post_title
stringlengths 9
303
| post_text
stringlengths 0
37.5k
| comment_text
stringlengths 200
7.65k
| comment_score
int64 10
32.7k
| post_score
int64 15
83.1k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
ELI5: Why are bodies able to create an entire body with it's own lifetime supply of regenetive cells, but is itself unable to prevent gradual decay over a lifetime? | It's a lot like a car.
A new car you want to repair and replace as much as you can. As the car ages, it gets more expensive and time consuming to repair, and easier to just replace the whole thing.
Now consider that evolution is about what survives and prospers as a species. And consider the innumerable dangers that could destroy an organism. Nature has a few creatures that do effectively live forever, but as a general rule, replacing constantly works better, so that is what prospered and spread.
Also note your own body does the same thing. Rather than make cells that never die, it constantly removed and replaces cells. It's such a good system that some of your cells even self destruct or kill other cells to make this happen.
Further, note that replacement allows evolution to happen faster. The shorter a creature lives before procreation and the less it sticks around after, the more changes will happen.
Edit: to summarize, it's possible, but evolutionarily speaking, not desirable. Creatures actually moved away from that as time went on. | 42 | 169 |
|
CMV: Veganism and vegetarianism are not ethically superior to standard omnivorous diet | There is no point in becoming vegan or vegetarian in effort to save animals lives. Suffering or even death of a farm animal are no different to those of a tomato, even if it is harder to emotionally compassionate to the latter, as it is easier for us to relate to animal feelings. You can not exist without ending other creatures life for food, and animal lives are not more important than plants or fungi in that regard.
Please note that does not account for switching diet for own health reasons.
*EDIT: Yes, in my view I consider that plants can suffer even if they don't have the same mechanisms of perception animals do. Jellyfishes don't have a nervous system anywhere close to ours, yet it would still be unethical to cut one in pieces for amusement. Jellyfish would still perceive injury and its normal biological cycles would be hindered. Same goes for plants*
_____
> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | The important thing to understand is that there are more than one ethical systems, and before we argue whether something is ethical or not, we **must** define which one we're using. If in your system it is unethical to kill creatures with nervous systems for food, vegetarianism is, in that system, ethically superior (plants don't have nervous systems and can not "suffer" in animal sense). If in your system kiling anything, regardless of the nervous system, is bad (e.g. if you subscribe to concepts like soul, reincarnation etc.), then both are equally unethical. If your ethical system allows killing for food in general, vegetarianism is of course no more ethical than carnivorousness *in that system*.
We can compare different ethical systems according to their practicality, utility, relation to reality etc., but ethical judgements are only possible inside a particular system and can not be made outside of a system or between systems. | 41 | 44 |
[Loki] Why does Loki call himself 'young'? | e1: "I was young and I lost a bet to Thor."
DB Cooper was 50 years ago. (40, technically, since loki's set right after avengers). Loki is like a thousand years old, right? Four decades is like going from 25 to 26. Does he just age really slowly at first? | Probably referring more to mental/experience/innocence; since that time he has staged a coup, discovered he was not Asgardian, killed his biological father, attempted genocide, betrayed his family, exiled himself, pledged his allegiance to a galactic genocidal maniac, faced off against his brother and an assortment of super powered individuals, attempted to conquer a planet, suffered two great defeats, and was in the middle of trying to explain himself curtly to Mobius. | 38 | 16 |
ELI5: How does time "fix" electronics? | Similar things have happened in the past but a week ago my son dropped a stuffed bunny he has that sings, claps its hands and waggles its ears when you press on its foot. He dropped it on the floor hard and instead of working it would just slightly vibrate until you flipped a hard off on switch. Tried resetting it a few times and it was still broken. This morning, a week later my son turned it on and it functioned fine again.
It seems like sometimes, just giving it time will solve problems such as this, curious as to what could be a reason for that. | Electronics are made possible by metal connections that allow electricity to flow through them. Over time or through repeated use, these metal connections can be corroded and/or lose contact. Normally this ends making the electronics unusable.
However, with random luck, these contacts can reconnect due to some force knocking them back together or through temperature changes stretching or shrinking the components. This is why back in the days, you can sometimes "fix" electronics by bashing them a few times. However, nowadays, the circuits in advanced electronics like smart phones are small enough that this doesn't help. Nevertheless, more simple electronics like the stuffed bunny can sometimes reactivate this way.
A similar thing happens with batteries. You may notice that removing and placing the same dead batteries in a device makes it power on even when previously it was dead. A small amount of corrosion forms between the contact of the battery and the electronics which will stop a bit of the energy. When you remove and place the battery back in, you may end up making a fresh contact, allowing the energy to flow again (though for a limited amount of time). | 24 | 41 |
ELI5 Why nutrient information like sugar and calories, isn't/doesn't have to be on alcohol? | The FDA requires all nutrition labels on food; however, alcohol used to fall under the jurisdiction of the ATF, who didn't require any labels; it however is now under the jurisdiction of the TTB, and they currently don't impose nutrition labels requirements unless the beverage claims "lite/light", "table wine", etc. In mid-2016, new laws were approved for nutrition labels on alcohol, such as the inclusion of sugar, manufactures have until mid-2018 to comply (mid-2019 is they are small companies). | 11 | 16 |
|
Why is it that some people get eaten up by bugs while others seem to remain untouched? | Specifically in regards to mosquitoes, they have a preference for certain blood types and other blood characteristics which they can actually smell. First off, mosquitoes find their way to humans by following CO2 gradients in the air, simply the way you breathe and how much CO2 you exhale might make it easier for mosquitoes to make their way to you. Additionally, various factors like type-O blood, pregnancy, and even beer drinking have been shown to attract mosquitoes. Another is the presence of lactic acid in sweat, which would occur with recent exercise. Other added scents from the soap, shampoo, deodorant, and perfumes used as well as clothing, recent food smells, the particular makeup and activity of our microbiome, etc. might attract or deter mosquitoes preferentially. | 39 | 87 |
|
ELI5: The difference between a router, switch, hub, a bridge and a modem | These are all networking devices that I constantly hear about but I don't know what they do. And no matter how any webpages I visit, I still leave more confused than when I originally went looking. | Edit: Network traffic broken into packets, which you can think of like a letter in an envelope. The letter is your data (like a Google query) and the envelope has a 'to' and 'from' line to help know how to forward it on. All those devices have different techniques for knowing how and where to forward an envelope onto, once they get it.
**Hub:** Make a copy of a letter and give it to every one of your neighbors with a t-shirt cannon, whether you meant to give it to them or not
**Switch:** Make a copy of your letter and use a map to drive it to a specific neighbor
**Bridge:** When you want to give a letter to Billy the next neighborhood over, so you give it to his brother who lives right in-between the two neighborhoods
**Router:** Send your letter to the post office, and they'll send it to your grandma by forwarding it to her post office and then driving it to her house using a map
**Gateway:** The post office in your neighborhood
**Modem:** Send your letter to the post office by saying it over the phone to a postal worker, where they type and print it off and forward it on | 7,789 | 14,169 |
ELI5:Why don't we like the taste of everything that's edible? | I mean from a survival view point it would be more logical to like everything; because it equals more food, which means more chances of survival. | Edible things have different nutritional values.
Early humans who thought everything was delicious spent their days eating dirt and grass. This was fun but did not provide the nutrients their bodies required so those people died off.
Early humans who thought meat and fruit were delicious were extra motivated to gather those foods instead of eating grass, and they received the nutrients they needed to thrive. | 126 | 182 |
What else can I do with a CS degree that isn't CS related? | I'm not sure if these type of posts are allowed here, so sorry if they aren't.
Basically I'm coming towards the end of my second year of a CS degree, and so far, I've hated every module I've had with the exception of the few maths modules my course has, which I've loved.
I know that CS isn't for me, and I would rather spend my life doing pretty much anything than working with computer architecture or programming or anything like that.
Unfortunately, in Ireland changing courses is pretty much impossible, so I guess what I'm wondering is, what can I do with a CS degree that isn't CS related. I'd love to work with maths and economics, and if I can get good enough results I would probably try and do a post grad in one of those areas, I'm just not sure if I can get the results I need from a course I hate and have no interest in. | The problem that you're in is that if you try to get a non-CS job, you're going to be competing with people that do actually have the relevant degree, which immediately makes you the weaker candidate (unless you have tons of relevant side projects, which wouldn't be the case since you still don't know what you want to do).
Usually in cases like this, where people don't enjoy computer science, they will take what they learned about programming in a CS program and apply it to a field that is in need of programmers (e.g. biology, statistics, physics, finance, etc.). However, since you don't want to program and you don't want to do computer science things, that makes your degree a little worthless in the pursuit of a professional job.
I don't believe you when you say that you can't change majors because that wouldn't make any sense whatsoever. It sounds more like you don't want to put the effort in to changing majors. Even if it's some extra work now, and perhaps an extra year that you need to spend in university, the alternative that has you doing something you don't like for the next 50 years is a lot worse. Just figure out what it is that you really want to do, speak with your advisers, and make it happen. | 10 | 20 |
CMV: Bees should *not* be equal to humans under law. | [EDIT: For context, someone posted an opposing CMV that was deleted because OP was not open to change. I am, and I found the topic interesting. There is room for good-faith disagreement about the scope of natural rights]
Unlike humans, bees should not be treated by law as equals with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, property, or citizenship.
There are (at least) two ways to justify the existence of Human Rights: First, there’s the Christian/Traditional view that all people are bearers of the image of God and from that image derive some inherent dignity and value that man-made legal institutions are not competent to defile. See, e.g., John Locke; Thomas Jefferson. The Secular View says that human rights are an emergent, as-if truth—their existence as a matter of fact is not falsifiable, but wisdom and experience show that human flourishing is maximized when we act as if human rights exist. See, e.g., Alan Dershowitz; cf. Sam Harris.
Under the Traditional View, the law should not regard bees as the legal equal of humans because humans are qualitatively different than other animals. Bees do not bear the image of God and so lack the same inherent worth. Bees can possess an inherent worth beyond inanimate objects, but not one equal to humans. Animals were made for man, not as man’s equal. See Genesis 2 & 3; John 1.
Under the Secular View, the Bee Rights Issue is stickier because the qualitative, comparative value of human life is not justified by invoking the Divine. Lucky for us, some philosophers recently submitted a legal brief addressing the legal personhood of non-homo sapiens. Brief of Amicus Curiae Philosophers in Support of the Petitioner-Appellant, In re Nonhuman Rights Project v. Lavery, 2017 NY Slip Op 04574 (2017). It outlines four rationales for deciding which creatures possess legal personhood:
* Species Membership—“all and only members of the human species are recognized as persons by the law, and exceptions can be justified solely on the basis of some unspecified relation to members of that species.” Id. at 7.
* Social Contract—“Under this view, society extends rights in exchange for an express or implied agreement from its members to submit to social responsibilities. In other words, rights are connected to moral agency and the ability to accept societal responsibility in exchange for [those] rights.’’ Id. at 14. The Amici are dubious of this justification because “(1) not all rights depend on the existence of a social contract, (2) the social contract does not produce ‘persons,’ and (3) personhood is not conditional on bearing duties and responsibilities.”” Id.
* Community Membership—On this view, personhood is not grounded in discrete traits or capacities of individuals; rather, personhood is something that we achieve through development and recognition within a community of persons. In Ubuntu philosophy, this is captured in the saying “a person is a person through other people” Id. at 21–22 (quoting Eze, 2010, 190).
* Conditions of Personhood—“John Locke, already mentioned in Section 2, described what it is to be a person this way: “a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking and . . . essential to it””” Id. at 28–29 (quoting Locke 1689, II. 29 XXVII .9, p.280).
None of these justifications support the equal legal treatment of bees and humans. First, bees are not homo sapiens. Second, the social contract between bees and humans is minimal, and certainly lesser than the social contract between, say, humans and dogs. Third, bees are a group-conscious hive creature that shares no linguistic bridge with humans—they are not a part of our community. Fourth, human consciousness is qualitatively distinct from that of bees. Bees are group-conscious while humans are primarily of individual consciousness. Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, Chapters 9–10 (2010).
In conclusion, bees and humans are qualitatively different and the law properly reflects that fact. If interspecies symbiosis morally obliged our species to treat another as our equal, dogs rather than bees would be first in line for such recognition. Bees lack the agency and wherewithal for full civic participation, unlike Jerry Seinfeld. Also, it's in the Bible (if you care).
_____
> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Generally, posting a CMV implies that the view in question is either controversial or new or being challenged in some meaningful way. Are you under the impression that there's some campaign for bee equality? | 10 | 18 |
How many of the 118 elements on the periodic table are located on our planet and how many do we suspect exist outside of our world? | I'm just curious, do we suspect there could be thousands/millions of unidentified elements within our universe or are we confident that we've identified most of them?
Also, we are constantly searching the universe for potentially inhabitable planets (i.e., oxygen, h2o rich). Do we know if there are elements similar to these which could allow for human consumption? In other words, what are the odds of an unidentified element that humans could breath that is different than oxygen or drink other than water?
Edit: words and rephrasing | Elements are defined by the number of protons in the atom. Hydrogen is one Proton, Helium is 2 protons, lithium is 3 protons, etc.
by definition, there is absolutely no way for there to be elements 'between' the known elements. All other elements have to be *after*. And the problem with that is the larger a nucleus gets, the more unstable it becomes (broadly speaking). under proper conditions, a high-number atom could be created, but it would self destruct faster than a human could notice its existence. The human would only find out after it had already died, when his machines registered the shower of energetic particles from the rapid decay.
Now, there are variants of elements: You can change its chemical properties by adding or removing electrons (these are called ions), and you can change its density and nuclear properties (such as decay rates) by adding or removing neutrons (these are called isotopes). There are a finite number of possible ions and isotopes for each element.
Elements also combine into a staggering array of compounds. The potential number of combinations is technically infinite, as there is no mandatory end to how many atoms you can bind into the same structure (a perfect crystal is technically a single molecule). This is where you might find exotic extra terrestrial materials. | 831 | 1,121 |
Could any plants grow anywhere on Mars? | Seeing as Mars has a wide variation in temperature and ground water could any plants from Earth grow anywhere on the planet for even a short time? If not, how close are any plants to being able to grow there? | It would be difficult for plants that reproduce sexually to spread, but simple plants like algae, and even some colony organisms like lichens might find suitable conditions in isolated locations.
As for flowers and trees, the conditions on Mars are extremely dehydrating. They would quickly freeze and lose their water, so even if something like an alpine flower or a pine tree were prepared by wintering it beforehand, exposure to the Martian surface conditions would do it in.
As for compatibility with the soil, there are no bacteria or fungi to cycle carbon or nitrogen, and peroxides/perchlorates in the soil would make it deadly for plant tissues.
It's not a garden, nor will it be one soon. | 34 | 64 |
ELI5: Why are actions like kissing, hugging, holding hands specifically considered displays of affection? Specifically in terms of psychology or biology. | Hugging, holding hands, and kissing releases chemicals in our brain that are used for feel-good, bonding, and trust. Building these things are important for our survival and reproduction, because these things ensure that both the mom and dad will be together to take care of their offspring. | 15 | 19 |
|
eli5. Why is natural spring and ground water safe to drink? Don't bacteria live everywhere even after natural filtration? | You can ingest a fair amount of bacteria and be perfectly fine. Even deadly bacteria and viruses in small enough quantities can be dealt with by your immune system (or even just the other bacteria out competing it).
Bacteria needs food to live. Water running quickly through a cold sandy stream bed filters out a lot of the food making the bacteria content lower, and relatively safer compared to a stagnant or slow moving water source. The clearer the water, the colder and the faster moving, the more likely it is bacteria levels are going to be lower.
I no longer drink out of streams like we did decades ago. A dead deer up stream or a farm dumping pesticides or an algae bloom could prove a source of bacteria being sent downstream. Filtration is a good idea, or iodine tablets.
Now, if you are talking about bottled "spring" water, there is a good chance it's pretty heavily filtered to remove bacteria and even viral matter,band pulled from a relatively clean source (underground spring for instance). They will avoid using chlorine to maintain tastes, and really on fine filters and lab testing the water routinely. Most though is just tap water. | 759 | 671 |
|
ELI5: What does it mean that race is “socially constructed”? | It means that humans have decided to classify people as different races, but that there are really just variations along a continuum and not artificial break points with biological differences. While the difference between the average Swede and average Kenyan might be obvious, if you go from country to country, you'll just see gradual changes over the distance. | 110 | 42 |
|
ELI5: Why do some surgeries take as long as 24 hours or more to perform? What are the reasons why it make take more than a few hours? | How many things have to be done, and how complicated they are.
The deeper you get the more dire it is that things have to be done right, as well as; often you have to tear things apart to get to the main surgery, then do a bunch of other surgeries to put everything else back together as well when you're done with what you tore all the other shit apart to get to.
Very complicated surgeries, like brain surgery, take a whole lot of careful calculations, special precision tools, and equipment. These all take time to calculate and use.
That and also, different medications have to often be administered for various different surgeries, sometimes in the middle of them, and they can take varying levels of time to reach full effect before the surgeon can proceed.
Also, sometimes in surgery you have to delivery pace it instead of doing it in one shot, so the body doesn't have a meltdown and die. | 53 | 42 |
|
[XCOM2] (spoilers) Have the aliens never heard of Polymerase chain reactions? | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction
For those who don't know, PCR is a cheap way of taking a small sample of DNA and replicating/amplifying it with ridiculous efficiency, as in making multiple millions of copies from one sample.
The aliens are after massive quantities of human genetic material for the AVATAR project, correct? Why not, instead of disappearing people and massively fueling the resistance, just take a DNA sample of the same people you're after and run it through PCR on an industrial scale? | They want lots of small variations in psychic potential from said humans, and lots of powerful potential psychics, so they need lots of people. A larger sample size is more likely to get them useful genes. | 46 | 62 |
ELI5 Video Compression | The next time you watch a movie or TV show look at how little changes from one frame to the next. For example, if you have two people talking to each other the background isn't going to change much. So, instead of storing a picture of the background twice they simply include the pieces that changed. Then they can throw out the rest of the data.
Next, imagine a really chaotic action scene with multiple, fast cuts. No image is on screen long enough for your eyes to really focus well. So, you can throw out a lot of the data and use lower quality images since it's all moving too fast to notice.
These are just two examples of how they compress video. There are numerous other tricks they use to remove non-critical information. | 15 | 25 |
|
How important is where you received your PhD from to how others in Academia view you? | I'm guessing this will differ a great deal among people and schools but it's a question that has been sticking in my head for a while now. Are expensive private grad schools worth it or can you do just as well with a PhD from a school no one has ever heard of if you publish impressive research? Have you seen any discrimination based on where someone went to school?
I'm not a member of Academia so forgive me if this common knowledge or a silly question. | In the long run, an excellent publication record trumps the name on your degree. A few *Science* or *Nature* publications and no one will give a shit.
That said, establishing that publication record can be substantially more difficult if you are coming from a poorly regarded program and/or a poorly regarded lab. Both the program and the lab/mentor matter in the equation. The program and lab are instrumental in establishing the collaborations, funding, and culture that give rise to the excellent publication record.
So technically, the program doesn't matter **if** you have an excellent publication record. However, the program/lab can be critical to establishing that publication record. | 42 | 33 |
ELI5: When looking at a glass, why are we able to choose between seeing our reflection and seeing through it. | You can focus your eye to see a sharp image at different distances by adjusting the lens.
Try holding your finger at arm's length before your face. Focus on the finger and the background is blurred, focus on the background and the finger is blurred.
Exactly the same thing happens with your reflection, which is in focus at twice the distance between you and the glass, while whatever is outside it usually further away. | 28 | 39 |
|
When exactly can we say a tree has 'died'? | Even when you chop a tree down it still has a root system, and in some species that root system can support multiple genetic copies of a given 'original' tree. When can the organism that grows into a tree be called 'dead'? If you cut apart the roots between two tree copies have you made two seperate organisms? |
The key part of this question is "what is an individual organism?" And the truth is that while the idea of individuals works pretty well for things like mammals, which in fact not dividable, for things like clonal trees or coral or whatever the whole idea doesn't quite fit. So it's better to think about genets and ramets. A genet is all the genetically identical organisms. If you've got a tree that spreads by root systems (like Pando, for instance), the whole interconnected whole is a genet, while the individual trunks are ramets. Colloquially, "tree" usually refers to a ramet, not a genet, so usually you'd say a tree has died if a particular ramet has died (IE, you've got a dead trunk and a bunch of dead leaves on it). | 49 | 206 |
How do owners take on more risk than employees? And does it justify their much higher pay? | It has often been said that the reason that workers are paid far less than owners/CEO’s and even shareholders is because they take on the risk of the company failing and losing money from declines in valuations.
I have also heard it argued that workers do also themselves take on a lot of risk when working for a company, for instance if the company performs badly they may be fired or pay may be deducted (often to prevent the wealth of the owners coming down). They therefore may not be able to afford rent, food and other necessities and as such the risk of joining is high.
I can also think of two responses to this point:
1. The worker can always find a new job (though this depends heavily on the labour market and if they were highly specified it may be harder for them to find a new job that pays enough to support their prior lifestyle)
2. The worker will never lose money, merely not receive more in the future, whereas the owner will lose wealth if the company fails. (Though I’m unsure if this point is entirely true)
So the ultimate question is, is there substantial risk taken by owners to justify the often far higher pay/wealth accumulation? | No one is compensated purely for risk - employees are compensated for supplying labor and shareholders are compensated for supplying capital. Each then earns a risk premium based on how risky the option they choose is relative to their next best option.
Employees face comparatively little risk - the risk of losing your job is inherent to any job and leaves you in no worse position than not having a job in the first place. They're paid 1 month in arrears, so at most they have a couple of months outstanding if the business fails and, in the event of failure, they typically have the highest ranking claim against the business besides the costs of the bankruptcy itself. In many jurisdictions there are also government schemes to cover the unpaid wages of failed businesses.
For shareholders, they can earn risk-free returns by investing in government bonds. The relative risk of investing in equities is substantial - they pay money upfront with no guarantee of even receiving the principle back, never mind profits. In the event of failure, they rank last, paid after all employees, suppliers, creditors etc, typically losing everything. As such, they earn a significant risk premium - although less than you might imagine: market risk premiums are typically around 4-6%.
For owners/founders, they're a hybrid of employee and shareholder, plus there's an element of compensation for "entrepreneurship" - more than just taking risks, they had a novel idea, spotted some advantage etc.
For CEOs, they're basically just highly skilled employees - they're not compensated for risk, they're compensated by shareholders for the perceived value they add to profits. Debateably, their high pay also reflects exploitation of the principle/agent problem, where CEOs basically set their own pay, subject to shareholder outrage, which gives them significant latitude because shareholders are typically diffuse and hard to organise. | 79 | 102 |
How do you "make" color? | Sorry if this question is kind of stupid, I've just always wondered. If you get blue paint, what makes it blue? I know color has to do with light and all, but what do you do/mix to get that blue color? And if its maybe a blue mineral, where does that color blue come from?
| Paint gets its color from pigments, i.e. colored stuff. When you say something has a certain color it means it's absorbing light of some color and turning it to heat, or re-emitting it but with a different color. The light absorbed is the 'complementary' color to the color you see, since ordinary light is white and has all wavelengths of light (colors) in it. For instance, if something appears yellow, it's because it absorbs blue light, since blue is the complementary color to yellow.
The reason why stuff appears colored, then, is because things don't absorb or reflect light equally at all wavelengths. The reasons for that, in turn, are pretty complicated. It depends on the chemical composition (what elements and molecules make up the stuff) but also how the molecules are organized in the material, and how the material is composed at the larger scale. E.g. a single salt crystal is translucent, but granular salt is white - because it's broken up into many crystals with many surfaces, each of which reflects some light.
Corundum is a mineral made of aluminum oxide - a translucent substance that covers just about all the aluminum you've ever seen (aluminum forms a thin oxide layer instantly on contact with air). But just the slightest impurities in the corundum of various metal atoms will change its color. If it has traces of chromium, it'll be red and that's what you call a ruby. If it has some titanium as well, it's a sapphire. The fact that these are small (less than 1%) impurities tells you something about how subtle these things can be.
Single molecules can have a color as well, at least if you have a well-defined set of surroundings (now that I've established the surroundings are important). So for instance you can say that various compounds have various colors when dissolved in water. But you can't _quite_ say that the molecule _itself_ has that color. It may very well have a different color as a gas or solid, for instance.
Even isotopes - atomic nuclei of the same element but different mass, can have an effect on color. Which is rather impressive, since it has almost no measurable effects on chemistry in general. For instance, pure water is (very weakly) blue in color. But heavy water (where hydrogen atoms are changed for heavier deuterium ones) is colorless.
So in short, many many things can cause color. | 28 | 16 |
Looking for exceptionally well-written books of contemporary analytic political philosophy | Any suggestions? I'm reading works of contemporary analytic political philosophy mainly for pleasure. I just finished *The Problem of Political Authority* by Huemer, which I greatly enjoyed.
Please suggest only books that you have read.
Thanks in advance! | *An Essay on the Modern State* by Morris, *A Liberal Theory of International Justice* by Altman and Wellman, *Liberal Loyalty* by Stilz, *The Moral Imperative of Integration* by Anderson, *Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination* and *The Heart of Human Rights* by Buchanan, *Democratic Authority* by Estlund, *The Order of Public Reason* by Gaus, *A Theory of Political Obligation* by Gilbert, *Fairness in Practice* by James, *Land, Conflict, and Justice* by Kolers, *A Political Theory of Territory* by Moore, *Bounds of Justice* by O'Neill, *Libertarianism Without Inequality* by Otsuka, *The Concept of Constituency* by Rehfeld, *Force and Freedom* by Ripstein, *On Global Justice* by Risse, *Liberalism Without Perfection* by Quong. | 18 | 24 |
ELI5:What keeps the man to woman ratio in the human population so even? | DNA is stored in large clusters inside each cell in your body known as Chromosomes. Each cell has the exact same set of DNA.
There are a total of 23 pairs, or 46 total chromosomes for humans. You get 23 of them from your mom on one side of the pair, and 23 from your dad on the other side of the pair.
One of these pairs known as the "Sex Chromosome,". If you're female, both sides of the Chromosome are known as X, so you have an XX pair of sex chromosomes.
If you're male, you have one X Chromosome, and one Y chromosome. So the pair is known as XY.
A woman will ALWAYS give an X chromosome to her child, as she only has X chromosomes to give.
A man however, can give either an X OR a Y chromosome to their child, and he makes an even number of sperm with either an X or a Y inside it.
And it is what that sperm carries, that decides the gender of the child.
And with an even number of sperm both X, and Y, means roughly an equal number of male and female children. | 21 | 28 |
|
I believe there is no secular "pro-life" argument. CMV | I'd like to think that I'm fairly educated in the subject of abortion. I myself am pro-choice, and think that it is ultimately the woman's right to choose whether or not she decides to have an abortion. That being said, I would like to hear more arguments from the other side of the debate. However, up to this point, I haven't heard a single pro-life argument that couldn't be reduced down to a *belief* (e.g. life begins at conception, a fetus has a soul). With these arguments circulating, I think the abortion debate gets down to what someone *believes to be true* about abortion, and what actually happens inside a woman's body. That being said, I would love to hear someone CMV.
**UPDATE:** Wow, I knew this was a hot-button topic, but I didn't expect such an influx of replies so quickly. So, thank you guys. I'm going to respond generally to what I see are the most common arguments, and then I'll respond to individual replies.
I see a lot of "life begins at conception" arguments, and while any rational person would agree that a sperm on its own and an egg on its own cannot become a human, "life begins at conception" creates so many more complications. A miscarriage is a group of fertilized cells, and while she didn't choose to have one, does that mean her body is guilty of murder? (Not trying to be a smart-ass, I'm actually wondering what people think about this) This kind of gets back to what people are saying about "a woman cannot force another human being to let her live inside their body." in the sense that how can the woman be put to blame if she decides to have an abortion? Yes, she does choose to have an abortion, and a miscarriage is never wanted, but nobody wants to have an abortion either. Abortions are a last resort type of "birth control", and while there are women who get multiple abortions inside of a year (my uncle is a pro-life EMT turned firefighter, I've heard many horror stories), they're very much the outliers.
I guess what I'm getting at is that in any case, abortion is very, very, very rarely treated as a casual decision. And yet (as traumatic as it is), miscarriages happen all the time, and we don't berate women who have miscarriages. In the words of many "pro-choice-ers", with an abortion you feel bad for the fetus, with a miscarriage you feel bad for the woman.
**UPDATE ONCE MORE:** I've read lots of good arguments, and a few not great arguments, and among these, there have been "secular arguments". In this case, by my original post's definition, yes, my view has been changed, but more in the sense that I've been exposed to a wider net of people who critic abortion. So yes, secular pro-life arguments do exist. However, I haven't found these arguments to be compelling enough to sway my stance on abortion; I'm decidedly pro-choice. I feel this has been good for me though, and I'm very happy this subreddit exists for this very purpose: to escape the echo chamber, and to hear people's opinions that don't immediately line up with your own. I now feel my stance as pro-choice is based less solely on the opinions I hear from the people I respect, and that it does, in fact, line up with my values.
Also quick shout-out to /u/dasbro, /u/ryansouth21, and /u/againstallauds, you've all been upvoted accordingly.
Thanks! | Each human life literally, biologically, scientifically begins with the fertilization of an egg cell. If you want to call the "life begins at conception" thing a religious belief, it's your responsibility to explain how a dividing, growing organism with a unique genetic code is somehow not alive.
Assuming you accept that the fetus is alive, the anti-abortion argument basically boils down to this:
1. Killing humans is wrong.
2. Therefore, abortion is wrong.
I know you can make it a lot more complicated then that, but that's a pretty basic secular argument against abortion. | 259 | 242 |
ELI5: Why are there different glasses for different drinks, and why does a beer glass make it taste any better? | Different glasses achieve different things.
Wine glasses have long stems to keep you from warming the wine while holding it, as wine is usually sipped.
Scotch/Whiskey glasses (drams) are short and wide, to allow for a couple of ice cubes (on the rocks), but also allows a wide opening for the drink to breath. This also allows you to smell (nose) of the drink.
Beer glasses are generally thicker glass, which allows the beer to stay cooler, longer. As beer is usually consumed in quantity (more than a couple of ounces) the size is larger. | 24 | 55 |
|
ELI5: I saw a post about college tuition being $152 in the 70s, and inflation means that’s around $700 now. What about income rates? | I know college is severely overpriced, but wouldn’t it be a lot harder to reach $152 back then If that was the case? This is without research, but weren’t wages super super low? | The median income of American families in 1970 was $9,870 and minimum wage was $1.45 per hour. Average annual tuition at a public university in 1970 was $405, and at a private university $1,792. This means a year of public uni tuition was 4.1% of median annual income, and a year of private uni tuition was 18.1% of median annual income. It took 280 hours working at minimum wage to cover public tuition (about 7 weeks of full time work), and 1,236 hours to cover private school tuition (about 31 weeks).
The median income of American families in 2020 is $78,500, and minimum wage (federal) is $7.25 per hour. Average annual tuition at a public university in 2020 is $11,260 for in-state students, and at a private university $41,426. This means a year of public uni tuition for in-state students is 14.3% of median annual income, and a year of private uni tuition is 52.8% of median annual income. It takes 1,553 hours working at federal minimum wage to cover public tuition (about 39 weeks of full time work), and 5,714 hours to cover private school tuition (about 2 years and 39 weeks).
So while wages and income have indeed risen in the past 50 years, tuition has increased much, much faster. Families must now set aside nearly 15% of their annual income to cover a single in-state college attendee's tuition at an average public college, whereas 50 years ago they could set aside 4% to cover the same thing. And that's just tuition - housing and other costs at uni have also increased dramatically. And given the even more dramatic increase in private uni tuition, such schools are simply out of reach to most families without massive financial aid packages. | 84 | 27 |
I think that all prices displayed (e.g. on the shelf at the store, menus, etc.) should display the real, final price. CMV | In some countries, such as France, the prices shown on menus, price tags in the store, etc. is the actual price the consumer pays. Not the price before tax, not the price before fees, but the actual price.
In other countries, like Canada, the price shown is before taxes etc. I feel this is inefficient and mildly harmful to consumers. In most places, there is no indication as to what is taxed and what isn't - you just have to know.
And it is not always simple either - in my region, the exact same item (milk) could be taxed or not taxed, depending on the quantity you buy. 500ml of milk = tax, 2 litres = no tax. One muffin = tax, 6 muffins = no tax.
The counter-argument I see is that displaying pre-tax prices prevents governments from hiding taxes, and forces the government to display taxes to the consumer.
But this argument makes no sense - since the receipt will always show the amount of tax you pay, regardless of whether you are in France or Canada.
I see no downsides to mandating displays of real prices. Please CMV.
Edit: I am specifically referring to places where the price is fixed (stores in real life, restaurants, etc.). | This practice is common in countries with many different regions (provinces or states) that all have a different sales tax. This makes for a tricky problem for companies which ship their products across these different regions, as the price of their products wouldn't be consistent.
Keeping sales tax off of items also allows prices in stores to be the same as prices online.
To sum it up, its easier for the companies. | 35 | 142 |
CMV: Websites that "track" your browsing and viewing data and provide ad's in accordance to what you view don't hurt anyone, and the backlash against them are largely in part to people not understanding how they work. | Oh boy, so this is gonna a doozy. Let me try to explain this the best I can.
Online ad's work in a variety of ways. The most common of which is understood by the general populous is that search engines like Google "pay attention" to what you browse and display ad's according to such. So if you spend lots of time browsing about cats, naturally you're going to get lots of ads about cats and cat related products.
I've always failed to see why this is such a problem. Every website, including Reddit, does this, and it doesn't even have to be ad related. Anytime you go on to any website, it pays attention to what you're viewing. The goal of any website is to make revenue, that's how websites stay operating.
The main two ways any website is going to generate revenue is by keeping lots of traffic, and by letting third party companies keep advertisements on their website. The more the ads appeal to you, the user, the more likely you'll be to check out whatever product it's trying to sell you.
The way this typically works on a website like Google, is that some type of bot is paying attention to frequently visited sites and frequent key words searched. All it does after that is assign the ad it thinks has the best chance of getting you to click.
It's not a person sifting through your data and spying on you. Do they access to it? Sure, but it's the same misconception that arises when talking about privacy in regards to something like the CIA or FBI. They have access to it, but what they do with it is largely blown out of proportion.
At the end of the day, who cares? It doesn't effect me in any way that my online viewing habits are monitored by some program or neural network in order to gain more revenue. I genuinely just don't understand why people get so worked up over it, and really privacy in general and I'd like to see someone explain why there's this compulsive "need" to have 100% private online experience. Thanks. | It's less that ads are especially tailored to you, but the precedent that it sets that collecting your data is "just an okay thing to do".
How would you feel if a camera in a supermarket tracks you, creates a profile for you and sends you coupons according to that? It doesn't help that "no real human will see your data", the mere fact that data is collected everywhere as a thing that just "happens" is worrysome in and of itself.
I mean, maybe Google just uses it to present me ads, but just because there is not malicious use of the data today (asuming there isn't) doesn't mean that there won't be in the future. Allowing companies to collect data "just for this innocent purpose" also means that they have the data, no matter what they will end up doing with it.
Giving it to Goverment agencies when requested? Happened before, will happen again. And maybe you have faith in the goverment and that it will not abuse its power that way (Which it already has, multiple times) but the "They are not doing anything harmful with it" argument doesn't really hold water. The question for allowing such a practice should never be "Are they doing something bad with it?" but always "What is the worst you can do with this?" and the answer for creating profiles that are build upon your entire online history (Which is basically everything for many people today) is that you can to a lot with this data. | 30 | 41 |
ELI5 How are 3D shapes described in 3D files | I am working on a program to render 3D shapes with perspective using python and I would like to know how standard 3D formats "describe" shapes like how all the points and faces are notated. Thank you! | .obj files tend to be the easiest to understand since they can be opened in a notepad to mess with. First they state a list of points and their order matters. Then it gives a list of triangles (sometimes larger n-gon) by writing a list of numbers refrencing points to form sides so each side is a list of points. An octahedron looks like:
V 1 0 0
V 0 1 0
V 0 0 1
V -1 0 0
V 0 -1 0
V 0 0 -1
F 1 2 3
F 1 2 6
F 1 5 3
F 1 5 6
F 4 2 3
F 4 2 6
F 4 5 3
F 4 5 6
V stands for vertex and f stands for face. Notice that the verteces count from 1 because the 0 vertex is reserved for the center or point of revolution. This is a close aproximation to a .obj file and would not be opened by your favorite 3d viewer. | 13 | 47 |
[Star wars] Between episode 3 and episode 5, how was Yoda using up his time on Dagobah? | Meditating on his failures, communicating with Qui-Gon Jinn with respect to the Living Force (and becoming a Force Ghost), and focusing on his personal (800-year old) connection with the Force to help him make sense of everything that happened in the decades that led to the Jedi's near destruction.
Also, going a bit crazy. | 311 | 232 |
|
There is no such a thing as race within the species of Homo sapiens. CMV | Before I start I just want to say, I'll respond to everyone's comment, if your comments lacks logic or you're merely repeating what you've just said without taking in consideration what I just addressed, I will stop the conversation with you. I used to think CMV was a good place to have debates, but internet conversations quickly degenerate into shit. If needed, I will skype with any of you in order to 1 to 1 resolve any debate.
1. Anthropologists figured this one out a couple decades ago.
2. Yes that's right, we've been having conflicts over thousands of years for nothing.
3. I dont mean there are no physical/biological variation over our species, I mean the non-scholar traditional classification of race doesnt make sense, the scholarly classification is good for research, and they've found that the differences are not as huge as regular people think.
4. Indeed there are populations that share features and characteristics, but that's not anywhere close to what the traditional classification mean anyways.
5. Intelligence = no meaningful difference across any type of classification.
6. what everyone focus on is really primary outward traits (mainly skin color) and culture. Which first primary outward traits do not tell you anything meaningful really about the person, just as I can't tell anything meaningful about a tall person, just that person is tall, I cant tell if he or she has a higher chance of getting certain diseases, I cant tell if he or she has a higher life expectancy than the average of population, I cant tell anything, I certainly can't tell anything about behavior...
7. which gets me into this point, a huge portion of behavior is determined by culture and environment, which may have historical correlations, but never causation. Like traditionally, purple people are poor in the last 100 years, so when I see a poor purple person, he or she is a poor person. (Wow this is so meaningful I think I'm gonna go publish a paper on this.) This does not remotely mean purple people are in general poor, or lazy or whatever. (if you can link being poor to being lazy) At the very best you may be able to link being lazy with being poor, but I doubt you can link being lazy to being purple.
8. Most physical/biological anthropologists agree that race doesnt exist, and a huge portion of the ones that disagree are disagreeing on definition differences.
9. Just be completely clear tho, you take two "white" people, their differences features and physical characteristics are not less than if you were to compare those 2 "white" people to a "black person.
10. Fact is Homo sapient hasnt been in existence long enough, and the forces of evolution (drift, flow, mutation and selection) are greatly minimized due to the fact populations are not in isolation for huge chunks of time, that we fuck everyone, that there's no huge extinction event or something that would fuck up the math, etc. | Stop asking anthropologists about race, and start asking biologists. Your assertion that there are no differences between the races is, quite simply, flat out false. There are countless examples of different populations possessing different phenotypes.
1.) A standard example taught in many intro classes is that of heterozygotes for sickle cell anemia having malarial resistances. Areas of the world (namely, parts of Africa) with heavy malaria infestations have higher rates of sickle cell alleles because being a heterozygote confers a selective advantage.
2.) Lactose intolerance has huge variances among populations, ranging from 5% in Northern Europeans to 90% in some Asian populations. Guess where more dairy is eaten? That's not a coincidence.
3.) Mitochondria from populations in northern latitudes are often less efficient than from populations in equatorial latitudes. Why? Because inefficiency leads to greater heat generation, which is important in the north. This has large implications in studying free radical biology and its relationship with the modern diet and lifestyle.
There are plenty more examples. To sum up, while we might like to talk about cultures being homogenous at the end of the day, when you look at populations on a genetic level, there are very definite differences. Two average "white" people will certainly be more similar than two average "black" people. | 24 | 25 |
Is the perception of sound relative to size? | I was sitting at home watching an ant crawl across my floor. I happened to be tapping my foot at the time and wondered if that sound, which to me is a basic tap, sounded like a huge boom to this ant. So I'm trying to figure out if sound, or rather how we perceive it, is a matter proportional to size. One example would be the ant. But what if you were to somehow come across a giant...would his footsteps sound the same to you as yours do to a tiny insect. I am, of course, assuming that tiny insects hear the same way we do, but you get the idea. | Perception is the trasduction of physical phenomena into an information processor.
When entities perceive, be they animal or plant, their "perception" is not based on size, but on the organization of their processing.
you can't "assume" that ants hear the same way that we do, because that implies that ants have the same brain, or something similar.
I think i went off on a tangent, but
tl;dr: comparing the perception of a stimulus between entities depends solely on how that stimulus is perceived, and not on anything physical. | 17 | 117 |
CMV: People are much closer in their opinions and feelings about the world than the mainstream media would have us believe. | Mainstream media around the world tends to show face offs between this group or that. Whether it be advocates or deniers of climate change, liberals vs conservatives in politics, men vs women, gay vs straight, white vs black, and the list goes on indefinitely.
It gives the impression that most of us are dug in to die hard positions, and that your either with one group or against them. Yet when I speak to my friends, colleagues and family, more often than not people are far more willing to listen, and are much more circumspect than most news outlets seem to portray. Social media creates a treasure trove of content for the mainstream media to feed off, which may in fact be part of the root cause.
It’s my view that a vocal minority pushes many of these views into the extreme, and the media grabs hold of these positions circulating them to grab viewers attention, manufacturing conflict where it doesn’t naturally exist.
Change my view. | The people you’re talking to are family, colleagues, and friends.
This introduces two forms of bias:
1. Selection bias. You are already likely to agree with the people around you most of the time (colleagues and friends) and the people with whom your share a background (family). So it is unsurprising that they would be closer to you in opinion than a truly random sample.
2. Relationship bias. These people know you and have a relationship with you. Most of them will be interested in maintaining that relationship, and as such will temper their opinions while talking to you. Because of this, it is unlikely that they will want to discuss areas with you where you fundamentally disagree with them and the issue is core to their being. This is because they may fear that exposing that will damage your existing relationship.
You need a truly random sample to make this claim, and that’s hard to get without a bunch of effort. | 26 | 90 |
how money changes a society | I hope this is the right sub to ask this question, since it is multidisciplinary.
The youtuber caspian report, has [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60JboffOhaw&t=15s&ab_channel=CaspianReport) video on the rise and decline of science in islam.
to simplify - he puts forward an argument, that the interest in secularism and science, in the islamic golden age, were solely dependent on the money flow and as soon as the europeans came in control of the spice trade, it slowly faded into religious extremism, as is seen today combined with western hegemony.
in what ways could this phenomena be described in economics? that the values of a society is dependent on money
my interest in this is to try to narrow in on, the ideas and values a society has and how to perceive them in a wider context. | If you're interested in the particular topic of the Islamic Golden Age, I'd recommend *Lost Enlightenment* by Frederick Starr. European control of the spice trade didn't start the decline. The most clear cut cause was the Mongol invasions that began around 1220. In 1221, Merv, which was possibly the largest city in the world at the time, was destroyed by Mongol invaders. The "Silk Road" area descended into chaos and war, first between the Khwarazmian Empire and the Mongols and then between rival Mongol empires (the Ilkhanate and the Golden Horde). What trade there was left came to a halt in 1453, when the Ottoman Empire boycotted trade with China. Bartolomeu Dias didn't reach the Cape of Good Hope until 1488. It was the collapse of trade on the Silk Road that led to the Europeans seeking a new route, not the other way around.
If you're interested in the more general topic of the intersection of economic development and society, I'd recommend *Why Nations Fail* by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. They talk a bit about the Ottoman Empire, but it's much, much, much broader than that. Applying their theory to the decline of the Islamic Golden Age, I'd say the collapse was due to political instability and the extractive nature of Mongol rule. It's hard to have a flourishing, prosperous society in the midst of constant warfare. And while Mongol rulers were happy to kidnap intellectuals from territory they conquered, the western Mongol Empires (i.e. the Ilkhanate and the Golden Horde) didn't do much to encourage science and innovation. | 20 | 19 |
ELI5: Why does someone get more attractive the more we like them? | Because attraction is based on a multitude of factors, not just initial visual appraisal. Scent, touch, taste, the sound of their voice, the way they interact with you, their thoughts and beliefs.. these are just some of the things that contribute to perceived attractiveness. | 10 | 16 |
|
What did Nietzsche mean when he wrote "Christianity is Platonism for the people?" | In his book "Beyond Good and Evil" Nietzsche claims that
​
>But the struggle against Plato, or—to speak plainer, and for the "people"—the struggle against the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR CHRISITIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE "PEOPLE"), produced in Europe a magnificent tension of soul, such as had not existed anywhere previously; with such a tensely strained bow one can now aim at the furthest goals.
​
What does he mean by that? Does it have something to do with Plato's idea of the Good in Itself? It does sound close to Christianity's idea that there is some good that is separate from the real world and unaffected by it.
I found [this answer](https://www.quora.com/What-did-Nietzsche-mean-when-he-said-Christianity-is-the-Platonism-of-the-people) on Quora but wanted to hear your opinions on it as well | christianity was heavily influenced by platonism, particularly with augustine's writings. nietzsche sees "Plato's invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself" as being repeated in christianity.
he goes on to say, "It amounted to the very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE – the fundamental condition – of life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato spoke of them." why is it the case that platonism rejects perspective? for nietzsche, the problem with both platonism and christianity is that they reject the sensual, perspectival nature of human life in favor of..."another world" – for plato, the realm of the eternal forms, and for christianity, heaven. this is, as nietzsche typically has it, a denial of actual life.
we might also think that nietzsche despised the idea of a single "good" at which to aim, since part of his perspectivalism was the idea that human beings ought to create their own values. | 82 | 109 |
ELI5: What is the nuclear proliferation treaty and why do India, Pakistan and a few others refuse to sign it? | The nuclear non-proliferation treaty says two important things:
1. All countries have a right to research and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and the more-developed countries should help them.
2. The goal for the entire world is global nuclear disarmament, the permanent abolition of nuclear weapons. Until then only China, Russia, the US, the UK, and France may possess nuclear weapons and they must make gradual efforts toward dismantling their arsenals.
India thinks this is unfair, because China has them, and China acts fairly aggressively towards India sometimes, meaning India wants nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Pakistan also has disputes with India and felt threatened that India had them, so they created their own. Signing the treaty means they can't have them anymore, so they refuse. | 11 | 22 |
|
Why can't we replace hearts and lungs by pumping oxygenated blood though people? | Like they do with bypass surgery.
*Edit* In cases where people are waiting for new organs and such. Why can't it be a long term solution if a replacement isn't available immediately. | I took a master's in biomedical engineering and one of our professors who taught blood compatibility had actually worked on a lot of the early heart and lung machines. The two organs are indeed usually replaced together because the new artificial lung needs a good pressure difference to drive the blood through that you wouldn't want the patient's heart to have to maintain.
He told us about the detrimental effects of the systems and I'll try to summarize. One is that the pumps lyse ("pop") the red blood cells. Another is platelet ("scab") accumulation on the device. Basically, the only thing blood won't try to scab up on is immunocompatible flesh.
These problems can be mitigated by constant fresh blood infusion and swapping out the machine, but infection is also a constant risk. The devices he worked on were used to treat acute, but not chronic, lung failure while the lungs would heal to take the job back over. IIRC, roughly one week. | 1,768 | 2,775 |
Can someone provide a very simple explanation of how malware "changes itself" to avoid detection? | First year comp sci student. I'm just trying to understand how malware "changes itself".
...would it be something like keeping track of how many times a section of the code executes, and then after 'n' times it will switch to another section that ultimately has the same outcome but just does so in a different way?
| It could be very simple, or very complex. Something simple might be to add usless variables or functions that will change the signature of the file. An example of a more complex change would be altering the execution flow to add extra system system calls (or to remove some) so behavior based protection might miss it. | 19 | 29 |
Why exactly does String Theory require more than four spacetime dimensions? | And are there predictions or ideas of what those extra dimensions actually are and how they... function? | To put it simply, there's a certain equation that has to be solved, and you can put in a variable D for the number of dimensions. You'll find that for all values of D except 26 or 11 (depending on your assumptions), the equation goes to infinity. | 12 | 32 |
CMV: It doesn't matter who you vote for in America. | There's really only two parties, both controlled by the corporations of America, and thus all the decisions made by the president are ultimately filtered through the CEOs and heads of financial institutions. It doesn't matter who you vote for since the president is not powerful enough to make a real change in the country. Hence voting is meaningless. It's all a sideshow for the schmucks that believe in "democracy" even though America is in fact a republic.
Nothing will change in America because people keep voting for the two same parties. The only people that can change America for the better are the people themselves, not the leader. If Americans don't like military spending, then they should shame the military, if they don't like the way healthcare works, then shame the people who run the healthcare, not by voting and going around doing all the congress bullshit.
| All this is abstract. Let's get some specifics.
Do you really believe that if Al Gore had been elected, we would have fought the Iraq war? Do you think he would have repealed elements of the clean air act and called it "operation clear skies" as Bush did?
Do you think Ford would have let Iranian hostages linger for a thousands days without bombing, as Carter did?
Do you think Republicans and Democrats have the same chances of raising taxes on the rich?
There are major differences between candidates, parties, and platforms. These differences, from nuclear proliferation and funding and support of other nations to research priorities like Stem cell research, effect millions of lives.
The "there's no difference between the parties" trope is more likely the result of people, preferring the lazy luxury of apathy, writing off participation in the difficult and emotionally unsatisfying political process. | 308 | 420 |
CMV: There is no fair and practical way to pay reparations for past crimes like slavery or what happened to the Native Americans. | **Edit: I also meant to say that I don't mean this as a way to look down on people who might call for reparations. I think 98% of the time people call for it it's well intentioned, and their heart is in the right place. It just doesn't seem viable as an actual policy.**
The way I see it it would be more or less impossible (in a practical sense) to determine who is owed how much and who should pay for it.
In regards to who should be paid, it seems like one would have to do rather extensive DNA testing and historical lineage tracing on every individual American in order to determine who is eligible for payment, and how much. For example, would a Native American whose ancestors helped Europeans kill off other Native Americans be owed as much reparations as Native Americans who were solely victimized by the Europeans? Doesn't seem like that would be fair. Is a black person who moved here last week and who is descended from the slavers who took and sold slaves during the transatlantic slave trade owed as much in reparations as a black person who has been here for ten generations and whose lineage is on the salve, not slaver, part of that equation? Again, doesn't seem fair to pay them the same amount. And if race and ethnicity accounts for prejudice and a need for reparations, presumably a person who is 95% African and 5% white is owed more than someone who is 50/50, or 30/70, right? So then the government would need to maintain an ethnic DNA database for the entire country which, on top of not seeming all that practical, strikes me as rather dystopian.
And then theres the issue of determining how much they are owed. I don't see any fair or practical way to do this, either. For African Americans, for example, I've seen people say that we should pay them the total estimated number of hours slaves worked x the national minimum wage and just distribute it evenly... but not everyone's ancestors worked the same amount, and again you're running into the same problem as before - black people who never had slave ancestors and in fact had *slaver* ancestors would end up getting paid for the work slaves did. I've also seen people say we should just look at how blacks as a demographic are doing compared to whites or the national average and just pay them the difference, but this seems to run under the faulty assumption that sans any historical discrimination blacks and native Americans would be making exactly what the national average is. We know that this cannot be the case because two historically discriminated groups, Jews and Japanese people, actually do disproportionately well compared to the national average, indicating that culture impacts overall success as much if not more than past discrimination.
Who should pay is another problem that runs into a lot of the same issues as who should be paid. Are you just going to get the money from rich people? So then that would include rich blacks and native Americans, who would be bankrolling reparations to their own people and for injustices that their ancestors also suffered? Doesn't seem fair. Just take the money from white people? So then whites who have no slaver ancestors and who never harmed natives in any way (and indeed perhaps never benefited from American colonialism at all - perhaps they moved here last year from some other country) would be responsible for paying? Just make people pay who had slavers and genocidal killers in their ancestry? Well that group wouldn't just include whites but also Hispanics, blacks, and Native Americans. Do you think reparations would fly if we did all the calculations and found that the Comanche actually come in owing money (rather than getting paid) because of past injustices they committed against other tribes? Or how would it go over if we figured everything out and certain individual natives actually ended up having to pay white people because their ancestors massacred and raided white settlements and took whites as slaves? You don't think people might flip shit if certain black folks who might be poor today get dinged for being on the slaver side of the slave trade? And for that matter there's no assurance that the descendants of white slavers hundreds of years ago are doing well enough to be able to cough up what they "owe" anyways. They might be broke as shit, what do you do then? And all of this is operating under the assumption that it's fair to make someone pay for what someone they didn't know and are only vaguely related to did perhaps hundreds of years ago, which is not a given.
And what about other marginalized groups? If you trace things back far enough in US history, basically the only group that hasn't been at the short end of the marginalization stick is a small caste of direct British descended wealthy white landowning men. Everyone else is fair game for possible reparations. Women, LGBT, Asians, Jews, basically every other European nationality/ethnicity that came over later, etc. If we're gonna hand out reparations to blacks and native Americans there's no reason we shouldn't be handing them out to people descended from non-landowning men, or women (so... everyone), Irish who dealt with NINA, Jews who were discriminated out of Harvard, Chinese forced into bonded servitude, Japanese interred during the second world war, all the discrimination, both legal and social, that the LGBT community has suffered. It goes on and on and on.
So, how the hell does anyone look at all the complications and confusion and work that would be required to do something like reparations even somewhat fairly and think that it would be a good idea to try? CMV. | You could just avoid the problem by not paying individuals. Communities exist. Build schools in underserved communities. Give grants to historically black colleges. Build communities centers in Harlem and other historically black communities. Improve living conditions on native American reservations.
There is no need to get bogged down in making sure that people who are 64 percent Cherokee get more money than people who are 62 percent Cherokee. If the community has been historically oppressed, give that community funding that it can use to build structures that will improve that community. | 25 | 53 |
Is it possible for the human immune system to "forget" any pathogen after vaccination as time passes? How does this work considering that information on certain pathogens are also retained by the immune system and does this vary based on different pathogens? | If my understanding is correct, after being vaccinated, the body produces antibodies against a particular pathogen. This can offer protection to the body if any live pathogen were to attack the body.
But, and contextually in case of COVID-19, I have also read that, even after vaccination, the antibodies that target the virus drop in number with the passage of time. Contrary to this, I have also read that the immune system does have the ability to remember and retain information about any pathogen for extended periods of time. How do these two correlate with each other?
Does/Can the human immune system essentially forget the information on any pathogen after a set period of time? Is this universal to all pathogens and if not, what exactly affects this? | When a person is vaccinated, a pathogen protein/inactivated pathogen/weakened pathogen containing foreign proteins is delivered into their body (or as is the case for new generation of vaccines, a pathogen's protein is produced in vaccinated person's body)
Such protein is recognised as foreign by lymphocytes: B cells and T cells; as B cell response is somewhat easier to explain and responsible for production of antibodies, we will concentrate on it.
Upon contact with such foreign proteins and with the help of other cells, B cells start to mature and attempt to produce antibodies than have high affinity for (attach strongly to) foreign proteins. Some of those B cells that succeed in producing those high affinity antibodies will become plasma cells and will produce high amounts of antibodies but will eventually stop and die without continued stimulation by foreign protein. That's why the antibody levels will fall - unless contact with foreign protein is repeated.
However, some B cells become memory B cells. Those are not very active but they do have the ability to produce antibodies with high affinity for the foreign protein once activated by a particular pathogen protein. Should contact with pathogen be repeated, they will become active and some will become plasma cells that produce large amounts of antibodies. Memory B cells may last for decades in their inactive state.
Generally speaking, it is very beneficial for us to have the ability to mount a swifter immune response in case of repeated contact with antigene. However sometimes, it's not just the memory that would be useful but also high antibody levels and they generally fall over time.
To conclude: human immune system retains the ability to produce antibodies against a pathogen for decades, but unless stimulated again, the levels of those antibodies will gradually fall. | 1,254 | 3,864 |
How to form a better ability to understand raw philosophical texts? | I’ve taken multiple philosophy courses so far and I always struggle understanding the raw text. I don’t take much away from certain readings from thinkers like Kant or Hegel and only start to get the basics once they are explained in class. I know some of these thinkers are extremely complicate but how can I start to be able to better understand these raw texts without explanations from professors? | Read more slowly, reread frequently as you go, take notes as you read, review your notes and edit them and review parts of the texts until you have a good set of notes, supplement your descriptive notes with argument analysis of major arguments in the text, discuss your interpretation with someone who has an understanding of this material, and keep doing these things regularly (minimally, 1.5h sessions 3x/week) over an extended period of time (minimally, two years). | 49 | 54 |
ELI5: What does Bernie Sanders' "Too big to fail" bill mean when it says it is going to 'break up' big banks? | A lot of the biggest banks in the US (i.e. JP Morgan / Citigroup are probably the classic cases) are financial conglomerates that house many different kinds of businesses that touch many different (and arguably unrelated) areas of finance. They might have a division that does personal banking (bank accounts for people + credit cards), a division that does commercial/corporate banking (lending to businesses and corporations), and a division that does investment banking (trading and advisory work).
The idea of "too big to fail" is that these conglomerates touch so much of the economy, that if one division has a problem that might make the bank go insolvent (i.e. huge trading losses), the government basically *has* to bail them out, since the repercussions of failure are so big.
What Sanders and others who want to "break up" these big banks want to do is basically split them into smaller entities that don't touch so many sectors of finance at once. The most commonly talked about split is to separate the investment bank (trading and advisory) from the personal banking and commercial/corporate banking divisions.
| 31 | 63 |
|
ELI5: What happens to all that bleach/toilet cleaning product after I flush it away? How is it removed from waste water (if it even is)? | I've always had a mildly guilty twang every time I flush after loading the toilet with chemicals to clean it as I honestly don't know for sure what happens to it. In Australia, in case we have different processes etc.
EDIT: Wow thanks for all the replies ppl, certainly some food for thought here.
EDIT2: Front Page?! Seems we're all fascinated with fluids we flush. | Soaps used in cleaning products are generally biodegradable, at least in countries that have reasonable environmental standards. This means that by the time it leaves the water treatment plant, most of it will no longer pose a threat to the environment.
In general, the danger posed by soaps varies drastically. Conventional hand washing soap is usually not very dangerous, and will either break down very quickly or easily react with calcium ions, producing a harmless solid. You can wash your hands at a river or lake without poisoning fish.
Dumping laundry detergents however is a different affair, since they are often far more stable and won't break down as rapidly outside a water treatment plant!
Bleach is also a fairly harmless substance, since it does not harm organisms if diluted. It's also an unstable substance that will break down on its own.
Most other chemicals in cleaning products are either present in very small quantities (e.g. dyes and odorants) or are harmless (e.g. water softening agents)
In the past however, certain soaps were used that were not well biodegradable, causing huge damage to rivers and lakes. These are now outright banned in most countries or used in very small scale. | 1,728 | 3,394 |
[ELI5] Globalisation | What it is, why are some people against it, advantages and disadvantages. Thanks in advance. | Globalization, broadly speaking, is the movement of the international economy to a freer market, or a market with less trade barriers.
This has several implications. One of them being it increases the profits of specialization. Specialization is a concept in economy that describes a method of production for an economy, where one concentrates on producing something they excel at (e.g., oil) in return for things they need but can't produce themselves (e.g., weapons, food, consumer products). We all do this to a degree, and specialization is what moved us out of the middle ages into the modern economy. A doctor specializes in the skill of healing, and he trades his skills and services in return for things he otherwise can't produce himself (a house, his car, the milk he drinks). If a doctor had to be self-sufficient, he would also have to own farmland, acquire machinery, gain access to materials, and learn the knowledge required to manipulate them.
However, too much specialization can be bad too. For example, an island nation in the Pacific has a particular soil type that is most excellent in producing coffee. So they start to specialize in the coffee trade. As they discover there is money to be earned in coffee, and as they receive money from the coffee they are selling, this nation decides to expand their coffee industry. Soon, the coffee industry may become so big it accounts for 50% of the nation's GDP (the amount of products they produce). This becomes dangerous, because if a natural disaster occurs, and their coffee crop is wiped out, the entire nation's economy will collapse, and its people can now no longer afford food, nor do they have the means to grow it themselves.
Of course, countries never fully specialize in their most profitable crop/product because of things such as trade barriers. These can be natural, such as the cost of shipping food across an ocean, or be artificial, such as a government imposing import tariffs (they tax goods coming in from overseas). So, even though U.S. might be able to produce rice at $1/ton, after the costs of transport + tariffs, this cost may now rise to $2/ton. If our imaginary nation can produce rice at $1.5/ton, it's not as efficient as the U.S., but it's still cheaper. Therefore, because of things like trade barriers, nations won't fully specialize. Now, you can see what might happen if these trade barriers are removed. In a real world example, the U.S. signed a treaty with the Mexico that removed trade tariffs. As a result, many Mexican farmers lost their livelihoods because they couldn't produce as cheaply as American agricultural corporations could. To summarize, globalization, or the reduction of trade barriers give incentives for nations to further specialize. This further specialization creates more exposure for the national economy to crisis and mishaps.
This leads into the second major implication. As trade barriers are lowered, the competitiveness of companies overseas are increased. Remember, the rice farmer on our imaginary pacific island nation is 'protected' by the trade barrier. With it, his $1.5/ton rice is competing with $2/ton import rice. Without it, he is competing with $1/ton import rice. Although this means the islander inhabitants get to buy cheaper rice, this also drives out local rice farmers and lead them to rely upon foreign rice suppliers. In the real world, the implications are that mutli-national corporations and conglomerates are given more power and more access in local markets. Due to their vast scale, they are able to outproduce everyone else, and thus do so at a lower price (this is know as the economy of scale). Although the local population are now given access to cheaper products, they loose power and become dependent on a foreign entity.
There are many other factors at play here, but these are the main ones in very dumbed down terms.
EDIT: grammar and spelling. | 21 | 32 |
Why are Basalt Columns Hexagonal? | I've learnt that they are made by cooling lava, but just assumed it was hexagonal due to a crystal structure of some kind. However, [this article](https://www.iflscience.com/environment/why-columnar-basalt-almost-always-hexagonal/) seems to say that they are formed hexagonal because that's the way lava cools. Could anyone explain why? | Geometrically, regular hexagons are the optimal single shape in 2d that minimises the ratio of perimeter to surface area (the other two shapes that will allow regular tessellation are the equilateral triangle and the square).
The columns are formed by the slow cooling and solidification of a large mass of molten material. As it cools, the material contracts, generating stress which is ultimately relieved by the formation of cracks. The propagation of cracks through a material requires energy to break the bonds within the material. Assuming a constant amount of energy required to create a unit of crack surface area, the geometry of defects that minimises energy required to generate cracks is the geometry that minimises crack surface area. Other shapes sometimes form if cooling is quick (a mix of pentagons and hexagons like a soccer ball is pretty close to optimal), but slow cooling allows the system to find the geometrically optimal, and hence energetically optimal, regular tessellation formed of hexagonal prisms.
Edit: the other thing to bear in mind is that the properties of the material (in particular tensile strength, coefficient of thermal expansion and elastic modulus) won't be constant, nor will the rate of cooling. The varying properties will lead to a variation in the optimal column size (high strength and/or low modulus and CTE allow wider columns), so accommodating this within one lattice might lead to different shapes in different places. Also the variation in the cooling rate could mean some parts will be less close to the optimal shape. | 11 | 24 |
ELI5:Why is alcohol so fundamentally ingrained in our culture, especially when it comes to socializing? And why it over other equally dangerous drugs? | Alcohol was historically important in Western culture as a way to preserve fruit and grain as well as provide a liquid that was safer to drink because of alcohol's effect on bacteria. You'll notice it is less ingrained in Asian cultures where water was rendered safe by boiling to make tea. | 28 | 33 |
|
Can I decarbonate a soda by repeatedly freezing and thawing it? | No, assuming the system is closed then the amount of gas dissolved in solution will be dependent upon a number of variables, including ambient temperature, volume of the liquid and the head space above it. See Henry's Law for more detailed information. Generally, the colder it gets, the more gas would be dissolved into solution, and therefore a decreased pressure in the container. If the temperature increases, less gas will be dissolved into solution and more gas will exist in the head space, increasing the head space pressure. | 61 | 402 |
|
CMV: Illegal immigration is a form of civil disobedience protesting global inequalities and the impossibility of legal immigration. It's a Jim Crow sit in on a grand scale. | For now, most illegal immigrants (afaik) come to more developed countries for their own personal/financial motivation, but I'm wondering if illegal immigration could be seen as a form of civil disobedience, sit-ins on a national scale if you will. I see a lot of grievances that are often cited by "illegals" as valid protest causes: -the extreme difficulty of getting a visa to enter a developed country if you don't have an advanced degree -the perceived unwillingness of developed countries to share the wealth -the perceived unfairness of developing countries being stuck with the bill for developed countries' climate emissions/inaction and business practices Can and should illegal immigration be considered a form of civil disobedience comparable to lunch-counter sit ins, can and should it be used more extensively as explicitly a protest method (to demand either greater ease of legal immigration or removing the push factors from source countries), and would it likely be successful?
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | A main feature of civil disobedience is the broadcasting of one's actions to the public, and the explicit challenging of authorities to either give up enforcement or provoke outrage by enforcing an unjust law.
Without that part, with civil disobedience done secretly, there is no message, the only motive is the perpetrator's benefit.
We could call a number of mass lawbreakings "civil disobedience". Software piracy, drug usage, illegal abortions, illegal gun ownership, illegal relationships outside of marriage, etc.
Publicity is a vital element. Without that, it's just people taking advantage of a hard-to-enforce law.
The civil disobedience principle applied to illegal immigration, would be that time when High school valedictorian revealed her undocumented status in her graduation speech. | 31 | 45 |
Will mastering any one programming language allow the person to easily pick up any other language? | Any is a strong word, but concepts in one language are very common in others as well.
You'll find that some are different. C++ and JavaScript are similar. Python and BASIC aren't. But what you learn in one, such as functions, recursion, logic, data types, variables, etc. will translate to the others. | 35 | 37 |
|
ELI5: my Keurig coffee maker has a "strong" setting, what makes the coffee stronger if it's the same amount of coffee with the same amount of water? | It allows the coffee to extract longer by increasing the time that the coffee is in the hot water physically.
By increasing the time that the coffee grounds sit in hot water, the stronger the water is flavoured with coffee.
A longer soak is a thicker bev.
The same principle works for socks and old ladies. | 141 | 81 |
|
ELI5 Difference Machine Learning/ Deep Learning | I'm a teacher and I'm trying to explain the difference between Machine Learning and Deep Learning. Can someone help me? | Deep learning is a specific part of machine learning which uses multiple layers as part of a neural network. Machine learning in general doesn't need to use many layers or follow a neural network architecture at all. | 19 | 24 |
ELI5: Why do some men's penises have a darker skin tone than the rest of their body, despite having little UV light contact? (NSFW) | Always wondered this, ever since my partner flopped his out in front of me for the first time. | This gets asked a LOT (like, multiple times a day) in /r/eli5. Please use the search bar in the future.
The TL;DR version is this: The chemicals which spur puberty and the growth into adulthood also can stimulate the production of melanin, which is what makes you darker. Your genitals have a high concentration of these puberty chemicals, so they sometimes end up darker. It's theorized that this might have been to historically help protect our genitals from sunburn, because melanin helps protect from sunburn. | 17 | 16 |
Can someone explain how junk bonds work? | Normal bonds are like loaning money to your trustworthy, suit-wearing neighbor who has a good salary and just needs some cash for a quick project. He'll pay you back, but since you two are such good buddies, he'll only pay you an extra 5% on top.
Junk bonds are like loaning money to the creepy coke addict down the block. You're not sure if he'll pay you back- he has a lot of money problems. However, if his big coke sale goes through next month, he'll be able to pay you back, plus 20% more! You just have to hope that his "business" does well, even though the experts are telling you it has a higher chance of failing. | 41 | 55 |
|
How many bytes of information can a single neuron store? | There are a lot of different ways to answer this question. One answer could be that single neurons cannot store any information, that information storage is based on the state of a group of neurons in a system. In that context, we could say that a single neuron in a group of neurons is acting as a container for a single bit - each neuron is an on/off switch, but thinking of neurons as digital (0/1) is problematic because it makes the assumption that the state of a neuron is binary.
This is where the concept of an action potential becomes important. So each neuron in this memory system we are talking about has a non-binary amount of electrical energy stored in its membrane, and when the membrane reaches a certain threshold potential, this triggers a chain reaction that sends an action potential along an axon. This action potential might carry some encoded information along to another neuron, and trigger another action potential, so on and so forth, until many neurons have been triggered by this initial reaction.
I know this isn’t exactly a cut and dry, “Neurons store 10 bytes of data” answer that you might have been looking for, but at least these are some ideas to think about in regards to how it’s really a more difficult/complex question to ask than it might seem. | 2,377 | 4,527 |
|
What is the difference between aesthetics and morality? | Aesthetics is about art, beauty, and other related topics. It discusses questions like "what makes something beautiful," "what is art," "is artistic merit subjective or objective," and so on.
Morality is about right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice, duty, and other related moral topics. It discusses questions like "what is the ethical thing to do in this situation," "what is generosity," "are moral rules subjective or objective," and so on.
So, the difference between the two is that they examine different areas and ask different questions. | 28 | 26 |
|
What are the alternative methods of funding a UBI besides a VAT tax? | Are there any proposals for funding UBI through an alternative revenue source in the USA? What are their benefits and drawbacks opposed to higher VAT? | Depends on the scope and scale of UBI program. Does it replace other programs? What percentage of GDP does the program entail? Does the UBI intend to be part of a massive redistribution program?
There are a few options.
1. Wealth tax - potential of double taxing but a safe source to tax if the general allowance is high enough
2. Land Tax - encourages improvement on the land
3. Higher Income Taxes - if the UBI program is aimed at redistribution of wealth than additional income taxes should be structured as much as possible as a tax on inequality than on income itself (if income taxes really work well they don't have any deductions/credits and tax ALL forms of income, incentives can be seperate from the tax system and operate similarly to UBI
4. VAT/sales tax - acts sort of like a pigouvian redistribution tax, the UBI would replace a certain percentage of taxes paid on consumption (poorer folks - 150% of taxes paid, richer folks - 50% of taxes paid)
5. Excise Taxes - if the idea is that UBI distributes money to where it can have the greatest impact than tax the spending that has the worse impact i.e petrol, overuse of resources, carbon, alcohol, cigarettes, cars, corporate stock buybacks, fines, ect
6. Debt (below the steady state rate)
7. Corporate - i really dont think this would be a good idea but possible
8. A combination of all of them!
In general, levying new taxes just to pay for a new program is not a smart way to think about sound public policy. Governments should ideally tax to the point where the dollars being taken out of the economy have less return/use than potential government spending. The government would then spend that sum plus debt at a steady state level on the most advantageous programs which might include UBI or UBI like programs. The more efficient the private spending, the less need for taxes. | 24 | 60 |
CMV: Supporting artists who are bad people is unethical | I mean, there’s so much great art made by people who don’t rape / aren’t racist etc.
By supporting Chris brown for example you are directly helping someone who beats women. I don’t really care if you like his music, the way I see it only a complete asshole would value their enjoyment of a song over not supporting this guy.
Even if you don’t financially support him and pirate his songs, being a fan of someone still has an impact on their success, maybe an extremely small one but given his heinous acts I don’t think you should want to support him on ANY level.
I doubt anyone would support him if he did that to them or someone they loved, just because he did it to a stranger doesn’t make it suddenly less wrong.
| Using economic systems to replace justice systems is shifting the burden of justice to each individual. Rather than placing the ethical blame at each dilute consumer, it is far more conducive to place such blame on the concentrated power of the judicial system. | 27 | 81 |
How high could mountains on Earth grow? Is there evidence of higher mountains in the past? | Given what we know about plate tectonics, erosion and so on, is there a maximum height mountains could grow to?
Could a range like the Himalayas reach 5-10km higher in time and do we have any evidence of this in the past? | Mountains have mass, which means that they have weight.
The higher a mountain gets, the more the force of its gravity pushes back against the force of the converging tectonic plates.
At a certain point, the weight of the mountains will equalize with the force of the pushing plates and will stop the motion. Usually this means that the forces are redirected outwards from the center of the range and larger foothills emerge, but the highest mountains stop.
The height that corresponds with this point would depend on the size of the plates that are converging and the forces involved, plus the composition of the mountains.
The reason that the Himalayas are so high is that, in prehistoric times, the plate corresponding with continental India hit mainland Asia with considerable force so it took a lot of height in the mountains to stop the impact. | 40 | 66 |
Why do humans/mammals bleed from the mouth after head/chest trauma? Why is this always the imminent death factor in movies? | Think of what the mouth connects to - your lungs, stomach, and the passageways to your nose and ears. Head/chest trauma can lead to bleeding into one of those areas, which is usually a sign things are going pretty wrong. | 17 | 29 |
|
ELI5: Why do I get motion sickness when I'm in the car not driving but don't get motion sickness when I'm driving? | EDIT: Thanks for the explanation guys. I get motion-sickness very easily and I found driving to be a way to get around that while in the car. | When you are doing the driving your brain and body know ahead of time what movements be will occurring before they actually happen, like turning, braking, and accelerating.
When you are a passenger, you are kinda like a rag doll being tossed about. | 24 | 32 |
CMV:All states should adopt laws similar to the "Idaho Stop Law" with regards to people riding bikes | **Final Edit: Thank you to everyone who contributed to this discussion! I'm pleased with how it went and the back and forth was impressively civil. Kudos! I awarded two deltas: one disputing my included claim that bicycles are more capable of maneuvering a rolling stop than cars, and one for a caveat that municipalities should have the option of restricting the law in certain zones where the dangers would outweigh the benefits. Continue the conversation! I'm ready for bed.**
*This has been argued before, but the most recent iteration I could find was two months ago and I believe because:*
*1. it is part of a major national ongoing discussion in transportation circles, and*
*2. the post of two months ago used different reasoning than my own,*
*It is worth revisiting*
______________________________________
**Background**: Idaho Statute 49-720, commonly known as the "Idaho Stop Law" or "Idaho Yield Law" is legislation allowing legal exemptions from stop signs and stop lights for people riding bicycles that was adopted in 1982. The full law can be read [here](http://legislature.idaho.gov/idstat/Title49/T49CH7SECT49-720.htm) for those interested. Paraphrased, the law states that any bicyclist approaching a stop sign must slow their speed and check for cross traffic, but may proceed without stopping if it is safe to do so. Additionally, bicyclists approaching a stop light must come to a full stop (defined as a "halt of forward momentum") and may proceed through the light forward or by turning onto a cross street in either direction if it is safe to do so and the bicyclist does not impede cross traffic.
**My reasoning**: Having lived in Idaho (among many other places both densely urban and vastly rural) and having used a bicycle as my primary means of transportation for nearly 20 years in those areas, I believe the Idaho Stop, if implemented correctly, is not only the best compromise for all forms of traffic that share the roads, but is actually *beneficial* to all road users.
There are many reasons the law is beneficial to cyclists, from their perspective (taken from [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop#Positions)):
* Because of the positive externalities of cycling, bicycle laws should be designed to allow cyclists to travel swiftly and easily, and this provision allows for the conservation of energy.
* Current laws were written for cars, and unlike cars, it is easy for cyclists to yield the right-of-way without coming to a complete stop.
* Because cyclists are moving slower, have stereoscopic hearing, have no blind spots and can stop and maneuver more quickly than cars, current traffic control device laws don't make sense for cyclists.
* With the Idaho stop, at special intersections where lights are controlled by sensing equipment, there is no need to provide extra equipment for cyclists. *(This is a big problem)*
* The usual law forces cyclists to choose between routes that are more efficient but less safe due to higher traffic volumes, and routes that are safer, but less efficient due to the presence of numerous stop signs. Allowing cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs empowers them to legally make the safer routes more efficient.
These are all logical benefits to the cyclist. As such, they should be taken into account when making decisions regarding traffic infrastructure improvements. However, give the overwhelming task of replacing/improving infrastructure long since built primarily for motor vehicles, cyclists of my generation and probably the following as well require some compromises to be able to use the streets safely and efficiently as legal vehicles (yes, bikes are considered vehicles every bit as much as cars in every state.)
That said, I believe the strongest two arguments for why the Idaho Stop makes sense right now is not the benefit it provides to the cyclist exclusively, but the benefit it is to traffic flow in general.
**1. Allowing bicyclists to proceed through intersections during red lights or at stop signs when it is safe to do so greatly reduces the number of bicycle riders who slow the flow of traffic through intersections.**
**2. By allowing cyclist to get in front of traffic, they become more visible, and in so doing, safer.**
The Idaho Stop allows bicycles to remove themselves from the acceleration phase of a traffic cycle, when the speed discrepancy is highest between bicycles and motor vehicles, while simultaneously allowing the cyclist as a small, slow moving vehicle to move to the front of traffic making them more visible to all road users. [The only study done on the topic in Idaho](http://bclu.org/jmeggs-TRB-IDAHO-AUG10.pdf)(pdf warning) found the latter claim to be true as the number of injuries to bicycle riders in the year after implementation dropped by 14.5%, with no increase in fatalities. As for the traffic flow improvement claim, I have nothing to offer other than anecdotal evidence from myself and fellow cyclists who have practiced the law. I would be open to reading any studies demonstrating evidence to the contrary if they exist.
**Conclusion**: Ultimately, I believe the best solution for all parties is separated infrastructure for cyclists akin to what is found in the Netherlands and other bicycle-friendly European countries, such as protected bike lanes, cycletracks, and protected intersections. Many jurisdictions in the U.S.A. are moving toward implementing these necessary improvements, but timelines for such a massive restructuring of traffic flow and accompanying reeducation period stretch on, quite literally, for a lifetime. Timeline projects for some projects are on the scale of 50 years. In the meantime, I believe people who chose to ride bicycles for practical purposes ought to be encouraged and protected in doing so and the Idaho Stop Law is the best example of a working compromise available while we continue to work toward a more permanent solution.
I feel strongly about this argument and have spent years debating it, but I am always open to having my view changed if the right argument arises that I haven't considered. CMV?
EDIT 1: A huge caveat required to make this practical is a strong educational program to accompany the law change wherever it is affected. Schools, news organizations, government agencies, and police would have to cooperate to educated all road users about the change. It is happening in Boise right now, and can be done.
EDIT 2: A good number of responses are arguing that bicyclists already break laws and this would make them more likely. Contrarily, what has been seen in Boise is that with the advent of the law, police are free to ignore bicyclists behaving in law-abiding and safe manner, and freed up to target those who are actually putting others in danger. There is nothing inherent in the law that legalizes hitting pedestrians or cutting off cross traffic, and violators who do that can more easily be identified and appropriately cited.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | You provided a lot of evidence why this is beneficial to cyclers. You haven't provided reasoning why everyone else benefits from this. The only logic is "it gets bicyclists out-of-the-way".
Why can't bicyclist just follow the same rules as cars and everybody act in a safe manner? | 91 | 311 |
I’ve heard that the ratio in size between the human body and the smallest subatomic particle is equal to the ratio in size between the size of the known universe and the human body. Is this true? | I've heard this multiple times in my life, and I can't seem to find any concrete evidence of it's truth. Any help would be greatly appreciated. | An elementary subatomic particle does not have a size. Classically, they may be estimated to have a certain radius, or may be assumed to be point-like. But in reality, spatial descriptions of elementary subatomic particles are described by their wave-function, which is defined for all space. It can be interpreted that an electron, for instance, or some other elementary subatomic particle, is actually smeared throughout all of space.
Elementary subatomic particles are not baseballs. So the comparison is really nonsensical. But, lets talk about protons for a minute, something that isn't an elementary particle, is still considered subatomic, and is quite small. The diameter of the known universe is on the order of 10^26 m. The diameter of a proton is on the order of 10^-15 m. We are on the order of meters. So, really, if we consider the proton, we are much closer to the size of a proton than the size of the observable universe! As far as muons, electrons, quarks, neutrinos, etc... there is no comparison. They are different critters all together. | 167 | 129 |
ELI5: In golf, why is it easier to curve the ball with a lower lofted club? And by extension why do most people hit it straight with wedges when they go all over the place with longer clubs? | Short answer: backspin. Higher lofted clubs produce far more backspin which stabilizes the ball in flight and affect its path. A 56 degree wedge for example, even with a negative aoa, is probably striking the ball at a 50 degree angle. A 5 degree open or closed face will cause a push or pull, but won't change the axis of rotation much. With lower loft, say a 9 degree driver, with a positive aoa, might strike the ball at only 12 or 13 degrees. The same open or closed face here will alter the axis of rotation significantly causing a slice or hook (or ideally an intentional fade or draw). You can still 'work' a short iron, you just need to exaggerate the face angle. | 15 | 44 |
|
Philosophers dealing with fundamental structure of everything using no prior assumptions | I'm looking for authors dealing with the fundamental structure of everything, starting with no prior assumptions. One such author is Hegel, which in [Science of Logic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_of_Logic) does the following:
>Hegel aims to discover the fundamental structure of everything from pure reflection alone \[...\]
Hegel claims to begin his Science of Logic with zero assumptions\[...\]
Which are the most notable authors and/or works using similar approaches?
​
StackExchange question with bounty below:
[https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/63902/philosophers-dealing-with-fundamental-structure-of-everything-using-no-prior-ass](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/63902/philosophers-dealing-with-fundamental-structure-of-everything-using-no-prior-ass) | Prior to Hegel, the most notable sources are perhaps Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus, Augustine, Eriugena, Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, Ockham, Cusanus, Ficino, Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Shaftesbury, Hume, Hutcheson, Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. (I've omitted medieval Jewish, Islamic, and Orthodox Christian sources here, which you may also want to include.)
After or contemporary with Hegel but prior to what is typically thought of as analytic and continental philosophy? Perhaps Schopenhauer, Comte, Spencer, Dilthey, Scheler, and Bergson.
That gets you up to the 20th century or so, and there'd be various others from that period forward. | 39 | 63 |
ELI5: How can something be artificial if everything is made from naturally occurring elements? | It's essentially a convenient term for indicating a specific group, ala "Stuff made in a lab" vs "stuff we found in the ground, or a plant."
Certainly, one can argue it does not really hold to the 'spirit' of the definition of "stuff in nature" any more than 'organic potatoes' are any more organic than regular potatoes.
But language doesn't care about such niceties. People adapt the word for a particular use for marketing, or convenience, or ignorance, etc, and sometimes it takes off, regardless of its applicability. | 1,599 | 2,050 |
|
ELI5 Why do so many people get their wisdom teeth removed nowadays as opposed to ancient times? What changed? | Long story short, our hunter-gatherer ancestors had stronger and larger jaws, as their diet - raw flesh, plant roots, etc. - required much more chewing than our modern diet does.
As our jaws grew smaller, the total amount of teeth they were supposed to house sadly did not, causing the originally useful wisdom teeth to become a serious issue for many people. | 30 | 16 |
|
Eli5: Why is glacier preservation so important? What would happen if they were to be completely melted across the globe? | Glacier melting is seen as a significant indicator of global temperature. They are long standing, relatively stable structures. If they start disappearing, it means conditions have changed that were constant for a very long time.
Furthermore, a lot of them are on land, which means if they melt they add their water to the ocean, which can potentially raise sea level.
So in and of themselves, they represent a danger, but also they represent a signal of a greater danger, global warming. | 24 | 30 |
|
Can you know something without having it memorized? | Like you know it in some contexts (like when you see or hear it and recognize it) but not others (like when trying to solve a problem or trying to communicate something). I haven't really seen anything written about this so I think its worth discussing. | There's some interesting work about it in Husserl's *Ideas II*, near the beginning, as well as in his *Origins of Geometry*.
Basically, Husserl has the idea that one you learn something, it can become the grounds for something else that you learn. Let's say, for example, that you learn special relativity to read a book about black holes. When you are studying black holes, you are not actively recalling how special relativity works, but your understanding of it serves in the background as something like the "horizon" for you to read about black holes. Also, you might be able to understand books about special relativity without sitting down and doing the equations from memory again.
Once you have grasped special relativity, in this example, you don't have to recall the entire argument, the equations, or do the math again to "check" your work. Rather, it becomes something like "background" knowledge.
However, part of this background knowledge is the ability to recall it, to work it out again, and check what you know.
What's interesting is that Husserl later applies this to the history of mathematics to explain how it allows for mathematics and the sciences to build off one another without having to redo all of the discoveries each time. He argues that within, say, a geometrical theorem, the proof of this theorem remains something implicit. If we try, in epistemology, to recall this proof, we *recreate* the original conditions of its discovery (which allows Husserl to claim that epistemology is a "historical" inquiry).
This basic idea, that there's a difference between understanding an idea and being able to conceptually articulate it from memory, can be found in both Plato and Leibniz's theories of innate ideas.
In Husserl's historical writings, geometrical ideas aren't "innate," but function in a similar way. This is because mathematics and science have a history. They build off earlier discoveries, which serves as a background for new discoveries.
Generally speaking, Plato has a lot to say about having a correct belief about something and *knowing* it. He might be a good place to look for more information. | 21 | 20 |
[John Carpenter's The Thing] Why doesn't the Thing spray spores right away if it only takes one cell to infect someone? Why wait to eat someone? | We don't know for sure that one cell is capable of assimilating an entire human body. We know each cell of The Thing is active and capable of assimilation, but A does not lead logically to B... necessarily.
Every time we see The Thing in the act of assimilation it seems to force the target to ingest large quantities of itself.
* When assimilating the dog it sprays the target with liquid and jabs it with spiked tentacles.
* When assimilating >!Windows!<, it hoists the target up and seems begin eating or merging with him.
* When assimilating >!Nauls!<, >!Blair!< simply merges his hand to the target's face.
All of these would require a lot of extended contact. Since Things are only ever logical and rational, if they could simply let a tiny cell bud off its buttcheek and infect the whole camp without their knowledge, they would do so. Therefore, they do not do this, because they CAN not do this.
Presumably the immune response in the human body is able to stave off micro-traces of Thing, so a small cell just won't do the trick.
Later tie-in comics hint at the possibility that the Thing could fully infect with a single cell, but A) those suck, and B) it's hard to find good corroboration for that claim. | 76 | 75 |
|
CMV: Creating and/or sharing the post asking users to identify tiki-torch people at the Unite The Right rally is wrong. | CMV: Creating and/or sharing the post asking users to identify tiki-torch people at the Unite The Right rally is wrong.
a) Calling for the identification of people inherently and inevitably leads to a witch hunt that results in both unfair and illegal treatment of the identified individuals, but also collateral damage to incorrectly identified individuals. I believe this is wrong and the moral equivalent of Trump requesting the names of everyone in the DEA and DOE that support climate change.
b) I'm obviously anti-Trump and anti-KKK/anti-Nazi, but I'm also fundamentally anti-doxxing and I'm struggling with my principles.
I'm less willing to bend on the issues of whether it's morally justifiable for amateur internet detectives to attempt identification themselves. That's a moral line I wouldn't cross, because I believe it invariably leads to witch hunts. However, simple act of sharing a photo that says "Have you seen me? Are you my employer? I willingly attended a rally with White Supremacists" is, imo, morally debatable. I guess the question is whether or not the act is far enough removed from inciting a witch hunt that the participants bear no responsibility for misidentification or a vigilante response. I would argue that the [person who posts on social media] still bears responsibility, but I'm open to this view changing.
EDIT: Two points of clarification.
1) I agree that the racists who participated in the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville don't enjoy "reasonable expectations of privacy." They were out in public and they choose to making a public statement by showing up. My issue is with the act of sharing their likeness on social media, which I believe encourages illegal retribution and misidentification of innocents.
2) Misidentification has [already happened.](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/08/17/543980653/kyle-quinn-hid-at-a-friend-s-house-after-being-misidentified-on-twitter-as-a-rac?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170817)
Edit 2: Clarified that who I mean by the "participant" aren't the people harassing individuals, but the people who facilitate this harassment by forwarding/posting the image on social media. | Doxxing means that someone who would normally expect to be communicating either anonymously or to a limited group of people (family and friends on FB for example) has their identity revealed, and that they had a reasonable expectation for their identity to remain anonymous. Or private.
These protesters are doing so in public. There is zero expectation of privacy. If you want to protest anonymously and are afraid of people finding out who you are, then wear a hood. | 19 | 20 |
ELI5: Why do only white people have varying hair colors, while people with other skin colors typically only have one hair color? | Melanin is involved in skin color, hair color and eye color. Lighter skin evolved as an adaptation to less sunlight, lighter skin is achieved from lesser concentrations of melanin in the skin.
It is this way in hair as well. Hair color is determined by two types of Melanin (eumelanin a dark pigment and pheomelanin a red pigment). Brown hair has less melanin than black hair. Blond hair has very little melanin. Red hair has a lot of pheomelanin and very little eumelanin.
There are many different types of brown, blond, and red hair. Which just comes down to different concentrations of melanin overall, and the proportion of eumelanin to pheomelanin. This is achieved by mutations over time in the genes that control melanin.
The point is that 'white' skin color and lighter hair colors are related because they are simply due to lesser melanin. This is probably why they show up so prominently in populations in Northern Europe.
Although it's not the only place alleles for lighter hair has mutated: See blond hair in Australian Aboriginal and Polynesian populations | 1,679 | 2,676 |
|
CMV: Fat Feminism is a warped denial of medical studies | I'm a feminist, pretty much agree with most of the movements, but I cannot for the life of me understand this one. I understand not shaming people because it empirically doesn't work and can lead to mental health issues. I understand reducing social stigma, subsequently not socially excluding fat people. I understand that much of the bodies depicted of women (and men) in our media are not attainable by most people, and that making this the standard is unfair and puts unnecessary pressure on many women, leading to eating disorders and shame.
All of that is well and good, BUT...
Obesity IS a health risk. The health studies done on obesity are not just done to "confirm our societal standards of beauty." Encouraging fatness is definitely not a wise decision, and the derision felt by fat people at the doctor's office or the insurance clinic is BECAUSE it's expensive to treat people who's body size is slowly increasing their chance of death, and ultimately futile if they don't change their lifestyle habits.
So please, someone explain to me, why I should be a fat feminist, because as it stands, the "pros" are already encompassed in general third wave feminism, and the "cons" encourage misreading empirical data. | Can you give examples of feminists encouraging people to be fat? I've never seen that. Refusing to shame people for being fat is not the same as encouraging them to be fat. In a lot of cases, encouraging people to lose weight is just concern trolling, pretending to care when it's really just fat shaming by another name. | 76 | 128 |
[Harry Potter] If the global wizarding community decided to rescind the Statute of Secrecy what would be the best approach to follow in introducing themselves and the existence of magic in general to the rest of the world? | Adapt the events of their recent history into a series of novels and movies which allow people to develop a romanticized affinity and familiarity with their world, before revealing that they are all accurate. | 129 | 85 |
|
Why doesn't the Banach-Tarski theorem work in the physical world? | The theorem would have you believe you can violate conservation of mass with an Exacto knife. Why is this untrue, what's different about the physical world that doesn't apply to the Banach-Tarski theorem? | The Banach-Tarski construction requires you to be able to divide a unit ball into nonmeasurable subsets. The existence of such sets is a consequence of the Axiom of Choice, and like everything else due to Choice they are nonconstructible: you can only assert that they exist, not explicitly form one.
Besides, mass in the physical world is not infinitely fine: it is made up of particles. So any subset of a physical object is really just a finite set of particles, not a subset of R^(3). And Banach-Tarski does not work on finite sets. | 36 | 16 |
What exactly is vacuum or zero point energy and can it be harnessed? | Vacuum energy in free space is better understood as quantum field fluctuations that arise from the inherent variability/uncertainty of all quantum objects. Note that vacuum energy is not a static, permanent energy that we can extract and use. In other words, although vacuum energy leads to measurable effects, it does not violate the law of local energy conservation by allowing you to extract energy from nothing.
Rather than thinking of quantum particles such as electrons as literal particles that get created out of nowhere, it's more helpful to think of them as wave-like excitations in a quantum field. Excitations become particle-like when they can stably self-exist (even if only for a very short time) independent from the mechanism that created them. Vaccum fluctuations are like excitations that can't stably self-exist. | 11 | 28 |
|
Why do energy drinks cause you to "crash"? | Let's say you have 100 points of energy to use. A whole bunch of different factors will cause you to use more/less energy and gain/lose energy. Food/drinks will add energy, activities will reduce them. Your body tries to conserve that energy because it needs it to survive. Energy drinks "trick" your body into using more energy than it wants to with drugs like caffeine. This is very useful if you need more energy for a short period but it throws off your body's system for making sure it doesn't run too low. When it realises you're now lower on energy than you should be, it tries to stop you from doing even *more* things by making you very tired. | 24 | 25 |
|
[Warhammer 40k] How do Chaos Space Marines keep their numbers up? | We know Adeptus Astartes recruit regular humans and enhance them. This allows them to replace combat casualties and other fallen Space Marines. However, How do the Chaos Space Marines replace casualties? I know that some Adeptus Astartes ~~see the true ways~~ fall to Chaos from time to time, and even sometimes entire chapters. However, I guess the rate at which new Marines fall to Chaos is much slower than the rate at which Chaos Space Marines fall in battle.
What do CSM do? Do they revive fallen Marine through some demonic power? Do they have some process to enhance regular humans who worship Chaos to the level of a Space Marine, so they can kind of recruit at least? | There are a few methods:
* stealing geneseed from loyalists
* daemoncubla (I probably spelled that wrong)
* 'undeath' through warp powers
Overall, this is the CSM's biggest logistical problem and one they constantly fight over. | 38 | 34 |
When SETI detects a radio signal and states that it came from the region of a certain star many light-years away, how do they determine that considering that the signal has taken so long to reach Earth? | The thing you have to take into consideration is that visible light and radio waves both travel at the speed of light, due to them both being light. When you point a radio telescope at a star, you're receiving signals sent at exactly the same time as the visible image of the star when you point an optical telescope at it.
The distance, in light-years, between us and any star is equal to the age of the visible image we see when we look in that star's direction, so we are technically unable to view any distant objects in "real time". | 28 | 21 |
|
ELI5: If all homo sapiens originated from the African continent, and homo sapiens is the only human species left, then why do we have different races, colors and features? | Why do we have skin colors and drastically different features if we all came from the same region? Was it a result of mixing with other human species? | Evolution applies within a species, too. Dogs are all the same species, and all descended from domesticated wolves, but they come in a massive variety of shapes, sizes, and colourations that are better-suited to different environments. That's mostly *artificial* selection, but all that does is accelerate the process, so the same principle applies to humans.
Let's take the example of skin colours:
In areas where there's a lot of sunlight, and particularly where UV levels are high, melanin is an advantage, so people with more melanin (and therefore darker skin) will tend to live longer and have more children survive to adulthood, and before long you find the local population is quite dark-skinned. Meanwhile, in places where there's much *less* UV, having more melanin is a slight disadvantage because it inhibits vitamin-D synthesis and has a slight associated energy cost, so there's a small advantage to being paler. It doesn't have to be huge; over large numbers of generations even a small advantage adds up.
Combine all of this with some groups of humanity being geographically isolated from others, so that the cultures don't mix and therefore start to diverge, and cultural beauty standards will result in an effective selective-breeding programme, which further differentiates people.
All these differences exist, but humans are similar enough to each other and can still produce fertile offspring when they're from different ethnic groups, so we call them a single species. | 39 | 27 |
CMV: The more people publish proof that they have successfully circumvented cybersecurity measures, the better off we all are, so this should be encouraged somehow | I basically think it's stupid that there could be a thousand people who've stolen credit card data from a website and the 1001st, who decides to publish the credit card info publicly, gets the same punishment. This is despite of the fact that the 1001st person publishes knowing they are more likely to get caught, makes everyone aware of the hack and therefore gives the company motivation/pressure to close whatever attack vector is being exploited and the general public the motivation to stop using the company's services. If the first person to steal the data had some motivation to publish the hack or its results other than just bragging rights, then there would be ~1k less number sets floating around on CC trading forums.
I mean sure the first person could've put on a white hat and just told the company or the media about the exploit but from what I can tell this happens much more rarely than the above (outside of people who do this for a living, obviously) and is much harder to incentivize (and it is much easier for the company and the media to just ignore it). | Plenty of large internet companies (e.g., Google, Facebook, etc) offer bounty programs where you can submit a proof of concept for a potential security issue and be awarded thousands of dollars. Afterwards most people do publicly disclose what they found and how they found it.
Anyone who isn't trying to exploit the company is likely already going to practice responsible disclosure, so it really already is encouraged.
A key factor here is whether that person actually used that exploit in a criminal way. You aren't going to get in trouble for telling Google how you hacked their credit card database and publishing your findings after they've patched it. You are going to get in trouble if you used some of those credit cards before you reported it. | 112 | 466 |
ELI5: How has technology advanced so quickly within the past 100 years than it has in any other point in history? | Communicating with others became easier and easier. Carrier birds, messengers/prophets, post/snail mail, and ultimately the Internet. Sharing information became such a breeze we do it ever so effortlessly nowadays.
Inventors became heard, and investors backed them up, turning their ideas to products. Companies were spawned, giant corporations grew larger and R&D teams became more and more effective at producing new ideas and products.
It all comes down to sharing information. | 33 | 24 |
|
How does infrared light heat objects up? | I've been learning about the photoelectric effect in my physics class, and one of the formulas that I learnt was that the energy of a photon of light is given by E=hf. From this equation, ultraviolet light has more energy than infrared. So why is infrared able to heat up objects and ultraviolet not?
Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of an object, so wouldn't a higher energy light transfer more energy? | Higher energy photons can transfer more energy, but the question is mainly what happens with this energy in light-matter interactions.
A wide range of processes can occur when absorbing light. They can range from atomic to macromolecular scales. Light of very high energies can be used for photo-ionisation, which can have profound chemical consequences, since you can change electronic properties of molecules. A well know example is the destruction of DNA structures, which can cause cancer. There are also more complicated processes that can occur in these energy ranges.
Infrared light is important because it is in the energy range where you do not really change electronic properties of molecules. However, molecules come in many shapes and forms, such that they can rotate and vibrate. Infrared light has the right energy to trigger transition to higher vibrational energy levels. Quite literally, this type of light is perfect for making molecules shake around. These vibrations are what we associate with heat.
Let me add that energy is not the only important factor when talking about light-matter interactions. There is also the question: *With which probability will a photon be absorbed?* Even if this probability is low, enormous intensities of radiation can still cause notable effects. At some energies there are also competing processes and then one should wonder with which probability some of these processes will occur.
What /u/Rannasha explains is more or less the reverse process, where you radiate photons of different energies. Here the idea its that you use other techniques to transfer energy into your material in order to make molecules vibrate. Just as light can be absorbed to increase a molecule's vibrational energy, you can also emit radiation to go to a lower energy.
edit: Typo
| 16 | 39 |
Myth of Sisyphus | I've recently read Camus' work on this and I absolutely loved his work. I'm desperately searching for any other philosophical essays that personify the inevitable struggle of life, and how you have to accept it and move on. If anybody could direct me to something similar, it'd be very appreciated. | In terms of accepting the struggles of life and how to move on, this is essentially the primary focus of Stoicism. *Meditations* by Marcus Aurelius while not an essay is a great collection of thoughts on accepting one's lot and his place in nature. | 11 | 15 |
Why aren't there more cheap apartments? | Why aren't there more cheap apartments?
It seems like with how many people struggle to make rent, there would be consumer demand for cheaper apartments.
What exactly is keeping the market from fulfilling this demand? | Local zoning laws that make it challenging to build high density apartment buildings. The regularions are entrenched because they favor the economic interests current homeowners who are the only people who can/do vote for their local political leaders. | 79 | 61 |
How is altitude measured on other planets if they don't have seas and hence they don't have a mean sea level? |
A zero-altitude reference surface is defined. Depending on the body and the usage, this surface might be a sphere, spheroid, or ellipsoid whose dimensions are taken from average measurements of the planet's dimensions.
The reference surface for large solid bodies with slow rotation (e.g. Mercury, Venus) are often simply spheres with the average radius of the planet.
For faster rotaters (Earth, Mars) an oblate spheroid is more appropriate. This shape approximates the equatorial bulge caused by planet's rotational momentum.
For a *tidally locked* fast rotater (Io, Europa) an ellipsoid usually provides the best fit reference surface.
For the gas giants, the convention has been to define zero altitude to be the atmospheric depth at which the pressure equals 1 bar (100 kPa). | 66 | 120 |
|
[Star Wars] The Empire is a galaxy-spanning government with advanced technology at its fingertips. So why do they use slaves to build their death Stars, when machines and nano-tech build in a cheaper, faster, and more efficient manner? | What nanotech is available is very expensive and typically single purpose applications. It's not suitable for use on large scale construction projects.
The Empire does employ quite a bit of construction machinery, where appropriate. Despite that, there do remain some tasks where a humanoid is the most efficient way to get the job done.
Then there is the political aspect. Slavery is a powerful way to control certain populations, so the Empire will take a small efficiency hit to their construction projects in order to gain those benefits. | 21 | 21 |
|
CMV: There is no rational argument for doing away with the New York teacher literacy tests. | http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/03/13/new-york-to-eliminate-literacy-test-for-teachers-in-order-to-be-more-diverse/
(yes, I know its the blaze, the facts of the story still stand.)
In short, I cannot fathom a reason why it is in any way unreasonable to ask teachers to pass a literacy test that should be easily passable for a 12th grade student. Most stories I've read on the topic cite "racial issues" in one way or another, but I fail to see how a standardized test that is the same for all participants can possibly be racist. I certainly don't see myself as a prejudiced person, so I would like to see if anyone can shed some light on this for me.
In my opinion, the only relevant question at hand is whether or not a teacher is competent enough to teach. It makes absolutely zero sense to have teachers who cannot pass a literacy test at a 12th grade level teaching students who could very well be more literate than them. The racial, gender, or any other composition of the teachers resulting from such a baseline literacy test is, to me, absolutely irrelevant. If gay black men are the only demographic that manages to pass the test, they should be the demographic educating the next generation.
Some counterarguments I've heard:
"Not all people are smart in the same way, don't judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, etc."
Literacy is an essential skill for teachers, they are being judged on the ability to perform the job they are seeking out.
"Minorities are more likely to be poorly educated themselves, which leads to them being less equipped to pass the tests."
Why is this of import? Again, the only relevant aspect of this argument is level of literacy, either you have to the requisite levels to perform the job, or you don't, end of discussion. Now, should we look at ways to overhaul the education system to ensure everyone has equal access to good quality education? Absolutely! But I would think one of the ways to do this is to ensure that unqualified teachers are not educating children...
Interested to hear other lines of reasoning.
Edit: I did not expect this to blow up in this manner, so thank you all so very much for your time and energy taken to respond to my post! I will still try to sift through and respond to those which I have not yet been able to reach.
Thanks again! Excellent debate. | To be considered to be hired as a teacher one has to have already passed 12th grade and college.
What does it say about the test if people who have passed 12th grade and college fail it?
What does taking this test prove that those prior accomplishments do not?
| 145 | 509 |
When a material is cut or broken, where exactly is the separation happening? | Does the break happen at a molecular level or is it at a larger scale? I know the atoms aren't spring but do molecules break apart? | Depends on material:
When you break ice, you break the Van der waals bonds between molecules.
When you break a metal, the metal is all atoms bound by metalic bonds so you break metal to metal bonds.
In some ceramics, the ceramic can be thought of one big molecule, and you are breaking molecules. (Ionic and covalent bonds)
In some you can be breaking between molecule thick plates.
In polymers, you can think of a polymer like a sphagetti. Each individual strand is strong but connections between them are weak. You are most likely pulling apart the strands, not breaking them. However some may have very long strands or interconnected ones. In those cases you are breaking the molecular bonds.
In all cases the crack is likely to follow flaws in the material (or weak points). | 20 | 18 |
ELI5 how India has more than 1 billion people and has only won 4 total medals in the Olympics. | A lot of what takes an athlete from 'naturally really good at a sport' to 'able to win a medal at the olympics' has to do with the infrastructure surrounding the sports and support for semi-professional athletes.
So where the US China or Russia spend hundreds of millions of dollars and make efforts to ensure that children have access to quality coaching and structured activity, this is less of a priority in India and that is reflected in their success. | 37 | 35 |
|
ELI5: What are the differences between soluble fiber and insoluble fiber? | Why might someone prefer one over the other in a healthy diet?
EDIT: Wow, thank you for all of the great answers; I’m learning a lot. Soon, my poops will be pristine!
*****
The answer to “Which type of fiber should I consume?” seems to be, perhaps unsurprisingly, “It depends.” And there are a lot of people getting medical-condition-specific answers, and that’s *awesome*—in fact, that’s what prompted me to ask this question in the first place.
In the interest of accessibility for anyone who would like to jump into a discussion, I would like to organize the topics of some of the lower comment threads here that have jumped out at me:
* [Bacteria](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/eli5_what_are_the_differences_between_soluble/duagul6/?context=3&st=JDP3N2V1&sh=b70c2b69)
* [Colitis](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/comment/duaptfn?st=JDP3V2HG&sh=452b9ee3)
* [Constipation](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/comment/duak7xe?st=JDP3W9B6&sh=125bccac)
* [Diarrhea](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/comment/duakdwr?st=JDP3XKUA&sh=80dfb819)
* [Homemade yogurt](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/comment/duazmk1?st=JDP4FJZ8&sh=9f2f9edd)
* [IBS](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/eli5_what_are_the_differences_between_soluble/duahx04/?context=3&st=JDP3ZWU6&sh=2800ece0)
* [Incontinence](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/comment/dub1de1?st=JDP3IRFR&sh=5916382e)
* [Keto](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/comment/duamzlf?st=JDP4AQQ0&sh=a8d33730)
* [Malabsorption](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/comment/duak903?st=JDP3WWIQ&sh=286900b3)
* [Sugar](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7xpy1b/eli5_what_are_the_differences_between_soluble/duabdem/?context=3&st=JDP3JKP2&sh=7c0ec0ee) | Soluble fiber attracts water and turns to gel during digestion. This slows digestion. Soluble fiber is found in oat bran, barley, nuts, seeds, beans, lentils, peas, and some fruits and vegetables. It is also found in psyllium, a common fiber supplement. Some types of soluble fiber may help lower risk of heart disease.
Insoluble fiber is found in foods such as wheat bran, vegetables, and whole grains. It adds bulk to the stool and appears to help food pass more quickly through the stomach and intestines. | 1,439 | 4,041 |
Is being very good at data structures and algorithms worth it ? | Hello, I'm practicing on hackerrank at the moment because I want to improve my data structures and algoritms skills for future interviews.
The thing is, everytime I successfully solve a problem and go to the discussion sections there's almost always somebody who will find THE perfect solution in terms of space / complexity.
So my question is for those of you who are really good at those types of problems, was it worth it ? Are you working at a FANG-like company right now ? Are you able to sell that skill when the interview is more about building apps than creating an algorithm ?
ps: sry for bad engrish
&#x200B;
edit: Thanks for the replies ! Maybe I should have emphasized more about the "very good" at DSA part. I know the time complexity of arrays, hash tables, BST etc. I also know some classic sorting algorithms and tree traversals. I did not ask if learning DSA is useful because obviously it is but to what degree ? | Finding THE perfect solution is more about showing off among programmers. Employers don't care so long as the solution is fast enough. It's the difference between a design you can put on your webpage and one you can put in a museum. The first one does the job. The second one makes you famous, but has also way overshot its goal | 54 | 59 |
ELI5: After discovering the Rosetta Stone, how is it that Egyptologists could understand so much of the hieroglyphs based on the limited vocabulary and time period of the Rosetta Stone? | From what I know about hieroglyphs, apparently Egyptologists can translate and understand hieroglyphs and the different meanings they have over the centuries that these hieroglyphs later adopted. All hieroglyphs are understood since the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by the French during the advent of Orientalism in Europe. Apparently, even regional differences in pronunciations and meanings of the hieroglyphs are known as well. How is it that Egyptologists could understand so much of the hieroglyphs based on knowing the meaning of a single document fixed in a specific time period? | The Rosetta Stone is a piece of a large stele which has the same text in Ancient Greek, Demotic, and Hieroglyphs. Once it was discovered that the Demotic and Ancient Greek texts were effectively the same, work began on translating the Hieroglyphs. The initial translation took twenty years, and it took many more for a more-or-less complete lexicon to be developed.
Demotic script was based on Hieratic, which was based on Hieroglyphs, which made work easier. Demotic and Ancient Greek are phonetic, allowing for the first time for Egyptian names to be read as they were pronounced. Hieroglyphs are both phonetic and logographic (characters represent concepts), which provided researchers with clues as to where they were in the text at certain points. This was also how the Ancient Egyptians were able to represent both foreign names and regional differences in their dialects.
The translation of the Rosetta Stone was only the first step. The translations had to be cross-referenced with known Hieroglyphic texts to test and refine them. More glyphs were added to the known lexicon as this work continued. Other trilingual stele were discovered, providing additional material for checking translations. | 12 | 17 |
ELI5 How do scientists create artificial drugs/chemicals | As in synthetic thc, pesticides, etc. How can you manipulate individual components of a molecule? | Organic chemistry.
You know what molecule you want, you then search one that's easy to get and can be transformed into what you want, these are often hydrocarbons from oil etc.
Then there are millions of different reactions to get where you want.
www.reaxys.com this is probably the best site for this, shows synthesis paths, properties, conditions, directly links the papers etc, just draw the molecule you want and it tells you how to get there.
| 13 | 28 |
CMV: Police Officers Acting in Their Official Capacity Should Not Be Allowed to Invoke the Fifth Amendment | This subject has been on my mind lately because of the case of Freddie Gray’s death. Long story short, Gray looked “suspicious” and gave chase. It’s still unclear when/how (was it on the foot chase? was it during the “rough ride”?) his spinal chord was severed 80% at the neck, but it was. He didn’t get medical attention for at least 30 minutes and within an hour, he was in a coma. He died a week later. 6 police officers have been suspended pending an investigation. One of these officers has invoked their Fifth Amendment rights to avoid self-incrimination.
It just inherently sounds wrong to me and I’ll try to explain why through this thought process:
- Police officers are given authority over civilians through virtue of enforcing the law.
- With great power comes great responsibility. They have more power than the average person, so they should be held to a higher standard. Police officers are supposed to enforce the law, so they shouldn’t be allowed to impede it.
- Police officers get power and authority. Civilians are subject to this authority and therefore have certain rights and protections against it. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have both power/authority AND protections from it. If a police officer did something criminal while working in their official capacity, they should not have the same protections as civilians.
Just to be clear, I’m specifically speaking about instances when a police officer is working in his official capacity.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Police officers are subject to the law as well, so when they go up in court they need the same Constitutional defenses as any civilian. Just because they enforce the law doesn't make them above it. That's why the protection still applies. | 13 | 25 |
ELI5: Why/how does a hot compress bring a pimple or boil or stye to a head quicker? | Looking for a more in depth explanation than "heat." | Heat increases vasodilation and therefore circulation to the applied tissue. This brings more innate immune cells i.e. monocytes, macrophages and neutrophils to this location for quicker degradation of the foreign material. | 46 | 31 |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.