped going online completely for several years. Several of is in the friend group were robbed of a good friend who we now had now way of keeping in touch with because she had developed a panic inducing fear of the Internet. She gets online sometimes now, so I know she's okay, but it has never been the same. She can't trust her other friends even though we did nothing wrong.\n\nSo, no, the solution is not simply to just \"step away from their computer\"",
"This totally underestimates the impacts and effects of cyber-bullying.... I am in my mid-twenties and I have been cyber-bullied for over 2 years now and nobody (not even the police) are able to figure out who it is and what their goal is. Yes, I can step away from my computer and block text messages. I can delete my Facebook account and close down all social networking accounts.... but this person is good. they hacked into my computer, got into my email, created fake Facebook accounts and added all my friends and family and they use anonymous text messaging applications to send me over 100 texts a day. The information that this person has been able to gather on me is frightening and made me value privacy so much more... its scary how much someone can get into your head by knowing so much about you. Not only do they send massive amounts of messages to me, but since they know my whole network, they send disturbing messages and emails to my family and friends and solicit information from other people that I have on Facebook (they use different stories ie. I have a crush on him and want to talk to him, or he hurt my friend and I want revenge...to even he raped me and you should tell everyone). They even sent pictures that an ex sent me to my mother (and they weren't pictures you want your mom seeing). \n\nThe crazy thing is what I don't know. I don't know who it is, I don't know who they are talking to and I don't know what they will or can do next. They do send messages about my whereabouts so I know they follow me around in real life as well.\n\nAlso, police can't do anything regarding this because they don't have the power or the ability to trace these crimes. The detective actually said my stalker was too smart. \n\nThis person knows things about me from my past that I even forgot about and things like that are scary.... also, the fact that he/she will always be around just kills me. \n\nIt's almost been 3 years now.....sorry for the ramble.",
"Out of curiosity OP, have you ever been cyber-bullied? If not I can understand why you're asking this question. And if you have been, I applause you for taking it by a grain of salt.\n\nI used to have a formspring back in high school, expecting innocent questions. Boy was I wrong. The mean and cruel comments I got, at first I kind of laughed at it, but then the more you get or the more cruel the comments get you kind of question. Then you start getting a bit paranoid...I felt uncomfortable being myself around anyone in high school. I kind of just kept quiet and didn't trust anyone. Anonymity amongst your peers kind of builds mistrust and social anxieties cause you fear judgment. I even thought my own friends were turning against me.\n\nEven when I deleted my formspring, someone actually went to the school administration and fabricated a lie that got me in deep trouble with my family which caused my family to restrict me from a lot of things and I was almost denied my graduation because the cyber bullies actually convinced the administration I was a bad student. People are cruel and they will keep hunting their prey down until you're weak enough to be chomped down on. They will continue to seek ways to put you down until you're out. So simply stepping away or even deleting the source of the problem, only makes them find a way around it.\n\nAnother reason why it's such a problem is that for some people, they're already knocked down in their personal lives from poor parenting or family troubles, abuse, neglect, so on and so forth. So it's like you're poking at an internal wound only making it worse.\n\nOn the bright side though, once you get past the troubles of cyber-bullying, you sort of build more of a back bone and learn how to respond to such things in a mature manner, whether that'd be just shrugging it off or just letting people say what they wanna say.\n\nEDIT: Added reason why stepping away is not a simple solution.",
"Because you shouldn't have to. If you step away from the computer to avoid cyber-bullying, then the cyber-bullies have accomplished their mission.\n\nIt's like saying why is being harassed at the park a problem if you can just leave the park. Why do the bullies get to decide who gets to enjoy the park in peace?",
"Today’s youth spend a remarkable amount of time with their peers. Social networks, text/emails, and digital images create environments where many adolescents are in constant communication with their peers. The peer group is a major socializing factor, teens learn a lot about how to behave, read social cues, and appropriate ways to communicate. Social bullying is very very real.\n\nI think that cyberbullying is a particularly troubling form of social bullying. There is a diminished sense of responsibility to actions online. These actions leave time for an excuse to be conjured up later; this might make someone more likely to say something cruel. Also, they aren’t taking place directly in front of the people involved. It’s one thing to shove/say something hurtful/start a rumor/instigate dislike/hit another kid directly in front of your face (that’s horrible and probably indicative of some major antisocial issue on the part of the bully). It’s a completely different story online. I’d wager that cyberbullying is way more frequent simply because many kids, even kids who might never think to hit someone, don’t realize they are being insensitive to another person. Another uniquely terrible part about cyberbullying is the fact there is a written record of the incident and that so many people have access to it.\n\nAs a middle school science teacher (well, technically a graduate student with a fellowship and a co-teacher in an urban school) I see that cyberbullying is a major issue. It really is pervasive: every single one of my students seems obsessed with their online presence and their interactions with peers. I felt compelled to create a Reddit account after lurking for years because I hadn’t seen these things mentioned and I figured I could finally contribute. Everything everyone has been saying is also great. Why should people be excluded from online environments because of cyberbullying?\n",
"I was just thinking about it and it occurred to me. (Begin rambling)\n\nWe evolved in small tight-nit communities for how long? I bet there is some evolutionary basis here.\n\nHow many people does it take to disagree with you before you feel like \"the world\" is against you?\n\nI imagine if 5 people I knew called me an asshole I might be having a pretty bad day. Prior to the internet our interactions were limited to personal contact, phones, etc... so the chances of getting to a high number of people giving you shit was probably pretty low. If you were to take the things people say about you on the internet seriously, which I don't see why you wouldn't due to the fact that everyone is on the internet (serious people included), this could probably easily overwhelm a fragile persons coping mechanism or maybe (and I'm completely just guessing here) whatever social standards we may have in place from eons of being in small tribes and communities. \n\nAdditionally, the internet is no longer a place for nerds and for people younger than me, I'm 30, it probably has much more significant place in their lives than it does for me. I imagine their internet identities are a much larger part of who they are so I'm not surprised they could feel overwhelmed by trolling from others.\n\nJust my two cents.\n\nTL;DR - For younger people their internet identities are probably really important to them and there may be a an actual physiological basis for not being able to handling perceived wide-spread criticisms from a community much larger than humans are accustomed to? ",
"Because people can hide behind their computers and reach a large audience. It's a perfect tool for bullying. ",
"If victims were capable of just ignoring bullies, it wouldn't exist. Meatspace or cyber. Bullies take advantage of empathic people and conscientious people. Just two natural tendencies which don't work together.",
"If an entire room full of kids were cracking jokes at just one, would it change anything for the victim to just step outside where the ridicule could not be heard?",
"They shouldn't have to. ",
"If someone posted a note on their Facebook wall accusing you of being a pedophile, couldn't you just step away from *your* computer?\n\nThe answer is an obvious No. The \"cyber\" world doesn't just go away when you don't happen to be online, and in fact it's become quite a powerful tool for various kinds of bullies.\n\nTo answer one of your responses to someone else, it doesn't stop escalating if you're not online at the moment. It only stops escalating if *no one* is online, and that's no longer a thing."
]
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"http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170/?src=longreads"
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|
1lfgnz
|
what the red ring of death actually does to your xbox 360.
|
I have always wondered, and when I google it, the only thing that comes back are horror stories of people losing progress and taking it out on their family by beating them.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lfgnz/eli5_what_the_red_ring_of_death_actually_does_to/
|
{
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"text": [
"The original XBOX 360 was poorly made and constructed with substandard practices and materials to beat Sony to release. Therefore, in many units, solder points would break contact and the machine would brick. You'd have to open the device and resolder it, but that voids your warranty.",
"The red ring doesn't do anything, per se. It is an indication that some sort of catastrophic failure of the system has occurred. Many things can cause this, but essentially it boils down to, \"if you see the red ring, you're screwed.\" You would have to repair your system, or get it professionally repaired."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
2pbrfy
|
why does my pizza box say preheat oven, when i can just put it in for a couple minutes longer and it's the same thing?
|
It also says (keep pizza frozen while preheating), what difference does that make?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2pbrfy/eli5_why_does_my_pizza_box_say_preheat_oven_when/
|
{
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"text": [
"Pizza companies want you to keep coming back to their pizzas, so they add foolproof instructions. People have different ovens, so \"cooking\" while preheating is going to have random results, and they just can't tell people to do that if they have terrible ovens.",
"You're right, you could leave it in just for a few minutes longer, provided there was minimal risk of food spoilage and that your oven preheats reasonably fast. \n\nIt's mostly a matter of control and avoiding liability on the company's part. As silly as it may sound, they went through an extensive validation procedure to say with confidence, \"If these morons do the instructions we put on the box, then they won't burn their house down or die of food poisoning. Yay us.\" \n",
"Ovens have varying preheating times due to different sizes, different fuels (electric vs gas) and different size coils. \n\nThe instructions give a more easily reproducible \"perfect pizza\". If you find that changing these directions still gives you a final product that's acceptable, there's no reason not to continue using it (except for the rare cases of uncooked meats needing to get to a proper temperature, ie never eat these pizzas *raw*)",
"They are giving you a controlled experience.\n\nIf your pizza is frozen until it gets into an oven already heated to a precise temperature, it will heat the same way every time.\n\nIf your pizza thaws to room temperature first, they dont know what your room temperature is or how long it's out and how close it gets to room temperature, so they can't account for that. So they'll never be able to give you exact times like they do.\n\nSame if you have a super powerful commercial oven vs a wimpy old one, or a huge cavernous oven vs one a pizza can barely fit in. They will take different amounts of time to heat up, cooking the pizzas different amounts.\n\nIn addition, cooking for a long time at low temperatures actually has different effects on your ingredients than cooking fast at a high temperature, so you get a slightly different result, although with most pizzas it's hard to notice.",
"Cooking food at an even temperature is good practice in general, and when you put something in the oven before pre-heating it takes longer to get up to temp. So it that sense, it can take longer. As for your frozen pizza, whether or not you pre-heat is probably not affecting the cook time or the quality of the food much. The direction is mostly there out of common practice."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
6mfiz7
|
common stock vs preferred stock
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mfiz7/eli5_common_stock_vs_preferred_stock/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dk1866f"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"TL;DR: preferred stock is less risky, but also has smaller potential reward than common stock.\n\nIf you own stock (you're a stockholder), you are a part owner of that company, so if the company makes a profit, the stockholders (usually) get paid. If you have preferred stock, you will get paid a fixed amount every year, and if you have common stock, you get paid what's left after the preferred stock has been paid. However, if the company made HUGE profits, preferred stockholders still get paid the same amount as they normally do, but common stockholders get paid a lot more. \nThe other difference is common stockholders get to vote in major decisions the company is making, but preferred stockholders don't."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
9bw3b8
|
what are the simplified arguments for and against a flat tax rate?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9bw3b8/eli5_what_are_the_simplified_arguments_for_and/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e565j3x",
"e5668k3"
],
"score": [
13,
7
],
"text": [
"In short:\n\nThe argument in favor of it is that it's simple, and will make taxation more efficient since it removes some of the arithmetic. It's also argued that a flat tax is inherently fairer.\n\nThe argument against it is that it would shift a tax burden to less wealthy people, and that with most people preparing taxes electronically, the arithmetic is automatic now.",
"One key argument against a flat income tax is that because lower income individuals have a much larger marginal utility for an additional dollar than those with higher incomes, a flat income tax would act as a regressive tax, placing a huge burden on low-income individuals.\n\n\n(In other words, a person already struggling to pay rent and feed a family would recieve a lot more benefit from an extra dollar in their pocket than someone who already has a comfortable amount of discretionary income.).\n\nThis is why some states, like Georgia, exempt groceries from the state-wide sales tax (although county/local taxes often still apply where applicable). Exempting groceries from sales tax increases the purchasing power of one's money by lowering their tax burden when buying groceries.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3nk6d2
|
how can third party plane booking companies (edreams, expedia ect...) offer cheaper tickets than the plane companies themselves ?
|
To clarify i'm trying to book a flight to Australia using _URL_0_, and i've noticed that some 3rd party companies offer really competitive prices (for this exemple, eDreams offers Basel - Perth for 850€ with British Airways) but when i go directly to the British Airways website, at the same dates, there's nothing under 1300€. What's worse, the flight indicated by eDreams doesn't even take the same amount of time (25h vs 31h).
How can this be ? How can a 3rd party company sell tickets at nearly half price ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nk6d2/eli5_how_can_third_party_plane_booking_companies/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvos6vb",
"cvow33g",
"cvp2fll"
],
"score": [
12,
5,
26
],
"text": [
"They buy them in bulk at a discount. So they'll buy, for example, a 1000 tickets at 25% discount, then pass on 10% of the discount to the customer.",
"Not only cheaper plane tickets, cheaper hotel reservation too.\nTheir policy it to buy a bulk no. of tickets to be used all year long with a good discount. \nThey rent a hotel or part of it for whole year long too, so they get them with a good price either they rent them or _URL_0_ it would be somehow risky but worth it.",
"The short version is that those third-party tickets are still profitable for the airline, especially since the airline doesn't have to spend any money marketing them. People are usually buying them because they want the cheapest fare departing around x:00pm, and not because they're brand loyal to United / British Airways / etc.\n\nTo put it another way, I have an imaginary airline called AirBASIC. We've done the math, and in order to make a profit flying our aircraft between Los Angeles and Sydney, we need to sell at least 100 tickets at $100 each on each flight. These numbers are ridiculously way off, but I'm keeping this very simple, so bear with me.\n\nIf I have to go out and buy advertising to promote those tickets, that eats into my profit. In fact, it eats in so much that I have to raise those prices to cover for it. So instead of buying advertising, I sell 80% of my tickets to to _URL_0_ for $100 each. _URL_1_ turns around and sells these at a healthy 50% markup for $150 each. I'm making money, jetcost is making money, and consumers get what they feel is a great price -- everyone wins!\n\nNow, what about those other 20% of my tickets? Well, for a variety of reasons, some people will only buy tickets direct from the airline. But if I sell tickets for less than jetcost, I'm going to wind up hurting the company that's helping me make a lot of money. The solution is to sell tickets myself, but inflate the price to, say, $300 per ticket. Now I'm making a LOT more profit, AND I'm actually HELPING jetcost sell EVEN MORE tickets, because now they can advertise that \"you can save 50% by buying direct from us!\".\n\nNow jetcost is happy because they make a TON of sales at a discounted rate, consumers are happy because they're saving 50% versus buying from me, and I'm happy because I'm selling tickets for even MORE money. Everybody wins."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"jetcost.com"
] |
[
[],
[
"no.So"
],
[
"jetcost.com",
"Jetcost.com"
]
] |
|
d37dp6
|
how do people learn hacking, even though it’s kinda illegal? where do they find information?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d37dp6/eli5_how_do_people_learn_hacking_even_though_its/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ezzu8zq"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"The knowledge isn't illegal; using it to break into a system without authorization is.\n\n\"Without authorization\" is the key point here; penetration testing and ethical hacking are multi-million dollar industries, and proficient white-hat hackers can pull down staggering paychecks.\n\nTools and knowledge are available anywhere you care to look; programs like Wireshark, nmap and Metasploit have as much use in the hands of the good guys as they do in the hands of the bad guys. There are training courses available (CEH is one; OSCP is another, and that's not counting just classes) that will teach you everything you need to know to break into systems."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
6o7x8v
|
how come some people could smoke till their old age.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6o7x8v/eli5_how_come_some_people_could_smoke_till_their/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dkfbiky",
"dkfc5rd",
"dkfg3ne"
],
"score": [
2,
22,
10
],
"text": [
"Its just good luck. Smoking increases the chances of getting cancer significantly, but you can still get lucky and avoid it. Also a strong immune system helps a lot.",
"The easiest way to think of it, is that every smoker gets 2 8 sided dice. Every day they throw these dice - if they happen to get 2 8's (a 1/64 chance), they end up with a cancerous cell. Now cancer isn't always fatal - you probably have a cell in your body turn cancerous every few days or so, because you have billions of cells. So lets imagine if they get a cancerous cell, they roll two twenty sided dice. If they get two 20's, they die. This is a 1/25,600 chance (in total, including the 1/64 chance), or to put it another way, if people played this game every day for 70 years, about half the players would die. \n\nClose enough, these statistics mirror the ratio of smokers smokers kills, and a human lifespan. Some people get unlucky - they only smoke a few times, but whoops 2 6's followed by a natural double 20, tough luck for them they end up getting cancer. On the other hand, with enough players you'll end up with some people who simply never manage it. \n\nNow, realistically speaking whilst they don't necessarily have to be special, with better lungs or immune system or whatever, when you beat the odds to that extent its probable you have some advantages. Maybe consider that being able to reroll one of the twenty sided dice. But essentially people who survive have just beaten the odds.\n\nEDIT : changed to 8 sided dice and 8's so the maths works because I accidentally did 6^2 wrong somehow. ",
"All of the other comments plus a huge dose of confirmation bias. You never meet the people who have died from smoking related illnesses. \n\nWhen you see a 90 year old smoking on a bench you never see the other twenty smokers who smoked regularly at the same bench who died. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
5uvimt
|
why would the founding fathers allow the president to pick the attorney general?
|
It seems unethical for someone who is supposed to conduct investigations of the president to be nominated by him.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uvimt/eli5_why_would_the_founding_fathers_allow_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ddx5pxv",
"ddx5tuq"
],
"score": [
3,
5
],
"text": [
"This wasn't an issue until Nixon, and when it became an issue with Nixon Congress immediately came up with a solution: now the Attorney General does not conduct investigations into the President. Rather if there is reason to believe the President has committed a crime Congress appoints a special prosecutor, answerable only to Congress, to conduct the investigation.",
"He's not really supposed to be conducting investigations of the President, he's supposed to run the Justice Dept, which is the prosecutorial are of the United States Government. If the President does something illegal, then yea the Justice Dept would be responsible for investigating, but it's not like it's an organization that just sits around investing the President 24/7 waiting for him to do something wrong. The Justice Department is under control of the Executive which means the President is ultimately in charge. If he couldn't hire/fire the Attorney General, then the Attorney General doesn't have to listen to the President, and the President is not in charge of the Justice Dept."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
2lv1h1
|
the history behind describing music as 'indie' and how it has changed
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2lv1h1/eli5_the_history_behind_describing_music_as_indie/
|
{
"a_id": [
"clyenmw"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"\"Indie\" just means it's on an independent record label, one that's not controlled by one of the major labels. Like an indie film. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3kx8ew
|
why do (some) digital clocks run behind/ahead after a while
|
I noticed my digital clock (which i use to wake up in the morning) started running ahead of the real time. I'm now trying to keep a log of how much it runs ahead, to see if it's significant. Last year it didn't have a significant difference between displayed time and actual time. (The clock was plugged out for a month or two)
So I wanna know why they can run ahead or behind in time.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3kx8ew/eli5why_do_some_digital_clocks_run_behindahead/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cv194fh",
"cv19keg",
"cv19s2r"
],
"score": [
15,
2,
5
],
"text": [
"Digital clocks work thanks to Quartz crystal oscillation.\n\nBasically, if you take a quartz crystal and pass an electronic current through it, it will oscillate at a specific frequency. \n\nMost work at about 32,768hz, which is 2^15 cycles per second. Basically, a computer chip counts the oscillations. Every 32,768 oscillations, the clock moves forward one second.\n\nThis is very accurate and reliable, generally speaking. The issue is, pressure and temperature affect how fast the crystal oscillates. A 10C difference can cause about 2min/year to be lost, a 20C difference can be a difference of 10min/year. If your unit gets hot, or sits in a hotter than normal area (like over a heater, on a sunny window sill), it can have a noticeable difference.",
"It is timed to the power company, and they have recently not been so good at providing an accurately timed waveform.\n\nIt is timed by a crystal, and the circuit is wearing out over time.\n\nIt is timed by a crystal, backed by battery, and the battery is dying, and hasn't enough strength to keep accurate time. ",
"It depends on the clock. \n\nIf the clock runs on a battery, it has to have a quartz oscillator, and the exact speed of that may vary with temperature and pressure and manufacturing differences, but they use these because they're generally accurate and inexpensive.\n\nIf the clock plugs in, it could either be using a quartz oscillator, or it could be counting the cycles of your AC power supply. Most plug-in clocks count the AC cycles (though I have two in my house that do not). The power utilities make an effort to keep this accurate, but if you run your home from an off-grid source, such as a generator or an inverter, these clocks can get to be significantly wrong quite quickly.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2p0ion
|
why am i so groggy when i wake up i either fall back asleep or take 10 minutes to crawl out of bed, but my animals can be up and running around in mere seconds?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2p0ion/eli5_why_am_i_so_groggy_when_i_wake_up_i_either/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cms7e63",
"cms7qq1"
],
"score": [
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Because they can sleep whenever they like and don't have to work for a living.",
"I would guess its because of sleep cycles. Most people usually wake up when their alarm goes off. If you are in the deep sleep portions of your sleep cycle, you will wake up feeling really tired. Animals, however, wake up when they feel done sleeping, at the end of a sleep cycle."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3sb7c3
|
how not everyone in the usa is allowed to vote.
|
As I recalled a main reason for the American Revolution was taxation without representation yet their are at least 13.1 million legal permanent residents(as of 2011).
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sb7c3/eli5_how_not_everyone_in_the_usa_is_allowed_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cwvn4sd",
"cwvo55y"
],
"score": [
7,
3
],
"text": [
"In the US, states run the elections, within the constraints of the US constitution. At this time, all states have chosen to limit the franchise to citizens.\n\nMany believe that it is one of the benefits of citizenship.",
"So the thing is that everyone in the US CAN vote ... as long as they're a citizen who has voting rights. The right to vote is a thing you have by default, but you can lose it under certain circumstances. (I am intentionally not speaking to the morality of this argument, just the facts). Here's a few common ways you can be prevented from voting: \n\n* Living in DC: this is not a state, so they don't get to vote in congressional or senatorial elections. They DO get to vote, just not for those offices (and by extension, they do not have a representative for votes in the congress or senate). \n* Living in Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands cannot vote in national elections. \n* Disability: while it is illegal to prevent someone voting if they are disabled, sometimes the location of the voting prevents this from happening practically. this is illegal, but it happens. \n* Too young: obviously you can't vote in the US if you're younger than 18. \n* Prisoners and Felons: not all states allow prisoners to vote in prison and not all states allow felons to vote after they have been released. \n* not here long enough: if you have been a citizen for a very short period of time (something like 50 days now) then for practical reasons you're probably not able to vote in that election. \n* ID: some states require a strict government issues photo ID and if you don't have one you can't vote. Most states require an ID of some sort, but are not strict on what sort."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
c01qyw
|
why can't protesters throw the tear gas back at police
|
I saw a picture on Reddit of a guy who used a tennis racket to bounce tear gas canisters back at police. This raised a question - why a racket? Why can't he just throw it back? Or why can't everybody who is wearing protective gear just throw back any tear gas cans thrown at them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c01qyw/eli5_why_cant_protesters_throw_the_tear_gas_back/
|
{
"a_id": [
"eqzntm9",
"eqznzja",
"eqzp7sm",
"eqzpoha"
],
"score": [
6,
9,
16,
3
],
"text": [
"At best, I have seen protestors with a bandana around their mouth and nose. Tear gas gets in through your eyes as well, and it burns. The name is there for a reason.\n\nAny attempt to pick up a can would include putting your face right down at the can. And if you haven’t sat in the stuff before, thinking rationally when exposed is not an easy thing to do.\n\nSo, the guys with the racquet likely had tried to pick up a can before. Or got advice from someone else who had.",
"They get really hot to touch. And it might be hard to see them once they stop rolling so fumbling around blind in fresh tear gas is not ideal",
"Tear gas is a crystal. In order to make it weaponized you need to liquefy it in a solvent or burn it. Inside the tear gas grenades is a fire that heats the tear gas. \n\nWithout gloves your not going to be able to pick up the grenades without giving yourself severe burns.\n\n\nTear gas spray is the crystals in a solvent that can be pumped out.",
"Tear gas is sent in your direction inactive from the person throwing or firing it. It's a cold canister but by the time it gets to you it will be fully active sending out loads of gas. The gas basically makes the area around the canister like you've been submerged in water. \n\nIt's very difficult to breath due to loads of mucus being created, your mouth starts watering loads and your eyes like the name suggests will start tearing up uncontrollably. The best course of action is hold your breath and get out of the area. \n\nWhy don't you throw it back? It's a red hot canister which will cause severe burns if directly touched. If you are willing to get close enough it can cause severe skin irritation and depending on exposure time, you can be blinded by it. But this is in severe cases. \n\nI'm sure a tennis racket would be a great option and I'm sure I've seen people using clothes to pick up the canister to hurl it back but you'd need a strong arm in a weakening situation cause police keep their distance and good accuracy that is near impossible when your vision resembles looking through water. \n\nIf you did throw it back, I'm sure police would send a lot more your way and a lot of forces I'd expect would be equipped with masks else they'd be in the crowds situation. Unable to see a thing."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2excg9
|
how is it so easy for identity thieves to make purchases using my credit card with almost no risk of getting caught?
|
I feel that if i were to take your credit card or even just the number, and I were to make purchases in a store or online, that I would without a doubt get arrested within a few days or months. But in the real world it seems to be completely the opposite.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2excg9/eli5_how_is_it_so_easy_for_identity_thieves_to/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ck3tf63",
"ck3tjvj"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Get things shipped to mail boxes that can be paid for either in cash or with another stolen card number (or yours) pick the items up and close the box account. They can also use public wifi so their ip address is virtually unusable to track them down. \nif they use the card in a store they go to stores that don't check ids when presented with a card and preferably don't have security cameras or they wear hats and glasses to hinder facial recognition. If all you have is a partial image of a face it is difficult at best to track them down. It's not impossible. People do get caught, but not everyone. ",
"How many times do cashiers even look at your credit card's name or the signature on the back? Until the person knows it is gone or being used by someone else, it will stay on. When it is declined, the thief just takes it and moves on. No one goes through tapes looking for you. And if they did, how would they know who you are?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
5o2h1u
|
why are ceilings bumpy
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5o2h1u/eli5_why_are_ceilings_bumpy/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dcg5ck7",
"dcg5gcn"
],
"score": [
2,
2
],
"text": [
"Textured ceilings are generally used to dampen sounds in a room, and as a inexpensive way to hide imperfections in the ceiling.",
"If you mean popcorn or textured ceilings, they are common because they hide imperfections really well.\n\nThe walls and ceiling are made up of a bunch of sheets of drywall. They are taped together and mudded over to make a single surface. But it's hard to get the seams perfectly blended in so you can't see them. \n\nThe textured ceiling hides all those seams really well, and is cheap and fast to do. It also absorbs sound a bit better.\n\nIt isn't used on walls because walls get touched more and get dirtier, and the textured stuff is really hard to clean."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
38sceu
|
articles/websites that fill your "back" button with the same page. why why why???
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38sceu/eli5_articleswebsites_that_fill_your_back_button/
|
{
"a_id": [
"crxg3um",
"crxjsm2"
],
"score": [
30,
2
],
"text": [
"This isn't usually deliberate, but a consequence of poor website design. \n\nIf you have one page that redirects to another, then when the user clicks back they'll end up on the redirect page, which will then forward them back to the page they were originally on.\n\nThis is why redirect pages often have a time delay before redirecting automatically - this gives the user time to hit back again before being redirected.\n\nHowever, the [right way](_URL_0_) to do it is not to have a redirect page at all - instead, you should use an HTTP redirect instead. The browser then knows that the page has moved and will not attempt to revisit the old link when the user clicks back. ",
"More than likely its actually a cookie from an ad which is causing the page to reload over and over again. Pressing and holding the back button will allow you to skip directly back but the buffer may be filled depending on how long you have been on the page. One option is to block 3rd party cookies and this will mitigate some of the problems you are having but not all."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/reback"
],
[]
] |
||
9lgi1a
|
how is "voluntary manslaughter" not "murder"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9lgi1a/eli5_how_is_voluntary_manslaughter_not_murder/
|
{
"a_id": [
"e76htvo",
"e76hxov",
"e76ibus",
"e76nysu"
],
"score": [
9,
3,
4,
17
],
"text": [
"\"Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of a human being in which the offender acted during the heat of passion, under circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed to the point that they can't reasonably control their emotions.\"",
"Correct me if Im wrong but I think its about intent. As in you meant to beat someone but not to death but they died then thats voluntary manslaughter \n\nIf you beat someone with the intent to kill them thats murder.\n",
"\"Voluntary Manslaughter\" is (in most jurisdictions) the killing of someone without a prior intent or plan to commit the killing, but rather the decision that was made in the heat of the moment. So if you walk in on your spouse sleeping with someone else and you kill them both right there, it might be a charge of voluntary manslaughter, because you definitely meant to kill them in the moment, but you didn't want to kill them 20 minutes before. If I caught them having an affair, then spent a month planning where and how I would kill them before actually doing it, that would be a charge of murder.\n\nNow, in cases like this, it's not so much about the facts as it is about the plea deal. Trials are long, difficult, and expensive. In many cases, the state would much rather avoid a trial, so long as the alleged criminal is receiving some punishment. So Suge Knight and his attorneys were allowed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter, basically saying \"I admit that I killed him, but I'm claiming that it was only done in the heat of the moment\" to avoid going to trial for a greater charge and possibly facing life in prison. The state/prosecution are fine with that, even if they think that a murder charge is a better fit for the crime, because he's still spending 28 years in prison for the crime and they don't have to go through the actual trial process (with a chance of losing the case and letting him go free).",
"Homicide is the killing of another human. But not all homicide is murder. \n\nMurder 1/Capitol Murder: Killing someone intentionally with premeditation. \n\nMurder 2/Murder: Killing someone intentionally but without forethought or planning. \n\nMurder 3/Voluntary Manslaughter: Injuring someone intentionally, but said injury being severe enough for them to die. You did not intend to kill but you did intend to harm. \n\nManslaughter/Involuntary Manslaughter: Killing someone through negligence severe enough to merit criminality. \n\nNon-Criminal killings: Self defense, defense of another person, as a legally issued execution, as a function of war, abortion, non-negligent accident. \n\nNot every jurisdiction names these things the same and some may use names I have not listed. Some will combine the two manslaughter categories into one, and some will combine the voluntary manslaughter category with Murder 2. And some places still have things like abortion being illegal. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
7ihyke
|
why do children not get injured as much as adults do when running or exercising?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ihyke/eli5_why_do_children_not_get_injured_as_much_as/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dqyw6xa"
],
"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"Children's muscles, bones and joints are more flexible, and children tend to be more relaxed when active. Also, children are smaller and lighter but made of the same materials as bigger heavier people. These things all play a part.\n\nBeyond this, adults tend to ignore pain while children will stop what they're doing the moment something starts to hurt."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
58kn3m
|
at what point in history did it become the norm to decorate your house with lights, decorations, and trees for christmas ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/58kn3m/eli5_at_what_point_in_history_did_it_become_the/
|
{
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"d9165ky",
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"text": [
"It gradually changed over time from about 200 years ago with improvements in glass blowing etc. the decorations became more generally affordable, but paper decorations and candles for lights existed well before that",
"A lot of the Christmas symbolism is actually derived from earlier pagan holidays which were coopted by the Church to increase its appeal to the pagan peoples it wished to convert.\n\nMuch comes from pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the winter solstice, which included the use of evergreen boughs and in this regard the Christmas Tree is adaptation of pagan tree worship.\n\nDecoration of the trees follows on from this, with some symbolism being descended from pagan roots, while other common decorations evolved independently as manufacturing techniques and fashion allowed/dictated.\n\nGermans played a large part in Christmas decoration invention with Baubles being first invented in Lauscha in the late 1840s. They started out being were fruit and nut shaped glass, then eventually evolved into the typical spherical shape we know today. Britain’s Queen Victoria then popularised them in the UK when she brought some from Germany; subsequently American retailer F.W. Woolworth (yes, *the* Woolworth) made his fortune by importing baubles into the country from 1880. By 1890, he was reportedly selling $25 million worth a year. \n\nTinsel also originated in Germany in the early 1600s but it was originally shredded silver, for which cheaper materials were substituted because fire smoke blackened the silver.\n\nHolly comes from the same source as mistletoe as their bright red berries made a sweet contrast to the mistletoe's white. The two were woven together to make Holy Boughs, which were blessed by the local priest, before being hung by the front door. Mistletoe also has pagan roots.\n\nElectric lights replaced candles due to insurance companies concerns about fires (justified concerns I might add - when I was a kid, my friend and I lit some Christmas candles too near a string of Christmas cards one year, setting them on fire and I am quite sure we were neither the first people to make this mistake, nor the last..); lights per se are a fairly obvious decoration for Northern Winters where all is dark and lights make things look welcoming and cozy (now I live in Australia, where Christmas is during summer so the impact is not so great; however, the tradition persists because people just like lights I guess).\n\nThe massive illuminated displays that are now popular are simply another case of manufacturing technology enabling evolution: large electrically lit displays can be made for relatively cheap prices and new materials allow for the type of decorations we are now used to.\n\nAs is widely known, the way most of us see Santa Claus as a friendly, plump older man with a large white beard, comes from Coca-Cola advertising. Prior to the ads, Santa was drawn in a variety of ways (even as a scary elf), though he did already often wear red.",
"The British royal family are actually of German descent, starting with the Elector of Hanover who became George I of England when Queen Anne died without having produced an heir. The whole saga was based on religion, which was then commonly viewed as something you would die, and kill, for. Briefly: Henry Tudor put an end to the War of the Roses, a civil war for the crown between two related branches of the Plantagenet royal family, by slaughtering King Richard III (The King in the Car Park) at Bosworth Field. He became King Henry VII Tudor, and passed the crown to his younger son, Henry VIII. \n\nHenry VIII was a big man with a big man's appetites, including for the ladies, and while he indulged himself with various royal wenches he was married to his elder brother Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon (Spain). She was older, and while they loved each other and had one child, Princess Mary, Henry's eye for the ladies was as sharp as ever and he came under increasing pressure to have a son and heir. To a country that had suffered through a generation of war between rival claimants to the throne, the need to have a clear-cut royal heir to assume the throne upon his father's death was literally a matter of life or death. \n\nBowing to these pressures, Henry asked the Pope for an annulment, or declaration that the marriage had never taken place, with the excuse being that Henry and Catherine were within the bounds of consanguinity (related too closely). The Pope, however, was trapped in the shadow of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and the dominant monarch in Central Europe, ruler of northern Italy, and, it so happened, Catherine's nephew. Fearing Charles' anger, the Pope rejected Henry's request, and declared the royal marriage valid. \n\nHenry reacted by pressing Parliament to declare him the leader of the Church in England, giving him title to enormous tracts of land and treasures that had been willed to the Catholic Church since the time of the Romans, and, incidentally, the right to petition the head of the Church in England (himself) for the right to grant the divorce of the king (himself). And so it was, and Catherine and their daughter Mary, now reduced from adored princess to royal bastard, were shuffled off to a quiet house in the country while Henry married his new love, Catherine's maid, Anne Boleyn. \n\nHenry's new bride provided him with hot nights and a second daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, who wasn't the son he and the nation were longing for but was at least proof that the couple were on the right track, but the new Queen was touchy and prone to succumbing to temptations of her own. Ultimately it was her failure to produce a son, coupled with her infidelity, that sealed her fate, and she was executed on the grass inside the Tower of London, the last bastion of the royal family and the maximum security lockup for traitors, by an expert swordsman imported from France (high nobles and members of the royal family held the right, when under sentence of death, to be executed by the quicker and cleaner sword cut to the upright neck rather than the harder and bloodier axe on the chopping block). The now de-legitimized Elizabeth, ex-princess and now royal bastard, was shipped off to stay with her half-sister Mary in rural confinement.\n\nThe third time was the charm for Henry, when his new marriage to Jane Seymour, one of Anne's lady maids, finally produced a son, Edward. Jane contracted child-bed fever and died a short time after the birth. Henry spiraled downhill, divorcing a fourth wife (he was appalled by her looks and stink), beheading a fifth, and dying on a sixth.\n\nA king or queen becomes the monarch at the time of his or her predecessor's death. This can happen when the new monarch is an adult, as Charles III will be when Elizabeth II passes on, or as a child, as when Louis XIV took the throne of France at the age of seven. In the latter case, a child king cannot rule, so an adviser, called a regent, is appointed to rule in the child's stead, presumably teaching the child statecraft in the meantime. In Edward's case, Henry appointed a council of trusted men who believed in his assumption of the leadership of the church in England, and who would rule in his place and teach the young King Edward to be wise and just. As a backup to ensure his dynasty's success, Henry also re-legitimized both his daughters as royal princesses, meaning that Mary Tudor would be her little brother's heir until he had a son of his own, and Elizabeth Tudor would be Mary's. At this point, by the way, Mary had grown up in the atmosphere of denial and bitterness that had permeated Catherine of Aragon's exiled court, in which the former queen had refused to accept that her husband had annulled their marriage. This, coupled with the sudden change from luxury to penury as Mary went from pampered princess to starving bastard, had instilled a hatred of Protestants (people who followed the lead of her father in 'protesting' the teachings of the Catholic Church) and a fierce Catholicism that would dominate her worldview.\n\n\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
9u6pst
|
why do businesses offer extra money incentives for gift cards? e.g., buy $100 worth of gift cards, get an extra $30 free? what do they get out of it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9u6pst/eli5_why_do_businesses_offer_extra_money/
|
{
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"text": [
"Either their margin is large enough that the give away doesn't hurt them\n\nOr\n\nThey are taking a small loss in the short run and are betting it will turn enough people into repeat customers making money in the long run",
"They get $100 now in exchange for the possibility of giving up $130 in the future. Money today is always worth more than money tomorrow.\n\nAlso, perhaps they won't have to give up that $130. People lose gift cards, or toss them all the time. A ton of gift cards are never redeemed.\n\nOr, maybe that $100 gets you $130 in food that only cost them $75 to make. Sure they could have got $55 without the extra, but they at least got $25.\n\nFinally, maybe you go and give the $100 giftcard away, and come yourself and spend $60. Then they effectively got you to spend $30 on food you probably wouldn't have spent, and even though they got $60 worth of food it probably didn't cost them that much to provide it.\n\n",
"Gift cards or credit provide an instant cash flow into the business. It's money in the till NOW for goods that will leave at a later stage. The hard cost of the extra value is probably half or less since the business would have a mark up on any items. E.g. $30 in merch costs the business ~$15. Cash flow into the business is often a make or break factor. The more cash floating inside the business the more stock it can buy and put more goods on the floor. In a simplistic sense, a voucher is like a loan to the business from a customer. An exchange of money for a deferred collection of goods/services. Hope that made sense.",
"Gift cards end up not getting used a lot, it's a bit ridiculous how much money gets wasted on them, over a billion dollars in unused giftcards some years. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nOn top of that, turning your money into giftcards that are only good at certain places gets people back in the door of your business, increasing the chance of even more sales. If you are already making a profit on each sale, you might end up not losing any money at all even if they don't spend more, and if someone wants to buy a $200 tv with their 100$ giftcard that's $100 you might not have gotten otherwise.",
"I used to work at Circuit City and we had a \"ready in 23 minutes or a $23 gift card\" promotion. We were told to give this out very freely because the average amount someone would spend with a $23 gift card was over $70. People will always spend more than is on the card to make sure they use the whole card. They are a great motivator to buy more.\n\nAlso, as has been mentioned, gift cards are like reverse financing. You pay the company way in advance of actually getting your product, so it helps cash flow. \n\n\nAnother part of it, which is less true now than it used to be, is that many gift cards never get spend at all. Retailers used to work hard to make this happen and up to 10% went unspent. Now this is close to 1%, but that is still a benefit. \n\n\nHere is some more information. \n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)",
"The average return gift cards is 40%. What does that mean? For every $100 spent buying a gift card only actually $40 of it is actually claimed. Think all the cards sold to people who gift it. Some people forget they have them, lose them, don't cash in 100% of it etc. \n\nSome cards are different. Mostly grocery chain cards like Walmart, gasoline cards, those get turned in 100 % usually. But then there's the customers that get gifted shell cards (for the sake of argument) and they \"only use Exxon.\" "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[
"https://www.everplans.com/articles/so-much-money-is-wasted-every-year-on-unused-gift-cards"
],
[
"https://ejgiftcards.com/10-surprising-gift-card-statistics/"
],
[]
] |
||
1jldf5
|
how does natural selection "choose" favorable traits?
|
How would it "know" that one trait is more favorable than another?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1jldf5/eli5_how_does_natural_selection_choose_favorable/
|
{
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2
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"text": [
"There isn't any entity enforcing natural selection and making sure that animals with favorable traits outlast the others. Natural selection doesn't \"know\" anything -- it's just a way to describe a phenomenon.\n\nSimilarly, Newton's second law doesn't \"know\" what mass an object has. Objects with high mass accelerate slower than objects of lower mass under the same force. If two similar species are in the same environment, the one with favorable traits (e.g., able to find food, avoid predators, etc.) will be more likely to reproduce and continue to exist.",
"Basic rule for evolutionary fitness: whoever has the most Grandkids wins.\n\nThe same rule applies to those Grandkids."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
7qgh2o
|
how do animals like an octopus like change their skin pigment so rapidly?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7qgh2o/eli5_how_do_animals_like_an_octopus_like_change/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dsp0aew"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Yo ho ho! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have explained:\n\n1. [ELI5: How do Octopus change the colour of their skin? ](_URL_2_) ^(_3 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: How does the camouflage skin of Octopi, Squid, and Cuddlefish match their surrounding color and texture so accurately? ](_URL_6_) ^(_3 comments_)\n1. [ELI5 How do chameleons change color ](_URL_5_) ^(_4 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: How do animals such as iguanas and octopuses achieve nearly perfect camouflage? ](_URL_3_) ^(_1 comment_)\n1. [ELI5: How do chameleons change colour. ](_URL_0_) ^(_3 comments_)\n1. [ELI5: How do animals who posses the ability to camouflage do so? ](_URL_1_) ^(_9 comments_)\n1. [ELI5:How do cuttlefish change color near things if they are colorblind? ](_URL_4_) ^(_1 comment_)\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3w7q05/eli5_how_do_chameleons_change_colour/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hfik7/eli5_how_do_animals_who_posses_the_ability_to/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32fgfn/eli5_how_do_octopus_change_the_colour_of_their/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2styd9/eli5_how_do_animals_such_as_iguanas_and_octopuses/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/288a7t/eli5how_do_cuttlefish_change_color_near_things_if/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/61hvij/eli5_how_do_chameleons_change_color/",
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7mrx7o/eli5_how_does_the_camouflage_skin_of_octopi_squid/"
]
] |
||
1rkg5f
|
why are photos of people black and white in movies( and probably in real life)
|
Like when the police or anyone in a movie(usually action movies) shows a picture of what/who they're going after its usually black and white. Why?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1rkg5f/eli5_why_are_photos_of_people_black_and_white_in/
|
{
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"cdo4t6c"
],
"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"This question is worded really badly. \n\nI think what yor're getting at is police surveylance photograhs that are usually black and white. \n\nI would guess that it is because before digital photography pictures had to be developed and it is cheaper and faster to do this in black and white instead of colour."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
qe3fa
|
el5: how do speculators drive up oil prices?
|
I have read that the price of oil is driven more by speculators than the law of supply and demand. How exactly exactly do they cause oil prices raise.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qe3fa/el5_how_do_speculators_drive_up_oil_prices/
|
{
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"c3wwazp",
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"text": [
"Most of the things people buy, they buy for the present value of that thing. How valuable something is is based on how hard (or expensive) it is to create/acquire and how many people (and how much) want that thing. A speculator, though, isn't buying something for its current value, they are buying something because they believe it is likely to be more valuable in the future, so they buy it now and hold it. When you have a large number of speculators in a market, things can start to go bad. What happens is that the speculators start to create enough artificial demand that the act of speculating itself causes the price to go up. This price increases leads to more speculation, which causes higher prices, which causes more speculation....and you see where that goes. This feedback loop leads to ever increasing costs of an item, way beyond its \"natural\" value. Sometimes this feedback loop peters out slowly, so that the price increases are slow and steady. Other times it doesn't slow down fast enough and you get a bubble (like the recent housing bubble, or the tech bubble back in 2001) where there aren't enough new speculators to keep the articulacy high prices continuing to grow so people start to sell off over fear that the price has peaked (which causes it to peak and now you have the feedback loop running in the opposite direction).\n\n\nIf you look at crude oil prices the last couple of years you can see this in action. Back in July of 2008 oil was at $145 per barrel, then 6 months later it had dropped to $36 per barrel. Now it's been rising slowly since then and is back up to $109 per barrel. Now between July 2008 and January 2009 did the global oil supply or demand radically change? Not really. There are seasonal cycles that cause higher oil prices in the summer, but nothing near enough to cause such a dramatic drop. What actually happened was the resession hit the US and speculators were worried about it affecting oil prices so they started a sell off. Given what we have seen it seems that natural supply and demand would put the price of oil closer to that $36 mark, and it's speculation that causes the rest of the price.",
"People need oil and there are people who's job it is to find it, buy it as cheaply as they can so they can sell it to make money. If it was easy to find and make it wouldn't be expensive. Because we need it and can't make a whole lot of it we have to save some of what is made. When billions of barrels of oil are being stored for a \"rainy day\" then they will try and get a piece of that so they can hold on to it. Sort of like a piggy-bank of oil. Sometimes the same barrel will trade back and forth between several speculators in one day all betting on when this \"rainy day\" will happen. This \"rainy day\" will be anytime that production of oil slows down or need of it speeds up. If there is war someplace that makes it or if it gets very cold here at home we will need to break open the piggy-bank and use the \"rainy day\" oil. All of these people are betting on when this is going to happen so they are all offering big bucks for the piggy bank. Right now we know Iran has a big piggy bank of oil and makes more of it. If Israel or the United States goes to war against it then everybody else's piggy bank will become more expensive. Those piggy banks are more expensive than they should be because people think that a piggy bank with $50 of oil in it will be worth $100 next week. Because they think the \"rainy day\" is next week they'll pay $80 for that piggy bank. Every time some one does the higher the price goes. Because there are many many more people buying and trading these piggy banks then making more oil it becomes more expensive. The price it will be on a \"rainy day\" is higher than now, or tomorrow but if enough foolish or greedy people buy it waiting for the rainy day rather than tomorrow than that oil will be closer to $80 than $50.\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
20hhjt
|
why does hair curl?
|
More specifically, why does hair differ from person to person? Some people have completely straight hair while some people have incredibly curly hair. What makes this happen?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/20hhjt/eli5_why_does_hair_curl/
|
{
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"cg3b9vr",
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"text": [
"If you were to look at a cross section of a hair, like the tip of a freshly cut hair, you would see different shapes from person to person. Straighter hair has a circular cross section, while curly hair has an oval cross section, and curls towards one of the flat sides of the oval.",
"Our biology teacher told us it was to do with the different types of bonds in your hair, mainly protein bonds. The amount of these bonds and how they are to one another will affect the shape of the hair. When you straighten your hair, the high temperature will break these bonds leaving you with straight hair. ",
"It is mainly due to to the kinds of proteins that make up your hair. As we know, the proteins that make up your bodies are produced under direction of your genes; your genetic code \"codes\" for these proteins. We also know that proteins are made of amino acids arranged in specific sequences. One of these amino acids is called cysteine. Cysteine, unlike other amino acids, wants to bond with other cysteines because it contains sulfur, and the sulfur groups want to bond with each other. So if your genes direct your body to make hair proteins that have cysteine at i think every 4th spot, it will bond to the others, producing curls. Picture if you took a rope and every 10cm there was a small magnet, and these magnets clung to each other, it would make one long, curly rope. and remember these amino acids are extremely small, so each individual curl of your hair is the product of thousands and thousands of these tiny bonds occurring in concert.\n\nWhen you get a perm, they first wash your hair with a product that breaks these bonds, then put your hair in curlers and wash it with a product that re-forms these bonds. So your very few naturally occurring cysteine-cysteine bonds (called a disulfide bond) get broken, and then your hair is curled manually, placing more cysteines closer together, and then more disulfide bonds are formed. Over time, these bonds break down and your hair gradually loses the artificial curl. People born with curly hair just have way more cysteine so way more disulfide bonds are present at all times, making their hair always curly"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
2qtnrc
|
how exactly do exo suits work?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2qtnrc/eli5_how_exactly_do_exo_suits_work/
|
{
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"text": [
"are you talking about stuff like [this](_URL_0_)?",
"Imagine a strong, hollow robot.\n\nYou can control it with your thoughts or movements from the inside, but it's ultimately the one doing all the work. It's powered by electricity (or fusion, or combustion, or whatever) just like any robot would need to be, so its motors or hydraulics are stronger and faster than you are. Since you're piloting it from the inside, it's moving you around with it, functionally increasing your otherwise only-human capabilities.\n\nWe don't have many powered exoskeletons on the market just yet, but there are a lot in development. I wonder how far they'll go!",
"Basicly, an exo-suit or exo-skeleton is a machine that enhances your strength and other abilities. It doesn't move on its own, but it waits till the user moves. Then it moves with you (you raise your arm, the exosuit arm will raise too). This isn't more exhausting than normal, since the suit provides its own power. This way you have more power when moving, since not only do you move, but the suit does as well.\n\nSorry for spelling, mobile phone and not native English speaker.",
"From a control perspective:\nI presume that force/pressure sensors are mounted wherever the suit is strapped to the body. When the wearer attempts to move a limb, they will apply more force in the direction they are trying to move it in. The suit will detect this via its sensors, and attempt to alter the position of the relevant joints until the force disappears, indicating that the wearer has ceased movement. This response will be tuned to be rapid enough so that the suit moves with only a little pressure, and thus the wearer's movement is not unreasonably restricted.\n\nFor suits designed to handle delicate objects, the force applied by the suit to match the wearer's position will probably be proportional to force applied on the suit by the user. In this way, the user will feel some resistance from the objects they handle, and can thus choose whether to hold objects delicately, or squish them into a pulp.\n\nThe above is probably achieved with a bunch of [PID](_URL_0_) (Proportional Integral Differential) loops, or, for more complex systems via [state space control](_URL_1_)\n\nSource: I am a control engineer and generally massive nerd."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton"
],
[],
[],
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-space_representation"
]
] |
||
43fc8z
|
why do our ears ring more specifically is there an actual vibration that's going on in our ear that's making that sound.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43fc8z/eli5_why_do_our_ears_ring_more_specifically_is/
|
{
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],
"text": [
"There are various causes of [tinnitus](_URL_0_). Usually there is no actual vibration in the ear (subjective tinnitus). But some people have *objective tinnitus*, where there is an actual self-sustained vibration going on....it can sometimes be heard by others using a stethoscope. This vibration is believed to be caused by muscle spasms within the ear. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus"
]
] |
||
uk8ba
|
when you look up at the stars you are seeing events that happened hundred or even thousands of years ago.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uk8ba/eli5_when_you_look_up_at_the_stars_you_are_seeing/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c4w3ovi"
],
"score": [
4
],
"text": [
"First you have to know, what seeing means. We see things, that send light into our eyes. Your eyes are like two cameras and they only detect light that is falling into your pupils. Our daylight for example comes from the sun. It hits the grass in front of you, the grass only reflects the green part of the light, reflects it into your eyes (just like a mirror) and then you see green grass. \n\nNow as you see, light travels very long ways, before you see it. The sun is pretty far away. The distance is probably more, than you can imagine. If you want to try to: It is approximately 144,000,000 km. And compared to the size of the universe we know about, the sun and the earth are almost at the same place. But our sun is not the only thing, sending light to us. There are many other suns like ours, some bigger, some smaller and all of them so far away, that we only see them as tiny little dots. We call them stars.\n\nThese stars are, what people mean by events that happened hundreds of years ago. A star can be born or explode or collapse or move through space. I mentioned light travelling, you remember? Light travels, so it has a speed. Just like you have a speed, when you ride your bike. \n\nThat sounds strange, since light seems to be everywhere immediately, but it isn't. It is just really, really fast. In fact it could go around the earth 7.5 times within one second. Sounds a lot, doesn't it? Now picture this: From the surface of the sun, light needs 8 minutes to reach the earth. 8 minutes! And in every second of these 8 minutes it could go around the earth 7.5 times. You can't imagine this? Well, me neither. Most people can't (if any). \n\nBut basically this is the answer to your question. We need to wait 8 minutes to see, what happens on the surface of the sun. Since the sun is rather near to the earth, compared to the rest of the universe, light from other stars needs far more time than 8 minutes to reach us. All things considered: A few hundred years ago somewhere far away another sun (a star) exploded. This explosions is very bright and sends a lot of light on its journey through space. The light travels on and on and today a scientist with a telescope looks up into the sky and the travelling light rushes into the telescope and hits the scientists eye. He sees it, calculates (with means I don't completely understand) how far that star must have been away, and finally says: \"About 300 years ago that star exploded. I have just seen it!\"\n\nEdit: Rereading it made me realise that I wrote a complete mess. The things I wrote are right, but somewhere lost my structure. If you understand it though, it's ok. If not, answer this post with how far you could follow my thoughts and I'll try again from that point."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
8kqnip
|
how do different electronics consume different amount of power?
|
I was reading about P=V^2 / R. Does that mean the only difference in a 12W lightbulb and a 60W lightbulb is only in the resistance?
In general, how do different applicances consume different amount of power? For example, a fan at high speed vs low speed. Does the speed setting simply changes the resistance in the fan?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8kqnip/eli5_how_do_different_electronics_consume/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dz9spxh"
],
"score": [
5
],
"text": [
"Yes, exactly like that.\n\nA bit longer answer: ohm's law is more intuitive, V = I*R. In a battery/outlet, you have a voltage differential that will push electrons through the wire that you connect them with; how many electrons go through is up to the resistance in the circuit.\n\nIn a lightbulb you'll have a wire with more or less resistance to increase or decrease the current. The power equation is basically derived from ohm's law..."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
aaxnrw
|
why do domestic horsies need horseshoes/farriers/regular hoof maintenance, but wild horsies do not?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aaxnrw/eli5_why_do_domestic_horsies_need/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ecvsyi2",
"ecvt4sc"
],
"score": [
10,
8
],
"text": [
"Wild horses live on the plains and only occasionally have to run on hard packed ground spending most of their time running on loose soil and grass. Domesticated horses have to walk on roads, hard packed dirt, rocky dirt, etc which are all surfaces too rough for their natural hoof. Additionally they are carrying the extra weight of a pack saddle or a rider which makes them hurting their hooves more likely if they do not have protection. ",
"Hello.. horse person here!\n\nDomestic horses are better fed so their hooves grow faster.. they may be kept in stalls (soft and cushy, so their hooves don't naturally wear down in the stall) or in a grassy pasture.. as such every 6-8 weeks they need the farrier out to trim their hooves. \n\nIn the wild the horses tend to have a poor diet and travel over rocky terrain which wears down their hooves.\n\nAs for horse shoes... well those are an other matter.. not all horses that are ridden have horse shoes... some people keep their horses unshod - barefoot.. but those that are used in shows, or races, often have shoes (sometimes just front feet, but often all four).. I note these shoes can sometimes have special function, such as having \"corks\" put on to give traction - like adding an extra grip.\n\nShoes also are important for horses that go on cement a lot - such as in the city.. the cement would wear down the feet too fast... PLUS with a shoe you can add a rubber sole between the foot and the shoe to add a cushion, so the shoe basically holds the rubber pad on."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
1m5dal
|
why was an iceberg able to break through the steel of the titanic?
|
Isn't steel harder than ice? Does it have something to do with the bending of the steel and breaking in places where it was welded?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m5dal/eli5_why_was_an_iceberg_able_to_break_through_the/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cc5x9cw",
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"cc5zapg",
"cc5zfzm"
],
"score": [
10,
7,
9,
5,
3
],
"text": [
"Just think of simple physics. Force is mass multiplied by acceleration. When the Titanic met the ice, it tried to accelerate the ice using its mass (they called it Titanic for a reason.) The forces acting on the steel were tremendous and enough to tear rivets and welds.",
"The steel was pretty shitty by today's standards. Sure, steel is harder than ice, but when you have many thousands of tons of both running into each other at pretty good speeds, shit's going to break. ",
"Poorly formed rivet heads, unfortunate placement of iceberg's.. abutments for lack of a better word.\n\nThe boat hit the iceberg at a angle that caused essentially a finger of ice to wedge between the plates of steel that made up the boats skin. The momentum of the boat caused the plates to come apart at the seam like a zipper or can opener. The rivet heads were not bucked properly for tensile forces, so they popped easily and contributed to the zipper-like opening.\n\n",
"take an ice cube. take a sheet of tin foil. that's the scale of iceberg vs titanic hull",
"Saw something a while ago about this, this article is along those lines _URL_0_\n\nEssentially, the steel (as mentioned by Hexadecimal) was not at all like it is today. [This image](_URL_1_) shows a comparison of todays (left) steel and the titanics (right) steel. Essentially, the steel formula caused the steel to snap cleanly on impact and didnt have the maleable bending and squishing effect that today's steel has."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.writing.eng.vt.edu/uer/bassett.html",
"http://www.writing.eng.vt.edu/uer/bassett/fig1.gif"
]
] |
|
287ujh
|
how are dogs not adapted to sense that certain foods are poisonous (i.e chocolate) ?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/287ujh/eli5_how_are_dogs_not_adapted_to_sense_that/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ci88x3k"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"It's not something they ever encountered, so they never had a need to detect it. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5526gw
|
why has oil produced from algae not replaced our traditional way of obtaining oil?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5526gw/eli5why_has_oil_produced_from_algae_not_replaced/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d86uxhd",
"d86vnl6",
"d86vo9l"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Mostly lobbying by oil industries. A lot of oil company could go belly up from global adaptation of alternative oil production.",
"Its cost.\n\nIts way way cheaper to pull premade oil out of the ground than create it from scratch through algae. Gas prices for algae fuel would be very high right now.\n\n > If we did manage to create all of our oil from algae, would we still be releasing more CO2 than algae is absorbing?\n\nItd be neutral. Think about it. All the carbon in the algae oil has to come from somewhere. itd release the same as it absorbed.",
"Oil just lying there in the ground is much less costly to obtain than oil made from algae:\n\n > 4 NAABB advances have brought the cost of algae biocrude oil down to [$7.50 per gallon](_URL_0_). (Note this was in 2014). \n\nFew want to pay $7.50 per gallon for algae diesel. When either the price of extracting and refining petroleum rise to such levels, or the price of creating algae diesel fall to the price of petroleum diesel (or some mix of both), you'll see rapid increase in algae diesel. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2014/10/13/where-are-we-with-algae-biofuels/"
]
] |
||
b3j8nn
|
what causes the reduce in potency of medicines like ibuprofen after they expire?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b3j8nn/eli5_what_causes_the_reduce_in_potency_of/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ej00sbk"
],
"score": [
8
],
"text": [
"Many medicines are comprised of both active and inactive ingredients. The inactive ingredients serve as stabilizers, fillers, absorption enablers, etc. Over time, and with exposure to air and potentially other contaminants, there ingredients begin to break down, degrade, and otherwise change the way the body interacts with the active ingredient. In addition, various contaminants, oils, dirt, etc may be introduced into the container as the user invariably dumps out several and puts the remainder back. These too can potentially allow for bacterial grown and weakening/changing of potency."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
3n8hh6
|
i just turned 40 so i'm technically an internet grandpa. someone please explain to me hashtags. i see them everywhere, tv, news stories, social media. what is the point of them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n8hh6/eli5_i_just_turned_40_so_im_technically_an/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvlqxgj",
"cvlr1i1",
"cvmbct6",
"cvmdaq8"
],
"score": [
83,
7,
5,
2
],
"text": [
"You're probably aware that the most basic language for writing a website is called HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language).\n\nThere has been a function in HTML forever called \"named anchors,\" where you could link to somewhere halfway down a page. As an example, if I link you to the start of Section 2 of a Wikipedia article:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nIf you click that link, it'll take you halfway down the page to the anchor named Engraving. HTML uses the \"#\" symbol to say that whatever follows the # is the name of an anchor on the page, not part of the URL.\n\nSo we've been using this functionality for 10+ years, and then Twitter comes along, and Twitter uses this functionality to allow people to embed links in their tweets. A Twitter hashtag becomes a link that allows people to easily see other tweets about the same topic. So if I'm watching the moon landing, I can tweet \"Really enjoying watching the #moonlanding\" - and anyone can click on #moonlanding and see everyone else who has made a tweet with the same hashtag.",
"They are keywords. For example in Twitter if you click #ELI5 you get all the tweets which have the hashtag #ELI5. With hashtags you can participate in some discussion by writing the hashtag on your message. Like if you tweet \"*What's a hashtag? #ELI5*\" your tweet is included in the tweets people see when searching for that hashtag. And for example in Instagram you can tag your photos like #summer, and by clicking that hashtag you see all the photos tagged with #summer.",
"Just in case anyone isn't clear on this:\n\n\\# ⬅ Hash Symbol ^(aka pound sign aka number sign aka octothorpe)\n\nWumbo ⬅ Tag\n\n\\#Wumbo ⬅ Hashtag",
"Posted answers are true but not the actual answer. Twitter made hashtags famous by using them, as someone mentioned, semantic markers to get things to trend and get the community to settle on names for topics. It's also possible to search for any term, not just hashtags, so it's not to make things searchable. The technical reason, the reason Twitter wants/likes hashtags, is because hashtags are automatically indexed and stored separately by Twitter; Twitter automatically breaks hashtags out from tweets and stores them in a less space-efficient but more searchable way which makes it *much faster* to search for hashtags compared to regular words. When you're searching billions of tweets this makes a significant difference. You can see this by using the Twitter API. When you download the raw information for a Tweet (and you'd be surprised to see how much information there is), the text (hashtags included) is one field and another separate field is just a list of the hashtags."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Cup#Engraving"
],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
eactas
|
why does the sound of babies & toddlers crying or whining trigger such anger and annoyance in certain people? what is it in their brain that responds to the high pitched sounds that way?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eactas/eli5_why_does_the_sound_of_babies_toddlers_crying/
|
{
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"fapbqme",
"fapcbxm",
"fapccgi",
"fapdkp5",
"fappetl",
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"faqdjye",
"faqw4sc"
],
"score": [
3,
6,
24,
3,
4,
2,
2,
2,
3
],
"text": [
"I’ll be honest too and say that that septic noise also annoys me. Does it change if they are your own kids ????",
"It's supposed to annoy people to action. Evolutionary response. Babies can't communicate another way. So, is the pitch/frequency that for response. Simply put, in our distant past, the less annoying babies died.",
"Maybe they can’t handle the stress caused by the crying or the sound very well. A baby’s cry is supposed to make you stressed out so that you pay attention to it.",
"Any loud continuous noise annoys people, I haven't even thought about there being other reasons. The comments are pretty interesting to read",
"It is an immediately distressing sound by evolutionary design. If it is not our offspring then the initial alarm bell that grabs our attention will be handed over to the more deliberate processes of our brain which are kinda hyper judgmental in most people.\n\nSo you will quickly come to the conclusion that,\n\n1. This sound is annoying\n2. You can do absolutely nothing about it. It is out of your control and isn't really in the control of the people closer to the problem.\n3. You are human and likely an asshole that responds in anger when you feel impotent or imposed upon by others.\n4. You might be able to justify your anger by being in a situation where you think that you personally would never even think of bringing a young child into this environment and therefore your rage against a blameless child can be directed at their infinitely blamable parents.\n\nTLDR; monkey brain no quick to kindness",
"for me, high pitch screeching like that causes actual, physical pain. in bad cases, my ears can actually start to bleed. its not just babies/children either\n\nany high pitched noises causes the same pain. squeaky shopping cart wheels, squealing brakes, some engine noises, nails on chalkboards, etc",
"One theory that could explain some of the anger and annoyance is that the primeval part of our brain wants the noise stop because it attracts predators and puts the group in danger. I have a source somewhere but that’ll take some digging...",
"I can’t speak for all people but as a parent of two I can say I’ve had my moments. Those moments usually come when I’m extremely tired from a long day, it’s 4 am and the kid still will not go to sleep. You get almost there, and then they just start screaming. There’s this huge build up of anger and frustration that comes up when something like this happens. It all seems to be subconscious or something. I love my kids, I’ve never intentionally hurt them, and never will. I believe I’m not alone because I heard a story one time from an old coworker who said she got so mad one time she balled up her fists, realized how mad she had gotten, started crying and left her apartment for a little while while her husband stayed up. \n\nKids are rough, they can be the most adorable and sweet little things and then they can be demonic beasts and absolutely keep you from getting any sleep.",
"Because it's not socially acceptable for someone to take your child away and care for it properly. We're evolved to react to the stimulus, but this is a stimulus you can't actually act on. It's like an itch you can't scratch, you just have to endure it."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
4blk22
|
why do we find it unacceptable to kill criminals of all nature in our country but it's perfectly fine to kill people during war?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4blk22/eli5_why_do_we_find_it_unacceptable_to_kill/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d1a87db",
"d1a8lhr"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text": [
"It's all based around how personal it is and dehumanization.\n\nOur own criminals are still our own people. We want them to either be rehabilitated or we want to see them suffer in prison.\n\nIn war, we dehumanize the other side. They aren't people, they are baby killing Nazis, they are repressed communists, they are evil terrorists. And because of this we see it ok to kill them because we don't see them as people.",
"There's really 2 parts to the answer to this question:\n\n\n* **Morality** - From a morality perspective it comes down to you personal perspective about whether or not the war is justified/for the greater good (in which case the rationale might be that the death of 10,000 to prevent the death/oppression of 1 million is a reasonable price to pay). If you believe the war is unjustified then the deaths are more likely to be morally unacceptable \n\n\n* **Legality** - War is a legal thing ([as such](_URL_0_)) and so the deaths of people killed during war are more likely to be considered legally ok (there are exceptions, notably around civilians). By comparison the laws of most developed countries do not allow for the killing of criminals, and whilst some have the death-penalty the general principle is that everybody has a right to a fair trial and that vigilantes/angry-mobs are not the answer (for a myriad of reasons, chief amongst them that mobs can often act on hearsay and rumour and even what looks like clear evidence can be wrong)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_war"
]
] |
||
5na6ix
|
in commercials, why do they never reference "the leading brand" by name?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5na6ix/eli5_in_commercials_why_do_they_never_reference/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dc9wjyj",
"dca1wvm"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Name recognition. They don't want to mention anything in their ad by name that will distract you from their product.",
"* there is a school of thought in advertising that says mentioning your competition gives them free publicity\n* there may be more than one leading brand, or leading brands might change with region\n* if they make a misleading or false claim, it is hard for their competition to claim it was directed at them"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
3mdsaq
|
why is the concord (plane) not a viable aircraft economically?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mdsaq/eli5_why_is_the_concord_plane_not_a_viable/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cve60r2",
"cve6gbs",
"cve6w61"
],
"score": [
2,
7,
4
],
"text": [
"Because a law was put into place that you couldn't go supersonic over populated areas, so besides trans-atlantic flights, there was no real advantage. It was also far more expensive to run and maintain.",
"Airplanes in general are phenomenally expensive to operate. This year airlines are estimating an average profit if about $8.75 a ticket which is actually up quite a bit from what it's been. \n\nSince airlines don't make a lot off individual tickets they tend to make their money from volume and cutting costs where they can. If you look at the newest planes airlines are adding like the Dreamliner one of the biggest selling points is how efficient it is. \n\nThe Concorde was the exact opposite of that. It was super expensive to operate, it had a ton of restrictions on where it could be flown and when, and it didn't seat that many people.\n\nAs it turns out, most people care more about how much a flight costs than any other aspect of air travel, so the Concorde was far worse than most other options for the routes it flew. ",
"Concorde had a whole slew of uniques, most of them economically bad. Unusually high fuel consumption (even by the standards of the time) made it expensive to fly. The extreme physical stresses and heat generated by operating supersonically made it expensive to maintain. The need for a relatively small passenger cabin for the size of the plane made its capacity quite low, which meant tickets had to be very expensive, which made it undesirable. Popular opposition to supersonic booms over land made operating away from oceans unfeasible (without undermining its big perk) which substantially limited available routes."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
t1fcl
|
why are stocks worth anything?
|
I can understand that people would want stocks from companies who give out big dividends. The better the company does, the bigger the dividend and thus bigger the worth of the stock.
What I don't understand is stock worth of companies who DON'T give out dividends, like Apple. If a company does good, why does it affect the stock's price? You aren't seeing any of that money as a stockholder. Isn't the price then completely arbitrary? It's based on demand but *why is there demand?*
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/t1fcl/eli5_why_are_stocks_worth_anything/
|
{
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2,
14,
3,
2
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"text": [
"One of first things to understand about stock prices is that it's not directly related to how \"good\" a company does, or what profit numbers they report, or even how much people like that company. It's simply related to the supply and demand of that stock. If more people want the stock and start buying it, the price goes up. If people start selling, the price goes down.\n\nThus, if you're trying to pick a stock to buy, don't buy stock in a company YOU think will do well. Buy stock in a company you think everyone else will think will do well.",
"A stock's value rises because someone out there believes that stock has value. It's such a mind blowing concept, you sometimes have to wonder if you somehow fell down a rabbit hole.\n\n > It's a trick...a shadow on the wall. And sometimes, a very small man can cast a very large shadow.",
"Stock in a company gives you ownership of that companys assets. \n\nGold doesn't pay dividends either, yet its popular for investing in. \nThe only real difference for an investor between gold and stock is that gold is likely to be more predictable in value.",
"While a company isn't paying a dividend today, it can choose to implement one in the future when profitability and finances justify it. So you can buy a non-dividend paying company having the expectation that sometime down the road, it will be able to pay one.\n\nA company will decide to forego paying a dividend today if it has things to invest in that will pay off and allow for an even bigger dividend down the road. This could run the gamut from building a new facility, hiring staff, buying a competitor, or investing in R & D. \n\nP.S. Apple is now paying a dividend.",
"OP, here is your answer: the potential for Private Equity and M & A acquirers. \n\nWhen you own the stock of a company and a PE firm or an acquirer seek to buy the company, they buy the stock off of you and they reap the subsequent cash flows from the company. It's a fundamental investment for them. So that helps to keep the price of stocks rooted in fundamentals. That's why fundamental investors, equity researchers and ibankers look at the enterprise value of a firm, the theoretical takeover price, when they are looking for the true value of a company. If the stock dropped well below its \"intrinsic\" value, it would become an easy target for a PE firm or an M & A transaction. \n\nHere's an allegory. Let's say you own a magic box with $1 billion in it but you don't have the key to open it and there is no way of getting at the money without the key (an investor). However, there are firms with keys that want to buy this box from you, because they can access the money if they own the box (PE firms). Then even though you can't access the cash, you would not be willing to sell the box for much less than $1 billion, because you know you can easily sell it to a keyholder. Moreover, other people know that they can sell the box for $1 billion to a keyholder in the future. So they are willing to buy the box from you even though they also can't take any money out themselves.\n\nHere's another story, involving dividends:\n\nTheoretically, firms should only use cash for positive NPV projects, and pay out the rest as dividends to shareholders. If they have positive NPV projects, then that means they are generating a higher return than investors could make in the next most profitable investment. Thus, it would be worse for the investors in PV terms if a dividend were issued now.\n\nFor example, if Apple issued a huge dividend now instead of investing that money into the next big thing (let's say, the iTV), it would be worse for investors. This is because the present value of the dividend after they made tons of money from the iTV would be larger than if they issued a dividend now. Once Apple no longer has +NPV projects, then it should theoretically issue a dividend to its owners."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
3vthq1
|
for children learning to say the "th" sound, why are some words substituted with the "f" ("thanks" - > "fanks") sound and others with the "d" ("that" - > "dat") sound?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3vthq1/eli5_for_children_learning_to_say_the_th_sound/
|
{
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"text": [
"The \"th\" in \"thanks\" and the \"th\" in \"that\" are different sounds. The \"th\" in \"thanks\" is voiceless (you don't vibrate your vocal cords while making the sound), whereas the \"th\" in ~~\"thanks\"~~ \"that\" is voiced (you *do* vibrate your vocal cords while making the sound).\n\nOther voiceless \"th\" instances can be found in words like:\n\n* think\n* method\n* bath\n\nInstances of the voiced \"th\" include:\n\n* them\n* mother\n* smooth\n\nBut perhaps the easiest way to hear the difference is to say \"thin\" and \"then\" out loud to yourself. The only difference between those two words is whether or not the \"th\" is voiced.\n\nAnyway, it would be more natural to pronounce the voiceless \"th\" as an \"f\", since it is also a voiceless sound. Likewise, the initial \"d\" is voiced, so it makes a better match for a voiced \"th\".",
"Because the first sounds in \"that\" and \"thanks\" aren't actually the same, they're just spelt the same :)\n\nIn \"that\", the first sound is voiced, in \"thanks\", it's unvoiced. Listen to yourself say them, the way you press out the air is different.\n\nThe voiced \"th\" is closer to \"d\" (also a voiced sound), while the unvoiced \"th\" is closer to \"f\" (also an unvoiced sound). Children don't have full control over their voice yet, so sometimes their mouth forms a sound that is similar to the one they're actually trying to form.\n\nIt's similar to non-natives trying to learn English, \"th\" is one of the biggest hurdles when it comes to pronunciation because their mouths never learnt to form the sound.",
"There are two distinct \"th\" sounds, but English speakers have difficulty distinguishing between the two, because they are taught to treat them the same, and different dialects of English may treat them differently.\n\nThe \"th\" in \"thanks\" is *unvoiced* — it is an unvoiced linguodental fricative. Air rushing past the tongue and teeth while the tongue is pushed against the teeth. Represented in old English and several nordic languages by the þ glyph.\n\nThe \"th\" in \"that\" is generally, in many dialects, a *voiced* or *semi-voiced* linguo-dental fricative. The same air rush is present, but with the addition of some amount of voicing — humming of the vocal cords. Represented in old English and many norse languages with the ð glyph — note how it resembles a d?\n\n\n\"D\" is a voiced linguo-palatalridge or linguo-dental consonant. There may be some air rushing, but it is minimal.\n\n\"F\" is an unvoiced labiodental fricative — very similar to þ, with just a different quality to the final shape of the airflow.\n\nSo the positions and motions of the tongue and lips in forming þ and f, and ð and d, are similar, the sounds are similar, and that accounts for why children will elide towards one consonant or towards the other — depending on dialect.",
"Non native English speaker here. A lot of students or non native speakers have difficulty sounding out the \"th\" noise. What finally was the 'lightbulb' moment for me was hearing and seeing how others say \"th\" \"f\" and \"d\". It's all where you place your tongue when saying the word. Because in my native language we do not have \"th\" sounds in our language, I thought it was the same as \"f\" so birthday would sound like birfday (and endless ridicule from cruel school children commences). So, if you are trying to teach a young child or non native speaker, show them that the tongue's tip touches your front top teeth making the \"th th\" noise. The \"f\" sounds comes out because people don't move their tongue out, they just leave it hanging lazily in the mouth. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
16zq4e
|
why do people try so desperately to get facebook likes and twitter followers? is it monetized in a way similar to youtube?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/16zq4e/eli5_why_do_people_try_so_desperately_to_get/
|
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"It's more a matter of self-importance at this point. More likes and more followers show that more people either agree with you, or are interested in what you have to say. This produces a good feeling in most people; they seek a measure of social acceptance.\n\nThis can be considered both good and bad and neither at all; on the one hand, there are people with genuine causes, and thus getting more likes is essentially a way to spread the word - if someone likes something, it's more likely their friends see it too. Mind you, some causes aren't so great to start with, but I digress. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who want attention alone; they're just looking for a manner of validation. And then, setting both aside, some folks just want to share stuff and take a measure of pride that people are indeed listening to them.",
"Similar to people trying to get upvotes",
"For some people, like stand-up comedians or lesser known actors, Facebook and Twitter can be used as popularity indicators and help them book gigs or get jobs on tv or in advertising. ",
"no people just want to feel important ",
"For the average Joe (or Jill) Soap, it's much the same as why redditors like their upvotes.\nLikes, follows, upvotes, they're at their basics pure *approval*. It's somebody saying ''I like what you're saying, and think it is worth rewarding''\n\nIt's like somebody saying ''I agree with you, and think you're interesting/funny/smart''. And all people (and especially socially awkward people, like those who seek likes/follows/upvotes) *crave* approval.",
"Well I can't speak to why individuals necessarily want 'Likes', I can attest first hand why companies want you to 'Like' things. I help run a very small event that for a long time was annually attended by maybe 30-50 people. Recently I switched from a custom written registration system to EventBrite which includes analytics a and an option to promote you event via Facebook - nearly 80% of our registrants came from Facebook and registration also increased about 35%. Companies want you to share/Like them because it is extremely effective marketing (since it's coming from your friends and not them directly) and is very inexpensive for them to do it. This is also why spammers/scammers love to promote scams on Facebook too.",
"A Facebook page with 100k likes can be sold for around 100 dollars ",
"Same reason we like that sweet sweet karma",
"A \"Like\" or \"follow\", or even better, a \"re-tweet\" or \"favorite\" all signify that a person has appreciated what you said/did enough for them to express to you that they like it, via the aforementioned methods. It's basically a way of saying good job. \n\nI'm so tired of the \"who gives a shit about upvotes/likes/retweets etc\". If you create and post something, and people enjoy it, it makes you feel good. People like what you've done. Its a good feeling. Now, people who make link posts instead of self posts just to harvest Karma are fucking dumb because that is ridiculous. However, no one can deny that they enjoy getting positive feedback from their peers, especially when they're in no way obligated to do so. ",
"If /r/facepalm is any indication, teenagers use it as a status symbol, much like upvotes on reddit.",
"When mommy or daddy tell you did a good job on something you feel good right? This is kind of the same thing. People feel good that others agree with them enough or are interested in what they have to say. So they look for approval online in order to feel better about themselves. ",
"Brand awareness, and general advertising. Your facebook and twitter are often just used to drive people towards youtube, or whatever place DOES make you money."
]
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|
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[] |
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[],
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||
ckehsw
|
if you throw a cantaloupe in the air in a fast moving car, why does it go straight up and down and not backwards?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ckehsw/eli5_if_you_throw_a_cantaloupe_in_the_air_in_a/
|
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"text": [
"Because everything in the car when you were holding it was moving (let's say) 60 miles per hour. When you throw it up, it's still moving forward at 60 miles per hour, the same as everything else in the car.",
"Its actually moving forward right along with you. When you throw something in the air while in a moving vehicle, the force of the vehicle is applied at the dame time you throw the object in the air.\n\nFor example.\n\nYoure in a train, bouncing a ball, to you its going straight up and down,\nTo those looking at the train from outside the ball is moving up and down, and foward at the same time.\n\nSince you are moving with the vehicle, the forward speed of said vehicle is applied to the object you sre throwing.",
"Because you are in the car holding the fruit, right? Meaning the fruit is also traveling at the same speed as you and the car. It all cancels out since you are left with the only original nee force: you throwing it up in the air.",
"Because the cantaloupe already has a sideways velocity of whatever the car is travelling at. As long as the car is moving at a constant velocity, the cantaloupe will always look like its moving up and down as it would be if you standing still on the ground. However, if you were to throw the cantaloupe in the air and before you caught it the driver slammed the brakes, the cantaloupe would appear to be flying forward because the car's velocity has changed but it's velocity hasn't."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
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||
56doth
|
why do you become more reactive to poision ivy with each exposure?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/56doth/eli5why_do_you_become_more_reactive_to_poision/
|
{
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"text": [
"You don't necessarily, but when you do it's a result of the immune system becoming more familiar with the antigens it wrongly believes represent a pathogen. In essence, it's just like any other allergic reaction, and some people develop increasingly bad reactions to substances which they have an allergy to, given more exposure. In particular venom, and irritants like urushiol oil (what gets you in poison ivy)",
"Poison ivy rashes happen because most people are allergic to the plant's oils. \n\nWhen your body encounters a foreign substance (like germs, or in this case poison ivy oils) it starts producing white blood cells with proteins called antibodies that specifically recognize this foreign substance. After the infection has been fought off, it keeps these around for a while *just in case* you encounter the same disease again. \n\nThis means that if you do encounter the same disease again, your immune system will react to it faster and hopefully prevent you from getting sick better. When it's poison ivy, though, this just means you get a bigger, worse reaction faster. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
aqnjvz
|
heat death & entropy (physics)
|
Can anyone help me understand what entropy is and how it relates to heat death? Thanks.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aqnjvz/eli5_heat_death_entropy_physics/
|
{
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"text": [
"Entropy is the tendency for matter and energy to enter a spread-out, perfectly-even state. If you have a bunch of blocks, it takes work to build them into a structured tower, whereas it's very easy to smash that tower and have all the blocks spread out evenly. Similarly, you can heat up a pan on your stove, but if you just leave a hot pan alone, its heat will spread out into the air around it.\n\nThis is true of all things. Given enough time, the matter that makes up the solar system will lose its structure and spread out. The energy which is currently concentrated in the sun will dissipate throughout space. Eventually the whole universe will be more or less uniform - energy will be even throughout, putting the universe into a state of equilibrium where nothing new will happen.",
"Ok, let's give a biologist a shot.\n\nEntropy is a concept which is hard to grasp. Took me long either. Basically it's about the tendency of any given system to have the tendency to reach a state of equality, which is the state of the lowest energy.\n\nSimple terms: on earth with it's gravity, a state of balls liing around randomly is of a lower energy state than the same balls ordered as a pyramid. The former has low entropy, the latter high entropy.\n\nSo the Hear Death of the universe means:\n\nIf all systems prefer to go to a high entropy state, so a state where no change is resulting into a preferable state (state with less energy), then there must be a state where the universe stands still and died.\n\nAnalogy: a living human is very well organized. Very low entropy. If he/she dies and changes to it's basic molecules, a higher entropy state is reached.\nWhy aren't we all dead? Because the sun provides evergy to go down there the entropy ladder. But there is no one feeding the universe new energy. All it has is it's own.\nOnce everything reached the lowest energy state, there is no change, therefore it is dead.\n\nEdit: u/FiveDozenWhales hit it pretty good.",
"Entropy is a measure of how many different ways you can arrange the atoms in a system. If I take a bunch of air molecules and pack them tightly into a neat space, I know they're all in that little bundle. They don't have the freedom to rearrange themselves in different ways. If I open this hypothetical box and let them out into the rest of the atmosphere, they can now put themselves wherever they want.\n\nIt's also a measure of how much energy there is that's not useful: it can't do work. An example is burning wood. The wood is arranged in a neat little bundle. If you release it's energy by setting it on fire, you can harness that energy to do work like spin a steam turbine. Once it's all burnt and that energy has spread out, it's not in a useful state anymore. To collect it you'd be expending about as much energy as you'd get back.\n\nEntropy is a number that's always getting bigger. You can move entropy around and have a spot over here where the entropy decreases, but if you look at the entire universe, the total entropy is always increasing and can't move the opposite direction. This means that energy is slowly spreading out and becoming available to make interesting things happen. After enough time has passed, unless there's some new phenomena that we haven't discovered, everything will be so spread out that the universe will \"die\". There won't be chemical or nuclear reactions or really much of anything happening. It's like letting the air out of a balloon. The balloon wiggles around and makes noise while the air is escaping, but once it's empty, you just have an empty motionless piece of rubber."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
c8bxto
|
what does it mean when a game engine is tied to the fps? why is high fps sometimes casuing problem?
|
playing ff14 atm and the devs said any fps above 90 fps causes game enging problem problem and apparently causing out of bound issues and stuff, how is that related to fps? isnt that more like model collision?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c8bxto/eli5_what_does_it_mean_when_a_game_engine_is_tied/
|
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"I know one example is that some games have physics engines that are tied to FPS so if a game were to be forced to run faster, the originally intended animations and movement of objects can get all crazy and accelerated.",
"So tying a game to frames per second means that certain actions are updated on a per-frame basis. The simplest way to think about this is, consider a ball that bounces up and down. To create this we need to track acceleration, velocity, directional, and current position. Given we have finite resources, we can not track this in a continuous manner. Instead we need to update all these on a schedule. We could set this schedule to be every **X** milliseconds. Alternatively, we can tell the engine to update the numbers every time a frame is rendered. The issue with this, is that as frames increase or decrease, we change how often we update numbers. In this toy example that isn't necessarily a problem.\n\nI will give two real world examples where this does become a problem. The first is Skyrim. Their engine is tied to FPS. In fact, when you go over 60 FPS everything tends to go berserk. But a real issue is with attacking and damage. Attacks occcur and then there is a \"cool down\" before another attack can happen. At higher FPS, these attacks can occur faster than at slow FPS. On the flip side, the player can take far more damage in the same \"wall clock\" amount of time. So in a way the game does not have \"damage per second\" but rather \"damage per frame.\" So at 90 FPS, you can take 50% more damage per second, because there's more frames for this damage to occur in.\" It doesn't work exactly like that, but you get the picture.\n\nThe other example works exactly like that is Call of Duty Advanced Warfare. One of the weapons in that game was a laser cannon that dealt damage every frame. This is fine on consoles which all run the same frames per second. On PC however many players have 100+ FPS. Console generally run between 30 and 60 FPS (I believe AW was locked to 30 FPS.) This meant on PC this laser cannon did over three times the damage it did on consoles.\n\nThe moral of the story? Don't use frames to updated your game."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
136cyw
|
difference between led and lcd and which is the best for visual work.
|
Background story. I do VFX/CG for a living, but due to low finances I couldn't afford a good monitor until now. I'd ask my peers but a lot of them have close to $1200 monitors. Thank you in advance for the answers.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/136cyw/eli5_difference_between_led_and_lcd_and_which_is/
|
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"The terms are not exclusive.\n\nLCDs are liquid crystal displays, 'flat panel' monitors. \n\nThey work a bit like a stained glass window. The liquid crystal sheet can be clear, or it can block the light, or change colors. Behind the liquid crystal sheet is a white \night, called a backlight, that actually provides the light. It lights up everything white, then the liquid crystals change sections of the screen to be a certain color or to be darker to create your image.\n\nUp until a couple years ago, LCDs all used a white fluorescent backlight, called a 'CCFL', the same as those energy efficient spiral bulbs you've probably seen. Recently, though, LEDs have become popular. A LED backlight is thinner, lighter, and uses less electricity than a CCFL.\n\nSo you're not comparing \"LCD vs. LED\", you're comparing \"LCD with CCFL vs. LCD with LED\", which a lot of people don't realize.\n\nFor professional graphics design, you want to look at _URL_0_ for the best reviews. Your important considerations will be color accuracy (you want to see the exact shade of each color that it will be when you print it out or display it in a movie or on the internet) and color gamut (you want a display that can show every color available). Most consumer LCDs use a type of LCD called 'TN', which is pretty poor at those things (it's good at being cheap and having fast response times for games and videos). You'll want to look at 'prosumer' LCDs using IPS, VA, or PLS technology, and read about them on _URL_0_ or another reputable monitor review site that uses professional equipment (such as a spectrophotometer) to measure the color accuracy, not some fly by night computer modding site that just has some knucklehead play Crysis on it and say \"Wow, them there's some puuurty colors\"\n\nAs for which is best, most professional and prosumer stuff is still CCFL, but LED is starting to appear. The current issues with LED are gamut (the amount of colors they are able to display), and flickering at lower brightness (they modulate brightness by turning the LEDs on and off very quickly, faster than most people can see, but some people notice it.). If you go LED, the Dell Ultrasharp stuff is worth a look. I don't know your budget, but something like the U2412M is under $300 and has most of the performance of a professional display."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"tftreviews.co.uk"
]
] |
|
1wifbl
|
how do ac adapters "know" how much electricity to make.
|
Recently I bought a pair of loudspeakers powered with an AC adapter. It has a feature whereby if no signal is detected it will go into a kind of standby mode. The power consumption is lower in this state.
What I don't understand is how this variable amount of electricity generated is done. An AC adapter, as I understand, is just a transformer. If it's plugged into the mains it must be creating a constant amount of electricity whether or not that electricity is used by the device. How is it that it can generate less electricity if the device doesn't need it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1wifbl/how_do_ac_adapters_know_how_much_electricity_to/
|
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"text": [
" > An AC adapter, as I understand, is just a transformer.\n\nThat used to be true. These days many of them are buck-mode switching regulators.\n\nHowever, even with a transformer-based AC adapter...\n\n > If it's plugged into the mains it must be creating a constant amount of electricity whether or not that electricity is used by the device.\n\nNope. It creates a *voltage*, not a current. Think of it like pump that creates a constant pressure, rather than pumping a constant volume. Like, a pump that always generates 2psi, instead of a pump that always pumps 1 gallon per minute. (In mechanics, this is known as a \"dynamic\" pump. As opposed to a \"fixed displacement\" pump.)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4jshtu
|
how does google earth 3d view work?
|
Since Google Maps is photographed with satellites, I'd expect the image to be completely flat. So how do some areas have these precisely modeled buildings and trees? And how are the buildings textured from every side? I thought that satellites could only capture photos from a bird's eye view and not like this: _URL_0_
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4jshtu/eli5_how_does_google_earth_3d_view_work/
|
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"text": [
"Really it's a combination of things. It starts with Google's 45 degree photography system from several years ago, so that you could see more than just a top-down view. Then they opened it up so people could build their own models in Sketchup and place them in GE. That covers a whole lot of it. Beyond that, they use highly-detailed topographic maps (probably taken by NOAA or NASA) to generate the terrain of mountains, etc. Trees are generic models placed programatically. The texture of the buildings/topography is generated by those same 45 degree photos from all four angles, like taping 6 pieces of paper to all 6 sides of a box.\n\nMore info: _URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"Google maps is now done by airplanes flying a grid pattern over the area. They have 6 camara pointing at different angles to capture sides of buildings.\n\nSource: I've done work on a contracted Cessna 182 doing aerial photography for Google\n\nEdit: this is only done in urban areas like in the photo you linked. ",
"You didn't hear it from me but they actually have a team that goes in after the extrapolated data to clean up the extrusion or build basic 3D models of buildings and trees and such.\n\nUsually don't hear about it because it's subcontracted to tech staffing firms and usually done by recent art school graduates."
]
}
|
[] |
[
"http://imgur.com/2XD9OQx"
] |
[
[
"https://www.quora.com/How-are-the-3D-models-of-buildings-generated-on-Google-Earth",
"https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/never-ending-quest-for-perfect-map.html"
],
[],
[]
] |
|
88wqks
|
why is harder for your body to burn fat versus gaining it?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/88wqks/eli5_why_is_harder_for_your_body_to_burn_fat/
|
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"text": [
"Because we evolved in a state of restricted food/energy. Our bodies are evolutionarily trained to hoard whatever little energy it can get in case we need it to survive.",
"It's not. If you have a 3500 calorie surplus, it'll be stored as 1 pound of fat. If you have a 3500 calorie deficit, you'll lose 1 pound of fat. If you religiously count your calories and exercise and have determined your base metabolic rate, your weight gain/loss can be calculated with amazing precision.",
"A fairly average person may need around 2000 calories to keep them going, eat 2000 calories and burn 2000 calories no change in weight.\n\nSo let us say you run/fast jog for an hour non stop you may burn up about 1000 calories.\n\nNow say you eat 200 grams of pringles/crisps in addition to your normal meals. You have just consumed 1000 additional calories, so it is far easier to eat that additional food than do that additional exercise.",
"It's not. You're just living in a time where food is in ample supply in most of the world and most people don't have to do strenuous physical activity if they don't want to.\n\nIt's all about energy balance. Calories in and calories out. There are people who tell you that doesn't work. Those people are what's known as \"wrong.\""
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
5ymwaj
|
how do some music recognition apps detect humming or singing?
|
I know how the technology behind matching songs for original tracks works. But some apps like Soundhound can detect humming and whistling too?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ymwaj/eli5_how_do_some_music_recognition_apps_detect/
|
{
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"text": [
"Essentially it works the same way. [Here's](_URL_2_) a paper by the people behind Shazam where they detail a part of their method. By taking small snippets of waveforms and frequencies, they can compare them to every song in their database with similar waveforms and frequencies. \n\nFor example, if you're humming the star wars theme it will see where your volume increases and decreases and map a basic waveform that it can search against most songs to eliminate them since 95% of music won't be similar to that pattern right off the bat. From there, it looks to see if your volume is increasing at the same time as the songs it believes you're humming.\n\nDisclaimer: This is a bit of speculation combined with knowledge of how the original music matching from Shazam works. The specific process is called [Query by Humming](_URL_1_). [Here's](_URL_0_) a neat paper from Cornell that goes over the process in way more depth. A lot of it is just pattern recognition based on pitch and a hundred other measurable variables."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://www.cs.cornell.edu/zeno/Papers/humming/humming.html",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_by_humming",
"http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/papers/Wang03-shazam.pdf"
]
] |
|
667nxx
|
why do polarized glasses help you see objects underwater, and make rainbow-esque colors when looking through window tint?
|
When in Florida, a boat captain told me I needed polarized glasses to see a shark that was swimming near the boat. Flash forward a few years. Today I purchased a pair of polarized glasses, and had to take them off due to the multi-colored display they caused when looking through my window tint. What causes this effect?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/667nxx/eli5_why_do_polarized_glasses_help_you_see/
|
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],
"text": [
"Polarized light is light with waves moving in a specific axis. [A visualization is very useful](_URL_0_). Light from the sun is not polarized - the waves are going in all directions equally. When sunlight reflects off of something, some of the light becomes polarized parallel to the surface it reflected off of. Polarized sunglasses have filters that block out a lot of polarized light, particularly light polarized in the direction parallel to the ground. This helps cut glare so you can see the object you're looking at more clearly instead of just the glaring light bouncing off of them.\n\nSimilarly, when you look at water without polarized lenses, there's a *lot* of light reflecting off of the surface of the water, and the relatively less light coming from underneath can't compete in your eyes. It's washed out by the glare. Polarized lenses cut the glare coming from the surface so you can see what's underneath better."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.wonderwhizkids.com/resources/content/imagesv4/physics/concept/interference/polarisation1.gif"
]
] |
|
10qq8c
|
how do tax breaks for big businesses create jobs?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10qq8c/eli5_how_do_tax_breaks_for_big_businesses_create/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6ft8s9",
"c6ftoqe",
"c6hbxw4"
],
"score": [
5,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"The theory is that if you allow business to keep more of their profits, that increases the incentive to innovate and expand, therein creating jobs. The problem with this theory is companies only expand if demand for their product requires it. If you have two employees that create 50 widgets a piece and your business sells 100 widgets a day, you have no reason to hire additional labor no matter how much of your profit you get to keep.",
"My first experience with the concept had to do with Ronald Reagan's \"Trickle Down\" theory. If business makes a lot of money, some of it will trickle down through the business to the employees. \n\nGiving tax breaks is a necessary evil though. Let's say that Great Big Corporation, Incorporated (GBCI) has a factory with 1000 people working in it in Scranton, Pa. That's 1000 people with jobs, paying taxes, buying houses, furniture, and doing stuff to make the community prosper. Let's just say that GBCI pays fifty million dollars ( just to have a number) a year in taxes to Scranton. \n\nLouisville Kentucky isn't doing so well, lots of people are out of work, homes and stores are vacant, tax revenues are low, so schools are struggling, people are on welfare and can't find jobs.\n\nThe city planners and councilmen, the mayor all want GBCI to move their factory to Kentucky, so they offer them tax breaks. GBCI will only have to pay $25 million in taxes and Louisville will build access roads to the factory and allow them to ship more easily. So now, 500 construction people have jobs, 1000 citizens have jobs and are not on welfare anymore. They can spend some of their salary at the local food stores, get their cars repaired at the muffler shops and now afford to do things to their homes. Many food service jobs will open to feed those workers and so on.",
"It doesn't, end of story. You can give all the tax breaks to big business you want and they can build all the factories they want and produce all the widgets they want but if the consumers don't have any money to buy the product the tax breaks haven't done anything but put more money where it will do the least good."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
8a9vf9
|
why does a deficiency in iron cause tiredness?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8a9vf9/eli5_why_does_a_deficiency_in_iron_cause_tiredness/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dwwwujv",
"dwx207k",
"dwx528f",
"dwx9nct"
],
"score": [
69,
23,
2,
4
],
"text": [
"Iron in your blood helps to carry oxygen throughout your body. Less iron means less oxygen, which means less energy. ",
"Iron is a key ingredient in making hemoglobin the substance that allows red blood cells to transport oxygen. If there is a deficiency then oxygen is not transported as efficiently. So then since oxygen is a key element in respiration if there is not enough in your body your cells have less energy to do everything.",
"Haemoglobin is a complex consisting largely of iron.the more haemoglobin u have,the more will be your oxygen carrying capacity of the red blood cells.if your body has less iron, less amount of oxygenated blood will reach your organs ,making you tired",
"The oxygen carrying protein in red blood cells is called hemoglobin. Hemoglobin has an iron atom inside of it and this iron atom is what \"pulls\" oxygen into the red blood cell.\n\nIf you are deficient in iron, your body will produce less hemoglobin and therefore, with each breath, you'll receive less oxygen.\n\nOxygen is used by the body to draw energy out of our food. Essentially having this reduced level of oxygen means your body cant use an optimal amount of energy and, because the brain requires a lot of energy to function, this will also make us feel tired."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
3edekz
|
how are fingerprints digitalized so that they can be stored in a database and searched in future to find possible matches?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3edekz/eli5_how_are_fingerprints_digitalized_so_that/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cteaoox"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"A fingerprint is just a pattern, that happens to be found on your fingers, and any two individuals are very unlikely to share the same fingerprints. So what is stored in the database is a \"picture\" of the fingerprint. Computers are really good at pattern matching, and due to the speed at which they can perform calculations the new image can be compared to all images stored in the database one by one and if the same pattern is found in the sample and the one in the database it is flagged as a possible match."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
5mllc2
|
how is a piece of software like "scan/check disk" able to fix a piece of hardware being your "hard drive"? what is going on behind the scenes here and why can't the os just fix these errors on-the-fly?
|
So my UPS just crashed and thus my Win10 desktop PC turned off midway without properly shutting down. After restarting, windows was unable to load properly and I had to restart again using check/scan disk before the OS loaded. It ran the scan and fixed whatever problems were there and touch wood all is well again. But I just don't get what is going on and why does it have to be such a big drama when we don't shut down properly? Why can't the OS just fix these issues on the fly?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mllc2/eli5_how_is_a_piece_of_software_like_scancheck/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dc4g5um",
"dc4h3cc"
],
"score": [
3,
3
],
"text": [
"Check/scan disk is not fixing hardware. It's fixing bad data on the hard drive. The OS was in the middle of writing data when it lost power, and that put the data on the disk in a bad state that makes the OS unable to boot normally. Check/Scan disk is one of the tools that your OS has to fix the problem. It's still part of the OS, but it has to be run before the main, graphical part of the OS can be loaded, since the rest of the OS relies on the data on the hard drive being good. So the OS boots up, allows you to run check/scan disk, and then continues to boot afterward.",
"Your hard drive uses an organization system. Think of it like the index of a book, it's page numbers and table of contents too. There's way too much data to ever keep track of otherwise.\n\nAs it's working, it's constantly updating and editing this index to reflect the drive's contents. Pulling the plug before it can finish it's work leaves it potentially inaccurate, which will screw up something down the line when it tries to locate a resource and can't. So when starting up from a hard shutdown, it needs to take the time to figure stuff out and have everything organized and documented again.\n\nFixing those issues on-the-fly is possible in theory, but it means that a lot of applications would probably quit or time-out and throw an error message because the OS is cleaning up the mess before getting the application the data it needs. So it's better to just do it up front."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
71tb73
|
- is someone born a narcissistic or is it learned behavior?
|
[deleted]
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/71tb73/eli5_is_someone_born_a_narcissistic_or_is_it/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dndabs8",
"dndbked",
"dnddlne",
"dndu3zp"
],
"score": [
44,
21,
9,
2
],
"text": [
"There may be a genetic component, but how a person is raised in the first 2-3 years of life plays a large component. Current theory is that either excessive pampering or excessive criticism increases the odds of developing what's formally called *narcissistic personality disorder.*",
"Technically both, but mostly learned. \n\nJimmy is a narcissist. He always has to be the smartest person in the room. When he is alone in the room, he logs onto ELI5 to answer biology questions to satiate that thirst for being right. \n\nBut Jimmy wasn't always this way. \n\nLittle Jimmy was always smart. But Jimmy always had an even smarter/talented older/younger sibling/friend who his family/friends gave more attention to. This hurt Jimmy. Because Jimmy always felt like he should deserve some of their attention too.\n\nSo he studied harder, worked harder and still, no attention. But he kept at it. And then eventually (and likely due to no actions of his own) Jimmy catches a lucky break and achieves a certain level of success. With this success comes the attention Jimmy always craved. Jimmy uses this new status as his *certificate* to justify how smart/talented he is. He feeds off this attention until eventually the awe value that came with the success (and what likely caused the uptick in attention) dies down. \n\nBut Jimmy is addicted. He thinks he can get this attention back so He pushes his intelligence/talent onto people, and for good measure, brings up his certificate as proof of his status. Ironically, these acts push people away instead of bring them in, and Jimmy turns into a narcissist. \n\n",
"Both, you can born with the potential but can be deterred by a healthy environment, and you can born without any predisposition and develop it in a toxic environment.\n\nPeople with NPD usually born with predisposition and a careless environment triggers the disorder, usually due to parents suffering the condition themselves (genetics+education).\n\nRecent neurological research have demonstrated less volume of gray matter in the left anterior insula (the area that controls empathy and compassion), but the pathology of this is still unknown.",
"It's not either-or, or even those. It's being stuck in an early developmental stage, and NPD is what we call all the maladaptive behaviors.\n\nYou know how you go \"ah-ha!\" and realize things that change things for you? Well as a toddler you realize you're not omnipotent and stuff like that, some of the assumptions that came with seeing people literally \"disappear\" when playing peek-a-boo with your developing brain. Well individuals with NPD didn't do that, and can't. Some blame them being too traumatized by loneliness and rejection, like abuse making moving on impossible, but actually it's just something about them or else we'd see some statistical connections. They key driver is probably a schizoid motif, just an antisocial tendency that favors fantasy very deeply, and turns the initial assumptions of infancy into a fantasy world of omnipotence wherever there's power to be expressed, and finally a sense of injustice and martyrdom when it's all irresponsibly spent.\n\nSo it's a nature thing, and in all our nature, but normal people had the courage to grow. There's strong self-pity in narcissism because it is sort of pitiful."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
7v8tv0
|
how do lotteries/casinos calculate a current jackpot?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7v8tv0/eli5_how_do_lotteriescasinos_calculate_a_current/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dtqeyzw"
],
"score": [
17
],
"text": [
"Every lottery has a certain payback percentage. Say for every dollar you put in, you get 60 cents back.\n\nMost lotteries also have smaller prizes. Some of that 60 cents that they pay back has to go into those, each one taking a chunk out of that expected 60 cents. Now maybe only 40 cents of every dollar that is spent can go to the jackpot.\n\nYou might note that the jackpot has a fine print next to it, saying that it's an estimate. The lottery basically has to predict, based on past data, how many tickets they will sell. You might recall during some of the really big national lottery jackpots, they will re-adjust this value upward because they underestimated the demand. It also creates a feedback loop where even more tickets get sold because the advertised jackpot is higher.\n\nFinally, you might also notice that the jackpot is usually advertised as the sum of payments in an annuity. This lets them advertise a higher jackpot. The cash option is less, because a dollar today is worth more than a dollar 1-20 years from now. The 40 cents in my example is the *cash* value they can add to the jackpot. Because with an annuity they can invest the cash and not pay until later, the 40 cents contribution may end up being more like 80-90 cents in the advertised jackpot, depending on what the interest rates are.\n\nThis concept is called Time Value of Money if you are interested."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
805ufw
|
why does our stomach hurt when we're excited or nervous?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/805ufw/eli5_why_does_our_stomach_hurt_when_were_excited/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dut9xs7",
"duti971"
],
"score": [
5,
11
],
"text": [
"It may be a triggering of the fight-or-flight response. \n\nTo ancient humans, it would have been easier to fight or run from a predator on an empty stomach (ever tried playing football right after a thanksgiving meal?). Your body may be preparing to dump your stomach contents (through entrance or exit) in case you gotta act.",
"Your body is sending more blood to the organs you might need if you need to get shit done i.e. fight a bear - skeletal muscles, heart, lungs, brain. So your gut organs get less blood, and digestion takes a hit. Poor digestion causes nausea, upset stomach."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
xf640
|
chomsky's universal grammar theory, and how the pirahã language gives evidence to the contrary
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xf640/eli5_chomskys_universal_grammar_theory_and_how/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5ltr80"
],
"score": [
10
],
"text": [
"Chomsky is very difficult to pin down, because Chomsky and his defenders alternate between saying two things.\n\nThe first one is this: Universal Grammar is the faculty that humans and only humans have for human language. This much is uncontroversial.\n\nBut the second, more specific things that the Chomskians say is that Universal Grammar (UG) is an innate, language-specific mental organ that consists of a small, fixed set of \"principles\" that generate different languages based on the \"parameters\" that children discover when they grow up. Some important claims that Chomskians make routinely about Universal Grammar:\n\n* UG provides a unique capacity for \"discrete infinity\": the mental ability to grasp a language that can construct infinitely many sentences by using **recursive structure**: for example, constructing sentences that contain sentences (\"The mouse saw that the dog chased the cat that was chasing it\"). Chomsky has claimed that this capacity for discrete infinity exists nowhere other than in UG.\n* UG is *language specific*: it's component of the human mind that exists exclusively for language. (Some critics think that the human capacity for language is just a part of general human ability for thought; others think that even if there is some language-specific stuff, language still uses non-linguistic human capacities, or that the language-specific things are specializations of non-linguistic capabilities.)\n* Poverty of the Stimulus argument: the language use that children hear in their community is not sufficient for them to reconstruct the grammar of their language. This leads to:\n* Innateness: language is \"hard wired\" into the human brain in a language-specific \"mental organ\" as I mentioned above.\n\nOne of the big problems a lot of people have with Chomsky and his followers is that they go around making this second set of bold claims about language and UG, but then when you try to argue against all those details that I listed out they claim that you are arguing against the first thing (that only humans learn and speak human languages). This leads to frustrating situations like if you try, for example, to make a serious contrary response to the Poverty of the Stimulus argument; Chomskians will likely respond that you're claiming that dogs could learn human language. It's maddening.\n\nAnyway, Dan Everett claims that the Pirahã language refutes Chomsky's idea that discrete infinity is a universal feature of human language, because Pirahã has no recursive structure. Or so claims Everett, and it's hard to argue against him because there aren't exactly a lot of experts on Pirahã.\n\nChomsky, as I recall, has responded that even if his claims about Pirahã turn out to be true, this doesn't really affect UG as long as he's not claiming that Pirahã children are incapable of learning languages that do exhibit recursion—and Everett is not claiming this, because Everett of course believes that Pirahã are human beings capable of learning any human language in their childhood. So this is a mild variant of the bait-and-switch that I've accused the Chomskians of doing: make a very specific strong claim (\"the essential thing about human language is discrete infinity, a feature that exists only in human language\") and then when try to you argue against it, pedal back and claim you're arguing against the trivial observation that only humans speak human languages."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
wgkuz
|
rangers f.c.
|
I don't understand the state of the club or anything about it.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wgkuz/eli5_rangers_fc/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c5d5z8j",
"c5d6dco"
],
"score": [
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9
],
"text": [
"Culturally, the Rangers F.C. fans are mostly \"native,\" Presbyterian Scots. Their main rival, Celtic, have a fan base that's mostly Irish-Scots (Scots whose ancestor immigrated to Scotland from Ireland, mostly in the 1800's) and Catholic. Because of that, the teams and the rivalry often are used to express opinions for larger religious and political conflicts (mostly over Northern Ireland).",
"1. [David Murray](_URL_4_) bought Rangers FC in 1988\n2. He ploughs millions of pounds into the club in an attempt to win The Champions League (buying expensive players and paying them very very well).\n3. Rumours of huge tax bill surface.\n4. David Murray puts club up for sale and is bought by [Craig Whyte](_URL_3_) in May 2011.\n5. Now things really go to shit and you be better reading some football forums for very detailed explanations of what's currently happening.\n6. Rangers are placed into administration with debts in the high 10's of millions.\n7. Rangers sold by administrators to Charles Green whose new company Sevco will become 'The Rangers Football Club'\n8. Charles Green tries to strike a deal with creditors who are owed money...it fails.\n9. The liquidation process begins.\n10. Manager, players and staff take pay cut to allow short term survival of club.\n11. Some players leave, although ownership of their contracts is disputed, some players stay.\n12. Other SPL teams vote to not allow The Rangers Football Club (as a newco) in to the SPL.\n13. The Rangers FC must apply for entry to the SFL (lower Scottish leagues).\n14. Looks like entry to Division 1 is definitely not going to happen (but may change if SFA have their way, too much money to lose) so Rangers would start the 2012/13 season in Division 3.\n\nThis is a very shortened list of events and if you want to read more go to _URL_2_ _URL_1_ or _URL_0_\n\nIt's a clusterfuck of strange events that doesn't look like ending too soon."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"http://www.followfollow.com/",
"http://www.rangersmedia.co.uk/",
"http://www.pieandbovril.com/",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Whyte",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Murray_\\(businessman\\)"
]
] |
|
39fgof
|
why is the house of representatives trying to dismantle the united states postal service?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/39fgof/eli5_why_is_the_house_of_representatives_trying/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cs2wu6t"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Because the republican party has turned into the worlds biggest trolls. Their central ethos is that government does not work. To to prove their point, they purposefully break it, so hey can point at systems that aren't working.\n\nExcept for the military, you got to double down on maximizing that shit."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
pv6bu
|
how do flavors spread through refrigerated food?
|
Foods such as stew, lasagna, smoked meat, etc, always taste better after they have sat in the fridge overnight. (If you didn't already know this, Taco Bell bean and cheese burritos are 100 times better when reheated the next day...I always buy an extra dozen to take home for the fridge for snacks later in the week.)
What is happening within the food itself to cause the exchange of these flavors?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/pv6bu/eli5_how_do_flavors_spread_through_refrigerated/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c3silsw"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"They taste better? Odd, I personally think it tastes better fresh. Tends to be more crisp."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3unlvb
|
how is glass perfectly clear when sand isn't? do you get different strange effects by melting different colors of sands?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3unlvb/eli5_how_is_glass_perfectly_clear_when_sand_isnt/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cxga18i"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
" This is a commonly posted topic here. Please see [these previous posts.](_URL_0_) If they don't entirely answer your question, you might create a new post with\na more specific question.\n\nTry our handy Search function sometime. :-)\nFor best results in most cases, use 2 or 3 general, common words\nthat refer to the key concepts in your topic."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all&q=how%20glass%20clear"
]
] |
||
1n5po3
|
why are large road construction projects started in the late summer / fall? the onset of winter seems like it would just make things problematic...
|
Thanks in advance! Googling for this answer just brought up tons of links for construction announcements, etc.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1n5po3/eli5why_are_large_road_construction_projects/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ccfpdjt"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Start of the fiscal year perhaps?"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2d00kq
|
why are people so against drone use when its no different than an fa 18 dropping a bomb?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2d00kq/eli5_why_are_people_so_against_drone_use_when_its/
|
{
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11,
3,
5
],
"text": [
"Its not so much the delivery vehicle, as it is the act itself. \n\nEvery time the US uses one of its drones to launch a missile, it's attacking a citizen or citizens of another country. Often the US is doing this without the permission of the government of that country, and without any real trial of that person.\n\nEssentially it amounts to a lot of really messy assassinations on foreign soil that kill a lot of innocent people.",
"For the record, I agree with you, and I think that people need to remember that drones are very similar to normal aircraft, and do the same things. If we didn't use a drone, we likely would have used another aircraft.\n\nHOWEVER, there are some problems that arise from the fact that the pilots are not in the aircraft, but are instead on the other side of the world.\n\nInstead of being in the midst of the battle, being a part of the war, in the same situation as the people you are fighting against, you are isolated and making decisions from a different vantage point. From a location in the US most likely where you will get off of your shift, go to McDonalds, and then drive home and watch a movie with your kids.\n\nIt sometimes leads to a more detached feeling, that sometimes causes more of a focus on mission objectives and cold hard imagery, as opposed to really understanding the context of what you're watching on the screen.\n\nBut, for the most part, I think that issue is a bit overblown, and frankly sometimes drone pilots can get TOO emotional and attached to their targets after orbiting above them for 24 hours and watching them eat lunch, talk with friends, and walk around their neighborhood, all with close-up telephoto clarity.\n\nIt's just...different. It's a new kind of battle system. That makes everyone nervous.",
"The further you remove killers from the killing, the easier it becomes for them to do. An FA 18 pilot is still faced with the consequences of what he just did.\n\nDrone pilots sit in a container full of computer hardware somewhere pressing buttons. Some of them have gone on record talking about how far removed they are from what they're actually doing. On their end the act is barely any different than working any other desk job while on the receiving end they're destroying things and killing people.\n\nI've read articles where drone pilots state that they have no idea who they're killing and why. Could be terrorists coming out of a shack full of weapons. Could be kids coming out of daycare, they can't tell with the data they're provided.",
"Why not be against both? It's hard to imagine someone differentiating the two, where one is OK but the other isnt. We don't draw lines between murders with a sniper rifle, a grenade, bare hands, or poisoned wine. I've heard answers to this question that imply or directly state that the killer needs to be closer to his victim, so he pays a psychological price, because human life has value and we cannot forget that. Why not just value human life by not killing? ",
"Because most people have no clue what a drone is and are reacting to the word because the media told them it's bad. It's called the ignorant sheeple effect."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
||
10anox
|
religious reformation.
|
How do new religions spring up? Why do old ones "die" and how are new "miracles" or events injected into religious texts or ceremonies?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/10anox/eli5_religious_reformation/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c6btegt"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"People make stuff up."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
1ua03a
|
what is algorithmic trading
|
How does it work?
Why is it important?
Where can one learn to program these algorithms?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ua03a/eli5_what_is_algorithmic_trading/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cefyd90"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
" > How does it work? \n\nComputer programs that, under certain circumstances, buy/sell/hold stock. In other words if the program sees a piece of fruit start to rise, it'll make the decision to sell stock in fruit companies. \n\n > Why is it important? \n\nBecause it can make or lose lots of money for lots of people. Additionally, because the algorithims can make unpredictable decisions. These decisions can have dire consequences for either the company or the stock market. For instance a mistake cost one company $440 million. More disturbing is this:\n\n*Algorithmic and HFT were shown to have contributed to volatility during the May 6, 2010 Flash Crash,[16][18] when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged about 600 points only to recover those losses within minutes.* [source](_URL_0_)\n\nHFT is \"High frequency trading\" aka, Algorithmic trading. \n\n\n\n\n > Where can one learn to program these algorithms? \n\nYou can learn to program one online. However, lots of money is spent on talented programmers and even more money is spent on keeping the algorithms that companies use safe and unseen.\n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_trading#Concerns"
]
] |
|
8fsddh
|
what makes a profession, a trade?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8fsddh/eli5_what_makes_a_profession_a_trade/
|
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"Trades are typically blue-collar work. Most of them are very old professions. Carpenter. Smith. Mason. Potter. Welder. Plumber.\n\nAll trades are professions. Not all professions are trades. I wouldn't consider Project Management to be a trade, for example.\n\nThe line gets a bit blurry when using the phrase \"He's a ____ by trade.\" You're allowed to throw almost any profession in there, and it'll still \"sound right\" to a native english speaker.",
"I'd say the right and obligation of self regulation makes a profession.\n\nWhen the government says; Look, we the public trust you as a group to self regulate, and decide who gets to call themselves a \"professional__________\"\n\nExamples\n\n* Military Officer (profession of arms....but this is at the fringe)\n\n* Doctor\n\n* Lawyer\n\n* Engineer (as in PROFESSIONAL Engineer, not the guy that drives a train or fixes motor cycles in their garage, or writes lines of code)\n\nA profession requires both academic training, a period of professional mentor-ship, registration in a professional body and a code of ethics. \n\nIn most countries, the government passes a law saying \"you guys can set your own professional standards, and decide who is qualified...we trust you guys to figure out the details\"\n\n\nThe term gets abused A LOT.\n\nThere's no such thing as a \"professional baseball player\". Is playing baseball a profession?\n\nThe concept of \"professional vs amateur\" makes the argument even more abstract. \n"
]
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[],
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6q16ex
|
why can we see certain stars in our peripheral vision, but then when we look directly at them we can no longer see them?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6q16ex/eli5_why_can_we_see_certain_stars_in_our/
|
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"My understanding is the parts of the eye that focuses peripheral vision are more light sensitive. Hence when you look directly at the star it becomes invisible ",
"You have two different cells in your retina of your eye that can sense light.\n-cones, that can see color, but only when there is much light\n-rods, that cannot see color, but can see better with little light\n\nthe cones, which works best during the day, are in the center of you vision.\nthe rods are everywhere else.\n\nSo when you see a star at your peripheral vision( very precise words by the way), you use your rods, which are better during the night.\nWhen you you look directly at a star, the light falls on the cones, which are not very light sensitive, so the star seems to disappear.",
"The distribution of light sensitive cells in your eyes changes from the center to the outside. In the center, it's mostly color sensitive cone cells while on the edges of your vision, it's almost entirely low light sensitive rods. Rods are better at picking up contrast and low amounts of light, so the center of your eye is less sensitive to dim things.\n\n[Here's](_URL_0_) an xkcd that gives you a visual of these effects.",
"When I was in the Navy and at sea, sometimes I'd have to stand lookout duty at night. If I saw something in the darkness, I was trained to not look directly at it, but to look about 30 degrees to either side, keeping eyes in motion as indeed, the corners of the eye are much more sensitive.",
"It's because the center of your eyes is full of cells that are sensitive to color, rather than cells sensitive to light.\n\nTo go along with this, from a young age my dad taught me the trick of \"averting your eyes\" for astronomical observation. You first look where you think it should be, then you look a little to the side to actually view the object. I've become quite good at it and now look at most stars indirectly.\n\nEdit: Here's some additional info for people who want to know why this is. You have two types of cells in your eyes. Cones that are designed to detect color (three types) and rods that only detect brightness levels across a wide color range. Your brain mixes those two signals together to give you what you see. It's most important to see color in the center of your vision though so your eye has a concentration of those cones in the center of your vision and you detect color less well outside the center of your vision. This is also why when its dark everything seems to become black and white because the cones in the center of your vision can hardly see any light any more. (Think walking around with a dim night light, or when you wake up in the middle of the night without any lights on but can still see because of various dim sources of light.) The center of your eye has more cones than rods while the periphery of your eye has more rods than cones. Coincidentally, rods see best in the blue/green color range which is why you use red light to not destroy your dark vision as the rods don't see the red very well.",
"The center of your eye is sensitive to vibrant colors and fine detail-- It doesn't work well for black and white in the dark. 15 degrees or so from the center of your field of vision, you have much better night vision.",
"Wait. What? I have never ever noticed this. I am in a extremely dark area where you can see the milky way really clearly at the night. I spent a lot of time looking at stars and always felt like I see more if I look directly at the stars in question. \n\nWhile the explanation makes sense in practice I haven't noticed this at all",
"It happens because you have two types of cells that process light: rods and cones. Cones process color light but are less sensitive to the presence of light. Rods on the other hand do not process color but are more sensitive to changes in light.\n\nYou have more cones towards the center of your vision but more rods towards your peripheral vision. This makes your peripheral vision more sensitive to light, so if you look directly at a star your cones are trying to process color but don't have the sensitivity to pick up the star. Look slightly to the side though and there are more rods just able to process the presence of light.\n\nCool way you can see this for yourself is to have a variety of color markers and grab a random one (don't look at which one yet), hold it to the side at arms length, slowly move it at arms length towards your front, as you do this look straight ahead. You will see the marker in your peripheral first but you will have to move it more forward till you can see its color.",
"The reason you cannot see things in the center of your vision is because there is a small blind spot ast the center of your retina, where the nerve root is attached. You notice it in dark spaces because your brain normally \"fills in\" the missing area with data from both that eyes surrounding, and the other eye. This is most noticeable at night. If you have something with a single led light, look at it from a distance on a dark room, if you look directly at it, it should disappear. ",
"The focus for your vision, the [Fovea centralis](_URL_0_), is tuned for daylight/color vision so it packed with cones. Around it there are more rod cells which are black and white vision and more sensitive to low light. As other people have mentioned here if you avert your eyes and look just to the side of a star they become more visible as you are now seeing them with the more sensitive rod cells.\n\nIf you have good eyes and are away from light pollution you can just make out the Andromeda galaxy with your naked eye (looks like a faint fuzzy blob). It is the furthest thing you'll ever see.",
"There's a night blind spot in your eye where there are no Rods to detect any sort of light. If you stare at something long enough at night you will not see it anymore because of this. ",
"You have cells on your retina called rods (which sense light, but not color) and cones (which sense color but aren't very sensitive to light). Cones are bunched up right in the center of your vision and are almost nonexistent anywhere else. The rods are everywhere BUT the center of vision. This alone might help with this phenomenon, but the real reason you see stars better by looking a little away from it is due to how rods and cones are connected to the brain with a type of neuron called ganglion cells. Every cone (color cells) is connected to one ganglion cell. This means you have a lot more detail or acuity in color vision, but you can't sense light very well. There are usually hundreds of rods connected to each ganglion cell, which means you can't see details very well, but because you're getting so much input from all of these cells at once, a lot more data is sent to the occipital lobe and the thing you're looking at seems brighter. In your peripheral vision, you can't see detail very well, but these ganglion cell groupings help with things like sensing lines, edges, and movement. ",
"Oooh Oooh! I actually know this one!\n\nYou have two different types of light sensors in your eyes. Which are called Rods and Cones (although I forget which one is which). One of them is great for detecting color, and are highly clumped up in the middle of your eye. The other is a black and white sensor, which is great for tracking movement and is significantly more light sensitive, these are concentrated in a ring around the first type (on the outsides of your eye).\n\nThis all makes perfect sense, because when we were knuckle dragging savages hunting in the forest and were constantly subjected to danger, we could detect things with our peripheral vision, then look directly at it to determine whether it was a threat.\n\nThe deal with the star is that you can detect them with your far superior light sensors which point to the edges of your vision, but when you look straight at it, you sacrifice the ability to see it easily for detecting the blue in the night sky.",
"Your eyes have two photoreceptors; rods and cones. Rods allow you to see things in the dark, and cones allow you to see colors in the light. There are no rods in or around the fovea, which is located at the very back of your retina. So when you look straight at a star in the sky, or maybe some tiny glow-in-the-dark item you might have in your room, there are no photoreceptors to be able to see it. \n \nOn a side note, you may notice the star or object you're looking at beginning to shift the longer you look at it. This is because when it's dark, your eyes don't have the environmental stimulus they would have in the light. Without these cues, your eyes will have difficulty focusing on one thing and will begin to shift around."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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"https://xkcd.com/1080/large/"
],
[],
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[],
[],
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],
[],
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] |
||
aaelyf
|
why does slow internet reduce video quality, but has little apparent effect on audio?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aaelyf/eli5_why_does_slow_internet_reduce_video_quality/
|
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"It has effect on audio. It scales down equivalently to whatever you're playing.\n\nTrust me, use headphones and go from HD to 240 or 144p, you'll notice the difference.",
"Several reasons:\n\n1. Video contains a lot more information than audio. If you lose data randomly (as you do with a drop in quality), video is going to suffer more just by chance.\n2. Humans are sight-dominant. We notice visual discrepancies much more acutely than auditory ones.\n3. Human hearing is shit. You can actually cut out a huge amount of information from sound without a human noticing, meaning that compressed audio might be mistaken for the original.\n4. Human brains are good at filtering out audio noise. The compression artifacts in audio are generally consistent enough that you can quickly learn to understand the sound around the noise, whereas video compression artifacts are almost impossible to ignore.",
"Audio bandwidth requirements are tiny compared to video requirements\n\nYou can transmit pretty good audio with just 192 kbps, youtube suggests 384 kbps for stereo audio.\n\nVideo files have a lot more information in them. Youtube suggests that a 360p video file should be a 1 Mbps bitrate, that means a low quality video needs 5x as much bandwidth as decent quality audio. A 720p video is around 5 Mbps or 25x the audio bandwidth requirements. Bitrates increase pretty quickly ramping up to around 85 Mbps for 4k 60 fps HDR video which is 226x higher than is needed for good stereo audio."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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||
1yrq5g
|
are fake items from china just as good as the name brand item?
|
For example: I can go to the flea market and get a "fake" pair of rayban sunglasses for less then 10 bucks that looks and feels just like the real thing. Since the real items are mass-produced and cost little to make, are they the same as the fake ones or is there actually quality in a name brand?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1yrq5g/eli5_are_fake_items_from_china_just_as_good_as/
|
{
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"cfn64na"
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"text": [
"Chinese corporate heads counterfeit and steal intellectual property, they then produce the item and sell it for 1/10th the price. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
69yj1p
|
what changed in aids/hiv drugs, that the disease is no longer a death sentence?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/69yj1p/eli5_what_changed_in_aidshiv_drugs_that_the/
|
{
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"dhab3yr",
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7
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"text": [
"Anti-retroviral drugs. Over time, a few drugs that inhibit the growth of HIV have been created and distributed. When taken consistently, these drugs can often reduce the amount of the virus active in the body to very low levels. ",
"The way the HIV virus copies itself is it latches onto a protein and uses an enzyme reverse transcriptase to allow itself to create two copies of the viral RNA which is then fused into a single segment of DNA which then invades another cell and continuously repeats this process. \n\nModern HIV medications make it so that reverse transcriptase is very slightly irregular so when the virus attempts to use it, the chances of RNA defects are considerably higher - meaning that when the virus completes it's cloning cycle the virus is mutated and unable to effectively bind to the protein in other cells.\n\nThe reason people with HIV live much longer now is simply because the virus is much less likely to successfully clone itself and proceed to further infect cells. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
||
7q86u7
|
how come when we bounce/throw up a ball/object, we can move forward and hit the physical object, but when we are inside a moving object such as a car, train, etc and we bounce/throw an object/ball, how come we don't hit the object while it's in the air?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7q86u7/eli5_how_come_when_we_bouncethrow_up_a_ballobject/
|
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"text": [
" sorry if it's hard to understand, but I also drew a picture as well.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Its hard to decipher what you're asking, but what I gather is that you're asking why the ball moves with you in a car, but doesn't if you throw it while standing.\n\nIf you're holding a ball in a car, then the ball has energy stored in it. The reason **you** move when your car moves is because the seat is pushing you forward, which stores energy in your body.\n\nThe same can be said for the ball you're holding; it gets just as much velocity as you do from the car, except indirectly through your hand as you grip it.\n\nTherefore, when you throw it in the air, it already has just as much forward velocity as you do, so it moves with you.\n\nWhen you throw a ball from a standing position **and then start walking**, you gain momentum from pushing on the ground. The ball doesn't develop additional forward velocity because you aren't holding it. Therefore, only you are moving forward.\n\nIf you stood on the roof of a car and walked forward then the same thing would happen because motion is relative."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://imgur.com/gallery/s9d4G"
],
[]
] |
||
34h7jj
|
why does angular momentum point the way it does?
|
Angular momentum follows the right hand rule, where it is the cross of I and w, I know that. However, what I don't understand is why this cross product applies to real life. Couldn't the angular momentum just as easily follow the "opposite right hand rule" for a symmetrical spinning disk?
EDIT: I'm not looking for a restatement of how the cross product works. I understand that, and understand that it DOES point one way, as seen in my physical experiments. However, what I'm wondering is WHY it points that way. Why does it seem to follow the right hand rule in real life?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/34h7jj/eli5_why_does_angular_momentum_point_the_way_it/
|
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" > Couldn't the angular momentum just as easily follow the \"opposite right hand rule\" for a symmetrical spinning disk?\n\nYes. It's just a convention. We could have picked the opposite convention, and physics would still work the same way.",
"The cross product is a mathematical operation that is not symmetric. That is AxB is not the same as BxA. Just like how A-B is not equal to B-A. So that means that if you are going to use it, you need to set a standard in how it's used otherwise the results won't be consistent. So between the equations for angular momentum and the definition of the cross product, you end up with the right hand rule. It could also be the left had rule if you changed one of the standards, but it can't be both right and left hand since that would not be consistent.",
"Very strictly speaking, the cross product is not \"really\" a vector, which is where the problems come from. It's an object that can be identified with a vector in a pretty nice way, but it requires a choice of orientation (right-hand or left-hand). The choice itself is arbitrary, so long as it's consistent."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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|
3yfd2p
|
why is cognitive dissonance so painful?
|
There are plenty of eli5s to ~define~ cognitive dissonance, the uncomfortable situation of having two conflicting beliefs. But how does it cause so much stress? What's going on?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yfd2p/eli5_why_is_cognitive_dissonance_so_painful/
|
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"Ego is a word used to describe the thing that is a person. We could think of this almost as a shield that surrounds an individual's self confidence. The problem is that the larger the shield, the further everything is from you during an experience. We often get worried about that shield coming down because of the damage that can be done when we feel \"Unsure\" about our own capability to do something.\n\n\nIf we have a strong belief that we stand to, being a good person, it can be very painful to admit to ourselves that we do \"bad\" things. So instead we attempt to convince ourselves that the reasoning for doing it caused this \"bad\" thing to truthfully be \"good\".\n\nThat internalized struggle causes high levels of anxiety. It would be very similar to the anxiety one would attain if they were constantly arguing with their friend/spouse. \"What is he/she thinking?\" \"I Wonder if they are really angry with me?\"\n\nIt becomes hard to trust someone when they do something that falls outside your self designed compass of morality. Especially if that person is yourself.\n",
"Here are some of the sticking points I've noticed for some people suffering cognitive dissonance:\n\n1. Admitting your own weakness (i.e. you might be wrong) may lower your estimation of your own knowledge\n1. Related to that, you may lose the security of having a pat answer on the subject \n1. If you've identified by a given belief, you now may lose part of that identity (e.g. \"If I'm not a Christian, what does that mean?\")\n1. There may be social costs to holding a minority opinion on a controversial subject (e.g \"My friends would think I'm nuts if I wanted to discuss what happened with Building 7.\")\n1. There's the new weight of knowing you may be wrong on other subjects too\n1. Playing catch-up re-learning basics of your dissonant subject is time you can't spend making advances on other areas of interest.\n\nIn effect, it puts you on unstable footing. It's one reason I insist on not identifying by my current opinions. My opinions are merely what I think of things at the moment, not the core of my personality or social position.",
"In general people like to understand whats going on, and to feel intelligent. We want the world to make sense, and for a cause to lead to an effect. This makes us feel safe and in control (or at least feel like we understand and can prepare for what we can't control.)\n\nHolding two conflicting opinions destroys this. I think RainTea is a good person, and i base my interactions with RainTea on this fact. \n\nI have a belief that good people don't randomly punch people in the face. I just saw RainTea punch a stranger in the face.\n\nNow my understanding of life is thrown into chaos. Is RainTea not a good person (in which case should I have introduce RainTea to my sister, or should i be spending time with RainTea, or is my judgement of who is a good person totally baseless in which case what does being a good person mean... ahhhh!)? Or maybe good people do turn violent randomly, in which case i can't feel at ease around my friends, and is my grandma about to deck me and maybe i should take up self defense and is my insurance enough if my coworker punches me in the mouth?\n\nNono, much easier for me to decide that that stranger did something to RainTea that would make even a good person punch someone. Then everything else i believe is safe. \n",
"the short answer is that if we discover that we are wrong about one thing that we believe to be true, then there is the possibility that we are wrong about more things...possibly many things...possibly everything.\n\nthis 'wrong about everything' realization calls into question our whole view of the universe and our place in it.\n\nno god? then no afterlife? then no soul? then no judgement day? then what stops me from doing whatever i want?\n\nthe string of questions that have to be re-thought is endless, once you start pulling at the loose threads of what we call our perception of reality."
]
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[],
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66c9xt
|
what exactly are the defining characteristics of modernism, postmodernism, and post-postmodernism?
|
I've always found that despite always hearing periods, books, artworks, etc. referred to as "modern" or "postmodern" I lack any concrete idea about what these descriptions actually mean. Even Wikipedia doesn't provide a simple answer. I understand that the terms may elude simple definitions, but what's the simplest way possible to explain modernism, postmodernism, and post-postmodernism?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/66c9xt/eli5_what_exactly_are_the_defining/
|
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"Modernism and Post-Modernism are extremely broad terms that describe mass cultural movements in Western art and philosophy. To understand them, one must also understand the general evolution of Western philosophy, especially the concepts of Rationalism and Romanticism.\n\nIn short:\n\n**Modernism is an extension of Romanticism (which was a revolt against Rationalism)**\n\n**Post-Modernism is a critique of Modernism.**\n\nI don't know much about Post-Post-Modernism (what a name) as I believe it is still in its infancy.\n\nIn long form:\n\nI'll try to start with Rationalism. Rationalism developed through the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and encouraged the use of empirical observation and reason to determine the truth of the universe. A quintessential example of Rationalist thought is Descartes and his famous conclusion, \"I think, therefore I am\". To keep it brief, Descartes theorized that human beings may not necessarily be able to trust their own senses - you may see, hear, or touch an object, but how can you trust that what you see is the truth rather than a very elaborate illusion. He therefore uses deductive reasoning to determine the first thing that can objectively be determined as real - because you think, you therefore *must* exist as a real, and not illusory, entity. Descartes is thus using deductive reasoning to determine what is objectively real.\n\nRomanticism was a reaction to the changing society of 19th-century Europe - industrial and scientific developments were quickly rendering ancient institutions and social orders obsolete. It was thus a reaction against the values of Rationalism that had been quite important in developing the modern scientific method and driving that progress forward.\n\nRomanticism was also far more of an art movement than a true philosophical movement. It evoked imagery of a romantic past, and emphasized the use of meta-narratives to justify an argument. It focuses more on the intangible than the tangible. For example, a common theme of the Romantic movement was that scientific progress disrupts the natural order and is thus dangerous and volatile - Mary Shelley's *Frankenstein* is one of the most famous works of the Romantic movement, and concerns this theme.\n\nIt is from Romanticism that many intangible modern political concepts spring. Manifest Destiny, Ethnic Nationalism, Zeitgeist, \"Human Spirit\", etc.\n\nIn between here, Realism developed as an art movement, a reaction to Romanticism. It emphasized realistic depictions of its subjects and sympathized more with the lower strata of society and new developments rather than the upper strata and an idealized past.\n\nModernism was an evolution of Romanticism. Modernism utilized meta-narratives, but also encouraged the criticism of everything, including the old order. It rejected Realism. Where Romanticism was more concerned with the dangers of human progress and a return to an idealized past, Modernism was more concerned with finding out where wayward progress went wrong and finding out what is \"holding back\" true progress. As Modernism developed as an art movement, it encouraged the use of more abstract forms of creative expression - hence the stereotype of \"modern art\" being incomprehensible.\n\nWorld War I was a huge influence on the rising Modernist movement. The horror and destruction of that war showed how dangerous and destructive modern industrial warfare could be. But World War I also represented a huge shake-up of the European political order - old monarchial empires were toppled in favor of democratic republics or communist states. And so as a political movement, Modernism examined the meta-narratives surrounding Western society - what holds back social progress, and how can that change.\n\nIt is from this that we see the rise of social movements against perceived oppression: progressivism, socialism, feminism, civil rights, popular sovereignty. These are all movements centered around a meta-narrative of one group being oppressed in some way by another - laborers by capitalists, women by men, minorities by a majority, ethnic groups by other ethnic groups.\n\nPost-Modernism developed as a result of the trauma of World War II. It is primarily a critique of Modernism. A central part of Post-Modernism is the inherent unreliability of human judgment - humans are not inherently rational creatures, and will commit irrational and self-defeating actions if they *believe* those actions will be beneficial. Post-Modernism thus emphasizes the inherent unreliability of those Modernist meta-narratives - these meta-narratives are formulated by humans, and are thus an unreliable source. A pretty good example of how this relates to WWII, and the inherent unreliability of meta-narratives, is the Nazis themselves - the Nazi ideology heavily relied upon the use of extreme (and false) nationalist and racist meta-narratives to justify itself.\n\nThus, in both Post-Modernist philosophy and art you will see a heavy emphasis on criticism of institutions and their foundations. Overcoming oppression on the surface-level is not enough - we must examine and change the factors and flaws deep within our culture and society in order to progress as a species. Thus you get emphasis on concepts such as moral relativism in Post-Modernism than in Modernism.\n\nI'm more familiar with the artistic side of Post-Modernism, and can give several examples of Post-Modern art. One of the most famous is [\"The Treachery of Images\"](_URL_0_). It is a painting of a pipe, with the caption reading \"This is not a pipe\". The image is not lying - it's not a pipe, it's the painting of a pipe. But when you look at it and are asked what it is, you wouldn't say \"That's a painting of pipe\" you would likely say \"That's a pipe\". I hope this isn't too abstract. Essentially, the image encourages the observer to question their assumptions about what they are seeing.\n\nPost-Modern film and television tend to examine and critique the tropes and norms of their genre or medium (as a Post-Modern social movement would critique the norms and values of their culture). For example, a big part of *Scream*'s appeal and popularity was its willingness to extensively explore and make fun of the conventions of the slasher genre, which had been run into the ground by the mid-1990s. *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* examines the conventions and cliches of the horror and high school drama genres, and is positively soaked in existentialist philosophy.\n\nAnd in literature, a good example of a Post-Modern book series is *A Song of Ice and Fire*, which brutally deconstructs the conventions of the high fantasy genre. And [Deconstruction](_URL_1_) is a key weapon in the arsenal of the Post-Modern artist or activist - examine a convention or norm, explore its unfiltered effects and origins, and try to make it different.\n\nAs for Post-Post-Modernism, again I am unfamiliar, but because it is a reaction to Post-Modernism I assume it has to do with rejecting the relativist and deconstructionist beliefs of the Post-Modernists.",
"I just graduated with my doctorate in communication, my dissertation squarely within the critical cultural realm, and I still barely understand these terms. Thanks for asking! ",
"Modernism is the realization that the audience is part of the performance and/ or exhibit. Post modernism is a critique of that idea and post post modernism is a critique of THAT idea",
"I did a module on contemporary American fiction last term at university -- I study English literature -- so I'll add my two cents on how postpostmodernism was presented there.\n\nEssentially, it's what you'd expect; how do the generation of writers born after the postmodern epoch of the 80s/90s deal with that intellectual shadow hanging over them?\n\nThe two writers we associated most strongly with the term were David Foster Wallace and Jennifer Egan. You can make relatively decent arguments for them both actually being just postmodern, but hey, it's the humanities: you can argue a lot of things.\n\nIn brief, their takeaway from postmodernism was one of overbearing cynicism. True knowledge is impossible. Capitalism is destructive and capricious. There was a shift from ontology to epistemology, usually in the vein of \"you can't ever really know anything, har har!\". Mass-media was thought to be profoundly affecting society, usually in a bad way. We lived in a hyperreal late-capitalist wasteland of cultural emptiness, copies without originals, etc. etc.\n\nThe postpostmodernists, essentially, got tired of this cynicism and decided to have a go at fighting back. David Foster Wallace is linked with the term 'sincerity' for this reason, and a lot of his works deal with themes of how to break down the endless barriers of irony, cynicism, facades, mind-games and double-guesses of academia and postmodern discourse to arrive at actual sincerity. Egan goes at it from a different tack, essentially (I'm summarising in very broad strokes) saying that if we're strictly historical, if we very carefully map out how our culture got to where it is now, we might be able to understand things -- and change them.\n\nEverything I've said here is up for debate. That said, no-one else has yet offered much on postpostmodernism, so I hope you find this useful. I welcome any questions.",
"Modernism is more or less the first major cultural era to happen after industrialism really settled in. So you see a lot of cutting edge/boundary pushing stuff. Sort of a \"We live in the future now, let's damn well act like it!\" Pop art, nuclear technology, goofy Free Jazz, the transistor, etc.\n\nPostmodernism (at least to me) is the backlash to modernism and is super snarky, pretentious, socially aware, and critical in comparison. Sort of a \"Your future sucks and needs to be better.\" You see a lot of weird -isms pop up here.\n\nPostpostmodernism is a more gentle backlash to the previous backlash and is sort of a \"Christ, that was exhausting. Let's just try to get our shit together and get on with it.\" I like to think of it as that moment while you're still hungover from the night before and you're super motivated to be a better person with better goals.\n\nIn food terms: Modernism is a TV dinner (Salisbury steak), Postmodernism is sushi (while it was still \"new\" in America) with a bunch of zig-zagged sauce all over, Postpostmodernism is a Chipotle burrito after they stopped using unethically raised chickens and also you got it delivered using an app on your phone.",
"Postmodernism is the idea that if you express yourself in ways that are sufficiently unintelligible that you can fool the uninitiated into believing that you are saying something profound. This is quite informative _URL_0_"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/MagrittePipe.jpg",
"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deconstruction"
],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[
"http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html"
]
] |
|
wbwkj
|
supreme court decision on citizens united
|
How does it make corporations people and money - the free speech? I'm also very interested to learn about other consequences for American political campaigns that this decision brought. Thanks
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wbwkj/eli5_supreme_court_decision_on_citizens_united/
|
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"To understand *Citizens United*, we actually have to go back to some earlier cases to get the context.\n\nThe first concept to understand here is that the line of cases beginning with *Buckley v. Valeo* and continued in *Citizens United* basically said \"the ability to spend money to support a given ideological view (but not to support candidates directly) is part of ones free speech.\" In order for me to have the freedom of speech in politics, I need to be able to buy an ad on television (if I want to) which says \"legalizing marijuana is good\" or \"legalizing marijuana is bad.\"\n\nThe first important distinction is between \"hard money\" (direct contributions to candidates, which can be limited) and \"soft money.\" Soft money is money spent by an independent entity (not associated with a campaign) which cannot directly support or oppose any individual candidate. At best, it'd be advertisements that say \"SOPA is bad.\" In reality, the rules are such that they can say \"SOPA is bad, Lamar Smith supported SOPA. Lamar Smith is in the breast pocket of the RIAA. Tell Lamar Smith to protect Americans, not corporations.\"\n\nUnder *Buckley* as long as the advertisement does not say \"vote for,\" \"elect,\" \"support\", \"cast your ballot for\", \"Smith for Congress\", \"vote against\", \"defeat\", \"reject\", or any variations of those, it has been treated as an \"issue\" ad, rather than a campaign expenditure.\n\nThis led to the rise of so-called Political Action Committee (the PACs you hear so much about). Their purpose was to spend money on \"issue ads\" in the hopes of influencing voters, but often were using only sham issue ads. Think about the Swiftboat ads against John Kerry. They were treated as \"issue ads\", even though they were clearly intended to influence voters to vote against a specific candidate.\n\nAfter *Buckley* Congress wanted to rein in that kind of expenditure, and so included in McCain-Feingold (a campaign finance reform bill) a provision that made it illegal to run those kinds of ads within 30 days of an election.\n\n*Citizens United* was a court case stemming from that law, where the Supreme Court ruled that such a restriction was unconstitutional.\n\nThe reasoning was based primarily on the previous right to spend money to influence other voters being part of free speech, and the right of individuals to associate to pool their political voices and campaign expenditures. So, an association of people (any association of people) has the right to spend money on issue ads, at any time during the campaign.\n\nThe Court did do away with the \"magic words\" from *Buckley*, but that hasn't changed the character of \"issue ads\" much.\n\nBy reaffirming that spending money to influence voters is free speech (that's the \"money = speech\" misrepresentation so many people make), and providing associations with the same protections as any individual's free speech in this area it gave corporations, and especially PACs, the ability to spend money on issue ads without limits.\n\nNow, this does *not* mean that they can contribute to campaigns themselves. Corporations cannot donate to campaigns at all, and PACs can only donate $5,000 to any individual campaign. But, a corporation could donate to a PAC, and that PAC can spend an unlimited amount on these issue ads.\n\nThe concern is that a corporation would be able to go to a candidate and say \"do this, and we'll direct our PAC to spend money supporting you, if you don't we'll direct our PAC to spend money opposing you.\"\n\nThe problem with all of the concern about that \"corrupting\" influence on politics is that it requires the assumptions (a) that the American people decide who to vote for based on who spends the most, and (b) that the American people's choices can't be trusted to be above undue influence."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
4m37nv
|
how do the computers in a car boot so fast?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4m37nv/eli5_how_do_the_computers_in_a_car_boot_so_fast/
|
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"they arent booting an operating system, they are much simpler. They dont ever turn off either... they are always powered on, low power mode, but they are ready to listen for FOB commands.",
"The reasons is car computers only have a few select programs and are optimized to run just those programs.\n\nHome computers run dozens to hundreds of programs, and when a computer boots up it has to initiate a lot of those programs. Thus a longer startup time.",
"The computer in your house is a very powerful generic machine built to handle being able to do any random thing you might want it to do. This flexability takes an enormous amount of extra overhead, a system built to take in any command, so has to account for infinite possibilities. Such a massive system take a long time to boot. \n\nBy contrast, something that is super dedicated to doing one thing and only has a very limited set of things it can do can boot extremely quickly. \n\n\nAlso, 60 seconds is a long time with an ssd and i7. Many systems with that setup can boot in under 10 seconds",
"They don't run Windows.\n\nThere are different priorities. Knowing exactly which programs you run and which hardware you use helps in avoiding pointlessly waiting for things to happen or checking if everything is as expected. Desktop graphical environments are typically extremely heavy, your devices don't use that either, so that's a big save right there. Then you have various device drivers, background services and whatnot starting up just in case you need it all.\n\nWindows generally has very little room for configuration, but you could configure Linux to very fast bootup times if you really wanted, but you'd have to start giving up plenty of cool features that modern desktop environments give you. Like, if you start text-only shell, you can boot Linux to login screen within a second. You could then start stripping down Linux kernel itself to achieve even faster bootup times.\n\nYou could have Linux kernel stripped down to a couple of megabytes, but then there are special embedded system operating systems which can be fit into just some kilobytes. These could then be even faster for many purposes."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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||
ln5z5
|
attention deficit disorder (add)
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ln5z5/eli5_attention_deficit_disorder_add/
|
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"Do you mean how it works or what it is?\n\nIt is different for everyone, but for me, unless I am super interested or actively involved in something, I will find myself thinking or interested in something else every 15 to 20 seconds or so. Its as if the guy in the driver's seat in my brain gets pushed out of his chair and forgets what he was doing so he does something else. Very frequently I will be in conversations and realize I'm thinking about video games or going for a run or something and people will be like \"hello?\". \n\nIt only inhibits things that require full continuous attention like class, conversations, and even shit I love, like video games. ",
"Do you mean how it works or what it is?\n\nIt is different for everyone, but for me, unless I am super interested or actively involved in something, I will find myself thinking or interested in something else every 15 to 20 seconds or so. Its as if the guy in the driver's seat in my brain gets pushed out of his chair and forgets what he was doing so he does something else. Very frequently I will be in conversations and realize I'm thinking about video games or going for a run or something and people will be like \"hello?\". \n\nIt only inhibits things that require full continuous attention like class, conversations, and even shit I love, like video games. "
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
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] |
||
30fwod
|
how can vessel offer such a better economic deal for youtubers than youtube currently is?
|
As many of you know, many popular YouTubers are moving to Vessel, a new video hosting platform. They are putting their content up there before they put it on YouTube, as to entice viewers. The reason for this being that Vessel is offering content creators more money per certain number of video views, as well as in relation to the number of subscribers one has. On top of this, Vessel's ads are only three seconds long.
My question is how it is economically feasible/possible for Vessel to do this? YouTube is owned by Google for crying out loud, yet they give such little payment (compared to Vessel) to their content creators. Why isn't YouTube giving the money they do have and how is Vessel offering money from out of nowhere?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30fwod/eli5_how_can_vessel_offer_such_a_better_economic/
|
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"YouTube only gets revenue from ads, Vessel get a small amount of money from ads (not sure how much money a company will give for 3 seconds), the majority of their revenue comes from the viewers, you pay $2.99/month for the service (first year is free if you do it by tonight). \n \nMany of the YouTubers who are also doing Vessel have millions of subscribers on YouTube. If a channel with 3 millions gets only 1% to sign up with Vessel, that's $90,000/year right there in total revenue. Let's say it's only a 30/70 deal, that's $27,000/year for the Youtubers to do basically nothing different."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
2ilraa
|
if you were on a ship traveling at the speed of light, and ran from on side to another, would you relatively be traveling faster than the speed of light to a outside observer?
|
I just had this question before going to bed a few days ago, and just remembered it again.
Essentially, if it was possible to measure this in the first place, would a person (or any movable object) moving forward in, or on, another object that is traveling at the speed of light, essentially be moving at a speed that is faster than the speed of light to an outside observer.
I was watching a movie that night and it had a usual car chase scene, and the guy went onto the hood and jumped forward onto the car in front of him. SO essentially he was at one point moving faster than the car relatively to a third party observer. So i had a thought later that night about this question. If a large ship was moving in one direction at the speed of light, and on that ship there was a person running from the back to the front (front being in the direction the ship is moving), would he then be essentially moving faster than the speed of light to a third party observer?
Thank you for anyone that can answer.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ilraa/eli5_if_you_were_on_a_ship_traveling_at_the_speed/
|
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"You can't go at the speed of light.\n\nThat said, velocity does not work additively like that; apparent velocity of someone on a ship moving at velocity v while the person on the ship moves at velocity u relative to the ship is the following: \n\ns = (v + u) / (1 + vu/c^(2)) \n\nThe normal v + u we use for everyday life is because at sufficiently small vu the bottom half is basically just equal to 1. \n\nIf the ship is going at c (which, I reiterate, is impossible), this is: \n\ns = (c + u) / (1 + u/c) \n\nu is some fraction (n) of c. (You can skip this step, but I parse it better this way and assume other people might, too) \n\ns = (c + nc) / (1 + n) \n\nFactor out c... \n\ns = c(1 + n)/(1 + n) \ns = c\n\nBasically, even if you could get your ship to c, anything moving on that ship would appear to also be moving at c to an outside observer.",
"Okay, I get that it's not possible for a ship to move at the speed of light. But let's say I'm on a cruise ship. The cruise ship is moving at 25 mph. I run from the back of the ship to the front of it at 10 mph. Joe is in a rowboat 100 yards away from the ship. To Joe, does it look like I'm running 35 mph?\n\nAlso, semi-related, I don't understand why in OP's scenario everyone is saying that to the observer it would look like my space ship was standing still. If it's moving as fast as anything in the universe can possibly move, wouldn't it just be an imperceptible blip?",
"Okay, some people have mentioned that you can't actually accelerate to the speed of light, but I don't think that's the point of the question.\n\nYou could realistically travel very close to the speed of light and \"run\" at a very high speed in the same direction within your ship. Theoretically there's nothing impossible about that. So would those speeds add up to more than the speed of light? The answer is no.\n\nThe important thing to know is that if you measure the speed of light (in a vacuum), you will always get the same result - no matter how fast you're traveling yourself. We know this, we can measure it, and it was also what initially tipped of Einstein & co. to the fact that our classical understanding was wrong.\n\nSo let's say an outside observer clocks your ship at, say, 285,000 km/s (that's roughly 95% the speed of light). You're moving within the ship using your fancy rocket shoes at a speed of 30,000 km/s. You'd think you can just add those speeds and any observer would clock you at 315,000 km/s, which is more than the speed of light. But that's wrong. For simplicities sake, let's say your ship is 30,000 km long. So from your perspective you take one second to go from back to front. The observer, however, will see you moving slower. This is called time dilation - from his perspective, your time is slowed down. Not only that, but your ship would also seem longer to him, which is called length dilation. These effects add up in such a way that no matter what you do and how many velocities you stack up, no outside observer would ever see you traveling faster than the speed of light. The faster you're trying to go, the more your time would seem slowed down and the longer the distance you have to run would seem longer.",
"[Veritasium answered a similar question. What happens if you look in a mirror inside train going at the speed of light? Would you be able to see your reflection? To be able to see your reflection, does that mean light had to travel twice the speed of light to reach the mirror?](_URL_0_)\n\nFirst off, we have to understand the principle of relativity. This states in all inertial frames of reference, the laws of physics are the same. For example, in a moving car that's not speeding up/slowing down, if you drop a ball, it will fall straight down. It's also why on an airplane, you can move about normally even though you're traveling hundreds of miles per hour.\n\nTherefore, you have to be able to be able to see your reflection. This seems to imply that the light going from your face to the mirror is traveling at twice the speed of light and the light going from the mirror to your eyes is not moving at all. This then seems to violate the idea of the speed of light being the universal constant.\n\nTo satisfy both the principle of relativity and the speed of light as a constant, Einstein deduced that the faster you go, time slows down and space contracts in the direction you are traveling. An observer inside the train would not be able to tell that space has contracted. As a result, inside the train, you can see light traveling at the normal speed, and from an outside observer, light has traveled at the speed of light and has crossed a contracted length of train. However, weird things would happen as you get closer and closer to the speed of light. Your train's length would get closer and closer to zero and time would come to a standstill. Once you reach the speed of light, the length would be zero and time would not move.\n\nSo going back to your question, no you would not be traveling faster than the speed of light. But let's say the spaceship was going 99% the speed of light, and you were somehow running 2% speed of light relative to the spaceship's frame of reference. From an outside observer, you would not be going 101% the speed of light because spacetime is different inside the spaceship (i.e. from an outside observer's reference, you crossed a shorter distance in a longer period of time).",
"Apologies for this mess. It got slightly out of hand as I wrote it...\n\nThe speed of light is very special and weird. It is always the same no matter how fast you're going compared to where the light is coming from. You can't actually go the speed of light, but let's say you're going very close to it (99% or so), and let's look at it from two perspectives. This is going to seem a little round about, but it will get at the core concept of relativity. If you hate stories, skip to the *** section. (Technical note: for the story of Alice and Bob, they measure their velocity by the Doppler shift of light, their acceleration with on board accelerometers, and their distance by a telescope measurement of how wide they look to each other.)\n\nAlice is on the space ship, and Bob is at a space station. Alice has a special space ship, and doesn't need to ever worry about fuel. Alice starts at Bob's space station, but decides she wants to visit Alpha Centauri. Alpha Centauri is 4.2 light years away, and Alice plans on going near the speed of light to get there as fast as possible. Bob says that means she can't get arrive at Alpha Centauri sooner than 4.2 years from now. Alice bets Bob that she can, but only by the time on the clock she's taking with her.\n\nThey decide to keep tabs on each other, and Alice starts accelerating away from Bob towards Alpha Centauri at a constant rate. At first, Bob watches Alice speed away and nothing seems odd. He measures her velocity every 10 minutes, and every time he finds she is going faster by the almost exactly the same amount. This makes sense, because she is accelerating at a constant rate (same amount of additional velocity per time).\n\nHowever, after a while Bob's measurements start to change noticeably. Alice seems to be accelerating more slowly than before. He sends Alice a message asking if anything is wrong (don't worry about how). Alice measures her own acceleration with an accelerometer and finds that it is the same as always, and she tells Bob that nothing is wrong.\n\nBut to double check, she looks at the space station and measures how fast she is moving away from it at different points in time. She does the math, and finds out that she seems to be accelerating more slowly away from the space station than her engines are pushing her. However Alice remembers her lessons on relativity and knows this is normal, and decides not to bother Bob about it.\n\nEventually, Bob looks at Alice and measures her velocity to be 99% the speed of light. Bob can no longer detect any acceleration of Alice's space ship. More alarmingly, Alice's ship now appears to be much shorter than it originally was. \n\nBut on the ship Alice measures her acceleration and it is the same as always, even though Bob's space station doesn't seem to be falling away any faster. Alpha Centauri also doesn't seem to be approaching any faster than 99% the speed of light. Weirdly, the distance between the space station and Alpha Centauri seems to be only a few light weeks now, only 2% of what it originally appeared to be! And the more she accelerates, the shorter the distance becomes (but her measured velocity relative to Alpha Centauri or Bob doesn't appreciably change).\n\nAlice then turns her ship around to decelerate so she won't fly past Alpha Centauri. As she slows back down to much lower velocities, the distance between the space station and Alpha Centauri looks like 4.2 light years again. As she goes into orbit around a planet there, she receives a message from Bob, who says it has been almost 5 years since she left. Alice checks her clock, and sees that it has only been a little over 5 weeks since she left.\n\nBoth Alice and Bob are correct in their time measurements, and in the measurements of Alice's acceleration. This is due to relativity, and primarily from a combination of time dilation and length contraction.\n\n***How it relates to your question: from your perspective, you can always accelerate and it doesn't matter how much you've already accelerated. A ship going 99% of C (to an outside observer) can shoot a bullet going 5% of C in the same direction of its travel. To the ship, the bullet is going 5% of C and will reach their destination about that much faster. To the outside observer, the bullet is only going ~99.01% (not accurate, just approximate) the speed of light, but both the ship and outside observer agree on when it is going to reach the destination because they understand special relativity.\n\nThe absolute speed of light restriction applies to a particular observer's reference frame. As you go faster relative to other observers/objects, time moves more slowly and space itself gets shorter in your direction of travel. For example, if you travel at 99% C, things only seem 1/50th as far away, so you can reach them in less time than it takes light... compared to your ORIGINAL reference frame. In your new high velocity reference frame, 1 light year is 50 times more distance than your original definition. This is how you can subjectively travel 4 light years in less than 1 year, but to an outside observer it will always take longer than 4 years.\n\nTL;DR: You can always go faster from your perspective, but to an outside observer that additional acceleration warps time and space rather than adds to your velocity. Which, frankly, is much cooler."
]
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|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVKFBaaL4uM"
],
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|
d31pb2
|
what is the difference between ferromagnetic, paramagnetic and diamagnetic substances?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d31pb2/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_ferromagnetic/
|
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"Magnetism is caused by the \"direction\" or \"spin\" of electrons that are not bound to each other called \"unpaired electrons\" \nWhen an object can change the \"spin\" of its \"unpaired electrons\" permanently they are called ferromagnetic (Ferro is a word for Iron which is the most famous magnetic metal.) \n When an object can temporarily change the spin of its unpaired electrons (and usually does a poor job of it) then it is called Paramagnetic.\n\nBoth of the above types (ferro and para) change their electrons to match the direction of a magnetic field. \n\nSubstances that are diamagnetic change their spins to be the opposite direction of a magnetic field. Most things that are not Ferro- or para-magnetic are diamagnetic; however most of them are really bad at it so the effects are hard to notice. For instance water is diamagnetic. \n\n(I don't do a lot of ELI5, so I hope I got the point across)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
4isx4v
|
how did they prove guilt of major crimes in the old west era?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4isx4v/eli5_how_did_they_prove_guilt_of_major_crimes_in/
|
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"text": [
"A regular judicial system. Usually resolved in small towns or cities. You need to prove someone did something for them to be found guilty of a crime. ",
"From what I gather, they just arrested the person the lawman thought was responsible, and he turned them over to the Federal Marshals where they were shipped off to somewhere like Kansas City or Cincinnati on a train to go to a federal courthouse with whatever statements were taken. It wasn't terribly sophisticated, but it wasn't the \"Get a rope\" shit you see in movies. Truth be told it wasn't really all that sophisticated in the Eastern Cities at the time either. Back east there was a lot of \"we found this ne'er do well moping around the scene and he was the closest guy\" \n\nYou probably were better off in some little town where everyone knew everyone including the sheriff. ",
"Prosecutors would present evidence, take witness statements, be given a fair trial by a judge and sentenced by a jury of their peers. The only real difference nowadays is the types of evidence we have access to- DNA, video, audio, etc.\n\nTake for example the [1895 hanging of Richard Burleson](_URL_0_), a black man in texas, a photo of which was gracelessly used as a placemat at a Joe's Crab Shack in recent news. He wasn't just strung up, the authorities collected and documented evidence from searches and took witness statements and proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.",
"reminds me of a short story by stephen king: _URL_0_",
"More or less the same as they do it today. We just have better ways of proving guilt/innocence. I'm sure, like today, sometimes the guilty went free or an innocent was killed unjustly, but it wasn't really the way lots of movies portray it with people all clueless until the happy ending.",
"You might find [this](_URL_1_) article interesting. It explains how the judicial system in the [Arizona territory](_URL_0_) functioned. It contains many fascinating tidbits that show how Hollywood's take differs from historical fact.\n\nBasically, it all functioned about the same as our modern system with the elected county sheriff and district attorney being the primary people involved in meting out justice. Amusingly, the requirements for practicing law were almost nonexistant. The only legal requirement was to be a white male at least 21 years of age and of \"good moral character.\" This was the case until 1901 when the code was changed to require \"a good knowledge of legal principles, rules of pleading and practice, rules of evidence and the ethics of the profession of the law.\"\n\nSome excerpts:\n\n > The United States’ constitutional form of government reserved the primary policing power within the country to the states, and by extension, the territories. It follows, therefore, that the most important law enforcement officials in the Arizona Territory during the 19th Century were the county sheriff and the district attorney, both of whom were elected by the voters. This, of course, runs counter to the common perception that the United States Marshal was the primary lawman of the \"Old West.\" In actuality, because of their limited jurisdiction, the U.S. Marshal and the U.S. Attorney played rather insignificant law-enforcement roles in the Arizona Territory during the 19th Century.\n\n > The sheriff’s responsibilities as the county jailer presented special problems, particularly during the early territorial years. The early jails were either non-existent or very primitive. Thus, breakouts of incarcerated persons serving sentences or awaiting trial or the gallows were common. Protecting prisoners against vigilantes bound and determined to serve the sentence of \"Judge Lynch\" also presented special problems for county sheriffs, as many of the persons who participated in these extra-legal activities were respected members of the community and voters as well. Over time, the construction of more secure facilities ameliorated some of these conditions.\n\n > The popular characterization of the frontier lawman as the steely-eyed gunslinger that faced down the bad guys on a dusty street at high noon is largely a fiction created by the 20th century media. For the most part, the sheriffs who served the Arizona Territory were ordinary folks who did their best to keep the peace and carry out the other duties of their office without resort to the gun. They did it by the force of the inherent authority of their office, the judicious utilization of citizen posses and the support of the people who voted them into (or out of) office. That is not to say that Arizona did not have some lawmen who were noted gunmen and manhunters. Commodore Perry Owens (Apache County, 1887-1888) and John Slaughter (Cochise County, 1887-1890) were known for their dexterity with weapons but, more importantly, their willingness to use them. But, for every Owens and Slaughter, there were many other sheriffs during the territorial years that quietly went about the business of enforcing the law without resorting to the \"law of the gun.\"",
"What's scary about this whole thing isn't about how bad it was, but how bad it *seems*. 250 year from now they'll look back at 2016 and say, \"they used to rely on *testimony.* Can you believe that? What a brutal time.\"\n\nShit, we were using lie detectors up until a few years ago.",
"The thing is, with a jury of peers which is the preferred system in criminal law almost everywhere, you don't need to prove guilt scientifically as much as you need to convince the jury of the guilt.\n\nMakes a great difference!"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[
"https://books.google.com/books?id=AQpCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA549&lpg=PA549&dq=%22Richard+Burleson%22+murder+case&source=bl&ots=ofd8o-j3of&sig=rot7iNOTiRK8dBxAGa2wJAzrV0A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG2JzmhbnLAhXHHB4KHSIcDQoQ6AEIITAC#v=onepage&q=%22Richard%20Burleson%22%20murder%20case&f=false"
],
[
"http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/a-death-stephen-king"
],
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Territory",
"http://www.sharlot.org/library-archives/days-past/19th-century-old-west-law-surprisingly-sophisticated/"
],
[],
[]
] |
||
6ix9wp
|
why do businesses have promotions that are free and you only pay for shipping? what do they gain from this?
|
Is this secretly a scam somehow? I'm starting to see this trend all over the place.
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6ix9wp/eli5_why_do_businesses_have_promotions_that_are/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dj9sz68",
"dj9t0q8",
"dj9vaid",
"dj9vees",
"dj9wbcx",
"djadk1f",
"djag9dr",
"djagzz1"
],
"score": [
6,
2,
18,
3,
2,
2,
2,
2
],
"text": [
"It's advertising. They hope that you like your free thing so much that you come back for more (or refer friends).\n\nUsually the giveaway is pretty cheap for them. If it's something that costs more than $20 to buy and you're getting it free with no strings attached, then I'd start to think maybe a scam is afoot.",
"Ah, but you pay for both shipping *and* handling... What is handling? Whatever they say it is. (usually as much as the shipping...) ",
"1) Free samples to attract future business. You ask for SuperSoaper2000 and maybe you'll buy it in the future. Same thing as giving out food samples in the grocery stores.\n\n2) It's \"Shipping and handling\" not shipping. And handling is whatever they say it is, which often includes the regular cost of the product. But you still think you got something for 'free', even if you paid 10$ S & H for something you could have got for 3$ in the store.\n\n2.5) Scamming a 3rd party out of commissions - Ebay had to start charging commissions on S & H because people were selling their goods for 1 cent and charging the price of the goods in handling, denying Ebay it's cut.\n\n3) Hidden subscriptions. These are borderline scams, but legal so very common. You'll sign up for a cheap delivery of WeightLossMagic and a subscription to purchase WeightLossMagic every month for 20 years regular price, 'cancel anytime'. But a lot of people won't read the fine print, or will forget to cancel, or the cancel phone line will keep you on the phone for 2 hours then hang up on you - the latter is illegal but can pay the bills for years before anyone goes to jail.\n\n4) Loss leaders for some other kind of profitable lotto. Customer sweepstakes has been doing this 1mil lotto for decades - they send you a mail telling you you'll get entered to a sweepstakes 10 times for every magazine subscription you purchase. Or you can (legal requirement) send them a handwritten letter for every entry you want to make to their sweepstakes (no one has ever won that way, they probably all end up in the trash can). But of course your chances of winning are minuscule and those magazines are expensive and auto-renew.\n\nSo, basically, they are all scams.\n\n-edit- cleaned it up. I'm lazy so there's a 2.5",
"$20 shipping and handling to buy a $3 bottle of vitamins. You should compare total shipped prices of things when you're shopping online/over the phone.",
"It is similar to the free samples Costco gives. It gives the businesses publicity(people knowing about the company is a very good thing), and associate it with something good (who doesn’t like free things?)",
"Companies tend to buy vast ranges of goods, if some don't sell well, rather than keep them in the warehouse costing money to store; the products can be used in marketing campaigns.\n\nI get a double whammy from doing this as I request that the customer pays shipping and also is required to join our mailing list to qualify.\n\nSo I've managed to;\n1. Get rid of my 'dead' stock\n2. Charge Shipping/Handling and probably gained a little on the deal\n3. Free up space in my warehouse allowing my to store new products\n4. I've got new contacts on my mail list whom I can market other products to at a later date. thus increasing my chances of sales later on.\n\nTL;DR\nProducts like this are often referred to as Loss Leaders, designed to engage future custom.",
"Yeah, like the free software download or demo. You have to buy it several days later after you have created documents using it or you lose access to your work. They seldom, if at all, say its a 3-day trial. ",
"Keep in mind \"shipping\" for large volume companies is peanuts compared to what you or I pay to ship something USPS/FedEx/UPS. \n\nThey charge you $9.95 shipping and handling, their cost to ship it might be $1.50 depending on the size/weight. (usually the junk sold in this manner are small trinkets whos cost is next to nothing)\n\nNet result: profit for whatever company is peddling said junk. \n\n"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[],
[]
] |
|
4azuih
|
why can't illinois decide on a budget and how does it affect its residents and the state?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4azuih/eli5_why_cant_illinois_decide_on_a_budget_and_how/
|
{
"a_id": [
"d14wa37"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"Because the state has a ridiculous amount of debt.\n\nThe Democratic led legislature controlled very firmly by [Mike Madigan](_URL_0_) who is strongly backed by organized labor refuses to agree to a budget that involves making IL a [\"right to work\"](_URL_1_) state, which, among other things, is insisted by the Republican governor, Bruce Rauner. Basically, the governor's office and the legislature are firmly at odds and each refuses to back down. As such, the state hasn't had a budget for about a year, with state court cases largely responsible for distributing non-mandatory funding (and, as one southern IL congressman said last year, \"these judges don't rule with calculators\" and the state's debt is only growing). \n\nIt affects residents in a lot of ways, but it really depends on your exposure to state government. Vehicle emissions tests are no longer being run by the state EPA, public universities are going unfunded and may even lose accreditation, many public services, particularly those aimed at people in need, are not being funded, epilepsy patients who receive state funding for treatment (including my SO) are not getting it, state employees may stop getting their health insurance through the state, and state parks among other institutions are not getting funded (this is not an exhaustive list). Personally, the only impact that's really hit me, personally (other than, of course, my SO's issues) is that the SoS has stopped sending out reminders to re-up vehicle registration. That's mostly just me being lucky, though."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Madigan",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law"
]
] |
||
6alzmc
|
why is the second bowl of cereal always crunchier?
|
Whenever you go for a second bowl, it always seems to soak up the milk much less than the first bowl. Why does that happen, or at least feel like that's happening?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6alzmc/eli5_why_is_the_second_bowl_of_cereal_always/
|
{
"a_id": [
"dhfjwxw"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"I've always assumed that it was because you didn't wait as long for the second bowl as you did the first. If you make your first bowl, then get your spoon, go to the table, sit down, etc. You've given it more time than already having everything together and just dumping more cereal in and eating it as soon as it lands."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
|
3n32m2
|
would two identical speakers be double as "loud" compared to only one?
|
What about three?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3n32m2/eli5_would_two_identical_speakers_be_double_as/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cvkct9w",
"cvkcuzo"
],
"score": [
2,
8
],
"text": [
"No. Due to the fact that our senses are logarithmic, you'd need about 10 of those speakers to get double the loudness on the decibel scale.",
"Nope they would be not. Sound and a lot of ohter natural processes are function on a logarithm scale. The intensity would be indeed, as sayed depending hows the setup, twice as high. But for human ears this would not be twice as loud. A rule of thumb says: +10 decibel result in twice as loud.\nSame for three and more speakers."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
1e6pz5
|
what is a soild defination of "time value of money" along the lines of investment appraisals?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1e6pz5/what_is_a_soild_defination_of_time_value_of_money/
|
{
"a_id": [
"c9xavye"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Money now and money in the future have an equal value.\n\nFuture value = Present value * ((1 + rate) ^ Time)\n\nfigure $1000 @ 7% interest compounded annually.\n\nso $1,000 now will be $1402 over 5 years at that rate. This is not speculative, these figures are EQUAL. "
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
||
353ov1
|
how does international trade work? how/why do governments have a role in this, rather than organizations dealing directly with one another?
|
For example, if I start a company that makes furniture, can I contract with a furniture store in Canada or do I have to go through the government?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/353ov1/eli5_how_does_international_trade_work_howwhy_do/
|
{
"a_id": [
"cr0oeub",
"cr1lc7d"
],
"score": [
3,
2
],
"text": [
"Your furniture first must cross US border. I don't know your local regulations, but probably it is just a minor paperwork. \n\nThen it must enter Canada. If US and Canada don't have free trade agreement, import tax must be paid to Canada.\n\nThen furniture store must pay you money. Probably it will be just a SWIFT transaction or something like that.\n\nThen you need to pay your US income taxes from this money.\n\nGovernment role is \n\na) regulation (so you don't sell forbidden stuff)\n\nb) taxation . Your income, as resident, and import tax (usually to support local furniture companies).",
"Let's start with the basics: Every nation wants as much things as possible made in their own country, and as much as possible of this sold to other countries.\n\nWhy? Say I cut a tree. In Canada, we presume they lack trees. Canadians will pay more for my tree than any US dude would. I of course sell it across the border. Money leaves Canada, and enters the US. The state of Canada doesn't like this. Money leaving the country makes them poorer, just like buying a snowboard makes you poorer. Thus, they impose taxes and/or VAT on my tree when it enters Canada to make up for (some of) their loss. So I can sell my tree to Canada, but the government makes sure the deficit in their amount of money isn't too big by imposing taxes.\n\nNow, let's think a more realistic scenario. I'm making furniture, Canada has lots of trees. I buy trees from Canada, because Canadian trees are cheaper due to the bigger amount of trees available there. One tree costs 90 dollars, and the US takes 10 dollars for letting my buy that tree in taxes (a total of 100 dollars). \n\nThen I make a desk with said tree. This increases the value of the raw material, because I have to pay my workers for making said desk. All in all, I used a total of 200 dollars on making the desk. Bringing it across the border we adds say 30 dollars, and I want 20 dollars profit. IE I sell my desk for 250 dollars to some Canadian dude.\n\nThis means a greater amount of money has come out of the Canadian tree in the US, than the tree made for Canada - the added value the deskmaking led to was paid by a Canadian! Remember, Canada only got 100 dollars out of selling the tree, the US got 250 for selling it back. This means the US gains a trade surplus - they get more wealth out of the Canadian raw material than Canada did itself.\n\nThis trade balance is why the government gets involved when you import from a furniture store in Canada. If Canada only bleeds money like they did in the example over, their economy might eventually collapse (do mark: A lot can be done to avoid collapse, like printing money).\n\nThis is why countries around the world makes trade barriers by adding taxes and VAT to foreign products.\n\nAnother example. Everyone's heard of the European colonisation race. Why did they bother? They bothered to get cheap raw materials they could add value to and either sell back to the colonies, or to other European states. This brought more money into the country than it brought out. Cotton harvested in India for 5 dollars, sent to England and made into a skrit. The skrift is sold for 20 dollars to India or France - huge profit for the English facotry owner, huge profit for the English government who can tax the owner's fortune. \n\nThe paragraph over partly explains why many African states are dirt poor today. They were exploited for their resources, but never built up and industry of their own - meaning they never got to add value to the things they sold, and ended up with a trade deficit.\n\nThe goal of getting a trade surplus is also why French cheese producers and the French government would want taxes on foreign cheese. If cheese can be bought cheaper from another country, this can lead to consumers not buying French cheese. Not only does the French get a trade deficit, but the French cheeseguy makes less money.\n\nAlso think about today's China: They sell a lot more to other contries than they import themselves. Thus, their economy is booming (for a few more years, at least)."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[]
] |
|
3dgnc3
|
why does sucking your wounds relieve pain?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dgnc3/eli5_why_does_sucking_your_wounds_relieve_pain/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ct4ytix",
"ct4z4dg"
],
"score": [
11,
7
],
"text": [
"For a papercut, I believe it's the nerves in contact with the air which causes the pain of a papercut. Therefore by sucking on the wound you'd be removing the air?\n\nEdit: you know what, I just got a papercut a while ago on accident this ended up working, I do think it's the air being sucked away. ",
"Not only does it feel good, [it speeds healing](_URL_1_) \n\n\"Wound licking is an instinctive response in humans and many other animals to lick an injury. Dogs, cats, small rodents and primates all lick wounds. Saliva contains tissue factor which promotes the blood clotting mechanism. The enzyme lysozyme is found in many tissues and is known to attack the cell walls of many gram-positive bacteria, aiding in defense against infection. \" - [wikipedia](_URL_0_)"
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[],
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wound_licking",
"http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080723094841.htm"
]
] |
||
azd3qm
|
what is the purpose, and intended consequences, of the house of representatives in the us voting on a resolution to "condemn bigotry"?
|
explainlikeimfive
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/azd3qm/eli5_what_is_the_purpose_and_intended/
|
{
"a_id": [
"ei6yzx2"
],
"score": [
3
],
"text": [
"It is called virtue signalling. It is just a PR stunt so when re-election time arrives, they can all brag about how hard they have worked to eliminate bigotry.\n\nOther than that it has no practical effect at all."
]
}
|
[] |
[] |
[
[]
] |
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