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ELI5: Why are there risks of suicidal thoughts when taking antidepressants? What risk causes this? | 35 | It is not so much that the antidepressants cause suicidal thoughts, but they can, seemingly paradoxically, make people more likely to act on them. This is due to the fact that antidepressants take a while to even out your system. It's sadly not a case of starting to take them today and you start feeling better tomorrow... | 43 | |
[A:TLA/LoK] Most, if not all, bending forms are based in martial arts styles. Are benders actually good at martial arts? | Watching them, they seem to act like students in a dojo practicing forms, rarely actually using their styles for hand to hand combat. If for some reason a bender couldn't bend, would they be able to adapt their forms to actual hand to hand combat and be proficient, or do their particular skills not translate like tha... | 24 | Let's take a person from our world that's really good at shooting a gun. Now let's take the gun out of their hand and have them try to shoot. What's gonna happen? Fuck all. Now, the comparison isn't perfect, but it's good. Bending shares a lot with regular martial arts, and a skilled bender would definitely have a... | 16 |
ELI5: Why do all pictures of Jesus depict him as a white man, even though he was from Israel? | I've always wondered this. I know it might sound like something George Carlin would say to support his claim that religion is bullshit, but I legit want to know. If you're in some way offended by this question, and just want to blow off steam, please don't comment.
Thanks in advance =) | 28 | Because what cultures were/are the most supportive of Christianity? White ones. Much of the artwork done (such as in the dark ages/Renaissance ) was done by Europeans. In addition, later on many philosophies like eugenics became prevalent, and led many to assume he was white (as it was seen as the "master race") | 40 |
Can a black hole be pried open with another black hole? | If two black holes were to move very close to each other, could their gravity pulling in opposite directions reduce the escape velocity near the event horizons enough to make it possible for matter that once crossed over to escape? | 85 | Classically, no. That would require the area the event horizon to decrease, which is forbidden by the "second law of black hole thermodynamics", which has a better name: the area theorem. The area of an event horizon can never classically decrease.
If two black holes are in a bound orbit and the orbit is not disrupted... | 59 |
ELI5: What can Congress actually do to Facebook for censoring news feeds? | REF:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/did-facebook-suppress-conservative-views-senate-committee-wants-answers/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/top-senate-republican-calls-on-facebook-to-respond-to-censorship-accusations/
Let's say all the worst is true - Facebook is censoring news feeds to present a liberal sla... | 18 | Congress can't do a thing. Just like Fox News slants to conservative views. However if Congress could prove FB is denying someone their first amendment rights they could go to court. However the first amendment only applies to the government censoring you or the media, not an entity you use of your own volition. | 19 |
[General]What are examples of Heroes and protagonist who would be very, very dead if their villains or antagonist wer not complete morons? | 147 | Pretty much any hero.
Villains tend to gave extreme flaws ranging from insane egos or just wanting to fuck around. If Joker wanted to kill Batman he probably could, as does Lex Luthor to Superman. If either of them didn't depend entirely on making it a show of power it wouldn't be that hard. | 127 | |
ELI5: Why is falling through the map/level such a common glitch in video games? | 1,043 | Games like first person shooters that have maps on them don't separate the world into solids, liquids and gasses like real physics does out here in non-cyberland. Out here, when we press on a solid, it kind of presses back. Even if we break through the top of that solid and press on what's underneath it, such as if we... | 567 | |
[Breaking bad] Do you think Walt Jr ended up getting the money from Elliot and Gretchen? | 35 | There's no reason given to believe Elliot and Gretchen wouldn't give the money to Walt's family as instructed. Even if they stop fearing the "assassins", they're still altruistic enough to *want* to help Walt's family. Especially once he's dead and they know they're helping only innocent people (... Well, to the extent... | 40 | |
ELI5: Why is japan so strict against muslims? | Do the japanese just wanna play it safe? How long has it been? Not a good subject to tell a 5yo, i know /: . | 27 | Japan is extremely strict against all immigration. They have a relatively small country that does not really have enough space for its existing population and they are extremely prideful in their cultural heritage and do not want that to become too diluted by external influences. | 59 |
[Ex Machina] spoilers. NSFW | I get why Ava killed her creator. But why did she leave Caleb in the house? Also is Caleb now stuck in the house forever? Bonus question: Can those robots really be fucked? Like do they have flashlights for a vagina? | 35 | Caleb was no longer necessary as part of her plan to escape. His usefulness was at an end, so there was no logical reason to continue manipulating him.
Edit: Thanks to everyone who pointed it out, Caleb would also be a huge risk to her survival were he allowed to leave. | 22 |
What would happen if everyone invested their disposable income? | What would happen if everyone *wisely invested their disposable income, rather than consuming unproductive stuff?
*Investing in companies not related to consumables
Obviously, major consumable industries would go out of business. Ignoring the short-term unemployment, what would the economy eventually look like? | 53 | The level of GDP or income per capita in the US strictly increases in the long run as investment increases. So GDP per person would go up.
However, the savings rate (or investment) that maximizes consumption per person in the long run is equal to capital's share of income, which in the US is about 40% of total income ... | 59 |
My friends have always told me that LSD hangs around in your spine for years after you use it, which I always assumed was a fairy tale. However, I'm curious about the actual effects of LSD and why users experience flashbacks. Can anyone elaborate? | BTW, I am not a user, nor have I ever used LSD. Just really fascinated by the brain. Thanks!
**EDIT:** Thank you guys so much, especially itsbrownmagic, for weighing in on this! Awesome information guys and girls! | 76 | Medically speaking, LSD is metabolized quickly (half life of 175 minutes). That being said, it can be concluded that even if LSD somehow crossed the blood-brain-barrier and entered your CSF (cerebrospinal fluid), it's metabolism is so rapid that it would not be there for any relevant period of time.
Leading theories o... | 86 |
ELI5: Can a person with Alzheimer’s disease get addicted to drugs or would just forget about it? | 34 | The physical symptoms of withdrawal are not dependent upon memory. Common examples: a person with Alzheimer's who was opioid-dependent or on SSRIs will experience withdrawal (nausea, sweating, irritability, fever) if not continuing to take the medication.
Source: Pharmacist. | 40 | |
Is anyone here familiar with process philosophy, more specifically as developed by Alfred North Whitehead? | I'm fascinated by the cosmological framework he built, most notably in Process and Reality. It does seem to be to be a viable contender for a metaphysics which can be scaled up and down to incorporate the very large and very small. I'm curious as to whether or not any Redditors share my interest in this field, as I don... | 17 | A particularly lucid example for understanding process ontogenesis for example, can be found in Jorge Luis Borges' description of language on the planet Tlön, whose inhabitants take process as their default:
'For example, there is no noun that corresponds to our word “moon”, but there is a verb... “to moonate” or “to... | 16 |
CMV: Refusing service to people in North Carolina due to their recent LGBTQ law is a logical fallacy. | Mississippi recently [passed a law](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/04/05/mississippi-governor-signs-law-allowing-business-to-refuse-service-to-gay-people/ ) that would allow business owners to refuse service to gay people, and North Carolina passed a similar law restricting towns from enacting ... | 69 | Springsteen and others who are boycotting are not refusing service. Anyone who wishes to attend a Springsteen concert is welcome to pay for the privilege. He's just saying he won't come to NC. If you live in NC and want to see him, no one is stopping you from going elsewhere to achieve that.
In order for this to be hy... | 51 |
[Mass Effect]How would the Citadel Council have reacted to a spacefaring culture that developed it's own equal or superior tech base completely independent of ME technology? | 129 | Your tech would be *ridiculously* valuable to the galaxy at large. That kind of outside context science and engineering could seriously disrupt the balance of power.
So, the Asari would want to bring you in peacefully, probably shower you with technological aid in areas your deficient in, developmental, aid, preferen... | 133 | |
[Culture] Okay, I'm bored with life now, how do I sublime? | 19 | You by yourself can't. Subliming is a group/civilization event. You could go and find a group of people that is planing to sublime and go with them. You could also find a Mind and see if it would take you with, but Minds don't sublime that often or always tell people they are going to, so good luck. | 10 | |
ELI5: Why do employers (usually) not explicitly state what the hourly wage of a position will be preceding the interview process? | 67 | because they advertise it too low then some people wouldn't bother applying. and if they advertise it too high then some people wouldn't bother applying.
so they don't advertise it at all and so you come in and interview and they ask you what your pay history is and try to make the lowest offer they think you'll ac... | 50 | |
[Marvel] Who exactly is in charge of numbering all the universes? | Who decides that one Earth is 616, another is 8096, and another is 199999? Was there debate over who would get to be Earth-001? | 124 | The numbers originate with the interdimensional Captain Britain Corps. They’re basically a super-powered police force which operates across thousands of realities.
Interestingly, the system seems to apply even in realities with no reported sightings of Corps members. | 139 |
[Marvel] How would Thanos feel about Apocalypse? | They would get along well, wouldn’t they? They’re like two peas in a pod. They both have the god complex. | 27 | Familiarity breeds contempt. They would actually probably hate each other.
There can be only one god (e.g. supreme being) so anyone else thinking that they're it would be a natural enemy.
Second, their goals are somewhat in opposition. Thanos is a nihilist obsessed with death (figuratively and literally) while Apocal... | 31 |
[WH40K] We have all this ridiculous technology, why do most our battles take place at close or even melee range? | Gears of War is another such universe. All these ridiculous technologies and capabilities yet the main line of troops still have weapons with chainsaws and bayonets on them. I'd always imagined we be vaporizing our enemies from miles away in the far future, not engaging from less than 100 feet away. | 50 | In the 40k universe, its all about praising the emperor and meeting your enemies head on. Glassing a planet is a last resort kind of thing, and the cities in 40k are packed so densely that it be simple impossible to engage in a long range battle most of the time. Combine that with the factor that pretty much every wate... | 40 |
Are different cultures more prone to closer friendships? | I got into a discussion with a friend who stated that she thinks people in wester cultures like the US would not sacrifice as much for their friends and don't have as tight knit bonds. There is a lot to unpack here, like how to operationalize "closer" or "friendship", but I was wondering if there has been any research... | 53 | There are cultural differences between the nature of friendship and the characteristics sought by friends from each other.
Gonzalez and colleagues (2004) compared Canadian and Cuban friendships. Cubans are more likely to focus on giving and receiving help, and character admiration. Canadians are more likely to focus o... | 31 |
ELI5: Moles. How do they form? And are there people who don't have any of them? Is it even possible to not have any birthmarks or moles at all? | Edit: I'm confused. English is my second language and i searched the word before. Leo.org said it's mole or birthmark | 7,223 | Since no one is answering the second part of your question: yes, there are people without moles or birthmarks. There's nothing special to it though. They're random, harmless mutations that occur frequently. And sometimes they just don't happen. That's all there is to it. | 2,793 |
Why is Orange juice murky but Apple juice clear? | Apple juice is transparent whilst Orange juice is not. Why is this?
Edit: Thanks Guys! | 342 | **Apple juice is not clear at all**. The clear type you are seeing is made from concentrate. Apple juice when squeezed is cloudy and can purchased like that in large jars.
And yes, it's a whole lot tastier | 469 |
ELI5: what does the spleen do with old/unviable red blood cells after it has filtered them from the bloodstream? | 20 | Healthy red blood cells simply pass through the spleen by virtue of their shape and ‘youthful’ flexibility making it possible to pass through a series of small “passages”. Damaged, malformed or otherwise misshapen and nonconforming red blood cells are caught in that network and broken down by white blood cells. | 37 | |
CMV: Animated child pornography should be legal. | 76 | This is like saying that standard pornography makes people want to have less real sex with other adults. Clearly, this isn't the case since porn has not curbed sexual desire, but only introduced more hardcore sex acts into the mainstream. It would only serve to legitimize an unwanted act instead of discouraging it. | 34 | |
[Dragon Ball]Where does all that extra hair come from in SS3? | I live in a pretty large city which inexplicably has a large desert wasteland adjacent to it. I was traveling through it for work when a huge battle broke out between two flying creatures. At least one of them was a creature, one looked like a human. Any who, during the fight the guy's hair turned blonde. Afterward, it... | 16 | The flying guy you witnessed was an example of an alien species known as a Saiyan. Saiyans have the ability to convert ambient particles in the universe into pure energy while under extreme emotional stress, also known as going "Super" Saiyan. This sudden influx of power in their bodies turns their hair golden and caus... | 24 |
ELI5: Why aren't people attracted to family members? | 20 | I mean they can be, incest is a thing. But if you want an evolutionary explanation, incest can often lead to severe birth defects in children and as a result, it is evolutionarily beneficial to have a hardwired response to avoid that. And that is likely what happened (I say likely because all current evidence seems to ... | 18 | |
[Harry Potter] How different are religious beliefs in the wizarding world? | Most miracles spoken of in different religious texts could be explained in the magical world as being done by a wizard, so I'm wondering which religious beliefs are present in the wizard world. Where do wizards believe their souls go? | 15 | Jesus was obviously a wizard, although there is a lot of speculation as to whether he faked his death with magic, had a horcrux, or was actually resurrected before the philosopher's stone was created. Many muggle religions bleed into wizard society, from muggle borns being raised to believe in their faiths. They simply... | 14 |
[GTAV] Why did Michael have vivid hallucinations of aliens but Franklin was still stone sober during the side mission where they interact with that 'activist'? | 23 | Each main character is a lot of things. But they all also have different backgrounds if you remember correctly.
Franklin is on medical marijuana, and interacts with it regularly. Trevor, on the other hand, huffs gas and does Meth. Michael has a history of tobacco and alcohol, but those are fairly tame. The point is th... | 37 | |
ELI5: Why is Spain so dry compared to Italy? (even Portugal)? | I just went to google maps and just at quick glance the central-east part of Spain is almost a dessert compared to same latitude parts of Italy. Also Portugal seems to be more green (maybe closer to Ocean).
I've been told that the Sahara winds dry up that region but idk if that's true or why the Sahara winds only dry... | 15 | Spain is one of the most mountainous countries in Europe, the dry areas occur after the prevailing winds, mostly from the west, pass over mountain ranges. The rain falls over the mountains and this exhausts the clouds. In the driest parts of Spain prevailing weather would have to come over the central chain or the Sier... | 15 |
ELI5: If cat saliva is antibacterial, why do they suffer from tooth decay and gum disease? | Is their saliva only antibacterial to certain strains of bacteria? | 17 | Bacteria have adapted to live off sulfur in boiling water, a cat's mouth is easy to adapt to by comparison. It's warm, wet, and frequently contains food - so yeah, something definitely lives there. That said, there's not a lot of funding for feline dentistry research so it's not very well understood.
Cats don't have... | 10 |
CMV: I could live my whole life in a lab with all my senses being cheated without ever knowing | I never bought the whole ‘brain in a vat’-discussion: I am a neuropsychologist, and from everything I have learned, the entire brain is built to receive sensory input, interpret them and perform motor-actions accordingly. In other words: A brain needs embodiment. But then I recently figured... Our technology is becomin... | 20 | This is really philosophy, the idea that the senses are unreliable, and that we cannot _logically_ draw conclusions about reality. That is, it is, you have to "arbitrarily" assume that the senses work in order to make conclusions about reality. It's been a while, but IIRC, Kant, Hume and Descartes all tried to "fix" th... | 10 |
ELI5: Why does dying or falling in a dream cause you to suddenly wake up, no matter how deep of a sleep you are in? | 110 | When your brain is telling you that you are in mortal danger (falling from a great height, about to be hit by a large object, etc.) your brain releases adrenaline, which is the all-purpose contingency plan for dealing with danger. That rush of adrenaline effectively prevents you from sleeping, and wakes you right up. | 84 | |
CMV: Draft dodging is perfectly reasonable and ethical under Trump | When a country goes to war it must be done for justice and done so wisely. When a citizen looks at the justification/wisdom of a war they must admit there are often a number of hard to determine variables such as the probability that a peaceful solution could work and the probability that there are ulterior motives of ... | 2,107 | A draft would have to be authorized by Congress. Since Democrats control the House, any draft authorization would have to be bipartisan.
Trump can't order a draft on a whim. It would take agreement from both sides in Congress. For that to happen, senior leadership on both sides would have to agree about the severity o... | 1,564 |
ELI5: Why have no plane passenger parachutes been invented? | 2,201 | * Passenger airplanes are not designed such that 200 untrained passengers can jump out of them quickly and safely in an emergency.
* Parachutes are heavy. Carrying a parachute for every passenger of every flight would cost hundreds of billions of dollars in wasted fuel, while not really making anyone safer. | 2,609 | |
Why does it seem as though it's more common to get sick when the seasons or weather change? | 502 | Many reasons... An important one is that when the weather/temp/humidity changes it can dry out the mucus membranes of your nose and eyes as well as the rest of your skin. Dry skin equals micro-cracks in those tisues which can allow microbial invasion. | 123 | |
[Harry Potter 7] When they started processing half-bloods,considering them as no witches/wizards, what was their sentence? What did they do to them? | 21 | There was a whole range of possibilities. The simplest and most "merciful" route would likely be the snapping of their wand followed by a Memory Charm before releasing them into the care of the Muggles (such as it was). Remember, the Muggles' *dominion* was Voldemort's overall goal, not necessarily their *genocide*. | 22 | |
[Guardians of the Galaxy] Yondu is OP! How can he be defeated?! | So I just realized Yondu is overpowered he basically can attack and kill his opponents nigh instantaneous razor. | 90 | Blow up his ship. Any half decent sniper. Anyone not made to tissue paper?
Half the things in Marvel are pretty much bullet proof. The Razor would probably just stick awkwardly in Ronan's pec rather than going clean through. | 117 |
CMV: There is no way Legolas misses that orc with the torch at Helm's Deep | Throughout the entire series, we've seen Legolas having perfect precision with every single one of his shots. Even in The Hobbit, Legolas is never anything but precision perfect.
At the battle of Helm's Deep, he's seen hitting orcs one after the other, even while sliding down a shield on the ramp!
Now it's time to t... | 5,338 | As others have already stated, he didn't miss. But if we are talking about canon, then that scene simply wasn't in the book. It was just dramatic flair added for the movie.
The orcs did blow a hole in the wall, but when they did Aragorn, Jomer, Legolas and Gimli were just standing around talking because there was a lu... | 1,110 |
[Star Wars] Given that each on represents an important part of lightsaber combat, why do the Jedi and Sith teach seven different styles instead of just combining the best aspects of each one? | * In both the Canon and Legends continuities, there are seven different styles of lightsaber combat, each with their own focus, strengths, and weaknesses.
* [The Seven Forms](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lightsaber_combat/Legends#Individual_Fighting_Forms)
1. [Shii-Cho](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Form_I/Lege... | 195 | Because you cant simultaniously be fighting in a balanced, Elegant, Defensive, acrobatic, simple, and aggressive way.
Styles arent just do one thing and ignore the rest, they incorporate what they can while focusing on one aspect | 291 |
[Fallout] If 'Med-X' is morphine, and 'Psycho' is a methamphetamine, what are the other chems? | 53 | Med-X is morphine, Psycho is PCP, Jet is meth, Daddy-O/Day Tripper are hallucinogens, Mentats are basically Adderall (and a required member of any noble's house staff), Buffout is steroids, Fury is PCP+steroids, X-Cell is ~~NANOMACHINES, SON~~ magic | 66 | |
Could a human survive on a planet with a thinner atmosphere and a higher oxygen concentration? | 662 | That's exactly how astronaut EVA suits work. 100% oxygen at 0.3 bar.
So, the answer is yes. The term "partial pressure" is often heard in this topic: as long as at least 0.2 bar of pressure are produced by oxygen alone, then you can add as much (or as little) as you want of a diluent gas on top of it. Of course this d... | 707 | |
ELI5: What is catnip and how exactly does it work? | Why do my cats go absolutely ballistic when they are exposed to catnip? I've heard that it is comparable to marijuana, but how does it work through direct inhalation? Last time I checked, my cats don't have any pipes or rolling papers!
edit: relevant picture of my cat
http://i.imgur.com/G0vGl.jpg | 155 | It just so happens that it mimics cat pheromones. They inhale it, it binds to protein receptors in their ~~brains~~ noses that trigger a response in their brain's olfactory bulb - the part of the brain the nose is wired to.
Bear in mind that cats have a much more sensitive sense of smell than humans. It literally mean... | 65 |
ELI5 - If fire extinguishers are supposed to be directed at the base of the fire, why do large fires often have firefighters on extended ladders shooting water from above? | 15 | Fire extinguishers and water used by firefighters are not the same.
Most fire extinguishers are ABC dry chem extinguishers. They have a chemical powder that disrupts the chemical reaction of burning. So disrupting the reaction needs to occur as close to the source of the fire as possible.
Firefighters use water. Th... | 59 | |
ELI5: What's going on with 4chan screenshots and imgur and why is everyone so concerned about it? | Explained here: http://puu.sh/kjvLI/f57b37ccc0.png
I've read like 3 other people trying to explain it and still have no idea what it means. | 59 | Imagine if you went to a store and asked for a 4 pack of beer but unknowingly to you, an evil magic imp steals 2 more 4 packs and hides them in your bag. The store will run out of stock a lot quicker than expected.
Someone has found a way to put an evil magic imp inside imgur links that are found on 4chan which ask 4c... | 42 |
ELI5: How do spam telemarketers make money since almost everyone just hangs up? | 20 | With VOIP and cheap offshore labor, it costs virtually nothing to make those calls - partly *because* no one answers, or hangs up immediately. If you make 10,000 calls - that's every number in an exchange - and get three or four bites, you've made money. | 11 | |
[Stephen King's IT] Why does IT need Henry Bowers to kill the loser's club? | I'm assuming that it is explained better in the book, but why exactly does IT need Henry Bowers (this psychopathic 40-50 year old man) to help kill the loser's club. We've seen IT kill people before, mostly children, so it's not as if IT is incapable of killing people.
My assumption is that, since IT's power comes pa... | 47 | The Losers can defeat IT by, in part, not being afraid.
An unstable adult human is not weakened by a Loser, or any other person, not being afraid of him.
Which are you more likely to have more genuine fear of? IT doesn't need for the Loser to be afraid of IT, IT feeds on the fear no matter where it comes from. If IT ... | 52 |
CMV: The world would be a better place if we could see everyone's age online. | It is my belief that the simple presence of children in online conversation has a deleterious effect on our civilization. In a very real way we have created a "Lord of the Flies" situation where ignorant children have an undue say in how our nations are run, due to the fact that they age-anonymously participate in the ... | 30 | It seems like this would be great for child predators. It helps you figure out who to target and groom online. Or for cyberbullying. It sure would help adults bully children for example.
The internet isn’t actually the place for serious policy debate (that’s what real life, or heck, the Federal Register is for), but b... | 41 |
eli5: Why can we upscale video to 4k and even beyond (Nvidia Shield) but cant upscale audio from low bitrate files? | 313 | You definitely can. The issue is the same as with upscaled video - you're generally not actually accurately representing the missing data, just making a somewhat good approximation of what the computer thinks should be there.
Few people really have 4K TVs large enough and watch their TVs from a visual distance where i... | 184 | |
Why does the cold virus always seem to progress through the same stages of symptoms in the same order? (sore throat - sneezing - congestion - runny nose - cough) Also, what is the cold virus actually doing during each stage? | My girl friend and I always get the same symptoms in the same order. However, she travels through each set of symptoms very quickly. (2-3 days total) It takes me 2 weeks to progress through the stages.
Why does she get to the cough stage in 2 days, while my body takes over a week? Assuming my immune system is comprom... | 76 | The "cold virus" is just a term for any virus that causes mild respiratory illness. The majority of cold symptoms are actually caused by your body's response to viral replication. What you experience in a cold is less an issue of what the virus is doing and more an issue of how your body's response starts, progresses... | 27 |
CMV: Political Parties are harmful public cults. | Every political cycle I wonder to myself, why are no independent candidates voted in? Why are we so invested in cults of political allegiance, that we miss the potential value of independent representatives?
If we're looking for more political diversity and stability in the long run I think political parties should be... | 331 | What you're missing is game theory. People play games in the way that allows them to win.
For example, say you're playing Monopoly. You could decide "I won't buy any properties this game." But then you'll lose. So it's a bad strategy. So people don't play that way.
The United States is set up so that whoever wins the... | 130 |
CMV: Self defense and basic firearm safety should be taught as a part of public education in the US | I realize at face value this view might seem extreme, but I feel I have practical reasons and rational thought behind them so I am interested in hearing different perspectives.
I believe that in the effort public education makes to turn people into contributing, autonomous functioning members of society, one massive o... | 239 | Okay, for the purposes of the argument, I'll accept that proper gun safety is important -- but why should it fall under the jurisdiction of public education?
Here are some other important life skills: how to change a tire, how to file income tax, how to be in a healthy romantic relationship, how to cook basic meals, h... | 79 |
ELI5: Why is blue light from screens harmful and strenuous on our eyes, while blue objects in the environment, are not? | 38 | The issue is that screens shine blue-rich light straight into our eyes, When we are outside, the light is mainly sunshine, which is green-rich.
The other problem is this blue light acts like sunshine to our brains, telling them that it is still daytime, and that we should remain alert and awake. If you are using your ... | 17 | |
What is the origin of the southeastern US incest stereotype? | 28 | It's mostly an Appalachian stereotype. Back before automobiles and paved roads, travelling from one valley to another could take vast amounts of time and effort. Combine that with a distrust of outsiders, and people tended to marry people who lived nearby, and those people were often relatives.
It's important to r... | 40 | |
[the Matrix] With residual self image, is the avatar in the matrix confined to being human? | I was just curious as there are people who refuse to admit that they are human in RL.
so why would the residual self image, especially since I found out you can be transgender, be limited to just human form? | 87 | Switch was a different gender in the Matrix (or at least androgynous).
There are no known instances of someone being non-human. That sort of thing appears to be restricted to programs with specialized combat attributes (like the werewolves and ghosts). It's likely that there are safeguards in place to stop humans from... | 54 |
ELI5: Is humanity stunting our evolutionary development with all our modern conveniences and advancements? | I have just finished rereading the book "Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit" which I first read in High School. SPOILERS Towards the end, Ishmael talks about how the "takers" have removed themselves from the "Gods" and have therefore also taken themselves out of the evolutionary path forward. While the "leav... | 84 | The problem here is that such a question contains a faulty premise. Evolution is not progress towards a "better" state. At least, not in any absolute sense. Hell, evolution isn't really even "progress" since "progress" implies an end goal and evolution has no end goal.
Evolution is merely the process of an organism... | 144 |
ELI5: How does witness protection work with education/certificates? | For example, if a guy has a specific degree like a Ph.D. in underwater cat breeding or served in the military then goes into witness protection, how do they maintain their degrees / service benefits / other awards? | 281 | You will be issued a equal or greater certification from an institution that fits the narrative created for you. If you grew up in the UK, but the new your grew up in Utah. Your new degree would likely before from BYU or the like. Anyone who checks at the college would be able to pull your records and verify you degree... | 185 |
[Lovecraft/Pokemon] What's the deal with Missingno? | I caught an odd... thing... the other day.
Brought it up in the 'Dex, it just... blinked an odd red light a couple times, and hummed until it fried and sparked.
Meanwhile, the thing is, I've been getting boons... Strange boons.
99 items, always in multiples of ninety nine have been washing up on the oceans.
Been... | 62 | Don't. Take your boons, then release the Missingno and walk away. Some people who have had too many encounters with Missingno have reported permanent hallucinations. And there's rumors that it can get much worse.
As for what the cause is, it's generally believed to be a mistake made by Arceus. Something is wrong with ... | 44 |
[General] Where characters with a minigun replacing a limb store their bullets? | 32 | Depends on the character, you'll need to be more specific. In some cases, especially the more magical end of technology, the "bullets" are actually mana energy (or some equivalent) drawn from the user themselves. In other universes, they have compact ammunition drums. In other universes, it literally doesn't matter bec... | 23 | |
ELI5: Why do smokers crave a cigarette more directly after a meal? | The title says it all.
It seems to be the case for every smoker I know. | 63 | The best part of smoking for me was always the routine of it. You wake up on a cool, crisp fall morning, light that smoke and have a moment of reflection with a smoke. You're at a party and someone gives you the look, and you know you're going to have a cool conversation, almost a party in a party, outside on the drive... | 39 |
CMV: You should have to pass the citizenship test to vote in the US | Take three people, Persons A, B, and C. They live in the US.
Person A was born here and is a citizen. They happen to be a huge idiot and don't even know what the president DOES. They have the right to vote with literally no requirements other than surviving for 18 years and registering. They can vote.
Person B is ba... | 30 | Voter turnout and registration is already abysmally low without another hoop to jump through. Further, it would have a lot of potential to discriminate against certain kinds of voters, similar to literacy tests in the 1960s. Finally, passing a citizenship test doesn't mean they fully understand how the country works an... | 29 |
ELI5: Why do fruits like apples or bananas get "bruised" when bumped or dropped? | 30 | Its usually an example of the skin of the fruit being lightly damaged, which allows the organic chemical compounds in the fruit to react to outer factors.
The bruising is an act of these compounds oxidizing, which takes on a brownish color. | 18 | |
ELI5: Why do Xbox One/PS4 games need to be installed to the hard drive, but every console before this generation you could just put in a game and play. | 57 | Game sizes (and therefore texture sizes) have increased. Larger files take longer to load. Especially if you're playing an open world game where parts of the map are constantly loading in. The disc drive could never keep up. | 51 | |
ELI5: What happens in our brain when we argue with ourselves? | 15 | Our minds aren't monolithic, they aren't a single, unified thing. It seems like our minds are composed of several modules, only one of them being the thing that thinks "I am here reading this explanation right now". So when we argue with ourselves, modules with different motivations (survival, pleasure, morality) act m... | 11 | |
[MCU] Does Loki have more power of his own than Thor? | When Odin banishes Thor to Earth, he takes away all of his power, and Thor is left as little more than a big buff dude. Loki, on the other hand, becomes an open enemy of Asgard, yet retains his illusion abilities. Does Loki have a greater reserve of power and ability (which couldn't be taken away by Odin) than Thor doe... | 25 | Odin cursed Thor with human attributes. A normal Asgardian wouldn't have been knocked out like Thor nor would their skin be pierced by needles. So Thor had more than *his* power taken - he was actually modified by Odin's magic to be human (or close enough).
Presumably, Odin could do the same to Loki. In fact, it seems... | 25 |
ELI5: Can you actually go blind from looking at a solar eclipse with out proper eye protection? why? | 44 | Your pupils get large because the light levels are low, but it's still giving you a lot of UV light. Your pupils would normally get smaller to protect you from such a thing, but the eclipse fools this mechanism.
You absolutely can go blind, or at least have seriously damaged eyesight from retinal damage caused by ult... | 30 | |
How did Copernicus arrive at the conclusion that not the Earth but the Sun was the center of our solar system? | Considering he made this discovery over 500 years ago, even before telescopes had been invented, how did he know that? What were the reasons for him to start to doubt the then almighty image of geocentrism propagated by the Church and most of his fellow scientists of that time? To me it sounds like a terrific discovery... | 18 | Copernicus used his and others' observations of the motions of the planets to develop a mathematical framework that described the positions of the planets accurately while being consistent with a heliocentric universe. Unfortunately, because he still held to the concept of heavenly spheres, he couldn't get rid of epicy... | 15 |
[Marvel] Does Quicksilver move fast or slow time? | 73 | His mutant power of super speed gives him a lot of secondary powers like super durability so he doesn't rip himself apart while running through rain, one of his secondary powers is seeing everything in slow motion constantly. Which is usually why he is so impatient and agitated in the comics. | 73 | |
[Seven] What happens to Detective Mills after the ending? | So, Mills has killed John Doe, executing him on the spot.
What is the media response like? Does he wind up going to trial for executing an unarmed man? Would he be likely to face any time incarcerated? Would it be possible for him to plead a case of temporary insanity, or perhaps a crime of passion, given the fact he... | 16 | Legally, it would be voluntary manslaughter: murder committed under provocations such that a reasonable person might utterly lose control. A man handing you your wife's severed head certainly counts.
Publicly? John Doe was a monster. Like, horrifically so. Few people will fault Mills. "Hero Cop kills Sadistic Serial ... | 31 |
[Starship Troopers] Who named Klendathu? | The bugs don't have a language as we would understand it, so we are not using their name for the rock... So a human would have named it... but if it was a human, why give it such an alien sounding (to western ears) name?
Who named it? | 26 | > but if it was a human, why give it such an alien sounding (to western ears) name?
To make is sound more threatening.
The Bugs were never a direct threat to Earth. That was manufactured by the military to force a war with them. | 39 |
ELI5: What causes the feeling of butterflies in one's stomach when they feel nervous/excited? | 284 | Part of your flight of fight response is to prepare your body for action in cases when you think something dangerous is about to happen. Part of that response is to decrease blood flow to non-vital areas of the body, so that blood can flood into your muscles, where it will be more useful. Digestion is one of the area... | 290 | |
ELI5: Why doesn't the West openly say the Russian military is fighting in Ukraine? | 37 | West excluding Russia: not enough evidence.
Russia's military doctrine is called 'maskirovka', and revolves around deception. It's a tactic that has been used for approximately a millennium, and is still as effective as ever. Basically the Russians deny everything, admit nothing, and play dirty; for example there is s... | 25 | |
[StarWars]How was Order 66 such a blistering success? | Hey guys, this is my first post here so please comment what I'm doing wrong before you downvote. I'll try fixing anything asap.
So as most know, the Jedi lose the majority of their numbers to Order 66. My question is, in the scenes where the clones turn on their generals, how were they able to kill the Jedi without an... | 159 | Firstly, the Jedi as a whole were pretty much unable to foresee the future due to years of Palpatine's influence clouding their minds, so they couldn't have been able to sense the impending danger in the month, weeks, days, or hours before the order was given.
Secondly, the Jedi's numbers had been dwindling since the ... | 129 |
Are all elements solid at absolute zero? | I know liquid nitrogen is extremely cold, but it made me wonder if solid nitrogen would be even colder, and is that impossibly cold point absolute zero? | 52 | A lot of people here are saying that absolute zero implies no atomic motion. Classically this is true, but due to quantum effects there is motion at absolute zero. It's called zero point energy if you want to look it up.
Anyway, to answer your question, helium is liquid at regular pressure at absolute zero, and very s... | 47 |
ELI5: If modern man has been around for 50,000 years, why have we only begun to scientifically progress over the last 2000 years or so? | 39 | 1. We were busy surviving. Doing real science takes a certain amount of free time, and when all of your time is taken up getting enough food, clothing, shelter, etc. then you don't have much to devote to R&D. Unless it helps you win wars, which was one of the drivers of scientific progress (and to an extent still i... | 48 | |
[I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream] How would AM react to a human who is entirely unafraid of his manipulations? | Let’s say Batman (but any imagined character can work) is the only survivor that AM was able to keep a hold of.
AM throws every physical and emotional torture at Batman for centuries, but Batman being Batman, he refuses to break or engage in AM’s games.
AM says “There’s fruit 500 miles away, go walk and get it.” B... | 275 | There's plenty of ways to torture someone. And the general idea is no matter who you are or how strong willed or physically strong you are torture will work eventually. Sooner or later you'll break and AM has all the time in the world to find your soft spots. Like not being able to sleep. Or playing a song on repeat fo... | 238 |
[Star Trek: VI] What happens next to the Enterprise | At the end of the footage from the bridge of the Enterprise, we see the remaining crew of the Enterprise around the bridge, having just been ordered back to Spacedock for decommission. Spock, suggests replying 'go to hell'. Kirk then informs Chekov to set course for 'the second star to the right, and straight on til mo... | 35 | They're about to take the *Enterprise* on a joyride. Anyone else would be in pretty deep shit, but the command crew are living legends who just averted interstellar war and are only days away from retirement. Not a fight that anyone at Starfleet command is going to start. Eventually they'll return to Spacedock, with... | 22 |
ELI5: If the flu shot contains a non-active version of the flu, then why are "flu like symptoms" common for the days following? | 24 | the non-active proteins trigger an immune system response which can involve some inflammatory system responses.
once the immune system is activated for that infection your body will react more readily if the actual infection gets into you. | 31 | |
What causes hair loss from eating disorders? | Is it a high stress level? Or lack of nutrients or something | 208 | Malnourishment.
When a person’s body is malnourished, such as during an eating disorder, the protein stores in their body become depleted. When this occurs, the body has to make sure that it takes care of essential functions (such as organ function and retaining muscle tissue) above all else. Our hair, which is made u... | 226 |
CMV: Crime in the ghetto isn't due to just poverty, it's due to violent & drug culture | [Looking at the list of countries by homicide rate,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate) there are countries which have generally much worse poverty than ghettos, yet astonishingly low homicide rates.
In the slums of Indonesia for instance, murder is almost nonexistent. Yet,... | 29 | The way crime manifests itself differs between community / across society, poverty has some impacts that transcend boundaries, but the way people live in poverty deal with then more 'generic' aspects of poverty (lack of resources) will depend on the place they live in, and what options they have available to them. The ... | 12 |
ELI5:Why is music by Mozart, Bach, etc. considered intellectually stimulating? | Deciding to call one type of music supremely complex to others and then say it helps learning, focus, etc. seems very arbitrary to me. Objectively speaking, Mozart and Bach are just sound, and likewise Drizzy Drake, JBeebs, and LDR are all just sound––but this doesn't mean Drake is intellectually stimulating.
Feel fr... | 188 | saying "it's all just sound" is just garbage, the Parthenon is just a pile of stone and cement and so is the latest government-housing block of flats to go up in your city. Doesn't say anything, does it?
The reason why classical music is considered more complex than typical pop music is that *objectively speaking*, i... | 234 |
[General] Does Claustrophobia exist in underground cities/societies? | 31 | Given that underground societies can still, at least in fiction, have large open spaces, it's likely not unheard of, but the constant lack of really open spaces probably reduces it. Imagine if your concept of an open sky was a twenty foot roof. You'd get claustrophobic in a smaller space than a person who lives above g... | 35 | |
eli5: Why do certain fruits keep growing, even though we have genetically modified many fruits not to have seeds? | 24 | Most seedless plants are grown from cuttings, which makes the plants all genetic clones of each other.
Potatoes for example have flowers and seeds, but if you plant the seeds the resulting plant won't make potatoes you recognize. Specific Potato varieties are so heavily modified that they can only be grown from cuttin... | 26 | |
[d&d/star wars] How would you carry a double bladed sword like in d&d or starwars? | I was thinking about darth mauls lightsaber and wondering how he carries it so how would you actually carry one? | 32 | In star wars you would just turn it off and clip it to your belt or put it in a pocket or holster.
In DnD, it depends. Double bladed swords will have a pair of leather covers to slide over the blade so you don't accidentally cut anything, then you'd just strap it to your pack or the back of your horse, or maybe just ... | 40 |
ELI5: Why do antibiotics and alcohol not mix well? | I've taken both basic and advanced anatomy & phys. classes, basic human physiology, and other medical courses. I don't quite understand why these chemicals don't mix. Maybe I'm missing a chemical reaction, but I don't understand why doctors warn so harshly against this mixture yet no one knows about the damage that... | 35 | Doctor here.
Certain groups of antibiotics can have weird and dangerpus cross-reactions with alcohol. The reason the general advice is to avoid alcohol when on antibiotics:
1. People have bad enough compliance as it is and alcohol worsens that. If you’re someone who itches for a drink and can’t abstain for a week or ... | 52 |
ELI5: Whenever I see behind-the-scenes footage of a movie, directors are always seen talking to their actors while they're acting. What do they do to remove the director's voice in the final product? | 48 | Two things.
1. It is surprisingly common to film without audio and dub everything in later. This is done for most outdoor scenes, and scenes shot in unusual locations. It is less common today now that small efficient microphones are available but still happens; back in the 50s and 60s, it was common especially in Ital... | 60 | |
[Skyrim] If the Dragonborn is a legendary hero that has Lycanthropy and has pledged themselves to each Daedric Prince, where do they go upon death? | It seems like everyone is trying to get the Dragonborn to sit at their table at the high school lunch room that is the afterlife. But obviously Dovahkiin can only go to one, so which overruled the rest?
Hircine seems to have a pretty big say with any werewolves (even those perfect for Sovngarde), as does Nocturnal wi... | 21 | This is a very common question.
The most likely answer is that Akatosh has the biggest claim on your soul because you have the soul of a dragon. Since dragon are his children it would make sense that he has the strongest claim.
He is also the god of time and that stuff so i imagine most would not want to go up agains... | 41 |
ELI5: Why is dryer lint so flammable? | What it says on the ~~tin~~ title.
 
Per rule 7, performed a search and found a 4 month old post with two replies and no real good answers, and a few comments in related threads about lint that touched on the suspect but didn’t really answer it. | 4,490 | Things ignite easier if there is maximum surface area between the air and flammable material.
It's the same reason why grain silos filled with grain dust can spontaneously combust if they get hot enough.
Lint is made up of lots of tiny fine particles stuck together.
So there is a LOT of surface area between air (oxy... | 3,183 |
ELI5: How can bots like !remindme bot simultaneously scan through thousands of comments posted every minute under many different posts, in different communities? | 18 | Because it's not a single entity. Think of it like a (massive) company instead. There are a large number of workers, each assigned to look at new comments from a small number of sources (possibly down to an individual person). When things get busy they probably even do the computer equivalents of calling in temp worker... | 11 | |
I have come to the conclusion that socialism is the best viable form for an economy to take. Does anyone care to CMV? | Socialism is defined as a democratic control of the means of production by the working class for the good of the community rather than capitalist profit. The line of thinking being that when the working class becomes their own executives (supervisor, factory owner, company owner, manager, etc.) workers will be able to ... | 24 | Why should a factory worker putting parts together be as valuable to a company as the engineers who make the company's existence possible? Why should people want to strive for more if they're equally served doing less? A full transition to socialism removes all reason to excel and advance past pure intellectualism, whi... | 13 |
ELI5: Why does Japan have such huge cities? | I was on Google Earth the other day and when I was looking at Japan I was astounded as to how much city there was. There were loads of them and they were huge, incomparable to American or European cities. Why is this? | 31 | Population density. Like most places, Japan has been urbanizing since before the second World War. Good health care combined with historic longevity pushes the population up and up. Being an island, there is limited opportunity to build new cities, so the existing ones creep outwards and upwards - there are some rea... | 17 |
When an ISS astronaut goes out for EVA, do the airlocks conserve air, or vent it? What about airlocks on other space vehicles? | I have read the layman articles on the Joint Airlock Module, but if this is answered in any I missed it. I am curious if the atmosphere in the intermediate chamber is pumped back into the station or vented out into space as the astronaut goes through. | 296 | The Quest Joint Airlock works like this: an astronaut from either the U.S. or Russia enters the chamber, and the vacuum pump lowers the presure to 3 psi, and then to zero psi. After the air has been evacuated, the external door opens. There's also an equipment airlock that's used for overnight campouts to remove Nitr... | 151 |
[Dragonball Z] Who all has canonically seen all three of Cell's forms? | Mainly referring to Cell's "Imperfect", "Semi-Perfect", and "Perfect" forms, as no-one has really seen him outside of those three forms, save for the test tube. | 19 | In person, Piccolo, Krillin and Trunks. Piccolo saw each of them in order. Trunks saw the Imperfect form last when he traveled back to his future. Trunks and Krillin even saw the larval form, when they went back to Gero's lab to wreck up the place. | 29 |
ELI5: Why is Angry Birds (and other apps) free on Android but it costs money for the iPhone? | I found this: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/angry-birds-exec-calls-android-too-complex-iphone-no-1-125769
But I found it too confusing
Edit: if you are just coming here to mock iPhone users, I will not deal with it. There is a reason to buy an iPhone just as there is a reason to buy an android. They are... | 155 | From what the the head of marketing at Rovio seems to be saying is that, he believes making it free with advertising will, and does, make him more money than a paid app does. He says that Rovio makes more money in a year from the free version on Android then the paid on iPhone. He also says that paid apps don't sell at... | 74 |
Black holes slow down time of nearby clocks relative to an outside observer. What is the theoretical effect that a white hole would have on time? | 62 | The same. The metric for a black hole is the same as that of a white hole. The exterior part is the same, the black and white hole are different *inside* regions, the former in the future, the latter in the past. In fact, the normal Schwarzschild solution describes a spacetime with both a white and a black hole, simult... | 22 | |
ELI5 How can a blood oximeter read your level of oxygen in the blood without requesting a drop of blood? | My mom bought one of those recently and I still can not figure out how that thing works without a drop of blood.
Edit: Oh this really did blow up. Thank you all for responding. I have more knowledge that I anticipated on this little thing now. Very useful. | 4,462 | The trick is they shine two colors of infared light in your skin, and then look at the reflection.
The two colors reflect very differently off oxygenated and unoxygenated blood, and the ratio between the brightness can be used to figure out the oxygen concentration in your blood. | 4,294 |
[MCU][Watchmen] What would Dr. Manhattan think of Thanos? | How do you think Manhattan would feel about Thanos wiping out 50% of Life in the universe? Manhattan says at the end of the movie [Watchmen], that he'll maybe create some Life. So what do you think his opinion would be on the matter? | 134 | I don't know much about him in the new DC continuities, but *Watchmen* era Manhattan was ready and willing to stop Veidt from murdering far fewer people, despite Veidt's arguably noble intentions. Manhattan would also be smart enough to realize that Thanos' plan, unlike Vedit's, was completely idiotic.
Manhattan would... | 178 |
[Warcraft] The story says "Arthas bad" for you-know the infected villagers, but what were the possible never-mentioned alternatives? | So Arthas decides to kill all the infected villagers.
They keep going on and on about how it's wrong and he became evil while trying to do good and therefore he must be stopped, but they never explain what were the supposed alternatives, nor what would be the cost...
So what could have been done instead? | 46 | There was no "good" alternative, and that was the beauty of the Lich King's trap. No matter what happened at Stratholme, Arthas was going to be pushed to the extreme edge of sanity, and forced to pursue Mal'ganis to Northrend.
Uther and Jaina would have preferred to surround the town and observe, then likely try to e... | 44 |
ELI5: How were battles fought during the American Revolution? | I'm watching the show Turn on AMC, it's about Washington's spies in the Revolution War. There's one scene in season 2 episode 10 where they battle.
During those times, were battles really so clunky and unimaginative? I mean, do both side just line up in rows and fire one after each other? It seems so non-strategic. F... | 18 | You had limited communication, limited mobility, limited range to your weapons.
Good discipline and volleys made it harder for your enemy to advance while broken ranks, charging or retreating left you more vulnerable. Pikes had made calvary charges a bit less efdective than they used to be while guns were not at a po... | 14 |
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