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[Men in Black] In first movie we've seen that alien battleships can fly by Earth with impunity. MiB alone can't afford space fleet, so if they care about planet safety shouldn't they cooperate with national governments and create one? | 558 | Earth is like a rural or old wild west town compared to everything out there. Towns don't have militaries, they have a police force. As long as Earth doesn't try to turn itself into a country and plays ball with the local powers, they can rely on the local powers to protect Earth as part of their Turf from the other mo... | 452 | |
ELI5 why we have body odour, generally only in the armpit area, and why it would have been useful, in evolutionary terms. Thank you. | 25 | Body odor comes from the bacteria that feed on our sweat and grease (yuck!) not the sweat itself. The smell itself isn't useful in evolutionary terms, but the bacteria are. They are mostly harmless and out-compete bacteria that could be harmful...A symbiotic relationship because the bacteria get free food and we get pr... | 18 | |
[LOTR] Why can't Gandalf fight at full power? | He tries to stop Sauron, but not with his full power. This seems a little bit strange to me, because he is clearly for the "good" side. | 25 | He is forbidden to use his full power to fight Sauron or his forces. The wizards were sent to Middle-earth to help the people fight against Sauron, not win their battles for them.
Edit: Gandalf however, can and does, fight all out against the Balrog since he does not serve Sauron. They fight for 10 days nonstop. | 23 |
ELI5: Why do blankets that have been stored for a long period smell weird? Stored in closets, boxes, etc | 1,179 | If you don't wash them before storing, the bacteria and mold reproduce.
If you wash them and don't rinse them enough, the left over soap rots.
If you wash them and store them in boxes, they take on the smell of the boxes. Especially true if you use the same box over and over.
Last but not least, organic fibers break... | 902 | |
Why is it a joke to ask someone to explain where layer 6 of the OSI model is? | I was reading [this old thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/1wghsf/the_osi_model/cf1zpzz?context=1) and wasn't able to follow the joke. | 25 | It's not a particularly funny joke.
Even though the OSI model specifies 7 layers, generally in practice only 5 layers are used; 5&6 are rarely used. 5 is used in some special cases, however 6 is barely seen outside of research papers or new tech examples.
This is because the first 4 layers are implemented by the... | 14 |
ELI5: Why do you smile when you feel happy? | Like, why when we feel happy or good the edges of our lips go up and when we're sad they go down? Why isn't it the other way around? | 167 | Primatologist Signe Preuschoft traces the smile back over 30 million years of evolution to a "fear grin" stemming from monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth to portray to predators that they were harmless, or to signal submission to more dominant group members.
It's basically a less threatening versio... | 50 |
[The Dark Knight] What would the Joker see if he was sprayed with Scarecrow’s fear gas? | 155 | One time Joker huffed a bunch of it, commented that it smelled exquisite, and then beat Scarecrow half to death with a chair.
Either he's immune, or seeing his worst nightmares didn't really affect him in a meaningful way. | 252 | |
Are modern encryption techniques (like 256-bit SSL encryption) more complicated than ciphers used in WWII (e.g. Enigma)? By how much? | I understand the *basics* behind encryption of messages, and thanks to a recent analogy posted (I think) on reddit, also understand the basics behind how one-way hashes are created (but cannot easily be reversed).
How do modern encryption techniques compare to those used by the English/German militaries in WWII? Are n... | 280 | SSL relies on a mathematical technique that was unknown to militaries until the seventies.
That specific technique was public key encryption, and the first (known, declassified) instance of a military using PKI was in the 70s in the UK, at the GCHQ in 1972. Diffie and Hellman also discovered the same technique as the ... | 215 |
Would a denser atmosphere increase the power of a nuclear explosion by any significant amount? | 18 | A denser atmosphere would result in a weaker nuclear explosion.
The atmosphere is the thing the explosion is expanding into. The explosion spends a significant fraction of its energy pushing the atmosphere around it out of the way, producing the shockwave. In denser environments you get less 'push' for the same amoun... | 27 | |
CMV: It's inevitable that the US loses the AI race to China. | One of the major realms in which the US and China compete now is in the R&D of new technologies, with the most researched and hyped up being AI, specifically in the form of deep learning neural networks - a complex bunch of algorithms that essentially "learn" by being fed enormous quantities of data.
The logic is... | 38 | The major advances in AI are going to come in the form of novel new forms of AI not just inflated versions of the ones we currently know. Neural Nets have been around since the 80s-90s and the computational science describing them have been around since at least the 60s-70s. The big reason they've taken off now is beca... | 40 |
Why do batteries take minutes/hours to recharge? What is in the way for them to recharge instantly? | When I plug in my phone, laptop, or other electronic device in to recharge, why does it take 30+ minutes? Shouldn't it be able to draw more power from the outlet and recharge instantly? | 49 | There is a chemical process behind battery charging. When charging your standard lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) cell phone battery lithium ions move from the graphite anode (where they form LiC6) through an electrolyte (a fluid or gel which allows lithium ions to pass through) to the cobalt oxide cathode. This electroly... | 26 |
ELI5: What happens in our brain when we "stand up to quick" causing our vision to go semi black and feel like were going to pass out? | This just happened to me, my vision went to the usual dotted blackness, just curious what is happening in my brain area during this. | 17 | Two words: Orthostatic Hypotension
OH happens when your blood pressure takes a dive. Usually, your body compensates when you go from sitting to standing by prompting your heart to beat a little faster (about an extra 10 beats per minute) and constricting your blood vessels, which force more blood back to your head and... | 20 |
Do Everest climbers carry water, if so how do they stop it freezing? | Maybe they take vodka? | 23 | First, they only carry as much water as they will need to make it to their next camp. More water is acquired by melting snow with stoves at each camp, so it's not like they are carrying the same water for days on end. Secondly, water bottles are typically kept inside the jacket closer to the body, where temperatures ar... | 50 |
What will be registered to the brain first? A sound, or a sight? | 33 | It depends on how far away the object is. But if something happens to you close, the sound is processed first. This is because visual transduction, i.e. the process by which photons are converted to bioelectrical signals, is really very slow, and takes some ~70 milliseconds, while the process in your ears is almost ins... | 16 | |
ELI5: How does mold get into the fridge/my house if it wasn't already there? | I know mold spores can travel through the air, but what about when I put food in my fridge with nothing moldy in there, no mold in the house... Eventually it is going to turn moldy. How? | 24 | There *is* mold there, you just can't see it. You said yourself that you know that mold spores spread through the air - that's your answer. Mold spores are absolutely everywhere. It *was* already there. | 51 |
ELI5: Why are school shooters always young males? Is there a media bias in reporting or is there something to it? | I don't ever recall hearing about a girl from any country going on a shooting rampage at a school. | 26 | Females are more likely to take angst out on themselves.
However, the song "I don't like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats was about a female who shot up a school, and the title was her answer as to why she did it.
Also, here in Colorado, a school shooting by a female who intended to follow the Columbine example was thwa... | 29 |
ELI5: How do documentary shows like in History channel manage to record videos deep inside things like an ant colony, bee hive, etc? | 4,031 | All of these answers are essentially incorrect or incomplete. They do use various camera scopes to look down holes, but that won't really give you very interesting footage most of the time. This is usually just used for short filler shots that are spliced together with shots created in a studio, as another poster menti... | 2,210 | |
[MCU] How was Ultron suppose to protect the world? | So in the movie Tony Stark creates Ultron to protect the world and says "What if the next time aliens roll up to the club they couldn't get past the bouncer." My question is how? How is a more intelligent jarvis going to make a difference? Tony already has the Iron Legion which Jarvis and Him do a pretty good job of co... | 42 | In one word: Retirement.
In a few more words, Tony wanted to create an era of peace that didn't rely on the Avengers. Tony wanted an army of Automated Soldiers, who never got tired, never lost control, and never had to go back to Asgard. Who could stand between Earth and any threat that came after it. His hope was th... | 71 |
ELI5: How have sheep existed in the wild without someone to shear them? | I saw a post about a sheep that escaped owners/shearing for years and its wool was out of control. Have sheep ever existed in the wild without someone to shear them? | 197 | They don’t.
Domesticated sheep have been bred to never shed their seasonal coat and continue growing wool all year.
In the wild they’d shed this regularly to avoid overheating in the summer months.
Domesticated sheep that do escape will eventually overgrown and die. | 545 |
ELI5: How is it that if you eat something that disagrees with you, it seems to go "straight through you" even though it takes several hours to digest? | 16 | But that's the thing, if you have diarrhea, it doesn't take several hours. Your body wants to get rid of whatever the offensive thing is, as fast as it can. So it takes liquids FROM your body, to flush out the contents of your stomach and intestines, so you poop it out as fast as possible.
In a regular poop, your body... | 21 | |
ELI5: How does truth serum work? | 31 | Well, there are a bunch of things that are known as "truth serum." Sodium Pentathol and Amobarbital are probably the most widely used ones, but there are many others.
The thing about truth serums, Timmy, is that they're not like what you see on TV. Truth serums don't actually "make" you tell the truth. Some cause w... | 55 | |
Why would an all-knowing and all powerful god want to be worshipped? | I wanted some philosophy of religion perspectives on such a question. Worship is often taken for granted, I.e. if there is a God, then surely we must worship it. Has anyone put forth an argument to why God would command worship? | 176 | I won't put forward a serious explanation here, but just to put your question into context, if you listen to actual religious people or read either the Gita, the Quran or the Bible you must face the possibility as it's usually explained that it is us who need the grace or presence of God, not the other way around. The ... | 120 |
ELI5: Why do towels and wash-cloths lose the ability to absorb water over time? | There are a few ELI5’s about new towels needing to be washed a few times before they become absorbent. I’ve observed the opposite too - my old dish towels and other cloths just don’t soak up water very well over time. | 15 | The ability to absorb water is that, when it touches water, the tiny water molecules get scooped into air pockets between the fibers of the towel.
However, it's not picking up only water. It's also picking up whatever is in the water. This could be dirt, soap, hair, dust, etc.
When the towel dries, the water evapor... | 32 |
Why is it not yet possible to use plant-based plastics for all of the things we currently use petroleum-based plastics for? | 122 | The shortest version is that it is possible, it just results in more costly starting materials. The entire chemical industry is oriented around the cheap carbon starting materials from petroleum, and it will take *decades* to change that. Entire plants costing hundreds of millions of dollars will become obsolete and us... | 26 | |
ELI5: Why does salt bring out favors in any dish? | 29 | In a high school chemistry class, you'll see that saltwater is actually capable of conducting electricity. Na gives an electron to Cl and becomes positive, while Cl becomes negative. And this facilitates the electron movement and in turn, electricity. In a microscopic level, 'tasting' food just depends on tiny electric... | 51 | |
ELI5: How Bill Cosby is not in jail? | 39 | Because he has not been convicted of a crime in court. If a crime is not prosecuted within a certain time period, in can't be prosecuted. This is called statute of limitation. His victims are suing him in civil court. Civil courts can asses monetary damage only. | 69 | |
What does not emit electromagnetic radiation? | My remote sensing textbook states "With the exception of objects at absolute zero, all objects emit electromagnetic radiation."
I understand that an object doesn't have to emit it's own radiation, it can reflect another objects radiation.
So what are the processes that cause electromagnetic radiation to be emitted? ... | 157 | Objects are made of atoms and atoms are made of charged particles (nuclei and electrons). Charged particles emit EM radiation when they are accelerated. All objects at a nonzero temperature T undergo some form of thermal motion and these random vibrations involve varying velocity and thus accelerations. Therefore all o... | 61 |
[Mortal Kombat] How come the top of Kung Lao's hat can go clean through bodies and things? | And related question: wouldn't the blades of Kitana's fans have to be in the same plane to cut cleanly? Or at least it seems to be and should be. | 17 | When Kung Lao throws his hat, he spins it like a frisbee. What’s less noticeable is that the blade is mounted in a separate spinning rim. When the blade makes contact, it slows down compared to the inner rim due to the extra resistance. This triggers a reverse spring mechanism connected to the top of the hat causing it... | 20 |
Since Hegel is infamous for how ambiguous his writings were, how much can we really trust what his translators thought he wrote? Maybe his works come across as completely different in english than in german | 22 | Ambiguity and difficulty in Hegel's writing is typically not because of his word choices, but because of the actual thoughts he's trying to communicate. We can take an example passage from the *Phenomenology of Spirit*:
> Das Selbstbewußtsein hiemit seiner selbst nur gewiß, durch das Aufheben diese andern, das sich... | 30 | |
ELI5: Why do Diesel engines have that distinctive sound to them when compared to gasoline engines? | 2,517 | Yet another question for an engineer
Diesel engines don't use a spark plug, instead igniting their air-fuel mixture via pressure and heat.
With a gasoline engine, the mixture is well mixed before the ignition happens. If it gets too hot, you get pre-ignition, or knock. (The technical term for that mixture is that it'... | 1,851 | |
Firefly : Does Shepherd Book have to keep paying to stay on Serenity throughout the series... | ... while watching Out of Gas I noticed Mal tell Inara she was paid up until the end of the month, understandable, she runs a business out of the shuttle.
But those not in the crew (River, Simon, Book), would they still have to pay? I think Simon's medical skills cover him and River... does that mean Book is the only ... | 46 | Inara pays because she is a customer. She's not paying for passage aboard Serenity, she's paying to rent out the shuttle. Everyone else is more like an employee, they work for room, board, and a cut of the loot.
Simon and Shepherd started out as paying passengers, but ended up part of the crew. Like the rest of the cr... | 43 |
(ELI5) Why is old war footage (ww2) always sped up | I've always wondered this whenever in history class or even just watching a ww2 documentary all of the clips of soldiers moving or running are sped up and it makes them look like there running in 4x the speed, is there a reason for this or do they do it to make the clip go by quicker? | 112 | First, let's understand how cameras work. As a general rule, video cameras are just taking a lot of still pictures in a row. When we play these in order, they give the illusion of movement.
In WWII times, cameras often took videos where they took 18 pictures per second (or 18 frames per second as a film person would c... | 283 |
ELI5: Why are certain people ticklish? | 66 | Because as humans evolved, the body need to be aware of something when it was crawling on the body. The reaction we have is to defend against bugs or snakes or other shit from crawling on our bodies and hurting us. | 16 | |
ELI5: How is mass different from weight? | Somebody said they are different because of gravity. | 35 | Weight is dependent on gravitational force. It's a measure of that gravitational force, usually on Earth. Mass, which measures the amount of matter in an object, exists whether gravity acts on it or not. The same object has the same mass on Earth, the Moon, or in the middle of space, but has different weights at each o... | 109 |
CMV: People need to stop and think before arguing about terminology/semantics | I think it’s a flaw of CMV and also logic in general. This train of though started by reading a lot of the online debates about the term “concentration camps.” I think the debate is relatively absurd for a variety of reasons on both sides. First of all, no matter what you call them the realities within them are the sam... | 58 | Okay — so when two people fundamentally disagree over whether a term is appropriate how should they resolve their dispute?
I think rational discourse is exactly the right way to resolve disputes like this. It's how you find out what exactly people mean by the terms they use. It's a peaceful resolution that gives both ... | 16 |
ELI5: How come Pakistan, a nation with the world's 6th largest army and nuclear weapons, hasn't defeated the Taliban in 12 years and needs the US' help. | 845 | Why does the USA have a problem still with organized crime? No matter what they try, there are always people willing to do the bad things for money. If not for money, then for religion. Plus people from other countries give the bad guys money too , and weapons, and even send more bad people there JUST to cause mayhem!
| 378 | |
[Dungeons & Dragons] 8 Hours ago my intestines were falling out and I was nearly dead from traumatic injuries, now I'm perfectly fine. How? | 19 | You might have taken a hit to the head, since you seem to have forgotten our cleric friend here can channel the power of his god. Indeed that is what he did, and he healed you. You will still need to rest for about a week in a comfortable bed to recover completely. | 34 | |
What is happening when water puts out a fire? | I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but It's something that I think many people just accept without understanding. What about water makes it good at putting out fire?
Edit: A space | 17 | Water puts out a fire in two ways.
Firstly, by covering the burning object's surface area, preventing oxygen from reaching it.
With thinner or incomplete coatings of water, fires can be put out or at least slowed through heat absorption of the water. Water has a high heat capacity, and evaporates before reaching the f... | 19 |
Eli5: How do icebreaker ships work? | How are they different from regular ships?
What makes them be able to plow through ice where others aren’t? | 4,592 | Normal ships is made with a more or less straight wedge bow which is designed to push the water to the side out of the way of the ship. And that is fine because water will just rise up in a bow wave and get out of the way. However if you take such a ship into ice it will encounter problems. Ice is quite hard and when y... | 5,035 |
Ordinary vs Honours Degree | I’ve failed four exams in college and they will all be capped at 40% if I pass the repeats. However, my results from my ordinary degree are quite good.
Anyone know if many business companies require a honours degree over an ordinary? | 16 | An honours degree is mostly needed for graduate schools. Outside of academia the difference between a ‘regular’ and ‘honours’ is insignificant (but in some professions you can get more money with more advanced degrees). It all depends on what your goals are! | 11 |
ELI5: Why do digital distribution video games cost the same as physical disc versions of games? | 30 | Because they are made by for-profit companies, that don't want to sell for less than the market will bear, because that reduces their profits. People will pay 60 euro for a game. They don't have a big incentive to sell it for 30. If it costs less for them to distribute, so much the better, more profit. | 34 | |
Why, if we get a new set of skin every 80 days or so, does skin ever become wrinkled and old? | Cells replace each other, so why does skin age if they are new cells? | 35 | Collagen and elastase degradation in the skin matrix. These proteins give skin its flexible nature. Over time the protein is no longer secreted as readily by fibroblasts and the existing matrix begin to degrade, resulting in looser skin. | 19 |
[Star Wars] Are people born as force users, or can I meditate my way to becoming a Jedi? | 96 | There's a baseline level of force sensitivity that's present at birth. 90% of force users are born with it but a small percentage can achieve a minimal amount of force ability with enough practice and attunement but it's marginal at best and requires a neutral or light side alignment. Chirrut from rogue one was not f... | 95 | |
[Star Wars] So can EVERY astromech droid open ANY door ANYWHERE in the galaxy, or is R2D2 special? | I was watching the Star Wars marathon this weekend for the billionth time and it really strikes me as odd that a droid built to help fly X-wings can break into any door on any planet, or any door on the Death Star. Why do they even HAVE doors in Star Wars if any $20 droid can just open them? | 297 | R2-D2 is special, sort-of.
Astromechs - in fact most droids - routinely have their memories wiped, rendering them back to factory default. They are 100% artificially intelligent and can learn and grow beyond their programming. Artoo never had his memory wiped, and has decades of knowledge and experience. He's quite g... | 338 |
CMV: The US should declare war on the cartels, end the domestic war on drugs, and help stabilize/invest in Mexico. | The single greatest form of external-terrorism in the United States is the introduction of heroine, coke, meth, and opiates like fentanyl to communities. People who take these are more likely to commit violent crimes, become homeless, have children that go to orphanages or grow up hungry. These drugs tear apart familie... | 31 | The US isn't exactly trusted by the Mexican community right now.
The Mexican people aren't going to be rolling out a welcome mat, thanking us for saving them.
Police action in a foreign country is hard. How many of our armed forces know Spanish? How would our armed forces identify targets?
When you're frustrated a... | 33 |
Why doesn't [Batman] just permanently or extensively cripple the Joker? | Even in his Dark Night incarnation, Batman isn't afraid to break bones, so what's stopping him from simply rendering the Joker physically incapable if Batman won't kill? | 85 | By definition, villains worthy of Batman's notice are the movers and shakers, capable of achieving very impressive results (even if said results are immoral). If successfully rehabilitated, these people are capable of contributing substantially to the improvement of human society. By the simple act of sending these vil... | 44 |
ELI5: Plastic, glass, or can? What is the most eco-friendly material to sell drinks in? | If only one of those materials would be legal because of being the most environmentally friendly, which one and why? | 64 | Can. Metal is the most easily recyclable material.
Plastics degrade over time and can only be recycled a limited number of times, as well as mixing types can weaken products or produce unwanted qualities
Glass is more easily recycled, but mixed colored glass can be a challenge
Metals, especially aluminum, can be ea... | 46 |
[Star Trek: First Contact]why did the (alt-timeline)Borg bother occupying Earth? Why not just assimilate the population (circa 2063) then abandon the planet? | Earth is in the middle of an area of the galaxy they have no presence in (IE meaning holding onto it could be a real pain in the arse), why not just harvest the planet of sapient beings & resources then abandon it?
​
Edit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4k72iqolT4&app=desktop](https://www.youtub... | 22 | We have no idea what the rest of the Alpha Quadrant looks like. It's possible that the Borg used Earth as a beachhead to conquer the rest of it. It wouldn't have been difficult, given their futuristic technology and aggressive recruitment practices. | 14 |
How do scientists determine what a planet core is made of ? | 17 | There are no direct methods, but there are several indirect methods that we can use. First off, it depends on the kind of planet you are studying.
Let’s start with gas giants like Jupiter. Our first step would be to look at the moons circling it, from their orbits we can get a really good guess at what the overall mas... | 14 | |
Why are some contagious diseases terminal? Wouldn't it be more beneficial for it if its host stayed alive? | 51 | Not if it manages to spread before killing the host. Perhaps it causes diarrhoea which dehydrates and kills the host, but the diarrhoea causes the infection of many more hosts. It isn't about what the disease thinks is beneficial, it's just what happened to work. | 28 | |
What effect does reccesions have on black markets? illegal drugs, ect | Anyone know? | 122 | Overall the black market suffers, but it could also have varying effects depends upon from which side you look.
From Sellers POV, as there is no fixed price, at a time fo reduced demand they will increase the prices so that they are able to cover up the shortfall in revenues. This leads to an increase in prices, but ... | 27 |
How do I helpfully interact with undergrads who approach me inquiring about Harris, Petersen, Molyneux, etc.? | This semester alone, I’ve had half a dozen or so undergrads approach me before and after lectures/sections to ask whether I listen to their podcasts, what I think about them, and so on. So far I’ve expressed an unfamiliarity with them so as to be careful. Is there a better way to approach this? | 84 | This seems like a good opportunity to emphasize basic interpretive skills. For example, if you try to *outline* a Molyneux talk, eliminating the snarky rhetoric and simply attempting to show the steps of an argument, accounting for explicit premises and implicit assumptions, things tend to fall apart pretty quickly. Ev... | 51 |
Advice For Humanities Scholars Thinking of Leaving The Academic Industry | I wanted to offer advice to professors or PhD students who are considering a career change. Last year I resigned from my tenure-track job in English, my first full-time academic post after graduate school. Ten months ago I began a new career in hospital operations management, a field in which I had no previous experien... | 220 | +1 on the advice to apply for local grants. Most scholars are completely oblivious when it comes to where pots of money are. Everyone is going after NEH, MacArthur...sure, apply to one of those once but then repurpose that application for the family or community foundations in your area. You might only be getting $10k ... | 27 |
Do people have their own philosophy? | I'm saying like do people have their own well constructed moral system and perspectives and stuff . I know this is a stupid question but i jus wanted to know. | 34 | I mean some people probably. But the average joe on the street likely doesn’t have a well thought out moral system, or view on the ontological status of numbers or a view on most philosophical issues. | 53 |
[The Mist] Are there any intelligent civilizations in the homeworld of the Mist? | 89 | Civilization? Maybe, but most likely not. Sentient and sapient beings? Yes.
The Mist leaks out from the void between worlds. It contains your usual intelligent lovecraftian horrors.
The void between worlds are the remnants of the Prim after Gan arose and spun the innumerable worlds from his navel. Nowdays it's filled... | 62 | |
[ST:TNG] Why is Picard French? | Not an in-universe question, but something which has always bugged me.
Why, having decided to make the captain French, did they hire an English actor? Having decided to hire Patrick Stewart, why didn't they change the character's background to English? And why, if he is French, does he drink Earl Grey rather than café... | 32 | sometime after WW III, French culture as we know it was destroyed and replaced by the invading Britons. The surviving population was re- educated. They were taught to speak English and drink tea. Several generations later, the descendants while regaining their place in society, retain little to no trace of their french... | 34 |
ELI5 : Illegal Activities on Television | May be a dumb question but I've always wondered...How do the people on television who show their faces and names while uncovering their illegal business/activities not get caught and thrown in jail?
Ex. Moonshiners, new series Tickle, multiple series on drugs etc... | 69 | Ok, so you're a cop. You see Snoop DogLionWhatever smoking a huge joint on tv, right there in your town. So you decide you're going to arrest that guy.
He shows up in your town again, and you arrest him. Then his lawyer appears and asks how you know he was smoking an illegal substance on that video. Do you have an... | 60 |
I believe oligarchy is a bigger and much more urgent problem than patriarchy. CMV | Let us define these concepts first:
**Patriarchy:** From feminist theory, the *a priori* truth that society is immediately geared to favor male *(cis-gendered(?))* people, male-like qualities and male role models to the derision of women, feminine traits and role-models in women and everything else in between.
**Oli... | 57 | I'd say that a lot of feminists aren't quite as reductionist as to say that patriarchy is the reason for all of society's ills. Rather, they'd point out that a lot of social problems are shaped by patriarchy. For example, Wall Street is overwhelmingly male. This is because Wall Street strongly rewards competitiveness a... | 17 |
Why are workers paid an hourly wage instead of a portion of the value they add to the product? | The question comes to me as a philosophy degree holding line cook. I watch the raw beef turn into a delicious hamburger, and yet I am compensated for my time rather than the work I put into the food.
I can think of a few bumps in the road, but no real reason why not, besides the fact that businesses profit more by tr... | 50 | I would say a major reason is the desire to keep labor at a relatively fixed cost. Under the current system, your employer knows exactly how long they'll be open and how much that will cost them in payroll. Giving you a percentage of the total product sold is much harder to predict. (Of course, keeping labor's share of... | 36 |
ELI5: Where does the strength from a hydraulic press come from? | 582 | Explaining like you're 5:
It's basically the fluid version of a lever or gears. You exchange speed for force.
An example: You turn on your kitchen sink faucet, and stick a glass under it. In a second or two, your glass is full of water, but it's not very heavy. However, if you stuck a bucket under the faucet and l... | 225 | |
All corniness aside... is this a fact? | [Cute Comic](http://imgur.com/f6iD4)
If so, I'm about to start spinning. | 47 | There is some truth to it, spinning does lengthen the night (by a tiny tiny amount), even if the statement is technically false:
Angular momentum is conserved, so if you start spinning you are actually increasing or decreasing the angular momentum of earth. So while you spin the angular momentum of earth is decreased ... | 57 |
[Lovecraft] Are there any Eldritch brings we can perceive as being “good”? | They probably transcend our ideas of good and evil, but from our mortal lens can any of them be seen as good guys? | 17 | It's not technically *impossible*. It's just statistically unlikely.
None of the eldritch entities are *just* evil. What they want and what they embody could be *anything*. There could be some eldritch entity whose only value is the colour blue, or the production of paperclips, or building more stars.
The problem is... | 37 |
[DC] What is life actually like in a bottled city owned by Brainiac? | 66 | Brainiac specifically takes these cities in order to preserve the civilization they came from as best he can. He's not using them for scientific experiments, or computational power, or as a car battery, he's keeping them exactly as they were, for posterity.
This means that you could expect life to go on just as it al... | 46 | |
Does inverse ethnocentrism exist? | By “inverse ethnocentrism” I mean the belief that one’s own culture is inferior to others.
I see lots of Americans online talking about how much they hate their home country so I began wondering: Is this a phenomenon that’s been recognized and studied? | 41 | Frantz Fanon wrote about this in the colonial context. That is to say, people who have been colonised internalise the colonisers' view of them as inferior. That's not really what you are referring to, but it's how a lot of anthropological work engages with the idea of inferiority, which in turn draws on a lot of Edward... | 25 |
ELI5: Why are Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and ISIS against each other? | 32 | Firstly, religion. Al-Qaeda and ISIS are Sunni Arabs, Hezbollah are Shi'a Arab. Huge ethno-religious conflicts between the two.
As for AQ and ISIS, it's a bit more complicated. They're not really enemies, they just disagree with each other. You've probably read in the news that ISIS used to be affiliated with AQ u... | 36 | |
ELI5: How can we calculate the mass of the earth? | 20 | We start with the formulas
>Weight = m*g
and
>F_g = GMm/R^2
which is just Newton's second law and Newton's law of universal gravitation. If we equate the two, we get
>M=gR^2 /G
so if we know the gravitational acceleration on the surface of Earth, radius of Earth and the gravitational constant G we can calcu... | 10 | |
Does high cortisol in the body, or a stronger than average cortisol response to external stressors, equate to a person being generally more stressed out? In other words, stress 'causes' cortisol, but does cortisol cause stress? | We know that external stressors and/or stress generally result in a statistically significant cortisol response. Has the opposite connection been shown to hold statistical significance? In other words, stress 'causes' cortisol, but does cortisol cause stress?
I'm asking this because I've come across studies in the pas... | 25 | Both. Cortisol is a sign of how aroused the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis is, which is a central part of the body’s response to chronic stress. But at the same time, neurons in the cortical and limbic structures express corticotropin releasing hormone receptors that act in a kind of feed-forward dynamic, to media... | 10 |
[Star Wars] How did the Rebels escape Yavin? | So the Empire finds out about the secret Rebel base on Yavin, and sends the Death Star to blow it the hell up. And apparently the Death Star just travels around with *zero* capital ship escorts, for some reason. OK, fine, the Empire is arrogant and tactically unwise.
But surely the moment the Death Star is blown up, t... | 20 | Yavin isn't exactly a hop, skip, and a jump from Imperial space, much less the Imperial fleet. Then there's the natural disarray that comes in the wake of the destruction of such a massive asset, as well as the loss of a leader like Tarkin. You don't rush the rest of the fleet into a situation where your best weapon ... | 19 |
ELI5: Why it's important to stay awake after a concussion. | 56 | Staying awake doesn't help with the concussion, it helps the people around you (doctors, paramedics, etc) tell if you're experiencing any sort of brain damage. If you can't talk, they can't ask you how you feel or tell if your speech is slurred or ask you if you remember your name. If your eyes are closed, they can't... | 47 | |
CMV: Homelessness is not a crime | This CMV is not about the reasons why people become homeless. Even if people would become homeless solely due to their personal failure, they are still humans and they should not be treated like pigeons or another city pest.
Instead I want to talk about laws that criminalize homelessness. Some jurisdictions have laws... | 5,841 | Homelessness isn't a crime, but throwing a bunch of used needles on the ground or taking a dump on the streets crime is. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to prove that the used needles next to this homeless person is theirs, especially if there are several homeless people in the area.
It's easiest just to ma... | 658 |
CMV: CMV: Stupidity is not inherently different from any other form of mental disability. Society should treat them the same. | Let me preface this by saying that I've struggled with ADHD for my entire life, and this isn't meant to be a tirade against people with mental disabilities: I think that we are far, *far* too hard on stupid people for something that isn't their fault. It's considered unacceptable to hate people with disabilities of any... | 17 | Well, we have to draw a distinction between people whose mental capacity is inherently lower than average, and those people who willfully choose not to exercise the mental capacity they've been given. Most of the animosity toward stupid people is directed toward those who, through laziness, rebelliousness or disinteres... | 13 |
[Among Us] Why do the Impostors allow the Crewmates to eject them if they're killer aliens? | 823 | While aliens can kill a crewmate in a 1-on-1 fight, things get more complicated when they're up against 2 or more crewmates. Keep in mind that many execution animations involve crewmates being taken by surprise; during a meeting where crewmates are deciding to sentence an individual to death, they will be on the lookou... | 754 | |
ELI5: what exactly does the o/d button on my automatic car do? | I get that it stands for overdrive but as I know about as much about cars as I know about quantum physics (that is to say, not a lot) what does that mean? Should I be using it? Should I not have been pushing the button while I drove down the interstate? | 109 | Your car has a transmission, which has different speeds. That allows the wheels to spin at different speeds relative to the speed that your engine is speeding at.
If you watch your tachometer as you accelerate, you'll notice the engine speed increases, and then the needle drops back down and starts increasing again -... | 77 |
Why do most experimental fusion reactors focus on deuterium-tritium fusion, and why isn't deuterium-proton fusion ever used? | Deuterium-tritium fusion produces a helium-4 nucleus and neutron. In stars, deuterium and protons are fused to create helium-3 without the production of a neutron, in the second step of the proton-proton chain reaction. Wouldn't deuterium-proton fusion be the much better choice, considering they have the same amount of... | 458 | The difficulty in fusion is over coming the positive repulsion between protons in the 2 nuclei. The closer 2 nuclei get, the more the protons push each other away. Sounds like you're probably aware of that, and also aware that the only way to overcome this barrier is the strong nuclear force exerted by all nucleons at ... | 101 |
[DUNE]Did technological advancement stagnate after the Butlerian Jihad? | If you look at the timeline here, most of mans technological advancements seem to be made before the jihad.
http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_(Dune_Encyclopedia)
Did the loss of AI lead to a stagnation in the rate of new technological discoveries? What are some of the major technologies that were invented after the... | 43 | I think it's more that the betrayal of man by machine shook humanity's trust in technological advancement. Instead human society seeing new technology as offering a brighter, better future it was come to be seen as a danger to our long-term survival and not only abandoned but outlawed. The number of planets even attemp... | 34 |
[Pokemon] Do Water-Types shoot clean/drinkable water? Can I use a Fire-Type's fire to cook a meal? How practical are Pokemon's abilities in normal day-to-day lives? | 48 | Dude, it's just water and fire, it's not poisonous or anything. Fire types can melt steel with their flames, so maybe tell them to hold back a bit or just use a campfire like normal people, unless you enjoy your meal charcoal-y. Water created by Pokemon is probably distilled, safe to drink unless you're fasting or hav... | 24 | |
[Avatar] After Hama teaches Katara bloodbending, she decides to use the power as much as she can to stop the fire nation. How much does this change the series? Does the world of korra change at all? | 17 | Assuming she is blood lusted (hur hur) and gets over the full moon exclusivity, she can wreck the fire nation with little consequence. Maybe Aangs pacifist ass wouldn't wanna put out for her after she kills a bunch of people.
If she blood bends more in character then the survivors would spread word of being blood ben... | 21 | |
[Looney Tunes] Some questions about Michigan J. Frog | For anyone asking "Who?", [here you go.](https://vimeo.com/50941741)
Does he just sing when only his "owner" can see him? Does that mean if he were rediscovered in the present-day, with the prevalence of security cams and phone cameras he won't even make it to "*Hello my ragtime gaaaaallll*" before having to revert t... | 22 | He is just an asshole, nothing more. He likes to fuck with whoever wants to try to make a quick buck on his musical talent.
And he knows when someone is watching him, even security cameras. He will just wait until he is in an ally or at home to do his thing. | 12 |
[Star Trek] What species became the Borg? | What was the first species to turn themselves into what we would recognize as Borg? | 29 | We don't know. We know they originated in the Delta quadrant and that the species that became the Queen was *not*, in fact, the Borg's original species.
There is sparse information, but the Vaadwaur encountered them in the 15^th century, and claimed that they were a minor species who had only conquered a few star syst... | 33 |
[Fallout] Is Atom an actual god or eldritch abomination? | We know that Lovecraftian deities are a well established concept in Fallout and that they are associated with radiation (Ghouls worshiping the obelisk in the Dunwich building, the Krivbeknih exploding in radiation when being destroyed, radiation always being present when these deities are being presented). So I ask, is... | 18 | No they just personified the atomic detonation of the nukes and give a possible reason why something so shitty happened. Basically it was a half glass full style scenario of people trying to cope with the disturbing results.
Plus they needed an explanation why some people were totally immune or resistant to the radiat... | 23 |
ELI5: Are dogs actually happy when they are smiling or do we just think so because we perceive a smile as positive? | and no I do not mean when a dog just shows its teeth, I am aware that is just aggression. | 31 | Some dogs do actually smile, as we do, but it can also often times be a sign of stress or a need to cool the body by taking in and letting out large amounts of air. Dogs are much better at reading the subtle differences, than humans. | 10 |
How can the stock market keep growing year on year? | It confuses me where that 3% annual growth comes from. Those of us with index funds are banking on it continuing indefinitely, but how can that be possible? Nothing in the universe keeps growing indefinitely.
Does the economy keep growing because it still has people and commodities in agrarian or village societies whi... | 26 | Long-term economic growth has three components: (1) Labor, (2) Capital, and (3) Technological Advancement. When looking at long-term economic growth, it's not unreasonable to assume, at least in a developed economy, that the economy will grow generally each year, as there is more labor, capital, and technological growt... | 23 |
ELI5: Why are so many deep sea and cave creatures white? I know it's 'lack of sunlight' but why does lack of sunlight make things white? | 17 | If there is no light, then you don't need camouflage because nothing can see you.
If there is no UV light, you aren't getting sunburned and don't need melanin to protect your cells from damage.
It's just a case of less effort, same result, and over generations, those low effort strategies became the most common trait... | 26 | |
[Superpowers] does super strength give you super speed and durability? | I just want to know if it can enhanced your physical abilities other than being able to carry heavy objects | 16 | This is why general questions make no sense here.
What gives the character super speed? Is it regular muscle power that let's them push off harder? Or do they manipulate time or space to achieve super speed? Maybe their body enters some kind of transformation into a nonphysical state? Do they utilize some kind of Sci... | 21 |
Eli5: Why does the eye need a moment to "get used" to the dark to see properly? | 29 | There are two main things that dictate how well you can see in low light:
First is the iris. It expands or contracts fairly quickly to let more or less light in.
Second is a special chemical in the back of the eye that increases light sensitivity. This chemical is destroyed by bright light and it takes 20-30 minutes ... | 48 | |
Are Supermassive Blackholes eating galaxies orbiting them? | Edit: Thanks reddit that was a great discussion. :) | 366 | Not really. To address a common misconception, the supermassive black holes don't act like 'gravitational anchor' for the galaxy, much like how our sun dominates the solar system. Even though these black holes may be millions of times the mass of the sun, galaxies contain billions of stars. For perspective, the sun con... | 280 |
[Star Wars] I have just stolen Home One and 5 Nebulon-B frigates, what is the worse that the Rebel Alliance can send after me? | Me and my crew of B1 battle droids that have been programmed to be extra smart have just stolen Home One, and 5 Nebulon-B frigates? What could the Alliance send after me?
Edit: Pre-Endor
EDIT 2: Lets say the have unlimited fuel, and my droids can pilot the starfighters also they auto repair themselves | 35 | Fortunately your Nebulon-Bs mean that you can defend yourself to some degree from starfighter strikes. However, there are still other forces in the Rebellion capable of dueling a force like that on even terms.
Really, though? The worst that they can send after you are their diplomats, agents, spies, and saboteurs. You... | 29 |
CMV: The world would be better if everyone were forced to learn Lojban. | [Lojban](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban), for those unfamiliar, is a perfectly logical and completely unambiguous language that takes from many different languages to create what I believe is humanity's best attempt at linguistic perfection. But that's not the view I want changed.
I think that if there were some ... | 15 | > but once it were done, it could be truly groundbreaking and help us all to understand one another and help us empathize with each other much better
Since this seems to be the crux of your argument, why do you believe this to be the case? Is there evidence that the same language specifically (and not culture) actu... | 36 |
ELI5 How are large sums of money transferred between nations? | Say country A sends some billions of dollars to country B in aid or in exchange for some resource. How does the actual transfer take place? How does the wealth of country A decrease and the wealth of country B increase? | 493 | Nations have state banks, such as the federal reserve in the United States. The transactions happen over a wire system, like fedwire or swift. In straightforward transaction like you are supposing, it's just like any other international money transfer, only with larger amounts and between public banks controlled by the... | 392 |
[ST:Voyager] Where does the USS Voyager get all of those photon torpedoes from? | When the USS Voyager first became lost there were serious supply issues. Photon torpedoes pack a whole lot more punch than a phaser bank due to their 1kg antimatter warhead, but torpedoes are in limited supply. Once the torpedoes are depleted there's no more to be obtained.
At first, Voyager's crew was very reluctant ... | 16 | During the first part of their return, personal logs were filled with mentions of the criticality of resupply operations. Later though, as the situation settled somewhat, the drama of needing to be constantly resupplied wore off, primarily because it became much easier to barter with civilizations other than the Kazon.... | 24 |
ELI5:When people are lined up for black Friday sales days in advance, how do they do normal "life" stuff? | Here is an example:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/black-friday-shoppers-lining-up-best-buy-2013_n_4316397.html
Now be it folks lining up 12 days or 5 days or 2 days early for Black Friday Sales, how do these folks shower, shave, eat, work, take care of the kids, pay their bills, go to the bathroom-especial... | 39 | Frequently they're students or others with a low opportunity cost of being there (meaning they may live with parents or others who pay bills and work infrequently or jobs that are rather more flexible than most or offer liberal leave policies).
Stores love this because it means there will be a news story that basica... | 23 |
[Star Wars] How does Mace Windu's fighting style make him "walk the line" of the Dark Side? | I've read on this sub before that his chosen fighting style is enough to make him tip over into the dark side, but he never quite does it. Why is something as trivial as that able to make any effect on his connection to the Force? | 205 | Lightsaber combat styles aren't simply the movements of the body and blade. There's a mental aspect to them as well.
Vapaad, the style he co-developed, is one that has two non-physical components to it - it requires the user to enjoy the fight for the fight's sake, and it also acts as a conduit for the dark side. This... | 224 |
When your brain releases chemicals as response to things than happen suddenly in our environment (dopamine, adrenaline, etc), where exactly do they come from? Are they made on the spot or all stored somewhere waiting to be released? | 27 | Pre synaptic vesicles. Neurons both recycle and make these chemicals. But both these processes are two slow. So they have containers (vesicles) waiting right there and ready to go. That way they can release them quickly and restock later. | 19 | |
What does ^-/- symbolize in genetics? For example Suz12^-/- | Hi, I am reading a paper (Gene Silencing Triggers Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 Recruitment to CpG Islands Genome Wide http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2014.06.005) and I see this ^-/- symbol or ^-/+ or the like a lot in reference to specific cell lines. I don't have much of a background with genetics but we have to ... | 69 | Your inference is correct, it's a way of designating knockout strains. In this case it's addressing the fact that diploid species have two copies of the gene in question. "+" is shorthand for wild type, so -/+ strains are heterozygous knockouts, and -/- are homozygous knockouts.
| 36 |
CMV: This isn't a race issue, it's a police brutality issue | The problem isn't just that police are shooting too many blacks, it's that police are shooting too many people across the board. When you adjust for crime rates, blacks are not shot more than other races. Blacks commit more crimes and as a result have more police encounters which leads to more shootings. The rate of bl... | 56 | Here's the thing.
There are lots of problems with the police (and good things too, but it's just not the point).
You think the biggest problem is police brutality. You've seen some police brutality? maybe you know people who've experienced it maybe? fair enough either way. You are anti-police brutality. That's become... | 23 |
CMV: Religion has a net negative impact on the world | I’ve been thinking about the role religion plays globally, and after a lot of internal dialogue I’m cautiously confident that religion causes more harm than good.
Here is my reasoning...
Most religions claim dogmatic authority on truth, and are over-confident relative to the evidence they have to support their author... | 15 | Basically every historical document we have today from before the 1500s is available because of religion. They are also responsible for most of the medical advancements into the modern Era and arguably contribute more to the progress of medical science than anyone else.
As well as every major "age of enlightenment" w... | 23 |
ELI5: Why do people find the dark so fearful? | Of course there can be many reasons, but is there any ultimate characteristic that is most common or something? | 15 | Evolution. Darkness presents increased risk. We as a species depend strongly upon vision, which is in particular very hindered by darkness. The same is not true of every other species, some of which are formidable predators, nor is it an inconvenience to risks like falls and other sources of injury.
So us being strong... | 23 |
[Fallout] Has anyone attempted to leave America and seek out civilisation/better conditions in Europe? | Of course, I get that the two issues here are communication (so people in the US Wastelands wouldn't really hear back from these explorers) due to a lack of a postal system, telephone system or Internet technology, but also an apparent lack of transportation (obviously with no working planes, limited access to Vertibir... | 115 | > (assumingly) as devastated as the American Wastelands.
Europe is likely worse off than the USA. It was nuked in the Resource Wars, fought a massive Civil War, and was bombed again in the Great War. It was nuked twice over, had no stable governments before the bombs fell, was already in a state of anarchy, and had... | 111 |
ELI5: The Christie Bridge Scandal | 801 | It's still sort of developing, but here's what it appears has happened:
Christie was running for reelection as governor. It was widely agreed upon that he would win easily (and he did).
While the race was going on, the mayor of a town in NJ declined to endorse Christie. Shortly thereafter, a state agency closed some ... | 688 | |
ELI5: Why don't moons have moons? | 36 | So many incorrect answers here.
A sub moon has never been observed in our solar system or anywhere else. While there's nothing preventing one from existing for a short time, the system is not likely to be stable other than for some theoretical models. Saturn's moon Iapetus may be able to support a moon of its own but... | 37 |
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