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2f7w82 | if aliens exist and have been to this planet, why would the government have to keep it hidden and "top secret?" | The whole Area 51 conspiracy and such. Why does it even have to be hidden? Assuming aliens are there, a large amount of the population already believes they are there, so why even continue to hide it if it's already largely speculated? For technological reasons?
Edit: Thank you all for clearing up my misunderstanding of Area 51. I've never done research on it and had always associated it with aliens. My ignorance! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f7w82/eli5_if_aliens_exist_and_have_been_to_this_planet/ | {
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"It is an actual military R & D site and remains classified for that reason. \n\nThe alien bit was because when next-gen stealth fighters take off in the middle of the night, it can look a bit odd, especially before 'stealth fighter' was in the public's vocabulary. ",
"Because most likely, if they exist, they haven't been here. The government doesn't have anything to hide but conspiracy theories are a lot of fun so people believe them. Area 51 was actually used for testing such aircraft as the SR-71 so we know that they did use it for aircraft testing. The amount of security in the area around Area 51 seems pretty normal considering the type of cold war deciding stuff they were developing there. ",
"Concrete evidence of the existence of aliens would massively destabilize society.",
"The problem with buying into a conspiracy theory is that a lot of believers think that absence of evidence is evidence that someone is covering it up. The less evidence there is, the more proof that a conspiracy is happening. ",
"Conspiracy theorists claim things like...\n\n* Avoiding widespread panic/riots/etc\n* Government is infiltrated by aliens\n* They have discovered super-secret military technology\n\nIMHO, it's not so hard to believe that they're just doing *other* testing stuff out in the middle of the desert. They can't say \"we're not researching aliens, we've been busy building a secret super weapon\" without giving away the existence of the super weapon.\n\n...and the conspiratards wouldn't believe it anyways.",
"Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.\n\nKay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.\n\nFrom the Documentary: \"MIB\"",
"There are some theories that there are aliens living on earth, providing governments with arms/technology, or even directly controlling the globabl populations like a zoo or a farm. \nIf that information got out there could be an interstellar war, or at least terrestrial violence if people rebelled or more people began competing for access to a small population of aliens. ",
"Watch Stargate SG-1, for example.",
"If all of humanity found out about aliens, we would feel unified.\n\nInstead of seeing other people as different nations and \"races,\" we'd see each other (accurately) as brothers and sisters.\n\nGovernments as we know them would cease to be relevant. There would be no more drive to fear and fight each other; We'd turn our attention to mutual defense from and xenophobia toward the aliens.\n\nOr, at least, that's *one* possibility. If governments saw it as a likely one, I can see why they'd cover up aliens.\n\n(I don't think there's a cover-up about aliens.)",
"I think it would be pretty scary if the government suddenly admitted that a super-advanced species is here for unknown reasons and there isn't anything we can do about it. They have their own motives and all we can do about it is hope they are nice. ",
"The only thing I can think of is that the existence of aliens is not the secret, but the revelation of their existence would also reveal another secret that somebody doesn't want us to know. One thing leads to another, domino effect type of thing. Kinda like how you hope your girlfriend never speaks to your ex, not that your ex is a secret but what your ex could reveal kinda is. That type of thing.",
"1) Because the aliens asked, told or ordered them not to, nicely or under the threat of human extinction.\n\n2) Because (edit: the government are) siphoning technologies (edit: from the aliens) and they want to keep (edit: other) people as far away from being able to do the same as possible.\n",
"Because if aliens exist then single god religions suddenly become invalid. Considering a sizable portion of the population on this planet beleives in a fictional being, it might be a bad thing to just up and destroy their reality that way.\n\nReligious nutjobs can explain a lot of things away. But aliens? an ENTIRELY different biology that is intelligent and sentient enough to come find us? There is no way to spin that that includes \"God made them\" because every single one of those religions relies on \"God made the the universe and us in his image\".\n\nAnd statistically, Aliens exist. Also coincidentally, statistically we will likely never meet them.",
"I'm sure someone will be able to link the documents, but it's widely known now that the authorities fuelled the UFO buzz in order to cover up the testing of advanced weaponry and avionics during the cold war.\n\nThere is one well documented example which you are now able to cross reference with de-classified documents of a high altitude weather balloon that crashed in the desert. It was made of light, reflective foil and things that would be mistaken for the stereotypical 'UFO' flying saucer type stuff. The test engineers famously ran out of tape during construction and had to send someone to the local town to fetch someone. Unfortunately all he could get was children's tape with patterns on it, the ink from which seeped into the wood/foils from the desert sun being on it all day after the crash. When the locals found the wreckage before the military could they found crash debris with mysterious 'UFO symbols' all over it, which in reality was just the ink and shapes from the children's tape. The authorities didn't want the USSR finding out about the balloon's so let people believe it was a UFO language and/or didn't correct them.\n\nTL:DR, it's in the governments favour to have people believe there are UFO's at Area 51 and not Stealth Bombers.",
"First Contact would be the single biggest moment in history. We would literally need to restart the calenders. Politically, power would shift fundamentally to deal with the concept that we are not the most powerful thing in the universe. Every military would find themselves woefully ill equipped to protect their nations from a threat they don't even have the base technology to fight. Economically, things that mattered wouldn't matter as much and panic would spread. Traditional religion would schism and fragment- if any of their followers bothered to keep the faith.\n\nAnd the poor son of a bitch that shook the alien's hand would measure if life in hours and minutes as every crackpot would be gunning for them.\n\n\nIt would be the end of the world, and the start of a new one.",
"*If* aliens have visited Earth and they are friendly then a whole bunch of constants in our world no longer become constants. \n\nNamely: 1)We're not alone in this universe, this species may be friendly, but if there are others they may not be friendly and we are looked to as a potential ally for said visitors. The only way we can become an effective ally is to bond together, sacrifice national sovereignty and most entrenched ideologies and come together as one race.\n\n2) They can travel vast distances and if they're friendly they'd probably be happy to share that information with us. We no longer have to rely on Earth and Earth alone as our home planet. Either we go fuck wild and start polluting the shit out of Earth, or we realize we aren't beholden to the energy corporations and can strike out elsewhere looking for newer, better resources.\n\n\nand 3) If we were to unite as a single species, and humans began going to other planets to establish their own colonies then centralized power begins to vanish. Hell, people may even be willing to refer to these aliens as their leaders if the same rights can be guaranteed and life is made even better. Imagine you're a king ruling an island. Your subjects have liberties, but you keep them dependent upon your government and you still check their freedoms. A more advanced, more progressive civilization shows up and tells your subjects they will have better lives and more freedom under their leadership and if they choose to defect they will be protected. That king's power is rendered null and void in the blink of an eye. Now how would a government like America's or China's feel about a move like that? You could be made irrelevant almost overnight. \n\n*If* there are aliens and *if* they have visited and *if* it is being kept a secret these are the reasons why I think it would be kept such a closely guarded secret. ",
"I don't believe there is a conspiracy, however a good plot for a fictional story based on such ideas would be quid pro quo, the aliens are studying humans but need accomplices in the earth population to properly blind the subjects. They get the governments of the world (or at least a few powerful ones) to help them in exchange for technology. \n\nOf course it's ludicrous, the government wouldn't be able to keep that level of a conspiracy together for any length of time, they don't have perfect control over information. Think how many times the Manhattan project was compromised, and that was in the age before twitter, wikileaks, and the underweb.",
"The fucking government couldn't even cover it up when they used the IRS to fuck people over for political reasons. You really think they're competent enough to cover up aliens?",
"The playbook for this has already been televised. It was called \"[The X-Files](_URL_0_)\".",
"This is all assuming intelligent life capable of faster than light travel but not so vastly superior to us that they'd consider us bacteria.. Existing on the same galactic if not universal evolutionary time scale.. Somehow stumbled across our planet and was able to not only be recognized by our narrow definition of a life form, but have technology that evolved along the exact same logical paths so that it could be comprehended. Look I'm not saying life doesn't exist in the universe, that's statistically improbable. Consider how long it took for life on earth to go from the fundamental building blocks to where we are today... A blink of an eye on universal time. What's to say aliens didn't come here a billion years ago, see the smoldering heap that was the earth, and go 'meh' and move on. The idea that hyper intelligent life would come here in the last 100,000 years to interact with humans is just so infinitesimal it's not worth the effort to look. What blows my mind is that not only do some believe that aliens came to earth within the last few decades, but they did so as bipedal vertebrates barely different than humans using technology comperable to our own in a craft resembling what we expected them to look like based on our aeronautical fantasies of that exact era.",
"I'm not going to get too deep into anecdotal stories...\nBut from my own personal research it appears that whatever the \"truth\" about them is it is highly disturbing. Presidents who have wanted to know and have been told the truth Have been known to go gray haired and their personalities change completely. Whatever the truth about them is I think it's pretty terrible. Along the lines of they created us and maybe still control us type of thing?\nImagine if you knew for certain that your \"God\" was a nasty little creature from across the stars who created you to be nothing more than a pawn or biological robot or \"container\"?\nThat could fuck with society. Yes it could.",
"I have NO trouble assuming the existence a life outside of our galaxy. The sheer odds of life only happening here on Earth and nowhere else in the universe is implausible.\n\nWhat I have a problem with is the sheer size of the universe and the problems with getting around it. Conventional physics states that faster than light travel is not possible and never will be. Lets assume for a moment for arguments sake, an advanced race of aliens can achieve 50% the speed of light.\n\nThis still makes travel between different stars/galaxies etc etc a multi generational trip of ludicrous proportions (in human terms).\n\nThe closest star to ours is 4.24 light years away (Proxima Centauri). So even with 50% of light speed velocities it makes it a 8.5 year trip. And there's nothing remotely habitable about it.\n\nAccording to Wikipedia the nearest possibly habitable planets lie 12+ light years away. The odds of advanced life being there is astronomically high. And even if there was, why would they want to travel 25 years to visit a violent and primitive species such as ours.... to draw some patterns in a field or chop up a cow ? :)\n\nIt makes no sense. If they were so advanced that a quick trip to earth is just a wee outing for them then why would they come here. It wouldn't be for resources..... our planet is tiny and offers nothing that couldn't be harvested and processed from anywhere else with the technology they must have.\n\nBe like us travelling to Saturn to make contact with an alien ant colony. We'd step on them, kill them/study them with all the compassion we'd have for ant's here on earth.\n\nI think if aliens ever came here it would be real bad news... you don't negotiate with ants !\n\nSo in short ...... HAHA... area 51 ..... that's funny.",
"Area 51 is not about aliens. Area 51 was made so that the U.S. could spy on Russia during the cold war. In this area the U.S. had high advances technology and they would test it. This is why people would think that what they were seeing were aliens but it wasn't. Of course the U.S. government let the people believe that area 51 was about aliens and not about spying/spies because if t he world would have found out that the U.S. was spying then it would of caused a chaos. > The whole Area 51 conspiracy and such. Why does it even have to be hidden? Assuming aliens are there, a large amount of the population already believes they are there, so why even continue to hide it if it's already largely speculated? For technological reasons?\n\n",
"I think it's a combination of the following reasons:\n\n1. You can't handle the truth. It would be too disruptive to society, religion, business interests. It would create a massive upheaval. I'm not saying I agree with this, but those in control do think this way.\n\n2. The US military can't control the ETs or their craft. They don't want to admit to the public that it is beyond their control fearing it would create panic.\n\n3. There are theories that there is some kind of agreement between one or more alien species and our governments that prevent them from disclosing the truth.\n\n4. The Roswell crash and initial UFO awareness started in 1947, two years after WWII and during the beginning of the Cold War. There was a culture of secrecy and cover-ups. Better to keep things secret while they investigated the ETs and learned more. This secrecy went on for decades and the government doesn't want to admit they've been lying to us all these years.\n\n5. Business interests. If the governments admitted on the news that ETs are real , the stock market would crash overnight. Many fortunes would be wiped out. Many rich people would lose their wealth. They don't want disclosure. They have the power and influence to stop disclosure.\n\n6. Secret technology. The technology from recovered alien craft is being secretly reverse-engineered and developed and used by a select few. They don't want to share this technology with the rest of humanity.\n\nPersonally, I think it is time that the truth about ETs came out. Governments should end the secrecy and slowly reveal what has really been going on. It's time for the human race to evolve to the next level. We are bogged down in too many messy situations and need an upgrade.",
"You would suddenly have to explain how they got here from millions of light years away, without using oil.\n\nCollapsing the oil industry would take money and power out of the hands of extremely wealthy and powerful people.",
"It would be so that no one would know the government has access to alien technology. The government doesn't really care about religion as anything other than a tool, and even if aliens had superior technology it is hard to see how they would protect themselves against nuclear weapons.",
"Warning: My opinion from playing Star Ocean: TET\n\nIf you ever played the Star Ocean games, then you know about the UP3 (the Underdeveloped Planetary Preservation Pact.)\n\nIt states that there are 3 levels of planets: Underdeveloped, Monitored, and Developed.\n\nIf aliens had the same idea, should they be here on Earth, then we would fall under the Monitored Class planets. Monitored Class planets are planets that do not yet have the technology for interstellar space travel but are attempting to achieve.\n\n_URL_0_\n\n_URL_1_",
"Not exactly your question, but very related. If we find intelligent aliens with the current SETI systems it will be shared via media and social media as soon as possible. Source: _URL_0_",
"A lot of people here have stated that if conclusive proof were found that aliens exist and were here, society, religion, economies, etc would collapse. Bullshit. Stating that unequivocally is one thing. Now back it up. WHY would everything collapse because we suddenly know we are not alone? I don't buy it. Walk us through the thought process on this one, or provide some references that do.",
"They'd keep him locked up with the others in a country full of aliens. But mainly they keep to themselves, they live their lives sheltered and like to use electronics and browse government generated websites such as reddit and Facebook. \n\nThese aliens will never know what's outside of their lives, or the true original beings that reside on this planet. For all that they know, they were them.",
"None of us is as stupid as all of us basically.",
"They wouldn't. But the conspiracy theorists have to explain why no one knows about it.\n\nIf I was the government, I'd love people talking about aliens at area 51. thats less people talking about the aircraft testing being done there...",
"It depends on what they know and the relationships between who knows whatever and the aliens. It could be some kind of planned colonization where resistance is futile and cooperation is rewarded in some way (e.g. 'the humans can have one continent but we'll have to kill most of them, cooperate and secure your families' survival')... there's been enough cases of local elites cooperating with colonizers who've got them outgunned in human history to imagine that scenario.\n\nOr maybe the aliens are playing different powers off each other by bribing them with technology and none of them want us their constituents to know cause they never want us to know security stuff (e.g. what they did to manning, assange, and snowden).\n\n.. not that there's any evidence at all to believe anything like that.",
"Control, simple as that",
"cuz the religious nuts would freak out",
"\"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.\" - Seneca the younger\n\n2, 000 years later:\n\n\"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich\". - napolean bonaparte\n\nThere's a long standing reason why if something like that were to happen common folk would not be told...",
"we are the advanced aliens ",
"which government? US again? how come every alien species is always landing to US and contacting only US government? ",
"Have you even *seen* stargate sg-1??",
"They probably wouldn't, and anyway they couldn't. ",
"Have you seen how good governments are at hidding things nowadays ? They're fucking not, especially something as world-changing as alien civilizations. The only reason they would keep it a secret is to triple-check the facts before going public a couple of days later. \nPeople who believe or claim aliens have already contacted us in one way or another are short-sighted, ignorant and more excited by the questions than the answers.",
"what if they have the real space bible? Like, you know, the totally true one?\n\nIt'd be the same as the europeans colonizing south america. \"Yah, you have religion and stuff, but we have the real deal over here\".\n\nI think people would freak.",
"In my opinion, sadly too high a number of general public are too closed-minded/blinkered and generally thick to handle the truth, whatever it may be. ",
"It wouldn't be a secret, in fact, if we discovered aliens tomorrow it would become national security threat number 1. I like what Carl Sagan said about alien conspiracies and is the view of most scientists. \n\n\"To be taken seriously, you need physical evidence that can be examined at leisure by skeptical scientists: a scraping of the whole ship, and the discovery that it contains isotopic ratios that aren't present on Earth, chemical elements from the so-called island of stability, very heavy elements that don't exist on Earth. Or material of absolutely bizarre properties of many sorts—electrical conductivity or ductility. There are many things like that that would instantly give serious credence to an account.\n\nBut there's no scrapings, no interior photographs, no filched page from the captain's log book. All there are are stories. There are instances of disturbed soil, but I can disturb soil with a shovel. There are instances of people claiming to flash lights at UFOs and the UFOs flash back. But, pilots of airplanes can also flash back, especially if they think it would be a good joke to play on the UFO enthusiast. So, that does not constitute good evidence.\"",
"Area 51 is home of the SCP (Secure Contain Protect) Containment Facility.\n\nIf you don't know what it is, look it up. Its all a great read.",
"Because there's nothing about Aliens in the major religious texts. ",
"There is no reason.\n\nPeople very quickly get used to an idea, the religious dingbats will go crazy as it'll be another nail in the coffin of their fantasy lives.\n\nBut apart from that, people will love it, there will be endless documentaries on TV for a couple years.....some suits will make alot of money out of it, once it's all died down we'll just get back to our normal lives, paying bills, watching TV and wanking when the wife is out shopping.",
"I don't know if it was mentioned earlier but proof of aliens existence will raise questions about the religious believes of the people. And you know how dangerous that issue is.",
"Government only works if it is the highest authority. \n\nAdmitting aliens existed would undermine the government's authority. It's the same phenomenon you see in countries that have civil unrest due to dictatorial regimes where western culture permeates into the populace. The populace begins demanding change such as democratic representation. \n\nThink of the Arab spring.The more direct cause is probably due to covert ops in that region interfering with the social paradigm there. However, it would be much more difficult if the internet had not allowed western culture to more freely cross those borders. If one knows a thing is possible then one may be willing to fight for a thing. \n\nIf you notice, unrest involving political and socioeconomic change will usually occur in countries with weaker economies and stricter governmental control. Demands for change will also be made which reflect more successful & powerful cultures. I.E. you don't see the the populace in western cultures protesting and demanding change which would make our culture more restrictive emulating middle eastern culture. Whereas, middle eastern countries often do have protests demanding more freedoms and economic prosperity similar to western culture. It is only the sheer brutality of those governments that keep them in control of their populace. \n\nSo, why would governments not want to make public the existence of a presumably more successful culture? Self-preservation and the status quo. \n\nEdit: Interesting side note. Religion is supposedly the embodiment of the highest authority even over governments. But you can't access it. You can't make demands of it. You can't realize that ultimate of authority until you're dead. Which to me is a good enough indicator that it is merely a tool of government as a pacifier. \"I'll just wait until I'm dead, then everything will be better and I'll have everything I've ever wanted\".",
"1) Aliens have not landed on the planet\n2) People want to believe that Aliens have landed on the planet \n3) To explain that there is no evidence, they need to believe that it is hidden",
"*A major finding of the alien study was that the public could not be\ntold. It was believed that this would most certainly lead to economic\ncollapse, collapse of the religious structure, and national panic, which\ncould lead into anarchy...*\n\n- From the book **Behold a Pale Horse**, Bill Cooper, RIP\n\n_URL_0_",
"The answer is simple: profit/greed. Any alien technology you gain, should it become public knowledge, would become world knowledge. That shiny new laser pistol you just invented? Cool. China's already working on their own prototype. Now if only you could keep it quiet..\n\nNote - You shouldn't completely discount your view of area 51 as having to do with aliens. It's not all heresy. Keep the dream alive ;)\n\nI knew (she has since passed away) a friend of the family who was employed as a psychic by the gov't for 25 years, and who worked at area 51 for over a decade. I had her come speak at my high school once as a guest lecturer.\n\nFrom the stories she told me, aliens are very real. As someone who was perceived (expected a better word?) to be able to communicate with another species, she was the first call whenever contact was made. \n\nFWIW, from what she told me, we've made contact with numerous alien parties, each of which have been friendly. She said there are ones currently living here blending in - not many - but there are. Also, she claimed the gov't is 25 years ahead of the technology we have today. So whatever they are prototyping today, we'll have in a few decades.\n\nFood for thought..",
"Because it's too awkward when we're not invited to their parties.",
"It's easy to get swept up in the government being an evil driving force stopping you the people from meeting ol' gray the alien. \n\nIt's helpful to remember why government is there in the first place. \n\n1. To protect you (whether you like it or not)\n2. To look out for your best interests (whether you agree with it or not)\n3. To make you work, so they can collect taxes. (The only constant in the universe)\n\nAnything other than those 3 is just a skewed version of any one of those points. Obviously its more complicated and the truth resists simplicity but yeah. \n\nIf an alien DID come to Earth, the only part of that list the Alien could mess with is your safety right? I mean, there is loads of ways an alien could harm you. Disease probably being the most likely. So it is likely the government may keep it hidden until they are 'ready' for it to go public. \n\n**But THAT is an absolutely perfect ideal situation for the government**\n\nThat is assuming the alien even approaches a government body, gives a shit about government bodies, knows what a government body is, if it isn't detected by anyone else, as there is a fuck tonne of people looking up at the sky guys.\n\nAnother thing about government, is that while they are assholes in most cases, they are also idiots and woefully underfunded no matter where you are. I'd be incredibly surprised if ANY government on Earth could realize there is an alien, alert all authorities, brief everyone, scramble everyone, work out how to contact the alien, contact the alien, decipher the alien, make the alien land on Earth, and take the alien to confinement while hiding his shit (peacefully i might add), all without alerting anyone else to its presence. \n\nThis is assuming its a government as efficient as someone like Murica's and there is only 1 alien. Not a whole fleet of the things. \n\nSo no, its a logistics nightmare. ",
"One reason I have not seen commented yet is the technology. \n\nIf we are talking Roswell then that is a time when the USSR was a big deal. We would not want them to know that we had a ship with future tech on it. The USSR would stop at nothing to get their hands on it too. \n\nLet us say that it did happen and we got all the tech out of it that we are going to get. Well know it is just either still classified or all evidence was erased so they could hide that they lied to everyone about something so big. \n\nLike others have said, proof of alien life could create chaos worldwide beyond imagination. I personally think everyone would just be like, ok, and go back to watching dancing with the stars. As for the religious stuff, the Vatican already said that aliens are fine as far as the Bible is concerned. \n\n",
"Well you see Jimmy, knowledge is power. If Aliens were to come to earth and offer to make things better for people, why that would put our leaders out of business now wouldn't it? Can't really lead a people who don't have problems now can you Jimmy?\n\nThe best way to deal with aliens, either from space or another culture is to monopolize all communication with them. After that you set yourself up as the main agent through which these aliens can interact with your society. Thus you are in a position to control or at least monitor those interactions.\n\nIn fact Jimmy, if you look at what most of the government does you notice that it is about acquiring power. Not for any particular person or purpose even, it's just a mindless entity that sucks out peoples souls and turns them into zombies. Have you ever heard the vapid, nonsensical rhetoric spouted by most long term politicians? Well now you know why, no soul there Jimmy, no soul there. Those mindless zombies now just seek to control for the sake of having control. However their addiction to power is itself an out of control expression of their emptiness and fear. \n\n"
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6lq21b | why do we "lose" fitness over time when not training? | After taking a break from training, we will lose our fitness built up. I understand that maintaining muscles require energy and it is more efficient for the body to lose them when not in use. So I can understand a loss in strength, but why do we lose aerobic fitness as well? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6lq21b/eli5_why_do_we_lose_fitness_over_time_when_not/ | {
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"text": [
"It takes more calories to support more muscle. If you're not putting it to use, then your body assumes it's excess, so it burns the \"excess\" muscle to make the body more efficient/require less calories "
]
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4rzcbr | the oscillating universe theory. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4rzcbr/eli5_the_oscillating_universe_theory/ | {
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"It essentially just says the universe is like a giant spring.\n\nThat it has been around for forever and just continues to oscillate. So it does a Big Bang, and then it expands for a while, the expansion slows and slows until it comes to a stop, and then it starts getting pulled back under the force of gravity, until everything returns back to that initial singularity-state, and then you get another big bang, and the process repeats ad-infinitum."
]
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wm91u | how do researchers discover the molecules in vaccines? | I've taken some organic chemistry and chemical biology. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/wm91u/eli5_how_do_researchers_discover_the_molecules_in/ | {
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"Do you mean, how to researchers discover molecules that they later use in vaccines?\n\nMost vaccines are just dead or very weak versions of the disease itself. The body's immune system uses these to produce antibodies that it could later use to fight off the real thing.\n\nAs for how scientists synthesize other molecules in general for whatever purpose (be it medicine, cleaning product, or anything else), it's all trial and error. Execute a specific reaction in controlled temperature and pressure environment, and you get one molecule that you can use to test. Change the temperature and the molecule could be entirely different. Of course, now it is, to an extent, predictable."
]
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11jsur | i just started a new job and have to pick a healthcare option. i have no idea what any of it means. can someone explain it to me? [x-post from r/askreddit] | I'm a young, reasonably healthy dude with no dependents starting a job at a software company in the US. There are a couple of different plans to pick from, varying in how much I pay for them, what the deductible it, in v. out of network coverage, etc. I'm feeling lost in all the details - can someone give me a "big picture" view of the optimal strategy here? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/11jsur/i_just_started_a_new_job_and_have_to_pick_a/ | {
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"Sure.\n\nA deductible is the amount you have to pay out of pocket before the insurer pays anything. That and the coverage amount are the main factors.\n\nSome plans might have a low deductible and low coverage. (Plan A)\n\nOthers might have a high deductible and high coverage. (Plan B)\n\nIf you get sick very little you probably won't meet the deductible on either plans, so you probably won't have the insurance cover anything at all, in which case the price for the plan is the biggest factor.\n\nIf you get sick some you may want a low deductible. After you've paid some out of pocket, they'll cover like 85% of the rest of your costs, which is good.\n\nIf you get sick a lot you may want a higher deductibel. After you've paid a lot out of pocket ($1k maybe) it'll cover maybe 90 or 95% of the remaining costs.\n\nThere's a certain point where these two points cross, you can do some math to find out exactly when one plan becomes better then the other, but you definitely have to guess what will happen in the future to get the best benefit for your money for your health.\n\n",
"Your insurance company has a list of preferred providers. Those are considered in-network, and your insurance will pay more of your bills if you go to those doctors and hospitals and labs. If you go to an out-of-network provider, the insurance pays less and you pay more. The insurance company should have a website for you to check in-network doctors and hospitals and such. \n\nSome plans will tell you that you have a copay, and then they'll pay a percentage after the copay. If you go to the emergency room, you might have a $200 copay, which you would pay to the hospital when you arrive, and then the insurance company might pay 80% after that. You would get a bill for the 20%. Usually, if you go to a doctor's office for something, you just have the copay to the doctor, which is typically around $25. Tanks to Obamacare, health insurance now has to fully cover one preventative visit a year. So, once a year you can go in for a check-up and not pay a copay. Sick visits don't count. You'll have to pay a copay for those.\n\nThe other thing you probably see is a deductible. Some policies have lower premiums but high deductibles. An insurance company basically won't pay anyone anything until you reach your annual deductible. Let's say your deductible is $2,000. You get in a car wreck and go to the ER. No matter what, you're going to be paying $2,000 out of pocket before your insurance covers any of the costs. So, a high deductible isn't desirable. I am a fairly young adult with no past medical problems. I have a very high deductible because I can't afford high premiums. My plan basically is there for me for emergencies. If I break a bone or whatever, I'll be paying for the costs of that out of my pocket. On the plus side, I know I'm covered if something terrible happens, and I get negotiated rates from the insurance company for everything else. Like... A lab might normally charge $100 for a blood test, but they have negotiated with my insurance company to only charge them, say, $50 because they bring their business to them. Bcause I have that insurance, I get the negotiated rate, even though I'll be paying the bills entirely myself. Does that make sense?"
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1itwvb | why are celebrity autopsy records often made public? don't hipaa laws protect their medical records? | I'm just wondering why you can often find coroner's reports and autopsies giving every last detail of a dead person's body. Aren't medical records supposed to be private? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1itwvb/eli5_why_are_celebrity_autopsy_records_often_made/ | {
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"HIPAA protection does generally apply after death, but an autopsy is not heathcare. The rules governing release of autopsy reports is different in every state; some make it a public record, and others do not.\n\nTrials are also public, and if the death becomes part of a court case the autopsy report may be entered into evidence, and thus the public record."
]
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29wgg7 | why are always the bullies the one that get through puberty first? | The bullies are always biggest, get beard first, strongest etc | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29wgg7/eli5_why_are_always_the_bullies_the_one_that_get/ | {
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"Because it would be difficult for a little kid to be a bully if he tries to bully those bigger then him.",
"I think the question is, why are the ones who go through puberty first the ones who are more likely to treat everyone else like shit?",
"The same reason basketball players are always really tall. It's hard to do it if you're not. "
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2ik3ym | why do we hear a wind-like sound when clenching the muscles around our ears? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ik3ym/eli5_why_do_we_hear_a_windlike_sound_when/ | {
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"text": [
"Contracting muscles produces a vibration which is audible. You can also hear the same if you ball your hand into a fist and hold the skin against your ear, for instance."
]
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4eg34o | why are hippos so dangerous? | I was recently told that they kill a disproportionate number of people - and from what I understand, they are herbivores. Why are they so dangerous?
E: wow you all know quite a bit about hippos! thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4eg34o/eli5_why_are_hippos_so_dangerous/ | {
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"Hippos are super aggressive animals and will attack just about any other animal along with boats and people on land. Most other dangerous predators, such as crocodiles, will stay clear of them.",
"Because they're very territorial and aggressive to intruders. They're big enough to easily kill a human.",
"Being a herbivore doesn't mean you aren't dangerous. Hippos share their environment with a number of large dangerous predators. So weighing thousands of pounds and effectively carrying around your own swords can be a viable survival advantage. ",
"Well first off the size of their jaws, and the force those jaws can create. They're also territorial as I've heard. But the scariest thing is have you seen how fast a hippo can swim? I don't want to be anywhere near the breeding grounds of hippos.\n\n_URL_0_\n\ntheres an example of them swimming, you can imagine what a heard of angry hippos can do",
"Fun fact; there is evidence they've gotten into scrapes with sharks, which they then fuck all up. Lions won't go near them.\n\nYou want to know how an herbivore can be dangerous, look up Cape buffalos.",
"Similar reasons to why moose are dangerous. They're extremely defensive of their mates and young. Hippos have a better-defined physical area they'll defend, but the result is similar. Just because something doesn't want to eat you doesn't mean it won't get angry at you.\n\nHumans are similar. Many, many deaths are the result of fights or wars that have nothing to do with cannibalism. ",
"Along with what others have posted regarding their aggressiveness and territoriality, the majority of hippo fatalities come from [conflict over crops](_URL_1_).\n\nFarmers grow crops in fields along the riverbanks and hippos see this as an easy source of food. The hungry hippos find their way into the fields, the villagers obviously try and scare them away from their livelihood, which they depend on to survive, and the hippo usually doesn't go without a fight.\n\nTheir skin is very thick, often preventing bullets penetrating all of the way through. Combined with their large bulk and enormous teeth, they're very formidable, and can run at speeds of 18mph (30km/h). It's easy to see why aggressive encounters often go amiss if you're a human.\n\nRandom hippo fun fact: hippo milk is [bright pink](_URL_0_)! Hipposudoric acid and norhipposudoric acid are red compounds hippos produce as sunscreen and to fight off microbial infection (which you kinda' want if you sit in dirty water all day). It's also mixed in with their white milk to give their babies an early immune boost, hence the colour. Woo.",
"They weigh in excess of 5,000lbs, so they are more powerful than you think.\n\nThey can swim 30mph and run 20mph, which is incredibly fast for their size. You will probably get closer than you should because you have a false sense of security, thinking \"I can outrun that thing.\"\n\nTheir front teeth can reach nearly 15\" in length, so they are essentially small swords, and they can open their mouths wider than just about any other animal.\n\nTheir skin is several inches thick, so most guns won't even penetrate it. The gun you are carrying for protection is most likely not strong enough to hurt them unless you hit the soft spots (eyes, belly).\n\nThey are extremely aggressive and territorial. Because of their shape and stature, the best method of defending themselves is attacking.\n\nTL;DR You have a 5,000+lb animal with bulletproof skin and swords for teeth that can out run and out swim you.",
"Here is a Hippo skull. 3 to four feet long. Would you want to end up in there? \n_URL_0_",
"They are big. They are territorial. They are really big. They have nasty, pointy teeth. They can run faster than you'd think. They can swim a hell of a lot faster than you'd think. They're frickin' huge.\n\nDid I mention they have nasty, pointy teeth too?",
"In addition to what others are saying here, I'm going to provide a little bit of extra info courtesy of Cracked: \n\n\"The late Steve Irwin, a man who used to tackle 12-foot crocodiles for fun and wave angry snakes filled with kill-you-before-your-next-heartbeat poison at a camera, considered a five-minute sequence where his camera team had to cross a river filled with hippos to be the single most dangerous moment ever filmed on his show.\n\nThe man who toyed with crocodiles, was scared shitless of hippos.\"\n\nI tried to find a sause for this but couldn't verify it so take it with a grain of salt, however it appears legitimate.",
"Well I read all the way down here and didn't see a mention of what I'd always heard, that most of the fatalities are drownings, usually from running into submerged super-pigs. It's not like the hippos are stampeding through towns and eating people, they just tip over a lot of shitty boats in remote areas.",
"Here is a video of a hippo eating a watermelon. Look at the scale of the watermelon to the hippo, and how easily the watermelon implodes.\n\nNow picture a person is on the receiving end of this. And they are very territorial, so they are easy to provoke.\n\n_URL_0_",
"Quite ironic isn't it? They have thick skin but they get angry really fast. "
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8lsjee | if i ever stole gold bars from a bank, how would i cash it in for actual money? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8lsjee/eli5_if_i_ever_stole_gold_bars_from_a_bank_how/ | {
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"BTW, I'm not actually trying to rob a bank, it was just a thought.",
"I mean ultimately you have a quantity of gold. You could melt it down into various other objects to sell if the bar itself was a \"hot item\"",
"I work for a coin company that occasionally fills order for gold and silver bullion (fine gold and silver that changes with the market price) granted we would never buy or sell a full size bar but we have gotten 1oz-100oz bars in. \n\nBasically you would just find a company that buys bullion on that scale and sell it to them. ",
"1) If its stolen you would need to smelt the bar down and create smaller bars or coins. \n2) You would not cash it in at a bank. You would need to contact a dealer and sell the gold to the dealer. You could also sell it on sites like ebay etc. \n \nAlso if you stole the gold and start selling off large chunks of it be prepared to raise some eyebrows as you are a \"new guy\" to the people in that crowd. They will surely start to question where you came from with this much gold. \n",
"Getting full market value will be hard. You'd have to authenticate it's legal possession and find a legit gold dealer willing to work with you. \n\nGetting some value is easy. Chisel off a piece and melt it down. Crudely form it into a ring. Go to your local Gold4cash store.",
"Gold bars are pretty malleable. I would break it into chunks and sell it to those places that buy gold.\n\nEdit: someone beat me to it"
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7bqpp6 | why does body weight fluctuate so much in a 24 hour period? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7bqpp6/eli5_why_does_body_weight_fluctuate_so_much_in_a/ | {
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"text": [
"Beyond eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom, the main reason you would see your weight fluctuate during the day is because your scale is not accurate."
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7xychm | if you were in a field with nothing around you and there was an earthquake, would you be in danger? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xychm/eli5_if_you_were_in_a_field_with_nothing_around/ | {
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"It depends on the severity of the quake, you and what is under you. The ground moving under you can be highly disorienting, you might get scared, fall, have a heart attack, etc. Geological activity could open up a sinkhole, the ground could swallow you up. In very rare cases trapped gasses could be released and suffocate you. Wild animals don't like quakes any more than we do and might think you are to blame...",
"I was in the Army back in early 2000’s, when the huge earthquake in Seattle Washington happened. We where in the middle of an open drop zone (open field cleared of trees) doing some training, and when it started, the soldiers standing 5 feet from me moved up and down, left and right, at different speed than me!! It was very surreal, lasted a few minutes, when we realized what was going on. \nNeedless to say, in the field we had no issues, but back at our camp, trees fell and smashed many of our vehicles. ( if this helps )",
"Most injuries or fatalities involving earthquakes are due to things falling on people, like collapsing structures or trees. If you're in an empty field, it is extremely unlikely you'd be in any real danger during an earthquake but we can have some fun with this.\n\n\nScenario 1:\nThe seismic waves compress a source of groundwater below you causing it to soak into the soil you're standing on turning it into quicksand. You dont notice your feet sinking in time and are unable to escape. The mud and silt create a vacuum around your torso making it impossible to pull yourself out and you drown.\n\n\nScenario 2:\nThere happens to be a natural fault right below you which opens into a fissure or sinkhole which you promptly fall into breaking your neck. Your body is consumed by a grue living in the newly opened cavern.\n\n\nScenario 3:\nThe field you are in was once a residential area. Unbeknownst to you is a gas line under your feet. The shifting ground breaks this line and a gas pocket forms. The gas is ignited by rocks sparking against metal, exploding under your feet. You fall back hitting your head and die of cerebral hemorrhaging.\n\n\nScenario 4:\nThere is a chemical plant nearby. The earthquake damages a silo of combustible compounds which leaks into the facility and is ignited by a broken power conduit. The silo is destroyed in a catastrophic explosion leveling the whole plant. You are knocked down by the shockwave, your eardrums bleeding having been ruptured from the immense pressure wave. In your dazed, deafened state you fail to notice the flaming debris raining down apon your field and a piece of metal impales you. Bummer.\n\n\nThe possibilities are endless."
]
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28vmqz | the extent of kurdish involvement in iraqi/syrian conflicts | I recently watched this (_URL_0_) VICE documentary that kind of explained the Iraqi Kurd situation, but not tge Syrian one. What is the likely outcome for the respective Kurdish peoples? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28vmqz/eli5_the_extent_of_kurdish_involvement_in/ | {
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"The Kurds are an ethnic group in a variety of states in the middle east. They live in parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. They've been poorly treated by various governments in the past, Saddam Hussein was notoriously brutal.\n\nBecause of that, many Kurds have formed a Kurdish national movement. Ideas of the ideal solution vary, even within those nationalist groups. \n\nSome people think that it's best to create some sort of semi-independent state within existing nation boundaries. So you'd have Turkish Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, etc. They'd operate sort of like states in the US, local rule, but under a national government.\n\nOthers want to secede completely and create a single country just called Kurdistan.\n\n\nWith that as background, Syria is interesting. Kurds in Syria are sort of in limbo currently. They've gained defacto control of a fair amount of Syria as Assad's forces withdrew. Now they're not sure what to do with it. Some want to push for a unified Syria with the above mentioned semi-independence, while others want to start a new country and encourage Kurdish regions in other countries to join them.\n\n\nHow things will end up, no one really knows. However, there has been speculation by the US that Kurdistan as a separate country will probably exist by 2030."
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667zy6 | what exactly happened to all of the movies that were owned by blockbuster? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/667zy6/eli5what_exactly_happened_to_all_of_the_movies/ | {
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"They held a corporation - wide fire sale. \n\nI got a bunch of kung Fu dvd's for five dollars. \n\nAt the end, they were selling the fixtures and racks. \n\nA lot of the stuff went in sizable purchases to resellers; eBay people and other used video stores and the like. \n\nEdit: used to work at Blockbuster. ",
"I worked there as stores were closing. We would basically have giant clearance sales like 4 for $20 and less. When all inventory was sold or as much as possible we would get emails from corporate to either transfer movies to other locations or destroy them. We tossed a bunch of them all the time and usually had to cut them to make them unreadable by any player."
]
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27mm5v | what is the appeal of social networking services such as snapchat or instagram? | I am having trouble understanding the appeal of the new wave of social networking services such as Snapchat, Instagram, and Pinterest. Compared to the older, largely text-based sites such as Facebook and Twitter, these new ones seem to be based around pictures. To me, it seems like it would be harder to communicate through selfies and random pictures as opposed to the written word.
With that said, can someone explain the usefulness of these new services? Am I missing the point entirely? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/27mm5v/eli5_what_is_the_appeal_of_social_networking/ | {
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"Snapchat and Instagram both allow text to be added as captions. For the sake of conversations, they have a similar appeal that a Skype video call has over a normal one - seeing the person's face. \n\nInstagram is more like a Facebook newsfeed than a conversation tool. It's more to show off meals eaten, clothes bought and perhaps some visual experiences. Also, my generation seems to be allergic to reading anything more than a short paragraph.",
"Humans like to share, and these services are usually used to share a snapshot of our life at any given moment.\n\nGoing to Disneyland for the first time? Why not share your moment with friends and acquaintances."
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dh4veu | what is "natural smoke flavor"? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dh4veu/eli5_what_is_natural_smoke_flavor/ | {
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"I do some cooking and use ‘liquid smoke’ which is a highly concentrated liquid made from actual woodsmoke. So it’s a natural wood smoke flavour. Concentrated smoke.",
"when smoking, the particulate matter of the burning wood aerosolizes in water vapor. This then leaves the smoke chamber through a vent. If you collect that exiting smoke on a cool surface, it condenses into a liquid. That liquid is liquid smoke. \"Natural smoke flavor\" is that liquid smoke added as an ingredient."
]
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3xdif6 | what is happening to my body/brain when i'm trying to wake up and i'm groggy? | My blood is flowing, my eyes are open, so what isn't working properly during those first few minutes after waking up that makes a person groggy? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xdif6/eli5_what_is_happening_to_my_bodybrain_when_im/ | {
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"[From this article:](_URL_0_)\n\n\"When dopamine latches onto its receptor in a special part of the brain, it seems to signal the body to \"wake up\" by turning down levels of the sleepiness hormone melatonin, the researchers found.\"\n\nSo, until the dopamine is able to counteract the melatonin in your system, you will feel groggy. That, and dehydration if you've slept a long time.",
"Your brain is filled with cells called neurons. In between these neurons are fluid channels that carry nutrients to the cells and carries waste out. During sleep your neurons shrink to about half their normal size. This allows these fluid channels to work much more efficiently. Unfortunately, it also makes your neurons function less efficiently until they regain their normal size in the morning."
]
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[
"http://www.livescience.com/21050-feel-good-brain-chemical-s-role-in-sleep.html"
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fr5qaa | how does a fata morgana work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fr5qaa/eli5_how_does_a_fata_morgana_work/ | {
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"from what i understand, when the conditions are right, light rays bend strangely through the lower atmosphere and cause images to become distorted, such as floating ships or things far away appearing very close",
"Fata Morgana is the Italian name for Morgan le Fay (meaning \"Morgan the Fairy\"), a sorceress of medieval legends. This sister of the legendary King Arthur is sometimes portrayed as the ruler of the island paradise Avalon and is said to have had a number of magical powers, with which she caused a great deal of trouble. Among her powers, say some versions of the legend, was the ability to change shape, and she has been blamed for causing complex mirages over bodies of water, especially in the Strait of Messina. Today we know that such optical illusions are really caused by atmospheric conditions, but we still sometimes use \"fata morgana\" as a synonym of \"mirage.\"",
"Did this question come up because of the weirdest thing at see thread? I’d never heard of this until about an hour ago!\n\n*sea"
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453zj3 | why is it a goal of the federal reserve to have 2% inflation? why strive to have the cost of living increase every year vs keeping it even? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/453zj3/eli5_why_is_it_a_goal_of_the_federal_reserve_to/ | {
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"Couple of reasons\n\n1) A little bit of inflation is actually _good_ for an economy. It helps to reduce the burden of debt (since debt becomes \"cheaper\" the older it gets and thus easier to pay off), it encourages consumer spending (since prices will rise the longer you wait to buy) and it encourages investment (since non-invested money will lose value). These are all things that you want to encourage.\n\n2) It is a guard against deflation. Deflation is **very** bad for an economy. It basically causes the opposite of everything I mentioned in 1, each of which has devastating effects on an economy. A moderate amount of inflation is worth it if it helps to ensure deflation doesn't happen."
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3bspl8 | why doesn't mcdonalds sell hotdogs? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bspl8/eli5_why_doesnt_mcdonalds_sell_hotdogs/ | {
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"Because it's a burger joint. Why doesn't Taco Bell serve lasagna? ",
"Would you try to sell something called a \"McWeiner\"? Problem solved.",
"It's been tried, and it's never been a big success for them.\n\nOne theory as to why is that fast food is a quick and easy alternative to cooking at home. Now, you can save a lot of time and mess by having someone else make your hamburger. But I think we can all recognize that hot dogs can be made very quickly and with very little mess at home, at a fraction of the price a fast food place would charge. As a result, hot dogs don't have the same value proposition to a fast food customer that a hamburger does.\n\nThat said, there are some major fast food chains that do sell hot dogs, and have for years, Sonic being one of the larger examples."
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6vjemq | why does nintendo produce extremely limited runs of products like the nes classic and snes classic? | Why did Nintendo release such a limited run of the NES Classic when they could have sold many more? Is it something to do with the parts? Is it to create hype?
I saw that the SNES Classic preorder sold out in about thirty seconds on the Target site. Doesn't this strategy encourage reselling, potentially alienating loyal customers? What's Nintendo's motive? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6vjemq/eli5_why_does_nintendo_produce_extremely_limited/ | {
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"Free advertising. It brings more buzz to the Nintendo brand. When everyone is talking about them, all youtube gaming channels mention them, newspapers mention the sellout... it gives them more attention and buzz. Long term they aren't trying to go to Sega route and just make a few nostalgic games and releasing classic versions of consoles. No one really talks about the Genesis-Mini even though they're on shelves across America sitting there. Nintendo wants you to buy their consoles, their amiibos, their games.\n\nNo one knew about or really bought a Wii U. They're increasing demand for Nintendo. Since they know you can't get a hold of the NES classic you'll be in the \"I want Nintendo now\" mindset and will be more willing to buy a Switch, 2DS, or Virtual Console games. It was the same as Pokemon Go, people wonder why they didn't add any features. Pokemon Go and Mario Run were only put out as advertisements reminding the public of these games in the their eye. Pokemon Go actually increased sales of the 3DS. I'm willing to bet that the NES classic helped the sales of the Switch.",
"Nintendo has been in the habit of under-shipping their hardware since the NES days. \n\nBack then it made sense; if you can't find it in the store it must be popular! Nowadays it's ridiculous because of how much we're used it near-instant gratification via Amazon and other internet retailers and how accessible industry news on sales projections are (back in the day you got one magazine a month, if you were lucky!).\n\nNintendo is a *very* Japanese company (unlike Sony, who are Japanese in origin but have departments and executives all around the world who actually have input on how the company moves, whereas Nintendo's foreign offices just do what Japan tells them to do), and the Japanese don't like change. So they've been doing the same shit since the late 80s.\n\nThat's why their online is crap because it's \"new\" (it was *new* ~~ten~~ **fifteen** (Christ I'm old) fucking years ago) and why they have accounts and downloads tied directly to hardware and so on. They don't feel like they need to change to fit the way the industry currently works, so they don't.\n\ntl;dr: old Japanese men. If you'd like to know more you should read Console Wars by Blake Harris. It really goes into Nintendo's corporate culture and shows how similar attitudes from Sega Japan really fucked the company over."
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3b8mto | where is the information on qr codes saved? are there infinite patterns? | How do QR codes work wheres is the information saved and why are there not 2 codes which mean the same?
And when will every pattern be used? How many Posibilites are there?
(sorry for bad english :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3b8mto/eli5where_is_the_information_on_qr_codes_saved/ | {
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"The QR code is the information. Each little segment of the pattern corresponds to a character (a letter, symbol, or number). You can encode up to about 3000 characters in each QR code (restricting yourself to characters that are used in English- it's fewer if you want to support other languages too). So every piece of text you can think of up to about 3000 characters can be written in a QR code.",
" > wheres is the information\n\nThe pattern is the information. The three squares in the corners are for alignment, and the rest is data.\n\n > why are there not 2 codes which mean the same\n\nThere are, in a sense. QR codes include some amount of error correction, so if you flip a couple of bits in a QR code it won't change the meaning. People have exploited this functionality to [embed images in a QR code](_URL_1_) - the image is essentially read as garbage data, but the error correction is sufficient to fix it.\n\n > And when will every pattern be used\n\n[Never](_URL_0_) There are simply far too many possible patterns. QR codes can store up to 3KB of data (though that would be a big QR code). 3KB equates to about 10^903 different patterns. For comparison, there are an estimated 10^80 atoms in the universe."
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"http://hackaday.com/2011/08/11/how-to-put-your-logo-in-a-qr-code/"
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22bx2v | the grammar of national identities. | Why is there a spelling/grammatical difference in how we describe people of different nationalities? Why is it there are British, Scottish, Irish versus American, German, Russian versus Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese? Is there an important rule in grammar or spelling that I was never taught or is it a complete crap shoot? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22bx2v/eli5the_grammar_of_national_identities/ | {
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"FYI: Those words are [demonyms](_URL_0_)."
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7ggdxs | how does chapstick work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ggdxs/eli5_how_does_chapstick_work/ | {
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"Chapped lips are due to them losing moisture. Chapstick simply leaves a protective layer over them so that moisture does not evaporate from them as quickly",
"Water is a polar molecule. Lipids (fats) in chapsticks are non-polar. Polar and non-polar don’t mix so applying a non-polar layer on top of the cells in your lips prevents water from leaving your cells. This keeps your lips from drying out and becomming chapped. \n\nSource: Biology freshman year of highschool\n\nEdit: Change “Lipids (fats)” to “Petrolatum” ",
"Most lip balms (Chapstick is actually a specific brand name) have two or three functions.\n\nThe first and main function is to create a hydrophobic (waterproof) barrier on your lips to prevent evaporative loss of water from the exposed cells. Usually petrolatum or beeswax is used. That water loss kills cells while changing their shape and size which creates the hardening, cracking, bleeding, and pain of chapped lips.\n\nAll lip balms will provide some UV light protection and many modern brands can provide very significant protection (SPF 50+). This simply helps keep those exposed cells healthy and stops what could be a secondary danger to those cells.\n\nSome lip balms which are usually labeled as \"medicated\" contain mild analgesics. These can be effective in reducing the pain of chapped lips but some physicians and researchers are concerned that preventing the pain may cause people to not notice when damage is increasing. Also, the analgesic effect will run out well before your lips heal leading to a simple \"dependence\" on constant reapplication to avoid pain. It may be wise to avoid these balms unless your chapped lips have reached the point where pain is affecting your life.\n\nBonus trivia: lip balms are not compatible with latex condoms. Take care when the two may come in contact.",
"I don’t have chapstick handy to read its ingredients but I was told that most chapsticks have some sort of alcohol in them so wouldn’t that dry your lips out, making chapstick useless? ",
"Essentially, lip balm creates a sort of barrier on your lips that locks moisture in, but also prevents your lips from absorbing more moisture, which is why they say water is the best lip balm.",
"Chapstick puts a coating on your lips that prevents moisture loss. It’s like having an oil of layer over water, the water simply doesn’t evaporate as quickly. "
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aot0oi | why are there so many posts about how evil chinese government is? what is the relationship between getting investment and censorship concerns? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aot0oi/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_posts_about_how_evil/ | {
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"The government of China heavily censors the internet it allows its citizens to see. Basically in China the only internet provider is the Chinese government and they block anything that makes them look bad. Famously they censor anything to do with the Tiannemen Square massacre where the Chinese government ran its own students over with tanks. This information block on the internet is nicknamed “The Great Firewall of China”\n\nMany large tech companies have been accused of being complicit in this censorship regime. Google, Amazon, and others, as part of the conditions to get access to Chinese markets and customers, must allow the Chinese government to censor what is provided to Chinese citizens. [Here](_URL_0_) is an example of what google looks like with the same search word in two different countires. \n\nNow a large Chinese tech firm is investing $150 million in Reddit. The fear is reddit will begin to censor itself by removing any post that makes the Chinese goverment look bad. reddit admins have faced accusations in the past of removing content to appease investors and advertisers. \n\nSo many redditors, who rememeber the free for all of reddit’s early days, are intentionally posting and upvoting posts that have been known to be censored by the chinese goverment. Partly as a joke, partly as protest, and partly to raise awarness of the vast majority of reddit users who are casual lurkers of who really owns and controls reddit. "
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4oziks | the role of kadyrov in the russian government | As head of Chechnya, he seems to be equivalent to a US governor, albeit one from a politically sensitive "state". However, he seems to be more prominent than any other Republic or oblast head in Russia. Why is that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4oziks/eli5_the_role_of_kadyrov_in_the_russian_government/ | {
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"You generally hear about him more because of his heavy-handed rule and how he's violently crushed opposition. The idea that he can run Chechnya as a private fief up to and including assassinating people and harboring violent criminals so long as he delivers votes for Putin (to the tune of 99.5 percent support for United Russia with a voter turnout of 99.4 percent) is something that often gets the attention of the news both within and outside of Russia.",
"Imagine that Texas was being uppity and rebellious, and that its governor was the one keeping a lid on the attempts to secede from the union. Obviously you'd hear a lot more about that, because restless areas get more coverage, \"For the third day straight, nothing exciting happens in Montana\" isn't headline material.\n\nThat's a bit how it is. Chechnya is a hot spot, and Kadyrov basically acts as Putin's enforcer in the area to keep it under control of Moscow - and he can be quite heavy-handed. Whether that's good or bad, we could have debates, but it's a near certainty that Russia would roll in the military if Putin suspected an increase in separatism."
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rrut2 | why sites like hulu and pandora don't work outside of the us | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/rrut2/eli5_why_sites_like_hulu_and_pandora_dont_work/ | {
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"Because the companies who own the content only lease it to companies that operate in the US, for US customers. The website picks up your IP address and knows which country you are based in.",
"This is mostly due to distribution deals of the content creating companies. Hulu and Pandora would have to make deals with those people who own the distribution contracts for all those countries outside the US. If the content creators provided the same content worldwide over these internet services, they would be in breach of contract with all these other distribution companies. "
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5jrdr8 | why do writers sometimes go by pen names? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5jrdr8/eli5_why_do_writers_sometimes_go_by_pen_names/ | {
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"Pushkin used pen name for some of his work because he feared that critics will not approve it.",
"Some people would like the work to speak on its own merits and not be judged against a preconceived notion of the writer. A great example is Joe Hill. He writes horror but did not want people to cast judgement on his writing by using his full name Joseph Hillstrom King (son of Stephen King). If he had, it would have been judged against his father's work and not as a new entry into the genre."
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3bt63b | why some music sound better with headphones ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3bt63b/eli5_why_some_music_sound_better_with_headphones/ | {
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"As opposed to what, the mono speaker on your phone, your stereo computer speakers, your car speakers, your home sound system? Closed headphones are naturally noise isolating (canceling is another thing), so the sound is clear and there is no background noise.",
"Your ears can detect differences between what coming into the left ear verses the left ear. This is how directional hearing works. This sounds natural, and with aucustic music it sounds off when the exactly the same thing is being played in both ears. With a normal speaker, the left and right speakers are close enough together that they blend together. Headphones don't have the same problem.\n\nThis is eveb more apparent in a lot of Dubstep/EDM, where they artificially change their sounds so they are different in each ear. If you want a good example, check out [Intake by Frequent](_URL_0_).",
"Probably cause good quality headphones are really cheap compared to other stereo systems? Your $20 buds might be comparable to a set of $100 computer speakers, while a high end sports car with a 12 speaker Bose setup will probably blow away anything a portable system can offer."
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5yub2i | if polygraphs are known to be nothing more than a carnival trick, how and why are so many government positions requiring a polygraph in order to get hired? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5yub2i/eli5_if_polygraphs_are_known_to_be_nothing_more/ | {
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"Two major reasons:\n\nIt gives them an opportunity to weed out applicants for a variety of reasons, both said and unsaid, while citing a polygraph failure as the official reason. When you've got 200 people applying for 3 openings, you want a quick way to whittle that down. Offering a subjective test that's masquerading as an objective test is a really convenient way to do that.\n\n\nSecond reason, and possibly the more important one; not everyone knows it's bullshit. The purpose of a polygraph isn't to detect lies. That isn't possible. It's to get you to admit to things you otherwise would not have, even if it's just admitting that you left something out of your pre-polygraph questionnaire. When a polygraph is administered, the first step is to give you a very long form with a series of yes or no questions. These questions ask all sorts of things like have you ever committed a crime against a person, have you ever stolen property, have you ever committed a traffic offense, have you ever used or sold drugs, etc. If you mark yes to any of these questions, there is usually a blank where you are required to fill out an explanation. Sometime later you are given the actual polygraph test. The examiner has a copy of your questionnaire in front of him. First he will ask you a bunch of preliminary questions that they say are calibrating the equipment. A common one is that they will write the numbers 1 through 5 on a piece of paper and then circle one of them. They will tell you to answer \"no\" to all five of the following questions and then ask you \"is the number one circled, is number two circled, and so on\". \n\nThen they will ask you roughly 10 to 20 questions about your actual past, all of these questions are yes or no. They will ask each question probably 3 or 4 times so while you might get asked fifty to a hundred questions, you might only get asked about 15 unique questions. They just repeat the same ones over and over in different orders, ostensibly measuring your body responses to those questions.\n\nWhile they are are more than willing to use your answers to those questions as a reason to reject you, the real purpose of the test comes after that. This is called the \"post examination interview\". They will make a big show about turning off the equipment, unhooking all the sensors and gear, probably talking to you a little bit about what you had for lunch or what football team you like, all to get you to relax. They will tell you that the test is over and that you are no longer being monitored. Here comes the important part. They then finish by asking you if there's anything you might have left out or any answers you might have wanted to clarify, anything that you may have forgotten to put on your pre-interview questionnaire, etc. They will tell you that it's far better for you to admit to things now since the test results haven't been submitted yet, that you don't want to be found out to be lying later, that it will look good if you would admit to things and that it will show that you're willing to work with them and that you want to be honest if you tell them the whole story about something that you may have not been clear on before or that you may have left out before. If you require a little prodding, the examiner will say something like \"I've got some indicators of deception on questions 3 and 7 regarding your possible past drug use. Are you sure there isn't anything you're not telling me?\" It's a lie, there are no indicators of deception. There is no such thing as an indicator of deception. It's a trick to get you to say something you would not have told them otherwise.\n\nThis is where they get you. The combination of feeling relaxed after the stressful examination, and the desire to appear honest and forthcoming gets a massive amount of people to admit to all sorts of things that they otherwise would not have. \"Oh yeah there was that one time in high school where I guess I sold a couple bags of weed to some of my brother's friends, but I didn't think it was a big deal and it's not like I'm a drug dealer or anything\". \"I wasn't sure if I should put it on the form that I filled out because I didn't get charged or anything, but there was that time seven years ago where I did get arrested for domestic violence, but like I said I didn't get charged and nothing came of it so it's not like I actually committed a crime. I didn't think it was a big deal\". \n\nThank you for your honesty. Rejected.\n\nThe true purpose of the polygraph is to get you to admit to things and basically disqualify yourself. Even if the things you're admitting to by themselves would not have been that big of a deal, the fact that you didn't include them in your questionnaire or you may have given one answer to a background detective previously but gave a different kind of answer to the polygraph examiner, etc. *They're trying to weed out applicants*. It's far easier to have you do it to yourself than it is to pay a background detective to research you, or possibly risk some kind of \"they didn't hire me because I'm black\" lawsuit. If they can show you said A on the form and B to the examiner, you're rejected for lying, it doesn't matter what the smoke and mirrors in the \"lie detector\" say.\n\n\nEDIT: a number of people are responding with comments along the lines of \"this isn't true, the polygraph really does measure things\". Yes, it does. Namely heart rate, blood pressure, and skin conductivity(perspiration). The hand-waving comes from where they use this data to imply that you're lying about something. There is no actual evidence those data points have anything to do with lying. A question about whether you've ever had sexual contact with a minor may elicit a response because you did, because you were the *victim* of child abuse, or because the question is just shocking. The data can't tell them which it is, or if you just happen to have a stomach ache. The data they collect does not detect lies. It detects stress (and more to the point, *possible* symptoms of *possible* stress). The underlying theory is that one who is lying is experiencing more stress during the lie than they are when they tell the truth, and that has never been proven to be true.",
"Because many government agencies really, really want to believe they work, have polygraph operators on staff who swear up and down they work, and have created a culture where they ignore the science. Or more cynically, they don't really care whether or not they work, they just want another tool they can use to punish people they \"know\" are guilty.\n\nThey only positive value is a lot of people still believe they work, and if they have something to hide, it might discourage them from seeking sensitive jobs.",
"The style of interview in a polygraph test often elicits confessions. It may be nothing more than cinematic effect and the psychology of clearly establishing roles in the conversation.. you're literally getting strapped into a machine and everything you say people are testing to see if it's a lie.. whatever it is the mind trick works often and people are more honest during a polygraph. The point is to do everything you can to get the story as honestly as possible, as often as possible. ",
"For the same reason that although the deadbolt on your front door isn't really going to stop someone who wants to break into your house, you still lock the door every night. It weeds out the low hanging fruit and in the case of government hires that means they can focus their energy looking for big problems with the candidates rather than worrying about little issues.\n\nIt is also important to remember that although it is easy enough to train someone to beat a polygraph, most people aren't trained. ",
"As someone that took a polygraph test after some money went missing where I used to work I can say that the asking and answering of the questions was only a small part of the test. I went in expecting the question \"did you take the money?\" The first question took place after an hour long discussion. There were I think 10 questions in total and all required a yes or no answer. They were worded in such a manner that some required a no answer and others yes, obviously. \n\nI was asked the questions three times with a break in between each time where we would talk about morals and ethics, right and wrong and a lot of the questions I was asked were worded in such a way that what ever answer you gave could be interpreted in a different light. Example:\n\nInterrogator: so on a scale of 0 to 100 how truthful of a person are you?\n\nMe: well I don't lie very much, and im not good at it anyways, however I'm no Mother Teresa so I would say 80.\n\nI: so you lie 20 pct of the time, that's rather high...hmm.\n\nMe: that's not what I said!\n\nI: actually it is, when was the last time you lied?\n\nMe: I can't remember the last time I lied\n\nI: the fact that you can't remember the last time you lied tells me that you lie a lot. If you didn't lie very much you would remember the last time you lied because it would be a rare occurrence.\n\nMe: or maybe that the last time I lied was so long ago and that it was so inconsequental that I forgot when it happened.\n\nThis went on for three hours. 4 people took the test we compared notes afterwards and we all got the same questions. \n\nI am all about experiences and 20 years later I look back on it not with fond memories because it was humiliating and maddening, but am glad I got to experience what it was like. The guys that do it are pros and are able to suck information and possibly a confession out of your head. \n\nEdit: it was around $8000 cdn\n",
"They work very well if the person doesn't know how they work. It's once the person knows how they work they turn into trash results. ",
"I don't have an answer, I just want to add one thing: while the CQT (Control Question Technique) is ineffective enough to be useless, there's another seldom-used method, the GKT (Guilty Knowledge Test) is [actually](_URL_2_) pretty [effective](_URL_1_), and, in fact, \\*studies indicate that it is capable of [~~meets~~ meeting](_URL_3_)\\* the [Daubert Standard](_URL_0_) for court evidence.\n\nIt works like this: say the cops (and no one else) know the murder was committed with a hammer. So they ask the suspect, \"was he murdered with a knife? A gun? A hammer?\" And if it spikes at hammer, that indicates they might be guilty.",
"It's an interrogation tool, not an oracle. Cops are allowed to lie to you during an interrogation as long as their lie would not cause harm to an innocent person. So they'll tell you \"We have fingerprints from the murder weapon that match yours\", and it's completely legal even though it's not true. Because if you're stupid enough to confess after hearing that, then the system is basically of the opinion that you deserve to get caught. \n\nSame with a polygraph. The cops (or whichever government agency) tell you \"We know you're lying so you can't lie so for real dude have you ever sold drugs.\" And if you're dumb enough to actually believe them, then they don't want to hire you for whatever job you're interviewing for anyway. ",
"Because they are able to get much more information and details out of you they'll never get in a straight forward written questionnaire . \n\nThey do that by encouraging you to expand and explain each answer you give, so it 'wont count' as a negative against you, so if you say you never stole anything from an employer, no matter how small, they ask you to expand as in it's ok if you did take a pen, but it depends on the conditions, and then you go into a whole story about how you used to take stationary and how often, which they'll never know otherwise. \n\n\n\nAlso, if it's done by 3rd party companies they can ask 'illegal' questions (medical history etc) that the company itself can't ask you directly. \n",
"If torture doesn't provide actionable reliable intelligence why is it still used and promoted?\n\nI think maybe the answers are similar? Like a cultural lie that we keep telling ourselves so it keeps being believed by many to have value even though we pretty easily prove otherwise.\n\nBoth are tools... just not with the purpose we say they have. ",
"FBI scientist and polygraph critic Dr. Drew Richardson explained in 1997 why federal agencies continue to use the polygraph, despite its unreliability. His 20-year-old critique remains valid today. He wasn't explaining to 5-year-olds, but to U.S. senators who were not subject matter experts. See links to his testimony transcript and video below:\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_0_\n",
"As /u/chksum said it can be used as a tool by a skilled investigator to get you to confess to things. \n\nBut I would add that, from a management perspective it's appealing that there's this machine that can determine if something's a lie. Give it to anyone, they turn it on, boom lie detector. Actual detective/interrogation skill takes a certain aptitude and a lot of training/experience and is very subjective. When your skilled investigator dies or retires how do you replace them? Or 9/11 happens and now you need 5x the number of investigators, where do they come from? Oh look, a magic box that does the same thing. Need more, write a check. Breaks down, write a check. Anyone can use it and the results are unambiguous. Easy-peasy. That's the perception anyway. ",
"You forgot to mention is so unreliable at detecting deception that it is not legal in a court of law. ",
"In most of the world they aren't used. If they were as good as that 90% claim says they are then surely they would be?",
"Lie detectors are good at showing how nervous someone is but can not detect a flat out lie. That's why they cannot be used in any court. As far as taking one for a law enforcement job, the best they can do is see if you are nervous when answering a question, then they have to make an assumption based on your level of nervousness an ultimately a decision. The shitty thing is that they don't know why you're nervous, like maybe you shouldn't have had that burrito from that Mexican food truck for lunch an you're trying to hold in a massive fart right at the moment they ask you if you have ever engaged in any illegal sexual activity (i.e. Paying for a prostitute) you're nervous, you let out a silent fart, it shows during that question, an you fail. Next candidate!!",
"I was interviewed for a basic government clearance level because of one of my jobs. It was not on a polygraph, but just an interview after filling out a long questionnaire. It was a very similar thing, though. There was over a month between the questionnaire and the interview, however, and they had asked about drug use in the past 7 years on both. On the questionnaire I had said no (which was true) and in the interview I said yes, which was also true, because I had smoked pot once during that month (and ~8 years before this event). I always feel like I'm a terrible liar and people can tell when I'm trying to lie, so I decided to be honest during the interview. The interviewer seemed a little frustrated that the discrepancy meant he had more work to do.\n\nMy understanding from the followup questions and from other people I talked to was that the interview was mostly to try to find out if I could be blackmailed into revealing things that I had access to with the security clearance or giving other people access to the data (this would be more likely for this job since it was a tech support position with access to creating usernames and passwords and setting access levels for government employees). He asked additional questions like \"Would you care if anyone knew about this? Does your boyfriend know about it? Does your mother know? How would you feel if someone was going to tell your mother?\" and so on. So he was less concerned with what I had done and more about why I would have lied about it on the form and said differently in person.",
"Same reason companies use personality profiling like Myers -Briggs. It's complete bullshit but if you've got yourself a job as head of HR you've got to make it look like it's not something anybody could do.",
"I worked in a lab testing polygraphs, so I can offer some sciency stuff.\n\nOne of the first things I learned is that polygraphs are commonly called 'Credibility assessment screening system'. Thinking about them with that in mind makes it a little easier. The test is to make sure you don't have anything to hide, not so much that you're lying. There are also different levels to lying but I won't go into that. \n\nBasically, it comes down to the quality of the questions. Typically, 21 questions are asked (during a 'Credibility assessment') that are meant to trip up the subject and illicit a response when they know they are lying. If the person believes the polygraph to actually read lies, the subject will illicit a bigger response. A good test will have a solid baseline measurement, but if you don't have a good baseline or don't deviate far from it then the test is less reliable.\n\nPolygraphs measure GSR, respiration, and heart rate typically (there are other things you may see in the near future). These are all part of autonomic response, so they are trying to elicit some fear basically. ",
"Many of these answers are very long and not ELI5. As someone who has taken many I'll put it very succinctly:\n\nThey know they're bullshit but they provide a platform in which to interrogate you. Interrogation is far, far more effective than any pseudoscience device and it's typically not obvious that they're doing it because, hey you're just there for a polygraph not an interrogation.\n\n***Bonus content:***\n\nFor example they may ask you a question, then say \"hmm, are you telling us the truth? The polygraph is picking up a behavior difference. Anything you want to tell us?\". If you allow them to \"peel back the onion\"[1] you will fail the test. If you don't and they have good readings, you pass. End of story.\n\n[1] By peeling back the onion I mean giving up more and more information. This is best showed with a quick example.\n\nP = polygraphist\n\nU = you\n\n\nP: Hmm, when I asked you if you ever broke the law and you told me no, the polygraph picked up on a behavior change. Anything you want to tell me?\n\nU: No\n\nP: Are you sure? Maybe it's something simple like you ran a red light or were caught speeding.\n\nU: Oh. Maybe. I have two speeding tickets.\n\nP: Okay but that probably doesn't explain your body's reaction entirely. What else? Come on we know you've broken the law with *something* and your body is reacting to it\n\nU: I, uh, maybe downloaded some movies a few times?\n\nP: Okay It's good we're being honest. But there is more. I know it. If you don't be honest with me then I have to fail you.\n\n\nBasically you keep giving up more and more information. You've already failed when you start going down this path. They will continue this until you give up or they literally run out of time especially if you start giving up information.\n",
"The vast majority of westernised countries dont. It's just another one of America's crazies",
"I feel like the answer is in the question...It's bs. Therefore it is ideal for bureaucratic decision making. ",
"The same reason that many people think that homeopathy works, or the earth is flat, or that good exists, or astrology, or acupuncture ... And so on.",
"A polygraph measures various outputs of your body. Eg sweat.\n\nSweating = lie is a gross oversimplification. But the presence of a polygraph should make an interviewer more effective.\n\nTo detect deception you need a few things. One of those things is for the subject to have the perception that you will detect falsehoods.\nA polygraph circumvents this somewhat, if a person believes that the polygraph test will detect lies, then it is an asset.\n\nThey exist because they work in their job of revealing information that otherwise may remain hidden.",
"I know several dudes who won't even fucking apply to jobs because they have polys.\n\nI also know several dudes who passed polys despite things like operating grow houses.\n\nIt certainly weeds out a significant amount of bum applicants. "
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"http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/apl/88/1/131/",
"http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/lhb/26/5/527/"
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"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Ss9rR-dXM",
"https://antipolygraph.org/hearings/senate-judiciary-1997/richardson-statement.shtml"
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2r49t1 | the war between console and pc gaming supporters. whats the differences. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2r49t1/eli5_the_war_between_console_and_pc_gaming/ | {
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"It's typical passing contest shit. There is no \"war\", just a few people trying to make themselves feel superior to others.",
"Consoles don't really have any benefit besides simplicity and possibly cost. PCs are more powerful, have better graphics, more customizable, better controls, more compatible, more upgradable, more versatile, really better in every way that matters. ",
"No one likes to be told their wrong, and people are very into games, leading to some very heated discussions.\n\nIt's like debating Beer vs. Wine. Some people are fine with either, might even have both stocked in their house right now. Some people prefer one. Some people will die to defend their drink of choice and not even consider trying the alternative.\n\nI think the debate is silly. With the exception of exclusive games, consoles have no advantage over a PC. Then again, a beer drinker would say \"with the exception of grapes, I don't see how wine is better\".",
"Consoles have set hardware and they're designed to be plug which means that they are easy to set up and play. PCs are more customizable which means you can get better performance, but this often means more fiddling around with drivers and settings. In practice, consoles are typically played on a couch with a controller and a tv while PCs are typically played with a mouse and keyboard at a desk(You can play PCs in different configurations, but that is most common, at least from my experience). \n\nPeople like to argue about which one is better, but that's really going to depend on your personal preference. "
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3ra9ba | are animals able to communicate if they were from different regions? (eg france and japan) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ra9ba/eli5_are_animals_able_to_communicate_if_they_were/ | {
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"It depends on the animal. Many have instinctive forms of communication, essentially due to genetics. But certain songbirds learn their songs, and isolated communities of the same species have different songs, so that they have to learn different songs if they find themselves away from home."
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3tbpof | can someone explain to me english grammar rule for using 'articles' like 'a' ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3tbpof/eli5_can_someone_explain_to_me_english_grammar/ | {
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"both your examples are correct. you can use other articles, like \"the,\" for instance. The boy was playing with a ball in the park with a girl. \"the\" implies something specific, so the speaker and listener knows which boy and which park, but it could be any old ball and an unknown girl.",
"A is used when the noun is non specific. \"A boy ran uphill.\" indicates who the boy is is either unknown or unimportant. \"The boy ran uphill.\" indicates it is a specific boy. \n\"The boy took a picture of a building.\" Indicates knowledge of the boy while the building he took a picture of is unknown, as in it was a part of a group of buildings and you do not know which one.\n\"A boy took a picture of the Chrysler building.\" Indicates you don't know the boy, but the building is extremely specific (Unique even)."
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4brusu | if people say dolphins and orcas are as smart as humans, why have they not built underwater economies and cities? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4brusu/eli5_if_people_say_dolphins_and_orcas_are_as/ | {
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"Because intelligence doesn't always mean progress. They have fulfilling lives where they play, have sex and eat. Why would they need to build cities and economies? Just because someone doesn't want a job doesn't make them dumb. Heck, maybe they are smarter than us because they don't want to create a complicated civilization and just want to play and have sex and eat and sing. ",
"I haven't heard many professionals say they are *as* smart as humans, although plenty of people say they are intelligent relative to other animals.\n\nI'd point out they do not have hands, so tool-use is difficult if not impossible. They also don't have access to the variety of building materials we do. And for that matter, intelligence doesn't necessarily mean you need economies and cities. ",
"Put simply: [They aren't as smart as humans](_URL_0_). \n \nSome have hypothesized this due to their large brains, but we now know that doesn't correlate with intelligence as much as we thought. In fairness, they do have shown some level of intelligence by playing simple games and picking the same object when shown. They can also be trained to do tricks, etc. \n \nSo we can certainly say that when compared to other animals, they are more intelligent than most. But they are by no means more intelligent than humans.",
"Opposable thumbs might be one reason. \n\nInability to harness fire underwater may be another. Our entire civilization is predicated on controlling fire. \n\nAnd as another poster pointed out. Why do you equate civilization with intelligence? We've only been living that way for a few tens of thousands of years and we've almost ended ourselves several times and indeed we're currently considered an extinction level event (see Holocene extinction). None of that seems very 'intelligent' to me. ",
"* they aren't as smart as humans, just nearly so\n* they lack opposable thumbs or other organs they can use to manipulate the environment\n* being smart isn't all there is to it, having access to water adverse technologies like fire and writing and cement help a lot\n* it is just harder to build stuff underwater",
"One of the key constructs of the rise of human economies and civilization is defined around humans' ability to manipulate and change the status of nature around us. While intelligence is important, so too are what actions are taken based off of that intelligence. Humans have survived and advanced by being masters of our domain - basically, we've looked at our environment over time and collectively said \"what can we do with all of these resources to make us the hottest shit in all of the land.\" \nTake for instance, the concept of \"fire\" and \"heat\". Humanoids somehow discovered fire, understood it at a basic level by probably getting burned a hell of a lot, and figured out how to make it. It made them warm when they were cold, made their food taste better, and brightened up their caves (again people, this is ELI5). Now, along the way, they kept discovering other things about fire. Like... some crazy fuck by accident or on purpose actually burned rocks, and found that certain rocks (shiny ones) melted - then when that melted rock cooled, it hardened again. Now the gears started turning in his/her/its head - suddenly they could make tools and other dope shit by harnessing the energy that comes from fire. Flash forward to 2016, and we aren't even trying to create fire anymore - we're trying to harness fire and energy that already exists in the universe and transform it in such ways that benefit us with the lowest marginal cost (solar power, etc.). \nNow, dolphins and orcas might be as smart as humans, but they may have a different take. They might not face the same number of predators that humans traditionally have. They might not have the ability to manipulate the environment around them as well as we can. Hell, they might not even want to. Their concept of \"economies\" or \"cities\" or \"societies\" might be as simple as 20 chill-ass dolphins playing around in hella warm water. \nOR - there are some really, really dope underwater dolphin cities that we don't know about, and the dolphins we see on a regular basis are the outlaw vagrants who wanted to do sex all the time. \n*edit - words"
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xsw0w | how the hell can we get photos and video back from mars (over 125 million miles away) so fast? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xsw0w/eli5_how_the_hell_can_we_get_photos_and_video/ | {
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"Radiofrequency transmissions travel at the speed of light - as with all electromagnetic radiation. It takes about 14 minutes for signal from Mars to reach Earth."
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6xx98l | when a bomb from world war ii gets discovered and needs to be defused, why did it take so long to find it, especially if it is in a populated area? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xx98l/eli5_when_a_bomb_from_world_war_ii_gets/ | {
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"Typically these bombs fell from the sky and hit the ground very hard, ending up buried underground (if they didn't explode). Something got built over the top of them, with no one knowing there was a bomb under there. They're discovered when someone starts digging, for example to make a foundation for a new building, or to put in a new sewer line or subway.",
"Millions of tons of explosives were dropped over Germany in WW2, and the German government estimates that 15% of them failed to explode. That's a lot of unexploded bombs still waiting to be found.\n\nBut they were dropped from a great height, and some of them buried themselves up to 20 metres -- that's 60 feet -- into the ground. Even those that didn't go so deep aren't necessarily easy to find.\n\nIn any German city, it's very common to find explosive devices nearly every time you dig a hole: about 5,000 a year, although not all of them will be from WW2, and most of them will be small things like hand grenades. But bombs are quite common, and barely a day goes by without one being found. This happens any time you dig deeper than has been dug before on any particular spot, perhaps because the building you're constructing needs deeper foundations than the one you just demolished. Sometimes you don't have to dig very far at all.\n\nThat's why, incidentally, if you're starting a major construction project in any important German city, it's best if you first commission a survey to attempt to find any unexploded bombs. This involves looking at aerial images of the immediate aftermath of bombing raids, as well as getting the metal detectors out. You have to pay for the survey, but the defusing and removal of bombs is paid for by the government (the state of Bavaria alone spends €800,000 a year on bomb disposal).\n\nWhat made the bomb in Frankfurt so newsworthy was the size of the thing. It was a type of bomb known as a \"blockbuster\" because it had enough explosive power to demolish an entire city block. If that thing had detonated, it would have reduced to rubble everything within a 100-metre radius and caused significant damage a kilometre away. It was actually designed to explode in the air, taking the roofs off all the buildings over a wide area to allow incendiary bombs to be dropped into them.\n\nThat's why they had to evacuate over 60,000 people, including the patients at two hospitals. Normally, the bombs they find are much smaller and they only need to evacuate a couple of buildings and cordon off a couple of streets.",
"Hamburg alone was bombed with over 107,000 demolition bombs, 300,000 phosphor bombs and 3 mio incendiary bombs. \n\nThanks to UK authorities' decision to hand us their aerial photos in 1985 (!) our bomb disposal teams defused about 11,000 UXOs (2012) with 2,800 estimated (2016) yet to discover.\n\nTypical UXO fell into the previously bomb cratered streets and buildings as well as into harbors, rivers, meadows. Often several meters/yards deep. \n\nWith no equipment left for detecting buried UXO immediately after the war, everyone rebuilt infrastructure just without knowing the danger, hoping and praying.\n\nThe bomb disposal teams locate and defuse several bombs, ammunition and false positives per day and they have to sonar scan all construction site grounds in the city.\nThey can't look underneath existing buildings, though. \n\n\"Safe\" jobs for years to come ..."
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1tynvy | is it normal to wear shoes inside your house in some countries? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tynvy/eli5_is_it_normal_to_wear_shoes_inside_your_house/ | {
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"There is no rule here in the US that shoes must be worn at all times but I think it is more common to wear shoes inside a home here than it is in other countries. It also varies by household and individual preference. Growing up, I had a couple friends whose parents would ask we take off our shoes before entering. As long as your shoes aren't dirty or wet, I don't care if you leave them on at my place if that's what makes you more comfortable.",
"In Canada, it's just plain boorish behavior not to take your shoes off. Not sure about my neighbors to the south. \n\n Hi Norway! Been to Trondheim and Bergen, awesome cities in every way. Loved Norway! ",
"Yes, in the U.S. we often wear our shoes indoors. My Mother often changes shoes at the door to avoid tracking in dirt. \n\nSome people have 'slippers' that they wear indoors. ",
"Walk in with shoes in Sweden and you can consider yourself dead.",
"I live in Phoenix, Arizona. 99.9% of the time theres no snow and theres rarely any rain, so theres really no reason to take your shoes off. A little dirt here and there doesnt do a whole lot.\n\nI think in colder/damper places, where mud or snow is more common, it makes sense to have people take off their shoes (better safe than sorry). But here, its just more of a hassle. There are some houses where people prefer you to remove your shoes, but they are in the minority.\n\nEdit: Phoenix, Arizona in the US. I hate that it seems self explanatory to me when it really shouldnt"
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28ussz | if i am made of molecules and my chair is made of molecules, what forces keep me from merging with my chair? | It sounds like a dumb question but honestly my knowledge of this level of science lacks more than I would like. Is it caused by strong or weak forces? Is it magnetic? I may be way off but I would appreciate any information on this because my own searching found little information on it, probably because I don't know where to start. Thanks in advance!
Edit: So with electrostatic repulsion, how do I feel the chair since I am not actually, on a level, touching it? Thanks again! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28ussz/eli5_if_i_am_made_of_molecules_and_my_chair_is/ | {
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"Electrostatic repulsion. You are actually hovering over your chair.\n\nVsauce: _URL_0_\n\nVeritasium: _URL_1_",
"To your edit: You know when you put two repulsive magnets together and you can feel them push even though they aren't touching? It's the same when you feel the chair. It's all the same force. Technically nothing is ever touching. There is always a small amount of space in between. Not only that, but atoms themselves are mostly empty space. The entire universe is mostly nothing! Physics will blow your mind bro! "
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922fw0 | why can you put rusty tools in an acid to dissolve the rust, when acid rain speeds up the (oxidation) process? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/922fw0/eli5_why_can_you_put_rusty_tools_in_an_acid_to/ | {
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"Depends what acid you are using. Some acids etch the metal under the rust, so the top layer of rust falls off.\n\nSome other acids convert Iron (III) Oxide (Rust) to iron ions which dissolve in water, eating away at the rust.\n\nAcids cause rust by providing ions. Because the rusting reaction is an electrochemical effect, the higher conductivity speeds it up. You can do the same thing with salty water, it’s not something unique to acids."
]
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6brnqx | - what's with italian city names? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6brnqx/eli5_whats_with_italian_city_names/ | {
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"English generally uses the French names for these cities. I believe it is because Italy was not politically or linguistically unified until comparatively late. It was too much hassle to learn the local forms of city names in all the minor Italian languages (e.g. Naples is Napoli in standard Italian but Napule in Neapolitan), so English just used the French names. By the time Italy unified and standard Italian names became accepted within Italy, the French names were already well-established in English. \n\nWhy French? Because England has close ties with France and French was the traditional language of international diplomacy. You see the same thing to a lesser extent with German cities, as Germany also unified late (e.g. Cologne for Köln)."
]
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3rp7xv | how is it that the sun's rays seem to go in different directions out of a cloud even though the sun is millions of miles away? | If you are confused (which you probably are) then [here's what i mean.](_URL_0_)
I've recently seen some photos that claim that images like this are proof that the earth is flat or something (seriously), so I wondered why the sun's rays *actually* do this. This is my first post here, so this might be a dumb question... but I guess this is the sub for dumb questions, anyway. :D
Edit 1: A lot of great answers explaining various things about that image here so far, I'm not yet going to mark this as explained, so keep the explanations coming.
Edit 2: Looks like the discussion in terms of perspective is ongoing, but i think i've got my answer. You can continue to discuss, but I'm marking this as explained. Thanks everyone! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rp7xv/eli5_how_is_it_that_the_suns_rays_seem_to_go_in/ | {
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"I believe it's just a matter of perspective. If the rays of light at parallel, but approaching the observer as they get lower, they will appear to diverge. It's kind of funny that flat earthers try to use this to prove themselves right, ignoring the effects of perspective when they love trying to use perspective everywhere else."
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"http://imgur.com/SGRKdb9"
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1kqq04 | why does food seem cold when left out and drinks seem warm. shouldn't they both be the same room temperature? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kqq04/eli5_why_does_food_seem_cold_when_left_out_and/ | {
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"text": [
"They do end up at the same temperature. In general. They just feel that way because you are used to very cold drinks so room temperatures ones seem warm, and you're used to hot food so room temperature food seems cold."
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265f5i | steams in-home streaming. what is the point? | Yeah so, The service launched this evening. I have a PC. I love PC gaming. But, I cannot see the appeal of this service. Im just not getting it.
Is it only for places with more than one computer? How does it work in practice? Who would get the most out of the service? Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/265f5i/eli5steams_inhome_streaming_what_is_the_point/ | {
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"It uses the hardware from computer A to stream the display on computer B. Inputs from computer B are sent back to computer A to play the game. This is useful if computer A is a high performance machine and computer B is a low performance or non windows machine. The downside is probably some input lag.\n\nRemember OnLive? Its like that but in your house."
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2cqksr | what a military aircraft escorting a passenger plane during a bomb threat could actually achieve | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2cqksr/eli5_what_a_military_aircraft_escorting_a/ | {
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"They could shoot it down before it reaches a high-population area, thus minimizing casualties. \n\nThey aren't there to save the people on the plane.",
"It achieves the same thing that a police officer standing near a potential bomb-filled-backpack does. He's not going to be able to actually stop anything from exploding, but he's there just to keep an eye on the situation, be a good observer, and make sure no one does anything stupid and ensure that instructions are properly communicated and followed."
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98jlsm | why are there so many different sizes of tires? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/98jlsm/eli5_why_are_there_so_many_different_sizes_of/ | {
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"Among other things people may be looking for something with better traction, less rolling resistance, asthetics, snow tires, all season. Different duties result in different profiles. You're vehicle also may have different options for wheel/rim sizes from the factory.",
"There's a few reasons. \n\nFirst, tire size is highly related to vehicle performance and can be a factor in its design and cost. You see those crazy drag racer hot rods with the tiny tires out front and the giant donuts in the rear? That's a sort of extreme example of how tires can impact what a vehicle drives like and feels like. So for small cars like a mini Cooper which don't have a lot of room to stuff a big fat tire under the fenders, you want small tires, and for a big booming Mustang, you'll want a larger tire because the more muscular engine can rotate its larger mass and accelerate much faster.\n\nSecond, tires look different. High performance tires with specialized rims make a vehicle look pretty damn awesome, and so there's demand for tires that look a certain way and have a certain size characterization. \n\nThird, there wasn't just one single car manufacturer so there wasn't one single tire size. As car companies made their own products, we kind of drifted into a market situation where all tires weren't interchangeable, and because nobody with the right level of authority put their hand up and said \"Hey world, stop this insanity! Standardize on tire sizes!\"... it never got addressed. ",
"The first thing you need to keep in mind about tire sizes is that they all depend on the rims.\n\nRims are, according to some kind of general consensus, supposed to be as large as possible. Because that looks cooler, or whatever.\n\nBut there is also a technical reason. There is something important that has to fit inside the rims: the brakes.\n\nThe brakes will typically be more efficient, and safer, if they are larger. Many car manufacturers intentionally fit larger brakes on the more expensive engine alternatives, because with more power comes the need for better braking efficiency.\n\nAnd with that, they also need to go up a size or two on the rims, to fit the brakes.\n\nIt's also worth nothing that brakes are, generally speaking, larger on heavier cars. Because braking power is all about how much weight is set in motion and how fast it has to be able to stop.\n\nAnyway. Brake size alone on different engine alternatives on otherwise exactly alike cars can typically mean that the same car comes from the factory with several rim alternatives in different sizes.\n\nBut, well. The rim holds the tire. But despite the size of the rim, the tire is still supposed to have the same rotational diameter. Which means that if a car comes from factory with two possible rim sizes, it also comes with two tire size recommendations.\n\nAnd for those who feel that they want even larger rims, there are most likely tires on the market that work with those rims. Which adds one or two sizes more that has to go in the catalog. And still just for one single make and model combination.\n\nNext, let's talk a bit about traction. Traction, when it comes to tires, is a lot about the area of the surface of the car that is in contact with the ground. Because that rubber underneath the tire is the only place where you got any kind of grip on the surface. If you make your tire wider, you'll automatically add some traction.\n\nThis is important if your engine is powerful. If you apply more power than your tires got grip for, they will instead just burn rubber and you will get nowhere. A wider tire means that you can apply more power as you try to take off, and get more acceleration out of it.\n\nThis means that the standard car in our example above can all of a sudden have several non-standard rims that offer wider - or narrower - tire alternatives to it. And all of a sudden we are up to...whatsit, somewhere between 8 and 12 tire alternatives for the same car, depending on the chosen rims.\n\nAnd like this it goes on and on and on. For every bloody car on the market, there is somewhere between a handful and ten sensible manufacturer approved tire sizes, and two or three times as many extras that you may toy with.\n\nEvery Single One.\n\nAnd let's not get started on tractors and construction machinery, where some farmers got several tire sets for their tractor to better fit the dirt types he encounters through different seasons. Or different comfort levels with perhaps one set of tires on dirt, and one for the road transports during the harvest season."
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3xzsq6 | what makes those little orange spots on roads? | I see them everywhere; a little bigger than a quarter, rust-colored spots that sort of look like meteors in the ground. How do they form?
Edit: [Here](_URL_0_) is a picture of what I'm talking about. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3xzsq6/eli5_what_makes_those_little_orange_spots_on_roads/ | {
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"I've never seen anything that sounds like this. \n\n1. Where are you located?\n2. Can you post a picture?",
"It is rust from the iron that is in the particular concrete mixture they used. We used to have those all over the roads where I grew up. ",
"Often times they are from steel nails driven into the asphalt (tar macadam) to assist with surveying because they can be found quickly with a metal detector."
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5fmsqx | are people with lisps born with them, or do they develop? are lisps permanent? what determines who has/does not have a lisp? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fmsqx/eli5_are_people_with_lisps_born_with_them_or_do/ | {
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"I couldn't say my S's growing up. My best insult was \"tupid head\" instead of \"stupid head\"... or I would whistle like that damn gopher off Winnie The Pooh.. I had it from the time I could talk. I was taken out of elementary school class once a day to go to speech therapy (that the school offered). Let's just say the jokes roooooollllled in. I had a significant gap in my front 2 teeth that intensified the lisp. After about 4 years of class and my gap naturally closing my lisp was basically gone. Still today, at age 26, if I get real excited and my mind gets ahead of my mouth that fuckin lisp slips out, but it's rare."
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1qvq5n | how do radio stations align talking and music when they broadcast to many cities and have different advertisements? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1qvq5n/eli5_how_do_radio_stations_align_talking_and/ | {
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"Local radio ads on national programs work the same way as they do with local TV programs. During a nationally-broadcast program, all of the individual stations will obviously have their commercial breaks at the same time. Nationally-broadcast ads will be included in the broadcast feed, but there will be points when the broadcast includes a little signal to each station that says \"Play 60 Seconds of Local Ads Now.\" The local station will play whatever local ads they have set up for that program in that space, and when that time is up, it's back to the national program."
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6eoxgr | how does a drawing salve pull out a splinter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6eoxgr/eli5_how_does_a_drawing_salve_pull_out_a_splinter/ | {
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"It softens the skin so that the body is better able to expel it. It is about pushing from the inside, not pulling from the outside."
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4gum0y | what was different about american democracy when the country was founded? didn't other countries have democracies before? | For example, Ancient Greece, France...
I don't want to start a flame war about how America sucks or it's not really a "democracy" but what were the key things that differentiated it and made it revolutionary for its time? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4gum0y/eli5_what_was_different_about_american_democracy/ | {
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"One of the big things the US brought to the table wasn't directly democracy, but a revolt and push back against the European systems of the time which were aristocracies. Pretty much you were born into wealth or not, the people who had these wealth and lordships were in control of everything, and the rest just struggled to live in that world.\n\nIt was a heavily class based system. The US wanted to pretty much throw this out (though there are elements of it in a representative democracy). It didn't matter if you were rich or poor, everyone had a say and everyone was in it together. Even a low person could rise and a high person could fall. In Europe, that was pretty unthinkable outside of some massive scandal. The rich would never allow the rest to gain power",
"While it is true that other democracies existed before the US, at the time of its founding, it was one of the only in the world and is the oldest still in existence. Ancient Greece had collapsed centuries ago. Much of our system was copied from not a democracy but a Republic - Ancient Rome. \nThe French revolution happened after the American revolution and it didn't last long. Between the Terror and the French Empire that followed, it would take a while before true democracy came to France. ",
"France was actually still an absolute monarchy when the country was founded. The French Revolution occurred shortly afterwards, inspired by the American Revolution. \n\nThe unique features of American democracy were the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, and the idea of having three, co-equal, branches of government. Also, unique from Europe and most of the rest of the world, America did not have a monarchy or any other form of hereditary rule.",
"I'm pulling from other answers here, so points to /u/CharlieKillsRats and /u/masterofthefire for their answers.\n\nThe US was a big deal for several reasons:\n\nFirst off, it was the first major democracy in over 1700 years. France wasn't a democracy yet; and the last major nation with a semblance of democracy was the Roman Republic, which ended in 27AD; in the wake of the murder of Julius Caesar. Even then, there had only been two major democracies: Athens (not all of Greece was democratic), and Rome during the Republic, a period that lasted less than 600 years (509BC - 27AD). And even during the Roman Republic, democracy was tenuous: until 287BC, the democracy had no power over the patricians (nobility), and by 50BC, \"democracy\" was mostly mob rule, involving gangs of people beating up and sometimes killing supporters of a different candidate.\n\nSecond, it was (theoretically) a *classless* democracy: anyone could participate. Even in Athens, only the wealthy could vote; and in much of Europe at the time, only the Nobility had any official political power. Even in the early years, there were born into poverty running the country. This is part of the reason we venerate Lincoln now: he was very clearly middle class; but made it to be president.\n\nA third major part was the idea of \"Rule of Law\"; which said that even the people running the country were subject to the law. The idea that the law was greater than any person or group of people hadn't been tried before: even in Athens, the laws were subordinate to the people in charge. While practically this wasn't tested for almost a century (Andrew Johnson was the first President to be impeached; though unsuccessfully), it also *wasn't tested for over 80 years*; meaning that those early Presidents took it seriously.\n\nAnd in case anyone got the idea that these were just crackpot ideas; those very ideas were able to unify a large number of people, to the point where those people were able to beat the world power in a war; and then set up a stable government. The crowing moment of this was in 1796, when George Washington informed the nation (and the world) that he would not run again for President, nor endorse anyone. This may have been the first time the leader of a major nation left power voluntarily (even under pressure to *stay*) without naming a successor; so much so that it wasn't until FDR in 1940 that anyone dared challenge the precedent of 2 terms per president (which was made law after FDR)."
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1lsy06 | why are the nfl, nba, mlb, etc. not considered monopolies(or subject to anti-trust litigation)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1lsy06/eli5why_are_the_nfl_nba_mlb_etc_not_considered/ | {
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"Not all monopolies are illegal. ",
"They are largely considered monopolies, and they are subject to antitrust regulation. Whether they are violating antitrust laws depends on the specific thing they are doing.\n\nThere is a long history of court challenges, including several Supreme Court decisions on sports leagues and antitrust law. The TL;DR is that when lots of teams get together to do things like set up a schedule for games, agree on the rules of the game, etc., those things are considered to be good for everyone--so they aren't considered violations of antitrust law. But, if they do things like refuse to let players and/or teams compete with one another for endorsements, that's bad for competition and illegal.\n\nedit: for further reading see [American Needle v. NFL](_URL_2_) which found the NFLPA was breaking antitrust law, and [this article about the USFL](_URL_0_) which sued the NFL for antiturust violations and won (but only won $1), and read up on the [Baseball antitrust exemption](_URL_1_)",
"Ameoba actually nailed it in a simple sentence, \"Not all monopolies are illegal\".\nIt's only when you use your dominance in the marketplace to hinder or stifle competition that government's like the US's get concerned.\nLets use an example: Google is hands down the dominate internet search engine for the US. No question. But Google also makes phones, and office products.\nSo lets say one day you do a search for \"Office Doc software\" (to be generic). Google has the power to ensure that you ONLY see their Google Docs application, and they can make sure Microsoft's Office never appears as a choice.\nThis would be an example of a company using their dominance in a market to stifle competition.\nSame if you searched for \"smart phone\", and only got android links and nothing about Windows Phone or Apple's products.\n\nThe NFL, NBA, etc do not have to ever stifle or hinder competition, in short because it's *SO* hard to form a professional organization like that, that the NFL and others would only have to sit back and wait for you to fail (remember the XFL?). If the best players in the world only want to play for the NBA, will you go watch the KBA that has college basketball rejects? Of course not, so it'll fail all on it's own.\nBut if you simple make the best product, and no one else even dares start a company that competes with you because they have no chance of making a better one, then you are a monopoly, but you got there by being the best, and not illegal or unsavory practices."
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"http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/05/24/american-needle-high-court-delivers-9-0-shutout-against-nfl/"
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6hif36 | someone dies before they get a chance to retire. what happens to all of their social security benefits? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hif36/eli5_someone_dies_before_they_get_a_chance_to/ | {
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"Social security isn't a personal bank account. There's no fixed total sum of money each person is entitled to. \n\nThere's a spousal benefit if the spouse survives. There's also a children's benefit with some limits. \n\nIf there's no spouse or qualifying children, there's nobody entitled to a benefit. So there's no benefit. Because it's not a personal bank account, there's no money that then has to get redirected somewhere else. ",
"Immediate family of the deceased are eligible to receive the deceased benefits under certain situations, in part or full. Kids get less than spouses.\n\nWhen an unmarried, no kids, divorced, or already widowed person died, the payment liability disappears. The gov doesn't have to pay anyone.",
"US Social Security works less like a piggy bank, and more like a Ponzi Scheme (some critics would argue that it's *literally* a Ponzi scheme, although I think that goes a bit too far).\n\nUnlike most pension plans, citizens do not have individual \"Social security accounts\" which they pay into while they're working, and later withdraw from when they're retired. Instead, every currently working citizen pays into one big pool, which is used to support citizens who are currently retired. \n\nWhen a citizen retires, they're not supported by the money paid in by their *own* generation, but by the generations which are currently working. If a veteran police officer gets shot two days before his retirement, nothing special happens to \"his social security benefits\", because there was no specific package of benefits with his name on them yet. There is, however, a system of benefits for widows and orphans.\n\n[Ida May Fuller](_URL_0_) of Vermont, ~~Social Security Number 000-00-0001~~, began paying payroll taxes into the Social Security system in 1937. She retired in November 1939 (having paid money into the system for three years), and collected the very first monthly social security check in January 1940. She continued receiving benefits for 35 years, until her death at the age of 100."
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2ni24t | why is it not racist to have all black organizations? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ni24t/eli5_why_is_it_not_racist_to_have_all_black/ | {
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"Almost any photo I see of an organization that is mostly black has some white folk in it. I think that what you refer to as black organizations are open to everyone. ",
"This can be a very volatile topic, with lots of points of view. This is mine, so take it for what it's worth.\n\nBlack organizations exist to provide services that are available in non-segregated organizations, but which blacks have difficulty in accessing because bias has caused these services to be provided to those in the majority (i.e., whites) out of proportion to the majority's population. One way of providing services to the underserved minority is to have organizations which limit their services to only the minority.\n\nFor example, let's assume a university has a population composed of 70% purple students and 30% green students. However, the non-segregated fraternities on campus have a membership population composed of 90% purple and 10% green. The assumption is that this difference is due to some bias in the process of becoming a member that favors purple over green students. To fix this bias, one could enforce any number of policies. For example, an offer of membership must be given to 3 green students for every 7 offers to purple students. Maybe everyone in the fraternities must attend training that explains why there shouldn't be any differences between purple and green students. Maybe green students should be given preference over purple students when all other criteria are equal. Lastly, fraternities could be created that allow only green students in so that the opportunities for greens to join fraternities is greater than the opportunity for purples, which balances out the disproportionate membership selection. Perhaps a combination of these policies will achieve the desired result.\n\nAnother factor that enters into the mix is that of meeting the unique needs of the minority population. The thinking behind this is that minority populations have issues that are not faced by majority populations because they are the minority. For example, in our Mardi Gras university, maybe being green has been associated with very high academic performance. Until recently, most people thought, \"Let the greens solve the hard science problems, that's what they do.\" A fraternity that has historically been composed of members of the purple majority is not likely to be able to offer good advice to green students on handling the pressures of these expectations. However, a greens only fraternity would, in theory, consist of people who understand and can advise others because of personal experience.",
"Here's my two cents; it's all just my opinion, a redundant statement as I wrote it and didn't use any other sources:\n\nWhen we talk about minorities who have had their culture so thoroughly destroyed, we need to consider how much of a struggle it is for these people to find a sense of belonging. This is the root of the gang problems, a gang provided a sense of belonging, it was a community of sorts.\n\nGroups composed of only members of one ethnicity provide their members with the same sense of belonging, in addition to a mutual understanding. We see this a lot with the Canadian Aboriginal peoples, who had their culture literally systematically destroyed by us white people. Even in my little town, we had gang problems until we started putting in effort to creating an aboriginal community, even going as far as to name the reserve as a separate village (I don't know the details about that, all I know is that it now has it's own name).\n\nObviously there are ethical considerations about this. If it's healthy to have groups like this for black people and aboriginal people, why is it not socially acceptable to have a group like this for white people? /u/Imagineallthepeeps' point helps with this, the point of these groups is inclusion of each other, not exclusion of others. White people, given how many of us there are, the communities we already share, and the fact that we didn't undergo any sort of cultural genocide, means that there isn't as much need to create such a group. This means that a lot of these groups that are created are created not for the purpose of inclusion and community building, but for exclusion of non-whites. This has created a massive social taboo around white groups.\n\nThe way I see it, this isn't a huge issue given that white people weren't themselves oppressed, and don't have a culture to bring back to life.\n\nScholarships and all that are numbers based. Say we have 10% of aboriginals getting to go to college and 30% of whites. (numbers are made up; just making a point). Instead of just assuming that our support system will give to those who need it, and proportionately the aboriginal children will get appropriate support, our government decides to actively balance out the numbers. They create scholarships and supports targeted towards aboriginal children to try and balance the outcomes. I'm sure it's the same process that creates scholarships for black children.\n\nWe wouldn't make a white targeted scholarship because white people already tend to have more money, and there's no reason to make targeted supports, general supports can take care of the lower outliers.",
"This is definitely a very touchy subject. I'm not black, but I am mixed white and hispanic, and really what it comes down to personally for me is... as long as the organization has a positive message and encourages education rather than inciting hate then i'm fine with it. There are all kinds of groups for different people in this world as a support system to make people feel like they belong. If the message is positive then I don't mind. Now I may never have an interest to be involved with any of these groups, but I am not going to shun what they do either as long as it offers value to their community to help their members become better people in society.\n",
"There are all white fraternities, organizations, clubs, etc. they just don't deem themselves with that notation. It's not racist because you'll typically see black organization or historically black organization which just means the majority or historically it has been black people serving as a pert of these entities. "
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6aory6 | why do people go bald with old age while other animals do not? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6aory6/eli5_why_do_people_go_bald_with_old_age_while/ | {
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"We have two types of hair follicles, vellus follicles and terminal follicles. Most of your skin is covered with vellus follicles, which produce tiny light colored hairs. The only places that have no hair follicles are the lips, palms, soles and parts of the genitalia. Terminal hair follicles develop from vellus hair follicles. During puberty in males, vellus follicles develop into terminal follicles on the face to form the beard. Somehow, aging causes terminal hair follicles on the heads of some men to revert back into vellus follicles. Most other animals just have one type of hair that doesn't go through weird transitions, so their hair follicles don't contain instructions for how to be tiny invisible hairs."
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21ily3 | what is the difference of a 2 alarm fire. and a 6 alarm fire. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21ily3/eli5_what_is_the_difference_of_a_2_alarm_fire_and/ | {
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"You're in Toronto, I'm guessing? Anyway, it's just a system for describing how large the response needs to be for a particular fire. A six alarm fire basically means that they've had to call for just about every sort of reinforcement unit that department has, and all the bigwigs are probably there on the scene too. The specifics vary from city to city, but it's not actually referring to six of any physical thing. "
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3q3v0a | why are property taxes determined by the value of the property, rather than its size and its zoning? | If someone owns a 1 acre plot and builds a very nice mansion on it that is worth $5 million, and next door the lot is 2 acres but has a smaller house and is worth $2 million, why doesn't the house with the larger lot pay more property tax.
Obviously, the tax rate should also be determined by the use of the property, so a farm would have a different tax rate than a house.
Thanks, | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3q3v0a/eli5why_are_property_taxes_determined_by_the/ | {
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"property tax is determined by the value of the land and the value of the improvements. of course improvements will be worth more than land so they will be taxed higher. why should someone pay more just b/c they have more land? what if that land is totally unused?",
"Those factors are part of the value. let's say I go to burger king and I order a burger for $6, I'm taxed on the $6, not whether the patty is larger than McDonald's next door. Let's also compare that same exact burger from a burger king in Phoenix vs that same burger in Times Square. The value of real estate is significantly less in Phoenix than in Times Square.\n\nIf I purchase a home in Beverly hills that's 1000 square feet, it will be valued less than a house that is 5000 square feet. But what if that 1000 sqft house is in a much more lucrative area, on 9 acres of land, with two swimming pools and on top of a huge hill with a view of LA, then the value of the 1000 sqft house may be more than the 5000 sqft house.",
"The size and its zoning are components of the value of the property. But so too are what is built on it, and utilities it has hooked up to it, and the state of repair that it is in. ",
"Taxing based on quantity, not on worth, is usually only done if it's a punitive tax. For example tobacco and liquor usually have a flat tax, so that people couldn't just avoid the tax by making the product inexpensive - both could be produced for very low prices.\n\nAlthough these taxes raise a lot of money, they are justified with the protection of general health. They are supposed to discourage people from smoking or drinking, and they can be legally avoided by simply not smoking or drinking.\n\nThe land tax however is not a punitive tax, it's a money raiser. Just like income and sales tax, the amount you pay is supposed to scale with income. Someone who buys a small property in a poor neighbourhood can't pay much taxes, if the richest guys would only pay as much as the poor guy can afford you might as well just drop the tax. And of course, the only way to avoid it would be to neither own nor rent property."
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ed5si6 | how is the white house able to block witnesses from testifying? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ed5si6/eli5_how_is_the_white_house_able_to_block/ | {
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"Technically, that's what's at issue with the second article of impeachment against Trump right now.\n\n\"Executive privilege\" is a means for the decision-makers to protect the methods through which they arrive at decisions, and is intended to protect national security interests. However, it is, as per rulings during the Nixon impeachment, not valid to protect illegal behavior.\n\nTrump has been equating 'executive privilege' with 'blanket immunity', which isn't even really a thing.\n\nRegardless of your feelings on whether what Trump's done is right or wrong, the obstruction of Congress issue is cut and dry.",
"Fundamentally, because the witnesses allow it. The white house isn't physically preventing them from testifying, instead it's saying to various Trump appointees and allies \"Don't testify\" and those people are choosing to play along. Well some of them are, others decided to ignore those orders and testify anyway, we heard from several of them during the impeachment hearings. \n\nCongress on the other hand is asking them to testify. They are (with exceptions) choosing not to. \n\nNormally, when this sort of deadlock arises either the legislature and executive negotiate some sort of deal about who testifies when (not too likely here) or it goes to the courts. Of course even at that point we assume witnesses will do what the courts tell them but these days who knows. Also that won't happen until late spring the earliest and it's plausible it could take much longer to get useful testimony."
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6qzjbn | why are some people clumsier than others? | I am a VERY clumsy person and friends and family often comment on it. Why is it that clumsy people, like myself, are able to trip over something in plain sight or bump into a wall that has always been there? Several times a day I do something clumsy that would've been totally avoidable to someone else. Does the brain encounter some sort of delay in clumsy people? Or perhaps it's some sort of balance issue? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6qzjbn/eli5_why_are_some_people_clumsier_than_others/ | {
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"It has to to do with how much you are paying attention to what you are actually doing. You probably stop totally thinking for a few seconds.\n Not zoning out or running on auto pilot is what you need to work on. Think before you do things, and it's not impossible to be able to think lightning fast where no words come into mind but you just know or sense what you're supposed to be doing and for example objects are seen in your view and you without really having to think about it at all know how far it is from you so you will avoid bumping into it. Its called Awareness. ",
"I don't know if this will help, and it won't apply to every instance, but it has certainly made me feel better since it was told to me. \n\nI am very clumsy. Like walk into a wall while looking at it, trip over absolutely nothing clumsy. But I am also a pretty good athlete. Sounds strange, right? I was in Tang Soo Do for ten years, and my coach talked about this phenomenon one day. He said that athletes tend to be clumsy in every day situations, because their bodies are awkward moving at slower speeds. He gave the example \"speed + agility = grace\". So as an athlete when you are moving quickly and doing things with your body while moving quickly, it looks good. But walk into a room at a casual pace and try to flip a light switch? Feels weird because the whole thing is just happening too slow.\n\nI don't know if you're an athlete, but this has made me feel so much better about my clumsiness. I may have fallen on my butt getting out of a booth at Twin Peaks at the age of 34, but now I'm a 36 year old who can do aerial silks and still turn a cartwheel. Hope that helps!"
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2e6aeg | what processes does a police officer have to go through after shooting and killing someone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e6aeg/eli5what_processes_does_a_police_officer_have_to/ | {
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"Something like this: Your gun is taken from you and you are driven to the station. You are sequestered in a room alone or with a friend. You can do anything but talk about the shooting. While you're doing this, detectives are investigating the shooting (collecting evidence, witness statements, etc). This could take hours or even longer than a day. After they are done they will interview you about the shooting. Then you go home and are relieved of duty until a ruling is made.\n\nA lot of people think that cops have it made, kill someone and go on vacation for days or weeks. Its far from the truth. The truth is you are agonizing over the incident. You agonize about taking a human life. You relive the moment over and over and wonder if your shoot was justified. You wonder if the investigators will find it justified. You wonder if you'll go to jail, get fired, or get sued without qualified immunity. You wonder if your wife and children will be destitute and homeless. You wonder if your career is over. You wonder how you will tell them that their life as they know it is over. You wonder if you're a failure.\n\nNobody wants a \"vacation\" like this. Every person ever would rather go to work, punch in, and punch out without this kind of drama. "
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1t6xl2 | the bitcoin crash going on right now. | Seeing a lot of threads pop up about the Bitcoin crash, and all I know is that it lost half it's value. I'm browsing through the subreddit and one of the post is a suicide hotline.. Can someone please explain to me why it's so bad? Thanks.
edit:Wow, the front page.. never expected it to get this popular. Still overwhelmed by the amount of replies I got. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t6xl2/eli5the_bitcoin_crash_going_on_right_now/ | {
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"The Bitcoin is only worth as much as people *think* it's worth. The Chinese shut down Bitcoin trade in their country, which makes the Bitcoin inherently less valuable (why would you use a currency that can't be traded everywhere?)\n\nThe crash happened because Bitcoin is a volatile currency. There isn't a lot of it out there, and people who have bought Bitcoin tend to follow the news very closely. When the bad news came out, lots of people started selling their Bitcoins, and the price consequently went down rapidly.\n\nIt's worth noting that the value of a Bitcoin is down to where it was last month - while this seems like a dramatic drop, it's par for the course. This is a good example of why Bitcoin is a risky investment.",
"Bitcoin value is heavily dependent on its utility. It has no underlying commodity that gives it any real value.\n\nIf Bitcoin has no utility (e.g. cannot be easily bought or sold) its basically useless. A lot of its value right now comes from hype over its utility and the nature of its supply/demand (limited supply, lots of demand thanks to hype). \n\nChina decided 'fuck bitcoin' and effectively killed its utility there. This caused a massive amount of instability - not only does it set precedent for Bitcoin being banned from other countries, thereby reducing its utility, it also removed a lot of the demand/hype, which further reduced its value.\n\nSome people bought into bitcoin when it was worth $1,000, even though many users (like /u/FruityCockJuice or the entirety of /r/investing) warned of the dangers of what is essentially a highly volatile currency. Now its worth half that, so if you bought $1,000 of bitcoin, now its worth 1/2 of that. I imagine a lot of the merchants who recently decided to accept bitcoins are fuming. That OC Lambo dealer is probably feeling a little green in the gills knowing the 200K worth of bitcoins they had a week ago is now worth 100K. *edit* /u/Fraum notes that the dealer converted to dollars at the time. Had they not, and tried to hold onto the bitcoins hoping for a rise in value, they would be fucked. Which is another reason why Bitcoins is not a stable currency - you don't want to have a currency that can lose 50% of its value in a day.\n\nEdit: /u/FruityCockJuice 's post was deleted, but I've reproduced it here for the sake of record:\n\n > I called this two days ago. But I got downvoted for it.\nBitcoin is not a tangible currency. It is too unstable to bother with. If you do, it is a big mistake.\nIt's a problem because it circumvents conventional means of trade. It is equal to buying and selling with dark matter.",
"_URL_0_\n\nBasically the yellow line is the average value but you can open during the morning at the average value and at noon be selling at double the price and by the end of the day it's back down to the average.\n\nSo what the green and red in the graph is showing is the donchian channel which shows the instability in the price. The wider the channel the more unstable and risky the investment becomes.\n\nSo if you look at March 2013 there's lots of red with people selling as the price goes up but for whatever reason people are buying but soon as the green shows up you basically are seeing the beginning of the crash and basically it's then people not buying as strongly and the channel widened which made it unstable. \n\nSo really when you look at the most recent spike the channel is very wide and that just means a crash was certain.",
"So is now a good time to buy? I know it's volatile, but surely there are more people who will buy when things get ironed out. I've never bought stock or invested in anything, so I probably won't, but if I were to buy, now is the time, right?",
"[This image](_URL_0_) of an economic bubble pretty much resembles [the value of a Bitcoin over the last year](_URL_1_). We may be heading to the 'Despair' stage",
"and can someone elaborate on why the Chinese would want to shut down bitcoin trading?",
"Bitcoin is an unregulated pump-and-dump scheme that has taken in a lot of people who like the idea of an anonymous digital currency.\n\nThe most recent crash came due to Chinese authorities announcing that they were barring Chinese banks from making bitcoin transactions. The same day, the Bank of France issued its own warning about the potential risks.\n\nI'm sure some folks will disagree, but by definition bitcoin is a P & D scheme. It was designed so that the mining system gives better rewards to early users than latecomers for the same effort. The early adopters have more bitcoins than anyone else ever will. \n\nIn fact, 47 individuals own 28.9% of the approximately 12 million Bitcoins in existence so far, and another 880 own 21.5%. This means that 927 people (out of a few million) control half of the entire market cap of bitcoin.\n\n",
"Bitcoin blew up in value over the past year, and a big part of that growth was from China. China has strict limits on how much money it allows to leave the country; Bitcoin offered citizens a back door to get large sums of money out while remaining relatively anonymous. \n\nChina (the people, not the country) started buying large amounts of Bitcoin, pumping up the value, and creating a speculative bubble in the market. \n\nThis created a bubble and in regards to currency, a \"deflationary spiral.\" A deflationary spiral is a theory that people become more reluctant to spend money that is rising in value. For economies that depend heavily on people consuming products and services, it can hurt the economy if people want to hold rather than spend, because spending is what pays employees salaries.\n\nThe problem for Bitcoin is that this is a very new currency, and as a percentage of the world economy, it accounts for a minuscule amount of the transactions that take place. How much is a Bitcoin worth at Walmart, or on _URL_1_? Nothing, until they start accepting it as a form of payment.\n\nBitcoin was created to protect against the inherent risk in holding fiat currencies, the risk that the people who control that currency aren't trustworthy. The U.S. Dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. Before 1971, it was backed by a representative amount of gold. Despite not having gold-backing, people still believe the currency has value because it can be exchanged for goods or other currencies without significant losses on a weekly or even yearly basis. However, if you look at historical examples, like the Weimar Republic, or Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe, currencies can lose immense amounts of value in very short periods of time.\n\nHell, people used to get paid multiple times a day in some eras, because their currency would drop in value that quickly.\n\nBitcoin is a revolutionary payment system. It uses the collective computing power connected to the Bitcoin network to process \"blocks\" of information that verify transactions. This is to ensure Suzy (not Suze) can't send the same money to two different people, like Habib and Joseph. It also allows people to transfer money to each other with minimal transaction costs.\n\nHowever, if there is nowhere to spend Bitcoins, it's difficult to make the case that it's a currency. The fact that it uses algorithms, or has a limited supply doesn't give it as much value as peoples' belief in it as a currency.\n\nAlso, there is a big risk in holding Bitcoins, because if you get robbed (like Sheep Marketplace), there is almost no way to get your money back. Once a transaction has taken place, the only way to reverse that transaction is by getting the initial receiver to initiate or accept to a reverse of the payment.\n\nThat's a huge risk, because if your password isn't secure, or you're subject to a phishing attack, you could lose all your Bitcoins and be left with nothing but your tears of unfathomable sadness. \n\nMy personal opinion is that this risk, along with the skirting of strict capital controls, is a major reason China was the first to restrict their financial companies from dealing in Bitcoin. Other countries felt the need to issue their own opinions, and that seed of doubt grew.\n\n(Pure speculation)Apple recently stopped authorizing Bitcoin apps, because I assume they're concerned that someone will see them as being liable for their losses.\n\nAs with any speculative bubble, it only lasts until people start to doubt the value of what they're buying, whether that's Tulips or _URL_0_ stock. \n\nWhomever bought Bitcoin at $1,200 likely believed it was going to rise in value. The person who bought Bitcoin at $900 a day later may have felt the same thing. As the price continued to drop, they may have changed their minds and sold to cut their losses.\n\nAs with any market, you need a buyer and a seller for a transaction to occur, and there continue to be more sellers than buyers at the most recent market prices. \n\nBitcoin will likely continue to fall until it finds enough people to support its value. After that, who knows. Being original is a huge benefit, but large price fluctuations in a downward manner will inhibit more merchants from jumping on the train. \n\nIf merchants start losing significant sales because they don't accept Bitcoin, they'll start adopting it in droves, but right now most people are holding onto it to make money, like U.S. Dollars, rather than spending it at local retailers.\n\nAnybody who wonders why the Chinese selling Bitcoin would affect other markets should look up \"arbitrage.\" \n\nTl;dr It's a bubble. China told it's financial companies \"no more Bitcoin for you,\" warned its citizens about the risk, and people started selling. People who bought because it was going up, sold because it was going down. \n\nEdit: grammar and shit",
"Its funny how some people seem surprised when the value has gone from 200 usd to 1100 usd in less than one month. Not very hard to believe then that many of those who trade to make dollars from it will sell as soon as the peak starts to dip a bit too much. I would say that anything above 300usd is still a good profit from those 200 usd since nov 1.",
"I unloaded some of my Bitcoin when it was at it's peak. Good thing. I kept a lot of it because even now at half value, it's worth a thousand times more than I got it for. Like the stock market, it'll go up and it'll go down.",
"i have a question. \n\nfrom my understanding, correct me if i'm wrong, the incentive for people to mine lies in getting bitcoins, in exchange they provide the service of validating every transaction in the bitcoin market, allowing the system to exist.\n\nAs time makes it less and less profitable to keep on farming and therefor sustaining the system, what keeps the system from failing? can it survive with a relatively low userbase? can it work independently from its users?",
"Bitcoin is a bet, at long odds with a big payoff. If it becomes the next gold, it'll be hugely valuable. If it doesn't, it won't.\n\nSo, the value today of bitcoins depends on what people think the chance is that it's the future of money. Remember, we're talking about very small chances.\n\nLet's put some numbers in for an example. Let's say that, if bitcoin wins, it's worth $1,000,000. Then if it has a 1-in-1000 chance, it's worth $1000. If that chance drops to 1-in-10,000, it's worth $100 again. If it leaps up to 1-in-100, the price will go to $10,000. And if some big news means the smart money starts to think bitcoin has a 50% chance of being a million dollar win, the price will shoot up towards $500,000.\n\nWhen prices are based on this sort of thinking, even a sensible estimate of the genuine underlying value can move very fast.\n\nOf course, in real life, it's worse than that. People are terrible at estimating very low probabilities - a thousand to one and a million to one look more or less the same to a person. So most of the money in bitcoin is not based on a sensible estimate of its underlying value. People base their personal valuation on things like what it sold for yesterday, what they paid for it, and whether or not they're feeling optimistic just now about the future of magic internet money. This can often mean that, if the price starts to shift, the very fact that the price is shifting can cause the price to shift more, and the market becomes even more unstable."
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43k5sb | varying speeds for loading websites/ webpages. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/43k5sb/eli5_varying_speeds_for_loading_websites_webpages/ | {
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"Several reasons why this could happen:\n\nELI-15: Your DNS server doesn't have the page cached, so it has to fetch it from another DNS server, which may have to contact another DNS server and so forth...\n\nELI-5: Your friend knows a guy, who knows a guy who knows the guy with the stuff, but your friend has to contact his guy, because only he knows the guy with the stuff.\n\nELI-15: The website has a poorly implemented CDN, a crap-ton of jquery plugins, huge images and other resources that have to be downloaded.\n\nELI-5: Your friend has a lot of furniture he is willing to give to you, but you have to come over to his place to get it. You don't have a truck, but you do have a radio flyer wagon.\n\nELI-15: Your ISP selectively throttles down certain services, like Netflix or other websites, which shouldn't happen but it does.\n\nELI-5: Your friend likes to give you cookies. Most of the time he will give you a whole cookie, but sometimes he takes a bite out the cookie. He does this not because he is hungry, but because he is a dick."
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35q1m2 | why did cellphones suddenly go from all using different chargers to nearly all using the same? | And why do Iphones use a different charger than everyone else? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35q1m2/eli5_why_did_cellphones_suddenly_go_from_all/ | {
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"The large companies liked to distance themselves with different adapters and things but ultimately standardization cuts down on vast amounts of waste. (time, resources and $£)\nSo in the EU at least to my knowledge they were put under pressure to standardize chargers. \n\nI am though, unsure why apple and its vast amounts of money and influence didn't have to follow suite. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Market demand was for more uniform chargers. Also, in the EU, it's a regulatory requirement now.\n\nWhy was Apple different? Well, first off, they had their 40-pin charger for the iPod, which had published specifications to allow third party device control of the iPod, for things like speakers, etc. It make sense to bring that popular design along towards the iPhone, which happened at about the same time that the rest of the market was starting to standardize on the Mini-USB.\n\nApple changed again to the current connector, because people wanted thinner phones, and the old connector was too thick to make the phones any thinner without changing things. So, they went to the reversible lightning connector.\n\nEU mandates and Apple inertia aside, I think that in a few years we will see pretty much all phones on USB-C connectors.",
"The only real reason is because EU threatened (and ended up following through) to legislate all phones to be sold with the same microUSB charger. Even Apple is forced to provide a free lightning to microUSB adapter with all phones sold within the EU.\n\nThe reasons others mentioned are far less important. Yes, you save on waste - but companies don't care about that since they have to give you a charger anyways. They much rather have some special charger for all their devices so that you will buy a Samsung tablet and watch if you already have their phone, for example. Smartphones connecting via USB is unimportant as well - before the EU threat, everyone used different USB connectors - remember mini USB, apple's legacy pre-lightning cable? If those arguments were strong, there'd be a standard laptop charger. "
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2emt4t | what's all this controversy that i'm hearing about facebook messenger? are there security issues that i need to be concerned about? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2emt4t/eli5_whats_all_this_controversy_that_im_hearing/ | {
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"Facebook Messenger requests an absurdly broad array of permissions from Android in order to run.\n\nArguably a large portion of the problem stems from Android permissions being *way* too broad in their own right, and the warnings on those permissions being misinterpreted by derpy users.\n\nFacebook allows you to take a picture with your phone's camera to directly post? App now has the right to control your phone's camera and turn it on without asking.",
"the controversy comes from two things: 1. the fact that messenger is no longer integrated with the original FB app - you have to download another app, and 2.the number of permissions the app requires of your phone \n\n#1 is a valid point, but I am going to guess that it allows your phone to just do messaging without having to have the full bulky FB app open - that is a good thing to conserve live resources on your device.\n\n#2 _URL_0_",
"There are security issues everywhere. No one reads app permissions until someone mentions that facebook is suspicious. ",
"I saw the news article on this and showed an iPhone and they talked about how it does this on your iPhone, but they screenshot the android permissions. Then the outside \"technology expert\" went on to explain that apple allows FB to send messages without your consent and make calls, etc etc. This kills me. It doesn't apply to ios. And the settings for messenger are the same as on the regular FB app on android. ",
"NSA gets revealed to be storing your data. No big deal to the average user. \n\nFacebook might make some privacy changes, everyone loses their minds.\n\nHere is my question: What can facebook do with you data that bothers you, that the government can't do?"
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1bc27u | assassins creed - the storyline with minerva and all the ones that came before. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bc27u/eli5_assassins_creed_the_storyline_with_minerva/ | {
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"I wish there was a subreddit dedicated to just explaining movie and video game plots."
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4zzgbq | how do people who wear corrective lenses(concave) are able to see far off things a bit clearer when looked through a very small hole (without wearing glasses)? | People who wear concave lens can't see far off things clearly. But when looked through a small hole made by fingers(tried this), its a bit clearer. How? Does it have something to do with working of pinhole camera? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4zzgbq/eli5_how_do_people_who_wear_corrective/ | {
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"Every point in a scene you're looking at sends out a bunch of light rays in all directions. A bunch of those rays arrive at your eye, in different locations and slightly different angles. A properly shaped lens takes all of those rays from one point in the scene, and focuses them back to one point on your retina. If this happens for every point in the scene you're looking at, you get the whole scene clearly in focus on your retina.\n\nIf the lens is not shaped properly, however, light rays from one point in the scene don't focus to a single point on your retina, they each focus to a slightly different place on your retina. So rays from that point gets blurred, and overlapped with blurred images of every other point in the scene. So you can't see clearly. The important thing here is each ray is still focused to a point, but the multiple rays from the same point in the scene get focused to different points on your retina.\n\nLooking through a tiny hole restricts the incoming light rays that can hit your eye. In the case of an infinitely tiny hole, only one light ray from a given point makes it to your eye. The lens focuses this to a single point on your retina, so it looks sharp. The same happens with light rays from every other point in the scene, so you get a sharp image.\n\nThe down side is the smaller the hole, the less light can get through. So as the image get clearer, it also gets darker. That's why our eyes have a lens in the first place rather than a tiny hole, and why pinhole cameras need such a long time to expose film.\n\nI'm leaving out diffraction since that would just confuse the explanation of why looking through a small hole helps."
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3dbs5f | why does it feel like some people have names that fit their personality or demeanor? | Like the "typical Jennifer"- type jokes, or even when you come across the "perfect name" for your pet, what makes a name seem to fit certain personalities? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dbs5f/eli5_why_does_it_feel_like_some_people_have_names/ | {
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"Names tend to be popular in certain age groups, in certain regions, and among parents of a certain education level or economic level. So people with the same name really *do* have some chance of having something in common. Of course many don't fit the pattern all, but the trends can be real.",
"Confirmation bias; you're more likely to notice people with a certain name that act similar to your preconceived notion of said name than the people who don't. "
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2jq9fe | why do we need to eat so often (2 to 3 meals a day) when we can survive up to 2 weeks without food? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jq9fe/eli5_why_do_we_need_to_eat_so_often_2_to_3_meals/ | {
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"Just because you *can* do something, it doesn't mean you should. Humans eat whenever there's food available so that they can lost longer when food is scarce. ",
"You can survive 2 weeks without food because your 3 square meals a day has provided you with enough extra fat/muscle to burn off if you were forced to fast.\n\nYes, you can survive without food for 2 weeks, but you can't survive very well, because as you starve, you are in effect eating yourself from the inside as your body burns up your fat and protein stores for energy. Your brain and immune system would begin to shut down to conserve energy, and your organs begin to skip vital repairs, and you eventually digest away your own organs and you die.",
"You can survive without food for 10-14 days because your body is capable of destroying muscle and non-critical organ tissue to support critical organ function.\n\nSo while it's technically possible, it'll lead to rapid muscle loss and potential organ damage as your body reverts to eating itself in desperation."
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5802xf | if chlorophyll inside plant leaves makes them green, they why are some plant leaves red or even purple? and what effect does this have on it's efficiency when absorbing sunlight? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5802xf/eli5_if_chlorophyll_inside_plant_leaves_makes/ | {
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"Even in the plants with red leaves or purple etc. there is chlorophyl. Plant leaves are most often made up of 3 different pigments, chlorophyl being one of them. In plants that are not green, the other pigments are present in ways that visually overwhelm the green of the chlorophyl. The other pigments in plants are carotinoids (reds and yellows) and anthocyanins (red, blue). In combination these pigments make up plant colors. But...the chlorophyl is in there!"
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6x8t0d | if humans need such a balanced diet to stay healthy, how is it that most animals seem to get away with having a very narrow diet? | Maybe I am naive in the diet of animals but it seems to me that when you think of, say an owl, we all know that owls eat mice. If humans were to eat just one food like that it seems to me that we would not get enough nutrients to live. How do animals get all their nutrition? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6x8t0d/eli5_if_humans_need_such_a_balanced_diet_to_stay/ | {
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"Humans don't need a balanced diet to stay healthy. Many groups of humans have lived very healthily on just meat. E.g. The Inuit, the Masai, many Native American tribes. \n\nIn the Bellevue Experiment, arctic explorer V Steffanson lived for a year under strict medical supervision on an all meat diet to prove there would be no deterioration in his health.",
"Whilst I know humans in general are very resilient - my body is not. I'm always low on iron and vitamin d and I take a load of other things too. I know a load of people who regularly become anaemic if they don't take iron. \n\nI guess we're the ones that nature would have killed first? ",
"There's a BIIIIIIG gap between \"the most healthy you could possibly be\" and \"you'll live through that\". \n\nThe trope that Chinese and Mexicans are short is based on the history of impoverishment. Mao's great leap forward lead to millions literally starving to death. And, well, when kids don't get enough to eat and/or only eat rice growing up, they're not as tall as they would have been if they were properly fed. But they lived through it. ...Most of them. \n\nAnd... a lot of \"part of this balanced diet\" is just marketing fluff. People are getting paid to make you worry about if you're eating the right thing. Health sells. Relax. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. You'll be fine. ",
"There is a difference between healthy and *healthy*. Humans could (and have) easily live on just one or two foods. We don't actually *need* that varied a diet. But if you want to be as healthy as possible, and thrive instead of just survive; if you want to live to 120 and be active for decades, not get any major illnesses and look good, then you need a balanced diet ",
"From an evolutionary perspective, we only need to live long enough to reproduce and raise kids. So age 35-40 (assuming children were born when the parents were young, which would have been the case for most of human history.)\n\nYou can eat like crap and easily make it to 35.",
"Very few animals have extremely narrow diets, and animals tend to eat things that we don't. For example, carnivores will eat organs and entrails, while most of the time humans throw these out. Those organs often are packed with nutrients which are almost impossible to find in muscle tissue, which is most of what we think of as \"meat\". Plant eaters usually eat a lot more by volume and often have lots of helpful microbes in their gut to help digest their food. \n\nIt is possible to stay alive on a very limited diet. It's healthier to eat more whole foods and get a broader range of nutrients. Also, eating \"just one food\" is a little misleading. If that one food is whole cooked potatoes, you can probably survive indefinitely. If that one food is white bread, you'll suffer from metabolic issues due to a lack of essential nutrients (white flour is made by removing the most nutritious parts of the grain, so it's missing a lot of good stuff)",
"It's worth noting that animals tend to live considerably longer in captivity (and being fed balanced diets) than they do in the wild - even if you exclude factors such as predation.\n\nIf you want to live to 40, you don't need a balanced diet. You can live on Twinkies and cocaine if you want. However, if you want to live to 80, you really need to add some leafy green vegetables to the mix.",
"you don't actually HAVE to eat a varied and healthy diet. As a species, humans will do just fine if we all eat a very unhealthy diet, reproduce six times between 15 and 20, have three babies die, and drop dead ourselves at 27. This is a valid survival strategy for many species.\n\nThe problem crops up when you actually want to live till you're 80 and have an active happy life. Then you'll have to take much better care of yourself.\n\nCar analogy: You don't have to maintain your car, clean it or buy quality oil and gas if you plan on scrapping it when its three years old. But if you still want to drive it in 30 years, you have to take good care of it.",
"Humans need surprisingly little variety to just live. You can live 80+ years eating an extremely narrow diet if you don't die in an accident or from illness. Now, you won't feel good, you'll probably have a weaker immune system, etc. But if you get lucky enough to not get sick in spite of weak immunity and such, you can live a long time. Eating a healthy diet allows you to be bigger, stronger, less likely to get sick, etc, but it is hardly a requirement to live. And even then, what most people I have met think of as 'eating a healthy diet' is WAY in excess of what is necessary to be big, strong, and, well, healthy. You don't need to eat nothing but vegetables to get enough vitamins and such. For example: if you have some french fries at every lunch and dinner and you eat them with some ketchup, the ketchup alone has enough vitamin C that you will never get scurvy. You could do this for 80 years and never get scurvy. Eat a good sized orange every morning and you don't even need the ketchup to get *all the vitamin C you can possibly use*. Seriously. \n\nThe amounts of other vitamins that you need are pretty similar. In the developed world, if you just make an effort to eat a broad diet *at all*, you are unlikely to have any kind of noticeable deficiency. Vitamin deficiencies are most common in people with very narrow diets, such as extremely picky eaters, people with a lot of allergies, and vegans. Or in pregnant women because they need more of everything than other people.\n\nAncient humans ate whatever they could get, which could mean a 'healthy' diet if they are lucky, but it could also mean nothing but meat for a stretch of time, and then nothing but plants for a stretch of time, and then nothing at all for a short stretch of time, and they survived because 1) you don't need all that much of any specific thing, 2) everything you need can be gotten in a variety of ways and 3) your body holds onto some important stuff, so it takes a while for the negative effects of deficiencies to set in.",
"Humans actually have hugely broad potential diets and are capable of getting the nutrition we need from a wide range of sources. That doesn't mean we need to eat a wide range of foods. Our nutritional needs really aren't that complex and can be easily accommodated. That's actually one adaptive advantage to humans and primates in general. We have a large degree dietary adaptability, which means we can live in a wide range of environments with huge variations in resources. Some cultures have very broad diets, some have very narrow. We're omnivores. We can and do eat everything in pretty much every combination. ",
"I'd like to add to what others are saying. Humans have evolved to be omnivorous. For example, we cannot synthesize our own vitamin C like almost all other animals (probably lost the ability when it started to make sense not to waste energy on it) and need to eat it regularly because it is water soluble and easily lost in urine. Our gut doesn't contain the bacteria of a cow's stomach, for instance, that allow it to produce B vitamins during digestion. These are also water soluble. Many B vitamins are obtained primarily from eating meat or other animal products, and are difficult to get all of without animal products or supplementation. There are more examples, but the short story is that we've evolved to accommodate a varied diet, which allowed us to take advantage of different food sources while conserving energy. We have huge brains and long legs, and a lot of unique nutritional needs to go with them.",
"I think human healthy is different animal healthy. We live double the age of people thousands of years a go. \n\nMany of us don't exercise either. \n\nWe also need to think that many unhealthy animals susceptible to disease etc die off or get eaten so the gene pool probably gets stronger ",
"Per [this](_URL_0_) article a human could live on potatoes. As others have said however it isn't incredibly healthy and deficiencies could/will pop up. ",
"What is healthy nowadays is completely different then how most humans lived for centuries.\n\nIf you can keep your caloric intake up for the most part you would be fine. People went a long time with meat, berries and some vegetation. Not 6 different things on their plate 3 meals a day.",
"This isn't much of an explanation but there was an issue in the US where we had alligators dying of a mysterious ~~bloating~~ neurological disease. \n\n\nIt turned out that the alligator's food chain was decimated and they only had a particular species of fish to feed on. edit: they were mainly eating gizzard shad\n\n\nThis mono-fish diet caused a vitamin deficiency (edit: thiamine aka vitamin b1) that was killing the alligators.\n\n\n\nedit: nevermind here's a scientific journal article about the actual thing, not what some random redditor had to say: [Gizzard shad thiaminase activity and its effect on the thiamine status of captive American alligators Alligator mississippiensis.](_URL_0_)\n",
"owls eat whole mice. \n\n\nthat is a complete meal. A whole living being has the nutrients to sustain another being.",
"Humans DONT need a balanced diet. \n\nThere are several examples of humans that eat a very narrow range of food. \n\nTypically humans do well to eat a range of food, but humans are extremely adaptable. ",
"This is akin to something I've always wondered: how do animals eat raw/partially rotten meat (besides vultures who evolved to do just that) and drink fetid water?\n\nI'm pretty sure the answer is just that some of them end up dying from it or getting (undiagnosed) diseases and parasites, just like we would if we ingested it. But it's worth the risk for wild animals, the alternative being starving/dying of thirst.",
"Another thing to take into consideration is there is a difference. between what is optimal and what will work. Different things have different optimal uses. Protein for example can be utilized for energy but is used optimally for muscle tissue repair. Fat is something your taught to avoid (mistakenly so in my opinion) but not enough or too much can have dramatic effects on your hormone production. How you take these things in can play a huge role too. Americans love to take multi-vitamins with out realizing that they excrete the majority of the vitamin content right out their piss into the toilet.",
"Humans are actually remarkable with how many different kinds of diets can be \"healthy\" for us. ",
"Can we get someone in here with some credentials? I'm seeing some wild variation in what's being said.",
"I provided behavioral intervention for a child with autism that survived on mini Oreos (they had to be minis) and nacho cheese Doritos for over two years. And another that ate fresh (within an hour or two, and not reheated) McDonalds french fries almost exclusively for a year or two. They may not have been pinnacles of health but they still had plenty of energy to throw down some epic tantrums if they felt like it. It's astounding what the body can survive on. \n",
"Some others have already mentioned that as a species humans survive just fine without a varied diet but some of us want to live past reproduction age (which from a evolutionary standpoint is meaningless). \n\nIt's also worth mentioning though that modern diets are highly processed and as a result a lot of the nutrients are taken out. A good example would be white flour or rice which contains very little nutrients which have to be made up for by eating a variety of other items. Traditionally processed grains or rice that haven't had all the nutrients stripped away can act as a core to a reasonably healthy diet, no it wont be all you eat but the variety required to not have horrible deficiencies is a lot less when you're eating whole ingredients that are less processed.",
"We don't need a carried diet, we just need the right stuff. The poblem is that the way we eat in a modern world means we don't get those things. When you eat beef you eat the muscle. When your ancestors ate beef they ate muscle and organs and bones and anything they could chew. ",
"Additionally to add onto everything else, your body generally breaks down almost everything into a few different types of substances to use as nutrients. You generally don't need anywhere near the recommendations to be as healthy as someone who follows them closely, and you'll find a seemingly arbitrary health trend if you overview people's diets. Not as much evidence to back claims about \"healthy\" diets impacting actual health as you may think. There's a difference between eating Twinkies, Cheetos, and Mt. Dew and a normal diet, though. Normal assumes you eat regular foods, which is usually a very heterogeneous mixture that will almost always contains all needed nutrients.",
"There's a lot of assumptions in your question.\n\n1) Most animals don't have narrow diets.\n\n2) Most wild animals don't live long healthy lives.\n\nIf your goal was to start having kids at 13 years old and die at 50 then you could get away with a narrower diet too.",
"Reminds me of 'super size me', I'm eating Mc Donald's only for a month. Oh my god I'm dying, this is so horrible. Here meet Don Gorske his eaten 25,0000 Big Macs in his life and drinks nothing but Coke.\n\nSo yeah if you'r Don Gorske a balanced diet isn't required\n_URL_0_",
"My biology teacher said that we've lost enzymes that other animals have because \"use it or lose it\"-- it's costly to always be pumping out the enzymes to extract something you always have easier access to. So polar bears don't get rickets from a lack of vitamin c because they make it with enzymes we've lost because much of our evolution we've had fruit around.",
"modern diets are balanced in the sense that they contain the maximum amount of poison your body can handle.\n\n\n\n",
"You don't need a variety in general. It's marketing similar to making you believe something is a 'breakfast food' like Cereal for example. Food is food. ",
"Biologically, humans are frugivores, but we have adapted to digest a wider variety of foods, albeit with less efficiency. Similar to how dogs can survive eating crappy dog food when naturally they would eat meat scraps and wild plants, bodies can tolerate a lot, although the wrong foods in excessive quantities can contribute to disease.",
"Humans don't need a very balanced diet, actually. As far as we know, if you get enough calories and enough micronutrients, what you eat doesn't really matter at all. Humans are extremely omnivorous.\n\nAlso, humans lack the ability to produce some amino acids that other organisms can produce naturally, so they need to ingest those.\n\nIncidentally, mice and other animals are in many ways complete nutritional sources; they have all that your body craves because they *are* bodies.",
"I just want to know how dogs manage to eat the same thing every day and not get bored of it.",
"Animals that get a balanced diet in captivity are larger and live longer.\n\nYou'll notice that humans in cultures that don't get a balanced diet, ie the third world... are smaller...\n\nCompare Asians who arrive in the west as refugees and their kids...\n\nMy favourite comparison though is Asian females born in Asia where they lack nutrional food, compared to Asians born in the west where they got nuritional food... difference... bewbies!!!",
"We're generalists in terms of our diet, while others have become specialists in their ecosystem niche.",
"the dont they just die of oder causes faster we have a spcil problem to match calories available they dont have it if we where build for modern life this wouldnt be an isu",
"Humans don't need a very balanced diet, actually. As far as we know, if you get enough calories and enough micronutrients, what you eat doesn't really matter at all. Humans are extremely omnivorous.\n\nAlso, humans lack the ability to produce some amino acids that other organisms can produce naturally, so they need to ingest those.\n\nIncidentally, mice and other animals are in many ways complete nutritional sources; they have all that your body craves because they *are* bodies.",
"I just want to know how dogs manage to eat the same thing every day and not get bored of it.",
"Animals that get a balanced diet in captivity are larger and live longer.\n\nYou'll notice that humans in cultures that don't get a balanced diet, ie the third world... are smaller...\n\nCompare Asians who arrive in the west as refugees and their kids...\n\nMy favourite comparison though is Asian females born in Asia where they lack nutrional food, compared to Asians born in the west where they got nuritional food... difference... bewbies!!!",
"We're generalists in terms of our diet, while others have become specialists in their ecosystem niche.",
"the dont they just die of oder causes faster we have a spcil problem to match calories available they dont have it if we where build for modern life this wouldnt be an isu",
"Humans don't need a very balanced diet, actually. As far as we know, if you get enough calories and enough micronutrients, what you eat doesn't really matter at all. Humans are extremely omnivorous.\n\nAlso, humans lack the ability to produce some amino acids that other organisms can produce naturally, so they need to ingest those.\n\nIncidentally, mice and other animals are in many ways complete nutritional sources; they have all that your body craves because they *are* bodies.",
"I just want to know how dogs manage to eat the same thing every day and not get bored of it.",
"Animals that get a balanced diet in captivity are larger and live longer.\n\nYou'll notice that humans in cultures that don't get a balanced diet, ie the third world... are smaller...\n\nCompare Asians who arrive in the west as refugees and their kids...\n\nMy favourite comparison though is Asian females born in Asia where they lack nutrional food, compared to Asians born in the west where they got nuritional food... difference... bewbies!!!",
"We're generalists in terms of our diet, while others have become specialists in their ecosystem niche.",
"the dont they just die of oder causes faster we have a spcil problem to match calories available they dont have it if we where build for modern life this wouldnt be an isu",
"Here's the forum post history from a man (72 yrs old) who has been eating a nearly 100% meat diet for over 4 decades. He used to work as soundman for the band The Grateful Dead. _URL_0_\n\n\"I have been eating the natural human dietary regime for over 47 years now. I do not eat anything whatsoever from vegetable sources. The only things veggie I use are spices. My diet is usually 60% fat and 40% protein by calories. I used to eat 80/20 when younger and about twice as much quantity of meat also, but that seems too much energy at my age, which is 71- even though I am very active. I think the body actually becomes more efficient with energy as you age, but I have no way of proving it true. Otherwise, my body today is very like it was at the age of 30. I figure most of what we call 'aging' is due to insulin damage to the collagen and other body structures. No carbs = no insulin. I don't heal quite as fast when injured as I did as a youngster, however. But I have few wrinkles, and my skin is still strong and elastic. \"",
"I hear everyone saying that a balanced diet is unneeded. \n\nHowever there is the Satiety Effect, where you feel full from a single food and will prefer to move on to something else, which helps promote a variety of nutritional foods (so easy a caveman can do it). \n\nAnd the body is good at causing you to desire what you need. Like a pregnant woman who is craving something specific to eat and there's likely an underlying nutritional need. These two things go a long way to getting non-scientific early humans good variety to their meals. \n\nThirdly, piling on to the benefits of eating the whole animal including organs, providing enormous nutritional value -- and given that those animals ate a variety as well, and those ate a variety, and the balance adds up. \n\nSource: nutrition class in college which had many well cited studies none of which I recall. ",
"In large part we *need* to eat a balanced diet because we *can* eat a balanced diet. Other animals that have a narrow diet tend to have the ability to synthesize the compounds we call vitamins. We call them vitamins because of the millions of compounds we need to survive they're the ones we can't just synthesize ourselves. The reason we can't synthesize them is that we evolved to be omnivores that were getting large sufficient doses of those compounds from our food. In that situation genes that used to synthesize those compounds had no beneficial effect on survival so when they broke it didn't matter. Now that we've moved out of the jungle and we don't have fresh fruits and veggies at hand 24/7 it suddenly becomes a problem.",
"As a follow up question, or perhaps merely another example, what about Koalas, who eat almost exclusively eucalyptus, and pandas, which eat only bamboo?",
"Animals are able to make some vitamins that humans can't, which is why they can survive on a limited diet. Vitamin C is made in most animals, with the exception of guinea pigs, monkeys, and humans. We dont have that enzyme to make it, so we have to eat either fruits or vegetables, unlike house cats or wolves. \n\nCarnivores also have shorter GI tracts (compared to their body length) which decreases transit time and a need for fiber. Herbivores have longer GI tracts because fiber they eat from plants are tough to break down to release nutrients/add bulk, even with the right enzymes and gut bacteria. ",
"Other animals don't have major corporations that need money to fill their pockets. For humans, especially Americans, this balanced diet is more so a balanced payout to these corps who fund basically everything in order to make people believe in this whole thing.\n\nHumans can basically exist on plant based diets, although it's be hard to monopolize that, or maybe just boring. Having many companies selling many things, with many kinds of nutrients and chemicals in them, allows for many people to get a hand in the pot of capitalism. ",
"why do humans need to cook our meat meanwhile other carnivore animals can just eat it raw? ",
"We say humans need a balanced diet because when you consider the average persons diet in one of the developed nations, not any third world countries, there diet consists of a lot of processed food that lacks any variety in terms of fruits and vegetables, and grains to a lesser extent. There are nutrients that are required by the body such as vitamins and minerals because if you go too long without replenishing your stores, you can develop a deficiency which can lead to a vast range of problems and can even lead to death sooner rather than later. Some vitamins you and minerals you can be deficient on for a short period of time and get away with it and others can create problems rather quickly. \nSo technically you can survive off a handful of foods, as long as those foods are nutrient dense. but of course in the modern age with supplementation and multi-vitamins, you can literally survive off candy and just take a pill or powder to make up the difference...\nSo this whole notion of a \"balanced\" diet is meant in terms of balancing the garbage people eat with the healthy food they are suppose to eat. People won't give up there unhealthy comfort foods, that's something we've accepted.. So we say to limit that food and incorporate more healthy food to find that perfect balance. ",
"Specialisation has led some animals to thrive within their environment. But that means an ecological tip would mean disater for their species.\n\nWe are not specialised, we are scavengers, and nomads. This adaptability has lead us to be able to thrive in many, many conditions.",
"We can easily survive off of basic foods as long as we get enough carbs, protein, and fat. The need for a balanced diet is really just for optimal health.",
"You can live a completely healthy life on a diet of potatoes or sweet potatoes as your only source of calories. Before anyone protests and breaks out their nutrient calculators, its been done & done again in controlled environments & the people in the studies kept enjoying potatoes after the long experiments for nitrogen balance & more, just like some cats or dogs enjoy the exact same kibble they get their entire lives. Okinawan Diet before 1950 was almost predominately sweet potatoes & they are the longest living people on the planet. \n_URL_1_ citations in this article\n_URL_0_ (this image if from pub med if you search it)",
"That's a good question. But think of it this way. Not all animals have the same diet. Humans are the same in that way. There can be various species of one animal that eat a variety of thing. Take bats for an example. Mexican free tail bats mainly feast on smaller creatures, but fruit bats eat, well, fruit. Then think of humans. Some people, for example bodybuilders, are like the Mexican free tail bats and decide to eat mainly meat. Other people, for example art students, are vegan or vegetarian and decide to eat only vegetable and fruits. Now, not all animals have such a narrow food choice or preference. Some animals, like rabbits and rodents, eat fruits, vegetables, and smaller insects. These animals eat at much more of a broader spectrum of food. But animals like anteaters eat insects and animals like lions eat other larger animals. They also adapt such an appetite because of their genetic DNA. They learn from their parents that they have to eat a specific way. Humans are almost identical to animals. We are all omnivores or have the capability of being one. We learned from our parents what and what not to eat. So to answer your question, animals are meant to have the diet they have. Humans are able to eat mostly anything that isn't dangerous to our health.",
"If you ate nothing but beans, potatoes, and picked some dandelions from your lawn for some greens you'd be perfectly healthy. You can probably eat a balanced diet for $10 a week.\n\nAll \"balanced diet\" means is you get some protein, carbs, fat, fibre and small amounts of whatever micronutrients the body needs, which *any* diet should provide short of eating nothing but plain white rice or something stupid.\n\n\n\n",
"Animals need to live to be able to reproduce. If they live ling enough to do that a few times, bonus.\n\nHumans have a desire to live as long as possible. Our lifespans are waaaaay beyond what we need to reproduce and raise young. Everything past the time where your offspring hit puberty is biologically wasteful.\n\nOur healthy diets (among other things) allow us to reach ages that are biologically unnecessary. ",
"So a lot of these comments are misleading or wrong. I can't speak for other animals, but I will speak for insects.\n\nInsects can have incredibly specific diets, eating only one species or a few different species. \n\nI studied a species of insect called the pea aphid. This is a sap sucker that only drinks sugar water out of plants. While some aphid species (like the peach aphid) are very polyphagous and drink sugar water from a lot of different plants, some can be highly specific and only feed on a few plants that are closely related. \n\nPea aphids have a bacterial symbiont that provides them with the nutrients they don't get in their sugar-water diet by converting the few amino acids they do get into those that are essential. This is a bacteria that may have been pathogenic in the past but now is incorporated into the insect and cannot live outside it, nor can the aphid live without the bacterial symbiont. More info at this wikipedia page: _URL_0_\n\nMany other insects also have nutritional endosymbionts, including other relatives of aphids (so planthoppers, adelgids, etc) as well as other insects with extremely narrow diets like bedbugs which only eat blood and have a bacterial symbiont that provides them with B-vitamins. It's probably that all sap-sucking insects have nutritional symbionts as well as many, if not all, insects with narrow diets.",
"Only in 21st century do we really care about having perfectly healthy bodies. Cavemen only needed to survive to hunt, even if they had vitamin deficiencies provided they could live to hunt it was fine for them. They definitely wouldn't live as long or feel as good but they could survive.",
"Current human diet does not match the majority of our evolution. It is far too easy for humans to get food that is bad for them.\n\nAnimals can't go to the bakery and get 2 dozen doughnuts whenever they feel like it.",
"Technically your everyday potato alone provides enough carbs, protein, vitamins, and minerals to sustain a human being. Wouldn't be ideal and you probably wouldnt meet the definition of perfect health but you would certainly be alive. Humans are more adaptable than youd think.",
"Rabbits, deer, and mice eat dozens of plant species. Deer sometimes supplement their plant diet with deer meet - the velvet from their own antlers, in the case of bucks, and the placenta in the case of does. Mice also eat crickets and other small insects. Nothing narrow at all about those diets.\n\nBut even if you were to feed an owl purely on mice - and they can probably survive on that, since my buddy's redtail hawk is raised entirely on pinkies (AFAIK) - keep in mind that a *raw* mouse body contains all the proteins, minerals, and vitamins to form mammal meat, organs, and bones. \n\nTo put it more bluntly: a cannibal that eats the entire body probably gets every dietary need fulfilled, since s/he is eating every component of a human body.\n\nNow, as soon as you cook that meat, you start destroying vitamins (Vitamin C is quickly gone), and humans don't normally eat bones - advantage, owls!\n\nSo, while cooking our food makes calories far more bioaccessible (and easier to chew), it also tends to reduce the vitamin content. Animals don't have that problem.",
"Ever read Farley Mowat's \"Never Cry Wolf\"? He tried living on mice/voles just like the wolves and got sick. Realized he was skinning them first. Ate them whole and was fine. Eskimo/Inuit eat pretty much only meat/skin/blubber and do just fine healthwise. A \"balanced\" diet was probably invented for economics, not health.",
"This sub has really gone to shit. All of these answers are just people spouting bullshit that they assume is right because it *feels like it would be*. It's explain it like I'm five, not explain it like *you're* five. I admittedly don't know that much, but I feel compelled to give a response because I evidently know more than all the chuckleheads in this thread. \n\nHumans are omnivorous, which means they eat everything - just like rats. Something you may have noticed about both rats and humans is that we're both everywhere. The evolutionary advantage of being able to eat anything is that no matter the environment, you can almost always find food. Of course this comes with drawbacks as well. Mainly, you have to exercise discretion in what you eat and how much of it you eat, because a lot of things are poisonous. Some anthropologists believe that the reason humans developed larger, more powerful brains was to deal with the tricky question of what to eat. \n\nNow to your question. So I've just very roughly explained why it's good to be able to eat everything, but why do we *have to* eat so many different things? Well the short answer is we don't know. It's unclear what evolutionary advantage was associated with developments like the mutation that robbed us of the ability to produce vitamin C for instance. But a lot of bodily functions require energy or have some other disadvantage that gets made up for by the benefits we get out of those functions. Like the liver takes up space and energy, but we need it to breakdown wastes, so it's worth having. Well, maybe there was an energy cost associated with producing our own vitamins, or maybe it was something else, but whatever it was it wasn't worth having because we didn't need it. Since we eat everything anyway (as omnivores), we were already getting those vitamins from other sources, so there wasn't a reason to keep that function around. And at some point there was an evolutionary advantage to a change that caused us to lose that ability. Why did we lose that and not the appendix? Nobody knows - its an evolutionary mystery.\n\nMost of the substance of that explanation came from Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, supplemented with a bit of my own educated guesses (like I said, I'm no expert, but nobody was answering this well). Good book, but only tangentially touches on this. Anyway, the point is, that it was pretty well-sourced if I remember correctly, so this isn't all just bullshit that I dreamed up and decided to speak about as if I were some sort of authority.\n\nEdit: I just realized that I kind of assumed you were talking about micronutrients because they are the only reason that you need to eat a balanced diet. You need a minimum amount of fat and minimum amount of protein. If you eat too much macros overall you'll get fat, and if you don't get enough carbs you'll feel lethargic, but as far as health goes, it doesn't really matter what proportions of macros you eat relative to other macros. ",
"We only need to live past the age of reproduction. Everything after that is a bonus. You don't need to eat right to live long enough to repopulate the species so it's a non-issue in terms of survival. ",
"I would say it's because we invented a whole lot of shitty not-food, so we have to work hard to be sure we eat only the real stuff",
"Basically, the answer is:\n\n* If animals ate healthy they would live longer\n\n* Humans can survive off a narrow diet as well, we just would not be as healthy and wouldnt live as long\n\n* Humans have science to help them know that balancing their diets makes Humans live longer.\n\n* Animals dont have science, so they dont benefit like humans from well balanced food.\n\n* There is an exception: Some animals get the benefit of human science (cats, dogs, etc..) by being fed human made animal food and can live longer then your average street cat or dog.",
"The diet an animal eats is based upon opportunity. If a cow lacked a molecular tool that it needs to grow while only eating grass (and forbs) it would starve. Human ancestors were not as restricted as cows or owls in terms of the foods they were capable of collecting.\n\nHumans who have a broken molecular tool (metabolic pathway) are often able to find a food that contains what they cannot produce well enough on their own. Families pass on these dietary solutions in their cooking. The environment is usually quite biologically diverse even in deserts so there is almost never just one or two types of food. Humans are very versatile, we can climb, dig, throw things, break things and go just about anywhere. \n\nTLDR evolution leaves generalists dependent on variety, and specialists dependent on consistency.\n\n\n\n",
"Reminder that for tens of thousands of years, humans didn't live very long and died young from a variety of diseases. It's only in the past century (and really the past 25-30 years) that we've realized the benefits that diet has on health and longevity.\n\nFor example, [take a look at this graph](_URL_0_). Not only have we increased the life expectancy by around 15 years in places like America, but in developing regions we increased it by over *thirty* years.\n\nThat's not only due to the increase in medicine in these areas, but the ability to get proper food and nutrition as well (modern agriculture, for example). ",
"Because you don't see most of the unfit dying alone in a corner. You only see the ones who are strong enough to survive the illness that comes from eating badly. Hence, survival of the fittest.",
"Not sure if anyone else said this but animals process food, water, nutrition far more efficiently than we do",
"Humans only need plant based diet to live healthy. \nAll the nutrients a human needs are in plants. \nIn reality we don't need meat. ",
"I think you're confusing \"stay healthy\" with \"stay alive\". The human body is remarkable. Some lady on some TV show ate couch cushions.",
"Humans are omnivores, which means we can eat a varied and balanced diet, but that doesn't mean we have to.\n\nFor one thing, the definition of \"healthy\" for a human includes a lot of stuff like being the appropriate height and weight for our age, not suffering from illnesses, a reasonably high level of comfort, and even sexual attractiveness. But unless you're a biologist or a vet, you can't assess the first two; you can't assess the last one unless you're a member of the same species, and the remaining criterion is impossible to assess because an animal can't answer the question \"where does it hurt?\" So when we say an animal is \"healthy,\" that basically means \"it ain't dead,\" and maybe \"it don't look like it's actively dying, either.\" I'm not dead, and I don't look like I'm dying, but I eat like shit.\n\nWe also don't live the same lifestyle that animals live, or even that we lived during our own evolution. Most people on Reddit probably have sedentary jobs and don't burn a lot of calories, despite being member of the species that evolved to be persistence hunters. Most people on Reddit can probably also go down to McDonald's and buy three double cheeseburgers easily, which is the amount it takes to be full and also probably more calories than a sedentary person needs in a day. Animals just eat as much as they can of whatever they can get, and it's usually fine because they're as active as they evolved to be. They don't have the ability to get in a car, go somewhere, hand over a few pieces of paper and just not be hungry anymore. We can, so we're used to not being hungry. To eat enough that you're not hungry, while also taking in an appropriate number of calories, requires eating a lot of low-calorie plant matter. Since most people don't enjoy that, eating that in addition to the food that they do enjoy leads to a balanced diet. Vegans don't eat a balanced diet, but they can eat a healthy diet.\n\nLastly, our idea of what a \"balanced diet\" is has been influenced by marketing. The majority of humans can't even digest dairy, but the milk lobby don't fuck around, so in the US it's included in the government-endorsed concept of a \"balanced\" or healthy diet, and the 75% of the world's people for whom it doesn't really even qualify as food because their systems can't process it are deemed \"lactose intolerant.\" They should just call folks like me \"lactose tolerant.\"*\n\n & nbsp;\n\n*Full disclosure: I love me some dairy. I love cheese. I love ice cream. I'm a middle-aged man and I still drink milk sometimes! But if 75% of the species gets sick from eating it, then it ain't really required for a healthy diet, is it?",
"Staying alive and getting 100% of what the body \"needs\" to function at 100% is vastly different. \nYou can live of hamburgers and nothing else if you realy wanted. \nBut bare in mind, animals does trek far and wide to get what \"they need\" too. That being a mineral rich rock to lick at or a leaf or whatever, even thoe that aint in thier normal diet.",
"Animals have evolved to survive on the diets available to them in their habitats. In the case of humans and other animals, like bears, we have evolved to a wide range diet, and are omnivorous (humans to an extent as most of the tougher plant tissue remains undigested and excreted.) it also comes down to competing organisms for food. Over time, animals will adapt to a certain niche, or role in the habitat and may focus on a single or few energy sources in order to maximize availability and minimize competition from other animals living in the same habitat.",
"\n\nBit late to the party but a lot of animals evolved to make the most of their diet. Take cows and other bovines for instance. They mostly eat grass, which isn’t very nutritious. But they don’t take their nutrition directly from the grass, it’s mostly cellulose.\n\nThe reason cows have such a complex digestive system is because they have an entire zoo worth of microbes living in their gut. Effectively the cow masticates the grass into mulch that ferments in their rumen. The cow’s rumen is full of bacteria, protozoa and fungi that can actually eat the starchy cellulose mass. This microbial life has evolved to live inside the cow’s anaerobic digestive system. After all, if there was oxygen in there, the masticated grass would rot instead of ferment.\n\nAs these microbes feast on the cow’s stomach content, they in turn produce the proteins, lipids and other nutrients the cow needs to thrive. You could say that a cow doesn’t eat grass, it feeds grass to the zoo in it’s stomach and they in turn feed the cow with their byproducts.\n\nIn addition, herbivores will often supplement their diet when they have severe deficiencies. A variety of species of herbivore has been seen eating meat or bones under dire circumstances. Other examples include licking mineral rich rocks or eating mineral rich dirt.\n\nPredators have it a lot easier. They tend to get their nutrition from their prey. They don’t just eat the muscle (meat) after all but also the organs, fat, half digested stomach contents, marrow and sometimes bone of their prey.",
"You don't \"need\" to be healthy per se.\n\nYou just need to survive long enough to pass on your genes. The same is true for all life.\n\nThus our ideas of longevity, health, hygiene etc are really about us applying human intelligence to gain an understanding of the world around us, including our own bodies and minds.\n\nSaid knowledge we can, to some degree at least, circumvent some issues and live longer with less illness and in conditions that we might feel are more comfortable. Although, it's still a very complex topic and we can't pretend to have a comprehensive understanding. I think even the ideas about \"balance\", especially in terms of nature being \"balanced\" and a \"balanced\" diet are not necessarily accurate. They are popular ideas. Clearly life on the planet over billions of years hasn't been \"balanced\" at all. I think sometimes we look at the world and talk about what it needs to be for our benefit and maybe then it needs to be balanced because tipping in a particular direction threatens our existence. It doesn't necessarily threaten the existence of life though, as the dinosaurs and a bajillion other species that no longer exist found out.\n\nOur healthy diets, medicine, technology and so on are, to some extent, trying to outwit nature - these are not really things humans need to survive. They are things we've created by aspiring to do more than just survive.\n\nOr even where things are not healthy, to simply gain pleasure. Chocolate cake, for example, exists because eating isn't simply about survival. In the same way sex is no longer about reproduction.\n\n(Equally though, that same intelligence has created technologies and lifestyles that have led to health problems and ways of harming millions of people.)\n\nSo, your question is perhaps only naive in the sense that your premise implies we require a particular diet. This is not really true in biological terms. Your ideas on diet are more from anthropological ideas.",
" Nutrient intake essentially needs to satisfy 2 broad necessities for any 'living organism'. The first being caloric (measure of energy) consumption to maintain basal metabolic function (involuntary bodily processes from the grossly obvious like heart pumping, lungs ventilating to subtle atomic enzymatic reactions like balancing electrolyte concentrations in our various bodily 'soups' (blood, cerebrospinal fluid etc)), hunt for the next meal and reproduce , all of which move down the energy consumption gradient. \n The second is the intake of compounds/vitamins/minerals which our bodies are unable to manufacture themselves but play crucial roles in various functional processes. An example of this is 'essential amino acids', which are a group of partial-proteins that our bodies cannot readily formulate, but are necessary building blocks for enzymes that allow for a variety of chemical reactions essential to life.\n\n The first requirement (energy/caloric needs) is far smaller than what modern human culture has taught/influenced us to believe. Previous comments have highlighted this well, in that abundant caloric consumption has meant we have achieved larger , stronger physiques in some cases, but I'd argue the majority of cases are simply bodies rolling around with huge caloric overabundance (obesity). In the animal kingdom, these latter physiques should mean we would be unable or unwilling to further consume high caloric foods because we would be too fat/lazy to seek out/hunt for these. Humans today have ongoing access to energy dense food expelling very little energy to obtain them. Wild animals are rarely exposed to such / unable to create this scenario of such energy access decadence (unless we have had an influence on their environment). \n\n Animals achieve the second requirement (essential minerals/vitamins) by consuming either whole animal products (carnivores) or whole plant products (herbivores). Very broadly speaking, eating whole products of other previously living things, is likely to provide you with the majority of necessary micronutrients for life, as it has previously allowed life in the very thing you are consuming! Of course, an apple is not a buffalo, but the greatest difference between the two is essentially the vast caloric potential, not the micro nutrient potential.\n As humans, we have manipulated our environment so that we often consume energy rich but only partial products which don't often provide all of the micro nutrients we require. In addition, we have chosen to cultivate agricultural products based on their volume and yield, rather than their micro nutrient content (iceberg lettuce grows extremely well however it is the least nutritious of all lettuce.) We have tried to overcome this by fortifying a lot of broadly consumed foods with some of these , such as folate fortified flour (alliteration unintended), and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is used as a 'natural preservative' in countless products. These actions have greatly removed many nutritional deficiencies in the developed world without having a 'balanced diet'. \n\nClearly rambling, I guess I conclude with the idea that a balanced diet is a safety net comment by nutritional bodies/experts to avoid the risk of micronutrient deficiencies, which has largely been abated in the developed world by fortification. Animals simply consume whole products of far lower caloric content (but still satisfactory) and micronutirent concentration for species preservation. \n\n",
"We can survive on meat along if we ate all the organs(no vitamins or adding things in other ways). In fact some societies did just that.\n\nAlso note that animals in captivity that are fed balanced diets live much much longer than those in the wild in the majority of the cases this is largely due to the balanced diet making them healthier overall among other things.",
"As always when this comes up, humans don't NEED a balanced diet, it's just better. You can survive almost indefinitely on a very narrow diet, it will just come with poorer health. Animals don't know how to optimise their diet like we do, and therefore live shorter lives in poorer health than they could. This is a large part of why housepets live longer than their feral counterparts, we have studied their dietary needs and provide them food with a broader range of nutrients than is available in the wild, so they live longer and healthier lives. One of the advantages humans have is the ability to process many types of food, so we can get nourishment no matter where we are. We don't need to have this broad spectrum of food types to live, we just have the ability when to take advantage of a wide range."
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"https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2002nl/apr/potatoes.htm"
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4nc7kn | how do carnivorous plants digest their prey? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4nc7kn/eli5_how_do_carnivorous_plants_digest_their_prey/ | {
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" > [If the prey is unable to escape, it will continue to stimulate the inner surface of the lobes, and this causes a further growth response that forces the edges of the lobes together, eventually sealing the trap hermetically and forming a 'stomach' in which digestion occurs. Release of the digestive enzymes is controlled by the hormone jasmonic acid, the same hormone that triggers the release of toxins as an anti-herbivore defense mechanism in noncarnivorous plants. (See Evolution below) Once the digestive glands in the leaf lobes have been activated, digestion is catalysed by hydrolase enzymes secreted by the glands.](_URL_0_)",
"The leaves clasp shut and then ooze digestive enzymes which dissolve the essential nutrients of the fly. After about a week it opens back up and the husk of the fly blows away in the wind.",
"Biologist here!\n\nDigestion of preys by carnivorous plants happen in two ways: (a) the plant itself secretes the enzymes that will breakdown the prey or (b) the plant has a symbiotic relationship with bacteria, which secrete the enzymes.\n\nMost of the carnivorous plants \"trick\" their preys into thinking that they will provide any sort of reward, like a soothing smells that indicates the presence of nectar, what the preys don't know is that they're falling precisely into the trap. [Here's a video showing how the trap is triggered in venus fly traps](_URL_5_).\n\nThey have several types of traps: specialized leaves with protuberances and sticky substances (like *[Drosera](_URL_1_)*), trumpet-like leaf-chambers with slippery inner-walls that have a seal (like *[Sarracenia](_URL_4_)*, leaves that are sensitive to motion and close when touched (like *[Dionaea](_URL_2_)*) or a leaf with little protuberances what will trap the prey (like *[Heliamphora](_URL_7_)*). Here's a [cool time-lapse of carnivorous plants growing](_URL_3_).\n\nThe point of the traps is to immobilize the prey so the plant can effectively digest it. The process is actually quite similar to how it works in humans. Glands release a set on biomolecules, known as enzymes, which have a very particular chemical property: They help complex reactions, so they are faster and more efficient.\n\n[Here you can see a close-up](_URL_8_) of the digestive glands of a carnivorous plant (red balls are to catch, the glands are the circles on the leaf). The plants that make \"pools\" inside them, are constantly secreting enzymes, that's what makes the pool (along with the attracting molecules that bring the preys to the plant). \n\nThe enzymes breakdown the tissues and organs of the preys (usually insects, [although sometimes they get lucky](_URL_0_)) into less complex molecules, making the main nutrients any organisms needs (C, N, O, H, P, S) easier to incorporate in their metabolic system. When the nutrients are already solved and transformed into less complex molecules, the plant absorbs them.\n\nIf you ever open one of these plants, [you will notice that the \"exoskeleton\" of the insects always stays there](_URL_6_), that's because it's made of a particularly complex -and stable- molecule known as chitin. The plant either accumulates the husks in a special organ or re-opens and let's the wind move the husk away."
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"http://www.carnivorousplants.org/cp/images/SarraceniaInside2.jpg",
"https://www.wistuba.com/images/h_minor_pilosa-3.jpg",
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8xhw4i | how is apple avoiding anti-trust laws in the e.u., while google is under scrutiny for making their search engine the default? | I saw a case here from a long while ago, but the landscape has changed since then. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8xhw4i/eli5_how_is_apple_avoiding_antitrust_laws_in_the/ | {
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"I'm not sure what you are asking. Apple doesn't run a search engine so I can't understand how they would possibly be considered to give it an unfair advantage."
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3wrfcf | how is an element discovered, and when it is, who determines if it gets onto the periodic table? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3wrfcf/eli5_how_is_an_element_discovered_and_when_it_is/ | {
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"It used to be that you could discover an element by discovering it in the natural world (Uranium, Radon, Potassium). But now every element left to discover is usually so volatile that it turns into a lower numbered element nearly instantly. These are formed in very controlled environments in laboratories. \nThe periodic table is organized by people but the contents are scientific phenomenon, so once someone proves that they've discovered an element it will go up on the periodic table. We will know where they fit based on their atomic number (how many protons it has) and physics principles that are established. \n\nYou've got to prove you've discovered it and you've got to name it. These are scientists we're talking about so the names aren't usually anything worth smiling about but there is the occasional Californium or Einsteinium. One of them is named after Dmitri Mendeleev who began this whole periodic table excursion you're asking about. \n\nPhysics and Chemistry, like every scholarly/academic subjects, are peer reviewed meaning that professors, PhDs, Science Journals and the like will read, consider, contest and choose whether or not to verify depending on whether or not the science is sound and so in that way it will get approved.\n\nSomeone discovering the 117 element is not going to change the posters in the classroom because these element are unlikely to have any practical ramifications in the classroom setting. _URL_0_\n\nThere's definitely a reason to be discovering new elements, even if it doesn't make hard core chemists alter their tattoos. The Periodic table actually already exists completed and we're just discovering it. Like all the species in the world right now exist and once we discover one we don't get to decide whether or not it's an animal, the best we can do is name it put it into a relevant taxonomical category and take selfies with it. \n\nTL;DR Proof, peer review and naming it. Gets put into periodic table because it has to go there, no \"approval process\" once proven that it's a new element because it's a natural phenomenon. The ones left to find are almost definitely going to be found (and not for very long) in a lab or at least not on Earth. "
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318kry | if pandora has so manys ads why do they still limit the amount of skips that i can use? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/318kry/eli5_if_pandora_has_so_manys_ads_why_do_they/ | {
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"You are asking, if Pandora already has a way of making money (ads), why they are cutting costs (number of songs skipped, which cost money but don't contribute to your time on Pandora). The answer is simple: they like money, and will pursue it to the point of diminishing returns (the point at which enough users are alienated to make the lost profits from their departure greater than the reduced costs).",
"Limiting your control over the specific songs you hear is how Pandora is able to classify itself as radio. It's a very important distinction when calculating how much money it owes to record labels and artists in royalty fees, and which songs they can play. Limiting skipping ensures that you are having a radio-like experience, and not just hunting for the specific songs you want to hear, which would make them an on-demand service like Spotify"
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6cova4 | why are 7 and 13 considered lucky and unlucky respectively? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6cova4/eli5_why_are_7_and_13_considered_lucky_and/ | {
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"this is a cultural thing and if you travel to various parts of the world you'll find the same does not hold true for them. for instance, Chinese and Japanese consider 4 to be unlucky and not 13. The reason for that specifically, is because some of the pronunciations of 4 are similar or the same as their word for death. \n\n13 may be considered unlucky for many reasons but a common belief is because of the christian religions \"last supper\" where jesus and his 12 disciples ate... judas, the one that betrayed jesus, was the 13th person to sit at the table. \n\n7 on the other hand may be a rule of 5s type thing... i.e. people looking for certain patterns will eventually see them in just about everything. I also suspect christian religion has something to do with it though... I've heard many times how 6 (specifically 666) is supposed to be the number of the devil and so 7 which is above six, would be the number of god. "
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3mpm6m | how hard would it be for a state to claim independence from the country it is in | With the recent Catalan elections being pro-independence from Spain, how easy for the Catalan region would it actually be to gain independence from Spain?
On top of that, there are many more states that claim independence from other countries. How does a state go about being recognised as an independent country? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mpm6m/eli5_how_hard_would_it_be_for_a_state_to_claim/ | {
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"probably need to have pretty widespread support from both sides of the border, then the international community probably wouldn't care.\n\nI say probably because I cant recall it happening in recent times, and it would definitely be a case by case basis.",
"In most countries, states do not have any legal right to secede on their own.\n\nForming their own country is either a matter of negotiation, or armed conflict.",
"If you want to be recognized as a state start treating with other states. If I can get other states to start acting like I'm a state it legitimizes me.\n\nDeclaring independence is easy: just do it. There's no forms you have to fill out at the UN or anything, just say you're your own state.\n\nBacking it up can be a pain. If I declare myself and my land sovereign the government will just take my shit for failing to pay tax, and nobody in the international community has any reason to be outraged about that.\n\nIf I start claiming sovereignty and get away with it, then start forming up my own government and manage to retain a reasonable monopoly on the use of violence I'm arguable independent already. If other countries have faith I'll stay that way, and we have anything worth talking about, they'll probably talk to me and in that I'll look legitimate.",
"There's two main ways of doing it, the legal route and the force route.\n\nThe legal route means negotiating independence with the central government. \n\nThis is how Scotland could have become independent. The UK government agreed to have a referendum on it, and agreed to let Scotland go independent of that's what the majority voted for. \n\nHowever in many countries doing it this way would require a change to the constitution to allow it.\n\nThe other route is by force. The separating region refuses to follow the laws of the country its breaking away from and raises an army (or has outside help) to repel any attempts to regain control by force.\n\nThe problem with this route is that often many countries will refuse to recognise the new de facto independent country, and will continue to treat it as a region of the country it broke away from.\n\nAnd there are cases where it has been somewhere in-between. A war breaks out because a region wants to secede. But the war is eventually ended by both parties agreeing to let the region become independent."
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4lgf9k | why isn't the proper way to pour guinness all in one go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4lgf9k/eli5_why_isnt_the_proper_way_to_pour_guinness_all/ | {
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"The 2-part pour is a throwback to the days before nitrogen draught dispensing, when it came in wooden casks. The bartender would pour most of the glass from a cask of \"fresh\" Guinness, wait for it to settle, then top it up from a barrel of \"high\" (older) Guinness. The result was a more complex flavour profile. The switch to Nitrogen happened gradually, with nitro Guinness first replacing the \"high\" Guinness. "
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236rjy | what's the difference between a traditional cpu and amd's new apus? | So, maybe not like I'm 5, but I don't need an electrical engineer level explanation, either. Why was the switch made, and why should I choose an APU over a regular CPU? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/236rjy/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_a_traditional/ | {
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"An APU is basically the result of sticking a CPU and GPU on the same die. In less intialistic speech, they stuck the video card inside the processor. If you don't have extremely demanding video needs, or don't need to upgrade your video card, it tends to be cheaper than getting a CPU and a separate video card with the same specs. You can find APUs equivalent to most low and mid-end Radeon video cards. I'm not sure if they can compete in the high-end video market yet. Regular CPUs are still available as well... APUs didn't replace them, just offered an alternative."
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1odyhm | how are some people able to play musical instruments by ear without extensive knowledge of how notes work? | i've always wondered this.. some people are just gifted with the ability to produce music so much so that they can recreate a song they heard on the radio or something with the instrument they have without knowing exactly what the notes are and such..
am I being hoodwinked by them? Is such a thing even possible? I have 0 understanding of how music works even though I LOOOVE music. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1odyhm/eli5_how_are_some_people_able_to_play_musical/ | {
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"These people *do* have knowledge of how notes work :-) but that doesn't necessarily mean they spent years in school learning all the theory of it. You can develop a habit/instinct for it without too much formal education. I spent about 12 years honing it in formal theory, but I've met people who can do it without a single proper lesson in their life.\n\nThe underlying principle is actually quite straightforward. Whenever you hear two notes, you can work out the interval between them. For example, when you sing \"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star\", that first jump is a perfect 5th. In \"Amazing Grace\", the first jump is a perfect 4th. In the \"Simpsons\" theme, it's an *augmented* 4th. The \"Jaws\" theme is a minor 2nd. And so on. You don't need to know all the fancy names; all you have to do is be able to recognise the sound of it. It takes a lot of practice, but it's definitely possible.\n\nAnd then you slowly develop that skill over time, so that you can process a lot of notes at once, very quickly. Once you've got this down, it's comparatively quite simple to figure out where your fingers should be on the piano (or whatever instrument you play)."
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b57h98 | what’s inside cpus? | I understand that there are silicon, micro/nano chips, resistors and transistors, but what is it that make all the ACC, ALU and CU etc work? And how they they translated to machine code to make a whole system work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b57h98/eli5_whats_inside_cpus/ | {
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" > but what is it that make all the ACC, ALU and CU etc work? \n\nThe aforementioned transistors, resistors, etc. Binary operations are performed simply by flipping switches, and the logic comes in with how those switches are arranged.\n\n > And how they they translated to machine code to make a whole system work?\n\n[I suggest watching this video about defining the control logic in an 8-bit breadboard computer.](_URL_0_) Basically it just comes down to how the computer is designed as to what values initiate what kinds of operations.",
"The missing component you are looking for, which is usually the physically biggest part of the CPU, is the control logic. All the ACC, ALU, CU, registers, muxers, etc. take in a number of single bit control lines. So you need to convert the machine code instructions into thousands of these control signals every clock cycle. Most of this is done with lookup tables. So when an instruction is executed it is as simple as just looking up what control signals should be output given the instruction and state of the CPU. Even through modern CPUs have quite complex instruction pipelines and can handle multiple instructions at once. I do suggest the work that Ben Eater have been doing as he have done quite a bit of public educational work about how (early) CPUs works and demonstrates this by building a CPU from discrete components that is simple enough that you can understand what and why."
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3qp3w4 | do wild animals mourn their dead? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3qp3w4/eli5_do_wild_animals_mourn_their_dead/ | {
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"I remember one time seeing a couple of geese in a parking lot. One of the geese got run over by a car. It's mate wouldn't leave its side. Even when animal control came, it put up a fight. So I'd go with yes.",
"Some do, some don't. Elephants certainly do. Many times the herd will stand around the corpse for a day or more to stop any scavengers coming and feasting on it. "
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5qfli9 | why aren't cars more fuel efficient? | The small Japanese family cars of the 1970s were pulling 30-40 miles per gallon on carbureted, naturally-aspirated engines that had to be throttled to produce any performance. Yet today, with direct injected, turbocharged, electronically managed engines, fuel efficiency remains pretty similar. What gives? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qfli9/eli5_why_arent_cars_more_fuel_efficient/ | {
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"Cars nowadays have a *lot* more safety features and requirements than cars did in the '70s. Cars today are also a lot bigger, even \"small family cars\". They are, therefore, a lot *heavier* than cars were in the '70s. They are also a *lot* safer. The price for that is less efficiency. \n\nThat said, you *can* get cars today that get 30-40MPG fairly easily. If you try a bit harder you can get 40-50MPG. Try a bit harder and you can find cars that use no gas at all if you travel under a certain distance. Try a bit harder, and you can get cars that don't use gas, at all, ever. So cars *can* be more efficient. It's all about supply and demand. ",
"Things I learned during my Mechanical Engineering degree:\n\n* **Competing Factors**: Fuel efficiency isn't necessarily correlated with other positive attributes, like safety, cost, reliability, emissions, and engine characteristics. Designing a vehicle requires compromises between these factors.\n* **Emissions Standards**: Fuel emission standards need to be pretty universal. For example, Los Angeles is affected a lot more by high emissions than Denver, so car manufacturers abide by policies that lower emissions universally for the sake of L.A., even if it reduces fuel efficiency. It's an intertwining of politics and economics.\n\nFor those who might be confused as to why fuel efficiency isn't always correlated to emissions: depending on several factors, an engine can emit different levels of various particulates, some of which are really damaging to the environment and public health."
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an9bap | how does a cooking thermometer or temperature probe get the temperature at the tip correct when the entire length is metal and rests in differing temperature layers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/an9bap/eli5_how_does_a_cooking_thermometer_or/ | {
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"For most of the electric ones, they're what are called thermocouples. _URL_0_ basically, two metals connected together will create a tiny voltage when heated up. The non-electronic ones will usually operate on the principle of thermal expansion, where things expand when they heat up. To make it \"correct\" even though the whole thermometer is heated up, they amplify one mechanical part's expansion to the point where the rest of the thermometer's expansion is insignificant. Ex: in your typical air thermometer, the fluid expands into a tiny tiny tube, so a 0.1% expansion is visible in the fluid, but not visible for the rest of the thermometer",
"The actual thermocouple or thermistor is tiny. A thermistor is about the size of a poppy seed and a thermocouple is the same size minus the poppy seed (it is literally the point where two wires touch). it is mostly insulated from the case except at the very tip."
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48dtii | why are metal surfaces shiny? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48dtii/eli5_why_are_metal_surfaces_shiny/ | {
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"Metal is very smooth, so when a ray of light hits it, the photons in the reflected ray stay more or less together as opposed to being scattered every which way. This means reflections are brighter and keep a coherent image."
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2aemnf | is the english language (and others) constantly evolving in tone and vocabulary? so for example in ~400 years our english will sound "old-timey" and different to the people of the future, sort of like how 1600s english sounds to us today? | Additionally, do other languages evolve like this? Does 17th century Spanish sound old-timey to a modern day spanish speaker? Are any languages not affected?
Thanks in advance. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2aemnf/eli5_is_the_english_language_and_others/ | {
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"I dont know about the sound, but the word usage and the way words are written in don quijote originals are pretty different from modern castilian. ",
"All languages change and evolve over time. Your question about Spanish is a good one, since I've studied both 17th century (and earlier) Spanish; the vocabulary and intonation was definitely different, much like Shakespearian English differs from the English of England today.\n\nAs an example, just watch an old gangster movie from the 1930's and listen to not only the vocabulary but also the intonation. High, nasal vocal tone among performers, especially males, was common. You won't find anything like that today. Same with radio announcers. \n\nAll languages have their own unique adaptations, unless they are totally isolated from the outside world, but I would imagine changes still occur, depending upon the preferences of who's speaking it at the time.",
"Yes, though the pervasiveness of US TV will probably slow it down.\n\nPeople talk like the people near them talk, their own accents are influenced by the speakers they hear. Given isolation there's a slight drift, over time, away from previous pronunciation (check out Australian English vs. South African English). This is exacerbated by the tendency of kids to try and talk differently to their parents (at least since the invention of teenagers).\n\nWithout TV / movies, that drift would tend to continue, until different accents would eventually become different dialects. \n\nWith global entertainment as a steadying factor, there's still likely to be a drift, but it's more likely to be in the same direction globally, with regional variation.\n\nSo in, like, a hundred years, or whatever, we'll all totally be, like, talking like this.",
"You may find this interesting:\n\n[Recent developments in English](_URL_0_)",
"All languages evolve, always have done, and always will -- despite mass communication, which has done nothing to slow the process (it has merely ironed out some of the regional differences).\n\nTo pick an obvious example, your grandparents would probably never use the word \"awesome\" in the way that you do. Many English speakers now, especially young women, speak with this intonation pattern which rises at the end of a sentence -- again, your grandparents would certainly never have done that, and they probably cringe when they hear it.\n\nThe same happens in other languages as well. Try learning modern German and then reading one of the Grimms' fairy tales -- you'll immediately see the difference.",
"How old are you? If you are in your late 20s you probably watched fresh prince of bel air as a kid... go back and watch it now - languages changes a lot over time.\n\nWith more rapid global communication and multiple forms of media I think we have put the evolution of language on steroids. Watch a movie from the 60s or 70s and see the differences.. Like a bond movie he always called his bosses secretary \"Miss Moneypenny\" today it is \"Sue\".\n\n"
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1ptv7q | why doesn't out vision seem shaky, like when we hold a camera, even though our heads our always moving | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ptv7q/eli5why_doesnt_out_vision_seem_shaky_like_when_we/ | {
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"your brain adjusts for things like that. Like how it erases your nose from your vision even though its right in your face and fills in blind spots. ",
"Great experiment to prove that your brain makes these kinds of adjustment that you can do at home (with a friend):\n \nTurn your head as far as you can to the side. Then have someone hold some number of fingers up in front of you (so that you could see them if your head was facing front, but can't see them with your head turned to the side).\n\nThen, with your eyes still open, turn your head as fast as you (safely) can to the other side, so that you are now facing the opposite direction (and still can't see the fingers they are holding up directly). \n\nIn this case, you should have seen the fingers, since you looked right at them as you moved your head. but you won't be able to accurately say how many fingers they were holding up. \n\nThis is because when your head is moving that fast, but your body isn't, your brain basically shuts off input from your eyes, to avoid your feeling disoriented. Instead of going black, the brain just fills in the time your head was moving with a visual gloss, a best guess, effectively, based on what it saw at the beginning and end, without actually \"seeing\" the fingers in a way it can process. "
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78sqgp | why is hillary clinton's campaign paying for the russian dossier not raising more concern? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/78sqgp/eli5_why_is_hillary_clintons_campaign_paying_for/ | {
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"Best I can tell is the Republicans can't make a big deal about it because they are where it originated. In my mind the most likely chain of events was RNC starts dossier and when Trump won the ticket they(likely McCain)told the DNC about it. If the contents are proven to be fiction the finger can be pointed anywhere. If proven true then who cares who paid for it? It's a toxic topic to both parties though not really anything I'm worried about to be honest. As far as I know it is not illegal.\n\nAlso you'll notice the other headline is Trump doing the same thing with Wikileaks so it's a wash. We know they all play dirty.\n\nThis is all just my opinion of course. There is no answer to your question. You're sure to hear Bcuz libruls.",
"Concern about what? Buying op-o research; everybody does that. Getting op-o research that's unproven and maybe false; that happens every time. Looking for op-o involving the Russians because the optics of that's bad; it's identical to the Republican campaign looking for \"home email\" op-o on Ms. Clinton.\n\nYou should not be concerned, this is very common and actually pretty desirable campaign behavior."
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99za4f | psychologically, what makes otherwise patient people so impatient while driving? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/99za4f/eli5_psychologically_what_makes_otherwise_patient/ | {
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"Not a psychologist, but a fair portion most likely comes from the fact that people often don’t see other cars/drivers as “people” (because they can’t actually see them). When you’re sitting in line behind someone you hold yourself back somewhat because you socially realize the need to respect the other person. When you are in your car you look around and just see a bunch of *machines* that are getting in your road, not actual other people deserving respect.\n\nAdd to this the “it’ll never happen to me” bias for thinking bad things won’t ever happen to yourself, and you get people willing to drive recklessly.",
"I'll throw in another theory, based on myself (because I'm one of those impatient drivers). Note that I'm specifically referring to multi-lane freeway driving here.\n\nFor me, it's not time pressure or de-personalization that triggers me. it's being delayed \\*unnecessarily\\* by people who are driving inconsiderately. The people who WON'T get out of the passing lane, though they haven't passed anyone in miles, and despite many signs stating \"KEEP RIGHT EXCEPT TO PASS\".\n\nSometimes the traffic is just heavy and traffic slows - that's life. Sometime there's an accident or a breakdown blocking a lane and traffic slows - doesn't bother me. But when the ONLY reason we're all being held back is because some yahoo in the passing lane either has no clue, or worse, doesn't care? THAT infuriates me."
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6snw61 | how did the internet work under the aol era? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6snw61/eli5_how_did_the_internet_work_under_the_aol_era/ | {
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"The same way it works now. The only difference is in the line between you and your Internet Service provider. Rather than having a dedicated Internet connection to your ISP, your computer would use a phone line to call a specific number, where a computer owned by your ISP would pick up and then your computer would send messages to your ISP using that phone connection. Everything from the content of your messages to how your ISP directed that message to the right website hasn't changed since then.",
"AOL wasn't the internet at first. It was an Online Service. The internet still existed and if you had a real internet connection, there isn't much different than today (you tended to use your phone company like Sprint). Your ISP's DNS would route you to websites when you used web browsers, etc.\n\nAOL is like directly connecting into someone else's computer where you could do things like chat or go to websites (but you had to use the web browser IN america online. And in the super early days, you went to \"keywords\" instead of websites. edit: Think of Facebook. We log into facebook, and we can chat IN facebook. Imagine if that's all you could see was stuff you could search in Facebook. That's AOL.\n\nBasically, it was a limited connection to the internet where you could more easily find things you wanted (or that AOL wanted you to see). Think of those latops for little kids that aren't real laptops, but they're for kids and they give them the basics. You used AOL's programs instead of 3rd parties. You didn't use IRC to chat, you used aol's chat rooms, you didn't use Netscape web browser, you used AOL's browser (which was bad), you didn't use an email client like Outlook or Netscape mail, you used AOL's mail client.\n\nAOL also charged you by the hour (other ISP's did this too). I knew people who were paying hundreds of dollars per month for going over their 10 hours per month subscriptions (or 40 hours became the norm later). Think of it how we deal with cellular phones today. You had minutes before most started offering Unlimited talk/text (but you still have data caps or data throttling)\n\nWhen real ISP's started to more heavily compete with AOL (usually by giving people unlimited hours), AOL started to allow you to connect to the internet. You could minimize the AOL window after signing in and then use the web browser of your choice, etc. They offered unlimited hours, and then started allowing you to connect for free, as long as you weren't dialing into them (i.e. you had another internet connection)\n\nI got my first AOL account back in 1995 (I was using direct internet connections through my college's computer lab before that), and I'm going to admit something... Their webmail today has a lot of features that I prefer over something like gmail. It's \"nicer.\" But I don't give out my AOL address to others because I'd rather not be the butt of a joke. I just use AOL for signing up for things, or as an email account associated with another website.",
"I remember getting in trouble several times for dialing long distance bulletin boards.. the reddit of the 90s.",
"The bandwidth was much smaller. My sister debated whether to get a 300 baud or a 1200 baud modem. That is basically equivalent to characters per second. Only characters were transmitted. So you only downloaded text. My sister was totally blind. Someone used a Texas Instruments chip to make an Apple II speak. It was a toy. It was quickly seized upon by the blind community. Suddenly they could read print without it being translated into braille.\n\nThe chip was used in toys to make them talk.\n\nIt was mounted in a board which fit into an Apple II."
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1pu69c | why do poachers hunt animals to extinction? | Forget for a moment that it's illegal, doesn't it make more sense from a business stand point to not have your product die out? Also poaching less would raise the price since there would be less available wouldn't it? What would be the reasoning behind poaching until there is none? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1pu69c/eli5_why_do_poachers_hunt_animals_to_extinction/ | {
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"IF there are ten poachers out there killing white rhino and making $$$$ for it. If one of them stops killing white rhino ,the rhino is still going to go extinct, so you might as well get a cut of it while you can, and if you stock pile a bunch of horns when they go extinct you'll make even more money.\n\nThat's the general thinking. It's not just a single poacher, it's a lot of them and they all are just mostly concerned about themselves.",
"It's game theory - if poachers were a single organization with power over its memebers maybe they'd all agree to try and optimize their actions for mutual benefits, but they aren't. All of them think if they quit to give the elephants or whatever time to recuperate it's just more money for the other poachers. \n\nAlso if you poach something down to the point that the resource you want, like ivory, gets rarer and rarer the price of ivory will go up and up as you get closer to extinction. \n\nNot sustainable, but profitable. ",
"I'd say it is a perfect example of the [tragedy of the commons[(_URL_0_). In situations where resources are shared, it is easy for individuals who are looking out soley for their own profit to collectively harm the public resource. \n \nThe same thing happens in many other ways, such as air pollution. No one thinks that their small contribution to the decline of something big matters much. But it does, when enough fools think like that. "
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998xhd | how does banking work? | I know there are different bank companies, but if you put money in one bank can you withdraw it from another? How do they make money if they give you interest for storing it with them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/998xhd/eli5_how_does_banking_work/ | {
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"text": [
"When you store money in your account, it doesn't just sit there. You are giving your money to the bank. They basically have an IOU of the amount you have deposited. The bank will use your money to do other things, like give loans, and pay for credit card purchases. They give you such a small percentage of the amount you have in your account that they don't really lose anything. The reason they give you money is basically they are paying you because you are allowing them to use your money.",
"Banks pay you a little interest on the money you deposit, and then they loan it for a higher interest rate to others for home mortgages, car loans, business loans, credit card lines of credit, etc. The spread between what they pay you and what they collect lending your money out is their revenue.",
" > How do they make money if they give you interest for storing it with them?\n\nTraditionally by loaning your money out to people who want to buy homes. But also through holding longer term bonds. Basically they borrow short term from you and lend long term to home buyers and bond issuers. Generally long term rates are higher than short term so they make money on the spread. Also they charge lots of fees. And realistically that's probably where they make most of their money these days."
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6hvhjx | how does a 550 ft. navy destroyer run into a merchant ship 2x it's size? how many mistakes go into such an accident? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6hvhjx/eli5_how_does_a_550_ft_navy_destroyer_run_into_a/ | {
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"Don't forget both ships have radar and see everything in a radius of at least 16 km around them. I'm absolutely and entirely clueless how such a thing can possible happen without the whole crew of both ship being asleep.",
"I assume you're talking about the USS Fitzgerald. She is actually 505ft, just a note.\n\nI don't know what kind of tech is on the ships, but it did happen in the dead of night, where lookouts are less useful. The ships definitely both have radar though, and at least one of them should have executed evasive maneuvers.\n\nThat said, radar isn't always perfect. If you've ever seen a real life radar screen, it's a clusterfuck in busy waters. Clouds show up, too. There are measures to remove them, but they aren't perfect\n\nNo matter how disciplined a sailor is, they are still human. At night, it's dark and serotonin is released into the brain, reducing awareness. You can't light a bridge because then you won't be able to see outside, and your natural night vision will be shot.\n\nBased on the damage, it looks like ACX Crystal was trying to overtake the USS Fitzgerald on the starboard side, but there was a miscalculation in the course. If both ships followed the proper procedures for collision regulation, this is the only case I can think of that would result in that damage. Could be either helmsman's fault, or a radar operator. Ships take a long ass time to alter course. It's very possible someone noticed minutes in advance, but the ships were not maneuverable enough to make the necessary adjustments. It could have been a wrong order or a wrong report. I know of one case where a lookout reported a container vessel on the starboard side, but it was actually on the port side, so when the ship altered course to port, under the officer's command, the container vessel plowed into it. This is like a fifth hand story, so the details are fuzzy, but that's the gist of it."
]
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6029nc | what makes sallie mae loans different from typical student loans, and why are they abhored? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6029nc/eli5_what_makes_sallie_mae_loans_different_from/ | {
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"Sallie Mae is more or less an organization that was powered by the government. Now it is the largest US student loan provider and collects for the dept of education. Because of its size it can give fairly low interest loans and it quite safe from failing at any point. It is a privately traded company as well. \n\nThere were many governement agencies created like Freddie Mac etc. One for housing, one for students loans and such. \n \nCompared to banks they have less overheard as all they do is student loans so they are very efficient. \n\nWhy people hate them is because they owe them money. I am not too aware of anything too wild happening ocer the years. Some people who oppose the federal government may see Sallie as taking business from banks etc. But you cant make everyone happy. They kept the banks from charging obscene interest. Competition is a good thing. \n\n-used to be a financial advisor. ",
"I've read once or twice that they hate them because if they have multiple loans (i.e. had one for one year and then another for year 2) and they say 'hey! I want to pay off the second one faster than my first one!' then sally mae will say HAHA FUCK YOU I'LL DISTRIBUTE IT ANYWAY I WANT. ",
"They lie! I had someone tell me a due date to file forbearance when I called they said the date had passed. I pretty much lost it, started hysterically crying. I called my school to see if they could help and they said \"sallie mae is crooked try to transfer the loans.\" I tried to do this and haven't had luck. From now on I record my phone calls with them. If you can only do federal loans, they are much more flexible and there are programs for people with certain degrees who can get loan forgiveness. Sallie mae will come for their money even if I die because my moms a co signer. I've actually thought about how i need a life insurance policy now. Sallie mae = BAD ",
"Sallie Mae is one of many companies that issue private student loans. Note \"private\", as opposed to \"federal\" or \"public\" loans which are issued by the federal government. Sallie Mae used to offer both but now they just do private.\n\nPrivate student loans deserve to be abhorred. They are, in general, a horrible thing to have. Federal loans are too, but they do have some basic protections built in, such as being able to delay making payments if you are unemployed, and income-based repayment plans with possible forgiveness at the end of a 20-25 year period. Private loans have none of that. They are simply a debt that you will have to repay under almost all circumstances that don't involve you being completely crippled and unable to work. And they usually have a higher interest rate on top of all that.\n\nPrivate/federal distinction aside, Sallie Mae is not really much different from any other student loan company issuing private loans. They pretty much all suck to deal with and have been involved with pulling some shady tricks against their customers at some point. And nobody likes repaying a loan especially to the tune of hundreds or thousands of dollars per month, so all you're ever going to hear is complaints.\n\nWhen it comes to evaluating student loans, focus on two things: (1) Federal or private? Always federal if possible. (2) Interest rate. Lower is better. Actually let me add one more thing: (0) Do anything you can to avoid or reduce the loan in the first place.",
"They stopped accepting payments from my bank and never notified me. At the time my mom was helping me pay so automatic payments were set up through her account. When we found out, I was 6+ months behind and I think they sold my loans to another company. That company has been great ever since. That was about 6 years ago. Sallie Mae trashed my credit by not accepting payments.",
"My experience with them, as well as a few older family members prior to the Navient change, was that they'll call anyone and everyone about what you \"owe\" even after you've paid back your loans in full.\n\nAlso, if you auto-pay with them, they are happy to keep pulling money from your account even after the loan is paid, so make sure you cancel that!",
"I hate them because I tried to pay the entire loan off in one chunk and a bunch of people I talked to \"couldn't let me do that.\" I just wanted to be rid of the stupid interest.",
"I don't have a Sallie Mae loan myself but every time I got a mail from them offering me loans and read the fine print the loans were variable interest. The find print also specified that the rate can change at their discretion. The rate would start at something low and reasonable, and have a maximum of something a lot higher than fixed loans from the government or banks. This always struck me as something that would sucker you in at a low rate and then they would jack your rate up when they felt like it. Always seemed to me that is was asking to be abused.",
"My experience with this has been pretty bad. You owe them money and they are part of the government so the customer service is pretty bad. I called them to ask how much I need to pay to pay off a student loan. They told me $X and I said to confirm, if I pay exactly $X right now, today, the loan will be paid off, even with the interest accruing everyday. The lady said yes. If it's less than a dollar of interest then they just \"write it off\" which sounded ridiculous to me. So I repeated the question. And she again said yes. Pay it today and it will be gone. Well, just like I thought. I paid it off. And it didn't all pay off because the leftover interest. I call again a week later and get someone else who tells me no sorry, that's not how it works. You have to pay the $5 that accrued since you thought you paid off your loan in full. And I was like well, how do I know if I pay that $5 that I won't accrued some pennies amount. Like never ending cycle?!? And she's like no. That'll pay it off. So I paid the $5. And have been so wary of them since then. When I call now. I make sure I get the name of the people I'm talking to and voice record the call. ",
"Since SM loans are privately run, they have less oversight. All the reasons people hate Comcast or ~~Time Warner~~ Spectrum? The lying, the harassing, the shady practices designed to get people to fork over their money by any means necessary? Take that framework off of a service that's mostly a luxury and apply it to loans larger than the cost of most vehicles. \n\nSM is loathed for its practices, not necessarily its service. "
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3nmx16 | what are 'shower sweats' and why do some people get them and some people don't? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nmx16/eli5_what_are_shower_sweats_and_why_do_some/ | {
"a_id": [
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"score": [
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"text": [
"After a warm shower your pores tend to stay open, the increased warmth and humidity makes you sweat\n\nGenerally if you want to avoid this, shower the last minute at a lower temperature."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
6md9x8 | how do left-handed people think differently? | Apparently being left handed affects your brain, what's up with that? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6md9x8/eli5_how_do_lefthanded_people_think_differently/ | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"There are a substantially higher number of left-handed in fields that require lots of creativity and spatial awareness: music, painting, art. There is also above-average left handedness in students of engineering (space awareness) and physics+maths (believe it or not: creativity). Statistically significant amounts. Together with the fact that the part responsible for creativity and spatial awareness in the brain is *also* controlling the left side of the body, it's very likely that handedness is connected with a particular way of thinking. Some of the assumptions are that left-handed people have a more developed \"visual\" thinking and right-handed people have a more developed \"abstract\" thinking.\n\nBut we're talking *statistically*. One left handed individual might be absolutely un-creative and one right handed individual might be Albrecht Dürer.",
"As a leftie, I have a theory on this. There may be some sort of different brain connection due to nature, but I think nurture plays a much bigger factor. Just think about it; every single thing we do is set up so the majority of the population can use it easily. So if you're right handed, as you're learning, all the things that take fine motor skills are taught in a way that makes sense. If you're left handed, you have to reverse things in your mind constantly because odds are you're being taught to do things with right handed tools and/or by right handed people. (This is why left handed kids have a hard time keeping their shoes tied until another lefty can show them.) So we lefties practice things like spatial awareness on a much different level from a very young age. We also get practice at abstract thinking by having to convert actions from our dumb side to our dominant side, so it's unsurprising that we tend to put these skills to use as adults. "
]
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| []
| [
[],
[]
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|
3mqc2d | why was it before we had to turn off any electrical devices for take-off/landing even if that device was in airplane mode, and why can we now keep our devices on today? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mqc2d/eli5why_was_it_before_we_had_to_turn_off_any/ | {
"a_id": [
"cvh5sjt"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"I believe that after experiencing minor electrical or signal interference, the FAA decided to play it safe and prohibit the use of electrical devices during the critical take-off and landing parts of flights. After observing under controlled circumstances that there really was no danger or significant interference, electronic devices are now allowed. \n\nTL:DR - The FAA was playing it safe during a time when they didn't know much."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
2bjzg3 | how do i maximize my chances of surviving a nuclear disaster? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bjzg3/eli5_how_do_i_maximize_my_chances_of_surviving_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"cj62h5i"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Read cresson kearny's \"nuclear war survival skills\". Buy some potassium iodide (get educated about how to use it properly!). And don't worry too much about power plants; we run them pretty safely (I'm assuming you're in the USA), and they can't explode like a nuclear weapon."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
]
|
||
ql140 | the difference between mutation and evolution. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ql140/eli5_the_difference_between_mutation_and_evolution/ | {
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"c3yeyfi",
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"text": [
"Mutation is a naturally occurring phenomenon within DNA. As mutation occurs, certain traits change. If a new trait makes survival more likely, this trait is likely to become more widespread throughout later generations of a population. This is an aspect of evolution. \n\nTL;DR: Mutation that leads to beneficial traits is a cause of evolution. ",
"Also mutation occurs within a single individual.\nEvolution is the net change of gene frequencies over time, represented in populations (individuals don't evolve, populations do).",
"Mutation is to evolution as sentences are to paragraphs. Mutations are, essentially, the building blocks of evolution, as evolution cannot exist without mutation. After building up a large number of mutations as normal, a population may be considered to have evolved from a previous state.\n\nFor example, let's say that a mutation occurs allowing some humans to safely endure radiation levels that most humans would consider mildly dangerous, but to people possessing the mutation, these levels are as dangerous as spending a moderate amount of time outdoors on a sunny day, which is to say, not significantly dangerous. Over time, this group spreads the radiation resistance trait to their offspring, with other mutations appearing along the way. In 10,000 years, these humans may have evolved, through these accumulated mutations, to such a point that a human from this year could not produce offspring with them, or perhaps only to the point that any offspring of human and these neo-humans is sterile. The differences in appearance at this point may be akin to the differences between cro-magnon humans and modern humans. Not much, but distinct all the same."
]
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| []
| [
[],
[],
[]
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|
||
2blr28 | the concept of moneyball | I forgot the movie but I think it's to do with recruiting players on stats? Can someone explain to me and give an example (preferably a sports related one) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2blr28/eli5_the_concept_of_moneyball/ | {
"a_id": [
"cj6jt3x"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"\"Moneyball\" is simply about finding undervalued assets. When the book was written, Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics happened to be focusing on stats because they had discovered that teams were overvaluing certain stats, such as runs batted in (which a player has a very limited amount of control over). They discovered that teams weren't focused on more important stats, such as on base percentage, so they targeted low cost players who weren't properly valued in that regard. They basically approached with a business mentality out of necessity. They didn't have the money to spend that the Yankees and other teams did, so they had to find players who provided the most production at the lowest cost."
]
} | []
| []
| [
[]
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|
|
2tnc3l | why is sex hidden from children? only humans do this or is it something we share with other species? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tnc3l/eli5why_is_sex_hidden_from_children_only_humans/ | {
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"text": [
"Good question. I'd like to know as well. John Lennon asked why we fight and hate in public but hide to make love.",
"I'm assuming that it has to do with morals/religion and whatnot. \n\nWe can't show the kids material that may cause them to sin. \n\nNot that I agree, but that's my perception.\n",
"Adults want to protect the idea of innocence in children. To do this we protect them from what is labeled vulgar by society. This includes the names of body parts that are associated with sex (hence why we go from shoulders to knees in the song about body parts). Society often gets rid of things that involve sex so children don't find out until puberty. I don't know about other animals man. But they're probably not as protective about sex."
]
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| []
| [
[],
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||
vwwg2 | what happened with conan and the tonight show back in the day, and is there any residual bad blood between any of the parties involved | I love Conan, but only started doing so **AFTER** all that drama with the tonight show. I never really understood what happened. Thanks in advance for any answers/help! :) | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vwwg2/eli5_what_happened_with_conan_and_the_tonight/ | {
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"text": [
"\"Back in the day\" here meaning \"last year\"?",
"1. NBC has a dispute with Letterman, he moves to CBS, Conan takes over the Late Night slot.\n2. Conan's contract expires, he has offers from other networks for the Tonight Show time slot.\n3. Leno has been hinting at retiring, so NBC gets Conan to sign, promising he will get the Tonight Show in 3 years, with a huge ($50 million-ish) penalty if he doesn't.\n4. Leno retires.\n5. Leno unretires, wants a show, so NBC gives him a prime time slot which gets terrible ratings *and* hurts Conan's ratings.\n6. NBC tries to give Leno his slot back, telling Conan his ratings suck, but he can keep the Tonight Show, only at a later timeslot\n7. Conan saw screw you, that's not what you promised, and my rating suck because you are trying to put on two Tonight Shows\n8. NBC cut a deal...presumably Conan got a crap load of money, and promised not to bad mouth NBC anymore and to stay off the air for a while\n9. Leno gets the Tonight Show back. Ratings continue to slide.\n10. Conan starts his show on TBS.\n\nWhat isn't clear (to me, at least), is how big of a part Jay Leno had in all this, whether was trying to push Conan out, or if NBC just got greedy and wanted to keep both of them and created a mess."
]
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