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ELI5: What kind of information do dogs get from sniffing each other's butts? Why do they do it? | 51 | Dogs have sweet smelling anal sacs and the scent of which is unique to each individual dog. It's a way dogs can get to know each other. Dogs can also identify other dogs they've met by sniffing the feces or urine they've left behind and it's why most dogs seem to wipe their feet after peeing or pooping. They sweat through their foots pads and it smears their own scent over the territory they've claimed. | 22 |
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[DC/Marvel] If Superman were to don the "black suit" a.k.a Venom, would he still be affected by Kryptonite? | Would he have the weaknesses that he usually has? We know for spiderman it enhanced him, I don't know how it would enhance Supes, since he's well.....pretty powerful already. | 134 | Quick look through Venom's wiki page doesn't show any protection from radiation, which means that kryptonite would still get through. In fact, if that's a corrupted evil Venom, it might be even beneficial to it, weakening Superman enough to get a proper hold on his mind. Then Venom would be able to use it's own tendrils to get rid of it and then continue as all-new all-venomized Superman. | 129 |
[Star Wars] Why didn't Anakin get freaked out when Palpatine told him about Darth Plagueis in such a creepy way? | I would think he would have wondered why Palpatine knows such things and why he would bring it up in conversation out of nowhere? Wouldn't he have at least told Obi-Wan that Palpatine was acting strange today? | 56 | He does, he figures the whole thing out and goes to Mace Windu about it (Obi Wan was on Utapau at the time).
The reason it takes so long is that Plapatine was one of Anakin's most trusted confidants, he had been mentoring the young Jedi for years. Palpatine supported him when the jedi did not. Furthermore, he touches on something Anakin most wanted to hear. When Yoda is telling him to let go, Palpatine says "oh yeah, you can totally stop people from dying". | 70 |
Eli5: why does a scissor not work for left handed people but does for right handed? | 34 | scissors are actually made for right handed people typically, it's the way the right hand applies pressure on the handle aligns the blades. When you try and use your left hand, the blades separate and nothing cuts. | 40 |
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CMV: I don't get how Western corporations benefit from instability in other countries | For context, I live in the Philippines, a country that is tremendously rich in gold, copper and other natural minerals, yet we are probably one of the [least attractive destinations for foreign investors](https://business.inquirer.net/332297/ph-among-least-attractive-to-foreign-investors), which consequently leads us to problems with low industrialization, low capital and an outflow of labor.
Why? For one, our economy and natural resources are closed off by a lot of protectionist measures. But secondly, we are one of the [top 10 countries most impacted by terrorism](https://www.visionofhumanity.org/country-close-up-the-philippines/) as well as just general corruption. It is hard to set up businesses here if you will just be extorted by communist rebels, or even just the police and corrupt politicians. There are just so many hands you have to grease before you even have a chance. Why would Western corporations want to set up shop in countries where this is the case?
The same thing with Afghanistan right? It has a lot of natural resources too, but it is not as if you will get many companies to set up mines in a literal warzone. I do not see many other companies besides weapons contractors benefiting from that. | 32 | I don't think the Philippines is a good example of an unstable country. You certainly have a lot of problems there, including with violence, social repression, and corruption, but the country is largely "stable" from an outsider's perspective.
If anything, I'd say the Philippines is stable enough *not* to be attractive to investors because of its problems. If those problems existed without the stability needed to uphold those protectionist measures, then western corporations would invest.
What resource vulture corporations really want is weak governance. Without a strong government enforcing regulations, vulture companies will swoop in and *replace the government* to a certain extent, exercising strict control over resources and desperate employees. If government officials, in spite of the country's social ills, are able to exercise control over resources, there is no point for companies to withstand those societal problems. | 33 |
[dc] would martian manhunter be affected by godzilla's atomic breath? | 26 | Even if he didn't have a weakness against fire, it'd hurt him pretty bad cause it packs hell of a wallop no matter how you cut it.
But since his weakness to fire is largely psychosomatic, the fact that it resembles fire and causes actual fiery explosions would be enough to trigger the same physiological response as a normal type of fire anyways. | 18 |
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[District 9] Did no one consider that there could be consequences for mistreating an alien species more advanced than humans? | As the title says, did anyone consider the fact that more aliens could have been on a long distance trek across the galaxy to rescue the stranded ship? And that they might be a bit upset about our treatment of the prawns in Johannesburg when they finally arrived?
We know they have a planet with more moons than ours, and its implied that Christopher would head back to get reinforcements to save his people from medical experimentation.
In addition even before they arrived on Earth its not improbable that their location was known to at least 1 other ship?
All this should have been factored in when considering how to treat and deal with the prawns.
Bonus question: how much did the prawn treatment improve after they escaped in the mothership to go get reinforcements? | 94 | I don't think they were planning to mistreat them, they just didn't have a better plan. Keep in mind the story takes place decades after arrival. An alien ship arrives, and the aliens are apparently helpless and confused. Sure, you do what you can to provide for them, but you can't just have them wandering freely, since you have no idea what you're dealing with. So you keep them contained in a refuge camp, while you study them and try and figure out what to do. And then... nothing else happens. They're just living there. People are bound to feel very strongly about aliens in their midst, so changing the status quo becomes politically impossible. Before you know it, 30 years have gone by, and it's basically a permanent ghetto. | 123 |
When black or otherwise colored plastic is bent or cut, why are the stress marks white? | 282 | The plastic doesn't actually change color. Depending on how it's made it happens for different reasons. Plastic is actually crystalline. When you bend it, one of two things happen. You either make lots of little cracks in it, which changes how it refracts light and makes it look white. Or, the crystals in the plastic get stretched out, which makes them absorb and reflect more light, again appearing white. | 133 |
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[ELI5] What makes a router different from a modem? If they're going to be compared to another object as an example to be explained (like comparing a phone storage to water butt or RAM to washing machine) what will they be and how do they work differently? | 15 | A modem is a modulador/demodulator. It basically translates from one language to another. It allows a computer to speak in a way a phone line can handle, for instance.
A router is something that routes data -- it plugs into multiple networks and chooses which data goes where. An equivalent would be a phone exchange, or a distribution center (for physical goods).
They're often combined in the same physical device. | 15 |
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What broad distinction can be made in the fields of study between mathematical logic as practiced by mathematicians and philosophical logic as practiced by philosophers? | I understand that they both rely on the same, or at least very similar, foundation, but when I look at mathematicians vs philosophers who work with logic at my university, they almost exclusively publish with other mathematicians or philosophers respectively? Are the differences stylistic or goal oriented? or more abstract? | 48 | >Are the differences stylistic or goal oriented? or more abstract?
Rather goal-oriented. Usually philosophers and mathematicians are interested in different things. Mathematicians are not interested in, say, paraconsistent/relevant/deontic logics, or the problem of absolute generality, or formal theories of truth, because usually there is not much of interest there for mathematicians. Philosophers, on the other hand, are not that interested in proving some obscure fact (like that there exists an upper bound of something) about first-order logic with two variables. And even when mathematicians and philosophers coincide in the object of study, they are interested in different aspects of that object: mathematicians will not use type theory to discuss higher-order metaphysics. This does not mean, of course, that philosophers and mathematicians cannot significantly influence each other, and it can be difficult to determine whether a work is strictly mathematical or philosophical logic (just think about Tarski or Kripke).
>they almost exclusively publish with other mathematicians or philosophers
In addition to the above, this is also largely due to institutional, administrative, and publishing reasons. | 37 |
[1408] What if a huge crowd of people went into the room? | Olin has been fired, so there’s no one on-staff who believes in 1408’s powers.
A famous rock group books 1408, and they decide to throw a massive party, bringing along so many guests that the room is trashed and there’s almost no space to move around.
Would 1408 be able to do anything in this situation, or can it only work on single guests? | 17 | The interior of the room expands to fit all the guests comfortably and proceeds as normal. 1408 is most likely home to a semi-sentient break in reality that leads to the dark between universes called a Thinny, who's goal seems to be pulling living beings into it. | 16 |
[Math] Is every digit in pi equally likely? | If you were to take pi out to 100,000,000,000 decimal places would there be ~10,000,000,000 0s, 1s, 2s, etc due to the law of large numbers or are some number systemically more common? If so is pi used in random number generating algorithms?
edit: Thank you for all your responces. There happened to be [this](https://public.tableau.com/views/VisualizingPi/pi?:embed=y&:display_count=no&:showVizHome=no) on r/dataisbeautiful | 3,414 | We don't know if every digit is equally likely in pi, but it is conjectured that this is the case, we just can't prove it yet. We think that this is the case mostly because every digit is equally likely in almost all numbers, so there would have to be some kind of specific reason or obstruction to this for pi if it weren't the case. But we don't think that pi should have a special reason not to have every digit equally likely. So we think that every digit in pi is equally likely because we think it's like most every other number and not particularly special (at least, when it comes to digits).
I don't think you would want to use it as a random number generator, because it's still a well known sequence of numbers and you don't really want that when you are trying to get random numbers. | 1,456 |
ELI5: How do different images from the same camera vary in file size? | Wouldn't a camera with a constant resolution capture images of the same quality and therefore file size? How is it possible that some images on my camera can be 1.5 MB, and others 2.5 MB? | 179 | Basically, most images are in a compressed format. If a photo has a huge amount of pixels of the same color in a given area, the file format can record this as one piece of information. It's like when you're remembering a phone number: it's a lot easier to remember a sequence if you have two or three numbers that are the same in a row. So, a picture of a blue sky is going to be smaller than a picture of a Jackson Pollock painting. | 164 |
[Batman] Assume Joker never came into existence. How would Batman's crusade have changed? | Let's ignore the whole metaphysical "the universe needs balance, so Batman must have Joker" argument. Batman appears on the scene, starts fighting crime, and Joker literally never comes into existence — in *any* manner. Would Batman's quest to save Gotham succeed? Who would Batman's arch-enemy have been if Joker never came into existence? | 26 | The Joker has pushed Batman more than any of his other Villains. As damaged as Batman has become thanks to the Jokers antics, he has become stronger for facing his nemesis, and definitely more capable of adapting on the fly.
Batman may not have survived this long is he didn't Have the Joker pushing him.
As for who would take the mantle of Arch Nemesis, there is one option that stands out to me:
Two-Face: Our once brilliant DA is a great foil for Batman, a man of law who has had his faith ultimately shattered by circumstance. Where Batman made it his mission the make something out of the wreckage of his life, Harvey has been twisted into a bitter shadow of who he once was.
You get a similar conflict, with Batman ultimately fighting for Justice and Harvey fighting to make justice fit his warped perspective. Two-Face would have to step up his game in a pretty big way, but he is well placed to be an Agent of Chaos.
| 24 |
CMV: Trump will not accept the election even if multiple recounts are done. | His main goal is to try and expose as much "fraud" as possible, or find enough mail-in votes (which he encouraged his followers not to do, while Biden encouraged them to do) to push him to a victory in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Let's say the recount is done, and the results are identical (within a few hundred) or more ballots are counted towards Biden, and he still loses. No matter how many times the vote is counted, he will still cry fraud. We can recount the election results 5, 10, 50 times and if he loses on each recount, he will demand another because the election was "unfair", and "stolen", and had "massive voter fraud".
​
Edit: Maybe for clarity's sake, he will not *publicly* accept he lost, nor will he admit to his followers that he lost fair and square. | 35 | Doesn't matter. The only "accepting" needed from him is to be gone from the White House on January 20th. Doesn't matter if he's dragged out kicking and screaming. He has no power once Biden takes office. | 18 |
[Star Wars] Why aren't the force powers such as the jump and dash used more strategically in the films? | After rewatching Empire Strikes Back and remembering the somewhat entertaining fight scene in The Phantom Menace, I saw a few instances of Luke and Obi Wan using their "force jumps" (I assume that's the canon term):
1. Luke uses it to escape the carbonite trap during the ending fight with Vader.
2. Luke uses this again when descending into the Sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi.
3. Obi Wan uses it to ascend to the platform where Darth Maul awaits.
4. Anakin uses a force jump in his final fight with Obi Wan in an attempt to gain the higher ground.
After that, I can't remember if these are ever used at any other point. My question is, it seems that Jedi have this unique ability that is underutilized throughout the films. One scenario that continues to bother me is why Obi-Wan couldn't use force dash to get through the security area quicker in order to prevent Qui-Gon's death?
It seems that the powers are only used when it's convenient to the plot, but in a universe where Jedi are extremely intellectually gifted, you'd think these powers would be used more effectively. Why are they not? | 219 | Obi-Wan was still a Padawan in his fight against Darth Maul so it is possible that he hasn't mastered the Force Dash to a degree to be able to use it in the stress of a fight, after facing Darth Maul and the temptations of the Dark Side his connection to the Force grew dramatically allowing to become a Jedi Knight.
As to why the Force Jump isn't used more often in fight. There are two reasons:
* The Force Jump is a boosted version of telekinesis with some fine control to direct you but basically you push yourself from the ground and from that moment you are airborne and it is very hard to change you trajectory by yourself, this makes you a perfect target for all kinds of attack, a well placed Force Push in to the abyss/stream of lava/sky from you enemy included
* Secondly the Force is an energy field created by all living beings, beings sensitive to the Force create this energy in a greater manner. The Jedi purge with Order 66 actually weakened the Force throughout the whole Galaxy making access to Force abilities more difficult hence the post-purge fight are not so flashy anymore. | 119 |
[40k] does the emperor have a helmet to go with his armor? If so, what does it look like? | 19 | The Emperor generates a constant psychic field that warps his own physical form, allowing him to take on any human appearance and a rather diverse range of sizes. It also creates a near impenetrable psychic barrier that protects him from harm.
He doesn't need a Helmet. He doesn't even need the armour. It's just for show. His own psychic wards are superior to Terminator armour anyway. | 39 |
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CMV: We only think Tupac and Biggie were the best rappers of all time because they died so young | My argument is basically that Tupac and Biggie Smalls (The Notorious B.I.G.) are only thought of as the GOATs because of the aura surrounding them. They are thought of as almost beyond reproach because they died so young and had the famous rap feud.
If Nas died after *It Was Written* he would be considered the GOAT. If Eminem died after *The Marshall Mathers LP* or *The Eminem Show* he would be definitively considered the GOAT. If Kanye died after *Graduation* or *My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy* he would be considered the GOAT.
Alternatively, If Nas and Jay-Z both died during their famous rap feud, they would be elevated similar to Pac and Big. Same could be said for 50 and Ja Rule.
I could go on all day, but my point is that because these artists kept putting out music (some of which has been considered lackluster), they damaged their reputation as the GOAT in a way Tupac and Big never really had a chance to do. Arguably, Tupac came close to damaging his reputation with all his posthumous releases, but, more people would need to know about his posthumous releases for it to have a significant impact.
Furthermore, the rap feuds bring in more outside attention from the entertainment world. Thus the layman is able to identify Pac and Big as the GOATs because they are simply the most recognizable/most well known rappers of all time not necessarily the best.
If Mac Miller didn’t make as much frat rap/corny music coming up, he might in the conversation right now. You see the GOAT label unironically placed on XxXtentacion by his fans, although I’m prepared to admit that is a vocal minority.
In reality Tupac and Big were NOT significantly more talented than others of that era—A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, NWA and its members, Snoop, Nas, Big Daddy Kane, Eric B and Rakim, OutKast, Jay-Z and Wu Tang are all arguably just as talented and that’s only scratching the surface. Biggie had an amazing style and crazy flows, Pac had grit and passion. They were both great writers. But are they the greatest of all time? I’d say no and I’d argue they are only thought of as such because they died so young and had a famous rap beef. CMV | 58 | You can't measure Greatness by objective standards. You cant just play two rap albums back to back and then ask a panel of judges to conclusively say which of them is better than the other.
In terms of album sales, exposing rap to commercial audiences, number of hit songs, influence on pop culture, etc., Tupac and Biggie are to rap what the Beatles and the Stones were to rock. Not necessarily the best at their craft, but certainly without peer for their era in terms of commercial and cultural impact.
Any discussion of "greatness" quickly devolves into pedantic bickering unless you set some criteria for what greatness means to you personally. | 21 |
Can a function have more than one integral? excluding +C | apologise if this is a dumb question, my math knowledge reaches barely into partial differential equations and assorted transforms studied in university, but I'm just curious if there are methods I havent heard about that its possible that more than one function can have the same derivative | 30 | In general, no.
Here's some rough intuition: consider that if `F(x)` is the integral of some function `f(x)`, then `F(b) - F(a)` computes the area of `f` in the region between `a` and `b`.
Now suppose `G(x)` is also an integral of `f(x)`. This means that for any `a` and `b`,
F(b) - F(a) = [area of f between a and b] = G(b) - G(a)
Plugging in `a = 0`, `b = x`, we get
F(x) - F(0) = G(x) - G(0)
so
F(x) = G(x) + (F(0) - G(0)).
But `F(0) - G(0)` is just some constant independent of `x`. Call this constant `C`, we get
F(x) = G(x) + C.
Since we could do this for any two arbitrarily chosen integrals of an arbitrarily chosen `f`, it must be the case that all integrals of a given function differ only by an additive constant. | 31 |
What tips and tricks worked best for you when you started to feel unmotivated? | I’ve been struggling to find the motivation to study and complete coursework for the past year now but I only have a few more courses left until I get my degree. I need to power through this and am looking for tips and tricks that have helped others to bring back their motivation. | 44 | * Avoid social media, internet etc.
* Do productive meditation make plan of action, i.e. go on a walk. Research supported.
* Mix up your day, novelty goes a way.
* Socialize a bit with peers in the field.
* Don't overthink action, the brain can replace action with thinking action to your demise. | 21 |
CMV: "Gifted" programs in schools should be seen as a necessity and a priority. | I'm looking at this from the perspective of a Canadian student who completed the Gifted program, but I really want some alternative perspectives.
Basically, I see "Gifted" students as being kids with greater potential than the average student, either through greater intrinsic motivation or natural talent. So, a society has more to gain by exploiting their potential than that of the average student. It stands to reason that those advancing a society the most in science, medicine, or even art are typically those who are the best in those fields. The ones who have the best chances of being the best deserve a program which will help them to do so.
Secondly, there is danger in leaving any students unchallenged. It is unhealthy for their motivation and can cause them to be bored in school. It doesn't make too much sense to allow the brightest students to be neglected by not providing them with an education suited to their abilities, because you risk having them become delinquents or underachievers.
Finally, societies that promote intellectualism ought to promote Gifted programs. These programs are essentially designed to raise the caliber of one's education, and thus amplify what they are able to take away from it. If we're not promoting Gifted education, then we're effectively encouraging mediocrity.
So CMV, this is what I've been thinking. But I can see that, as someone who has completed the program, my perspective is undoubtedly skewed. Please fill me in on whatever you think I'm missing.
_____
> *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!* | 361 | The problem is that we treat educational challenges like a prison lunch line. Every day, you get a fixed-size ration of challenges called "schoolwork". It doesn't matter if you can handle more, or if you can't handle that many; you have to take exactly the portion you're told to take.
Gifted programs don't actually fix this problem. They just identify certain students that can handle *much* more, and give those students a second ration. The fundamental problem, that education isn't actually something which can or should be dosed into daily rations, isn't addressed. Sure, the very gifted students are better off, but we can't be helping them out *instead of* the others. | 109 |
Eli5: How does Bamboo grow so quickly and why? | I’ve heard stories about being able to watch Bamboo grow, but how does it grow so quickly and why? | 217 | Plants need sunlight to create energy. The process of photosynthesis turns sunlight into sugar and that sugar fuels the energy the plants lives off. The stuff a plant takes from the soil doesn't provide it with energy but it does provide it with building blocks to grow.
That's why plants grow upwards. They absorb building blocks from the soil using their roots. And then they grow bigger to catch more sunlight and taller to try and outcompete the plants around them. After all, it's better to catch sunlight and throw shade than it is to be in someone else's shade.
Bamboo tends to grow in dense forests there is not a lot of sunlight that reaches the forest floor. So bamboo evolved to put all of its efforts into growing tall as fast as possible to break through the undergrowth and get to that sunlight.
It's also why bamboo grows in thin tall poles. It wastes no energy growing thick, it puts all its effort into growing tall. | 210 |
CMV: r/IncelTears is not as toxic as r/Braincels | Incels frequently tell me that I am "incel in denial" for being a 22 year old virgin. I can live without having a girlfriend, but that's what they call "cope", however, at least it seems like most of Reddit sees no problem with "cope" ([see the answers to this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/973yb1/cmv_there_is_nothing_wrong_with_doing_what_incels/)).
The reason I make this post is because I am a member of both r/IncelTears (because I believe that we have every right to poke holes in incel communities' bigotry and mental gymnastics) and r/Braincels (only for the schadenfreude). **Recently, an incel on Braincels committed suicide and blamed IncelTears for his suicide**, as outlined in his post called "[It's finally over.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Braincels/comments/9ghn8m/its_finally_over/?utm_content=comments&utm_medium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=u_Uggocel)". [Incels frequently visit IncelTears to remind us of the alleged blood on our hands](https://np.reddit.com/r/IncelTears/comments/9n5miu/incels_are_almost_adorable_they_keep_trying_bless/e7k32v0). In case you are unable to reach Braincels, these are the exact words of "It's finally over.":
>I'll start off by saying I probably won't reply to comments because I'll be doing this immediately after this post. This is probably going to be as generic and cheesy as a suicide note can be. I'm not in the mood to go through and correct anything, as that's the last of my worries, obviously. I've already written my suicide note and I plan on giving my gaming PC to my brother as a gift.
>
>I want to say despite how much IT demonizes this place while saying people here use suicide encouragement, I have never been more drawn to suicide than I have arguing with them. If anything this place was really uplifting because I was able to share my experiences freely. I love every single one of you who have to deal with such a burden. Even alt-rightcels as a blackcel myself. No person should have to go through what I feel and deal with when I leave the house. I know a lot of you might be misguided so I don't hold anything against you. Neither will I hold anything against women. We all share the same struggles here. Just wanted to give a formal farewell to you guys before I start rambling.
>
>I have a headache right now from arguing with people from IT and I had a realization after a mental breakdown. Nothing will change. I can keep myself occupied with art and animation but it just feels pointless most of the time. Becoming an animator is a impossible dream for me. It doesn't even net much money anyway even if I do manage. There's nothing else I'm passionate about and I just don't see a future for myself enjoying doing anything else. It's a childish dream that I just need to let go of.
>
>I ruined a friendship with one of my best friends because an IT member recommended that I should ask her out. It was honestly my fault for being dumb enough to think she'd date someone as ugly as me. I never had a chance. I took my picture a while ago so if anyone's curious how much of a chance I never had feel free to see.
>
>I ordered a helium setup a year ago when I still had my job at kroger. I was scared and never used it so I just kept it in my closet for the while. I've been crying for the past few days thinking about my family's reaction. I made a comment on a post earlier funnily enough talking about how my brother and family is the reason I wouldn't rope, but I have no idea why I'm ready so suddenly. I honestly feel like I've been possessed with how sudden my mood and decision changed. Can't even cry anymore.
>
>It's strange.
The thing is, **incels have been encouraging me to commit suicide too**:
* [https://www.removeddit.com/r/Whatisthis/comments/9mw96b/\_/e7i0mvz/](https://www.removeddit.com/r/Whatisthis/comments/9mw96b/_/e7i0mvz/) (I am using removeddit because this comment has been removed by moderators, and judging by his posts, he seems like an incel despite denying it)
* [https://i.redd.it/im7cyd967yf11.jpg](https://i.redd.it/im7cyd967yf11.jpg) (this one is a private message)
**However, I refuse to commit suicide**. I also believe that r/IncelTears is not as toxic as r/Braincels. Sure, IncelTears ridicules incel communities, but it's not persecuting them for being virgins, as many incels believe, but rather because of their bizarre, often bigoted, beliefs. In contrast, encouraging others to commit suicide (or in incel slang, "rope") is not uncommon on incel communities. Also, communities like Braincels and r/Incelselfies frequently reiterate incels' belief that they are ugly, even when they are not, and they remind each other that because they're "ugly" it's "over" (incel slang for being doomed to never get a girlfriend).
I do not want to shirk responsibility. If I have blood on my hands, I do not want to run away from the consequences. But I personally believe that if incels encourage each other to "rope" quite often, then Braincels is the more toxic community, not IncelTears. Am I, and the rest of IncelTears, really guilty for the suicide of the incel quoted above?
**By the way, incels are welcome to comment on this post**, but I expect them to behave themselves and prove their claims, just like everyone else commenting here. Being incel is not an excuse for refusing to behave yourself in a debate you've been invited to. If I didn't invite incels to this post, I would be having a one-sided, closed-minded, echo chamber, or at least be accused of doing that. | 19 | /r/braincels is filled with people with mental illnesses, especially depression, who are struggling to cope. /r/IncelTears is a place for relatively healthy people to make fun of them. Sure people in /r/braincels have abhorent views, but so do many people with mental illness. The proper thing to is to encourage them to see a therapist who can help them work through their personal issues. In turn, that would stop holding bigoted views. If you spend your time mocking them, it just leads people to double down in their illness.
In this way, /r/IncelTears is actually worse than /r/braincels. But the twist is that many of the people who go to /r/IncelTears are not healthy either. They cope with their own problems by mocking the people they consider worse. We have two communities of damaged people with mental illnesses tearing each other down. It's sad, but it happens all the time. So really, both communities are equally toxic. Truly healthy people don't spend time in either place. | 48 |
ELI5: If "The Hobbit" was critiqued for having more frames per second than usual and looking like a television show, why TV shows don't lower they FPS to look more "professional" like movies? | Many say (not me, I liked it) that "The Hobbit" looked like a cheap soap opera because their highers FPS (THAT IS NOT THE POINT, THE POINT IS IN THE NEXT SENTENCE).
So why television shows do not lower their frames per second in order to look like movies, that have lower FPS, since that high frame rate is somewhat strange for our eyes? | 1,340 | Some do. 30 Rock does this. You can see the difference easily if you compare the two live episodes they did - filmed in higher "TV" fps - with a normal episode. They even make a joke about the difference at the end of one of the live episodes ("Something feels different", or something like that).
Breaking Bad, HBO shows like Game of Thrones, etc also shoot at 24 fps. | 550 |
ELI5:Why does english have the same word "you" for singular and plural? | I'm not an english native speaker. Doesn't it sometimes lead to confusion? | 20 | English originally had a singular/familiar *thou* and plural/formal *you*, a distinction that exists in many European languages (e.g. French *tu* vs. *vous*), but lost it by the 17th century in preference for using *you* in all cases.
Just like in other languages (in French, *vous* can be singular/formal, so it's not always plural), context generally makes it clear whether it's singular or plural, but we also can be specific and say "both of you," for example. The dialectical "y'all" is also used as a plural "you." | 23 |
ELI5: How come sometimes it rains very hard for a few minutes, then stops. And sometimes it rains calmly for a few hours? | 1,212 | Good question!
TLDR: Lapse rate, or change in temperature with height, plays a role in whether you get thunderstorms or less dramatic rain.
Full:
This has to do with what kind of storm you’re dealing with that’s causing the rain.
When it’s warm on the ground, and very cold several kilometers or miles up, then the atmosphere is considered “unstable” due to the hot, less dense air rising very easily. It’s kinda like when air from a kettle keeps going up, since it’s hotter and thus less dense than the air around it.
When this happens, air can rise very quickly, and when it rises, it cools, eventually so much that it can’t hold all of the moisture it’s carrying, so some of the water vapor condenses into liquid water droplets, forming rain when they get big enough. When it’s unstable enough (along with a lot of other factors that would take a while to explain to a five year old), this can happen QUICKLY and INTENSELY, forming a strong “updraft,” for air going up and condensing quickly, leading to a sudden, intense, often short-lived thunderstorm.
Eventually, often within minutes, the updraft is overwhelmed by the massive amount of water falling back into it, ending a storm with a massive downpour over a small spot.
On other days, when it’s only a bit warmer at the ground than it is at higher heights, the atmosphere is considered “stable,” and rising motion won’t happen on its own unless something forces air to rise. Fronts and mountains are common ways to get air to rise through a stable layer and still cool down enough to cause condensation and rain.
In s stable layer, air will not rise on its own, so the rain tends to happen much more slowly, hence there being many rainy days where a front moves through a whole country/region and brings moderate rain all day over hundreds of miles/kilometers.
Source: I’m a meteorologist | 550 |
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Would it be more practical to assemble mega-spaceships in orbit? | I'm referring to spaceships of a caliber we're not even close to building right now. Large "super-ships" capable of being carriers or transport shuttles. Something that big seems like it'd be near-impossible to launch from Earth. But would it be possible for, one day, humans to send the pieces individually into orbit to assemble? It seems it'd be easier to do that there and easier to move forward afterwards.
*EDIT: Thanks for all the responses. Great read. | 53 | The "super-ship" we're technologically most able to build would be an Orion drive.
There are some obvious arguments against building such ships, but they are more efficient the larger they are and we could make 8 million tons of steel (80 aircraft carriers) fly all at once. Just saying. Pity about the fallout though; maybe when we have cleaner nukes and more relaxed international treaties about willy-nilly use of hundreds of bombs just to make a ship fly.
| 14 |
[MCU] How will Justin hammer react to the news about Tony stark? I'm not sure if he'll be pleased or genuinely upset? | 21 | I think he'd be pissed that he could never conceivably win against Tony in any way, shape or form after Tony went out so firmly on top. Plus seeing Tony's face everywhere would just salt that particular wound. | 49 |
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[Star Wars] Can superheavy/vehicle-grade lightsaber-like weapons exist? Could something like that deflect turbolasers or other heavy bolt weapons? | I'm asking for a friend. He likes to tinker. | 25 | Lightsabers can already block heavy blaster cannons, and in Legends, they can also block turbolasers.
In canon, the Death Star is basically a gigantic lightsaber, as it uses the same types of crystals that regular lightsabers use. | 33 |
[Star Trek] Why do Romulans only have one hair style? | 71 | Imagine you're from a culture that highly prized styling their arm hair. They dye it difficult colors, shave patterns into it, wear it at different lengths, etc. A wide variety of these styles are culturally significant, and some are just for fashion/vanity. Then you meet humans. You ask: "Why do all humans wear the same arm hair style?"
Romulans just don't have any cultural significance to hairstyles the way other some cultures do. They cut it the way you'd brush your teeth - a routine grooming thing, not an identity thing. | 146 |
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ELI5 what bleach (Clorox) does to organic things. | 148 | Bleach is most commonly sodium hypochlorite. The hypochlorite ion ClO^- is a very strong oxidizing agent, meaning that it steals the electrons off of other things. This is why it is such a good disinfectant, because ionizing (stealing electrons) from an organism's body is deadly. For things with a tiny body like bacteria, this is even more quickly fatal. | 70 |
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ELI5:Why does it feel so much better when someone else touches rather than you touching yourself? | 84 | When you touch yourself your brain plans the movements required to make the contact. When this movement is planned, 2 copies of this information are sent; one towards the part of the body performing the movements and one is sent to another part of the brain (the efference copy). When the movement has happened, your nerves 'report back' the outcomes of the movement and this is 'compared' to the efference copy, and if they match up then the planned movement has occurred as predicted and it is very difficult to be surprised by the outcomes to that movement.
Now, if someone else does touches us, then we do not have the predicted outcome and the sensory information is novel and gets a lot more attention and has a greater effect on us. | 82 |
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ELI5: Why does shipping something from the USA to NZ have around triple the price of shipping a similar item from NZ to the USA? | It costs me around $15 (NZ) to send an item from NZ to the USA, but around $30 US (which is about $45 NZ) to ship a similar size/weight item the other way. Is this perhaps due to some sort of taxes behind the scenes? | 26 | No it is not an import tax thing, it has everything to do with the volume of things going what direction. There are a lot of tings that ship from NZ to the US. There are very few things that ship from the US to NZ.
While you may think that ships would just move back and forth, that is not actually how shipping works. Ships will run a circuit of destinations, and shipments that have low volume must make up the cost with higher costs of shipping. | 10 |
If E=MC^2 and M(photon) = 0 then how does light contain/transmit [E]nergy? | From what I understand, light travels at C because it has no mass. Anything with mass >0 cannot attain a speed of C. How, or why, then does light carry energy?
I also feel correct in thinking that light (gamma radiation specifically) is indeed the medium through which fusion of lighter elements (e.g. hydrogen into helium) loses mass in the process and gives off energy.
But something without mass can have no energy[?]
What am I missing? Some sort of quantum physics aspect? Does the very fact of moving through space at C endow an object with energy?--the energy of 1 photon? Do photons vary energy-wise or can "photon" be considered a unit of energy? | 61 | The energy equation you're looking at is incomplete, as it is the energy for a particle at rest. When moving, there is an energy associated with the momentum, p:
E^2 = m^2 c^4 + p^2 c^2.
At rest (p=0) this reduces to E = m c^2 for a massive particle. For a photon, which always travels at v = c, the momentum is given by p = h(freq/c) = h/wavelength, where h is the Planck constant. Therefore:
E = pc = h freq = hc/wavelength.
So photons can have a different energy depending on the wavelength. For example, an X-ray (or gamma photon) with a wavelength of 0.1 nanometers has an energy equal to about 12400 eV. A photon with half that wavelength 0.05 nanometers, has energy 24.8 keV. | 130 |
ELI5: What exactly happens when a lightning strikes causes the power to go out, and what happens that causes it come back on again after a random amount of time? | Happened a few times last night. Very close lightning strike, power dies, 10-90 seconds later it would just come back on like nothing happened. If nothing is damaged, what makes it go off in the first place? | 55 | Voltage and current spikes cause circuit breakers to open, interrupting service. This is to protect the grid, transformers and systems from failure. After a while, the breakers are closed, restoring service to impacted areas. | 33 |
CMV: All these surface-level reforms like making sure black characters are not voiced by non black voice actors are a near worthless distraction. | I can't say it any better than the title. Whether it's deliberate or not, all this performative action like changing the name of streets, removing Ben from Uncle Ben's rice and actors stepping down feels like a distraction and a waste of time when there's still little accountability for police action. Very little societal change will come from The Simpsons changing up their cast. But I've seen more media coverage of these changes than I have of currently ongoing protests. I understand the stated benefit for some of these actions but it feels so cheap and worthless. | 7,908 | A large part of it is just people changing what they can. The company that owns Uncle Ben's doesn't run the police force, and the people that produce the Simpson's don't have real political power, but both of them changing is a statement that they side with the protestors. Sure, it's pretty much useless compared to politicians actually doing something, but it's better than both continuing as is.
You can't expect one company changing their racist mascot to change society, but you can appreciate the fact that doing so is the company saying "hey, this mascot is probably problematic for people, so we'll change it". They're not changing it thinking it'll bring about complete systemic change, but them changing it does, ever so slightly, help the systemic change along. | 1,474 |
[Nolan Batman] why is batman so righteous? where does that commitment to not kill comes from? | I might be misremembering the dark knight but he goes to such lengths to not kill the joker or people in general. why? yeah his dad instilled good morals into him but that was like what 4-6 years of what bruce would actually remember before his dad got killed. after that he wasnt a high standing citizen in what i can remember of the beginning of batman begins. He tried to kill joe chill. why the sudden change? yeah joe killed HIS parents but still. why did he became such a moral person? i know it might be because he amplified what his parents thought him but is there another bigger reason why? he goes through such great lengths to not just kill the joker, he risked the lives of hundreds, possibly thousands, of people all because he didnt want to bent to jokers level. | 18 | Bruce was on the fence about murder until he confesses his desire to kill Joe Chill to Rachel. It's Rachel who shames him about killing, who sets him on a path toward righteousness. Rachel's opinion matters far more to him than his own, and he adopts both her desire to fix Gotham and her desire to do it without murder.
Then Bruce has a conversation with Falcone, and Bruce learns the depths of his ignorance about the city, crime, and fear. He realizes that to fix Gotham he has much to learn and much to do.
It's Rachel and Falcone together who set Bruce on his path out of Gotham toward becoming someone who fights crime. He takes his purpose from Rachel and his direction from Falcone. It's also Falcone's heart to heart that causes Bruce to seek to learn from the League of Shadows. However, it's Rachel's influence that lead him to refuse to kill the caged criminal for the League. | 29 |
Are there different types of electrons? | According to the standard model, each particle is an oscillation in a quantum field. There are different energies of photons. Similarly, can an excitation of the electron field have different levels?
I know that electrons have different energy levels in an atom, is this a separate concept from the one I described above? | 74 | That is a separate concept. Every electron is fundamentally identical to every other electron, and same for photons.
Each of these particles can have whatever energies you want (although an electron can never have an energy smaller than its mass), but they are still the same particle. Two electrons with different energies are still identical particles. | 25 |
[A Quiet Place] Why the fuck doesn't that family set up camp by the waterfall??? | 53 | Good luck trying to maintain a liveable homestead there with no way to safely and quietly transport all the shit you'd need. A temporary campsite could work, sure, but no one would want to live that way permanently, especially considering how exposed you'd be to everything else. | 53 |
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[MCU] How did Thanos prove himself to be above his children? Why did Maw not intervene during Thanos’s fights and how did he know that Thanos would win? | For the first question, 2 or 3 of the 4 children in character can potentially defeat Thanos. Corvus’s Glaive can stab him. Maw has telekinesis, and we saw how much Scarlet Witch’s telekinesis could could fuck up Thanos. Cull Obsidian is bigger than Thanos and has an array of powerful weapons. So how did Thanos prove himself to the point where they wouldn’t fuck with him?
Also, look at Thanos vs Hulk fight. Thanos stomped Hulk but not without Hulk trucking him first and then choking him a bit. How did Maw know Thanos would come out on top? | 24 | Thanos in endgame was really how powerful thanos was and he was able to take on captain America with mijolnir, tony stark in his most advanced mark 85 model armour and Thor with stormbreaker and still thanos would’ve won if it wasn’t for the backup Steve got.
Cull is strong but lacks intellect and skill, Corvus and proxima are both physically much weaker then thanos and were being matched by elite humans.
Maw is the strongest of the children with his powerful telekinesis and high intellect but he is physically weak and it’s likely his telekinesis isn’t enough to overpower thanos since he’s only shown to hold back humans and large objects but never something like thanos or cull | 44 |
Are there other signals similar to the "WOW!" signal? Was that the closest we ever gotten to find real extraterrestrial life? | Just curious if the scientific community has really been any closer on finding extraterrestrial signals than this one or the [Pulsar LGM-1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-1)? These sort of discoveries really excites me. Would it be possible to track again these signals? Are there any more of those? | 109 | The short answer: yes.
If you read (or listen to the audio book) Pale Blue Dot (1994) by Carl Sagan, he discusses 8 events that have occurred over the last 20 odd years (as of 1994) that meet ALL criteria necessary to be considered to be of extra-terrestrial origin except one which is repeat-ability.
None of the 8 signals have repeated despite looking at the same location days/months/years later.
The frequencies are in such a narrow range that there are no known natural events that could produce them.
Meaning one of three things:
-They could be interference from Earth based sources
-It could be a malfunction in the signal detection
-Or they could be of extra-terrestrial origin
While that doesn't sound too appealing there is one additional factor that Carl says gives him "chills" when he thinks about it.
If it were a malfunction or interference you would expect the signals to appear at random places across the sky however all the signals detected lay in the plane of the galaxy, where the highest concentration of stars is.
There is less than 0.5% chance of all 8 signals randomly occurring on the plane of our galaxy if it IS due to an error or interference.
All this information is from chapter 20 - Darkness of the book Pale Blue Dot.
I highly recommend picking up the audio book as it really is something else having Sagan tell you about the progress of SETI himself. :) | 75 |
ELI5:What causes car engines to increase in noise and vibration over time? | New cars are usually silent with little vibration. Over time they become shaky and audible. Why? Is there a way to return them back to what they were? | 22 | Part of why it seems that way is because cars are always getting smoother and quieter. If you bought a new car 10 years ago, it would seem much quieter than an old car at the time, but it was louder than a new car today. The other part is mostly due to breakdown of noise insulating materials (both on the engine, and in the exhaust), and worn down motor mounts. Noticeable vibration in most older cars (assuming the engine is in good shape) is usually caused by bad motor mounts. One other thing is that engines lose compression, and therefore power, as they get older. This usually doesn't happen in every cylinder evenly. Some cylinders will wear more, and some less. This difference in compression will cause a difference in power output in each cylinder, causing vibration. This really shouldn't show up in a relatively modern engine until at least 150k miles or so. | 21 |
Why is there a history gap between Africa's civilizations? | In high school when we were covering ancient civilizations, once Egypt fell to the Greeks/Romans (can't figure which put the final nail in the coffin), we didn't see anything in Africa until either the Muslims took control of the northern part or until the slave trade with the colonies and later state in the southern US came into full swing.
I find it odd that I have never heard of any major civilizations, empires, or nations taking hold in Africa between the fall of Egypt (332 BC when the Greeks took over and 30 BC when the Romans did) and the slave trade (circa 1500's-ish). I'm ignoring when people from other parts of the world came to Africa and set up shop i.e. South Africa with its apartheid, Islam in northern Africa and eventually launching into southern Spain, various European nations carving up Africa during the age of imperialism, etc. I'm looking for civilizations setup by people from Africa itself, not by other groups.
From what I've read about evolutionary science, humans evolved in Africa, specifically the Ethiopia area, so it would stand to some logic that that area would be where the oldest nations and empires would exists but for the most part, Africa is one of the least developed places in the world.
I am by no means a historian, sociologist, archaeologist, or anthropologist, so I'm sure I've made a few mistakes in the examples above. What I paid attention to most during history class was WW2, figuring out which of my friends I would see that day, and how much longer till lunch. | 508 | Actually, the answer is that there isn't a gap. Or rather, there's a "History' gap but not a 'history' gap.
In other words, once we separate History (the discipline) from history (the past as it happened), we can see that it's errors in interpretation and inadequate sourcing and methodology that makes it appear as if there is a gap where none exists. There existed a continuous string of states, 'civilizations' (if you want), widespread and large-scale societies, between the era of Pharaonic Egypt and the modern period, but we fail to perceive it adequately in History. Why? Several reasons.
1) The History discipline grew up hand-in-hand with colonialism, and hence many historians had a reason to deny or denigrate African historical trends and sophistication in the service of their paymasters and/or just out of discursive error in justifying colonial rule
2) Historical narratives, born in Europe, tended to recognize European styles of state and society better than alternate pathways and modes of organization. In this kind of neo-evolutionary theory, for example, V. Gordon Childe could demand that a zone only be recognized as a 'city' if it had monumental architecture. Only in the 1970s did archaeologists (like the McIntosh's) show that many African zones were densely populated urban sites that had a decentralized political structure, but were nevertheless 'cities'.
3) The History discipline preferenced writing, and writing was not generally a major feature of large-scale societies in Africa south of the Sudan and away from the coasts until much later than in Eurasia. HOWEVER, this does not excuse our ignorance of literate states and societies in Ethiopia, along the East African coast, etc dating back many many thousands of years.
Although it apparently hasn't reached the general public, scholars have generally reconstructed some pretty good, well-supported analyses/narratives of sub-Saharan African history throughout this period by converging archaeological sources, historical linguistics, and to some degree oral tradition. You should check out the work of Chris Ehret and Jan Vansina to start. They are usually opponents of each other on the details, but they are both major contributors to this task. There are many others, from Kate de Luna to Kairn Klieman. Their work is worth reading. | 198 |
[Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: First Edition] Why can't anyone but humans be paladins? | 26 | Humans have such short lifespans. This lends itself to a near zealotry towards pursuits where gods could empower them to burn hot and bright until they burn themselves out in service. Palidans need change "right now".
Longer lived races are just to laid back in comparision, i.e., they have all the time in the world to do what they need. Their service to the divine takes a long view. | 28 |
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CMV: "Bar height" restaurant tables are pointless and annoying | I'm referring to this type of table:
https://www.bizchair.com/REST-016-BK-BK-TDR.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjwxN_XBRCFARIsAIufy1aCQeXBMMBafXczEX5Ui6EBMp158ie4z1gC-OBBD_1lrKMk1LBpY5gaAl9dEALw_wcB
We've all seen those tables and chairs that are extra tall so that your feet dangle precariously unless you use the horizontal bar as a foot rest. I honestly cannot comprehend the point of these heinous things. They are a hassle to climb into/out of. They make the diner feel like they might fall off. Even when there is a backrest, you feel unsafe reclining back for fear you might slip off the seat. Actually, the worst is when they use tall stools instead of tall chairs, because now you feel like you might fall AND don't have the added safety of a backrest.
I feel like the only acceptable time to use a "bar height" table/chair is for the BAR. This makes sense because the bartender is standing the whole time and needs to be serving the customer at that height. But for a round table where diners are supposed to be relaxed and talking to each other, there is NO good reason for the table to be this tall. If there were no chairs and the table is meant for standing use, that is a different story. But when you have tall tables surrounded by tall chairs, I don't understand why you can't just have regular height tables and chairs that wouldn't be such a pain for the customer. Please, tell me one good reason for restaurants to keep using these contraptions. | 50 | There is an economic and logistic reason why bar height tables are useful, some bars later in the night will close their kitchen and become a drinks only establishment and in order to optimize space yet maintain surfaces they will remove the chairs and use the tables as cocktail tables. This way multiple people can stand around it and use it. Also helpful for special events where you may want a standing room and put a white cloth on to class it up.
Many times they are also used in sports bars and having a better height makes viewing tvs better. They are a mutual functional price of furniture which allows the establishment to be more flexible with their use of space. | 25 |
[Marvel and DC] How would another Amalgam-Event look like nowadays? | Anyone remembering that Access-Guy, who merged our beloved universes back in the nineties? I wonder how an Amalgam-Universe based on the actual "Marvel" and "DC" events would look like? Which merged heroes can we expect? | 56 | Expect to see a lot more characters driven by the success of the MCU, like
* Iron Bat
* Thor-El, the Last Son of Asgard
* Marvel Woman
* Guardians of the Green Lantern
* Black Beetle
* Captain Shazam AKA Billy Rogers
Etc. | 30 |
ELI5: How do egg cells “know” not to accept more sperm once fertilized? How do they keep the rest out? | This question is courtesy of my ten year old daughter who meant to search “cornception” on YouTube but got autocorrected to “conception.” The videos that came up were fortunately educational in nature. Thanks for reading this far! | 7,893 | The cortical reaction!
To ELI5 it:
First, you need to know that egg cells are surrounded by a thick layer of jelly-like goop (Zona Pellucida) Sperm cells have to burrow through that goop to actually reach the egg itself. The first sperm to make it through the goop to the egg sends its genetic information into the egg cell. This triggers a kind of intruder alarm, which releases chemicals (enzymes) that turn the jelly-goop into a hard, thick shell. Any sperm that was still in the goop is now trapped, and any sperm that is late to the party has found the door closed. This makes sure that only one sperm can actually make it to the egg.
Edit: Because a lot of people are asking about twins and how they come about:
Identical twins are the result of 1 egg + 1 sperm- very early on in development the ball of cells that will become a baby (these are stem cells, cells that can become any part of the baby or the placenta, they haven’t ‘chosen’ a job yet) splits into two balls of cells, each of which develop into their own baby. Since these babies started from the same fertilized egg, they will be genetically identical.
Fraternal twins are the results of 2 eggs + 2 sperm, each fertilized egg will develop into its own unique baby. This can happen because Mom ovulated two eggs at the same time (the tendency to do this runs in families!). This also means that you can have fraternal twins with different dads, if Mom had more than one set of sperm around when the eggs were available. Fraternal twins are no different than any other set of siblings (genetically) except that they happened to share a womb.
Bigger sets of multiples are usually a combination of both processes, or the result of fertility treatments like IVF. For example, triplets may be caused by 2 eggs + 2 sperm then one of them splits (so 2 identical babies, plus a 3rd fraternal triplet), 3 eggs + 3 sperm, or, most rare, 1 egg + 1 sperm that then splits, and splits again to make three identical embryos. | 6,861 |
ELI5: What is non-Euclidean space or geometry? | 22 | So, to consider this properly, we need to consider what Euclidean geometry is.
Euclidean geometry is any framework in which the following five postulates are true:
1. A straight line segment can be drawn joining any two points.
2. Any straight line segment can be extended indefinitely in a straight line.
3. Given any straight line segment, a circle can be drawn having the segment as radius and one endpoint as center.
4. All right angles are congruent.
5. If two lines are drawn which intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the inner angles on one side is less than two right angles, then the two lines inevitably must intersect each other on that side if extended far enough. ***This one's the important one!***
The first four postulates can be used to describe an entire geometric system, along with a series of definitions and notions.
Euclid's Fifth Postulate, also known as the *parallel postulate,* has mainly to do with triangles, because that's the shape you get if you construct three lines in that manner.
However, Euclid was never able to prove the fifth as a theorem. In 1823, mathematicians Janos Bolyai and Nicolai Lobachevsky figured out that ***you could ignore the parallel postulate*** and make geometries that made sense!
*Non-Euclidean geometry, then*, is any framework in which the Fifth Postulate does not hold -- that is to say, where the interior angles of a triangle do not sum to 180 degrees. Further, as a consequence, parallel lines don't stay the same distance from each other forever.
Edit for clarity regarding parallel lines: Under Euclidean geometry, the following is true:
* Given a two-dimensional plane P, a line L, and a point A not on L, there is exactly one line that can be drawn through the point A that does not intersect L.
In hyperbolic geometry, there are infinitely many such lines that can be drawn; in elliptic geometry, *any* line drawn through A will intersect L. | 23 |
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How do directions work in space? | On Earth we have north, south, east, and west, but those are relative to Earth. What directions, if any, do people use for space? | 674 | There are a few different celestial coordinate systems, which tend to be used in different applications. Astronomers usually use an equatorial coordinate system, which describes the location of objects in the sky using two angles. Right ascension describes where an object is along the celestial equator (basically longitude), while Declination describes the angle from the equator (basically latitude). The equator is aligned with the Earth's spin axis to make observations simpler. Ecliptic coordinates work similarly, but align the equator to the plane of the Earth's orbit to work better within our solar system. There's also a galactic coordinate system, which aligns with the galactic plane and center.
For describing orbits of objects in a solar system, such as asteroids, usually a set of six orbital parameters is used. These parameters can be used to calculate where an object will appear in the sky at a particular time in an ephemeris table. For small objects, these parameters have to be updated frequently to account for perturbations by larger planets. | 257 |
ELI5: Why my leg (or arm) can randomly twitch for no reason. | Not just a small twitch but like when your leg randomly flinches upwards like an inch, then return back to relaxed position? Or am I the only person this happens to?... | 45 | The basics you probably know is that you are made of cells, tiny building blocks of life that are tiny bags full of chemicals. The cell walls have a bunch of tiny holes (channels), a lot of which only let certain kinds of chemicals pass through. Your body uses a whole lot of different chemicals to do a lot of different things, but many of them have very specific jobs.
For muscles to move, they need to be signaled by your nervous system, which usually happens when signals are sent from the brain. A signal will travel from the brain to what's called a motor neuron - the last piece of nerve tissue before the signal is then passed to the muscle cells.
Within a cell, there's some fancy equipment to make sure the right amount of any given chemical is on the inside of the cell compared to how much is outside. The nerve cells (neurons) work by waiting until they receive input, and then a chain reaction happens that allows a bunch of extra chemicals to flow through the cell wall, upsetting the normal balance. It returns to normal pretty quickly, though. This cycle is called an "action potential" or a "spike." (The chemicals that flow are all electrically charged, so we can read this as a change in local voltage if we stick an electrode right next to it.)
Sometimes by happenstance the chemicals get unbalanced around one neuron or a group of neurons, enough to initiate an action potential. These neurons can activate neurons that they connect to, sending a small group of spikes to their neighbors. If the random impulse isn't close to muscle it just dies out, but if it's pretty close, it will hit the motor neuron (or maybe more than one), which will in turn send spikes to a set of muscle cells. Then those muscle cells go through some stuff and end up twitching!
edit: added a couple words for clarification | 21 |
If Blue, Red and Yellow are the primary colors then why are Blue, Red and Green (RBG) used for generating colors in computer programs? | I really tried to google this, but I didn't see clear explanations on the difference. If I google RBG then I find posts which call these the primary additive colors, with green and red making yellow. I thought maybe my primary schooling was just old and color theory had changed a bit, but if I google primary colors for art purposes like painting, then it seems that blue, red and yellow are still the primaries for, say, mixing paints. | 8,527 | Our eyes contain receptors sensitive to red, green, and blue light. There is some overlap between them at the edges of their sensitivity spectra. We see yellow when our red and green receptors are both stimulated. This can be caused by light wavelengths in between red and green stimulating both receptors, but a mix of red and green light will also stimulate both receptors. Hence RGB for light-emitting screens.
Paint and pigment is based on reflecting *and* absorbing light, rather than directly mixing light. This leads to different effects from mixing pigments vs mixing light. You're not only combining the reflected light bands, but also cancelling them out via absorbed light bands.
Edit: why yellow and blue make green.
Yellow paint reflects red and green light while absorbing blue. Blue paint reflects blue light while absorbing more red light than green light. Red-absorption from blue paint cancels out red-reflection from yellow paint, and blue-absorption from yellow paint cancels out blue-reflection from blue paint. Green-absorption from blue paint doesn't quite cancel out green-reflection from yellow paint, so the resulting paint mix is green. Replacing blue paint with cyan paint will result in a brighter green, since cyan paint mainly absorbs red while reflecting blue and green. | 6,892 |
[Harry Potter] Is there some sort of wizarding television? | There's the Daily Prophet, but what about a way to watch quidditch matches live? Do you have to get a ticket? And what about the news? | 20 | They seem to get news mostly from newspapers. There is magical radio though, they listen to it while on the run in the Deathly Hallows. Their society is hesitant to adapt to change, so television, being new even in our world, hasn't made it's way there. We've had television for less than a century, and 24 hour news only for the last few decades.
As for sports, they can listen to the radio. But in a world where you can instantly transport places you want to go, why would you settle for sports on TV? | 20 |
Is there a part of the brain responsible solely for coordinating communication between all other parts of the brain? If so, what happens when that region is damaged (i.e. a stroke) | 135 | There are many different structures solely responsible for conducting signals in the brain and destroying those structures can either result in very little impairment or death. For instance, the corpus callosum is a structure containing 300 million nerve fibers which connect the two sides of the brain but destroying it results in very subtle problems. In some difficult cases of seizures, surgeons will cut the corpus callosum to prevent the seizure from spreading and those people will still function almost perfectly.
If you damage the Arcuate fasciculus, you can have a very strange effect on language. This structure connects a part of the brain responsible for understanding language and the part of the brain responsible for performing language. Disruption of this pathway will leave people unable to repeat words said to them.
Also, the spinal cord which extend all the way down to your middle back is part of your brain in every sense of the word. If you damage that, you will get varying degrees of paralysis and possible respiratory paralysis in which you cannot move your diaphragm. | 22 |
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ELI5: How do blue-light filters for glasses work? And what is the purpose of filtering blue light? | 32 | **The Belief**: Blue light reminds our brains of daylight, and therefore causes our brains/bodies to produce chemicals that keep us awake
**How glasses work:** Just like any type of light filtering, the glasses are just made of materials that block blue light from passing through them, but still allow other colors to pass through. This is usually done by tinting them yellow-ish.
**In reality**: Probably snake oil. As more information comes out, it's likely that the original studies weren't representative of the actual data and blue light probably doesn't affect anything outside of the margin of error. | 27 |
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What's the point of rockets in space? | In many movies that deal with space travel you see ships that constantly have their main rockets engaged. Wouldn't this keep the ship at a constant rate of acceleration and not just propelling the ship at the same rate? Or is there a force, even in space, similar to friction that keeps ships from constantly accelerating?
Edit: thanks for all the great responses. You guys have certainly answered my question but not only that you put it in terms I can easily understand lol I'm by no means a science expert just someone who has seen their fair share of space movies and a lot of free time on his hands. | 128 | Most movies don't care too much about being scientificly accurate vs apealing to look at. Let's ask it like this, if you want an impressive action shot, would you blast the rockets at full thrust or have it just sitting there doing nothing?
And yes you're right, the small resistance you get from space dust isn't a big factor as let's say air resistance. You don't keep your engines on because that would use up way too much fuel. | 83 |
CMV: Telling someone to watch what they drink/wear (to avoid getting raped) is no different than telling someone to lock their door (to avoid getting robbed) | edit: It has been pointed out that I'm including two entirely different things in this analogy (wearing revealing clothing vs. drinking) and the "wearing" analogy doesn't really hold up. So in this example, I'm solely referring to drinking, and I apologize for indicating otherwise.
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If I get robbed because I left my doors unlocked, that is not my fault. The police might ask if I locked up, and people might wonder why I was being careless, but the indisputable fact is that the person who robbed my house is the only one to blame for the situation.
I don't see how this is any different than suggesting women be careful what they drink while in mixed company. Women shouldn't HAVE to do this (any more than I should HAVE to lock my door) but we don't live in a world where everyone does exactly what they're supposed to. Therefore, it's not a victim-blaming or misguided idea to protect myself against those people. There are bad people out there. Some of them want to rob me, some of them want to rape me. These people KNOW they're bad, they just don't care.
I, as a rational adult, know that it's not realistic to go around demanding people stop suggesting I lock my doors, because they're engaging in victim blaming. We have locks on our doors, and have had them pretty much since doors were invented, because it's simply a logical protection to have against bad people.
Again, if I get robbed, it is NOT my fault. If they catch the robber, he's not going to be able to use "well he had his doors unlocked!" as any kind of excuse. But, having said that, there are proactive steps I can take to lessen the danger of someone taking advantage of me. That isn't changing anything about what the potential robber might attempt to do, it's just a way I can prevent myself from being put in a position to be robbed in the first place.
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> *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!* | 198 | > We have locks on our doors, and have had them pretty much since doors were invented, because it's simply a logical protection to have against bad people.
This is the disanalogy. Locks on doors actually dissuade and/or prevent people with criminal intent from robbing you. Wearing modest clothes does not dissuade or prevent rapists from attempting to rape you. Rather, this is just a rationalization to avoid putting responsibility on the rapist by acting like they can't help themselves and putting the responsibility on victims to avoid "provoking" rapes. This is nonsensical and harmful.
You have more of a point about watching what you drink (there's a possibility that keeping an eye on your drink can prevent a rapist from being able to rape you), but in your OP you equate watching what you drink with watching how you dress, and these are NOT equivalent. | 113 |
ELI5: Why do pigeons thrive so much better inside cities than any other bird? | Every city I ever visited had an abundance of pigeons but rarely other kinds of birds and definitely not as many/openly running/flying around. Do pigeons just thrive better in cities than other kinds of birds, if so why? | 275 | Pigeons are common in cities because buildings more closely resemble their natural nesting sites.
Rock doves nest on the side of cliffs. Not in trees or shrubs.
Human buildings provide lots of ledges for nesting.
Combine that with the fact that they're harmless, (so we don't kill them for being pests) not tasty (so we don't kill them for food) and their natural predators cannot hunt well in cities (falcons end up nose diving into walls using their usual tactics, larger predators avoid humans) and you've got the perfect combination for a species to cohabit our cities with.
Seagulls are also very common in cities in the UK for the same reason. | 402 |
[Halo] Was the Halcyon-class a bad design, or did it just arrive right before major technological development? | So I'm something of a Halo lore nut. The Halcyon-class is a pre-Covenant war design, at the time of its manufacture it's the smallest ship to be called a cruiser. It has very good armour and massive structural reinforcement, but it has only 1 MAC and 6 Archer missile pods. Its engines had only 10% of the output of "modern" engines as of 2550ish, which is admittedly a full generation later. Still, a 1000% improvement in reactor output is... Impressive, to say the least. The Navy considered the design to be something of a joke, because of these negative traits.
So, was it just a bad design with poor reactor output, bad armaments and too much armour and reinforcement, or was it developed right before greater reactor output was possible and more armaments were required?
Is it possible that the design preceeding it might have been faster and better-armed? Seems unlikely to me, but thought I'd ask anyway. | 368 | Humanity had a huge technological leap after first contact. They may have been on the edge of some great technology (mjolnir, shields, etc) but reverse engineering and then improving upon covenant and forerunner goo gaws advanced the unsc decades or centuries in a fraction of the time.
The halcyon class was built prior to this, and it was designed to be cost effective while bullying innies in ships that the halcyon laughs at. It's not a bad ship for what it was designed to do, but it wasn't designed to fight a superior (numerically, technologically and tonnage) force like the covenant. | 273 |
ELI5 why it matters in which currency crude oil is traded. | I mean, we give oil a certain value that can be easily expressed in each local currency. So why should it matter if we trade it in, say South Korean Won? | 45 | When you sell a product internationally, you want to use a currency that is easy to exchange, and that will hold its value well. That means dollars, euros, yen, pounds, and maybe Swiss francs.
If you are Venezuela and just sold a billion dollars with of oil and took won for it, you are going to have a problem. No one in Venezuela wants won, and even if you showed up in Seoul money in hand, exchanging that much won at once is going to shift the market and give you a bad rate.
With the other currencies, there are plenty of people locally who want them, and the economies are large enough to absorb as much as you want to exchange. And since they are so widely accepted, you may not have to exchange them at all, and just use them to buy something else. | 12 |
Can someone simplify the NBA strike? | 68 | NBA owners are losing money. Less than five teams turned in a profit last season. They feel this is mainly due to overspending on players' salaries. While the NBA has a salary cap (the maximum amount a team can spend on all its players; it's set at around 55 million) to prevent overspending, it's a "soft cap," which means certain circumstances allow teams to exceed the cap (this usually includes trades and contract extensions).
Some owners have been giving out superstar contracts to average players (one player received roughly a 120 million over six years contract) and the precedent over the last few years has been to overpay for simply average players. The owners want to rewrite the rules as to how to sign players so this doesn't happen anymore. Instead of being allowed to sign a player for six guaranteed years for 120 million dollars, they want the max to be more like four years for 50 million, no guarantees. They feel like cutting player salaries by about 50% is the best way to help them save money, and thus, turn a profit.
Additionally, the owners want the soft salary cap to become a hard cap, meaning that under no circumstances can teams exceed the cap.
The players, on the other hand, do not want a pay cut. They believe that NBA owners should not be entitled to make a profit just for owning a team, and believe that it's an owner's own person financial responsibility if they offer an absurdly large contract and thus lose money.
Now the two sides are meeting to create a new agreement. Owners want to cut salaries by 50%, eliminate guaranteed contracts, and impose a hard cap. Players are only willing to budge on a very small salary decrease, something like five percent. NBA won't resume until the two come to an agreement.
Considering how far away they are in bargaining, it's probably going to be a long lockout. | 68 |
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[Middle Earth] Do those corrupted by the One Ring still have free will? | 39 | I would say so, in the sense that they make their own choices. The One Ring ultimately serves only Sauron and wants to rejoin him, influencing its host to do whatever it can to get that to happen. Gollum was probably the most affected by the Ring and he would never give it up, but it changed and manipulated him to get to Sauron. Gandalf wasn’t worried that he would become Sauron’s slave with the Ring, but that he would become corrupted into becoming the *next* Sauron. | 29 |
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If I leave my postdoc for a non-academic position, would I be able to re-join academia later on? | I have a job offer for a science communication- outreach position. I am thinking of taking it because I want to see if that career path would make me happier. The position involves grant writing and fieldwork, but no opportunities for publishing. I am on my first postdoc. If I leave my postdoc for this position and then decide that I miss research, would I be able to get another postdoc and get back in the game? Or am I really shutting the door on the academic career track? I do have some trailing papers from my PhD so I will probably still have publications coming out for the next year or two. | 118 | The vast majority of postdocs in most fields have no realistic academic career prospects, so likely you can't actually decrease your chances very much. But yes, it will be difficult to get back into the game. When applying for jobs, you will likely be judged by people who have never known anything but the very linear career paths that academics are meant to follow and will look down on any deviation from that path. Many will think that you went into a non-academic position because you were not good enough to get a tenure track position, though many will think that if you do more than one or two postdocs anyway. Academia is very social status oriented and non-academic jobs are for many academics low-status. It is not impossible though. Ones chances are never zero. | 128 |
[The Walking Dead] What if the Governor had been the man he pretended to be? What if he worked out an alliance with the Prison group? | What if he was a rational yet at the still time, strong individual, willing to work with other survivors, and wasn't secretly a maniac?
I mean, we see throughout the TV series that he isn't entirely a psychopath.
His treatment of the family he meets in Season 4 is evidence of that.
If the Governor didn't have his dark side, what would the rest of the series look like? | 17 | They would have stayed at the prison forever. Slowly picked up more and more survivors until they reached a critical mass. Eventually would have bumped into the terminus group where they would have gone to war and won. Maybe met Abraham and company. A group would have ended up going to DC and maybe finding Alexandria and others. | 11 |
Why does Britain not have the same culture of mass protest that we see in countries such as Spain, Brazil etc? | 44 | Some recent examples of large protest in the U.K within the last few years. Numbers taken from Wikipedia
2011 London anti-cuts protest: Various sources estimated that the demonstration was attended by between 250,000 and 500,000 people.
The 2010 British student protests: Approximately 30,000 to 52,000 protesters attended the demonstration on the streets of central London.
February 15, 2003 anti-war protest: Police estimated attendance as well in excess of 750,000 people and the BBC estimated that around a million attended. | 50 |
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[Star Wars] Why was Anakin so willing to kill Obi Wan? | Probably a dumb question but why was Anakin so willing to kill Obi Wan on Mustafar? He been a great mentor and friend to him since he was a child. They been through so much together and Obi Wan has never done him any wrong. I can understand Anakin hating the Jedi order due to the council not making him a master and Palpatine's corruption but I see no reason for him to want to kill Obi Wan. And throughout the fight Obi Wan was clearly trying to help him rather than kill him. Did he think he stole his girl Padme or something? | 15 | > Did he think he stole his girl Padme or something?
Actually, yeah. But not in a romantic sense.
At the time, Anakin fully believed Palpatine's lies and his own deep-seated insecurities about the Jedi. He hated them for holding him back for so long, denying him the power to save his wife and by proxy his mother, and for using him so blatantly for so long.
He already was in a shaky mental state after everything he had done to the younglings, fellow jedi, and the separatist leadership. That's a lot of murder in a very short amount of time, and Anakin was totally consumed by the dark side. The thing with doing that is that it warps your thoughts, and clouds your judgment into an extremely self-centered and malicious mindset. Anakin already hated Obi Wan for being part of the Jedi and the embodiment of their holding him back for so many years. And then seeing him walk out of the same ship that Padme was on utterly convinced him that the Jedi, Obi Wan specifically, had turned his wife against him. Anakin thought that only his new Sith powers would save her, and if Padme was turned against him, it meant that she would reject his gifts and thus die. Making his visions come true no matter how hard he fought.
One of the last things Anakin says to Obi Wan before their duel was "You will not take her from me!" which just goes to show where his priorities were, and how completely deluded he was by lies and self interest. He must have been just as heartbroken as Obi Wan at the time, but instead of expressing sorrow or confusion, he lashed out in rage. | 29 |
[Hunger Games] if each tribute is allowed to bring one small personal item with them into the games, and the mines around the starting plates are sensitive enough to be triggered by them, whats stopping someone from throwing their personal item at another plate to kill them before the games start? | 57 | Not an answer to your specific scenario, but one year a tribute used a small wooden ball to do just that... only she dropped it onto her *own* plate to detonate the explosive device, killing herself. The gamemakers now check all personal items before the events.
But in case of such a scenario, then the one who performed such a scenario would be executed on the spot; either their podium would be remotely detonated or a Muttation would be sent to kill them. | 53 |
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ELI5: What is happening when power flickers like its going to shut off when a storms approaching? | Wife and I just noticed a flash of lightning outside and a couple seconds later heard thunder and our lights flickered like we were going to lose power. What is happening here? | 20 | Basically there is a voltage drop. Voltage drops if there is a short in the system (or when more power is used than produced, but that isn't the case here). A short is when the high voltage line gets connected to the neutral line (or ground) without proper resistance. Imagine you stick a paper clip in a plug so you connect both sides. Sparks, and current. Your house has a breaker that will trip if you do that, but for a breif second the voltage will drop and high current will flow through the wires.
In the case of a storm, kind of the same thing happens, at a bigger scale.. like some wires crossed and there was a short causing the voltage to drop. Could be a branch pushing wires together, or a pole falling and ripping wires down. Like the breakers in your house, the power company has breakers that will prevent the short taking out the whole grid. But for a second the short effected your power by reducing the voltage to the point your lights didn't work. | 19 |
[Harry Potter] Why are wizards/witches limited to wands? | It's well known that wands consist of a wood rod and a magical core, but why do wizards stick with a footlong stick that channels their powers when they could use a staff which would allow for a much larger or multiple items as it's core to better channel or even amplify their power? Say something like a willow sapling with a dragonbone core. | 51 | They aren't. According to Ollivander, a wizard or witch can channel his or her power through any instrument encasing a sufficiently magical substance. However, after his research, he came to the conclusion that the combination of wand wood properties, shape, flexibility and wand core (Ollivander is very adamant that only phoenix feathers, dragon heartstrings and unicorn hairs are appropriate cores) gives the best magic over everything else.
So sure, if you want, you can use a staff or orb or iPod to use magic, but the spells won't be as effective as if you had used a wand. | 59 |
[Star Wars] If Princess Leia was somehow the ambassador of Naboo, would Grand Moff still recklessly destroy the planet without seeking the Emperor's advice first? | I know this would mean a lot of plot issues would be made different, but if Vader and the Grand Moff have in custody a royal member of Naboo (or if Princess Leia was an ambassador from Naboo), would Moff Tarkin have used it as a demonstration for the Death Star, without seeking any consultation from Emperor Palpatine (since it's his home planet)? | 85 | In the original Battlefront 2, the 501st actually puts down a rebellion on Naboo that includes assassinating the current Queen.
Emperor Palpatine does not give a fuuuuuuuuuuck about his home planet, or life and civilization in general. Dude is just a black hole of greed and hatred. | 107 |
CMV: Police should be held to the same standards for self defense as any other citizen. | Let me be clear, I am not against the use of self defense by police officers, or anyone, just the idea that the laws do not apply equally.
This is in direct response to the recent clearing of Michael Brelo of the Cleveland Police Department. In 2012 Brelo was part of a chase that ended with over 130 rounds shot into two unarmed suspects. Brelo fired continued to reload his weapon, climb on the care, and fire another 15 rounds in the car, after other officers had already stopped firing. The judge ruling over the case cleared him of charges using a baseball analogy and saying it was impossible to prove his bullets were the fatal shots. Although this is true, the use of force was excessive and he was still, nonetheless, a party to this grotesque undertaking of "justice".
This case highlights that police can operate according to a separate set of laws. If I was with a person who fired one shot into a person and killed them, despite clear evidence I did not shoot the fatal shot, I would likely still be charged with murder, at the very least accessory (or an equivalent charge) to the murder. Even in a case of clear self defense, one is almost certain to face criminal charges, especially when they continue to use force after the threat has been eliminated and they are in no clear danger. For example, If me and three friends fired 140 rounds into a home invader you can be certain we would all be in jail. Though it would be close to impossible to prove who's shots were fatal, we were all participants, and we would still face severe legal consequences.
If we as a society accept the idea that people are justified in using lethal force in self defense, it should not be also accepted that certain people, because of their job, are able to follow a different set of guidelines.
So Reddit, in order to help me deal with my anger at the moment, I hope you can convince me that in a nation where "no man is above the law" which prides itself on the idea of "liberty and justice for all" that some people, because of their job, should be allowed to be "more equal than others."
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/23/michael-brelo-not-guilty_n_7427710.html)
(http://www.businessinsider.com/judge-john-p-odonnell-explains-why-michael-brelo-was-found-not-guilty-2015-5)
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> *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!* | 172 | * Regular people cannot break into your house, but firemen can if needed.
* Regular people can't just inject drugs into your body without your consent, but ambulance personnel can if needed.
* You don't have to show your passport to anyone who asks, but you have to show it when crossing the border.
It is necessary that these people do their jobs, and they couldn't do it if they had no right to do it. People are usually expected to cooperate with them. You could actually go to jail for sabotaging their job, such as not letting the firemen through your yard, or not letting them break a door.
Police too, it is necessary that they apprehend criminals. Regular citizens are expected to avoid confrontation with each other, but the policemen must intervene, confront them, and take them in. This is the reason their cases are handled differently. Because they cannot just back away.
I agree that they should not be allowed to use excessive force. But the same rights as a regular citizen are just not enough. | 56 |
ELI5: If energy cannot be created or destroyed, what happens to the energy and matter that gets sucked into black holes? | 16 | Black holes do not violate these conservation laws.
Think of a penny that you drop into an ocean. For any practical purposes, that penny is gone, but that doesn't mean it just disappeared, it's still somewhere deep in that ocean.
Black holes don't destroy energy, they just "trap" it, if that makes sense. | 42 |
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[Harry Potter]Dementors make humans experience extreme depression, that being the case how do they keep people in Azkaban from just lying down until they die of hunger/thirst? | 15 | The effect of a Dementor probably isn't on/off so much as an intensifying area of effect enhanced if the Dementor is focusing on you... If you're further away and there's only 1, and it's not actively draining you it'll take longer to set in and probably won't be as profound.
There's a passing comment by Fudge, when he's explaining the Black situation to Madam Rosmerta in "The Prisoner of Azkaban", and he says Black was given maximum security, with Dementors outside day and night.
Extrapolating from that statement, there are patrols of Dementors throughout the place, with at least standard and high-security, maybe other denominations. The Dementors may not necessarily enjoy feeding on someone 24/7 as much as letting them recover somewhat before bringing another crashing wave of cold, despair, misery and eventually apathy on them. So, some of the prisoners may be largely left alone and only experience a partial or cyclical effect. It'd probable still be pretty horrific, even if it's not as intense as having the Dementors there all the time.
And Black did mention that within a few hours people went from defiant, to miserable to screaming for someone to help them. Eventually even the strong-willed ones succumbed to apathy and stopped screaming. Some of them stopped eating. He also said the Dementors could sense when death was approaching, and behind excited, gravitating towards the person they'd managed to tip over the edge. | 20 |
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ELI5: Over 800,000 people go missing in the US every year, the vast majority people under the age of 18. Discounting the runaways, resolved cases, and other causes, how many of these missing can be attributed to psychopaths and sexual slavery? | 24 | Your question is flawed and that's why you are getting widely different answers. let me ask you a question. If a teenager runs away from home, that's a run away. If that run away falls in with a bad crowd (because, homeless) and ends up being sex slave in a far away place. If that person's disappearance attributed to sex slavery or is she a run away?
Very few kids who are in happy healthy homes are abducted by strangers. Much more likely is that the home is shit, the child leaves that shit home and gets involved in another dangerous situation. This person is now considered "high risk" because no one is looking out for them. It's now relatively easy for sex slavers to abduct them. | 27 |
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Acne, why the face and the back? | 404 | Short answer: inflammation of hair follicles which are located in those areas. Areas like the face and back (and chest and butt for many others) are particularly prone to build ups of excess dirt, bacteria, and sebum – all of which contribute to the formation of acne pimples and cysts.
Acne causes are complicated and can be multi-faceted. Seek consultation with a dermatologist if you’re suffering from any kind of acne. There are many solutions, so there’s no need to suffer! | 343 |
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ELI5: This Ancient Athens quote about women. | Thucydides rounds off the funeral speech attributed to Pericles: " The greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about among men, whether in praise or blame".
I am doing literature study about Ancient Athens and that's the quote I found in one of the books, could someone explain it with the context of the women's status in those days? | 31 | The Athenian ideal for women was to remain invisible to society. Athenian women as a rule did not engage in public life (politics, philosophy, science, poetry, drama, athletics, war) and did not own property. At the extreme, women of the upper class were encouraged to remain isolated at home (though very few probably actually did this).
To be praised for one's beauty was to invite charges of infidelity, to be praised for one's mind was to be seen as masculine. To be talked of negatively , as promiscuous, or shrewish or whatever, was obviously bad. A woman therefore should be essentially unknown to male society.
There were women who engaged more directly with male society. Foreign women were permitted to own property and engage in business. And the haeterae were a class of courtesan, many foreign, who provided entertainment to men. In addition to sex, they composed and read poetry, played music, discussed philosophy and politics, etc. Some, in fact, made fortunes without providing sexual services. The most famous of these women was Phryne, said to be so beautiful that when tried before the Areopagus on blasphemy charges all she had to do to be acquitted as display her naked body to the judges.
But these were not ideal women. They were immodest, masculine, promiscuous and often foreign. They were frequent topics of discussion among men, but not for "good" reasons. | 37 |
[DC]What would be different if Batman publicly admitted he was Bruce Wayne? | 17 | He'd be sued a million times over and the GCPD wouldn't politically be able to work with him anymore, since they rely on the plausible deniability of 'oh we totally can't arrest this vigilante we don't even know who he is.' | 41 |
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[DC/Marvel] How do superheroes routinely invent things that outpace far more advanced civilizations? | This is mostly a Marvel question. Earth is a relatively unadvanced civilization compared to, say, the Kree or the Shi’ar, yet it seems like humans constantly invent things that these societies haven’t. Dr. Doom has a time machine. Reed Richards has an entire multiversal council of his alternate selves. At the very least, Iron Man-caliber armor should be standard issue among alien soldiers, as should a Captain America-esque super soldier serum. In the MCU, Kang/He Who Remains discovered multiversal travel and basically became a time god… had no one else in the universe, even from more advanced civilizations, discovered this yet?
DC has this problem to some extent. Earth is a galactic backwater compared to, say, New Genesis, but Batman is consistently creating shit that can damage New Gods, Kryptonians and whoever else the plot needs him to beat.
I know the actual answer is just “the plot is on Earth and the main characters are human,” but what is the in-universe explanation for why such insane scientific advancement is coming from such a small group of people at this specific point in time? And why haven’t more advanced alien civilizations beaten them to everything they’ve invented? | 451 | So much like our current continuity, most species’ development is cumulative in nature. First comes the basics of math and physics, then comes nuclear mechanics, then relativity and so on. Breakthroughs are rarely isolated; for every Einstein there were years of other brilliant minds laying the framework for their advances. Newton is one the few cases where someone did most of the heavy lifting themselves. Most species in other universes follow this model, albeit further along that axis of development.
Compare this model to Marvel and DC Earth. You have many, many Einstein and Newton level or beyond geniuses all working simultaneously on multiple fields, building and improving upon each other and stealing stuff from other more developed species along the way to boot. This is very unusual and has proven to be dangerous at times as new inventions are tested and found too late to be volitile or have unintended side effects. | 285 |
[DC] Can Starro the Conqueror infect Darkseid? | 24 | It could possibly infect his avatar (highly unlikely though because Darkseid is at least top 5 in the verse for mind control resistance). But Darkseids real form is a 5th dimensional consciousness so there's nothing starro could do to control the real body, it'd be like a person drawn on a paper mind controlling a 3D human being it just wouldn't be possible. | 15 |
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ELI5: Why are picture frames so expensive? | So I recently decided I wanted a poster and because I'm an adult, and didn't want my $15 masterpiece held up by tacks I figured I'd get a frame for it. My first stop was a local frame shop where I explained I wanted something inexpensive for a poster. They told me they had a cheap poster package. Simple black stained wood and a basic pane of glass (uv protection, but not anti-glare). Just what I was hoping for, but the total was $80. So I hit amazon and found a basic wooden frame, a sheet of plastic with a cardboard back and they still wanted around $35 (and required you to screw in the mountings yourself). In the end I did exactly what I wanted to avoid and tried walmart where I found exactly what I needed for $16.00. I'd have been willing to pay more for a better frame (something wood would have been nice) but the prices are way out of line when you're just trying to hang a simple poster. What is going on with the pricing on this stuff? Are their intricacies to picture frames I'm missing that make them cost so much more than the sum of their parts?
EDIT: It's so cool to hear from folks with experience in the framing business. I'll leave this post unsolved for the weekend in case anyone else shows up to chime in and then mark this one explained. Thanks guys! I feel bad for the folks who really do have something they want to protect because it seems like everyone gets gouged, but it's a necessary evil if you want your stuff to stay nice and look great on your wall. | 17 | Those cheap frames are far far far from archival. If you don't have uv glass, the art is going to fade quickly. If you don't have non-acidic backing, it's going to discolor and hurt your image. Then there are things like museum glass that eliminate glare almost completely. You don't realize how nice that is until you see horrible glare on your poster from your lamp. | 13 |
[Into the Spider-Verse] Why is Gwen enrolled at the private school? | Gwen is at the school before Miles gets powers. Not just there, but apparently enrolled and having a desk assigned.
Why was she at the school taking classes? Miles hadn't gotten powers, and it's a private school requiring enough tuition that Miles' parents are struggling. Also shouldn't there have been an application process/period to get in?
Why is she enrolled and taking classes, and how is she paying for it? | 32 | I have a few theories:
1. she could have hacked her way in.
2. She could have taken some other girl's place, potentially her alternate universe self's (we don't know if that universe has a Gwen, only that Peter B. Parker's and her's did).
3. Gwen may have had a connection in her own universe she exploited to get through the process - for instance, knowing enough black-mail material from one of her father's (Police Captain Stacy's) busts of a high profile individual to black-mail her way in.
4. The school's security is absolutely terrible, and no one is watching for just another blonde girl. Spider powers make her a ninja, and she stole the uniform from the locker rooms or someone else's dorm. | 54 |
Does DeVos influence higher ed? | I've Googled, of course, but everything I've found is focused on primary/secondary education.
Would anyone 'in the know' share their knowledge about the effects her appointment might have on higher ed?
I'm currently interviewing for PhD programs and expect I'll go to a private university, but this could have far reaching effects beyond my years in grad school, and I would like to be informed sooner rather than later. | 29 | Yes, the Department of Education deals with higher education as well. The biggest involvement is through the Pell grant program which provides part of the support for many, many college students. That also means it's the agency responsible for issues involving the role of for-profit colleges. It's also the agency which handles most federal regulations about universities (for example, DeVos was asked whether she'd enforce regulations about how universities handle sexual assault cases). | 30 |
CMV:Whites are more racists against black culture than black skin color | When we talk about racism in America, more often than not it's based around culture rather than skin color. A black man that acts white, while still somewhat disadvantaged, does MUCH better in society than a black man that speaks in ebonics, has black culture mannerisms and generally gives off a vibe of highly ingrained black culture.
White culture, on average, is much more quiet and docile compared to black culture, which is often perceived as loud, arrogant and annoying by whites.
If you are black and are proud of your black culture and heritage, that's great, but don't expect white culture to embrace it. If you want to have a better life, assimilate into white culture.
Edit: my view that blacks should assimilate into white culture has been changed. That was a terrible view. | 197 | I'd like to point out that the main reason blacks have a separate culture is because slavery, segregation and skin-color racism excluded them from mainstream, white culture, to the extent that they ended up developing their own form of English. You'll notice that England does not have a separate black culture, or not to the extent that America does.
So skin-color racism caused blacks to have a separate culture, which now white people are discriminating against them for having. It's like burning down someone's house, then complaining about the homeless person living in the neighborhood. | 126 |
CMV: My best plan in life would be to illegally immigrate to the USA | I am in the USA on a work visa. I like it here. I also like traveling and gaining new experiences in life.
The process to legally immigrate to the USA is long winding and would require me to be a worker for 7-8 years (and this could get significantly worse if the election results go crazy). That doesn't sound like my cup of tea. I have few needs and I have enough money to buy a Recreational Vehicle and travel the entire country.
So I plan on doing that. I would either keep my current drivers license, or [get a new one in the states which are friendly to illegal immigrants](http://immigration.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005535). The worst that could happen is that I get deported back to my home country, and I could either travel there or elsewhere in the world.
Why should I waste the precious years of my youth slaving away for corporate America, just so that I have the paperwork which says that I have the "right" to live on one side of a man made border?
I intend to put this plan in action early next year. Can you convince me that such a plan isn't in my best interest?
EDIT: I received rather entertaining hate mail for this post. If/when I finally embark on this adventure, their printouts shall decorate my RV!
EDIT: Thanks for the gold, anonymous friend!
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> *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 | Truman Capote once said, **"The problem with living outside the law is that you no longer have its protection."**
Illegal immigrants are forced to suffer all kinds of injustices and abuse because they can't utilize public (and many private) services without getting caught.
If someone is assaulting you, you can't call the police.
If someone breaks into your place and steals or damages your belongings, you can't report it to the police or insurance.
If you get screwed by an employer or landlord, you are out of luck. Not to mention, you are very limited in where you can work and live, and chances for upward mobility for you are low.
The worst part about this is that abusers often *know* they can abuse you in these ways and not get in trouble.
Basically, the courts, police, firefighters, educational institutions, utility companies, and health care workers are now your enemies.
Not to mention, in the not uncommon chance that you are caught, you may spend a long time languishing in a detention center, and then be forbidden from entering the US on a legitimate visa for a very long time. | 23 |
Amor Fati and Existentialism | As far as my understanding goes, \*amor fati\* or love of (one's) fate, is (among other things) an existentialist's way of coming to terms with essence; that it is that although the world may include unchangeable structures that we are not naturally inclined to desire (i.e., suffering and death) we can still choose with which attitude we will face these facts – and choose the best attitude that we can. This partial acceptance of essence is, again as far as my knowledge goes, at odds or at least in a tension with the main creeds of existentialism, that you are responsible for and can make of life what you will.
Is there slogan similar to \*amor fati\* that contrasts against it and expresses this core tenet of existentialism? The example closest to the meaning I anticipate is 'make your way', although this phrase has no historical connection to existentialism as far as I'm aware. | 16 | I think it's a bit misguided to think of existentialism as a philosophical system with main creeds and core tenets.
*Amor fati* is a concept from Nietzsche's philosophy and relates to his contemplation on eternal recurrence and becoming the "yea-sayer." If you're interested in that concept, you should read *The Gay Science.* | 10 |
[Avatar: Legend of Korra] How would things have played out if Aang was still the Avatar during the events of LoK? | Let’s assume that being in the ice for 100 years hadn’t decreased Aang’s lifespan, and he was still alive and kicking during the events of LoK. How would things have changed? | 16 | For the most part, Korra's enemies would have chosen not to do what they did, or at least waited until Aang passed away.
Amon was raised on his father's stories of the avatar's power, and would have been too wary of Aang to start an uprising during his lifetime. Aang would have been easily able to reverse Amon's bloodbending trick, and thus expose his lie with little effort.
The Red Lotus might not have even formed if Aang hadn't died so (relatively) early. Their founder was disgusted at how the society had become "the avatar's bodyguards" while Korra was young, and eventually its members became dedicated to intentionally disrupting balance that the avatar tried to uphold. But if Aang survived a few decades more, that initial split would not have occurred. And without the Red Lotus, the Earth Kingdom would not have crumbled. So Kuvira wouldn't have had any reason to leave and become a dictator.
The only outlier is Unalaq. He was already a fanatic about harmonic convergence and creating a dark avatar with Vaatu. The water tribe civil war might not have happened without Korra, since she was being manipulated by Unalaq the entire time as part of his bigger plans. If anything, Raava would have communicated with Aang directly as harmonic convergence approached, and he would have stopped Unalaq before Vaatu could be released. | 32 |
[RPGs] How come the stronger and healthier you are (more hit points), the longer it takes you to heal up to full strength? Shouldn't it be the opposite? | Whereas a rookie adventurer can be injured to near-unconsciousness, but then very quickly heal up to full strength. | 47 | Suppose there are two adventurers. "Rookie" with 10 health, and "Veteran" with 100 health.
They both take an axe-to-the-face, which equals ten-damage. It's still the same wound here. It's not as if the Rookie is *completely destroyed* at 0/10, and the veteran is only mildly inconvenienced at 90/100. The difference is that the Rookie can't take as much damage as the veteran before reaching unconsciousness.
It would take both of them the same amount of time/healing resources to heal the same amount of damage. The only difference is that the Veteran can take 'more' without being knocked out of battle. | 67 |
Do you shelf negative results or try to publish them? | I have been struggling with this for many years now. Had to drop quite a few projects during my PhD that if published, the negative results could actually be useful for others to at least know what not to try. As a result, I started a mini-exploration on this topic by interviewing other researchers, complied here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_QlXBTWDEv8&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QlXBTWDEv8&feature=youtu.be)
Sharing it here because there just doesn't seem to be enough recognition of the problem or discussion surrounding this in the current academic community. What do you all think? Are negative results worth the time and trouble to publish? | 22 | Null results absolutely should be published . The file draw problem is one of the big factors causing the replication crisis.
Getting a null result is still data towards answering the research question, even if it isnt the answer you were hoping for. | 15 |
[Star Wars] What is human language called? What is its origin? | 157 | Every human in Star Wars speak Galactic Basic, which is the trade language derived from Old Coruscanti with a pidgin of words including Durese and Bothese.
Basic first appeared after the fall of the Rakatan Infinite Empire and during the Formation of the Galactic Republic. | 192 |
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[Jurassic World] How was the Mosasaurus created? | In the Jurassic Park series, it is explained that the dinosaurs were genetically created by extracting blood sucked by insects that had traces of dinosaur DNA still left in it with the gaps being filled in with amphibian DNA. But in Jurassic World, how was the Mosasaurus created? Since it A: It lives in the ocean meaning an insect can't bite it, B: You'd barely get any DNA from fossilized remains, and C: How can a frog fill in its genetic gaps, since frogs lack gills. With the exception being in tadpoles. | 42 | Its an aquatic reptile, so it still breaths air. There may have been some that got beached, and that's where the insects got them. Also, it's way bigger than the real thing, so there is probably a lot of work done on its DNA | 42 |
[Marvel] What would happen if Juggernaut ran through a pool of molten adamantium which then started cooling? | The adamantium would become cool enough to solidify while he is in it. | 39 | The heat from the friction caused by Juggernaut moving through the liquid as it becomes more viscous would cause the adamantium to never solidify but instead reach a steady state of temperature/viscosity according to what speed Juggernaut entered the pool. | 37 |
What are some lesser known traits of narcissistic personality disorder? | I know about the obvious traits, such as having a grandiose sense of self, being secretly insecure on the inside, and placing a great deal of care on their public image. I'm wondering what some of the lesser known traits of clinical narcissists are. | 57 | Not realizing other people have feelings, or at least failing to understand feelings in others. Narcissists tend to be empathically clueless or clumsy. They're the sort of person who says something incredibly offensive and then is confused or even angry at everyone for being offended.
Dr. Sam Gosling also noted this can show up when you give them compliments they clearly don't deserve or are obviously hyperbole: They will react as if they deserve all of them and that the complimenting is normal, even if non-NPD observers can tell it's really sarcasm and/or mockery. | 66 |
eli5 how does cement and concrete become hard if it's only rocks and water | 94 | It's not only rocks and water. Concrete is cement + rocks + water. The key part there is the cement...that's not inert, it's a chemical mix called Portland cement that's basically a really cheap glue that reacts when it hits water.
You can mix just cement and water and it will set into a solid, but that's (relatively) expensive and not that strong. But if you use the cement to glue rocks together, you get concrete, which is really strong in compression but really weak in tension. So if you stick steel bars in it you get re-enforced concrete, which is really strong in compression and tension.
There are other cements than Portland cement but they're pretty rare; Portland cement is really well understood and ubiquitously available all over the world. It reacts with water to form a solid. | 270 |
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[X-Men] Could Charles Xavier use his powers to make humans stop hating mutants? | Charles Xavier has the power to manipulate and control the minds and thoughts of any living being, and with or without Cerebro(depending on the continuity) he could access every single mind on the planet. This got me thinking, could Charles theoretically use this to erase anti-mutant thoughts and feelings from human minds? That way, it would ensure that anti-mutant systems and programs would be discontinued and mutants would have any right, freedom, and privilege as anybody. Plus, by erasing these thoughts and memories, nobody would ever again know any different, so those sentiments couldn't come back. Just a thought. | 32 | He absolutely could do that, but he explains on more than one occasion things like that won't work because it would take constant reinforcement.
Like he could convince a guy he's a woman but the effect wouldn't be permanent, the mind would find a way to circumvent his suggestion. | 29 |
I believe the benefit of recycling is a myth CMV. | I believe that as demand for it increases, technology will catch up to the problems we face re global warming and landfills very quickly, *I don't believe anything which can be burned with oxygen is non-biodegradable*, and I believe humanity is more than equipped to deal with the problem of global warming quickly and efficiently if it comes to it. For instance the enormous advances in the capabilities of solar power we have seen recently. I don't believe it's worth rearranging funding towards programs dedicated to conservation rather than programs dedicated to reversal or alternatives.
I reserve an exception for hydraulic fracturing.
Edit: So I guess "recycling" is too broad a term.
I think of paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum as the things which need to be recycled.
-For plastic I get the feeling that we are not good enough at sorting plastics to recycle them effectively.
-For paper I feel like there is less environmental impact to just grow new trees to cut down. I asked /r/science about this and I didn't really get a good answer. I haven't researched it myself though.
-Glass I can probably get behind, I don't know how much energy goes into making a bottle from scratch, or what goes into sterilizing them, but I know that a lot of cities used to recycle glass and don't know so...
-Aluminum is elemental, you can't make more of it when you need more of it, which raises the question of whether we should be using it in the first place. Aluminum is probably the only recycling I don't by default think is a waste of time. | 17 | Metal recycling is extremely useful, more for its economic benefits than its environmental ones. It's much more efficient and less harmful than other types of recycling, but most importantly it's cheaper than getting new metal and allows for the creation of independent metal purchasing businesses, which in turn allow people to receive money for metal they no longer need. Everyone wins. | 20 |
ELI5:What is the purpose of Nautical Miles and why dont we just use regular Miles or Kilometers for ocean or air travel? | 117 | Nautical miles are useful because 1 nautical mile is 1 minute of latitude, or 1/60th of a degree of latitude. It makes them useful when navigating on charts, where latitude and longitude are in degrees and fractions of degrees. | 171 |
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CMV: Hiring a Real Estate Buyer's Agent Will Cost you More Than Purchasing a Home Without a Buyer's Agent | I hear repeatedly that I should hire a realtor to represent me when purchasing a home. I hear that a buyer's agent will work hard for me and will help me get the best deal possible on my home purchase. My logic says that this isn't true.
Given that a buyer's agent will make 2.5% to 3% of the home's price in commission. **Isn't the buyer's agent incentivized to get the buyer to pay more for the home instead of less since this will increase the commission? And so wouldn't hiring a buyer's agent be detrimental to me getting the best deal on a home purchase?**
Please change my view! Thanks!
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> *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!* | 20 | An agent will know all the ins and outs of the industry and you don't know any of them. It's in their best interest to get you a house you like as quickly as possible and to get it for you at a price you like. This serves a couple of goals. The first is the faster she gets you a house you like the sooner she can pick up another client. This means that instead of you spending a lot of time searching she will find houses that fit your requirements in a timely manner. Realtors also rely heavily on word of mouth. If one isn't working to get you a good deal word will get around. Not to mention the fact that you can refuse to buy a house if your realtor isn't getting you the deal you want. | 14 |
ELI5: If the government considers you an adult at 18, than why does federal financial aid deem you inelegible for assistance if you're parents make too much money? | I have some friends that have this issue and can't go to school because of it. I would guess it's because they assume the parents will pay for it. However many parents either cant or won't pay, leaving alot of kids screwed over something they can't control.
| 3,226 | While you are an adult at 18, you continue to be considered a "dependent" of your parents until you turn 25. This is because parents typically financially support their children even after their 18th birthday. You don't hear about many 18 year olds being kicked to the curb by their parents on their birthday, although it does occasionally happen. Similarly, at 18 you can remain on your parents' health and car insurance, and they can claim you on their taxes. Because of this, it is expected that 18-24 year olds will have an easier time being supported and paying for school if their parents make $150,000 instead of $40,000 every year. This results in the student from the family with less money receiving more financial aid than one from a higher paid family.
However, you CAN qualify under an "independent" status where only the student's income is reported and considered when determining financial aid awards. This can be done if the student is homeless, a foster child, an orphan, in a legal guardianship, or has a dependent of his/her own (ex: a 19 year old student has a baby).
Edit: thanks for the additional info, guys! You can also qualify for independent status if you are in the military, emancipated, or are married. Also, a "dependent" status on the FAFSA is NOT the same as being claimed as a dependent on your parents' taxes. | 1,200 |
[Chronicles of Riddick] How did they build a prison on Crematoria? | There would only be so many hours to work before scorching sunlight or frigid cold would sweep across the construction site. Anything that couldn't be pulled into orbit in that time; construction materials, tools and vehicles, workers would be destroyed and it could take weeks or months to get a resupply.
Additionally, would the price of building the prison be worth storing its inmates? | 31 | I would wager that the facility started as a mining operation, and if there is good ore to be found, companies will find a way. Probably, as /u/deftspyder noted, with prefabricated units.
Later, when the ore ran dry, or when the company decided that the risk/reward ratio for working on Crematoria wasn't worth it, it was repurposed into a prison facility. | 29 |
[Mass Effect] How many dreadnoughts do the Turians have? | I've never played the games myself, but I am very into all the lore and fluff of it.
I've tried looking at wikis and playthroughs of it, but have found no reference to the size of their fleet.
Was wondering if anyone knew the numbers, or a general idea / speculation of it. | 15 | The Treaty of Farixen places limits on the numbers of dreadnoughts each species can produce on a 5:3:1 scale.
For every 5 dreadnoughts the turians build, the asari and salarians can build 3, and anyone else can build 1. In order to open an embassy on the Citadel, you have to sign the treaty and become subject to its limits.
As per the wiki article for "Starships":
>As of 2183, the turians had 37 dreadnoughts, the asari had 21, the salarians had 16, and the Alliance had 6 with another under construction.
>As of 2185, the dreadnought count was 39 turian, 20 asari, 16 salarian, and 8 human. By 2186, humans construct a ninth dreadnought, and the volus have built a single dreadnought of their own. The geth, unbound by the treaty, possess almost as many dreadnoughts as the turians. | 25 |
CMV: If you graduate from a 4-year university with more than $100,000 of student debt, you have no right to complain about that debt. | First off, this is not a discussion about the university system as a whole or about student debt in general. This only concerns people with massive student loan debt. I propose that this level of debt is not a result of any failure of the education or loan system, but rather poor decision making on the part of the person with the debt. If scholarships or aid of any kind is unavailable then students should do everything possible to limit their debt, especially attending in-state public universities. Students who do need to take out student loans to pay for their education should at least attempt to work while at university in order to offset the cost. I will limit this to bachelor's degrees only, as it shouldn't really apply to someone going to med school or getting a doctorate. I will also make one exception for students who might want to choose a program that isn't offered by a public university in their state. If this isn't obvious, then limit this to only American students.
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> *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!* | 74 | Your logic is that someone can only complain when the consequences are results of actions outside of their control. When they are directly responsible for consequences, they should not have the right to complain. How did you make that assessment? | 51 |
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