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CMV: "All Cops Are Bastards" is a Radical View and a Double Standard | Recently, this [picture of a dog with a group of police officers](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bh74ek/when_is_a_colleagues_birthday/?sort=confidence) was submitted to /r/pics where it was upvoted to the front page and, as a result, attracted a whole slew of comments. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say ... | 29 | First, cops get to take off their uniforms and not be cops. They volunteered to be cops, they were not born into it. They also are given tremendous power and authority for wearing the badge, so any criticism or pushback they receive should be an expected aspect of the privileged position they are awarded.
&#x200B... | 42 |
[ELI5] How is it that our brains can know a certain word we want to say, but for some reason can't think of it until someone says it outloud? | 21 | Even though we register that we are having an internal monologue for our whole lives, we often actually think in concepts instead of real time sentences (besides forcing yourself to consciously think in sentences).
This is also how our hours long dream sequences can in reality be only 4 minutes long.
When we want to sa... | 28 | |
[Star Wars] What is the purpose of Storm Trooper armor if it can't even stop pistol fire? | 117 | Well one, any protection is better than no protection.
Two, it protects against some environmental hazards and extreme temperatures, and limited exposure to the vacuum of space.
And three, its threatening appearance is meant to inspire fear against enemies of the Empire. | 145 | |
[ELI5] What does "x" mean at the end of a sentence? | I've seen British people, well, people from the UK, type "xx" or just "x" at the end of sentences, why? Is that like them kissing the receiver of the message? | 35 | It's come from the days of hand written letters, when one person would physically kiss the paper, and draw a cross to show where they did this. When the other person got the letter, they could physically kiss the cross, and they would have had a long distance kiss! | 115 |
Is it better to take a W or abandon all hope of graduating summa cum laude? | (US) I'm in my senior year and I plan to move on to graduate school. During a recent discussion of my grade on an early project, the instructor told me outright that students in her class rarely gets As, so I'm tempted to withdraw if the stakes are high enough.
It's an elective class that I could easily replace in the... | 16 | IMO, the withdrawal looks worse.
Honors really don't mean a lot in the scheme of graduate admissions, and I'd worry that you withdrew from a course to protect your GPA.
The people I've seen have the most trouble in grad school are the ones who are too protective of their GPA, hence the W would look worse to me than... | 65 |
ELI5: Why is Japan not allowed to have an army? | 97 | They're not allowed to have an offensive military force. They do have defensive military forces. The reason is because of their history of military aggression, particularly in World War II, and their defeat in that war. | 97 | |
ELI5: How do we get perfectly lighted pictures of a planet that's so far away from the sun? | 25 | Anyone who is answering "there's plenty of light" is full of shit. Pluto is very dark and it's not easy at all to take photos of Pluto that look that good.
Have you ever tried taking a picture with a film camera where you can manually set the exposure time?
On a bright day, you can open the shutter for 1/60 of a seco... | 14 | |
Can something have negative mass? | Also when light is getting sucked into a black hole does that mean it is going faster than light? Doesn't it have to be going in the opposite direction faster so it goes in? | 40 | This is an open question. No examples of negative mass are known, but since negative and positive masses are gravitationally repelled, we wouldn't expect to find any near stars and planets.
There are a bunch of interesting theoretical computations of its properties (and a novel by Robert Forward, *Timemaster*), but t... | 34 |
ELI5: what's the difference between controlling the volume on the PC and controlling the volume on its speakers? | Is there a difference if I have the volume set at 1 on the audio source (PC) and at 100 on the audio output device (in this case, the speakers), and vice versa? | 26 | The difference is the signal to noise ratio you end up with. Keeping the PC volume low and then cranking up the speaker is like recording someone speaking softly outside and then amplifying it: all the background noise gets amplified too. Keeping the PC volume high and turning down the speaker is like recording someo... | 31 |
Allowed electron orbits seem odd and purely a mathematical construction. Are they just theory but reality gives more laxitude to where an electron might be? | In A Brief History of Time, Hawkins explains the allowed orbits by saying only integer multiples of an electron's wavelength are allowed, otherwise after a certain number of orbits the electron's wave will destructivley interfere and the e- will disappear and you restrict your solution-space to discrete allowed orbits.... | 84 | If you're a mathematician, I'd recommend reading more rigorous sources than A Brief History of Time.
Electron orbitals are the stationary solutions of the time-independent Schrodinger equation.
The electron having negative total energy (where "zero" energy is defined by a particle at r = infinity, with zero kinetic e... | 98 |
[MCU] If someone used the Infinity Gauntlet out of spite to force Thanos to mentally realize all the flaws in his plan and that all the pain he’s caused has helped absolutely no one, would he mind be able to handle that truth, or would it collapse on itself? | Let’s say this is after he sacrificed Gamora as well. | 32 | I mean if you used the IG to force Thanos to realise, then yes, because you'd be brainwashing him so he'd take on that line of reasoning.
But if you just sorta secured him, didn't brainwash him beyond making him willing to listen, and then used the IG as an overpowered presentation tool while you went through your Pow... | 24 |
What happens to a metal baseball bat when "it dies". | In most non-pro leagues expensive, metal baseball bats are used that typically last for 1-2 years (less if used by a whole team) before they are considered "dead." This means the bat no longer seems to have the pop as the ball comes off the barrel and typically results in the baseball flying slower and shorter and beco... | 80 | High-cycle metal fatigue. Collisions between a new bat and the ball are mostly elastic and lose little energy, transferring most of the kinetic energy of the bat into the ball. Over repeated collisions, the metal fatigues and the collisions become increasingly plastic, losing more and more of the kinetic energy into pl... | 48 |
ELI5: What exactly happens when we "zone out?" | 36 | There are quite a few factors to the whole zoning out thing. Boredom, stress, intense focus, or just thinking in your own head.
Also that there are 2 types of zoning out: being aware that you're zoning out and being unaware of it.
But the gist of it is, (paying no matter to what triggered the zone out, as it could be a... | 11 | |
Do caterpillars need to become butterflies? Could one go it's entire life as a caterpillar without changing? | 10,070 | Insects go through stages culminating in the final “imago”, the adult insect that is distinguished by its precursor stages in that only it can reproduce.
So caterpillars can totally live a long, full life of caterpillary wholesomeness, but they can’t have descendants until they transform into a butterfly or moth.
... | 8,506 | |
ELI5: Do usbc devices "pull" just the wattage they need from the charger, or does the charger "push" all the power it can? | 40 | The device sets the amount of current drawn, and the power supply determines the volt-amps allowed for the circuit. Cell phone chargers are often found in multiples of 5 watts (volt-amps = watts).
5 volts at 1 Amp is 5W (slow charger).
5 volts at 2 amps is 10W (fast charger). | 37 | |
CMV: Net neutrality isn't a problem, lack of competition between internet service providers is. | Think about if we superimposed the idea of net neutrality onto other industries. Imagine if we required supermarkets to sell all brands of foods. That seems ludicrous, but Whole Foods is, in effect, restricting consumers' access to certain types of foods by not selling products with artificial preservatives.
In order... | 30 | Telecoms is a natural monopoly, like roads or other national infrastructure projects. It is not helpful, and inherently less efficient, to try to force such industries to have competition.
The reason we need Net Neutrality regulation is that we insist on having our telecoms run by private profit-driven business instea... | 13 |
ELI5: Why when looking for life on other planets is water a prerequisite? Isn't it possible that some alien life forms can exist without water? Or is "life" just a very specific term? | I've just always wondered why it's assumed that all life forms necessarily need water, or maybe I've just got the wrong end of the stick. Either way, feel free to enlighten me. | 16 | Water can dissolve a huge range of things in it, and living things will (probably) require a lot of complex chemical reactions that will need to happen in a solution. For instance, our own cells are more or less little bags of water with lots of chemical reactions happening inside that wouldn't happen if they weren't ... | 29 |
[WH40K] Are the Imperium and the Eldar really enemies? | Seeing the cutscenes for DoW, DoW2, etc, again, it seems that Imperials and Eldar really like allying with each other at the mere hint of a third force. Why don't they just kiss and make up at this point? What are they fighting over? | 22 | Both races are utterly convinced of their own superiority, but a God will ally with a goldfish if it puts more meat between them and an enemy.
++THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Alien is clever in its own ignorant way. Be Wary.++ | 50 |
ELI5:Why cant cable internet companies be tried under the Sherman Antitrust Act? | The competition between cable companies is nearly non-existant and its blatantly obvious. | 51 | The Sherman Antitrust Act doesn't make monopolies illegal. It makes actions in restraint of trade illegal. If a cable company were to try to turn a monopoly in one market into a monopoly in other markets, that'd be one thing. But it's not illegal to not have anyone else want to spend the money to build their own system... | 10 |
[Cinderella] How comes the shoe only fits one woman? | It's a prince in the story, right? So it's presumably a kingdom they're in (or at least a constitutional monarchy. God Save the Queen) so what about the hundreds of other, probably less Disney-friendly women who have the same shoe size? | 36 | The shoes, dress, her carriage, all these things were created by the fairy godmother especially for Cinderella and so it's not a case of size, but that the shoe is a magical construct that is only for her.
The fairly godmother is trying to help her, so everything she does is to get Cinderella and the Prince together ... | 56 |
[Endgame] Spoilers, obviously | Why did they need all of the Infinity Stones and not just the Time Stone?
It's been established that the Time Stone can repair other Infinity Stones. So why not just grab that one? | 24 | It's not that the Time Stone can repair other Infinity Stones, but that it can reverse time until the point where the Stone was destroyed. Using the Time Stone to do anything other than reversing the immediate past is incredibly difficult, and pretty much the only person who would know how to do so is Doctor Strange, w... | 52 |
[Independence Day] How many people survived the war? | The general talks about "Forces are at 15%" or so. I was wondering how many people lived through the alien onslaught? | 26 | To be honest... we only see the City Destroyers fire once, at the 36 most 'important' cities on the planet. Even if we calculate based on the largest cities (which we know it can't be, because Washington doesn't even make the top 100) then you're still looking at only about 400 million dead. Or about 5% of the global p... | 21 |
How does temperature-dependent sex determination work? Wouldn't the embryos already contain XY/XX chromosomes? | In some species, such as amniotic reptiles such as the alligator species, temperature plays a key role in determining the sex of the offspring. How does this phenomenon work? Surely the developing animals already have the genetic material needed to decide their sexes? | 24 | Not all animals use sex chromosomes. In the species you mention, there are no sex chromosomes. Instead, gene regulation that leads to the final sex determination is controlled by temperature. There are zillions of different ways to determine sex. | 14 |
Is literary anti-cognitivism a seriously held position among professional philosophers? | I've recently been reading about literary cognitivism and what I've found is that most (actually all) the papers I have been able to find online have been in support of the cognitivist position. I think I'm quite strongly in the anti-cognitivist camp, but because of the above, I'm worried that this view may not be take... | 75 | A common reason why someone might find a view that philosophers consider to be common sense to be unintuitive is that the philosophers have something different in mind than you do. For instance in this case, what kind of cognitive value do you think literature doesn't have but you believe aestheticians believe it to h... | 21 |
What is the Point of Interrupts if the CPU has to Constantly Check for Interrupts? | From what I understand, the point of interrupts is to allow the CPU to not have to constantly check the status of devices and such. But doesn't it defeat the purpose of interrupts as a whole if it has to check once per every FDE cycle?
Is it just so that the CPU can check for interrupts and figure out from which device... | 15 | The CPU doesn't check every device or whatever. At the end of every cycle, it checks if there is any interrupt, which is cheap to check, especially for hardware interrupts that are signified by physical pins. If there is an interrupt, instead of handling the next normal instruction, the CPU jumps to the interrupt servi... | 17 |
CMV: Women should not be allowed in the US Marines | [The US Marines tested all-male squads against mixed-gender ones.](http://qz.com/499618/the-us-marines-tested-all-male-squads-against-mixed-gender-ones-and-the-men-came-out-ahead/?utm_source=YPL)
To summarize, a year long trial that involved 400 marines, 100 of them female discovered that female marines are inferior a... | 339 | I think the most important part of the article is this line:
>many of of the male study participants had previously served in combat units, whereas female participants, by necessity, came directly from infantry schools or from noncombat jobs
This means that teams with rookies are being compared to teams that may l... | 878 |
[Fallout] Why has no music been created since the mid 50s? | 37 | Because in Falloutverse World stopped rotating in 50's, at least for USoA. This is the Golden Era, we cannot progress any much further, we stay. Art can't progress more than that.
It's like the old times of, let's say, Baroque or Renaissance where art styles holds for centuries, not for decades, and even if there wer... | 32 | |
Eli5: How can large companies be worth (valued at) so much when they do not make any net profit? | 86 | The value of a firm is all of its future cash flows (cash in minus cash out) discounted to the present.
Getting to this value of course requires conjecture, and investors will disagree about what those future cash flows might be. Those who believe they will be higher will buy stock; those who think it will be lower wi... | 108 | |
[Marvel] Could Domino alter the stock market? | If she likes a stonk, and has diamond hands with it, does it go to the moon?
I know her luck mostly affects things in her vicinity, but if she is on the trading floor wouldnt that count?
Edit: If her localized telekinesis is at play; and she is on the trading floor; when the numbers come out after the bell rings- wou... | 61 | Her power seems to hinge more on making sure she breaks even or slightly pulls ahead, versus constantly giving her ultimate success; she falls off an overpass and hits the one bouncy castle in a 10 block radius, but the castle isn't stuffed with loose cash. Her betting on the stock market would not have predictable res... | 39 |
ELI5: Why do most animals only have a diet containing foods from 1 or 2 food groups while humans need a balanced diet from all different food groups? | Humans need grain, vegetables, fruits, meat, and dairy. Most animals eat from just one food group and that's considered healthy for them. Does it have anything to do with evolution? | 22 | It's not about the groups, it's about what our body can and cannot do. In herbivores the bacteria in stomach/intestine can digest fibers and synthetize proteins and precursors to fats and sugars, but humans can't and so need some fundamental proteins from other sources (be them vegetable or animals). Herbivores can dig... | 16 |
ELI5: How does fur know what color to be when it's in a pattern (like spotted)? | Like on a leopard. If fur falls out, how does the new fur know to grow in that pattern? My cat is a tuxedo and I rarely see white hair in her black fur and vice versa but I know she sheds like crazy. | 73 | If you shave your cat (*disclaimer: do not shave your cat*) you'll notice that the *skin* under the white and black parts is different colours. It's like that for (most) animals with fur patterns - the pattern goes all the way down to the skin. There is different pigmentation in the skin that the hair follicles grow fr... | 34 |
ELI5: How can they make a Blu-Ray version of 70's and 80's or even older movies? Is it the same resolution converted bigger or actually it is better quality? | 100 | Film is better quality than the DVD release, so while it may not be the same as bluray taken from a crisp 4K digital source, it's still going to be better than DVD.
Also, they do certainly do some digital enhancement, but they do it to the digital capture of the film, it's not just upscaling the DVD release. | 64 | |
Canada is better than America, and most Americans' lives would be improved if they were Canadian citizens. CMV | I have been having a debate with my Canadian friends lately. A few of them are trying as hard as possible to become American Citizens, while I have a dream of renouncing my citizenship and moving to Canada permanently one day. Their reasons are (1) more jobs and (2) greater maximum earning potential. I should mention t... | 30 | The population of Canada is 34 million, and ours is 313 million. Your system works great in part because there are so few people. You have more money, more land, and significantly fewer people.
If suddenly 300 million Americans moved to Canada the place would be a wreck!
Norway is similar. Excellently managed, oil ... | 26 |
ELI5: Why do some foods taste much better hot, while others taste much better cold? | 39 | Most of what you taste is about how things smell. When you're eating something that's warm, you get the smells escaping from the food better as it's hotter, and the chemicals that make the smells evaporate off the food, or are drawn up in steam.
For some foods this is great! Think about how good fresh bread just out ... | 19 | |
[Star Wars] Why don’t Jedi or Sith carry a backup lightsaber? | * Just an FYI, I know that some Jedi and Sith use two lightsabers, but what I’m talking about is a spare lightsaber that that isn’t used unless the main lightsaber is destroyed or lost. | 22 | For Jedi, it's very rare to need your lightsaber, and rarer still to lose one. Millions of Jedi have gone their entire lives without finding themselves in need of a backup lightsaber. It's just not a risk worth spending the effort on.
For Sith, the reasoning is a bit different. They have call to use their lightsab... | 49 |
[Star Trek] Why do my Human crewmates keep calling me Mister? | I am a Vulcan officer aboard the Federation starship *Sullivan*. My name is Sulnak.
Two years ago, I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Sixteen years before that, I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. For eight years previously I was an Ensign.
However, for my entire twenty-six year career in Starf... | 32 | It's an old Earth Navy tradition, adopted lovingly by Starfleet as heritage to those brave voyagers of old. Typically it is used as address by higher ranking members to lower ranking members, perhaps originally as a gentle reminder of status, but largely only in fond deference to a bygone age of pioneering today.
Many... | 43 |
CMV: The war on drugs is useless and has completely failed | Also racist!
It hasn't succeeded in curtailing the use of drugs, it has ruined so many lives due to unnecessary incarceration and it targets minorities.
Please can someone tell me one single reason why it's good/has continued for so long after clearly being a failure besides for blatant racism.
Lets start with the r... | 39 | The war on drugs has been successful as it has done as intended. The war has never been against drugs. The war has been on people. The government uses this as a way to extort money from the people and as a means to trample rights. | 10 |
ELI5 why are there so many Saudi Arabian princes? | In these threads some people talk about 13,000 or 20,000 people in the royal family. How many princes? Who does this include?
[Saudi Family Tree shows descendants](http://graphics.wsj.com/saudi-arabia-family-tree/) of Abdulaziz ibn Saud. Is this the only royal family line? | 251 | > Is this the only royal family line?
In Saudi Arabia, yes. Ibn Saud had dozens of children. Not sure how many daughters he had, but we know he had 45 sons. This makes for a very large royal family. | 116 |
[HALO] Why did the Forerunners reduce the species of the galaxy technologically down to level 0? | Like, they created a manner to replicate Humans, but in Halo Legends they even seem to be a lower form of Humanity, like Neanderthals.
Like, just in case the Flood came back or something, why couldn't they have left some kind of chalk-board with basic mathematics laying around at least? (I'm being coy, obviously).
An... | 25 | It goes way back. Before the forerunners were the precursors, who were even more advanced and seeded life in the galaxy. For a while they left the Forerunners in charge, but then thought humans were cooler anyway. The Forerunners didn’t like that idea though and surprise attacked the Precursors, wiping them out complet... | 37 |
ELI5: Why are we attracted to only certain people ? Why are some people considered ugly while some are considered attractive when basically everyone is just skin and hair? | 49 | there are sane things like health that shows up as attractiveness, like having big boobs, is related to being able to gain body fat to be able to support babies, wide hips, same thing.
take these and give them time to perverse. The original reason remains. | 28 | |
ELI5: fingerprints through evolution? | Whats the use for fingerprints through the years and why do we have them? | 79 | No one knows. It is known that they're incidental to embryonic development of fingers, in which your fingertips at some point are really big (fetal finger tip pads) and then shrink back down. This growth and shrinkage causes the skin to wrinkle up like if you stretch a balloon a lot and then let it deflate it's more ... | 30 |
I wonder if Slavoj Zizek would mind if I pirated his movies? | I'm seriously contemplating about this for the past 30 mins or so, has anyone ever heard a quote from him about this?
| 46 | I don't see how any Marxist could be for copyright enforcement specifically regarding ideologically relevant work. The free flow of any pamphletary content is just too aligned with marxism, both at a philosophical and tactical/political level.
That said it would be interesting to hear a quote about this. | 26 |
How does a nerve gas mask differ from other gas mask? | WWI mask were tested against chlorine , phosgene and mustard gas. What would be the necessary modifications to be effective against nerve gases, such as tabun and sarin? | 157 | So i actually do this for a living, and the other comments have partially correct info but not the whole story. Firstly, nerve agents are not the only threat, they do however have alot of notoriety. There are other things to also consider such as blister, blood, and choking agents and biological agents (like anthrax) t... | 80 |
[Kung Fu Panda] If Tai Lung didn’t break out, would Shifu and the 5 have just kept bullying Po until he left? | 900 | No. The Furious Five were already beginning to warm up to Po before the escape, which we see from the scene where they try his noodles. Po was put through hell but stuck with it, and everyone but Tigress respected him for it. Tigress and Shifu would still have been hard sells, but if Tai Lung hadn't broken out, Master ... | 782 | |
What property of a charged particle causes the charge? | In other words, what is charge? What causes us to say; "Well okay, an electron has a negative charge and a proton a positive charge." | 16 | Charge is itself a fundamental property. A particle, as far as we know, is just a set of fundamental properties like charge, mass, spin, etc. that mostly relate to how that particle interacts with other forces.
If there is a deeper reason as to why particles have the specific properties they do, we don't yet know for... | 20 |
ELI5: How and why did Pokemon win the popularity contest against Digimon? | 106 | The Pokemon franchise was already around for two years before Digimon were even created. Also, Pokemon began with a wildly popular video game franchise, shortly followed by the cartoon show. Digimon were originally Tamagotchi-style virtual pets, and didn't achieve near the notoriety. By the time the Digimon cartoon ... | 154 | |
Why is the fact that the Antimatter atom is 'measured' for first time so important? | 21 | It confirms our theories that they can exist. It means our theories are very good at predicting things.
It's like if you could predict what the next lottery numbers will be with a high accuracy - there's a lot to gain if you know how the world works.
Or a better analogy: let's say you're living in the 1600's. There's... | 14 | |
ELI5: Why would anyone buy a bond with a negative yield? | 20 | Lots of reasons:
1. you're buying \_your own\_ bond. Most bonds require a liquidity level in the issuer to match obligation out there, and buy buying back they can decrease the liquidity level required.
2. they may be effectively trading \_currency\_ - e.g. they currency it's issue in is going to change in value so ... | 22 | |
Does non-Euclidean geometry render Kant's claim that space and time are a priori intuitions irrelevant? | What the title says.
Per my understanding, Kant claims that space and time are a priori intuitions, but the discovery/ potential of non-euclidean geometries means that to find which one is 'right', we must test them against each other, making our intuitions of space and time empirical.
Please correct me if I am wro... | 57 | The typical argument is that post-Kantian developments on this point require us to distinguish intuitive, mathematical, and physical spaces in a way that Kant didn't--or rather, to regard them as independent in a way that Kant didn't. For Kant, these three concepts are interconnected in an important way: our intuition ... | 17 |
How can ocean mammals drink the water? | 22 | In general, they don't. While they may take some in on occasion, it's a small amount and is filtered by the kidneys. Most of their dietary water requirement comes from the food they eat. Seals will eat snow sometimes, and manatees (which like in brackish water) will look for fresh water to drink. But purely marine mamm... | 15 | |
ELI5: The Troy Davis Case | I was reading wikipedia and I just didn't get their explanation.
What was the background? What were some evidence for and against him? | 264 | Cop was shot. Davis was charged and convicted. Some of the forensic evidence (from a pair of shorts that had been taken from his house without a warrant) was not allowed in court, and the physical evidence was quite weak (no murder weapon, but the bullet casings found at the scene matched the casings of another shootin... | 186 |
[Harry Potter] Why are the Weasleys so poor? | They are a pure blood family, which implies that they are a pretty old family. Every other pure blood family we are introduced to is pretty well off. What's the deal? There aren't many pure blood families, and in order to stay purebloods most intermary at least somewhat. Are they just decendant from a single poor f... | 62 | They seem to be known for having big families. That would whittle down any estate after a few generations. Molly Weasley is also a full-time mom, which limits their income a bit, while Arthur Weasley is both honest and not terribly ambitious.
That said, they're easily the happiest pureblood family we've ever seen. Gr... | 85 |
ELI5: Why do people have butts? | Extremely random but I just need to know some please tell me. I don't understand what their evolutionary purpose is and would really like to know! | 18 | Well, one big reason that we have more prominent posteriors than other species, particularly those close to us, is bipedalism. You need way bigger gluts to walk on 2 legs than you do on 4. Additionally it clearly became a trait that was sexually selected for to at least some extent. | 24 |
(40K) why would anyone choose to follow nurgle? | why would they follow him, or what traits would they have to exhibit as to be taken under his wing? | 40 | For the average human the galaxy is a big and scary place. You will spend your entire life working as a cog in the massive machine that is the Imperium. There will be no appreciation of your hard work or the sacrifices you make as that is what is expected of you. To the Imperium you are nothing, your life will come and... | 93 |
[Kung Fu Panda] How well known was the Panda Massacre? | When Shen slaughtered the pandas to the point he believed them extinct, how well did the rest of China know about it? For example, if word got out to mainstream China, why didn't Oogway, or any kung fu masters or soldiers step in to protect the pandas? Also, when Tai Lung first met Po in the flesh, he of course underes... | 24 | It's implied that it happened very quickly, possibly all in a single night. No one knew that a massacre was coming. Even if oogway did know, he's not one to meddle with fate, and left it up to destiny the same way he did with Tai lung.
The fact shen's parents were shocked implied he went on his own(telling no one wh... | 29 |
I believe that despite religious beliefs, Jehovah's Witnesses children should be given blood transfusions if they are dying. CMV | I was talking to a friend about how hard being a doctor would be, and he asked me this: "What if a kid, about 12 years old, was dying, and the only way to keep him alive was to give him a blood transfusion, and he's a member of Jehova's witnesses? What if his parents would not let you do anything?"
My answer was that ... | 25 | In case you are wondering about law and/or medical ethics, a doctor can and must give a child lifesaving treatment regardless of the parents' wishes. There are a few complexities about what counts as a child, but usually it's <18, and essentially every 12 year old would qualify. | 17 |
Can you grow a plant just by the light from a wood fire? | Also, would there be a difference in growing a plant by a wood fire or a natural gas fire, given both flames were the same general brightness?
Is it possible to grow food by that firelight? | 110 | Photosynthesis requires at least blue and a little deep red (green is actually thrown back unused).
Firelight is 1700K-2000k, very skewed towards red and infrared. There is very little blue. You might cook your plants with infrared heat before making enough blue at that color temp. | 75 |
Why does it take several minutes for our eyes to adjust to the dark, when our pupils shrink so quickly? | 73 | It's not just the pupil that helps us adjust to bright & dark situations.
There is a chemical called Rhodopsin that detects when photons (light) hits it. The light breaks down the Rhodopsin, and it takes a while for it to reform/replenish.
So when it's bright and you go into the dark (or stop looking at a bright... | 30 | |
CMV: It is not ironic for Israelis to protest the invasion of Ukraine. | Irony would imply that Israel/Palestine and Ukraine/Russia are similar situations, which isn't true. Here is why this is the case.
1. Russia actually invaded Ukraine militarily. As of 2022, Russia and Ukraine are independent states, and Russia used its military to force itself into Ukraine's territory. With Israel, J... | 23 | The author very carefully tries to frame the creation of israel in a completely whitewashed, revisionist telling of history.
No. Jews didn’t just ‘buy land and RETURN to Palestine’. As of WW1 only around 8% of thee population was Jewish.
International funds, like the Jewish national fund were created to strategical... | 53 |
ELI5: Why is Venus considered a hellhole for life? Why can an alien life not thrive on acids and carbon dioxide like we thrive on oxygen and water? | 1,163 | It is possible, there are actually bacteria and single felled organisms in extremely volatile places like vents on the bottom of the ocean that do survive using different chemical processes.
But when looking for life on other plants. We know life like us best, so we know what to start looking for.
Life that doesn’t f... | 903 | |
I see plenty of trainers flying and surfing on their pokemon, but nobody ever rides their pokemon on the ground. Why do most trainers use expensive bikes when there are plenty of fast ground pokemon to ride? | 69 | Riding Pokemon? What are you, crazy? So any Joe dandy with a Rydon can just stampede through a city? What if somebody takes their Rapidash just a little too close to the fireworks factory? Heck if you just tried to ride a Pokemon without the proper training, who knows how much danger you would bring to yourself and oth... | 42 | |
Is Santa Claus a deflationary risk? | Santa Claus provided well-behaved children with goods without simultainously injecting liquidity into the economy doesn't that create deflation because now the goods/currency ratio is higher? | 235 | But, don't we have to consider that these are non-traded goods? For the rest of the goods that people would like consume, that didn't make santa's list, doesn't this actually lead to more money chasing fewer goods? | 67 |
[General Fiction] I stopped aging in my mid 20's after messing around with some rituals in an old book. My neighbors are starting to give me funny looks and torch/pitchfork sales in town have skyrocketed. What should I do? | I didnt really realize that I was ageless until a few years ago, but im getting close to 50 now and other people are starting to notice. I dont have any living family and have only a moderate life savings.
Id very much like to not be turned into a science experiment.. or killed. both of those sound pretty bad. | 33 | Fake your death. Will your assets to someone who died as a child and assume their identity.
Disappear for a few decades, then come back as your own grandson (who looks remarkably like his grandsire) to settle the estate. Repeat as necessary. | 29 |
ELI5: What happens when a modern website "breaks" and it suddenly looks like 1990s basic HTML? | Amazon was doing this to me earlier. Instead of the modern, graphics-heavy site, it was stuck on an crappy version with long lists of blue links instead of images. It finally corrected itself. | 30 | To load a page you generally need to download a HTML file with all the text in, a CSS file which describes how to format the text, then whatever images the page includes. If the CSS doesn't download properly then you get all the text, but with the browser's default styling. Eventually you'll manage to download the CSS ... | 28 |
What to do if your paper is being copied? | I do not know how to feel about this paper who went all the way to just copy my paper and paraphrase everything from the beginning to the very end. The authors also made sure not to cite us - prolly in hope that we will not find out but the article popped out at my google scholar.
What do you usually do? Is there a pr... | 63 | When you publish, the journal becomes custodian of your work. You should contact your journal with your concerns, and they should take it from there. Plagiarism will be taken very seriously by any reputable journal, and it is their responsibility to defend your published work. | 102 |
[Sky High, Unordinary] So how do super schools prevent violence from superpowered students from happening? | https://youtu.be/3FDL4ZYEfcw
I know this video doesn't have much to do with this post. But the comment section did give me
the idea for this post though. Many people in the comments were joking about how insane the fights would be at this one Chinese school. So let's switch this Chinese combat school to a superhuman... | 25 | Well the vast majority of students at Wellston aren't anywhere near strong enough to blow up the school, and the ones that can do significant damage, don't get into enough fights for it to matter. And the same goes for Sky High.
Plus, most students at these schools have their abilities from birth so they know how to m... | 22 |
[Rick and Morty] When Morty first plays the video game Roy they imply it felt like a full lifetime to him. Could you use this platform to have a ton of extra time to learn new skills in a relatively short amount of time in the non-game universe(s)? | Think about it. If it felt like many decades to Morty while he was playing Roy, and thus why he came out with a minor existential crisis after he died in the game, while it looked like it felt like several minutes to Rick, couldnt you create an educational platform that allowed you to spend those decades learning?
Or... | 616 | This depends how the game is tricking you into feeling the time dilation. It's possible that all of that information (in your example, the nuclear physics PhD) would be solely in your short term memory. In which case, you wouldn't really be able to remember it unless you sat down and played the game repeatedly, which i... | 302 |
Where does the energy released from nuclear fusion come from? | I read [this post](http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1hjb7m/eli5_nuclear_energy/cauz0oo) about nuclear fusion and I am curious about the "massive amount of energy" that is released when a fusion reaction successfully occurs. From my knowledge, which is far from extensive and possibly wrong, the energy ... | 30 | Fission and fusion both work the same way: by reconfiguring nuclei into more stable groupings.
Fission does so by splitting apart big nuclei, and fusion does so by combining small nuclei.
But either way you do it, the end product will be more stable than the reactant(s). The more stable product will require less bind... | 42 |
What exactly keeps our brains 'in place,' and not from smashing into the skull all the time? | 915 | There are a series of 3 membranes, known as the meninges. The outermost is a thick layer lining and attached to the skull, the dura mater. Directly against and attached to the brain is the pia mater. In between these two is the arachnoid mater, a very loose membrane attaching the other two.
Edit: Thanks Greg. We shoul... | 614 | |
ELI5: Is atmosphere affected by tidal forces ? why? | I read that it effect all mass and large bodies of water, and liquid mantle. it's just more noticeable on oceans. What about the atmosphere ? It has some mass hasn't it ? | 95 | Yes it is, but the force is much weaker than the thermodynamic cycle caused by the temperature difference of day and night.
The moons gravity has a stronger effect on wind by the movement of the oceans displacing air than directly on the air since it's density is so much lower. The pure gravitational effect is mostly ... | 66 |
[Star Wars] Is there a reason Jedi from Yoda's line have a rebellious streak? | Basically, the line being Yoda > Dooku > Qui-Gon > Obi-Wan > Anakin > Ahsoka and Yoda + Obi-Wan > Luke
All of these jedi, in some way, were rebellious and different from the other jedi.
Anakin and Dooku were both rebellious and arrogant, and eventually left the order to become Sith Lords
Ahsoka wa... | 73 | I'd challenge the question itself. Yoda had centuries of pupils - I'd imagine direct padawans like Dooku would be in the dozens at minimum with his 'branches' of indirect students numbering perhaps in the thousands.
Did they all possess these qualities, or is this just one peculiar branch starting with Dooku? | 77 |
Do racing games improve your driving abilities? | Do games that include a closed racing circuit that rely on reflexes and braking, such as F1 2013, Forza Motorsport, etc.. improve your real life driving abilities?
| 75 | Are you asking whether it can in general, or whether it does for you specifically if you play driving games?
It's been shown to make a difference for people already, where those with extensive game time in Forza or GT can drive a track for the first time in RL and put up a significantly better time and display of skil... | 29 |
Are sonic toothbrushes BS ? Do they make any noticeable difference ? | \*Ultrasonic, i meant the one that produces waves that break the scale
I need somebody who's not a salesman to tell me if they are bullshit or not because I won't spare an expense on my teeth but it's hard to justify spending a quarter of my monthly income on something that only maybe works.
Also do you think there i... | 4,269 | Dentist here. Yes it’s worth it. There is evidence electric toothbrushes do remove more plaque than manual toothbrushes. Also learned from a few periodontists that the circular spinning action of Oral-B is better than Sonicare’s vibration. If you use Sonicare, go in small circles at a 45 degree angle into the gums whe... | 3,452 |
[Watchmen] Did anyone ever try to recreate the accident that turn John into Dr. Manhattan? | I imagine someone would attempt it at least once after seeing what John became. Was it like a once-in-a-trillion accident that he managed to survive it? Or could you start taking reservations and pump out Dr. Manhattans like candy? | 162 | They tried many times. It was not even a secret program or anything, there were open calls for volunteers, particularly in academic circles. The thing is, Dr. Manhattan made it abundantly clear that his profound understanding of particle physics, in conjunction with the methodical and patient approach that he developed... | 239 |
[Teen Titans show]. How is Blackfire able to speak English more fluently and “act more natural” than Starfire? | Starfire has been on Earth longer than Blackfire and she was still getting used to Earths many customs. But when Blackfire shows up she’s not only able to speak perfect English, but she knows Earth slang, video games, poetry and music.
And I know Tamaraneans can learn a language by kissing someone (as far as the show... | 24 | Starfire got all her information from one kiss. Perhaps Blackfire kissed a whole bunch of people in preparation, and that gave her a better understanding of Earth languages. As for her knowledge of Earth customs, some people are just more skilled at picking things up than others. | 31 |
ELI5: Why is it bad that valve now lets mod developers sell their mods? | I don't really understand all of this. But there is a lot of negativity towards valve for doing this, can someone explain why this is negative? For me it seems like something positive. | 15 | A lot of the comments here are rather close minded and silly. I'll try to give you a list of some of the concerns people are having.
- Valve is criticized to take a huge cut (75%). In reality most of this probably goes to the developer/publisher, but regardless, the modder only takes 25% in the case of Skyrim
- Some ... | 17 |
ELI5: Why is it so dangerous for chronic alcoholics to go cold turkey? | I know alcohol abuse can cause psychological as well as physical dependence, but what mechanisms in the body change so drastically where people can die from giving it up too quickly? | 19 | Alcohol messes with GABA. GABA is a neurotransmitter that itself lowers activity in your brain, which is important. It's like having brakes in your car because even though your car is supposed to go, you have to be able to control it. Seizures are the result of uncontrolled brain activity, when one wave of activity cau... | 55 |
[Super Mario] With the exception of Luigi does Mario have any of family or friends and co-workers back in Brooklyn? Does he simply abandon them and live permanently in the mushroom kingdom or does he constantly move back and forth between the words and has to make up excuses as to where he's been? | So I just saw the teaser for the Mario movie (this is not a question about the movie just Mario in general) where Mario is suddenly booted into the Mushroom Kingdom and doesn't know where he is which made me just remember "Oh yeah, Mario is supposed to be a regular human who comes from our world" (I find that easy to f... | 549 | Foreman Spike was his boss when he worked in construction, and he’s a real jerk. Wouldn’t be surprised if Mario didn’t have any real friends in Brooklyn, hence why he spends a majority of his time in the Mushroom Kingdom. | 248 |
ELI5: why the mafia kill people that owes them money? Doesn't that means an economic loss? | Why not just wait for them to pay with all those interests?
A little money is better than NO MONEY at all....it's like a perpetual income machine | 54 | They normally use threats of violence to force the person to pay up, and make it clear that they don't much care what you need to do to get the money. Killing the debtor would only be used if it was clear that there's no way the guy could pay, and if it might be useful to kill them to make sure others do pay up. | 118 |
Is American society a culture in decline, or is there just a wide rift in values between the old and the young? | 15 | >*is there just a wide rift in values between the old and the young?*
Sure, but that's been true throughout history. To wit:
"*Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter... | 19 | |
ELI5: mammals and reptiles have a brain that controls the body. What about plants? How are the cells controlled all over the plant? If there is no control and every part is working independently how does the plant is not destroyed by every part competing with each other for light, water, air, etc.? | **thanks for all the amazing answers!!!** | 540 | Our individual cells aren’t really controlled that heavily by the brain. The brain may trigger things like puberty and conscious motion, but something like healing or digestion largely functions without the help of the brain. For instance, if you cut yourself and need to regenerate tissue to fill the gap, cells don’t r... | 228 |
Jointly edited "final draft" altered without my knowledge and published. What to do? | Hi all,
As a preface, I am new to academia and the publishing world.
This spring I had a short article/blurb (~500 words) in addition to some original illustrations accepted for publication by a small humanities journal (trying to keep my anonymity!). I went back and forth with an editor and we agreed on a final edit... | 15 | That's pretty shocking. We usually get in corrected proofs to check before publication. It's really off that the editor made changes without checking with you.
Not sure you can do much at this point. | 17 |
Why are COVID cases increasing so quickly while deaths are steadily decreasing? | Is it just that the death rate lags behind the identified cases? Are more cases being identified due to increased testing? Is there some kind of difference in the reporting of infections and/or deaths compared to several weeks ago? | 22 | Covid-19 takes a relatively long time to progress. And it appears that the more fatal cases take longer to reach their apex than the milder ones. It's most likely just a lag time as, afaik, there haven't been any real advancements in improving treatment significantly in the last month or two. | 19 |
If gravity is indistinguishable from a non-inertial reference frame under constant acceleration in a single direction, could gravity simply be an effect of the expansion of the universe? | If so, what might happen to gravity if the universe stopped expanding? | 72 | Only if the universe is expanding at the location of every massive object (everything from the largest star down to the smallest molecule).
So no, your assumption is incorrect. Correlation doesn't prove causation. | 30 |
CMV: A gun is always loaded, regardless of who you are, what situation you are in, or what others around you have told you. | This was drilled into my mind a thousand times, I am curious if people think there are legitimate cases where this doesn't apply. I was always told that regardless of whether or not you just checked the gun, or just finished firing it, or any other set of circumstances, the only safe way to approach gun handling is to ... | 262 | Film is a great example of when this doesn't apply, you need to be able to point the weapon at someone and fire with confidence that the appropriate rounds are loaded. Military exercises that use blanks are another example. | 173 |
[Star Trek] How do I become a stellar cartographer? What should I major in, in university, and what do I need to become a good stellar cartographer? | What do I need to major in? And what do I need to become stellar cartographer? | 16 | Math and computer science would be the underpinning as everything is based on math and you would use the computers to project celestial movements. Physics, astrophysics and astronomy would be the more specialized courses. Starship navigation since the most common use is to guide ships through the galaxy. Then finall... | 18 |
[Futurama] What's the top speed of the planet express ship? | 39 | I’m not sure it technically moves at a speed. In one episode it was stated to not actually move but to move the universe around it. However one episode it was stated to move at 99 percent of the light speed. And in another episode the speed of light was stated to be changed. So idk.🤷🏾♂️ | 57 | |
ELI5: Why do imaginary numbers work? | I'm not a huge math person. Throughout my years of high school and college math, I've worked with imaginary numbers, but never really gotten an explanation as to why they work. How do we know they run perpendicular to the real number line? Why do we know it's fundamental to wave function? It makes no sense to me, since... | 81 | I think, the problem is that you associate the word "number" with "quantity". And while numbers *can* represent quantity, they don't have to. Complex numbers do not represent quantities, they represent rotation/stretches. Saying "imaginary numbers should not exist" is like saying "90 degrees rotations should not exist.... | 172 |
CMV: College debt should not be canceled, and it is unfair to thousands of people who paid theirs off. | Student loan debt has become a hot topic in the current political environment. Politicians are marketing plans which aim to eliminate the vast amount of student debt currently held in the U.S.
I believe that the cancellation of this debt would be inherently unfair to the millions of people who lived well below their ... | 24 | >I believe that the cancellation of this debt would be inherently unfair to the millions of people who lived well below their means to aggressively pay off loans. It would also be unfair to the thousands of students who made fiscally responsible decisions to attended a lower-cost institution, in order to not put the... | 26 |
ELI5:What percentage of my money goes to the Japanese economy when buying a Japanese brand car in America? | 118 | So, there's a couple of parts to this:
**1) Wages:** there's people working for the Japanese car firm in America, and people working for the Japanese car firm in Japan. The Americans' wages go to the American economy. The Japanese's wages go to the Japanese economy.
**2) Operating costs:** The overhead for the fa... | 28 | |
Why does spicy food make your nose run? | 46 | So there are two basic kinds of "spicy." There are hot peppers like jalapenos which contain a chemical called capsaicin. Then there's horseradish and wasabi which contain allyl isothiocyanate. These chemicals hit receptors in your body and send the signal "YOU ARE ON FIRE!!" to your brain. Your body responds by salivat... | 48 | |
CMV: In the US, conservative media is just as mainstream as liberal media, and it's dishonest to try and claim that liberal media has control of "the narrative". | EDIT: I'm starting to get flooded with replies and have no hope of replying to everyone or addressing every point of view being expressed, but I am still reading everything so don't let that discourage you from replying. I did give a Delta to a poster who convinced me that an overwhelming majority of professional journ... | 2,899 | Conservative media is almost entirely explicitly conservative. Apolitical/neutral media is generally liberal. Like if it's just "Yahoo News" or AP or Reuters or any news source whose goal is to be neutral, most of the reporters and editors will consistently lean Democratic. | 890 |
[40k] Let's say an Imperial or imperium-friendly person comes up with a reliable time-travelling device, | what would be their first temporal interference in order to assure Imperial survival and domination?
(Assuming Back to the Future-type rules for time travel without nonlinear shenanigans and paradoxes)
Edit: to make it more interesting, can only transfer your own body (and mind). No trans-temporal psychic tricks. | 55 | Probably the best strategy would be to pop back to when Standard Template Constructs were still readily available, lay their hands on several that history records as 'lost', and stash them somewhere where they will be safe and stable for several centuries so you can go back to your home time, dig them up, and hand them... | 80 |
ELI5 does whitening toothpaste actually work? if it does, how? | do the whitening ingredients work like bleach, white dye, or something else? | 97 | The majority of whitening toothpastes/strips all use hydrogen peroxide, or a form of peroxide mixed with an abrasive compound. The abrasive compound polishes surface stains and the h2,02 in peroxide is a strong oxidizer which attacks the tiny stain particles stealing their electrons causing them to fall apart. | 103 |
ELI5: What makes a country a third world vs a first? Are there second world countries? | ^ | 35 | First Understand this
The term **"First World"** refers to so called developed, capitalist, industrial countries, roughly, a bloc of countries aligned with the United States after World War II, with more or less common political and economic interests: North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia.
**"Second W... | 56 |
[Suicide Squad] Why Captain Boomerang? | I admit I don't know much about him other than what we see in Suicide Squad, but from what I can see, he's just a dude with a bad temper that throws stuff.
I'm sure there have to be be much more badass dudes in prison than him. His boomerangs are used as thrown weapons and drones, but I'd think the military has far m... | 75 | He started out as a member of the Flash's rogue's gallery, and aside from being an expert marksman with a lot of effective trick boomerangs, he's also ruthless, unconventional, and unpredictable (except for being a jerk, he's that in pretty much every incarnation). Throw him in a fight, and he's dependable to hold his ... | 108 |
ELI5: How did we come up with the idea of three meals a day for a normal family? | 629 | Breakfast was a recent invention. During and before the middle ages, nothing could be eaten before morning mass. The meal was essentially invented during the industrial revolution for labourers.
Lunch pretty much existed forever, and was the main meal of the day - big hearty lunches. It was only until the industrial r... | 427 | |
[DC] Would Batman 'kill' Brainiac? | As in; **Would Batman kill an AI?**. I know there are versions of Brainiac who aren't AI, but for intensive purposes let's just say he's an AI.
He'd probably be fine with destroying robots like Brainiac's cannon-fodder army but I'm talking Westworld-level AI. I guess, another way to phrase the question would be; **Wha... | 34 | He'll kill anything not living (Vampires, zombies, Frankensteins), animals, monsters, whatever you classify Doomsday as, occasionally aliens, and anything inbetween up to and including marauding AI.
If it's not a living human being, Batman don't give a fuuuuck. | 50 |
[Meta] Would it be worth having a pinned post with go-to comics/episodes that answer common questions? | I know we have the FAQ for certain things, but I wondered if a pinned post that outlined where good answers to common questions can be found.
Could be something that gets updated over time and becomes a real repository of information for us, and also gives new folk some great suggestions for things to check out to fur... | 147 | At least in theory, people should be trying the search function before posting a question. But they don't, hence frequent flyers like "how badly did the Snap fuck up the Earth" (hella bad), "why doesn't Batman use his money to attack the underlying social causes of crime" (he does, you just didn't notice), and "why doe... | 57 |
[MARVEL] Juggernaut is literally empowered by a god/demon with the power to be unstoppable. Would he be able to run through an adamantium material? If so, how? I thought adamantium was unbreakable? | 678 | Juggernaut is very hard to flat-out stop, but you *can* redirect him. There's plenty of times where he's been forced into a "go that way" situation. He might just plonk off, like kicking a football into a brick wall would cause it to bounce in another direction.
It's also entirely possible that he'd just...push said a... | 630 |
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