post_title
stringlengths 5
304
| post_text
stringlengths 0
37.5k
| post_scores
int64 15
83.1k
| comment_text
stringlengths 200
9.61k
| comment_score
int64 10
43.3k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
CMV: I think that road cyclists in the US give cycling a bad image
|
This CMV [pertains to cyclists](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/05/worst-thing-about-cycling-other-cyclists) who dress in spandex/lycra and have super expensive race-bikes (Dutch term), and/or cyclists who do things like: ride several abreast while going up hills, [riding through red lights,](http://www.adventure-journal.com/2012/05/poll-whats-the-worst-thing-about-road-cyclists/), act arrogantly, or show little regard for slower riders (like on bike paths).
I find several problems with these types of cyclists:
* It creates an artificial barrier to entry: In places like Amsterdam or Denmark, all you need to ride a bike is... [a bike.](http://cityhallwatch.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bike26.jpg) But motorists in the US see cyclists with several thousand dollar bikes and ridiculous clothing and think "Their's no way I'm doing that!" This small minority makes it look like you *have* to get that expensive gear in order to ride a bike even, for small errands.
* It also makes it look less utilitarian. A road bike has no space for a backpack, clothes, food, baskets, etc. This makes it impractical for commuting purposes, which is what most motorists think these people are doing. So motorists think to themselves "My office doesn't have showers, so I guess I can't commute to work by bike." I know they should just look up how to commute in regular clothes (i.e. riding slower), but...
* Road cyclists ride too fast. I know they're probably training for a triathalon or something like that, so I'd have the same problem if race drivers were using the streets/highways to practice for their race. Most road cyclists make slower/commuter cyclists feel unwelcome on the streets, which makes them want to go back to riding in cars instead of just cycling to work. It's already harrowing cycling in most US cities while worrying about cars. It's even worse when a super fast race-cyclist passes you in a bike lane with no warning or bell.
* Speaking of riding too fast, I live near a bike/walking path and I have yet to see a cyclist use a bell or slow down when they're coming to a corner. They usually just yell that i "didn't get out of the way" fast enough for them, which is ridiculous. This may be regional, but still. It's not a race-track; it's a meandering woody path with lots of twists, turns, and children and older people walking on it.
* Another side effect is that riding/training this fast is only a sport that can be done by young fit people, and thus [people who don't fit this mold](http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/us-cycling-from-a-dutch-perspective/) don't think of cycling as something they can do (even though it is).
* There's also a large amount of road cyclists who, because they do ride so fast, also wear helmets, which is something that most regular people don't like doing while riding a bike. This type of stigmatization leads people to not bike more often, which ends up making them choose the less safe alternative of driving in a car.
To sum up, I think the safest thing for bicycle riders is more bicycles on the road, all cycling together. But I currently see road-cyclists as a group of people who are making cycling this thing that can only be performed by a small minority of people.
In order for cycling in the US to become more widespread, it has to be more utilitarian, more open to people of all ages and shapes and sizes, and with as little barrier to entry as possible.
**Edit:** Unfortunately, I still think that race-cyclists give general/commuting cyclists a bad name/image, because they currently seem to be the majority of cyclists that most US motorists come into contact with. While I understand that these types of cyclists aren't the entire reason why so few motorists use bikes more often, I still think that the image/behavior they have is detrimental to getting more people to pick up the activity of cycling for utilitarian purposes.
_____
> *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!*
| 39 |
The fact most US cities aren't really bike friendly means only the most hardcore cyclist fan-boys and -girls will us their bikes. That's why you see such a disproportionate number of stereotypical cyclist. That's why people don't bike, not because they feel "the culture" isn't welcoming, because urban settings are not. Long distances, little reserved spaces, lots of circulation, etc. These are major detherent to cycling in major US cities.
Amsterdam is *really* cyclist friendly, that's why there"s so many people using bikes.
| 23 |
[Infinity War] WHEN did The Snap occur?
|
We know from *Avengers: Infinity War* that The Snap takes place when the sun is out in Wakanda, Africa; let's say mid-afternoon for an initial estimate. We also can assume that its effects occurred pretty much simultaneously across the universe.
Yet, from the opening scene in *Avengers: Endgame,* we see Hawkeye and his family having lunch when The Snap occurs. We also know from the stingers in *Infinity War* and *Ant Man 2* that The Snap takes effect in San Francisco in the daytime (probably in the afternoon if we assume Hank Pym didn't want to get up early for his experiment).
So, WHEN (clock-wise) does The Snap happen? What is the UTC moment that allows for daylight in Wakanda, San Francisco, and wherever the Bartons are (presumably North America) simultaneously?
| 43 |
If it occurred right about at 1pm EST it would be around 6pm in West Africa, which is before the sun sets in the spring there (accounting for daylights saving and stuff too). That’d be around 10AM in San Francisco and Noon in Missouri (where Clints home is).
So that seems like a pretty reasonable bet that fits with all the events we saw happening.
The Clints were just having a noon lunch, Pym was doing his experiment earlier in the morning, and it was late afternoon and a little while before sunset in Wakanda.
| 65 |
CMV: Extended payment terms should be abolished. They are a powerful force in the economy right now and nobody is talking about them.
|
I’ll explain quickly how they work then offer a quick syllogism arguing why you should care about this issue.
First, I’m not an economist or an accountant, I’m a business leader working in a large corporation who has drawn some conclusions watching what happens in my corner of the world and has done a little research.
A large corporation that has lots of leverage over its vendors simultaneously negotiates the shortest possible payment terms (when one party actually has to pay another) for all of its receivables and the longest possible payment terms for its payables. Doing so adds to free cash flow, a key metric Wall Street looks at to determine the health of a business- it is how much money the business has to spend on stuff at any moment. If you are a small business with the capital to float all of your expenses (or the ability to borrow to cover them) while you wait four months to get paid for the service or good you provided your customer (the large corporation), then you can play ball. Almost invariably you will include your cost of borrowing in your bid- and there’s the rub, as the large corporation you actually pay more in the long run because the cost of borrowing for the little guy (almost certainly more than the big guy) gets added into the cost of the contract. On the other hand, if you’re a small business who can’t wait four months to get paid you are excluded from the potential work.
So,
Extended payment terms hurt small businesses.
Numerous taxpayer funded programs and tax credits exist to prop up small businesses.
Small businesses could be made healthier as a result of dialogue/legislation around this issue and consequently less reliant on this taxpayer funded backstop.
You are a taxpayer and/or you benefit from taxpayer funded stuff.
Therefore you should care about this issue.
Edit: To rearrange first sentence.
| 70 |
I follow the argument.
I wonder though, are payment terms the root problem here?
It seems like the real problem is an imbalance of power in certain markets. A concentrated buying group holds all the power, and can dictate terms. If sellers have more options, they can choose to sell to folks with better terms.
It feels like killing off payment terms would just lead to new tactics. Amazon and Walmart have largely moved to fulfillment models, which is really just a nice way of saying "you own all of your inventory and the costs associated with it until it sells".
Perhaps more should be done to promote competition and break apart large monopoly powers?
| 30 |
How did we know xenon-124 was radioactive, if its decays are such a rare event needing a massive facility (XENON1T) to even see it?
| 165 |
It’s straightforward to calculate how much energy *would* be released in some hypothetical decay mode, you just need the masses of all the involved particles.
If that number is positive, then the decay is theoretically possible (at least it’s not forbidden by energy conservation).
Then the question is just how likely is it to occur. If it’s never been measured or observed before, it’s probably rare. From theoretical calculations, you can try to get bounds on the half-life. And then given the expected half-life range, you can design an experiment that has a chance of seeing it.
| 162 |
|
ELI5: Is the apple I am currently eating biologically dead or alive? If it is dead, when did it die?
|
Thanks for all the responses! I've definitely learned something new today.
| 662 |
so "dead" isn't a binary state. it's a process. So when you pluck an apple, the process of "death" is triggered (not exactly but eli5).
Now, an apple has two parts. the seeds and the edible apple part. the seed is a possibility to life (like a fertilized chicken egg). the edible part is the food (the eggyolk).
If you eat the apple (cook the egg) life never happens, if you lave it, it decays - and if t decays in a good spot and so forth and so on. you might get a tree. (or a chicken)
| 395 |
[Star Trek] The effect of falling through a warp bubble
|
So the easiest analogy for the question is what would happen if someone were to jump off the Starship Enterprise while it was traveling at warp speed.
I would assume that within the warp field, bubble, whatever, would be essentially the same as in normal space but as the unfortunate soul passed through the edge of the field his atoms would essentially spread behind the ship like a comet tail. Sort of akin to falling into a black hole.
But then I wonder, if space is frictionless, would the person then simply continue to travel along with the ship at warp free floating within the warp field?
| 31 |
If you were in a space suit on the outside of the ship while it's at warp, you'd be fine as long as you didn't exit the warp bubble. Ships are tractor-beamed-towed through warp all the time using the same principle.
But yeah, falling through the warp bubble probably isn't a good idea. With the right equipment it IS survivable though. Photon torpedos have "warp sustainers" built into them so that they can continue at warp-speed for a few minutes after being launched from warp, making warp-to-warp combat possible. The saucer section also has warp sustainers, to allow it an ability to escape if separated during warp.
Warp sustainers cannot _create_ a warp field, but they can keep a pre-existing one going for a few minutes.
| 22 |
ELI5, why do old/deep blackheads leave permanent holes in your face?
| 25 |
The crap that is in your pores, which makes blackheads stretches out your skin, leaving tiny holes.
It's possible that your skin will eventually fill them in and smooth out, but it will take a long time
| 21 |
|
Are the seemingly chaotic curves of the small intestine the same in almost everybody, like the shape of the hand, or do they follow different paths in different people?
| 20 |
They move around in real-time.
The small intestine is like a long hose but all along it’s length it is tethered on one side by the mesentery. Closest way to imagine it would be something like paper fan with the intestine along the expanded edge while the pinched ends is attached to the back.
the small intestine under normal conditions will slither around while maintaining that arrangement and folding in general.
So if you can take picture of them, they won’t look the same in the same person moment to moment.
| 12 |
|
eli5: If good habits are rewarding and healthy, why is it easier to keep falling into bad habits?
|
I’ve been trying to sleep earlier lately because i genuinely feel great in the morning, and have a productive day. But I keep falling into the habit of staying up too late and feeling tired in the morning. This feels like a trend across the board.
Why the self sabotage? Anyone got an explanation?
| 18 |
The example you're talking about is a type of procrastination; staying up late pays off \*now\* while the negative effects don't show up until later. Going to bed early "hurts" us \*now\* but doesn't pay off until later. We're wired up pretty strongly to prioritize near-term benefits over longer-term ones because of the heavy evolutionary survival pressure for a sure thing now against a more risky thing later. Successfully fighting this tendency is one of the major differences between children and adults, but it's always there.
Good habits that pay off now area easy and don't backslide. It's the ones that you have to invest some "pain" for now in return for a (presumably) more worthwhile gain later that have problems. This is why exercising is so hard for so many people.
| 36 |
[Star wars] What would have happened if luke had gone to the imperial academy...
|
instead of staying on the moisture farm?
| 51 |
During Luke's intake medical exam they would take a blood sample. 5 min after that Luke would be called into the commandant's office and told to wait. 10 min after that he would be told that he is going to be transferred to a special facility as his test scores showed something of interest to the higher ups that the commandant isn't cleared for. 20 min after that he would be loaded on a shuttle on it's way to Vader's palace. 5 years after that Vader and Luke are disposing of the emperors body and ruling the galaxy as father and son.
| 114 |
ELI5 Why is a long screwdriver "stronger" than a short screwdriver?
|
I was trying to remove several wood screws that I could hardly turn at all when using a 5” long screwdriver (and a lot of physical effort).
Switched to an 8" long screwdriver and I could easily turn the screws with a lot less effort.
My father, who was a craftsman, told me when I was younger that longer screwdrivers are stronger than shorter ones. What physics principle explains this?
| 15 |
Theres no mechanical advantage gained from simply using a longer shaft without also a larger handle. The advantages are mostly ergonomic. A large part of the impression just comes from longer screwdrivers also having longer and wider handles in general. But assuming the handles are identical:
A longer shaft gives you room to get a good palm grip on it with your hand fully around it, hold the screwdriver closer to your body to be able to apply more torque, and let you elbow move downward, and helps with maintaining alignment with a longer shaft meaning less angle change from the same horizontal displacement.
Also the shaft being longer is more springy, which gives you a softer/better feel for how much force you are applying.
| 43 |
ELI5: Why is diplomatic immunity a thing and how did it come about?
| 105 |
Diplomats are people who travel to other countries and act as representatives of those countries interests. This was very important before the days of telephone or the internet where communication over great distances took a very long time. Messages were slow to exchange and relationships hard to build. Instead of trying to do it from afar a special professional was chosen to build that relationship and look after foreign interests under the direction of their home country.
In order for that to happen there needs to be an agreement that the diplomat won't be legally hassled by the host country. Tossing the diplomat into prison or torturing them until they agree with whatever you want isn't acceptable to the country they represent. This means that minor transgressions are generally overlooked in the interest of diplomacy; if the diplomat parks in the wrong place and would otherwise get a ticket it is just ignored.
Basically the diplomat is "immune" to the normal course of legal process. If the diplomat does something the host country finds unacceptable then the host country will simply kick them out of the country, and potentially the relationship with the country they represent could be damaged. Or the immunity can be revoked with the agreement of the diplomat's home country and the diplomat prosecuted as normal. Broadly though it is a protection against trumped up charges being used as a tool of diplomatic leverage.
| 165 |
|
[Star Wars] Why didn't Vader try to kill Palpatine when he found out he had a son?
|
Clearly Palpatine had lied to him.
| 39 |
Vader confirmed that Luke was his son while he was speaking to the Emperor just after Hoth. They both used the force to confirm that he was the Son of Skywalker. And in that moment, he begged his master to let him be turned rather than killed. That was the first moment in decades he felt a pang of humanity beneath the darkness, and he did everything he could (which wasn't much) to preserve that tenuous connection to Padme.
After that, he literally began a campaign to kill the Emperor. His entire objective for capturing Luke at Cloud City was the convert him to the dark side, and together they would destroy Palpatine. After failing to do this, we can assume that the Emperor utilized his proven abuse techniques (we're seeing a lot of these in the comics) and harsh punishments to put Vader in his place. That was why he was so cowed at Endor, at least until Luke's life was in immediate danger.
| 65 |
Why can baby horses, cows and other animals walk within a short period after birth, yet for human babies it seems to take an age?
|
I have always been curious about this, why does it take a human + 6-12 months to simply learn how to walk, when I watched a video the other day of a calf learning to walk on all fours within hours of being born. Why and how?
| 21 |
Baby heads. If they were any larger at birth neither mother nor child would survive. Simultaneously, because of the relative size of the head to the body (and the weakness of key muscle groups) it would be physiologically impossible for newborns to walk even if they had the coordination.
Also, as demonstrated by the fact that babies crawl on all fours before walking on two legs, bipedalism is just more difficult.
| 22 |
CMV: I dislike "ghetto people", independent of skin color, but they tend to be black, so it has been causing me to generally dislike black people.
| 130 |
It's fine to hate ghetto culture, it's a really shit culture with pretty much zero in the way of redeeming features. Just remember that not all black people are ghetto and not all ghetto people are black. You just need to watch your assumptions. It's certainly not healthy or rational to classify someone as being "ghetto" based on skin color, but as long as you don't ASSUME a black person will be ghetto before you talk to him, you aren't a racist. Try to look at people as unique individuals rather than members of a collective group.
| 111 |
|
ELI5: Why are silent letters a thing?
| 8,441 |
Different silent letters are there for different reasons.
Some are there because they didn't used to be silent. The K in knife and knight used to be pronounced, and the gh in knight used to be pronounced like the ch in loch or the h in Ahmed.
In other cases, a silent letter was deliberately added to be more like the Latin word it evolved from. The word debt comes from the French *dette*, and used to be spelled dette in English too, but we started spelling it debt because in Latin it was *debitum*.
| 5,110 |
|
[Star Trek] Why do consoles explode?
|
This has been bothering me for awhile...
I've noticed that like 90% of deaths on Star Trek happen because people's consoles explode. I feel like at one time or another, they mentioned it's because of rupturing plasma lines.
So, with all this futuristic technology, why can't they find a way to run the plasma lines further back, or shield them better, and make the workstations simple "dumb terminals" or something?
| 50 |
See, in Trek, they don't use what we would consider "electricity".
They use high-energy electro-plasma, routed through conduits to the device that will use it.
In the case of consoles and displays, when damage or an overload occurs that breaches through to atmosphere, the electro-plasma is flashed *into* electricity.
Since this process occurs inadvertently, there's no way to break the circuit intentionally at the flash point.
Secondary systems will generally reroute power away from the damaged portion within moments, but sometimes it's not fast enough to avoid a small explosion. Sometimes a person will even be close enough to get blown back. Sometimes it's even *severe enough to cause plasma burns.
| 30 |
ELI5: How come you don't get HIV or AIDS from mosquito/bug bites?
| 87 |
Diseases like yellow fever and malaria are spread by mosquitos through their saliva, not because you got a little bit of the infected person's fluids. Yellow Fever and malaria are just two examples; but virus's/infections that are spread by mosquitos have evolved a way to avoid being digested with the blood that carried them. Instead of being digested, they make their way into the mosquitos saliva system and infect more people.
Aids and HIV don't have this survival mechanism. When a mosquito sucks the blood out of a person with aids or hiv, the whole virus gets digested before it can become spreadable.
There are 2 more factors that also limit this. One is that a person with HIV or aids doesn't have enough of the virus floating around for the mosquito to take enough to infect with.
The other factor is this. Most people think of mosquitos as essentially flying needles. The mosquito's "needle" actually has 2 canals, one that handles drawing blood in, and one that handles saliva. Even though mosquitos do vomit on you a little bit when biting (how you get yellow fever and malaria, from infected saliva), the saliva canal isn't connected to its stomach, so theres no way for aids infected blood to get there.
short version:
aids and HIV are digested too fast to be spread
there isn't enough aids or hiv to be spread
theres no way for aids/hiv infected blood to get back out of the mosquito once its in there.
| 84 |
|
What does the pOH tell you about a solution where there is no hydroxide?
|
Okay, it was hard to make a title for this one, but I'll try to clarify here!
If we have the following reaction:
HCl + H2O → H3O^+ + Cl^-
↖ Strong acid, no equilibrium.
Let's say the pH for this solution is 1.7.
Using Kw(10^(-14) molars^2 ) = [OH^- ] * [H3O^+ ]
log([H3O^+ ] * [OH^- ]) = log[10^-14 ]
log[H3O^+ ] + log[OH^- ] = log[10^-14 ]
-log[H3O^+ ] - log[OH^- ] = - log[10^-14 ]
pH + pOH = 14
I would imagine that pH + pOH = 14 is valid for the reaction above. But is this where I am wrong? If not, I continue.
Since the pH is 1.7 we could calculate that the pOH is 12.3. Using this we could calculate the concentration of hydroxide in the water (10^(-12.3)). But this makes no sense since there is no known concentration of hydroxide in this solution. Where am I thinking wrong?
| 19 |
As long as you are working with an aqueous solution, the Kw expression is valid. In another solvent, that wouldn't be true.
However, in the expression above, your determination of the concentration of hydroxide is correct. Even if there is a lot of H^+ around, that doesn't mean there can't also be OH^- around. Pure[ish] water has a concentration of 55 M H2O. There's plenty of room for both H^+ and OH^- at any attainable concentration of either of those ions in solution.
| 11 |
Could you use hydrogen to remove rust from iron?
|
I know carbon is normally used for carbothermal reduction of iron oxide, but could hydrogen be used as well?
Fe2O3 + 3H2 = 3H2O + 2Fe ?
EDIT: Found it. Looks like the answer is yes... http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0803/0803.2831.pdf
| 310 |
Yes you can, provided that you have a power source and a sacrificial anode. Using the power source, you can attach one electrode to a conductive part of the metal (a part that isn't covered in rust) and one electrode to another piece of metal (like Zinc). Place both in water and let the chemistry happen. Basically, the electrical energy would drive an electrochemical reaction. The iron oxide will get reduced, meaning it will gain electrons, as electrons would flow from the negative to positive terminals -from anode to cathode. The zinc, on the other hand, would lose electrons and get oxidized to Zn^(2+), and therefore dissolve into the water.
| 64 |
ELI5: How can online games like first person shooters be so in sync across all users without hardly any delay?
| 120 |
Fast internet and faster servers.
Human reaction times are on the order of 100ms or so. Ping time, which is round-trip packet flight time is often on the order of half that or so. Round trip is therefore on the order of human reaction if you give the server a little time to do stuff.
Also, the server only sends back just enough to run the game. For example it may just send back Headshot and some points, and your client has to take care of the headshot animation, credit, sound and then tell the server when it's done because it's not really sync-critical.
| 91 |
|
ELI5:Graham's number + 1
|
If I take Graham's number and just add one have I just with very little effort come up with a larger number.
| 36 |
Yes you have. Which is why nobody claims that Graham's Number is the largest possible number. What they do state, however, is that Graham's Number is the largest known number which is used in a specific mathematical calculation.
If you can come up with a formula which legitimately requires you to use (Graham's Number + 1) as part of it, then you could claim that you have "discovered" a larger number.
| 76 |
In the United States, I think that the religious based marriage should be removed and replaced with secular based civil unions. CMV.
|
I believe that in the United States, marriage should be removed as it follows religious rules and doctrine in most parts of the US. I believe that this is absolutely in the jurisdiction of the church and should remain there, allowing churches to marry people as they deem appropriate. I believe this because of our separation of church and state.
Civil Unions that are based in secular principles should replace the marriage institution. Any adult able to consent to a contract would be able to form a union with another individual. (Or other individual**s**, but that is a different discussion.) This would grant the same benefits marriage currently has.
It may seem like just a name change, but its a fundamental shift in philosophy. Change my view?
| 65 |
Marriage in the legal sense is already independent from matrimony within the Christian faith and similar ceremonies in other religions. It's already possible for two individuals of opposite genders (or the same gender, in some areas) to get a marriage license - and become subject to all the legal statuses marriage entails - independent of sexual involvement, religion-based marital status, and similar factors.
| 32 |
Why does it take multiple tries to be immune to venom, but just one for a virus?
|
Whenever you want to be immune to a virus, you get a vaccine or you become infected and your immune system fights it off and you become immune. The body can also build up an immunity to venom, but it takes several attempts in order to become capable of taking what would be a lethal dose. Why can’t the body produce antibodies to venom on demand like they do for a virus?
| 55 |
There are obviously fundamental differences between viruses and toxins. A typical virus takes a bit of time and does some damage before the adaptive immune system can get geared up to handle the infection. Whereas venom is just everything all at once and quickly overwhelms our innate defenses.
Like you've mentioned, it can take quite a few treatments before someone is able to handle something like venom because you basically have to trick your immune system to be constantly vigilant to the point of total dose neutralization. That means having enough freely circulating antibodies to bind the venom/toxin molecules.
So for something like snake venom you need both an extended ramp up for protection but also continuation of treatment because the immunity will quickly wane.
An interesting note would be something like a botulism vaccination. We protect our sileage-eating livestock from botulism toxin via a vaccination but we don't give this vaccine to humans because botulism is exceedingly rare and Botox has an incredibly valuable medical usage. We do however have botulism antitoxin made from horse serum for adults and a pool of vaccinated humans providing serum for infants.
Similarly, anthrax vaccination is specifically against a component of the anthrax toxin.
| 62 |
[SW:ROTS] So, say Anakin kills the Emperor and he kills the Jedi. Does Anakin expect the universe at large to just accept his dictatorship?
| 15 |
Long term planning and political acumen are not Anakin's strong suit. Most likely he either didn't think about it at all (most problems he has encountered are fixed by slicing them in half), or just assumed Padme would fix it becasue she is the best politician to ever sit in the Senate.
I suspect the political and governmental repercussions of his actions were completely beyond his thinking. Even after decades as Vader, Anakin still showed remarkably little political maneuvering and solved most of his disagreements with physical dominance (choking advisors who disagreed).
| 43 |
|
Eli5: Why do we feel muscle spasms sometimes when we stay in the same position for an extended period of time but not when we're sleeping?
| 24 |
You don't stay in the same position when you sleep. It may seem that way, but your body constantly shifts its weight off of pressure points throughout the night. This is why people who are found down from strokes or opioid overdoses often have massive pressure ulcers after several hours, but you've never developed a pressure ulcer from sleeping -- even if you're sleeping on a hard surface.
As for muscle spasms, those can be the result of odd positioning (strange tension on a muscle group) or any number of electrolyte abnormalities. Usually it's low potassium, but even dehydration can bring about spasms. You experience these in your sleep as well, but since you're asleep you don't notice. The one major exception to this is the so-called charlie horse in your calves, which tends to DEFINITELY wake people up.
| 14 |
|
ELI5: Corporate & Top 5% Tax Loopholes.
|
Loopholes in the tax code seems to be a hot topic. Can someone break down what one of these loopholes looks like and how it works?
| 34 |
They're not loopholes. That's just a propaganda word people use to confuse things.
There are basically two different things that people sometimes erroneously call loopholes: There are tax deductions, and then there are standard accounting practices.
A tax deduction is anything that you can *spend* money on that *reduces* your taxable income. So say you're an individual — this applies equally well to corporations; we're just keeping it simple — who earns $100,000 in a year. You spend a quarter of that, let's say, on *stuff*, stuff like your mortgage and food and whatever. That leaves you with $75,000 at the end of the year.
Let's *pretend* — this is not how it works, but this is just an example — that your tax rate is a flat 10% of your taxable income, and your taxable income is everything you make in a year. That means in this year, your taxable income is $100,000, and ten percent of that is $10,000, meaning at the end of the year you owe the government $10,000, out of the $75,000 you have on hand.
But the government allows you to *deduct* charitable contributions from your taxable income. Meaning anything you give to charity is *subtracted from* your taxable income for the year. Since you have $75,000 left over at the end of the year, you can write a $50,000 check to your local soup kitchen, let's say. That $50,000 gets *subtracted* from your taxable income, making your taxable income just $50,000, rather than $100,000. Since your tax is 10% of your taxable income, you just reduced your tax bill from $10,000 to $5,000, which is only 5% of your gross income.
Some people just look at the last sentence — you only paid 5% of your gross income in taxes — and think that's unfair, so they call deductions a loophole. In truth, we give tax deductions *hoping people will take advantage of them.* They're *incentives* to get people to do certain things with their money, things like give to charity, or save for their retirement or future health-care needs, or put a kid through college.
The other thing people sometimes mistakenly call "loopholes" are just standard accounting practices. One thing that's been in the news kind of recently is the question of personal income from hedge fund managers. A hedge fund is a type of investment that's managed by a person. That person doesn't get paid a salary; instead, he gets a percentage of the profits the hedge fund makes under his management. Makes sense, right? You're tying the manager's compensation directly to his job performance.
Well, since the hedge fund manager draws no salary and instead takes a percentage from the fund's gain, all his income is taxed at the capital gains tax rate of 15%, not at the income tax rate of (up to) 35%. Some people call this a loophole, but that's just propaganda. Accounting for your income that way is what you're *supposed to do.* It's not a cheat. It's how the system is set up. We can talk about whether the system *should be* set up that way or not, but the fact is that *is* how the system is set up, and the hedge fund manager who reports his income as capital gain is following the rules. If he did it any *other* way he'd be *breaking* the rules, and he'd get in trouble for it.
So basically, whenever you hear somebody say "tax loophole", understand that they're almost certainly talking about things that are built into the system for good reason and which people do because they're supposed to. The phrase does *not* imply that people are cheating the system and getting away with it; it's just supposed make you *think* it implies that, so you can get mad at those dirty cheats … who are in reality just doing exactly and nothing other than what the tax code tells them they're supposed to do.
| 25 |
When classifying a moon, is it based around the relative size to the planet? Or do all moons have to be a certain size or larger?
| 86 |
The word moon clearly describes an object that orbits something other than the main star in a system. Moons are not classified by their mass, size or composition. *Ganymede for example is the biggest one* with a diameter of 5,262 kilometers and we have just found that there are some with only a diameter of 1 kilometers orbiting Jupiter.
Moons are classified by their motion around the object they orbit. That motion could be in same direction or contrary.
| 59 |
|
CMV: If you say you need to be true to yourself, you're doomed for unhappiness when it comes to relationships.
|
I have a good friend who lacks compassion. He insists he needs to be true to himself and do what he feels right, even if it means the woman he loves might be repeatedly unhappy with his actions and leave him. He is unable to see that in order for good relationships to prosper, each party needs to be heard and open to one another's perspectives, even if they might not agree.
If he had compassion, he could weigh the needs of his girlfriend and his own, then try to incorporate them both into his actions.
I get that it's important to act true to yourself when making solitary decisions.
Once you're in a committed relationship, for someone to say they need to be true to themselves, it becomes a one-sided argument. This belief completely shuts down the lines of communication and shifts the dynamic between two people with valued opinions to that of just one perspective with no room for the other. The conversation is over.
This behavior seems to be sabotaging the likelihood of any lasting relationships.
| 16 |
Being true to yourself means don't compromise your identity, your values, and don't be someone you're not to please other people. It does not mean, however, that you ought to do whatever the fuck you want. It doesn't mean your way or the highway. That's not being true to yourself. That's being an asshole.
| 10 |
[Terminator] If skin is required for something to survive time travel, would wrapping objects in skin or putting them in your body allow you to take them back in time with you?
|
Edit: I’m asking more about humans time traveling than about terminators.
| 25 |
Very likely, yes. This is how the Terminators are able to come back at all, and why the TX and other advanced models were able to bring back built-in future weaponry.
Reese describes it as a "field around a living thing," so as long as the flesh was alive, it should be fine.
A pacemaker implanted in a human should come back, but a simple lump of skin, with nothing to provide it nutrients, would probably not have the "living" quality necessary.
This is one of the things that makes the 800 series so remarkable; the flesh is actually alive, and the Terminator has systems capable of sustaining all of its biological functions.
| 28 |
Can someone be infected with different strains of the same virus at the same time? How would these strains interact?
| 49 |
Yes, absolutely! In many cases, the viruses can reassort or trade genes with each other to form different variants. This is especially true in the case of segmented viruses like Influenza or Rotavirus. For example, you get infected with ABCD and EFGH, then someone catches AFCH from you. With non-segmented viruses, the reassortment is more rare, and oftentimes one strain will simply outcompete the other(s). If the strains cause the same symptoms, the presence of two or more strains instead of one does not typically make the symptoms any worse. Two different viruses that cause the same symptoms can sometimes worsen the symptoms, though.
| 77 |
|
[Star Wars: A New Hope] Why doesn't C-3PO recognize Princess Leia on R2-D2's recording?
|
When the *Tantive IV* is attacked by the Empire, 3PO remarks that "there will be no escape for the princess this time", and as Captain Antilles's personal droid, surely he has encountered her before.
However, when Luke stumbles upon R2's recording of her message to Obi-Wan and asks who she is, 3PO responds with "I'm afraid I'm not quite sure, sir". Unlike R2, 3PO has no reason to lie to Luke, so what's with his sudden memory loss?
| 18 |
The real, “canon” answer:
In the Star Wars Radio Drama, which is basically ANH before the editors got to it, there is a lot more background information from well before the Tantive IV was captured. One of those scenes involves 3PO and R2 being instructed by Captain Antilles not to disclose the identity of Princess Leia to anyone.
| 54 |
[TLA] Can airbenders bend the air around another element and "bend" it that way?
|
Can they shift the air around, say, a pice of stone and bend it almost as if an Earthbender would?
| 15 |
It's been done in the first season. Aang air bended a rock to make Katara look like she earth bending.
It wouldn't be as effective. Aang could lift the rock but out requires more effort and it's not as effective as the native Bender.
| 23 |
ELI5: How well did Hitler perform in military terms?
|
If we could put the political layer aside, how well did Adolf Hitler perform in military terms? Was he a 'good' field commander for conquering [this huge area of land](http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080815151102/althistory/images/a/a5/Nazi_Nukes_WI_Map.jpg) or was he a delirious dictator, for waging war on multiple fronts?
| 20 |
The latter, mostly. They had some really strong generals and field commanders, and that served them quite well, but some of the biggest setbacks Germany suffered in the war can be directly traced to Hitler meddling in strategy.
The most visible example was probably his decision, towards the end, to invade the Soviet Union. Russia is a monstrous land that feeds on the broken dreams of would-be conquerors, and though the death toll was completely absurd, Hitler's Germany was no different.
| 48 |
ELI5: What are dissolvable stitches made of and why aren't they used in every medical procedure?
| 26 |
What are they made of? One of the most common are "catgut" stitches (more correctly called sutures) which are made from processed products that come from the intestines of sheep/cows (despite the having "cat" in the name). Others are synthetic (made using chemical processes) polymers (plastics are examples of polymers) that, unlike many familiar plastics, slowly disintegrate when exposed to the body.
Why not use them in every procedure? As these sutures dissolve they progressively lose their strength. In some situations the doctor (and patient!) really does *not* want the stitches to fail. E.g. someone having surgery on their intestines might have a large cut down the middle of their abdomen. It is obviously undesirable for a patient's gut to burst open and spill their intestines onto the floor when they squat down or try to pick up a heavy object. Better to just remove the sutures manually when certain that the wound has healed enough to hold on its own. Other examples are heart surgery where again it is very undesirable for the sutures to give way so maximum security is preferred.
| 34 |
|
ELI5: When earthquake / tsunami hits a region, how are inmates / patients handled in prisons / mental institutions?
|
I read the news that 300 female inmates escaped during the earthquake in Chile. That made me wonder how are such situations handled in such institutions where people are being held? Do they go "Form a line and evacuate in orderly fashion" when everything is shaking around them or just open the cell gates and "everyone run for your life" within prison ground?
| 15 |
Involuntary commitment facilities should have disaster preparedness plans already in place, so it's not like they'll just be winging it.
There are two kinds of natural disasters, relative to your question: sudden and unpredictable ones, and ones you can see coming.
If it's something you can see coming (like a hurricane), someone with the relevant authority (like the warden) will make a risk assessment, and if necessary, conduct an orderly evacuation of the facility according to the disaster plan, until such time as the inmates can be moved back in.
If it's not something you can see coming (earthquake, tsunami), there will still be a plan in a three-ring binder on somebody's shelf, but it will go roughly like this:
* Ahh! What's going on! Freak out!
* As soon as the immediate event has passed (the ground stops shaking), the facility staff will respond.
* If the facility has survived relatively intact or with only minor damage, they'll probably just cope as is, leaving the detainees where they are.
* If the facility is damaged enough to be unsafe, to pose an escape risk, et cetera, but the staff are still able to do their jobs, they will first work to assert control and then, again, conduct an orderly evacuation.
* If the facility is heavily damaged, staff are injured or dead, et cetera, then whoever's able to is most likely going to report the situation to higher authority (state/regional/national government), do whatever they can to protect and secure the detainees, and wait for help to arrive.
It's basically common sense stuff, based on priorities of safety and continued performance of the facility's primary function.
| 10 |
Why do insects fly towards light sources and why don't they try to fly up to the moon/sun?
| 19 |
They use the moon/sun as a reference so they know what direction they are flying in. Sometimes they mistake a light for the moon, but because they are so close to the light, by keeping the light in the same spot in their vision, they end up flying in circles, sort of twirling towards it. Very basic explanation but yeah
| 16 |
|
What's more effective at reflecting heat, a sheet of aluminum that is polished or a sheet of aluminum painted white?
|
I've been wondering if something that was polished to a mirror finish was better at not absorbing heat through light than something painted with pure white paint. Any responses are appreciated!
| 19 |
It very likely depends on the details of your paint and of the light that you want to reflect. Something you see as "white" is going to be broadly reflective of all visible wavelengths, but it may absorb some of the IR or UV spectrum. If the incoming light has significant intensities of those non-visible wavelengths in it (like sunlight does), you may still absorb a lot of energy. Some white paints will likely do a better job at reflecting those than others, and you probably can't see the difference. The mirror finish will probably have similar limitations, as it won't reflect all wavelengths equally. Different methods of polishing might give different results for different wavelengths.
If this is for a practical use, not just a thought experiment, you probably also need to think about other factors, like how the finish holds up to wear. If the brightest, most-reflective finish only lasts for a short time in your target environment before needing to be touched up, it may not be as good for your purpose as a less reflective option that is more durable.
| 14 |
ELI5: what happens in your brain when you are talking and letters get moved around during speech. An example is when I just said "that looks like the Sai of earaun" when I meant to say "the eye of sauron"??
| 77 |
That is called *spoonerism*, for knowledge.
Memory access errors occur in the auditory cortex; and these sounds are likely "placed" close by each other in there due to their relative similarity. When you are trying to recall the word "eye" to use in your head, the neurons firing mix it up with the "Sau-" sound being buffered for use and then boom! Misfire!
Honestly, though, that's pretty much all we know there is to it, a neural firing error. Nothing more specific than that has been known.
| 52 |
|
ELI5: What would happen if we could zoom in with a microscope infinitely? Would we keep seeing more detail or is there a 'cut off' where we can't see any more detail?
| 3,144 |
Let's say you want to look at a Hydrogen atom in the DNA of an animal with your theoretical microscope. At normal zooms, everything looks normal, and as you zoom in on the cell you see more detail of smaller things. You keep zooming and eventually you see the chromosones all coiled up. It's probably around this point that things start to look fuzzy.
As other people have mentioned, seeing smaller things means using smaller wavelengths, and using smaller wavelengths means using more energy. To see smaller and smaller things, you need to put more and more energy into a smaller and smaller space. That doesn't bode well for the strands of DNA you're about to look at! As you keep zooming, you keep throwing photons (or electrons) at the DNA to be able to see it, and as you get closer in, the energy you're adding is enough to break the bonds, breaking the DNA molecule up.
No bother, you're really interesting in that Hydrogen atom! As you get closer, you start to see bumps where the different atoms are, and they may even be moving around each other. These bumps are the electron clouds of the atoms. The electrons exist in the space around the nucleus of the atom, and the amount of space depends on two things: the force between them, and the mass of the electron. If the force between them is large, the space the electrons exist in is smaller. If the electrons had a larger mass, the space the electrons exists in would be smaller. (There are experiments with atoms that contain muons, which are heavier than electrons, and those atoms have smaller muon clouds than electron clouds.)
After a while you get bored of seeing these bumps and clouds, because that's not what you expect. You want to see where the electron is, and what it's made of. You crank up the zoom again and pump some more energy in. That cloud shrinks in size and then disappears from view. The electron hasn't exploded, you've given it enough energy to escape the atom and it's gone. It's a bit like trying to squeeze an oily rubber ball. Squeeze it hard enough and it shoots off in some random direction and is gone forever. Even if you could zoom in on the electron, you'd see no substructure to it. But let's pursue the electron a bit more. Let's say you catch it in an electromagnetic field and can zoom in as much as you want. What would you see? As you zoom in more and more, you pump in more energy. You start to see electrons, positrons, and photons coming out of the region of space where the electron is. What's happening is that the energy you're adding is creating more particles. But still, the electron itself is just a very tiny cloud, so tiny that it looks like a particle. Don't be fooled though, the electron cloud is only small because the forces acting on it (the electromagnetic field) are stronger than the forces acting on it when it was in the atom. The more you zoom in, the more particles you create, and the more variety, but ultimately, you see nothing new in terms of substructure of the electron. How disappointing.
You're not done though. You notice that the Hydrogen atom is still there, and another electron has wandered in to fill the gap left by the previous electron. You zoom in on the Hydrogen atom, this time looking at the proton. The proton cloud is smaller than the electron cloud because the forces holding it together are much stronger. In fact, they are called the "strong force". The proton, like the electron, exists in a small cloud. You crank up the zoom and notice that the proton is wobbling and pulsating slightly. As you zoom in more, this becomes more pronounced. It turns out that the proton does have some substructure! As you crank up the zoom, you notice you can see the cloud actually looks like three sub clouds, all overlapping each other.
You notice that your microscope has a "chargeometer" for measuring electric charge. This is because at these zooms, you are literally firing photons (light particles) at the target and seeing where they bounce off. These light particles interact with electric charge, so the more charge the microscope looks at, the more light particles get reflected back. You point your microscope at the electron cloud to calibrate it and it comes back with a charge reading of -3. Now you point it at the proton again, zoomed out a bit, and it comes back with a charge reading of +3. Interesting... the electron and proton have equal and opposite charge readings. That must be something to do with how atoms form and they are electrically neutral. You zoom in again and try to focus on the sub clouds in the proton. They keep moving about, but you can just about point the chargeometer at them, and you get readings of +2, +2, and -1. It seems that the proton has three smaller particles inside, each with their own cloud, and with different charges. These are in fact the quarks that make up the proton, and you can see them dancing around.
You press on and zoom in even more. As you do so, the dancing of the clouds slows down, and you start to see faint traces of other clouds between them. (The slowing down is because of special relativity and quantum mechanics. Everyone sees the same things happening, but from different perspectives. From the point of view of someone in the "centre of mass" frame of references, the proton and photon move towards each other with equal and opposite momentum. As you crank up the zoom, the photon carries more energy, so in this "centre of mass" frame, the proton has to move faster to match it. The faster the proton moves, the slower time passes for it. You see the outcome of this, not as time slowing down, but as interactions between the photon and proton becoming less frequent.) Essentially, as you crank up the zoom further, you start to "freeze out" the quarks, and their clouds become more distinct.
Around this level of zoom, you also start to notice the other particles around the quarks, known as "gluons". Gluons hold the nucleus together, and they are, as the name suggests "sticky". They don't have electric charge, so you can't see them directly. Instead you see other particles bouncing off them, first the quarks, and then new particles you are creating. This is just like with the electron cloud. You pump in more energy, and you get more particles. You crank up the zoom to see what happens. The proton starts to wobble and the quarks shift apart, It looks like you're about to split the proton apart! But no, a new particle, this time a "pion" shoots out the side, and the proton goes back to how it was before. No matter how much try to zoom in, and give the proton more energy, you will never split it up. You will never separate out a quark or a gluon. Instead you will just create more and more particles. In fact this is how the LHC works. The LHC smashes protons into each other at super high speeds. The quarks and gluons get "frozen out", and as they fly past each other, a tiny fraction interact and make new particles. Of those new particles, an even tinier fraction are the Higgs boson.
You decide to keep zooming. You create more and more particles, until eventually you have a sea of quarks, antiquarks and gluons. This is known as a quark gluon plasma, and it acts like a strange fluid. It's hard to see "inside" it, because the quarks and gluons absorb nearly all the light they produce. You press on further, and see a handful of new particles (W and Z bosons, Higgs bosons, occasionally a neutron or even a Helium nucleus).
Edit: Wow, thanks for all the awards and lovely comments! :D
Edit 2: Clarified the size of the electron cloud and proton cloud vs the size of the electron and proton.
| 4,835 |
|
CMV: If humans colonised mars today, most humans would suffer.
|
We all leave important things like homework/work deadlines/brexit to the last minute.
With mars colonised, the rich and powerful in our race would have an out, a backup one might say.
Suddenly, the pressure being applied to our race by the likely extinction event is removed for those who actually have the ability to make large scale change. They would continue to abuse earth for their own monetary gain.
Most humans would not make it to mars however, most would not be able to afford such a journey and thus climate change, would continue and claim the lives of billions.
Edit to clarify: by colonised, I mean a colony with a reasonable standard of living. One also not dependent on supplies from earth. I see now my choice of wording in the title was poor
| 58 |
I mean how is Mars better than climate change? You have no breathable atmosphere, toxic fine dust as a soil, no readily available water, extremely cold temperatures, no radiation shielding from space. Pretty sure that rich people can make themselves a better safe place here on Earth than on Mars, no matter how bad the climate change gets.
| 23 |
Does Faster Than Light Travel (or even near FTL) equal suicide?
| 27 |
no, it means survival. so long as we are trapped on a single world any alien terrorist could 9-11 our planet with their spaceships. But with FTL drives we can spread until the heat death of the universe.
| 22 |
|
ELI5: Why does our tongue rest at the top of our mouths and not the bottom?
| 29 |
It doesn't for everyone, but if it does for you, then this means you have good oral posture! Your body likely continues to maintain this posture because it has so many good benefits, while resting with your tongue down can cause a lot of problems.
The tongue is a very special muscle because it doesn't have skeletal support (you don't have a tongue bone)- it also has the ability to move in many different ways thanks to it having four internal muscles that run in different directions- this means that your tongue is able to move and rest in a lot of different ways. Just as standing with good posture has benefits, so too does maintaining good oral posture. If you stand with your head slumped, you'll notice that your neck, back, and shoulders hurt a lot! Similarly, if you have bad oral posture you might find that it causes pain/ misalignment in the jaw, shoulders, and neck. This is because the base of your tongue doesn't just float around in your mouth- it is connected to a bone called the hyoid, just under your jaw in your neck, which is connected to your Adam's apple/ wind pipe/ vocal chords in turn by different muscles- your Adam's apple bobbing when you swallow actually helps close off your windpipe to protect your airway! Your facial and neck structures also play into your mouth posture a lot because the mouth is so important for breathing and feeding- two of our most essential functions. In fact, if you rest with your tongue down, you're likely to have a visibly 'weak' chin (which can be improved with improved posturing if it is from tongue placement <'mewing'>- sometimes though, people really do just have small jaws).
Some of the benefits of good oral posture include: preventing dental crowding/ tooth grinding or clenching and therein decay, preventing pain in your jaw joint (TMJ), helping you breathe through your nose instead of your mouth (better for filtering air and also warming it up, which is good for your respiratory system), and maintaining the roof of your mouth (your palate) which is important for swallowing (by closing off the nose)/ helping with chewing and for speech. Your tongue should also be at the top like this when you swallow so resting with your tongue down may make your swallowing less effective unless you have other medical conditions that would make tongue down swallowing safer (like if it takes a longer time to close your windpipe). Finally, bad tongue positioning may be associated with having more middle ear infections because a little tube runs from the back of your mouth to the space behind your eardrum- this helps your ears 'pop' after airplane rides.
| 31 |
|
CMV: Even if climate change is not real or man-caused, all of the acts being recommended to counter it should happen anyway.
|
Abandoning fossil fuels for cleaner alternatives. Regardless of whether they cause global warming, they pollute our cities and destroy the air quality.
Ending deforestation of the rainforests. We want to preserve the habitat of rare animals and the natural beauty.
Improving public transportation. Traffic congestion is a bitch, and if I had a subway or rail system nearby to take me where I needed to go, I would love it. Cars are expensive and require your attention for the duration of your commute.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but definitely the big ones I've seen a lot. It's possible that there's some other action being recommended for climate change that I've overlooked or forgotten.
I don't believe that destroying the coal industry to grow green energy industries is a bad thing. So if you have a view of the financial aspect that's not protecting a certain industry that's more than welcome as well!
Edit: It seems that most people are bringing up economic or financial arguments. I think /u/10ebbor10 argued better than most could as to why this is a good reason, but I don't think any financial or economic argument could sway me. If you've got any negative effects of these acts or other commonly-touted acts that you think I don't know, please still share!
_____
> *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!*
| 1,798 |
Actions are not free.
The cost to avoid climate change is expected to be about 2% of world GDP. This a lot of money, but still smaller than the 5-20% of world GDP that climate change is expected to cost. But if climate change is not there, then you can take other, cheaper actions.
Rather than build new green energy, just invent better filters for current fossil fuels. Filtering pollution is much easier than filtering Co2.
Demolish, rather than build hydropowers dams. Their effect on rivers is devastating, even though they produce much green energy. No biomass powered plants or cars. They may be green (they aren't), but they consume valuable farmland that could go to feeding the poor.
Public transport is likewise very expensive to build. If Co2 is not a factor, there's less incentive to do it.
| 219 |
[Worm]What's Earth Aleph like, knowing there's a portal to a world where superheroes exist and all we do is exchange movies every now and then?
| 20 |
First of all, Earth Aleph isn't quite ours. They do have some capes, but much fewer than Earth Bet and they don't have endbringers. There's a Word of God quote from Wildbow somewhere where he says that the governments of both worlds are actually quite distrustful of each other, and both are on the lookout for any kind of cross dimensional invasion. This mistrust is pretty much the reason why entertainment media is the only thing that is traded through the portal. The timelines of the two Earths had already diverged quite a bit by the time Professor Haywire opened the portal, so it's doubtful there's any real information to be gained.
| 12 |
|
literally have no idea what statistical test to run. I've been up all night and haven't taken statistics in years... help... me....
|
So I'm working on a research project and am trying to figure out whether there is any significant differences between my data. I'm looking at patient cancellations prior to surgery and I'm trying to determine if there is any link between age and the days ahead of surgery that they canceled. Also, similarly looking at the type of procedure and amount of days prior to surgery.
I was supposed to be looking at rates of cancellations, but I can't get access to data for all the patients who were scheduled.
What test should I use? I thought it'd be an ANOVA but, everything I do on excel isn't working... Truthfully, I remember basically nothing about statistics and it's not helping that I didn't sleep last night... got that groggy brain going. Please help!! lol
| 20 |
Let's keep it simple. Age and days ahead of cancellation are both (basically) continuous variables, so a correlation makes sense. If you look at a scatterplot and see a somewhat linear relationship, you might want to find out what line best describes the data. That's linear regression.
Seeing if there's a relationship between procedure type and days ahead is indeed an ANOVA situation (with follow-up pairwise tests if your ANOVA is significant). Make sure the data is formatted the way Excel wants. Good luck!
| 20 |
How are goldfish able to grow in size if their environment becomes larger? And what other species can do this?
| 22 |
It's not really true. It's something pet stores tell you to sell fish. In reality, the growth is stunted, the fish often has health issues as a result and it will die early. It's somewhat akin to feet binding.
Even fish like Bettas should be given at least a few gallons of filtered water, but most stores sell tiny little bowls that they languish in and normally die early deaths. Goldfish actually get quite large and require at least a 55 gallon tank.
| 10 |
|
[Lovecraft] How does Cthulu fit into the wider Lovecraftian universe?
|
As in he is the Gatekeeper in "Call of Cthulu" for the Elder Gods but his role changes as Lovecraft wrote more books... or something.
| 47 |
Cthulhu, like Nyarlathothep, Yog-Sothoth and the others, is an Elder God. Elder Gods are immortal alien beings, only partly comprised of matter as we understand it and unimaginably powerful. They see humanity, inasmuch as they "think" of us at all, as you would see a small anthill in your garden - vaguely interesting little pests who have no way of understanding how powerful you are or what you want.
The only reason why they haven't destroyed us utterly yet is that they're sleeping - hence the Cthulhu Cult invocation "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn", meaning roughly "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming".
Now, some cults have attempted to build a kind of "mythology" around the Elders, giving them roles - Cthulhu as a kind of water elemental, H-stur as its air counterpart, Yog-Sothoth as "The Door And The Key", Nyarlathothep as a sort of Satan-like being (makes deals, changes his physical form, etc), Shub-Niggurath (the Goat with a Thousand Young) as a fertility divinity, etc. These attempts, however, reflect mainly the views of the cultists/hermetists and should be taken with a grain of salt.
For more information, the Miskatonic University library might be able to help - Dr. Armitage is always most helpful to the true scholar.
Further reading:
L. Shrewsbury, *An Investigation into Myth-Patterns of Latter-Day Primitives* and *Cthulhu in the Necronomicon* (unfin., post.)
Dr. M. A. Murray, *The Witch-Cult in Western Europe*
F. von Junzt, *Unaussprechlichen Kulten*
Primary sources:
A. Alrhazed, *Necronomicon*
anon., *Liber Ivonis*
anon., *Pnakotic Manuscripts*
| 42 |
[Marvel] So is the bifrost just a teleaporter? How fast is the bifrost? How does it work?
|
From the movies it seems to be a quick zap and your there. Does heimdall just think of a place and your there?
| 49 |
Per the first Thor movie it creates a wormhole, an Einstein-rosen bridge. When Thor transports Jane to Asgard and when Sif arrives on earth in Agents of Shield you can spot the actual wormhole that the beam travels through if you look carefully. It's not really a teleporter because that would (traditionally) imply travellers are disassembled and then reassembled at their location. Seems more like a super fast space lift or a cannon. It shoots a beam through the fabric of space that travellers can then pass through (and even get knocked out of).
It seems to be nigh-instantaneous, only taking a few seconds for each trip. Since it opens wormholes "speed" might not be all that important.
Heimdall just thinking is essentially how it works in the comics (well, he has to dip his hand in it), but the MCU version seems more technical so there's probably some sort of mechanism there. It seems primarily focused on the 9 realms, but according to Thor: Ragnarok it seems, at least theoretically, capable of reaching anywhere.
And according to the Thor. the Dark World prequel comic it was originally powered (or at least constructed) by the "allfather's power", however you want to interpret that. After it was broken in Thor 1 it was repaired by the Tesseract.
| 38 |
CMV: People care more about how something is said than what is said.
|
Someone who conveys an idea with enough confidence and conviction will most likely be believed by most people regardless of the accuracy of, and evidence to back up, the idea. In contrast, the opposite is also true. In a similar light most people judge a person's character by their presentation rather than their actions and beliefs. An example is when someone unqualified for a position gets hired because they are charismatic. Another example is when someone of either sex claims they care more about personal character than appearance yet fall for those who disrespect them but look good doing it. Another example is when a politician uses an important cause as the backbone for their campaign yet takes no real action to fix the problem.
| 36 |
Won't you need to qualify your CMV of people with "uninformed" / "unsavvy" people.
If a person presents a poorly done research paper in a scientific convention, the expert audience will quickly punch holes into it. If an emotional but ultimately false appeal before an experienced judge will carry little weigh compared to it being presented to a lay person not familiar with the law or charlatans.
In short, the audience matters and a blanket statement like your CMV doesn't really work when the audience is a knowledgeable and expert one.
| 10 |
ELI5: Why do people experience the urge to smoke cigarettes after they have consumed alcohol, yet don't experience these urges when they are sober?
| 27 |
Disinhibition is a well-known side effect if alcohol. This side effect is what makes nice people get into fights and for faithful people to cheat on their partner when drinking. Alcohol increases the likelihood for people to do things that they have a general threshold for avoiding.
Someone who never had smoked would likely never want to smoke without knowing what it was or being offered. But they'd possibly want to do something that they generally avoided but now were disinhibited from the alcohol. Similarly, someone who generally avoided smoking, but enjoyed doing so, would be more likely to want to smoke when drinking because it causes disinhibition and makes people do stupid shit for all of history.
| 24 |
|
[Jumanji] Was Alan's turn skipped? If Sarah didn't run off would she be able to play or would she need to add more players until one of them would roll 5 or 8?
| 47 |
Sarah could have continued playing the game until a 5 or 8 was rolled. Alan while in the Jungle was effectively out of the game and his turns perpetually skipped, so she wouldn't have needed to add other players.
| 31 |
|
Trying to change toxicity in Academia
|
Hello all.
Myself and a group of faculty and students are trying to get together a group of signatures from faculty, postdocs and trainees in multiple institutions in the USA.
Our goal is to ask NIH to make public the names of PIs that have been found guilty and fired (or asked to retire) after being found guilty of harassment (sexual or not).
There are too many stories where PIs move from institutions, repeating the toxic behaviors and maintaining their reputation and ability to keep NIH dollars.
It's time the NIH takes a bold approach at stoping toxic environmemts.
If you want to be part of this movement, please send me a private message.
We plan to make calls for media attention, get in contact with NIH leadership (we have already started this), make a web page and use social media.
We need as many signatures as possible to make our voices heard.
We look forward to hear from you!
| 278 |
This is a terrible idea. The NIH will not defame PIs who have never been convicted of anything in a court of law.
You may as well ask them to make public the names of students who have been found guilty of academic honesty or conduct violations so that PIs know to avoid them.
| 153 |
ELI5: why do people with amnesia not forget their primary language?
| 213 |
Language and memory are stored in different parts of the brain. That's why some types of brain damage can leave you unable to speak without affecting your memory.
Other things unaffected by amnesia are muscle memory and learned skills that don't require memorization, like critical thinking and empathy.
| 333 |
|
[Halo] Who from modern times do you think would make excellent candidates for the Spartan II program?
|
Personally I feel like a trained from six, indoctrinated JJ Watt would make an incredible Spartan. 6'6" and 290 lbs without augmentation while being stronger, faster, and more athletic than most of the world would put him right up the alley of the S2 program. Who else do you guys think could make the cut?
| 41 |
The problem with the S-II program is not that people would be athletic in the future, but that their genes don't destroy them after augmentation. If JJ Watt goes through the program and ends up with an immovable skeleton post-augmentation, a fat lotta good 6 foot 6 inches is gonna do him.
Now, the ODSTs, on the other hand......
| 52 |
[iCarly] So let me get this straight: Carly, Sam, and Freddie have video evidence of Lewbert’s ex-girlfriend being so violent and abusive that she *caused his lifelong hatred of all people*, and their reaction is to just laugh it off and forget about it? What is wrong with these people?
|
Why is Seattle filled with sociopaths, is all I’m asking?
| 50 |
It's never confirmed that Lewbert's antisocial tendencies were caused by Marta.
His mother sends him death threats.
And while some sympathy is warranted, Lewbert's over-the-top assholery is really beyond excuse.
| 26 |
[Star Wars] When not smuggling I indulge my hobby of exploring under-charted space. I think I've hit the jackpot - I discovered a hyperspace trail between two major ports that is three times faster than the usual route. Should I keep this info to myself or is it worth more to sell it? If so, to who?
| 158 |
Keep it to yourself, but make an ornate device to securely hide a holographic map of the route and another to properly translate the encrypted information (which should each be hidden in awesome and dangerous locations). Enjoy your own private highway until the end of your life, and on your deathbed make sure that at least one plucky rogueish-type is there to hear the cryptic story of your hidden map and the hyperspace trail. Not only do you get to profit from your discovery but you can end your story knowing that you've personally instigated at least one spin-off film's worth of misadventure as strange and interesting people search for the devices
| 204 |
|
Explanation for USA's fairly dramatic and sustained drop in daily lab confirmed cases of Covid-19?
|
* [Financial Times Coronavirus tracker](https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=usa&areas=esp&areas=fra&areas=gbr&areas=isr&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=cases)
* [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus)
The US, the UK and Israel have all had very dramatic reductions in the number of lab confirmed cases recently. The US and the UK in particular have seen their numbers decline very steadily since about January 10, and that would suggest that the number of infections started to drop for both of them by about January 1 (given the typical lag between infections and when they turn up in lab confirmed results).
Israel's drop in numbers has been shorter, only about a week, but it has been very dramatic. Such sharp drops are usually due to results being reported late, but in this case the sharp decline has been apparent for over a week now - it's real. Israel has reportedly given the first does of the Pfizer vaccine to at least 37% of their population and their high vaccination rate is probably what is causing this sharp reduction for them.
The UK has been in a fairly strict lockdown for weeks now, and that is the most likely explanation for their rapid and steady drop in lab confirmed numbers.
But the US has seen a drop in daily lab confirmed numbers very similar to the UK's. For when the drop started, it's steepness and for how long it's been going on.
I can't find any reason for why the US's numbers are dropping so quickly. They're vaccination rate isn't that high. They haven't implemented any new strict lockdowns (a football game I listened to for a few minutes last night mentioned that there were only 17,000 fans there but that it was still nearly as loud as when it's at it's 70,000 capacity - that is not a lockdown).
What happened around January 1 that could explain the USA's rapid and sustained decline in daily lab confirmed cases?
TL;DR: The US, UK and Israel all have had very sharp drops in cases. Israel has very high vaccination rate. The UK has strict lockdown. What explains the USA's drop? Timeline suggests January 1 as when the number of infections peaked and started to come down.
| 20 |
Both the US and UK numbers were likely spiking because of infections over the Christmas and New Years holidays. The lack of family gatherings and travel in January would likely cut back on new infections.
Further, many US states are doing lockdowns. California has been a particularly bad hot spot this round and they have largely shut down.
| 51 |
[Marvel/Star Wars] Can Peter Parker pilot a pod racer?
|
In The Phantom Menace, Anakin says that he is the only human that can pilot a pod racer, and it is implied that his connection to the force allows him to react to things before they happen.
Could Peter Parker's spider sense allow him the same advantages?
| 79 |
Yea, Spidy can do it.
Anakin says he's the only human that can do it, but he's a kid, with a kid's understanding of the sport. It's more the case that he's the only human who does do it. Luke and his friends run Beggar's canyon in airspeeders, which isn't that different, given that the canyon is part of the Boonta Classic track. There are also reports later on of humans competing on other planets in the outer rim.
Realistically, it would seem that anybody with sufficient piloting skill, good reflexes, and a knowledge of the track could do it. Spidey could learn piloting and the track, and he definitely has the reflexes for it even before spidey sense kicks in.
| 86 |
Eli5: why are mice the preferred "testing" subjects in scientific experiments?
| 85 |
They are the right combination of breeding quickly, maturing quickly, being easy to care for, being easy to handle, and being close enough to humans to get meaningful results.
We might get slightly more analogous results testing with gorillas, but a 400 pound animal that takes 15 years to mature, has one offspring a year, and that can rip you head off isn't worth it.
| 142 |
|
CMV: Iran getting an atomic bomb would help stabilize the Middle East
|
I stumbled across this idea while working on some undergraduate work and it has marinated over the years. In the Middle East, Israel is the only atomic power, which obviously causes a lot of tension and helps the victimization narrative that many terrorist groups exploit. I think falling behind a strong atomic power like Iran could lead to a more balanced political situation, filling the power void that Iraq left. Also, I think it would look like two equals coming to the table instead of a nuclear Israel and a nuclear West bullying their way around the Middle East.
_____
> *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!*
| 24 |
Iran and Israel are not the only powers in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia would feel very threatened by a nuclear Iran.
In any case, nuclear proliferation is bad whether it's Iran, Israel or Pakistan. Having one more country with the ability to destroy whole cities is not worth easing Iran's tensions over Israel, and certainly not considering how Saudi Arabia will react.
| 21 |
Is there a point at which philosophy becomes to dangerous to be considered “respectable?”
|
I am just wondering if since ethics is something philosophers don’t agree on, is there at least a minimum level of civility or tolerance required to practice modern philosophy?
So, let’s say a modern philosopher were to build upon Thomas Aquinas’ view that heretics (from the Catholic viewpoint) should be killed if they do not refrain from teaching against the faith after admonition. Thomas is obviously a well respected philosopher who is treated seriously, but this view is not one you are likely to see in modern philosophy. But, if someone did seriously bring it up and actively promote some system thorough which those in conflict with the church are killed, could this be considered serious philosophy today? Or is there a minimum standard (don’t promote the killing of people who disagree) of conduct required to practice professional philosophy?
| 84 |
I think philosophy can be regarded as serious no matter what it argues for, so long as it uses rational arguments to advance a position and not just raw ad baculum.
I don't that people deny certain positions because they can't be held in "serious philosophy", but because people culturally no longer accept the premises that that make certain arguments sound. To take your Aquinas example, here is the argument summarized from ST.II.II Q.11 A.3:
If the state has an obligation to seek the good of its citizens including through the coercion and execution of those convicted of crimes (A), and believing in specific doctrines are the only way for those citizens to achieve their greatest good (B), and if heresy is a crime that prevents those citizens from believing specific doctrines (C), then it seems the state has an obligation to execute heretics. (D)
1. A\^B\^C --> D
2. A\^B\^C
∴ D
Now on the face of it, it seems that D does actually follow if A,B and C are true. But today almost everyone denies at least one of A or B or C, and so almost everyone now denies the soundness of this argument. But in Aquinas's time almost his entire audience would have been on board already with all three and so this argument would likely have been persuasive.
And of course in academia there are certain positions that can't be publicly advocated because of cultural pressures, but this doesn't mean that these positions cannot be seriously defended philosophically. Hume's writings would not have been allowed in the universities during the time of High Scholasticism, but this doesn't imply that his philosophy is not serious.
| 76 |
If something bleaches, where does the colour go?
|
When something gets bleached, where does the colour go?
For example plastic toys or printed posters that lose their colour when exposed to the sun, as well as chemical bleached things such as hair or fabrics.
| 44 |
In brief, colour in things like toys, printed objects, hair, etc. comes from molecules that have particular bonding patterns that result in their absorbing certain wavelengths of light. We perceive this as colour.
When those objects are "bleached", those molecules get destroyed (or at least rearranged) so that the bonding patterns responsible for the colour are no longer present.
| 37 |
Why is there more matter than antimatter?
| 3,441 |
We don't know.
This question, often referred to as the "baryon asymmetry problem", is one of the major open questions in elementary physics.
It's natural to assume that matter and antimatter would've been created in equal quantities in the big bang, but the fact that there seems to be a very large imbalance implies that some physical laws apply differently to matter than they do to antimatter. For now, it's an open problem and no complete answer to the baryon asymmetry problem has been found.
So the solution to this problem is left as an exercise to the reader.
| 3,624 |
|
ELI5: If Hitler was a socialist, a leftist political ideology, why are Neo Nazi parties like the Golden Dawn considered the 'far right'?
|
Hitler ran the Nationalist Socialist party in Germany. He admitted to following Marxism, once saying, "I have learned a great deal from Marxism"..."as I do not hesitate to admit."
The Golden Dawn in Greece seems to be a clone of the Nazi party, but is classified as far-right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dawn_political_party
| 181 |
Hitler nearly had to fight a civil war against the german communist party. He did not believe in, nor did he promote collective ownership of capital (*the* core of socialist thought). Communist dissidents were among the first to be persecuted in concentration camps (unsurprisingly since they were the most likely to violently resist the nazi's entering government and then seizing control).
Hitler was not a socialist nor did his party promote socialist policy. He was a nationalist who desired to create a unified German polity not torn by the divisions inherent to liberal democracy.
| 395 |
There are statements floating around online that states "white supremacists should not be allowed a voice" or to present their side on TV. How would the ancient philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, etc react to this? Do they have any similar situations in their times and how were they viewed?
| 18 |
There are a lot of ancient philosophers. It would be a monumental task to write up answers for all of them. One place to start would perhaps be Plato's *Republic*, which has a classic argument in favor of censoring harmful views.
| 27 |
|
ELI5: Why are there so many failed suicide attempts for each suicide death ?
|
There are [apparently](http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/Suicide-DataSheet-a.pdf) 25 unsuccessful suicide attempts for every suicide death.
Why does this happen ?
| 64 |
Part of it is ineffective suicide, meaning the method used in the attempt was not sufficiently lethal to actually kill. The majority of failed suicides are persons who are reaching out for help, and either purposefully or subconsciously use a non-lethal method to signal to others that they need help.
| 77 |
Is there any evidence to support exercise helping to cure an existing minor bacterial or viral infection?
|
Can you "sweat out" a cold, or the flu? Is the immune system positively or negativly influenced by excercise while sick?
| 123 |
The immune system is depressed during exercise, since the body needs resources to deal with other things (namely, the metabolic and physical stress of exercise). Light to moderate exercise, which raises your cardiac output with minimal stress, can help circulate immune cells to the infected regions, but the effects are minimal.
People who are fit tend to have stronger immune systems, which leads to a shorter recovery time, but exercising while sick doesn't improve your condition (and may worsen it). It is important to note that during periods of intense exercise, the immune system may remain depressed until the athlete is fully recovered from their training (which is why constant infections are a symptom of overtraining).
| 27 |
ELI5 why are most motorcycles so much louder than most cars? Shouldn't a bigger motor mean more noise?
|
Walking around the city is crazy how I can always spot a motorcycle but most cars just have a white noise type of sound
| 29 |
Motorcycles don't have to be loud. When they are, it's choice or bad maintenance.
Internal combustion engines are loud. Consider your typical lawnmower. They tend to be a lot louder than cars.
This is curbed with mufflers and controlled exhaust.
This can be easier on cars, which have more space and can carry more weight. This allows more baffles and decompression to occur before the exhaust coming out the back.
This can be changed by choice, as many muscle cars or trucks rumble louder than most cars. Notice also that cars with bad exhaust have sound problems, too.
There is a lot of nonsense about loud exhaust saving lives. The belief is that if you can hear it, you're aware of it. Unfortunately, anyone driving in front of a loud vehicle knows most of its noise is cast backwards, and doesn't meet that bar of helpfulness.
Then it falls to loud exhaust sounding cool or tough or whatever. There are also arguments of the lack of back pressure resulting in performance improvements. For the same reasons muscle cars do this.
I have a motorcycle with a large engine, bigger than some small cars have. It's quiet enough that people hear the tires before they hear the motor.
| 37 |
[Legend of Korra] How is Zaheer so enlightened despite clearly being a psychopath?
|
Don’t get me wrong. Zaheer is definitely enlightened, and unlike the other villains, he doesn’t use his ideology to justify amassing power and control. However, he’s a psychopath, and arguably a little sadistic.
Zaheer has likely killed a lot of people over the years, but there are 3 incidents that distinguish him as extra sadistic and remorseless.
[Exhibit A: That one time he threw a guy who betrayed him into the Fog of Lost Souls](https://youtu.be/mp27sp3MYGo)
If Zaheer had just killed him that would have been one thing, but the Fog of Lost Souls is basically hell. He definitely went overboard there
[Exhibit B: That time when Zaheer laughed as soon as he thought he killed Korra](https://youtu.be/PreU8RaRxiI)
Do I even need to elaborate? Fine. He just brutally murdered a teenager in front of her father and then laughed about it. Even if Zaheer was 100% justified in killing her, that’s just needlessly cruel. This is further reinforced by
[Exhibit C: That time when Zaheer jumpscared Korra and laughed at her for being scared of him](https://youtu.be/EikWHCIVZig)
He’s laughing. He basically triggered Korra’s PTSD that he gave her by almost killing her, and he’s laughing
Now you’re telling me that out of all the airbenders in the thousands of years since Guru Laghima, this asshole is the only one who was enlightened enough to fly?
| 33 |
To be enlightened is to see the material as the meaningless place it is in the face of higher aims.
Ironically, this means being a psychopath might actually help you out here (an idea at least nudged at in many occult traditions, with "the wisdom of madness"). If you *already* don't care about things, that's a good third of the way there.
| 55 |
CMV: If you break into someone's home, you forfeit your right to live.
|
First, I should probably say I'm in the U.S., and whole heartedly believe in the right to bear arms, and the right to defend yourself, your family, and your property.
I read a story about a guy that is serving a life sentence for killing 2 people that broke into his home multiple times. They stole guns, money, jewellery, etc.
The 2 burglars were 17 and 18. Now, if you're that young I could MAYBE say, OK, it only happened once, return the stuff pay for any damages and don't do it again, however they broke in multiple times (at least twice, but I've heard other numbers). The last time the homeowner happened to be there, and shot both of them when they came into the basement where he was.
The prosecution said that the homeowner baited the teens by parking his truck down the street to make it appear as if he wasn't home. So does this mean that B&E is justified if I'm not home or parked down the street?
This is apparantly an old case but I just heard about it recently.
[Article](https://amp-usatoday-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/8480047?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE%3D#aoh=15762850740016&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fnation%2F2014%2F04%2F29%2Fminnesota-homeowner-kills-teens%2F8480047%2F)
Obviously, I'm not saying you can just kill indiscriminately on your property and say the victim broke in, but if you can prove the person was in your home uninvited you have the right to defend your stuff.
Edit/Amendment: I guess you could say my view is changed because this differs from my title, but at the same time I've always felt this. If your house gets broken into and you know 100% for a fact that the person breaking in is not there with malicious intent* and you kill them, that is murder, you are guilty of murder. This is pretty much what I meant when I said you can't kill indiscriminately.
*Malicious intent: the person breaking in is there to steal your stuff/ harm you or your family.
I personally would try to find an alternative method of dealing with an intruder, killing would not be my first choice.
Edit 2: Ok, bad example. There were facts about this case that I did not see in the articles I read, I've changed my view on the example, that guy was guilty of murder. However, my overall point still stands.
Edit 3: I thought I said this in one of my other edits but I guess I only said it in my comments, my original thought when I said "break in" I was thinking of a home invasion or robbery. Someone breaking in while you are home, this is different from just burglary, where you are most likely not home when it occurs. (I'm not even 100% sure if its called burglary when you are home, I think its either home invasion or robbery.)
| 35 |
if that man in that case knew the teenagers he killed were going to be there, and he chose to shoot them fatally instead of setting up cctv to catch their faces and/or contacting law enforcement, that was premeditated murder.
the issue is not whether the b&e was justified, it's whether or not he planned for those children to be there. he did not fear for his life. he had other options. he deliberately made it inviting for them to break into his house in order to kill them.
why are americans so eager to kill people though, seriously. you don't have pepper spray? you don't have tasers? you have to have a killing weapon in your house? you expect the possibility of killing someone and you're okay with that?
| 24 |
ELI5:Exactly what does a conductor do in an orchestra? Why is he so important?
| 27 |
If you look at crowds when they have to clap at the same time, it's never really in synch, there is always some people clapping too early and some clapping late.
If the singer/entertainer takes the time to clap, the claps get a lot more synched, that's because everyone pays attention to one person's predictable gestures and time their clap with it.
The conductor swings his stick in a way that every musician can time the notes in a predictable way.
He also tells some musician when a side of the band isn't loud enough or one instrument doesn't sound right.
| 29 |
|
CMV: Just as we should hold police to a higher standards, we should hold communities to a higher standard.
|
I am completely on board with the idea of revamping the police force. I feel they are too quick to draw their guns and fire. I believe that we should hold police to higher standards and deliver proper indictments when the shooting was unjustified.
However, I also believe that we should hold communities affected by police brutality to a higher standard as well. It is very easy to point at the cop who shot the unarmed man and blame him/her for this egregious injustice. However, some of the responsibility needs to fall on these communities. The types of neighborhoods most affected by this are low-income, inner-city neighborhoods. A major reason that there is so much police presence and tension in these areas is become the crime rates are so high. People are selling drugs, dropping out of school to join gangs, fighting in the streets, waiving their guns around, etc. If these people cleaned up their streets and did the right thing the police would have no reason to harass them.
I believe that making this into a race issue is the easy way out. It's a good way to make headlines and a good reason to riot. However, I think this issue runs deeper. My community has a large percentage of minorities, but we do not have any issues with police because we are law-abiding citizens.
To repeat, I do not think we should have to fear the police or risk being shot for no good reason. However, part of the reason this problem even exists is because of the reputation of low-income, high-crime communities.
_____
> *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!*
| 18 |
Communities do not wield even a fraction of the power a police department have. The whole point of holding police officers to a higher standard is because they're wielding considerable power, apparently including "legal harassment" if we believe you, and seem to escape most kind of prosecution.
| 15 |
ELI5: How did absolute monarchs like Louis XIV keep their power and not be assassinated?
|
Louis XIV believed he was the state and reigned for more than 70 years. He had rituals where over 100 servants would help him wake up in the mornings and sleep at night. How were absolute monarchs able to keep their power and not be assassinated? If just a few of these servants had a grudge against him, then he would be overthrown. Were the people all brainwashed to believe he was the Sun King and actually wanted him as an absolute ruler or were they too scared to do anything about it?
| 20 |
His biggest strength was that for all his ridiculous pomp, the country *worked*. Yes, there's always the risk of one random guy getting pissed off and murdering you, but ultimately, that's true of literally anyone ever.
And remember, while he's the poster child for "absolute monarch", that doesn't necessarily mean he was a tyrant full time. As long as he kept from pissing anyone off too too much, and kept a close eye on the people who could be threats, he's in the clear.
Further, you do need to keep in mind that assassination isn't always a super viable tactic. So we kill Louis 14. What happens? Someone else just takes his place and the world keeps on spinning. Unless the system itself is on shakey ground, assassination doesn't usually wind up accomplishing anything, so why risk it?
Edit: And of course, people believed in the idea of monarchy. There were a lot of people who likely believed that the king did actually have divine right to rule. Even if you didn't buy into that idea in and of itself, it would still feel very natural to be ruled by a king, given that pretty much all of Europe was governed that way.
| 11 |
[The Hateful Eight] What the FUCK did Jody Domingre do to be worth $50,000
|
fifty grand in 1871 would be like a million in today's money. As far as I can tell nobody else in the eighteenth century except John Wilkes Booth (who is referenced in the movie as the sort of the high end of what a bounty can be) had that high of a bounty.
So why was ody worth that much?
| 56 |
Like most very high bounties today for outlaws she was running a criminal organization.
She wasnt the trigger man she was organizing them to rob banks, rape murder kill etc. Her gang was most likely very successful and ruthless.
Or she killed the wrong person and someone with money and influence put up a ridiculous bounty on her to make their lives as difficult as possible.
Its hard to commit crime when any town you enter immediately turns on you for a lifetimes worth of money.
| 58 |
ELI5 How do animals get castrated with little to no reaction?
|
I saw a youtube video of a bull getting his balls twisted off with a tool used for castration (it was basically a hand drill) and he didn't even flinch or make any noise. Not to mention he just walked it off and there was little to no bleeding. Would a man bleed out if he had this done to him and how are animals so resistant to testicular pain.
| 15 |
Animals react to pain differently than humans do; you can’t anthropomorphize them and expect them to wail and moan like a human would. There is a lot of research suggesting that animals who undergo castration and other painful techniques react differently to certain types of procedures later in life, indicating that they do feel profound pain. It just looks different to humans because they evince pain differently.
| 36 |
ELI5: In Windows, why can't you use certain symbols when you create a folder name?
| 342 |
Some characters are reserved so complete path names (e.g. c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe) can be parsed into their drive letter and path components. Colons are reserved because they are used to denote drive letters and alternate data streams. Backslashes and slashes are reserved because they denote the end of a folder name. Double quotation marks (") are reserved because they are used in some contexts to enclose filenames that contain spaces.
All other reserved symbols (? < > * | and others) are reserved for historical reasons.
| 140 |
|
ELI5: How can ozone layer repair itself?
| 28 |
The sun's rays split O*_2_* molecules into free Oxygen Atoms, these Atoms bind to other O*_2_* atoms to form O*_3_*. It's constantly doing this and the ozone molecules are also constantly breaking down. Just in the past we released a bunch of stuff that caused it to break down faster. Now that we've banned a lot of those chemicals, they aren't being released, so the Ozone layer isn't breaking down as fast as it used to.
| 15 |
|
ELI5: What would happen if we could squeeze water?
|
I was making myself a smoothie and as I've seen the volume raising after the fruits were all cut up, I wondered: what would happen if there was a blender made of iron and sealed so tight the water would have nowhere else to go as it increases in volume. Like, would it blend in with itself and become thicker?
| 17 |
If you could raise the pressure high enough, keeping the temperature constant, it would become ice. It requires intense pressure though. Just blending a smoothie would not do it. Water does not really change much under pressure, the water at the bottom of the ocean is still water after all.
| 20 |
[Star Wars] What happened on Coruscant between the founding of the Empire and Andor?
|
Wonder how long it took the Empire to reconstruct the upper levels and change the architecture of the buildings.
When did the process start and what actually happened during it? And what happened with the inhabitants during that time?
| 19 |
The empire did very little to change the planet and the city. Most of their changes were establishing large military centers permanently where the GAR had had temporary installations. And a lot of iconography and propaganda slapped on. The largest change that had taken place was turning the Jedi temple into a palace for the emperor and a headquarters for the inquisition. Everything else we've seen that's different is just because we're seeing parts of the planet the Jedi rarely visited in the prequels and clone wars.
For the people of coruscant most only noticed the local police forces changing their uniforms and a larger military presence. And those on the lower levels didn't notice much of a change at all beyond certain goods being more restricted and harder to get from the surface levels..
| 27 |
CMV: If you're anti-establishment/anti-government, you have no right to reap any of the benefits from society.
|
I see people, usually younger people, who are anti-police/anti-government/anti-establishment. These same people will reap the benefits of the society they are denouncing. If in trouble, they will rely on the same police they say are evil/terrible. They'll get benefits from the government, etc. etc.
Generally, anyone who complains about how evil society and the government is has no right to reap any of the benefits and they should pop on over to a different societal structure that more neatly aligns with their worldview.
_____
> *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!*
| 15 |
It's not unreasonable to accept that for now, the social contract says one thing, and to enjoy the benefits of it, while simultaneously saying that we would be better off with a different one.
It's like you're saying that someone who wishes they could get Verizon cable shouldn't use the Comcast service they presently have.
| 29 |
CMV: You shouldn't watch porn.
|
I really think porn is a bad thing. Note: I may be a little biased because I’m personally trying to quit, so that might make me turn it into a scapegoat. I'll try and put that aside for now. Also, there’s a lot of sort of pseudo-neurosciency claims out there about alpha-proteins in the brain or stuff, as well as some unsubstantiated arguments about porn provoking violence (“gateway” logic). I'll avoid these arguments in my statement.
Here are my arguments:
The porn industry is exploitative and harmful to young men and women. Actors may be broke and desperate. They may be coerced. http://www.upworthy.com/theyre-naive-and-inexperienced-thats-why-porn-producers-want-them. The actors may be mentally ill—see August Ames’s death. When you watch porn you support the industry (even free videos = advertising dollars).
Sex is a hugely powerful natural stimulus (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution lol). There are sex addicts. Porn is just sexual stimuli. By this logic, there are also porn addicts. (large communities if you believe reddit). Many things can be addictive, but I’d argue porn is not a healthy addiction (like say exercise, or peanut butter or something).
1. Porn is accessible at the click of a button, unlike many addictive drugs. This means everyone is exposed to it, and it’s going to be really hard to quit if you do get addicted.
2. Any addiction comes with increasing tolerance. This leads to needing a “better high” and towards more and more deviant stuff. This then means decreased reaction to ‘natural’ stimuli, like the girls in your class or something. You may be ok with this if you don’t want to have sex, but I imagine this doesn’t apply to many people who are watching porn.
Both these things are doubly harmful if you run across it early. There is strong evidence that addictions are harder to break if you start them in adolescence. Combine this with a developing sexuality and a developing prefrontal cortex (= bad judgement), and it doesn’t take Sherlock to know porn is bad.
Note: One thing I didn’t cover here is the gender difference. I imagine women are at much lower risk of porn addiction.
To sum up, porn is an unhealthy addiction and the industry is exploitative.
edit:
*Argument 2. I don't think there's anything wrong with kinks or deviancy. I'm not moralizing here. I'm saying that porn addiction decreases tolerance hence decreased sexual reactivity. Those who aren't addicted will have totally different levels of sexual reactivity.*
*That means your ability to have healthy sexual (and by extension romantic) relationships will be harmed. Imagine if you partake in cocaine or alcohol or running with an addict.*
*Note: the counter is obvious. just have a relationship with another addict. but this is nitpicking (and who's to say you'll have the same kinks).*
_____
> *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!*
| 27 |
Point One: You can do your due diligence and find porn filmed by people who are paid well and enjoy their work. You can watch amateur porn. You can go to an extremely popular cam-girl (or cam-boy?), who could quit yesterday and have lots of money to fall back on. There are more ways to mitigate the exploitation aspect with every passing day.
Point Two: Porn has benefits that outweigh the risks.
- you can 'try on' different sexual practices without the commitment of going out into the world and finding a partner. (Imagine going to a kink party to explore BDSM and realizing mid-scene that nope, this isn't for you. It's a lot easier and less traumatic to backspace out of a video.)
- you can learn new techniques. Yes, there are educational porn videos, hosted by women, queer folks, men, etc. This is the much better alternative to fumbling around with a partner blind.
- it's a sexual outlet for people who can't date yet. Maybe they're not out. Maybe they're in a restrictive religious community. Seeing reasonably happy, healthy sexuality (like amateur porn portrays) might be a psychological lifeline.
- you can see different body-types portrayed as sexy. If you look at amateur porn or indie/ethical porn, there's a really great chance you'll encounter someone who looks like you having a good time naked. Again, this carries psychological benefits.
Depending on the person, any or all of these could significantly outweigh the risks of addiction.
| 33 |
How would an anarchic society, which is based on cooperation between individuals and a lack of hierarchy, deal with the 'bad' people?
|
There will always be individuals that have a psychological need to do harm to others in various ways. They can be labelled as 'bad' by the society as a whole just from an ethical standpoint (since legality is not a valid reason in this context).
How can an anarchic society get rid of said individuals if there are no rules (or no one to enforce them, since just the existence of enforcers would generate a new hierarchy)?
| 101 |
Anarchists have formed successful military organizations, and they could likely form successful public safety organizations as well. These would have to be carefully run under transparent, democratic procedures, as one could readily imagine the potential for corruption.
| 34 |
Is the phenomenon of 'photographic memory' real? If so what were the differences of the brain of the individual from an average individual?
|
If the phenomenon is real, are there perceived differences in the brain, body and behavior of the individuals that have it?
| 59 |
There's never been evidence of "true" photographic memory. In the sense of remembering general information in high detail for long periods of time, without the need for repeated viewings or mnemonic devices, or specialized knowledge.
But there are definitely instances of fast and highly accurate specialized memory. For example people can learn to have very good memory for sequences of numbers, words on the page of a book, sequences of chess moves, lists of names, directions, etc. But not in a general sense, and often not with one viewing. There's also hyperthymesia where people can have highly detailed autobiographical memory.
Like with the guys who could memorize chess positions immediately, and play chess without a board, would not be able to do it for nonsensical chess positions. They're effectively relying on their knowledge of sane chess moves and strategies to compress piece positions so they don't have to memorize as much to rebuild the positions with their knowledge of common chess patterns. Or with hyperthymesia it doesn't extend to stuff the person finds personally significant, and is a subconscious process. Wouldn't help for trying to memorize state capitals.
There are cases for eidectic memory which is the ability to remember a scene in exact detail for a short period of time. Which in turn would let them have more time to memorize/analyze/sketch a scene with only a short viewing.
| 52 |
[WH40k] What does the recruiting process for the space marine chapters entail?
|
What qualities do they look for? Who does the recruiting? Do the various chapters look for different things?
| 26 |
It varies by the chapter but in general they're all looking for strong young men who already represent the very best their people have to offer. A lot of chapters make their home on worlds where life is not easy. Environmental hardship, frequent warfare, it doesn't matter as long as there's a natural selection going on to make the natives hard and strong.
Most chapters have a periodic recruitment run every decade or every few decades. Some chapters have the locals organise contests where their fittest men compete in a variety of events under the watchful eyes of space marines. Other chapters simply look for men who have been successful in battle or who have other achievements of physical excellence.
As long as the candidates meet the physical requirements, the marines care little about their personalities. Psycho conditioning takes care of that.
For example the blood angels recruit on Baal, an irradiated wasteland of a planet. The Space Hulk game describes the various members of the terminator squad and they're quite diverse. One man used to be a psychotic gang member while another was a wasteland nomad. One of them is an artist while yet another is so dull witted that the rest of the squad jokes he's a servitor promoted by mistake.
In the end, the main quality candidates need is the physical peak condition to survive the surgeries, gene therapy, psychoconditioning and training that brings them from initiate to neophyte to fully fledged marine. Even the exemplary men selected by the marines usually don't survive.
| 35 |
[Die Hard/Ocean’s 11] Could’ve Danny Ocean’s crew pulled off the Nakatomi Plaza heist in a non-violent way?
|
Something I’ve always wondered about these these two series is of the Ocean’s crew could pull off the heists in the Die Hard movies in a typical non violent manner. Ocean’s crew normally give back generously to the people they involve in their heists, whereas most Die Hard villains just kill innocent people all the time.
Could the Ocean’s crew pull off the same heist, but not hurt anyone? Or is violence the only way to get that vault open?
| 166 |
Absolutely. They would socially engineer the entire thing and infiltrate Nakatomi at all levels.
They could discover Takagi's password through subterfuge or simply placing a camera above his desk. The tech guys would brute force opens the other locks.
For the magnetic seal, they'd make mock videos of a terrorist takeover. Cops would show up and set up a perimeter. Then Danny and maybe Rusty or Linus would pose as FBI agents. They'd take over the operation from the LAPD and order the power grid down.
When the SWAT team finally bursts in, they'd find the Nakatomi Christmas party in full swing and Holly and Takagi would be confused, saying there were never any terrorists. Dwayne T. Robinson would be left scratching his head at what happened.
The funny thing is that McClane would probably be an antagonist in this. He'd know Danny from his time working RICO in NY. He's jealous of him flirting with his wife and when he sees him at the party, he'd know something was up. He'd spend his time sleuthing, trying to figure out what Ocean is up to, and then get caught flat-footed when the other cops show up.
| 237 |
[Pokemon] What happens if a pokemon is involved in a murder?
|
If someone is found to be murdered and its found a pokemon was apart of it, whether they killed the person or something else which made them accomplice what happens to the pokemon? Is it sent to pokemon jail? Or given to someone else? Could it be argued the pokemon was simply acting on its trainers orders?
| 33 |
In the anime, they seem to be sapient, so there's a good chance of them going to jail. In the games, they seem more like animals, and they'd be considered little more than murder weapons, but be put down just to stay on the safe side
| 18 |
(Avatar series) what are the environmental and geological consequences of the eventually planetary population boom? As Earth Kingdom industrializes, will a growing population of earth benders lead to climate change or possible global geological disturbances?
| 21 |
Given the world's tendencies towards war, a planetary population boom is far from inevitable. That said, the planet is smaller than Earth, and also, the land masses are a bit more concentrated, such that approximately half the planet is one giant ocean. Assuming the Lion Turtle was indeed the last one, they'll eventually need to find ways to build on the water and survive. Humans settling in the spirit world is also likely. After that? Space exploration. Bending really allows for mitigating geological problems, and global warming probably isn't a concern since most of their energy comes from lightning benders, not coal or oil.
| 14 |
|
ELI5: Why do car tires squeal when you turn corners in parking garages even at very low speeds?
| 29 |
The floors are sealed with a material that is very grippy, much more so than concrete or asphalt. Your tires don’t roll perfect when turning, the edges slip, on most roads there’s a bit of give, pebbles or sand/dust, and these materials allow the edges of the tire to slide. On the floor seal the rubber slips and vibrates at a frequency that causes the sound you hear.
Rub a balloon and it’s squeaky, rub a balloon with a handful of sand and it’s not squeaky. Same thing.
| 44 |
|
How does Saturn's moon Titan have oil? Was there life?
|
So they discovered oil on Titan. My question is how was the oil formed there? On earth it was formed because of plant and animal matter decaying? What process is at work for Titan?
| 251 |
Titan has hydrocarbons which are found in petroleum but they have a different origin in that they are abiogenesis - that is created without life. Instead Titan formed with a large complement of methane which us sensitive to UV light from the Sun. Over millions of years, methane molecules have one or more hydrogen atoms cleaved off by a UV photon to create a highly reactive methyl radical which on occasion will react with another methyl to form ethane, ethane can lose a hydrogen to become an ethyl radical which can then react to form heavier hydrocarbons. The heaviest molecules form a thick smog which eventually condenses on the surface.
The same process is responsible for the red or brown colours of the outer icy moons in the solar system as well as the very dark colour of comets.
It has been proposed that some oil on Earth is of abiogenic origin and comes from the Mantle, but the evidence for it is lacking.
| 150 |
[Marvel/X-Men] How can I, a regular human, see my family in Krakoa?
|
I married a mutant and as a result, all of our children have the x-gene.
My wife has kept her mutant status and abilities a secret due to social stigma and for the safety of the kids.
A couple weeks ago, I let it slip at work that my wife and kids are mutants and a week later, our home was burned down. My wife decided to flee to Krakoa with the kids while I fix things up on our end.
I just now got our stuff fixed up (wills, bank accounts, etc), but I just found out I can’t join my family in Krakoa. How can I see them again?
| 51 |
So, um, this is awkward. See, humans can move to Krakoa if their mutant relatives approve. Northstar's got his regular human husband living there for instance. So there's two options.
First, that the various paperwork needed to get you permission to be a permanent resident on Krakoa with your wife and kids might not have gone through yet, and that soon she'll come back and be able to take you to a portal to your new home.
The second is that she's found some hot new mutant guy on Krakoa, forgotten all about you, and the kids now love their new superpowered mutant step-father, and are totally okay with leaving you behind.
I'll be hoping it's the first, and that the various leaders of Krakoa approve your permanent resident status, but well, a lot of mutants are ridiculously good looking...
| 59 |
[DC] Are there limits to what the Lazarus pits can bring you back from?
|
Just as an example: let's say your heart or head is missing....am I going to stay a corpse of is a nice dunk going to bring me back?
| 21 |
Lazarus pits have brought back whole corpses, dismembered corpses, decomposed corpses, even cremated corpses...but they've never yet brought back someone that has been eaten and digested. Which is why Wayne Industries should invest in a pig farm.
| 29 |
ELI5: Why is there still controversy over vaccines?
|
The idea that "vaccines cause autism" was created by a fraud, and now dis-barred doctor. There are no studies supporting it. How is this still a thing?
| 24 |
Because of confirmation bias. The internet is large enough, and people are good enough at self-selecting information that confirms their own bias, that it's relatively simple to just remain in a self-affirming corner (read: circlejerk and/or hugbox) where everyone who disagrees with you is an idiot.
| 42 |
What biologically occurs in the brain and the genitals during an orgasm?
|
What is happening in the body exactly? I would assume the brain and genitals work in tandem, but they don't always do so. For example, someone can orgasm during rape, or someone can have an orgasm without genital stimulation based on thought. How is that the two can work independently of one another yet still produce the same sensation? And how exactly do they work together?
| 603 |
There have been very few studies correlating orgasm and brain activity in real time, owing to cultural barriers and technical difficulties. However a series of studies conducted by Gert Holstege and his colleagues at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have established physiological characteristics which are unique to orgasm, including brain activity, as well as variation in the responses between men and women.
One study examined 12 healthy women using a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner while they were being stimulated by their partners. Brain changes were observed and compared between states of rest, sexual stimulation, faked orgasm, and actual orgasm. "Differences were reported on the brain changes associated with men and women during stimulation. However, the same changes in brain activity were observed in both sexes in which the brain regions associated with behavioral control, fear and anxiety shut down. Regarding these changes, Holstege said in an interview with The Times, "What this means is that deactivation, letting go of all fear and anxiety, might be the most important thing, even necessary, to have an orgasm."[82]
During stroking of the clitoris, the parts of the female brain responsible for processing fear, anxiety and behavioral control start to relax and reduce in activity. This reaches a peak at orgasm when the female brain’s emotion centers are effectively closed down to produce an almost trance-like state. Holstege is quoted as saying, at the 2005 meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Development: "At the moment of orgasm, women do not have any emotional feelings."[83]
Initial reports indicated it was difficult to observe the effects of orgasm on men using PET scan, because the duration of male orgasm was much shorter. However, a subsequent report by Rudie Kortekaas, et al. stated, "Gender commonalities were most evident during orgasm... From these results, we conclude that during the sexual act, differential brain responses across genders are principally related to the stimulatory (plateau) phase and not to the orgasmic phase itself."[4]
Source: Wikipedia
| 473 |
Eli5 Why do they pay you to donate plasma but not blood.
|
I always hear about people donating plasma to get some extra cash and it made me wonder, what makes plasma more valuable than whole blood. Or is there some other reason that companies are willing to pay for one and not the other?
| 41 |
While both are valuable, and paying for blood is actually legal in the US if it's labeled, paying for blood is considered riskier and less ethical, and thus not done. Plasma can be processed more aggressively to get rid of blood-borne infections like HIV and hep C, so it barely matters where it came from. Whole blood/red cells can't be treated as roughly, so it's much more important to ensure that there's no virus in the blood to begin with.
Evidence suggests that volunteer donations are less likely to be contaminated than paid donations. While there's a lot of testing to prevent contaminated blood from entering the supply, the people in charge don't like taking any extra risks (no test is perfect when we're talking about millions and millions of donations.)
| 90 |
[The Walking Dead] How are the walkers strong enough to rip people apart?
|
How are the walkers (who are literally decaying) have the strength to rip people/horses and what not apart?
| 18 |
People are much stronger than you realize. Our muscles are unconsciously limited so we don't hurt ourselves, but that's how with adrenaline rushes people can lift cars off kids and shit. Walkers don't have the unconscious self preservation instinct so they are stronger.
| 27 |
ELI5 Why was I taught to always rationalize a denominator?
|
I was taught to write sin(45) as sqrt2 / 2. Why can't I write 1/sqrt2? It's easier to put into equations the second way.
| 19 |
It's fine to write it the other way, if you're doing something purely symbolical it's a question of aesthetics.
However, one reason is that if you approximate sqrt 2 numerically, it's far easier to divide a decimal (non-integer) number by an integer than to divide an integer by a decimal number. This is the case in for example computers, it's much quicker to divide by an integer.
| 16 |
CMV: The most useful thing to teach children is to follow instructions.
|
The truth is, whatever you want to achieve with your life, from getting a certain kind of job to changing your body shape, the answers are out there these days and accessible to all.
As long as you can evaluate who to trust (that's the second most important thing to teach children) the most important thing is to create a next generation who can follow those instructions.
Time and time again I have seen children who are unwilling to follow the advice of people who have been there and done it and know exactly how to help you get there. We bring up children to over-value originality to the extent that they feel they have to be doing everything for the first time. Children think that following someone's decent advice is somehow a sign of weakness. We are generating egos which are actually limiting what children can achieve.
I'm not suggesting blind obedience. Evaluative skills are also extremely important. But we need to bring up children who are willing to submit themselves to people who are more experienced, rather than seeing themselves as creating everything anew.
(This isn't to shut down change. It's inevitable that as you work through someone else's advice you see its weaknesses and seek to improve it.)
**EDIT To clarify, I'm not talking about rule-following. Maybe my title is badly worded but, as I hope is clear from the body of my post, I'm talking more about willingness to follow advice.**
_____
> *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!*
| 16 |
Teaching kids to follow instructions directly contradicts the idea that they should question things. This is bad for the pursuit of science, since all science is the result of curious people asking "why?", often much to the anger of those in charge.
It also makes it easier for authority figures (particularly government agents) to coerce people into behaving contrary to their best interest (by incriminating themselves without proper legal advice) or committing acts without second guessing that one would otherwise find objectionable (like ratting out the hiding places of Jews to the SS).
| 36 |
[Animorphs] Could the Andalites just tell all the humans what's going on?
|
Could an Andalite ship fly near the Earth and broadcast a message across TV signals or something, telling humanity about the war and the Yeerks slowly taking them over?
I realize not everyone would believe them, and there would be tons of debate over whether humans could trust these random blue aliens, but just putting the information out there would at least sew doubt. Enough people would believe them to start a real investigation, which might lead to significant resistance. The Yeerk operations on Earth might at least become more difficult if the humans were given some kind of clue of their existence and what they're up to.
| 63 |
The problem is, it'd just turn it from a cold war into a hot one. Earth would become a bloody, burning battlefield. There'd be intense mistrust of each other by every human, it'd be very difficult to organize any sort of defense when everybody else could be affected. Not to mention that we'd be caught between two warring space superpowers. All the F-16s and aircraft carriers we have couldn't take down one of their starships.
| 50 |
[Star Wars: Last Jedi] Why is Rey a jedi at heart acccording to Snoke?
|
In episode 6 of star wars, Palpatine wanted Luke to strike him down with rage as that was the way of the dark side and would cause Luke to fall to it. He even goaded him similar to Snoke by telling him, that his friends were all going to die and the rebels would be destroyed.
In episode 8, Snoke shows Rey the resistance getting blown up, one pod at a time by his destroyers and goads her into attacking him. Rey goes into a rage, and uses her force powers to grab a lightsaber then lunges at him. Snoke counters her by force pushing her then taunts that from that action she truly has the heart of a Jedi. Yet, according to episode 6, this is the exact opposite of a Jedi action as this was an act of vengeance/hatred which was more aligned to Sith way of fighting (hence why form 7 was used often by Siths).
| 60 |
Snoke is not a Jedi, and does not think particularly highly of Jedi. He's attempting to make the point that the peace and nobility of the Jedi is a front, and that when pushed they lash out with violence.
| 87 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.