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[GLM] Why is a logit model better than a linear probability model? | I read that the logit model (regression model) doesn't have the same structural problems as a linear probability model.
To be precise a linear probability model is defined as:
π(x) = α + βxj
it uses the form of ordinary regression, the probability of success changes linearly in x and this is a GLM with binomial random component.
A regression model is said: π is restricted to 0 and 1, but logit(π) can take any real value. The linear predictors that form the systematic component of a GLM also take any value.
Can someone explain to me why would you choose a regression model against a linear probability model with random component? and the advantages of it? | 15 | Just to be clear, logit models and linear models are both regression. Regression occurs any time we are measuring the mean relationship between a response variable and its explanatory variables.
The major upside of a logistic model is that your explanatory variables are unrestricted. When you graph a probability linearly, certain explanatory variable values are not viable because they would lead to possible values. For example, assume that you have the model p(y)=0.3+0.01x. What happens when x is 100? Suddenly we have p(y)=1.3, which is senseless - you cannot have a probability above 1. The logit configuration prevents this situation from happening. | 17 |
[Star Trek] If I send a fossil through a transporter, could I still use radiocarbon or other isotope dating on it? | 46 | Yes. Although FWIW, you can only carbon date an object if you're familiar with the geology of it's planet of origin.
There's a popular misconception that the transporter dissembles its target, transmits it as data and reassembles it at the other end.
What the transporter actually does is flick each subatomic particle into subspace where it becomes massless (and thus naturally travels at *c*). The matter stream is directed at the destination and returned to normal space.
The result is not a duplicate of the original, it *is* the original, particle for particle. The only difference is subatomic measurements of position and state as compensated for by the Heisenberg compensators.
The reasons for this are twofold:
Primarily, the minor tweaks in position and state of subatomic particles (**not** whole atoms) are due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. That is, what can be determined about a particles state is inversely related to what can be determined about its position. As such, the Heisenberg compensators are responsible for filling in these data with stable values.
The second reason is a bit more Newtonian. The energy, specifically the momentum of individual quanta has to be compensated for. Suppose you're standing on the surface of Earth at the equator. Your "velocity" is approximately 1,666kph relative to a stationary object sharing Earth's orbit.
If a starship is in geosynchronous orbit (say, in the Clarke belt), its velocity in the same frame of reference is ~11,000kph. If you were beamed up to the starship from your location on the equator, your velocity relative to a stationary observer would increase by **over 9,000kph instantaneously.** That's really bad. Like, raspberry jam on the side of the transporter pad bad. The Heisenberg compensators bring your momentum in line with your *new* frame of reference, and prevent you from blowing a big greasy hole right through the deck when you materialize.
* Edit for accidental use of the plural | 35 |
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[Garfield][Comic Strip] Who did Nermal belong to? And under what context/circumstance would Jon randomly bring him around without explaining why? | 17 | Jon's catsitting for whoever Nermal belongs to. At one point it was his parents' cat but he's never been seen on the farm. It seems like Jon considers him Garfield's "friend' since he bring him around for birthdays. | 18 |
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[Star Trek] Could Data ever have a functional long term relationship without the use of the emotion chip? | Say with a Vulcan, or with someone with different romantic needs from the one woman with whom we see Data in a failed relationship. | 29 | Data would be able to have a relationship with almost any sentient species, just the same as Captain Kirk was able to have *ahem* relations with other sentient species. That's not to say that Data would only be reduced to only experiencing physical relations with others.
But without an emotion chip, all of his relations would be strained. His SO would have to be extremely understanding of his lack of emotions. This would be even more extreme than Vulcan/Human relationships, where on the surface the Vulcan portrays no emotions, but underneath holds deeper emotional bonds than any human could.
Also, he is naive, and would want to make his SO as happy as he can, which for an android with incredible strength, dexterity, and intelligence could lead to his SO abusing their relationship to take advantage of his abilities. He would do whatever he could to make the relationship work, too, though might go a bit overboard at times. This may end up working against him at times.
Finally, there could be issues with how Data himself approaches the relationship. He has a tendency to attempt to do things purely to emulate/experience what it is to be Human. If he approaches the relationship purely to have the experience, his SO may soon feel under appreciated, since he is not with them for them, but for other, selfish seeming reasons. However, Data has been shown to be able to form lasting friendships with his crew mates. If his approach to romantic relations were fashioned after that (i.e, they happen from real interactions, not calculated emulations of what he thinks should happen), he should be fine in that regard.
So yes, he could, but his SO would have to be very understanding, and actually love him. Though, who wouldn't that advice apply to? | 22 |
[Warhammer 40K] Was the Emperor humanity's the best chance of survival or did his presence make humanity worse? | For starters, let us clarify a few things here. Though the Emperor is one of the most established characters in the Warhammer 40K Universe, we ironically now very little about him since as time goes on and because of the consequences of the brutality of the Never-Ending War in the Warhammer 40K universe, history documents become scattered, destroyed or even lost in time and space.
- We don't know how the Emperor came into being. The most popular theory is that in a particular time long before Mankind became a part of the Never-Ending War, the shamans use foreseen what the Forces of Chaos could do or be if humans were not prepared for it and so ... they [collectively merged their souls together and thus, the Emperor was born](http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor_of_Mankind)
- We don't know much what the Emperor did before he was the Emperor. We don't know anything of what he did or whether he was present among the different times of humanity progress like the Golden Age of Technology and so on though some would say that he once managed to defeat the [Dragon of Mars](http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Dragon_of_Mars) and imprisoned it there. How he defeated it and managed to build a prison when he didn't have the power or authority to do it, we don't know
- We don't know much how he all of a sudden became Emperor after the Age of Strife which later brought about the [Unification Wars](http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Unification_Wars). All we know that the Emperor was a massive influence in these wars which brought the birth and rise of the Imperium of Man before the events of the Horus Heresy.
**We can clarify a few things of what we know so far:**
- He was an [Alpha-Plus category](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Psyker#Alpha-Plus) psyker and the strongest and most powerful psyker recorded ever in Mankind's history
- We know that he was more or less a brilliant scientist, perhaps one of the best ever as he wanted to spread the [Imperial Truth](http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Truth) *(though there were other reasons for that campaign)* and he created the [Primarchs](http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Primarch) on the laboratories of Luna and he is regarded as the Avatar of the [Omnissiah](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Omnissiah). He was a planner of sorts and almost never did anything without a carefully made plan before it
- He was one of the greatest generals ever as he created the [Thunder Warriors](http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Thunder_Warriors) who help aid him in the Unification Wars which were later upgrades to the Space Marines because they have a very short lifespan were prone to insanity and other mental issues.
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**Now we can point out what he did right:**
- He decided to commit to the Imperial Truth, not only because he wanted to bring an age of progress, technology, science and logic and it seemed that he had a personal grudge against religions in general, but he thought that if he replaced belief with reason, it would starve the Chaos Gods and makes the forces of Chaos weaker as he thought that the Chaos Gods feed off of the beliefs of others - which was only half truth considering the Warp and the Daemons that inhabit it are the physical manifestation of every thought, feeling, dream, emotion and everything else that was thought in the mind of any living being in the Universe, meaning as long as there is life, there will always be the Warp and the forces of Chaos and though the Forces of Chaos can be really terrifying, they still have a purpose. This [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG7VvMGw6w0&list=PLyiDf91_bTEgnBN0jAvzNbqzrlMGID5WA&index=23) can explain it a bit further
- He wanted to create the Imperium to unite the entire species of Mankind together because of the divided conflicts that the Age of Strife caused and he feared that if humanity continued to be in that state, they would be too powerless and defenceless against the other races of the universe
- He created the Primarchs as the "genetic fathers" of every Space Marine Chapter and he was moral and responsible enough to go and search for the Primarchs himself after forces of Chaos scattered them across the Galaxy before they matured
- He wanted to create a new age for humanity, perhaps even an age better the Golden Age of Technology - an age of progress, science, greater technology and reason *(which would have probably taken a long time or perhaps was even impossible)*
- Though he was incredibly powerful, he refused to be seen and worshipped as a god as he was angered when he found out Lorgar and his Space Marine Chapter made an Imperial Cult, even though plenty of Imperial Cults already existed and were worshipping the Emperor in secret
- He initially did not want to fight Horus during the times of the Horus Heresy as he still did not want to kill his own son *(until Sanguinius was killed by Horus which angered the Emperor and killed him afterwards though he was greatly injured after the battle was over)*
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**Now let's go on what he did wrong:**
- For starters, while he **refused** to be seen as a god, he ironically made himself look like one - he is always portrayed him a glowing aura on his head, he is sometimes depicted always having glowing eyes of power that indicate that he is immensely powerful, and he is was also a man with a hubris *(at least, that's what we think so far because there is very little we know about the Emperor and most of the stories about him were from documents written by other people during the time before the Horus Heresy or from people who are now dead or somehow vanished)* considering what his armour was covered in gold and he had the Aquila on him which are symbols of authority, power and even divinity.
- Though it seems that he **did not want** to tell the Primarchs about the Warp *(especially to Magnus the Red, especially becuase he is the Primarch who he can relate with the most becuase he is a powerful psyker like him and also a curious intellectual and a fish out of water when compared with everyone else. Sort of like an intelligent human among a group of people with low IQs so to speak)* with good intentions as he was afraid that if people knew about the Warp and its potential, he was afraid that people will be tempted and corrupted and made things worse, his silence still eventually caused people to be tempted anyway and caused the Traitor Legions and also, because of this fear, he wanted any Psyker to be controlled of their powers *(not ban them - unfortunately, the Inquisition post-HH made things worse by making human psykers more like super-controlled brainwashed lab rats and those who unfornately were mutants because genetics or some sort of psychic influence of the Warp, they are hunted down by the Inquisition)*. It seems that we can understand that his choice of not telling what the Warp is to anyone out of the fear of being corrupted by it but his inaction of making people less knowledgeable about the Warp and their naive states made them easy to corrupt. It's like abstince treatments - telling children not to have sex becuase of the issues that it brings but the more you tell them not to, the more likely they will do the opposite out of curiosity or being rebellous. *(because let's face it, one can easily be corrupted by the Warp if not careful. It's both a gift and a curse to be able to be in touch with the Warp, especially to psykers. It's like darkness or a double edged sword. Having the power of manipulate darkness is cool but if not careful, it may turn you evil)*
- He was** not able** to trust anyone to tell them why he suddenly wanted to go back to Terra during the Great Crusade and work on **the Webway** which caused the Primarchs have trust issues towards the Emperor. Despite what I said earlier that he was a planner, he did not plan and/or consider what the consequences of this action will bring which led to the Horus Heresy and poor relationships with his Primarchs. Suffice to say, that he may not be the greatest planner ever. But we don't know why or what was the reason why he never told anyone that he intended to build a Webway to limit people from using the Warp for travel because ... well, it's the Warp. It cannot be trusted or understood because it is a chaotic hell in space with tons and tons of psychic potential.
- He was **not a very good father**. Ironically, while he did want what's best for humanity *(it has never been told why he cared about humanity so much. Sort of like a Jesus figure)* and the speculation that he managed to live for at least 50,000 years, it seems that he never managed to develop some proper parenting skills for his Primarchs and the Primarchs acknowledged that he was a terrible father and some Traitor Legions even hate him for this. And also, because of this, this is what made Horus more tempted to the forces of Chaos after he was given the title of Warmaster when the Emperor decided to go back to Terra as he was very suspicious of him.
- There is some speculation that the Emperor was nothing more but **a power hungry, narcissistic and sadistic man** who was full of himself and wanted to kill all the other races and conquer the Galaxy, much like a very power hungry **Adolf Hitler**. Though we cannot know for sure, the parallel symbolism is generally there.
- Instead of focusing on making the entire human race during the Golden Age of Technology, he came out after the Age of Strife. Though it would have been probably a wise choice, his sudden appearance is similar to that of Hilter after Germany was devastated after WW1, had the major political influence in Germany, the Nazi Party became the leading political party and called himself the Fuhrer. In German it means leader but the word itself had a lot of power and authority behind it - the same way that the Emperor suddenly to call himself the Emperor. How he managed to influence the people of Terra to call him Emperor is still unclear.
- Similar to how Hilter desired the world to be ruled under his image and risked causing a war to push that image instead of diplomacy, so did the Emperor with the Unification Wars. While you can say that he was a bit excused considering that there were techno-barbarians in Terra during the Age of Strife and the conflict brought order *(which is another historical reference to the Roman Empire and their main enemies were barbarian armies and the Roman Empire is known for their imperialism and very advanced military system)* however, when it came for the rest of Terra to join the Emperor's side, it is very likely that he did it by force instead of use of diplomacy or some sort of political influence that did not involve conflict. Granted, you can say that he was excused considering Terra was a wasteland and conflict was the only way to survive and trying to unite the entire human race through diplomacy would have been way more complicated and time-consuming and they would not have been prepared against the forces of Chaos and other alien races
- The Emperor's personal grudge towards religion is kinda similar to the fascist-like influence that Hitler had during his time of power. Either you support the Third Reich or else. Although unlike Hitler, The Emperor did not see himself as his big saviour which is why he did not want to seen as a god, and his reasoning why he wanted to end all religion was because he wanted to starve the Chaos Gods which is entirely untrue because the Chaos gods cannot be exterminated ever. Whether the IOM would have ever been an entirely fascist nightmare if the Emperor was not severely hurt during the Horus Heresy and kept the IOM strictly in his image even though it is possible that the IOM would not have been entirely superstitious, technologically stagnant, paranoid and corrupt, it is unclear. It is possible that the Emperor planned to live as the Emperor forever and the rule of the IOM was by himself only even though he made the Primarchs to rule the different Legions for him while he went to Terra to construct the Web way.
- The xenophobia of the other alien races and the scapegoating of the forces of Chaos are very similar to the racism that the Jews and other social/cultural/ethnic groups had suffered blame and social exclusion with Nazi propaganda. Although, we can say that this is excusable considering that the other alien races of the WH40K universe are more likely to cause war themselves than co-operate or create an alliance or consider diplomacy instead of causing an entire war where millions or even billions can die. So suffice to say, the xenophobia and his preference to make the IOM a powerful military is kind of justified because the other alien races will probably be very happy to take out the entire human race in an instant.
*(The Tyranids are not sentient and you are controlled by the Hive Mind and their motivations are merely natural instinct)*
*(The Orks will never accept peace because war and conflict is in their blood which is why they fight against themselves)*
*(The Necrons are slaves of the C'Tan and they are willing to make the entire Universe slaves of the C'Tan in the promise for eternal life.)*
*(The Forces of Chaos are too ... well, chaotic considering it is kind of why they exist)*
*(The Eldar, though their main reason to fight is for survival, is very similar to the IOM in a way because their arrogance and xenophobia towards every other alien race is very apparent cause similar to the Nazis who saw themselves as the superior Aryan race, the Eldar see themselves as superior and more wise and intelligent because their psionic potential remains unmatched)*
*(The Tau... well, there is not much that we know about them but their philosophy is similar to that of Communism. An ideology of good intentions turned into an out-of-control and socially, economically and politically unfair system. Either you join our side "for the greater good" or else. Fascism in disguise)*
If the Emperor was not gravely injured after the Horus Heresy, or what if the Horus Heresy never happened or what if the Emperor was a better planner and a better father, would the Imperium of Man be very different than of what it is today?
It is hard to say really. Did the Imperium of Man make things better for humanity? To some degree, probably because if the Emperor never exposed himself during the Age of Strife, humanity would still probably be divided and under conflict and would probably be defenceless and unprepared if the Orks, or the Eldar or the Tyranids or any other alien race suddenly emerged around the Galaxy
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**So in the end ... was the Emperor the tragic/troubled hero of this story?**
Was he a narcissistic and power hungry villain who was full of himself?
Or was he a man who tried to save humanity from its own downfall and yet he failed and his actions caused humanity to make things worse anyway by being a totally horrific and fanatic bureaucratic nightmare?
It is hard to say really because like every character in the WH40K universe, nobody is either good or bad *(with the exception of some characters like the Dark Eldar or the Chaos Gods)*
Sometimes you see him as a hero, sometimes you see him as a villain, sometimes you see him as many things at once.
After all, it is true in the end - in the Warhammer 40K, there is no such thing as heroes and good guys but when there are some every once in a while, they will suffer a very tragic fate afterwards and life goes on being as dark and horrifying as ever | 223 | Easy -- there would not be a humanity were it not for the Emperor. Isolated and fractured into individual civilizations following the Old Night, bereft of the leadership of the posthuman Primarchs and the Astartes, and lacking access to the technology of the Mechanicus, humanity would have been easy pickings for Chaos, the Dark Eldar, the Orks, and the thousand other threats in the galaxy.
Even in its diminished and tyrannical state, the Imperium is still the one and only bulwark against total extinction -- or worse. | 140 |
[Star Wars] Can the force be powered by positive emotions? | So, the sith gain power by tapping into their anger, fear, hatred, etc. However, the Jedi way involves not letting your emotions control you, so using the force is more of an emotionally neutral thing. But can the force be tapped into by using positive emotions like joy? And if so, would the Jedi consider this to be a sith tactic? | 23 | Maybe? Palpatine is living his best life, cackling away while shocking and dueling. The thing is that it's just easier to aim negative emotions at your opponent. Anger and hate are channeled directly onto whoever is stopping you from achieving your goal. Joy comes from something else, and if you're fighting to protect that joy, anger at the person trying to take it away from you is inevitable.
Jedi are definitely against this. Sorry to be a bummer, but
happiness is fleeting. Love will turn into hate when you feel that someone betrays you, and the death of a friend will turn into anger in a search for revenge. Or maybe the emotions themselves will just get corrupted. Palpatine finds joy in *hurting others.* As Anakin turned into Vader, his genuine love became obsessive.
Jedi are obviously not emotionless. Most of them have humor and a sense of camaraderie, and they do have friends. They just do their best to not let these feelings control them, as they will inevitably turn negative one day, and the dark side is one hell of a drug. | 18 |
How can wolverine bend his wrists? | Seems like those claws are in the way... | 41 | When his claws are retracted they rest between his wrist and elbow, in between bones in his forearm. He does have to keep his wrists straight when he unsheathes his claws though, and they may hinder wrist movement once out but not when retracted. | 30 |
[eli5] What happens when someone with healthy hearing wears hearing aids? Is it equivalent to what happens to your eyes when you use binoculars? | 26 | It's what happens when someone with healthy hearing takes a speaker at say, 2/10 which sounds comfortable and cranks it up to 6. Painful and damaging.
Hearing aids nowadays tend to be calibrated to people's range-specific hearing loss though. So if it were properly calibrated, it would... well, just be off if they had perfectly normal hearing. | 24 |
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[Star Wars/40k] If the Tyranids invaded the galaxy during the time period of a New Hope, how would the galaxy fare? | I know that the galaxy is a lot more unified in Star Wars than in 40k but I also worry about the technology level of the Empire and others. | 18 | r/whowouldwin specializes in these questions.
Things to keep in mind - FTL in star wars in more reliable than the Warp, but there are only specific possible hyperlane routes. Some planets and parts of the galaxy are utterly unaccessible to the imperium/rebels.
Though the imperials have exterminatus level weapons (works in their favour), almost every planet will also have bacta (a biological panacea which would aid the tyranids in untold ways).
Unlike the yuuzhan vong, the tyranids will have no specific immunity to the force. In the new hope period there arent too many trained force sensetives, so depending on how badly the Will of the Force wants the tyranids to back out of its plans, it might manipulate happenstance aboard their ships to extreme degrees, possibly making them land on worlds that would be natively toxic to them. | 27 |
ELI5: why is it that when we put cold feet in hot water it feels like it's burning more, but when we put hot feet in cold water it's relieving? | 188 | The direction of heat transfer.
When you're putting your cold feet in hot water, the hot water is transferring its heat to your feet and trying to reach equilibrium. There's a huge difference in temperature between your feet and the water so a lot of heat is transferred, so it feels extra hot.
The opposite is true when you put hot feet in cold water. The heat in your feet is being dissipated through the cold water. | 50 |
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ELI5: How do microphones in live concerts not get a lot of feedback from all the noise? | So this might be a super simple explanation, but it really amazes and confuses me. How do microphones in live shows not get tons of feedback from the speakers, the croud sounds, the various instruments? This really baffles me | 48 | 1: use a directional microphone, and don't point it at a monitor or speaker.
2: limit the number of open mics.
3: keep the mics as far away from speakers as possible.
4: use in-ear monitors vs stage mounted monitors.
5: cut out all frequencies outside of 800kz to 2khz. | 59 |
ELI5: Why do we get sick when its' cold? Does it have to do with the temperature or some other factors? | 25 | This question always gets answered with the received wisdom that goes something like. 'It's not because of the cold, it's because we spend more time in the warm indoors with other people....' well that's not actually true, it IS because of the cold AS WELL.
When we're cold, our bodies restrict blood flow to our extremities, including our nose, to protect the vital organs. Less blood flow means less white blood cells reaching the nasal passages so infections which start there are less likely to be fought off in the early stages and so they're more likely to get bad enough for us to notice them.
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Does light actually travel at "the speed of light" in a vacuum, or do interactions with virtual particles slow the light down? | I have only a rudimentary understanding of physics, but I gather that photons traveling through matter will be delayed as a result of interactions with the particles that make up the matter, effectively slowing down the light wave. I also understand that empty space isn't really empty, but is full of virtual particles that constantly snap in and out of existence. Do photons travelling through empty space interact with these virtual particles? If so, does a light wave slow down, even when traveling in a vacuum? | 222 | It isn't obvious at all that photons shouldn't acquire an effective mass from quantum corrections.
However, it is found in quantum field theory that the mass of the photon is protected from any quantum correction by gauge invariance. This is a nontrivial result. | 49 |
CMV: Relying on (contemporary) cynicism and irony as a self-defense mechanism is cowardly. | I am completely aware of the fact that irony and cynicism in healthy doses can prove very useful for furthering the development of society, our own selves, etc. However, I am talking about excessive cynicism and irony used in regards to (mostly mainstream) interests.
Basing your whole personality on ironic remarks and cynical beliefs is, in my opinion, cowardly. People like this are hiding behind the fact that they cannot come to terms with their own interests, with the fact that life is always bound to hurt them in some way, so they choose to simply distance themselves from it completely.
I've seen this phenomenon with my peers (I am a teenager) who excessively use ironic remarks to make fun of someone who genuinely enjoys doing something. I base my opinion that it's cowardly because they cannot seem to enjoy anything of the things they 'like' completely genuinely. They always have to pair expressing their interest in something with an ironic/cynical remark, so as to not appear uncool/shatter the image they've created for themselves of being 'cool, edgy, unique, different' (usually expressed with listening to obscure types of music, consumption of cigarettes/alcohol/drugs, having aesthetic Tumblr, etc).
This, in my opinion, only serves to prove that they are extremely afraid of the judgement of people, which is why they judge everyone and everything as a way to protect themselves from it in turn.
So, CMV, that excessively using cynicism and irony only proves that you are a coward who cannot come to terms with yourself.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 38 | Of course it *can be* cowardice. But so can "going along with" modern culture. Whether it's cowardice depends entirely on whether it is motivated by fear.
Someone who despises modern culture, and wishes to fight it at every turn using cynicism and irony isn't cowardly, but rather extremely brave for taking on an entire cultural system that goes against their beliefs in the face of reasonable fears about how people will react to it.
Similarly, being non-confrontational and "nice" by going along with the general praise for a modern culture you have serious problems with out of fear of ostracism or loneliness would be cowardly.
But then, what are we left with? Nothing more than a tautology: people who act cynical because they are afraid are cowardly, the ones who don't aren't... Yeah, that's the definition. | 17 |
eli5: simple explanation on how a bunch of natural materials that decay make up plastic; a material that virtually lasts forever | 18 | Plastic molecules are big long molecules made by chaining a bunch of smaller molecules together. Those smaller molecules have some sort of reactive part attached - some part of the molecule that's more susceptible to having a chemical reaction happen to it than any other part of the molecule. You make a plastic molecule by sticking the reactive bits together end to end so that they stick together (sort of).
Decomposers decompose things by doing chemical reactions that rely on those reactive parts being there. So they can't easily decompose plastic because the reactive parts have *all already been used up.* | 19 |
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[General] What is a major glaring weakness to an otherwise OP super hero or villain that people don't consider using? | 20 | Batman is extremely vulnerable to blitz attacks by powerful villains. His contingency plans are usually dependent on having some time to implement them, time that he usually has because the people who could take him out immediately tend to go for the Justice League powerhouses instead. | 38 |
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[MCU/Multiverse of Madness] Can this object provide for a solution for this enemy? | Can the Book of Vishanti provide a solution for Kang the Conqueror/He Who Remains? Or is the book only giving solutions for strictly mystical enemies? | 20 | It provided a solution to Thanos in the alternate universe, so it's not just for magical baddies. It would probably work on Kang too.
Fun fact, you get one tiny glimpse of one page of it in the movie. On it you can see the star shape that America's portals form. She was the solution to Wanda all along. | 26 |
ELI5: If drone strikes are cheap and don't put our soldiers at risk, why are they so opposed? | 461 | Drone strikes against enemy soldiers are not opposed. It's no different than a piloted plane taking them out. Drone strikes to take out one person while also killing his three wives, 24 children, and and 17 other people are frowned upon. | 707 |
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ELI5: Why do we get that "lump" in our throat when we experience deep emotion? | 130 | That ‘lump’ is actually not a lump at all but a counter-reaction to the body’s automatic nervous system. When humans are exposed to stressful situations – ie, situations that would cause them to cry or get angry – the body, due to the genetic evolutionary ‘fight or flight’ nature of humans, automatically increases blood flow to vital organs and muscles.
Unfortunately, one of the ways the body achieves this is by opening the glottis (the vocal folds in the throat that humans use to generate vibrational noise) in order to allow your lungs to receive more inhaled oxygen than normal. By doing this, while increasing available oxygen which can be beneficial in stressful moments, it causes any human who wishes to swallow to fight against their body’s automatic nervous system for control of the glottis’ positioning, causing that distinctive sore pain in the throat.
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[Star Wars] Were the Clone Wars Palpatine's back up plan? | It took some long chases and mighty fine detective work for Obi find out Kamino existed. Even then, the records were wiped to further obfuscate the location of the system.
Had the Jedi not found out about the clones or decided it wasn't in their code to take them and use them, Dooku and company would have destroyed the Jedi, and presumably taken the galaxy by droid-army force.
Did Palpatine have an alternative plan to introduce the clones? If they weren't discovered by Geonosis, presumably the Jedi would have been finished right then and there. Of course, you could argue Obi wouldn't have found Dooku's plans otherwise, but they were already skeptical of Dooku, and Zam's assassination attempt could have just as easily led directly to Jango, instead of through Kamino. | 152 | I fully expect Palpatine had purged Kamino from the Jedi records specifically to bring attention to it when someone came looking. Jango taking out Zam with a dart, rather than, say a sniper rifle, also smacks of set-up.
That said, no plan is perfect. Palpatine likely had "Sifo-Diyas" (who was actually Dooku in disguise, IIRC) instruct the cloners to inform him at the temple when the clones were ready. That would have instead been routed to the Jedi Council, and the communique would have arrived conveniently in-time to give the Republic an army to fight the Separatists with.
If Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme still end up on Geonosis, there's a good chance that Obi-Wan and Padme don't make it out, and Anakin makes it out on sheer "luck". | 75 |
CMV: The quality of entertainment has dropped | Over the course of the 21st century we've seen a rapid shift in how we consume media with everything being right at our fingertips with minimal barriers and long unskippable ad breaks. This has lead to a huge uptick in content that is solely made to give you a quick rush of dopamine from a clickbait thumbnail to over edited videos. Of course what is entertaining is subjective I'm not going to tell someone rap isnt as good as classical because it's not as classy or whatever. But when you scroll through Instagram, snapchat, youtube, etc. A lot of what you see is things that were thrown together in an hour yet have millions of views. Much of this content relays on 'relatability' by making "jokes" like haha school bad amiright kids and so on. It feels like what's acceptable as entertaiment has deeply fallen from what it was.
Edit: I should have made it clearer that I was mainly talking about what is mainstream and prevalent online as it is where the majority of people consume entertainment today
Edit 2: Although I still hold the position that on social media the effort being put into some of the most successful content is minimal at best, I now agree that overall we just have a wider selection and even though a lot of the lower quality stuff is pushed to the the top the niche content is more widely available than ever. Thanks for your opnions everyone! | 17 | As opposed to the past, where comedians made 'haha work bad amiright adults' jokes? Where 'let's laugh at the minorities' was a common theme?
There were shitty entertainment in the past, it just was either not recorded or not remembered because it was shitty. | 17 |
ELI5:What happens to a photon once it falls on our retina of or eye?Is it consumed or changed into something once it has stimulated the optic nerve? | 55 | The photon is absorbed by the chemicals in the eye. The energy that the photon imparts causes the chemical to split. This split creates a bit of electrical energy that is sent down the optic nerve and interpreted by the brain as an image. | 45 |
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Is the ISS really at orbital height if it needs routine re-boosting? | 18 | It is in low earth orbit. Partial atmosphere actually extends rather far up. Being in orbit means that you have a high enough horizontal velocity such that you "miss the earth" so to speak, when falling, so you circle the planet. This is true in Low Earth Orbit as well, but the partial atmosphere causes what's known as atmospheric drag. This slows the movement in the direction of orbit gradually, and eventually your speed will drop enough that you now fall towards the earth instead of missing it. So they boost their orbital velocity periodically to maintain orbit. | 28 |
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ELI5: Why are there so many Chinese buffets and restaurants in the US with nearly identical menus and decors that don't appear to be franchises? (Super China Buffet, China 1, Super China, etc) | Seriously, there are like 10 of these in my small-ish town. What gives? How can they all be so similar? Even down to the pictures on the menu boards! | 595 | There is not a huge market for chinese restaurant decorations so there are limited manufacturers of decorations and menu photos. Everyone buys from the same supplier and they all end up looking the same.
Similar to the blue greek Anthora cups that are served everywhere in NYC or how every frat party uses red solo cups despite frat parties not being franchises. Hundreds of frat party planners go to hundreds of stores and end up making the same decision. Red solo cups are the right price and size for a party. So everyone looks the same because they are all making the same decision despite being different people. | 220 |
Why has the stock market historically grown by about 10%, while nominal GDP has historically grown by about 6%? I have looked this up, and I haven't found a satisfactory answer. | 102 | I expect you're adding in dividends to get your 10% total return, is that right?
This comes simply from the fact that you're adding them in. On average, over a long-period of time the profit share of GDP is stable. So, business profits make up a fairly fixed proportion of total gross incomes.
That means you have two things going on. Firstly, you have those dividends being paid and rising as GDP grows. Secondly, businesses are growing with the GDP growth rate. So, their capital is becoming worth more at roughly the GDP growth rate too. As a result, if you reinvest the dividends you get a higher growth rate because you have the two together.
So, the real total return is about twice the GDP growth rate (if you reinvest dividends), and the nominal total return is about twice the GDP growth rate plus the rate of inflation. | 48 |
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[The lord of the rings] Did the ring affect everybody the same way? | As we know it, Bilbo vanished when wearing the ring, and Frodo too. But I cannot recall Isildur. In the movie he became invisible, but in the book?
Also. Samwise Gamgee was brave, never wanted to hide. Always heading for the good and to save Frodo. If I remember correctly, when Sam wears the ring and goes to Cirith Ungol, the orcs are fleeing in terror and rumors going around some of them seen an Elf Prince wearing bright silver armor and basically it was Sam wearing the ring, running around, scare away anyone but not really hiding, or I remember wrong?
So, is the Ring affects everybody the same way? Gandalf and Galadriel? | 23 | Not Tom Bombadil
As base it hides as a ring of invisibility, concealing it's greater powers.
As it corrupts someone or is brought closer to Mordor/Sauron more effects appear. (Like Gollum's mutations, Bilbo's extended vigor, or Sam understanding orc speech) | 18 |
[Injustice: Gods Among Us] Why didn't Superman kill Harley Quinn? | When Superman went to rescue Lois, he found both Harley and the Joker performing the surgery that would implant the bomb in Lois' body. They were both directly responsible for the death of Superman's family and Metropolis, so why does she get a pass? | 138 | Well, a small part is that when she's not under the Joker's influence, Harley isn't really all that bad (as indeed the next few years show). Everyone knows that Joker is the leader there and she was going along with him.
Mostly though he just didn't know here she was. Batman had Joker in interrogation - Supes flew there and killed Joker right away. Harley was being driven away by cops. As soon as she heard Joker was dead she killed the cops, stole the car and went into hiding. The police radio indicated that Superman was indeed looking for her to kill her.
Then Arrow found her and hid her. By the time Supes saw her again a good amount of time had passed and in most of their meetings she had taken a green pill and so was hard to kill. | 109 |
What is the faculty environment like at non-R1 institutions? Seeking career advice... | Over the past few months I've increasingly recognized that my chances of getting a tenure track position at a R1 institution are practically zero. I'm hoping that I can stay in academia if possible (background later in the post), so I wanted to get a feel for what the faculty environments are like at non-R1 institutions so I can get a sense of what would fit my interests best. For those who are faculty at non-R1 institutions, I'd like to get a sense for the following topics. For the record, I've experienced that R1 institutions have aspects that I like and also aspects that I dislike on each of these topics, so just wanted to see how different places compare.
1) What is the research environment like if your institution has a research component? What are your views about the support infrastructure for research, available time, integration of students in research, and the difficulty of obtaining extramural funding?
2) What do you think about the students you get to teach / work with? Not just talking about grades or whatnot, but also about attitude in learning and the involvement of the students.
3) How would you describe your work/department culture? Are other faculty good to work with, authority structure, etc...?
4) What is the experience of progressing towards tenure at your institution? What kinds of pressures and criteria weight more heavily on how you're evaluated and your day-to-day activities?
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Background on why I'm asking these things:
I'm a full-time non-TT assistant professor at an R1. For the record, I am under no illusions that being tenure track and eventually getting tenure is some sort of magical threshold after which everything will be awesome. But I do enjoy what I do - I like the research I do, the students I work with, most of the people I work with directly have been great, and I've enjoyed teaching (although only 2 classes/year) so far. I'm paid on the same salary scale as the tenure-track professors, which in my field is fairly decent. But at the end of the day: I am 100% extramurally grant funded and this position will not last in the long term. While I've been able to obtain a good amount of funding so far, I've been around long enough to know that funding goes up and down and eventually there will be a time when I won't be able to obtain the funding necessary to support my position.
So if possible, I'd like to move into a more permanent position for the long term. I don't have any specific preference for trying to be at an R1. I don't see it as "higher" or whatnot than other institution types, but I've mostly applied to openings at R1s because I had it in my head for some reason that only those institutions would provide the positive aspects similar to what I have now, and I've slowly started to recognize that that premise isn't true.
The job search at R1 institutions has been frustrating and I'm starting to question whether I really fit in at these kinds of institutions. I've been a finalist (on-campus interviewee) multiple times for openings at R1s but never been selected. When I've gotten feedback on their decision it's often some variation of that my academic record is good and much of the faculty likes me, but I don't have the reputation to attract the "caliber" of students and level of resources that they want to move the department towards meeting their goals.
Personally, I don't really believe in what a lot of people (especially at R1s) make of weird academic metrics and the emphasis on academic reputation along with the attached politics/social dynamics. I just want to focus on doing good useful work, educating students, building good working relationships, saying something when I have something substantial to say, and try to stay out of all of the reputation dynamics. I had always thought that this approach would build a reputation as a byproduct and be enough for me to get a TT position at an R1. But I'm seeing that because of how reputation works in my field and type of institution, I'm always going to be behind the leading up and coming names when it comes to the strength of my academic reputation as it's defined in these contexts. That's a subject for another post. | 15 | Im just going to be very straight about this. Reputation matters.
Very few Universities provide a positive and fulfilling work environment, and the division isn't R1 vs non-R1. R1 is about mission, not quality. There are a number of R1s that are absolute nightmare work environments.
Many R1s are R1 in name only, carried by a few well funded departments (usually tied to big medical programs, like Wayne State).
Many R2s, and SLACs provide excellent work environments, and are quite fulfilling places to people whose values align well with their missions.
But most Universities are terrifying places to make a career. Most have awful staff, bitter infighting and politics, corrupt administrators, and lack-luster academics. | 13 |
[Harry Potter] What level of functionality would someone kissed by a dementor have? | 17 | Full on, soul eating kiss? "The lights are on, but no one's home." Biologically speaking everything is there, but the actual person is gone. The soul is a known property in the Potterverse, and dementors are capable of harming it directly. When they perform the kiss, the actual immortal essence of the targeted individual is literally snatched out of their body. Mechanically speaking all of their organs work, all of the neural pathways in their brain are still etched with their memories, but there is no more driving force. The body lives, the person is as dead as if you blew their head off with a shotgun.
As far as what the soulless body is capable of, many autonomous functions of the internal organs (blood circulation, breathing, etc.) would continue to run, and some reflex actions (eye dilation, limited pain response, etc.) would still happen. Beyond that, there really isn't much you can do with them. Practically speaking, the best function for a body kissed by a dementor would be as a source of donor organs. | 14 |
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CMV: It makes no sense for a store to have "greeters" in an area where small-talk with strangers is not part of the culture. | I'm from a heavily urban part of the U.S. where strangers generally don't acknowledge each other in passing. In spite of this, many local grocery stores and fast food restaurants (places that are designed for efficiency, not atmosphere) make sure that every customer is confronted with an enthusiastic "HI! Welcome to ____, how are YOU today?!" when they walk in the door (or something similar).
I realize that this cordiality is in line with social customs in parts of the South and West, but I don't get why these businesses spend their time/resources on these kinds of conventions in areas that are known to have a less social, more private culture (e.g. the northern Atlantic seaboard, in my case). Everyone I know in these areas (myself included) finds store greeters a bit off-putting. I don't see the upside to the business.
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I've never seen one of these in a fast food chain. which one, btw? | 37 |
[Marvel] If Venom and other symbiotes need hosts to survive, how did they live on their home planet? | Did they have different host species on their planet too? Or their planet has some kind of different atmosphere that makes them more solid? | 65 | They need hosts to survive in many environments. The symbiote homeworld Klyntar is not one of them, because Klyntar is most made of symbiotes. You would have to go miles deep to find actual dirt ground. They created the planet out of their biomass at the command of their god Knull, then reformed it from his throneworld into a prison for him.
Though many symbiotes spend their entire lives never going to the homeworld, since it is controlled by one of the factions, which would wipe the mind of any symbiote of the expansionist faction. | 70 |
ELI5: What happens when i empty my trash on my computer? Are those files gone forever? | 66 | Erasing a file is like putting White-Out over someone's name and picture in a yearbook. You can't see them anymore, but they're technically still there. If someone was so inclined and skilled enough at removing the White-Out, they could find that person again. | 37 |
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CMV: Certain ethnic minorities are making Britain a worse place than if they weren't here [UK] | I've been a Reddit user for over 6 years and have a fairly high-profile account so I've set this one up, as I'm aware of how controversial my views are. I'd like to keep this to a civil debate, these are thoughts I'm reluctant to voice in public so I'd really like answers, refutations and honest but fair non-hysterical discussion. It's playing on my mind a lot lately and I don't want to think this, but at the same time I can't help it.
I'm a white working class male living in a major UK city, in my late 30s. I've always been left-leaning, from stridently socialist in my late teens, less so now but still very much a left-wing liberal. I work in the arts and I've always fought against the 'isms': sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. Everything any decent 21st-century human being should stand for.
However, in the past few years I can feel myself becoming less tolerant of particular ethnic minorities and immigrants to the UK. In particular, immigrants from the Middle East (India, Pakistani, etc) and black people. Or to stop pussyfooting around, I'm becoming more racist. This concerns me as my past few decades have been all about fighting this, but I can't help the growing sinking feeling that I got it wrong all this time.
Here are my reasons why. (These points are a bit jumbled and disorganised, apologies in advance.)
The biggest change in my reasoning was the news of the child sex abuse grooming gangs in Rochdale, Keighley, and dozens of other towns and cities across the UK. The fact that there were so many made me sick to my stomach, that so many Asian men found it acceptable to abuse young vulnerable - and invariably white - women. The fact that doing this was socially and culturally acceptable in that they'd pass them around, without shame. It can't be anything other than a cultural thing. There may have been white British gangs that do this - though I'm not aware of any - they're in no way as common as these Asian gangs. To engage in one of the most evil acts, so openly, and to actively collude with other members of their racial group to do so is utterly despicable and shows an inability to become part of even the most basic decent elements of British society. I understand these men make up only a small part of the Asian population of the UK but look at the percentages. The percentage of Asian men involved in this is surely many magnitudes higher than white British men, while Asians are a small minority in the UK. I've tried to hunt out the actual statistics of this but they're difficult to find.
Which ties in with another thing. Asian criminals have no shame in using the PC fears of white British people to further their aims. It's a big part of why the gangs got away with it for so long - the police were terrified of being seen as racist. I always remember something Mazher Mahmood, the ex-News Of The World reporter wrote in his book about Asian criminals - how they'd deny everything and lie and lie and push things until the very end - they'd prefer to drag things out to the bitter end than ever admit to their wrongdoing, in the hope that their lies might get them out of it. This propensity to lie and deceive seems a characteristic that again, makes the UK a worse place to live.
It isn't just major news stories that have changed my mind. It's personal experience. As one minor example, I've started to avoid buying things from people with Asian-sounding names on Ebay as I've been burned so many times by buying fakes, or being ripped off in some form. Far more than with people with white, East Asian or European sounding names. When I was at university I lived in a block of flats with a friend (white) and four Muslim guys. One night they smashed up the kitchen, then the next day promised me to my face they'd take full responsibility and get it fixed. They didn't. It ended up with me and my friend getting charged for the damage they caused. Again, personal experience and I know it's not right to extrapolate to entire races of people but it's incredibly hard not to - I've worked alongside Asian people countless times over the years and rarely have positive memories, but my experiences are littered with moments of aggression, rudeness and being deceived and cheated.
It's incredibly easy for middle-class people to be outraged by this, and claim that I and people like me are scum for feeling like this, but they've invariably never lived in a community with an Asian population, or even met anyone apart from one or two equally-middle-class Asian people. In theory, everyone is unique but in reality, nations give their people particular traits and as far as I can see, Pakistan, for example, has produced a people who see nothing wrong with the inferiority of women, promote aggressive misogyny, take advantage of white people's fear of being accused of racism, and see sexual abuse of vulnerable women as no big deal (providing they're white). It genuinely seems like Asian men see white people as alien and have little problem dehumanising them - the lack of humanity for others partly explains how acid attacks emerged as a tool of revenge in the Middle East.
Interestingly, these acid attacks are more popular in the UK among working class black people. Again, the dehumanising of white people is more common among blacks. Violence, knife crime, pimping, all are more common with the black youth. While sex crimes seems more of an Asian issue, brutal violence seems more of a black problem. I'd like to see statistics on how much violent crime is done by black people, and how the percentages compare with whites. Pick up the newspaper on any given day and the pages are packed with crimes by black and Asian people, both sexual and violent.
Ghettos are common all over the UK. People who claim major UK cities are multi-cultural, a glorious mixing pot, are talking nonsense. Entire towns are taken over by very specific ethnic minorities, and white people are in not-too-many-words encouraged to leave. But even the places where immigrants live among white people are damaged by their presence - state school education is run down with having to deal with children who can't speak a word of English, while the education of white British children suffers.
Regarding the woman who [Prince Charles said doesn't look like she's from Manchester](http://metro.co.uk/2018/04/21/prince-charles-said-woman-doesnt-look-like-manchester-7485327/) - I know this woman is from Guyana, but the principles remain the same. It's true, she DOESN'T look like the average Mancunian. The UK is still a majority white country, and the typical Briton IS white. It's ridiculous to claim otherwise. Globalisation might be changing the way our cities look but it can't whitewash the past. It's not offensive or insulting to say this. But it seems like such an easy option for minorities to reach for - pretend outrage to push their agenda and it's sad to see so many white British people roll over and claim a first generation immigrant from x y or z is as British as they are. It's total nonsense. (The woman above was a writer, keen to use any opportunity to push her books.)
The way Dubai works seems much more like the way Britain should, if we hadn't been cowed down over the past few years. Emiratis are the natives of Dubai, with a history that goes back centuries, and they have certain privileges and rights that visitors don't. They have an arrogance that's well-deserved - this is their country and white people visiting should respect that. And everyone is ok with that. This is their country, it's a privilege to visit, and we all accept our status as second to them. It's an admirable way to live, honest and maintains the identity of the nation state. The tendency these days in Britain is to claim that African, Asian, etc refugees are as British as anyone, which is such depressing rubbish that denies our (and their) rich history and serves to turn the entire country into a grey indistinct mush.
I know my thoughts are jumbled here, and all over the place, but I hope you see what I'm getting at. It bothers me that the above opinions are 'racist' but they all come from the experience of living in the UK in recent years. I can't see them being anything but correct so I'm wondering if I simply have to accept that I'm now racist. I do think this reasoning is largely what led to things like the recent Euro election - ordinary white Britons used it to lash out at what has happened to the country over the past few years, they're the people who live amongst all the immigrants and non-whites and have had such bad experiences this was their way of saying 'enough'.
I'd really like to open a debate, I'm sad that this is how I think but I'm even sadder at the prospect of bringing up my children in a country that is being degraded, attacked and taken advantage of on a day to day level by people we unwittingly invited into the country only to have them abuse our trust. Another question is why do Chinese/Thai/Japanese people not cause as much anger and resentment? They seem more respectful of the British way, and don't aim to change it, merely participate in it. | 21 | > Another question is why do Chinese/Thai/Japanese people not cause as much anger and resentment? They seem more respectful of the British way, and don't aim to change it, merely participate in it.
I think it's likely just a difference in demographics. The immigrants from African and Muslim countries tend to be not just poor, but from a sustained tradition of poverty and low education. In contrast, the "poor" immigrant from China whose grandparents were landowners or scholars who were persecuted by the Maoist regime still has a cultural background of educational attainment and work ethic, and won't stay poor for very long. | 18 |
[Discworld] How can a normal person take advantage of Discworld's Theory of Narrative Causality to bring maximum benefit to their life? | What tropes, genre staples, conventions and cliches can an average Ankh-Morporkian take advantage of to improve their lot in life, the most? | 37 | The problem with attempting to use narrative causality to improve your life is that your particular narrative has an alarming tendency to turn into the one about That Bugger Who Was Too Clever By Half And Got What Was Coming To Him. | 90 |
[Transformers] when multiple robots form one robot (like Devestator), do all of the individual personalities mesh into a collective, or is one personality dominate? | As default leader of the Constructicons, does Scrapper’s personality shine through or does the Combiner come with a new AI when the collective programming of all is merged?
If it’s the collective, what happens if a part of Devastator is destroyed during battle? Let’s say Devestator loses his right arm, Scavenger, does that break the AI? | 434 | All of the individual personalities mesh into a collective that decide the actions of the combined form. This generally results in a unique emergent personality with significant flaws.
Devastator is dull-witted, despite the engineering genius of the Constructicons, and can only really do what they all agree on.
Superion is shows that the emergent personality is a sentient mind of its own, of a sort. In this case it shuts down the competing minds of the individual Aerialbots, limiting its actions to just those that serve its mission: destruction of the Decepticons.
Bruticus (Combaticons) is a stronger, stupider version of Devastator.
Abominus (Terrorcons) - Is basically just a whirling dervish of destruction.
Computron (Technobots) - technically solve the problem of limited intelligence, but at the cost of reaction time. Basically, Computron takes the time to resolve any conflict between tis components before taking any action. So no conflict that impedes intelligence, but at the cost of taking a long time to do it.
Notable exceptions include:
Menasor - While Menasor technically suffers from the same ailment (that it's emergent mind is a result of competing individual minds) in this case the dominant personality trait of the Stunticons: insanity, is amplified.
Defensor - Likewise, the desire to protect human life of the Protectobots is amplified in Defensor, but almost to a fault.
Predaking (the Predacons) - This is one of the few cases where the gestalt mind is almost without flaws, perhaps because the Predacons are so agreeable and similar in their own personalities. | 221 |
ELI5: Differences among Broiling, Roasting, and Baking | I just call all of those "sticking it into an oven" | 77 | I just learned about broiling recently, but let's talk about baking first.
When you bake, you cook the food by surrounding it with hot air. Because the hot air is all around the food, the food cooks from all the sides. If you use a toaster oven, you'll notice that the heating elements are not really on when you bake. They only turn on to keep the air at the temperature you set. Heat transfer occur from the hot air inside and the hot walls of the oven. In short, **baking happens from all directions via convection and radiation.**
According to JOY OF COOKING, roasting and baking are the same. I'd say the difference is that baking is for bread stuffs, and roasting is for meat stuffs.
When you broil something, you cook it from one direction with radiant heat. If you set your toaster oven to broil, only the top elements turn on. And they stay on, full strength, to brown your food. You're also supposed to put the food as close to the elements as possible and leave the door slightly open. It should be designed to stay slightly open for broiling. If you use your big oven, broiling happens beneath the heater elements in the smaller lower tray (not the bigger compartment). Same thing here with the door, you leave it slightly open. The result is similar to that of grilling. You get very nice browning on your food. (Excellent way of cooking meat if you don't want to grill outside). So broiling is **directional cooking mostly via radiant heat.**
**When broiling, if you don't leave the door open, you end up with a pseudo baking situation and you cook the other side of the food before you can brown the food on both sides. This is undesireable.*
Edit: word choice.
**Bonus generic broiling recipe:**
1. Preheat broiler.
1. Take meat and pat dry.
1. Add lots of seasoning of your choice.
1. Broil one side until browned.
1. Flip over and broil until brown.
1. Enjoy.
| 43 |
ELI5: If I do (for example) 10 squats 5 times over the space of the day, is that just as good as going 50 squats once a day? Why or why not? | 11,333 | Your body is very clever. When it notices that a muscle has been damaged by intensive usage, it doesn't just repair it, but also makes it a little bit stronger so it doesn't get damaged again in the future. The idea of working out is to "damage" your muscles a little bit, so your body is going to work on it.
This needs basically two things:
First, you need to actually go far enough to cause some damage. You feel this when your muscles tire or get sore doing something. If you don't feel this, it means your muscles are still fine and your body has no reason to do anything.
Second, you need to rest so your body can repair. That's why many workout programs don't target all the same muscles every day: you would just be damaging them more and more without getting them fully repaired again. If at some point there is too much damage, you have an actual injury.
Looking at these things, you can get your answer. If you use your muscles enough with the smaller sets, then it's fine for growth. But as your muscles grow it will get easier and easier, so the amount of "damage" decreases, exactly as your body intended. To keep growing, you either have to go to longer sets so there isn't time for your body to rest in between, or increase the intensity so it gets damaged quicker. | 9,145 |
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If stars use up their hydrogen before exploding and then a new system forms (like ours) where does the hydrogen in that system come from? | 27 | Stars don't use up *all* their hydrogen, just the hydrogen in the core. There's plenty of hydrogen elsewhere in the star which doesn't get fused into helium. When a star sloughs off its outer layers at the end of its life, the discarded hydrogen can form (part of?) a new star and be used for fusion. | 19 |
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Why are cloud bases flat but cloud tops fluffy? | In a typical cloud you see in the sky or drawn, the cloud base is flat and the top is fluffy. [Drawing example](https://www.pngwing.com/en/free-png-yjrsv) and [photo example](https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2004/06/cumulus-mediocris-clouds.html).
I know this pattern seems to be developing in cumulus clouds of some vertical extend at least. I understand that, in the idealized model, these clouds form in an unstable atmosphere, and that rising warm air pockets cool at the dry adiabatic lapse rate before they reach the temperature of the environment at the dew point (the intersection of the DALR line and the ELR curve), at which humidity is 100% and water starts condensing as the air pocket keeps rising, now at the saturated adiabatic lapse rate. However, it's unclear to me why the condensation stops at irregular patterns of altitude at the top of the cloud, but seems to be starting all at the same altitude at the base of the cloud.
I thought of several explanations for this: That the temperature of the atmosphere isn't uniformly distributed according to the ISA atmosphere; that there are insufficient condensation nuclei and some water cannot condense and these are not uniformly distributed; or that the humidity of the air pocket is not uniformly distributed. However, these hypotheses do not seem to explain the discrepancy between the base of the cloud and the top. So, what's really going on here? Thanks! | 18 | As you go higher in the atmosphere, the air gets colder. The base of the cloud represents the lowest point where the air gets cold enough for water vapor to condense into droplets, which happens at roughly the same height in a given region. The top of the cloud is just wherever the humid air has managed to rise to, which can be any kind of irregular shape. | 22 |
Why is it that Europeans have many colours of hair, when everywhere else, (Africa, Australia, Americas, Asia) have only black? | Clearly I am talking the genetic ancestry of these places. I realize there can be a blonde in any of these places and that genetic mixing is far more common now. However, in evolution terms, these non-European places span huge ranges of latitude, climates, and environmental conditions. | 391 | Here's a simplified version.
There was one mutation thousands of years ago, among the ancestors of present-day Europeans, that caused lighter colored hair. As the years went by, sub-mutations of this one ancient mutation diversified that into several different shades. All these sub mutations are dependent on the first one having occurred.
Ultimately, it all goes back to having lighter pigmentation. All these mutations are dependent on the one that codes for less pigment.
I hope that was understandable and accurate. Feel free to correct me. | 264 |
[MCU] Did pregnant women snapped away by Thanos were counted as two persons? | 40 | There is no definitive answer. There is nothing in the source material that even discusses pregnant women. However, we could guess about what Thanos would have thought.
I think Thanos would have been 'pro-life' in the sense that he saw a pregnant woman as two people, because his ideology was all about population and how it consumes resources as it grows beyond that which the universe can support. So, as far as the Snap is concerned, a future human is more or less the same as a current human. | 53 |
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I feel no moral responsibility to be vegetarian or vegan. CMV. | I understand that others choose to be vegetarian or vegan for moral reasons. In many cases, the animals being raised are mistreated horribly. In many cases, they are subjected to awful living conditions and exposed to chemicals that we still do not fully know the effects of (or, worse, we do).
I respect people who choose to become vegetarian or vegan for moral reasons, as I see that they have done research on a subject that is important to them, come to a certain conclusion regarding ethics, and changed their lifestyle accordingly. I recognize and commend this. I simply don't share the conclusion.
I believe that there are other ways to face the ethical issues raised by so many of these farms. I believe there are sources of meat or animal products that are not unnecessarily cruel to the animals.
Edit: In response to some of the most common arguments I'm seeing.
* *"Why should the lives of these animals be worth less to you than those of humans or your pets?"* To settle the "humans" bit, I will simplify matters a bit by saying that my religious beliefs place human life above the lives of other animals and requesting that we leave it at that, to prevent this turning into a different conversation altogether (and one I've read on this sub recently). As for pets, I've kept the pets I've kept because doing so enriches my life and/or the lives of those I care for and has a positive effect on our mental health. I am not innately opposed to eating other animals, even very similar ones, because of this.
* *"Eating meat supports an immoral industry."* Only if I buy my meat from those immoral sources. There are other ways to come by meat or animal products and places to buy it that do not torture the creatures while they're alive.
Also, I'm seeing a lot of unsupported claims on here. I would appreciate it if you could cite your sources. | 44 | Consider a broader argument, not about cruelty, but about waste. It takes about ten times the resources to produce meat than it does to make grain or vegetables. It's often asked why it is anybody in the world is going hungry when we here in the US grow enough food to presumably feed everybody on Earth. Trouble is, most of that food is fed to food at a considerable loss of consumable calories. With our population ever growing and our arable lands stressed from overuse, it's arguable that broad acceptance of a vegetarian/vegan diet could help make the world a better place for everybody. | 22 |
[Star Trek] What does it mean that "Shields are at 22%" when the opponent is already blowing actual holes in the Enterprise? Aren't shields doing nothing at that point? | As seen in multiple TNG episodes, movies, etc.
EDIT: I appreciate the responses so far, but I don't think anyone's adequately addressed the scenario where the ship is ACTUALLY BEING SHOT UP. Even if the shields are deflecting a certain percentage of the weapons' energy in some way, it's all for naught if the hull is being breached. "Shields useless" would be a better and more appropriate thing to say in that instance than "Shields at X percent."
(As a side note, I assume that the bridge and warp nacelles are protected by sterner stuff, since otherwise the enemy would immediately blow them up.) | 65 | Federation shields diffuse the energy from attacks. As they get more and more attacks, their ability to diffuse the energy falls. In your example, they are only able to eliminate 22% of the energy that's hitting them leaving 78% of the energy remaining to "blow actual holes" in the ship. | 58 |
ELI5: How will finding new particles at CERN effect my everyday life in the future? | 107 | That's the thing with fundamental research. Nobody knows. If you were born 100 years ago, you'd be asking why are we wasting time on this quantum mechanic nonsense. That turned out to enable the existence of a computer.
Once we understand how the world works, we might be able to create ways to influence it, and design applications for it. Take for example the famous Higgs boson. For a long time, it has been puzzling why some particles have mass, while others do not. A solution for this was proposed in a form of Higgs field and a Higgs particle. It's important to note that they don't just guess that some particle exists, but it is calculated that it also has certain properties. They then did the tests, and what do you know, a particle was found with the properties they calculated, so it was announced that the Higgs particle indeed exists. And this is where we can start going all scifi. What if at some point in the future, somebody discovers a method to manipulate this particle? It could essentially mean an anti-gravity device. | 101 |
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ELI5: how do anti-lock brakes work in a car? and how are they safer than normal brakes | 16 | Without ABS, the brakes apply steady force. If the stopping force exceeds the rolling force, then the wheel & tire lock up. Then the vehicle either stops or starts skidding.
When the tires are skidding, you lose most of your ability to steer the vehicle and are thus more likely to crash.
ABS basically turns the brake force on and off several times a second. This makes it easier for the wheels to keep rolling, rather than locking up and skidding.
So the safety aspect of ABS, is that you are more likely to retain the ability to steer when under heavy braking.
Without ABS, we were taught to pump the brakes to prevent skidding. If your vehicle does have ABS, you are not supposed to pump the brakes, because the system is pumping them for you, faster than you could. | 17 |
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[Jojo's Bizarre Adventure] Has it ever been commented on in-universe that Stands tend to have music-based names? | 15 | It's possible that most, if not all, the characters haven't made the connection. Music is a vast field, with so many bands that nobody has heard of all of them. How many Jojo fans have listened to all of the bands and got the references without having to look up the bands, albums, and song names?
To make matters more complicated, the Jojo universe is littered with music references to such an extent that the references sometimes predate what they reference, making them non-references from the characters' POVs. Fore example, Joseph probably shrugs off the three 80s bands that share names with the Pillar Men as mere coincidence, as the Pillar Men predate them by decades - and Joseph is the closest to an avid music fan that we see in the series. And this happens not just with stands, but people's names, locations, organizations, and whatever could possibly have a name. For the characters, the "references" are so everyday that they might as well not be anything out of the ordinary.
And many of the references in modern times are kind of dated for the people that use them. How many young people in the early 2000s do you think would recognize Moody Blues or Stone Free? (A lot of fans don't even get that Jojo itself is a reference.) Add in the fact that most of the characters live in countries other than the US/UK, and you've got a lower chance that they are that well acquainted with western rock music. | 15 |
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CMV: "Radical Islam" is a harmful and inaccurate phrase. | Much of the worlds current political struggles are attributed to the catch-all term of "Radical Islam." I believe this term to be wildly over simplistic and it ignores the political and nationalism issues that play a larger role in the hostility that some have with the West. Attributing the actions of these groups to the whims of religious fanaticism is an easy way to convince the public that their motivations are not grounded in anything other than "they are just nuts." To write off these actions in such a way is to detract from the true motivations of these individuals, which are largely a reaction to unwanted Western influence on their immediate geographic area. To ignore these tangible political and nationalism motivations - while chalking it up to religious people who are just being crazy - is to drive us further away from conflict resolution in these areas.
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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!* | 26 | What makes you think that religion is not a large part of the motivation? Let's look back to al-Qaeda in the 90's, trying to blow up the World Trade Center. What had America done to the Middle East by that point? They'd helped Afghanistan fend of an invasion, and they'd gone to war to defend Kuwait from Iraq. That was pretty much the extent of US involvement in the Middle East. Meanwhile, they'd systematically installed and destroyed governments across all of Latin America, propping up dictators and narco-terrorists alike. Yet we've seen no Guatemalan attacks on New York. There is more to the story than simply "those crazy religious folk", but to deny that religion plays a part is simply absurd. | 29 |
[Pacific Rim] Why did people think that the Kaiju were just stupid animals? | Newt says that "we thought they were dumb animals" or something to that effect, just mindless, violent beasts that blundered their way through the breach.
Why? Didn't people find it strange that these dumb animals were all deliberately attacking cities instead of just wandering around and bumping into a city occasionally? | 101 | Because they *were* dumb. At first.
After the initial attack on San Francisco, the USGS was able to backtrack Tresspasser's path to its origin at the Breach using seismic records. Turns out it had been wandering around for weeks in a kind of drunkard's walk pattern until it reach the US West Coast.
Hundun, Kaiceph, and Scissure all were shown to have followed the same pattern when their routes were backtracked. In the onslaught that followed, it was observed that Kaiju only went straight for population centers after another had first stumbled into it.
That in and off itself didn't necessarily prove they were intelligent. It seemed more likely that the Kaiju were attracted to the scent of spilled Kaiju-blue. The thinking was that they followed it because it meant the Kaiju that had lost it was dead or weakened, and therefore its territory was now up for grabs.
That's why the city walls seemed like such a good idea at the time construction started. The more we fought the Kaiju, the faster they came, and the bigger they got. A more passive approach would mean less Kaiju-blue spilled, and that would hopefully stop this exponential spiral of bigger Kaiju showing up faster.
Jaegers, though effective, were expensive to produce and maintain, and we were just about at the limit of our production capacity. It was only towards the very end, once the walls were almost up and the jaegers decommissioned, that the apparent intelligence of the Kaiju started increasing exponentially along with their size and frequency. | 121 |
ELI5: Why can we listen to songs over and over again, but only watch an episode or movie once and move on to the next one? | 55 | Because, movies are telling stories, and if you know how it's ends you'll less interested in the story, (similar with jokes). With music you don't wait for the end to find out "who's the murderer". You enjoy composition, melody, rhythm etc. So if you hear it again it's still there.
There are some movies where visuals are more important than story. For example some action movies where explosions, car chases, and fine chicks are more important than story, and you can watch them again, and again, (or at least sequels which are very often the same only more). | 32 |
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Why do we blush when we're embarrassed? | From an evolutionary biological standpoint, why does blood rush into our faces when we're embarrassed? | 148 | The most common theory is that blushing allows others to observe that you are embarrassed. Embarrassment is a mechanism to enforce social rules, and blushing indicates to others that the rule has been enforced and no further action is necessary. | 186 |
ELI5: What is the chirping noise that computers make. | I always just assumed that its coming from hdd, optical drive or fan. But recently I got a new ultrabook that has none of them and I can still hear that chirping, sounds like diskette drive but higher pitched. However I cannot hear that sound on a phone or tablet, only on computers. | 53 | It's most likely "Coil whine"
There are small coils in your computer that are used to "smooth out" the current (and capacitors that do the same for the voltage) - electricity isn't perfectly regular, it has little bumps and waves that can damage your components inside the computer: the coils help make it "smoother" so that your computer lives longer and works better/more efficiently.
When the current passes through these coils, though, they vibrate quickly and rub together, creating a high-pitched chirp. | 41 |
[WH40K] Could the Tyranids invade Commorragh? Would it be worthwhile for them to do so? | Is it possible for the Tyranids to traverse the Webway? If so, are there any notable instances of this occurring?
Also, if the 'Nids can traverse that labyrinthine dimension, could they end up in the sprawling, dark city-state which the Dark Eldar call home? I know that the 'Nids are all about obtaining biomass, usually by devouring the entire biosphere of a planet, but there's supposedly trillions of organisms within Commorragh, along with that tower of living flesh thing that Fabius Bile helped create, so I assume that trying to eat that place wouldn't be too bad of an idea for them.
Would a single splinter fleet be able to do it? How about an entire Hive Fleet? What about every Hive Fleet simultaneously?
| 20 | Yes, it's possible. They could totally file in and eat everyone and everything in there. Thing is, there's so much more 'low hanging fruit' (easily accessible, poorly defended) planets full of tasty life that they probably wouldn't bother. It's harder to access, harder to access in force due to the narrower webway portals, quite thin on biomass compared to any Imperium or Ork world, and very *prickly* with elfdars. | 26 |
[Batman] Has the Joker ever broke character? | The "Clown Prince of Crime" always seems to carry himself either with an uncaring mad aloofness or with the idea that he's just going to head to prison for a bit and then escape... but with all the crossovers and other anti-heroes and stuff that has happened in the Batman comics/games/etc, I can't help but wonder... has the Joker ever broke character? Like, has he ever faced someone that legit scared the hell out of him, or made him realize he bit off FAR more than he could chew? | 145 | Frank Castle AKA The Punisher.
Apparently, during a 90’s crossover, The Joker came face-to-face with Castle. What he didn’t realize was that this was decidedly *not* Batman, and Castle was *not* afraid to simply put a bullet in Joker’s brain. Batman had to save Joker, and Joker, for once in his life, took the situation seriously and ran. No laughing or quips, just pure terror. It’s probably the only time Joker was actually afraid for his life. | 162 |
While sleeping, if nothing from the outside world triggers our wake-up, what most commonly triggers it? | For instance, does something just sort of trigger in our brain and tell us it's time to wake up? Thanks | 20 | First, it should be noted that sleep is not a continuous block. Even without any environmental stimuli, spontaneous awakenings are common during the night. For a healthy adult, it is typical to wake briefly about 20 times per night, with increasing frequency towards the end of the night. You don't remember most of these awakenings because short term memory does not function normally during sleep or shortly after awakening.
With that out of the way, I'll take your question to mean: What determines when we finally get up and start our day? The answer is that there are regions of the brain involved in controlling the overall arousal state of the brain (specifically, the ascending arousal system in the brainstem, and some neuronal populations in the hypothalamus and basal forebrain). The activity of these regions is primarily determined by two underlying processes:
* *The circadian rhythm*. We all contain a clock with a period close to 24 hours. This clock resides in a group of neurons in the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus. The clock promotes arousal during the circadian day and promotes sleep during the circadian night. Towards the end of the night, there is a progressively increasing arousal signal being sent from this clock.
* *The sleep homeostatic process*. While you are awake, certain substances build up in your brain, including adenosine, cytokines, and prostaglandin D_2. These substances make you feel more sleepy. During sleep, these substances are cleared from the brain. Towards the end of the night, the clearance of these substances results in an increasing drive to awaken. | 11 |
CMV: even if its racist or transphobic to only date a specific race or gender, it doesn't matter because relationship is something that you should be allowed to discriminate at however you wish | pretty much the title. i feel like amongst all this "is it t-phobic to not date trans people?" we are forgetting something fundamental, that when it comes to choosing dating or sexual partners we SHOULD be allowed to discriminate as we wish, and any society that shames it people for exercising that right is regressive.
the main issue with transphobia and racism and all that stuff is because you are ultimately sticking your nose into business where you don't have any reason or need to. it doesn't concern you who a gay person is sleeping with. it doesn't concern you who that black guy is dating and plans to have kids with. likewise it doesn't concern YOU why that cisgender person doesn't wish to date a trans person or why he broke up.
the bottom-line is no one is entitled to romantic love, affection or sex and im glad we are moving past that
edit: view changed | 266 | You are perfectly free to set whatever parameters you wish on who you are willing to date or not for whatever reasons please you the most.
Everyone else is perfectly free to react to your choices and their motivations as they see fit.
What exactly is the problem here? | 68 |
How do insects heal? I think we've all accidentally pulled a leg off a grasshopper at one point. | Also curious about arachnids, especially spiders, since they're effectively hydraulic. | 76 | Many insects have a life cycle of egg > larva > pupa > adult. Basically, once it hits the pupa stage, there isn't much that can be done to heal any damage. The cuticle (or exoskeleton) cannot be repaired as molting only happens during the egg/larval stages, so any damage to that lasts the rest of the insect's life.
As an example, Stigmatomma pallipes, AKA the dracula ant, feasts on the hemolymph (insect "blood") of their own larvae. They do this by using the teeth lining their mandible to puncture the larva. After happening several times, they develop scar tissue (trying to find a picture), but after molting and pupation, the adult ant has no signs of any physical trauma.
In the case of spiders, they molt as they grow and can regrow part or all of their limbs, or heal traumatic injuries. After adulthood, time between molts increases dramatically and their ability to heal tapers off because of it. | 31 |
[Fallout] Were cancer rates through the roof in pre-war America? | Fallout takes place in an alternate history where nuclear power was adopted as the predominant technology and power source, for about 150 years. Robots, transportation, computing, energy. All nuclear powered. Consequently, a huge amount of technology must be emitting radioactive particles, no matter how safe it was engineered to be.
Soldiers wearing power armor were walking around with a small fusion battery on their back.
Hell, wearing a pip-boy meant walking around with a nuclear powered computer on your arm all the time.
Were cancer rates for the average American sky high during this period? | 54 | Actually fossil fuels were the predominant energy source in the fallout universe, it was only due to its scarcity by the time of the Resource Wars that nuclear power became more common.
That being said, radiation shielding was very advanced by the time of the Great War. Power armor offers a radiation resistance bonus, so it can be assumed that pip-boys can shield their radioactive power source (if they are indeed nuclear powered).
Not to mention that drugs like Rad-X and Radaway made minor radiation absorption a rather trivial and easily cured affliction. I’m sure cancer rates were through the roof, but that’s more likely due to carcinogens in tobacco smoke and processed food than radiation, for the average American at least. | 60 |
[Marvel Comics] Rogue gets a symbiote. What happens? | 36 | There's precedent for Rogue consuming an alien's power and identity (Captain Marvel, a What-If story with Thor). So, even if the original symbiote dies, Rogue would effectively become one. Result would likely be similar to Carnage, a united being with enhanced strength, reflexes, and webbing. "Rouge" might finally be accurate!
Better: "We are Sugah." | 43 |
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Why are strawberry seeds so nicely devided over the strawberry? | 30 | The fruity fleshy bit of a strawberry is jummy and sweet. The seeds are not. If you were a bird and had the opportunity to eat either the jummy and sweet bit or the seeds, you'd only eat the jummy and sweet. By spreading evenly arcoss the strawberry you make sure that as many seeds spread as possible. Thus creating an advantage over clumping your seeds into one particular part of the strawberry. | 12 |
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Why are drugs out of our system after five half lives? | Why not 4 or 6? | 15 | They aren't.
After 5 half-lives, an uncomplicated drug will be down to 1/32 of its original concentration. (Because 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/32.)
1/32 is generally considered to be a negligible amount of a medication, because most medications cease to be effective well before their concentration drops by 32-fold.
However, there are cases when this rule doesn't work — for example, if you overdose, you might be down by 1/32x after 5 half-lives, but you that might still be a toxic amount of drug left. | 31 |
If there is Electromagnetic radiation (light) and Gravitational radiation (gravity waves), is there Strong 'radiation' and Weak 'radiation?' | Gravity and Electromagnetism have a type of 'radiation' associated with them, but is this true for Weak Interaction and Strong Interaction being the other 2 of the 4 Fundamental forces? | 24 | Yes, but gluons ("strong radiation") are subject to QCD confinement at low energies, and W/Z bosons ("weak radiation") have very large masses, so unlike photons, they can't be produced "for free".
Furthermore, W/Z bosons are unstable with a mean lifetime of only a small fraction of a second. So even if you produce them in some high-energy collision, they don't last long.
So they theoretically exist, but are not of any relevance to most things. | 49 |
ELI5: Cannabis is just a plant, however there are hundreds of different strains. What is the difference and why are they all different? | 42 | Think of cannabis like apples. There are red apples and green apples and even yellow apples. Each Apple tastes a little different, some are sweet some are more sour, but they are all still apples. Cannabis is the same way. | 42 |
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How do frogs avoid getting poisoned when they eat poisonous insects? | 32 | Let's flip it around.
How the hell can you eat chocolate and NOT die?? To dogs, eating enough of it can kill them straight out.
"In large enough amounts, chocolate and cocoa products can kill your dog. The toxic component of chocolate is theobromine. Humans easily metabolize theobromine, but dogs process it much more slowly, allowing it to build up to toxic levels in their system."
In summary, those frogs have built up a way to process those insects and not be poisoned. | 27 |
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Difference between determinism and superdeterminism? | I’ve been reading up a bit on these topics lately as I’m going through Sean Carroll’s new book “Something Deeply Hidden” which talks primarily about the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
I’m wondering what difference is there (if any) between determinism and super determinism.
Carroll seems to think there’s a distinction. I tried seeing his position on this matter, but all I can concretely find is that he’s not a fan of super determinism. This doesn’t make sense to me since I don’t see how it’s distinct from regular determinism.
Thanks for your time. (Even though you had no choice in reading or answering this ;) ) | 29 | In determinism, what we observe is determined by a cause whereas in super determinism what we observe is just determined (without a cause), such that no counterfactuals are possible. For example: If you roll a dice, the result is caused by the way you throw the dice. Here you can ask, what the result would have been if you threw the dice differently. If you roll a quantum dice, some people think, the result is determined by a big "list" or sequence which contains all the results of quantum experiments that have been and will be done. Here, there is no way of manipulating the result, because we don't have any access to the list of results. | 14 |
ELI5: Why do we turn pale/green when we're sick? | 47 | because your body diverts blood away from the skin on your face and towards the areas where the infection is in order to mount an immune response against the virus or bacteria. You never actually turn "green", that's just an expression for looking unwell. Pallor (turning pale) is caused by a decrease in blood flow to certain areas. | 46 |
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CMV: The "Nonviolent revolutions are not twice as likely to succeed as violent ones" study is unfairly skewed to favour nonviolent revolutions. | This claim, which was pretty popular in 2018 and 2019 (see [here](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world) for a BBC article on it, as one example), is one that I believe is based on an incredibly misleading study. I took a look at the datasets (and you can too, [here](https://dataverse.harvard.edu/file.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/YLLHEE/JDR00V&version=1.0)) that cover 323 revolutions from 1900 to 2006 across 128 countries. Here are the major flaws I came across with the data set:
1. Omits several successful violent revolutions. The 1989 peaceful protests against the communist government of Albania are included, but not the original National Liberation War against fascist Italy nor the 1997 civil war, both of which successfully toppled governments. That's from *one* country, there are numerous others not mentioned (including, for some reason, the fucking *Russian Revolution(s)*)
2. Is misleading with what it considers to be "nonviolent" protests. The 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal and 1985 protests in Haiti (actually 1984 - 1986) are both listed as nonviolent despite them being based around the military threatening to use force. If that's nonviolent, so are muggings. EDIT: I also decided to do a tiny bit of investigating into the nonviolent revolution of 1986 in the Philippines and found... [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_Power_Revolution#More_military_defections). Interesting. Gotta love nonviolent seizure of TV stations, airstrikes and military defections that totally don't carry the threat of violence.
3. Flat out lies about certain events. Like the 1936 - 1939 Spanish Civil War, the study claims the fascists *failed* to defeat the Republicans.
All of these skew the results in favour of the hypothesis that nonviolent revolution is more successful than violent revolution. These are just ~~7~~ 8 examples, if I had the time I could easily find more but I think the point is made.
Now, I don't know what the exact ratio of success between violent and nonviolent revolution is. I don't claim to and for all I know the people who did the study are correct in their general thesis. However, this study is full of holes that any can pick if they look at the raw data.
I checked the more updated version that looks at 622 revolutions from 1900 - 2019 (see [here](https://dataverse.harvard.edu/file.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/ON9XND/XRA6WM&version=1.0)). It fixes some of these issues (doesn't include Albania for some reason, but finally decided to include *1 of the 1917 Russian Revolutions*) but I cannot see why anyone can trust this study. | 21 | I’m not in a place to go deep on the dataset, but one comment on your second point—the threat of military force against the regime is actually a desired outcome of “nonviolent” revolution.
Keep in mind here that we’re looking at nonviolent resistance as a tactic here, not a moral principle. So the point isn’t to be nonviolent for its own sake, but because it works.
The stability of any government rests on its ability to maintain its monopoly over the use of force, or at least to be able to wield enough force to put down other political actors who would resist its authority.
The goal of nonviolent resistance is to attack the legitimacy of the regime. It’s to avoid giving the regime an excuse to legitimately crack down on the resistance.
The military is the decisive factor in that. If the military is willing to shoot on demonstrators, than the regime wins. Tiananmen Square, for example.
But most militaries view themselves as defenders of “the nation,” not the defenders of a particular regime or autocrat. So if the protestors convince the military that their resistance expresses the legitimate will of “the people,” than the military is less likely to be willing to use force against the regime. That goal is easier to accomplish with nonviolent protest, since violent resistance in political terms just looks like terrorism and in practical terms winds up hurting the security services you were hoping to win over.
In the more extreme cases, the military or at least elements of it are willing to use force to *defend* the protestors against the regime. In that case, the protestors have still accomplished their goal—they’ve turned the protectors of the regime into a threat to the regime.
In all those cases, nonviolent protest was an effective strategy to break the regime’s grip on power, even in those cases where the end result was violence. | 11 |
[Halo] How many plasma grenades would I need to destabilize or structurally compromise a Halo installation? | Asking for a friend of a friend.
Bonus round: how many fragmentation grenades for the same task?
Lightning round: how many Scorpion tank shells? | 21 | The correct answer is four. Four well placed grenades for the four fusion reactors onboard the Pillar of Autumn.
If we're going without the Autumn, adding all frags, plasma grenades, and Scorpion tank shells in existence, you probably couldn't destabalize the ring. The Forerunners built these puppies to last! | 42 |
How do mammals that dive deep into the ocean such as seals and whales not get decompression sickness? | A human dives to a depth of 1500 ft and has to spend hours resurfacing so the nitrogen in their blood does not bubble. Does a sperm whale have to take the same amount of time ascending from depth or do they have physiological mechanisms to mitigate that? | 33 | Decompression is only necessary if you breathe compressed air while beneath the water. It also depends on depth and time under.
Because seals and whales don't breath compressed air, they don't need to decompress. | 29 |
ELI5: How does US currency keep its value if not with gold? | 32 | we all pretend it does and it does, we all tacitly agree and our government enforces this, if we all decide tomorrow that it's not good for tender and it's worthless, it is.
it's the exact same thing with gold if you think about it
there's nothing intrinsic that makes gold worth what we say it is, if we all wake up tomorrow and give no shits about it then it's worthless
you can either be terrified by that or accept it for what it is | 59 |
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CMV: When using the English language, we should refer to "Mumbai" as "Bombay" for the same reasons that we refer to "Deutschland" as "Germany." | A few years ago, the Indian government decided that certain cities bearing colonial names should henceforth be referred to by their precolonial names --- e.g. Mumbai instead of Bombay, Kolkata instead of Calcutta, Chennai instead of Madras, etc. The reason for the change was that some nationalistic parties gained political power and decided that this would be a good way to appease their voters. This change somehow caught on not only within India, but all over the world. It is enforced so extremely in India that the censor board recently decided to ban a music video simply for using the word "Bombay" instead of Mumbai.
My problem with this is that no government (or any authority) should have a hegemony over the English language. One of the most beautiful things about the English language is that there is no authority in the world that can prescribe rules for it. I think it should not be perverted to pander to some particular authority's parochial interests.
CMV. | 523 | >This change somehow **caught on** not only within India, but all over the world.
There you go. This is *fait accompli*, a thing already done.
The word "germany" caught on so we use it.
At this point, "Mumbai" caught on - so we use. Why expend effort hanging it again? | 397 |
ELI5: What does the vote to defund planned parenthood mean and how is it related to the govt. shutdown? | I've tried to look around, but most of the news sources I've found are hopelessly vague in their explanation (something I sometimes wonder if intentional)
I understand it was voted to defund planned parenthood for 1 year. What does this mean for planned parenthood to be defunded? And hoow does this vote relate to the threat of a government shutdown that keeps being mentioned? | 160 | So, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would remove government funding to Planned Parenthood. That bill would then need to go to the senior half of Congress, the Senate, and pass there. Then it would go to President Obama, who has the power to veto it and will almost certainly do so.
Several Republican congressmen have said that they will refuse to vote on any US budgets that give money to Planned Parenthood at all, and since the Democrats are not going to just give up on funding Planned Parenthood, this means that it is likely that no budget will be passed for the upcoming year, and thus no federal funds will go anywhere and the US government will shut down until negotiations result in Congress approving a budget. | 95 |
ELI5: How do we know what the universe looks like today when all the light we see is from millions or billions of years ago? | Shouldn't the universe we see be like a fun house mirror with everything distorted? in fact, shouldn't it be worse than that? Wouldn't it be like looking at a fun house mirror, but in addition to everything being in the wrong place, your head might be your current age and your feet look like they did when you were a baby? The Milky Way is 120,000 light-years across, and that's just one galaxy. Can we really extrapolate through billions of years to get an accurate picture of the universe now?
EDIT: Thanks to everyone for all the great answers!
I just want to say that I think it's legitimate to ask what the universe looks like "now," even with the lightspeed barrier. Saying that it "doesn't matter" or that there is no "real now" or that "now has no meaning" because the idea of "now" is defined by what information can reach us at the speed of light, I think is a cop-out answer.
If we ever discover warp drive, or wormholes, or whatever, then it certainly WILL matter. Plus, things we can't see presumably do still exist. I don't see how the lightspeed barrier affects this.
Lots of things — quantum computers, nuclear fusion, teleportation, artificial intelligence – are beyond our scientific capabilities now (and perhaps forever), but it's still worth thinking about. | 1,791 | The picture we have of the universe is a picture of the past universe. The reality is that what the universe is like **now** is irrelevant, because we won't experience that in any menaingful way until the future when the light reaches us.
We can of course make predictions about where these galaxies/stars are **today** even though we're seeing them thousands or millions of years in the past.
The only "real" universe is the one we can observe, and that's the one that's limited by the speed of light.
**everything** is limited by the speed of light, even your kid's soccer game, but the difference doesn't really matter because it doesn't impact us. The same thing applies to space. | 1,390 |
[DCEU] Didnt Clark Kent die the same day Superman died? How did he come back to life? | People saw him his a damn coffin. | 23 | In the original Death of Superman story, Clark was listed as one of the hundreds of people missing after the battle.
Few if any would find this suspicious. Clark is a reporter after all and he no doubt has gone into dangerous situations with no guarantee for his safety. | 43 |
[Superman] Can Superman see when he is shooting lasers from his eyes?. | I mean I assume he he has to in order to aim, it doesn't seem to make sense otherwise. Yet no other superpower seems to work like that, you can't perform a normal task under similar circumstances. If I am flying I can't walk at the same time, if I am shooting energy blasts from my hands I cannot drink a cup of coffee at the same time, and so on. And if he can see at the time is everything tinted red?. And as a side question, I assume Superman can control the lasers intensity. Can it be quite underpowered so as to just heat up the coffee I mentioned?, and in the other direction how strong can the laser vision get?. | 140 | He could look, and aim before he shoots.
His hearing would be a big aid if he can't see, and if he needs to, he could turn it on and off imperceptibly quick to see in between firings, looking like a continuous stream. | 97 |
ELI5: What is the science behind an “acquired taste”? Is it as simple as your tastebuds getting used to that specific taste? | 20 | Nope, it's all about your brain learning to perceive it differently.
Have you ever been eating something, and then somebody compared the food to something really nasty, and then it started to taste less appetizing? Or noticed how your favorite food doesn't taste that good if you're completely full?
Our taste buds send information to the brain, but the brain decides how to interpret it.
Some foods have a flavor that our brain thinks is potentially dangerous.. Bitter compounds, for example, are more likely to be poisonous. So if something tastes bitter, our brain is suspicious. But if we've eaten it before without getting sick, our brain decides that this particular bitter food is OK, and so it tastes better to you. | 21 |
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Can someone explain corporate personhood? | If there's one thing people on reedit get butthurt about, it's corporate personhood. I was wondering if someone could explain it- what it is, why it exists, what it allows, what it *doesn't* allow. I'd be willing to bet that the common idea of corporate personhood isn't very much like what it actually is. | 19 | "Person" is a legal term of art. To lawyers and lawmakers, it doesn't mean what most people mean when they say "person."
"Personhood" is simply a collection of rights, like the right to own property, the right to bring a lawsuit, and the right to enter into a contract. We want corporations to be able to enter into binding contracts, and to be able to buy and sell property in the corporation's name, and to be able to sue (and be sued) in court. In order to make all that possible, we say that corporations have "personhood." If they didn't have those rights, it would be literally impossible for them to exist.
Where most people would use the word "person" to mean a human being, lawyers and courts would say "individual" or "natural person." All humans are persons, but not all persons are human. Some rights and laws only apply to natural persons, some apply to all persons. | 14 |
ELI5 what is pre-workout and how does it work? | 59 | Preworkouts are combinations of chemicals intended to do a few things (depending on what's in them).
1. Make you feel more energetic. Thinks like caffeine or ephedrine are usually used for this.
2. Ensure you get the most out of your workout. Things like creatine and beta-alanine.
3. Ensure your body has the things it needs during a workout. Things like sugar and various amino acids are used for this.
In general, pre workouts DO help, but the effect is a lot smaller than people would like you to believe. In most cases you can get most of the effects with a proper diet and a cup of coffee. | 90 |
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[Harry Potter] I'm a British muggle, and my child has begun displaying signs of magic. Is it mandatory that she attend Hogwarts, or can she just keep going to her muggle school with all of her friends? | 37 | No. There is no requirement that she learn magic, and if she does she doesn't have to at Hogwarts. You can get private tutors, though that's not cheap. But it's worth it if you ask me. Have you heard about what's been happening at Hogwarts? | 42 |
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ELI5: How come we perceive sunlight as essentially being invisible until we split it down into seperate wavelengths? | We don't see light until it's reflected off something and depending on what the thing is, it absorbs some wavelengths and not others and that's how we perceive colours. But why? How come we just don't see all light all the time (when exposed to it)? | 15 | We see sunlight when it hits our eyes. You can definitely see direct sunlight, ie when it doesn't reflect off of something - when you look directly at the sun.
We don't see random rays of light all the time because most of them don't reach our eyes. | 17 |
Understanding algorithms and data structures, but not being able to implement them? | Just a bit of background information: I'm currently in high school, and I'm taking a course about algorithms on Coursera. I do have previous programming experience.
I'm able to understand the concept behind algorithms and why and how they work, how efficient they are etc...
However, when I try to implement or code those algorithms, I get stuck. I know that to solve this problem I should practice more, and I do try, but for some reason, I just can't seem to "translate" the algorithm into code.
This is really affecting me cause I really enjoy computer science in general, and I understand the concepts, but I just can't seem to find a way to transfer my thoughts into code, and it kinda discourages me. However, I'm not gonna give up anytime soon.
What can I do to solve this problem? Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you so much :)
Sorry if this post doesn't belong here, I'm not sure where to post it. | 25 | Step 0: practice a lot
Step 1: if a problem seems unsolvable, just try to understand the solution then try to write the same solution.
Step 2: come to the question few days later, try to do the problem now, if not succeed then again look at the solution.
Step 3: Step 0 | 15 |
If you were to hypothetically manage to turn all the lights out in a major city (ex. New York City) how long would it take to see the stars? Or would it be instantaneous? | And what would cause the delay, if there was one? | 588 | It's practically instantaneous.
You may get a little delay from clouds reflecting the light for a fraction of a second longer than if there was no clouds or atmospheric conditions which reflect light back.
Then you'd have to wait for your eyes to adapt to the darker conditions. This is the part which you'd notice without some equipment. | 438 |
ELI5: What actually happens inside the throat when you have a sore throat? | 15 | A virus is hijacking cells in your throat to make more viruses.
You immune system is going around killing all the cells that have been hijacked.
Because a lot cells got hijacked, your immune system is doing a decent amount of damage.
This damage hurts.
A lot of the other symptoms are the immune system improving its response in the area and the rest of the throat trying to repair the damage. | 12 |
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[Dc Comics] Why build the Watchtower? Why not just use the fortress of solitude? | It would have been more cost effective, less timely, and to the best of my knowledge more secure right? | 23 | Why would we use the gym to play basketball, why can't we use your apartment?
Same argument. Superman's fortress of solitude is *his* spot, for him to be alone and be Kal-El instead of Superman or Clark Kent.
If they need a Earthbound spot to meet, there's always the Hall of Justice. | 43 |
CMV: I believe children can be told about sex from the get go. | I don't think there is anything wrong with children knowing what sex is at any age, even if they are too young to fully grasp it. Obviously I'm not saying that children should be exposed to sexual situations, I'm just saying that they can know: what sex is; that their parents have sex; that gay sex exists; and that sex is where babies come from, and that that doesn't rob them of their innocence or damage their perceptions in anyway (assuming the information being shared is accurate).
I was raised this way and grew up knowing what sex was in the same way that I knew what pooping was. I never felt especially weird about sex and was bored in sex-ed because I knew it already. Those are the only differences i could perceive in my approach to sex in comparison to my peers and I think suddenly springing the knowledge of sex on a kid is far more likely to manifest a weird relationship to it.
Edit: I am assuming this argument from a secular perspective, Ie; assuming consensual sex isnt immoral in and of itself. | 616 | Do you mean that they should be told a plain but broad version when asked or that you should make a point of telling them as early as they can understand it?
The former makes sense to me, in order to, as you say, prevent it from becoming weird or shameful, but the latter doesn't, because there's no reason to have a child think about the mechanics of something that will only become relevant to them in years, they have enough to worry about that's actually immediately pertinent to their lives. | 147 |
[Star Wars] Have their been any attempts to altruistically free the victims of sarlaacs, or kill the sarlaacs to put them out of their misery? | Not that many in the Star Wars universe would be aware of sarlaacs or how their stomachs work, but there would likely be at least some societies such as those near the Ancient Abyss on Felucia. Did anyone ever try to stop the centuries-long suffering of people who were eaten by sarlaacs? And would you be in favor of doing so if you were in the Star Wars universe? | 105 | I don't think there's actually any need or benefit to attempting that. As the most recent installments show, Jabba via 3PO was being somewhat more dramatic than he was biologically accurate. Most victims are quite dead quite quickly.
Being generous with Jabba's description, it's a one then the other thing, not a concurrent thing. You will experience a new definition of pain and suffering, (then die), and you will be digested over 1000 years. | 102 |
CMV: A man should have time to opt out of parenting. | Since women have the opportunity to continue or terminate a pregnancy without the father's consent, the father should be given a period of time before the pregnancy ends or within a certain number of months of finding out about an existing child before meeting said child. This cost can be similar to the fee of an abortion. While both have the responsibility to ensure an unwanted pregnancy from occurring, only women have the opportunity to end the pregnancy or continue with the pregnancy without the other party’s consent.
Example A:
Sarah and James have a one night stand. Sarah falls pregnant and immediately tells James when finding out at two months. James is now at Sarah’s mercy if he does or doesn’t want to keep this baby. Sarah decides to keep the baby despite James wanting nothing to do with it. Because Sarah made that decision alone, James should be able to pay a fee comparable to what Sarah would’ve paid in an abortion. This would mean James doesn’t have any contact with the kid, and he doesn’t have to support the child in any way.
Example B:
Sarah and James had a one night stand and never conversed again. Three years later, Sarah lets James know he has a child. Because Sarah underwent a pregnancy with the opportunity to abort, James should be given time (5 months) to decide whether to parent or not. He has 5 months to pay the fee and file the paperwork without meeting said child. This opportunity is void if he choose to meet the child early.
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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!* | 16 | There is no 100% fair answer. As /u/BertioMcPhoo points out, the obligation to pay child support doesn't stem from any claim of the mother, but from a claim of the child. Hence until the child is of age, nobody can waive that claim for it. The child has the same claim towards the mother. The right to abort stems from the fact that the mother's body is put under intense and extremely intimate stress for the duration of the pregnancy and childbirth. While there has been a long debate in society how to weigh the right of the child to live and the right of the mother to decide what happens with her body, the current conclusion is, that for a while, as long as the "child" is not yet enough of a fully formed human being, the right of the mother supersedes the rights of the child, but once the child has reached a certain developmental stage, the right of the child takes precedent.
It is not completely fair, no doubt. The "right to her body" inescapably entails a bit more leeway in the fiscal decision about child rearing than the father has. Of course, on the other hand, the father has none of the pain, discomfort and downright risk to his health that comes with a pregnancy. That's not fair either.
In the end our weighing of the different rights and responsibilities of mother, father, and child has come out in that order: mother's right to her body takes precedence over child's right to live until a certain point in the child's development. Then the child's right to live and to be financially supported until it is of age takes precedent over both parents' right to independence.
But the proposed right of the father to opt out does not correspond to any of these existing rights. It wouldn't make things more fair, but just be an arbitrary way to reinforce the social assumption, that child rearing isn't really a father's job anyway. | 67 |
How can radiation cause burns? | I wouldn't guess it transfers much heat so why does it cause skin "burns"? | 114 | Others have responded in complex terms, but here is a very simple one.
Radiation kills cells by destroying their DNA. The body reacts as best it can. The results look like a burn because it's the same response. Just in this case the cells aren't physically destroyed by excess direct heating. | 140 |
Can you mix vaccines in blood and let misquotes eat it, then they will transfer the vaccinated blood? | 192 | Typically mosquitoes breakdown the blood, and excrete whatever they cannot use. So no. Part of the reason why a mosquito would not give you AIDS. Also, there's no 'flowback' of blood from the mosquito's needle, nor would there be a significant amount of the vaccine left on the outside of the needle. | 105 |
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(Mass Effect) What effect on Earths economy did converting to the Galaxy wide currency have? | as earth has multiple currency's at one time each worth different amounts to the other what happened when earth converted to the "Credit"? | 42 | We didn't convert. Supplemental materials explain that "credits" are a currency standard that dollars/yen/space rocks are converted to by omnitool as a conveinence for interstellar business. Exchange rates are managed/regulated by a department of the Council on Citadel with branches throughout the galaxy. | 47 |
[Batman/Demolition Man] How would Batman feel about the cryo-penitentiary subliminal rehabilitation program? | Would he put any of his rogues in stasis? | 22 | Well Batman's son has been imprisoning villains without trial and then using magic to alter their personalities and he is on a collision course with his father for when he finds out about it. So no he would likely not support a prison that, more or less, brainwashes criminals as that's ethically terrible.
How is it better than Arkham which seems to be a revolving door? Well Arkham (and normal prisons like Black Vate) have received immense funds from Bruce Wayne to go towards increased security and rehabilitation. So if a villain can escape from the high tech fortress island that Arkham often becomes, they likely will be broken out of a cryo prison too.
Rehabilitation wise, there are success stories of criminals going down the right path (not including all the generic goons). Clayface became a hero and Killer Croc is often an antihero towards the poor and forgotten children of Gotham. | 12 |
Why do we enjoy killing people in video games or think it's "cool" when we see people die in movies? | 19 | Play fighting is a natural thing. Watch puppies for a while and sooner or later they'll start biting at eachother. The winner is usually the one that wraps his mouth around the other's neck first or at least the one that commands a submissive gesture from the other.
Often this includes a chase as well.
It's not a coincidence that what they're doing mimics hunting and going in for the kill.
Humans do this play-fighting too. Give two kids some sticks and before long it's a sword fight or a some mock guns.
It's instinctual to train in this way for what evolution thinks we will have to face. Video games, movies and to a degree story telling generally, though, are relatively new and not something evolution has ever really had time to account for. It's just sort of our weird human mixture of these instincts and our great communicative powers that we enjoy sharing it in art as we do just as we enjoyed making a game of it as kids. | 17 |
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[MCU] Abomination (possible spoilers for some movies) | I know Tim Roth is not cast in any of the avengers movies, Do you think the abomination will appear in a non speaking capacity? He's a powerful resource and it'd seem like a weird waste in an all out war. | 29 | They considered it when the Avengers were being out together but considered him too unstable and thus kept him in Cryo Sleep, recruiting Banner instead who is more useful as a scientists and is far less willing to use his powers.
Abomination is a danger to everyone around him, he fights for himself and will kill people jaut to test his limits. | 36 |
[Star Wars] How could Ziro the Hutt speak Basic and the other Hutts could not? | 20 | Hutts absolutely can speak Basic, there's no physical reason they can't. They just view it as an inferior language to Huttese so they generally refuse to, plus it can help to intimidate and mess with people in business dealings. A proper Hutt will take every damn chance they can get to have the upper hand. | 34 |
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Why do things get darker when they get wet? | 493 | Cloth actually becomes more transparent when it gets wet, which is why it looks darker (because there is usually no light source on the other side of the cloth).
Next time you get a piece of cloth wet, hold it up to a light and you will see that more light is able to pass through. | 271 |
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[Kingsman] Does someone get promoted to "Arthur" in the event of his death or retirement? Is there any supervisor agents below him? | Also, what would a female agent be named? | 18 | All the Arthurian names are positions. If the holder is no longer around, someone else gets it.
The exact rank structure isn't terribly clear, but Merlin seems to be some kind of supervisor.
Female agents use the same names that male ones do. | 33 |
[DC/Marvel] What are some unique powers that heroes or villains have that no other being have? | 188 | B'Wana Beast famously has the ability to merge any two animals together, to create a chimerical being with characteristics of both
(Technically one other guy had this power but he was BB's direct successor) | 142 |
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ELI5 how is one currency more powerful than another? If you exchange $100 to 102 francs don’t you still have $100 but in francs? | 61 | Imagine you bought $100 of bananas. Sure... at that point, you own $100 worth of bananas.
Now imagine that just after you do that, the banana countries announce that they are going to war, that banana tax is going up, or that there's been a bad drought in the country.
Now you still have bananas but they could be worth a lot more or a lot less almost instantly. Converting them back at that point won't get you $100 but another number.
The value of a currency is tied to the actions of the banks and countries using it. Zimbabwe's currency became worthless almost overnight. A country's inflation can literally explode like that. Countries can "print" more money... so if you have $100 and the US decided to print several trillion dollars tomorrow, do you believe that everyone will just accept that the US is worth several trillion dollars more today than yesterday even if nothing else changed? No. All you've done is "divided" the value of the currency into smaller units because you have more "pieces" of it now. That $100 has the buying power of, say, $10 now. You can't just print money and expect the world to honour it at its full value forever, no matter how many times you print more. It's not monopoly money.
The values of currency vary in themselves, against every other currency, and against every commodity that you could buy with them, all the time. Literally each second it changes. Your money is in Russian currency? Russia goes to war. Russia's customers refuse to pay in Russian currency because they think it's worthless to them now as only Russia can dictate how you spend it in large volumes. Now all your investments in Russian currencies are worthless. It literally just happened like that. | 81 |
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Does orbital velocity remain constant over time? | ie. are the planets orbiting at the same speed they were millions of years ago? Cannot find an answer I can understand on professor Google | 21 | Depends how strict you are on the term *constant*. If the orbit is in any way elliptical, like not circular, then it's velocity will vary, maximising speed on its closest approach.
If you mean say, at the same point in its orbit does it's speed vary over millions of years? probably not, depends on external factors like if another object with an appreciably strong gravitational field changes the forces acting on the planet. I'd say it's pretty constant to a very high degree over that time frame, millions of years is still a blink of an eye for these time scales | 21 |
I believe that experimenting with Strong AI is unethical. CMV | Fairly recently, Google bought a company called DeepMind which specializes in AI and machine learning. While this isn't quite the same as 'Strong AI', it got me thinking about the subject. The whole field of machine learning is fascinating to me, and so are the mechanics of the human mind. I don't know how far attempts have gotten toward achieving something that resembles a conscious being, but there is no doubt that this is an open problem that people are actively working on.
In my mind, what gives a human life value is it's ability to think and feel. This is why I don't have any problem pulling the plug on people who are brain dead even though they are still alive in a biological sense, whereas I would have a problem killing a conscious being.
In the pursuit of making a Strong AI, undoubtably many prototypes would be made and tested and ultimately halted. On early prototypes I don't really see this as a problem. It's no worse than having any other process on my computer finish. It's pretty ridiculous to think that running `kill -9` on an app would be morally equivalent to killing a person. But as the state of the art advances, and machines do start becoming more like sentient beings, deactivating the program starts becoming more like killing them. At some point, when you shut off a running AI, you'd be permanently halting the thought process of a conscious entity. And even though it would just be a process on a computer, that still feels to me like killing someone.
On the other hand, a Strong AI wouldn't necessarily be like a human in many ways. Maybe it lacks the will to live? Does that make a difference though? Is it okay to create a thinking being that is totally fine with being killed? Maybe Strong AI is too different to human life for humanity to even be a meaningful analog? I don't know.
Like I said, I find the whole thing fascinating and the development of actual intelligent computers to be supremely cool, but I can't help shake the feeling that it's necessary to leave a trail of digital corpses in along the path of progress, and that seems a little dark to me. I'd love for someone to convince me otherwise. | 38 | I don't think it makes sense to apply current human laws and morals to something as new and unfamiliar to us as AI. What you talk about isn't going to develop overnight. Getting there is going to be a very long, very slow process, and along the way how we perceive this AI is going to evolve as well. Maybe by that time the concepts of life and death as we know them cease to exist?
Even otherwise, science and ethics haven't exactly walked hand in hand in the past, and there is a fine line that is often crossed in the name of progress. Are the means justified if the goals are noble? I'd say sometimes they are. Lots of people consider stem-cell research unethical, but look at its potential to save countless lives and change the face of medicine for the better. Having "true" artificial intelligence is definitely going to be one of the biggest technological advances this race has ever achieved. | 17 |
ELI5: why do words start to look unfamiliar or misspelled when you look at them for a long period of time? | 19 | It is called *semantic satiation*.
If you look at a word long enough, you stop seeing the word, and start seeing letters, which have nothing to do with the word. The is nothing about the letters c, a, and t that connects them to a cat, so they start losing that meaning.
If you look longer, you stop seeing letters, and start seeing squiggly shapes that have nothing to do with what the letter means, further alienating you from the word. | 22 |
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