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I believe that the age limit on voting should be removed, but you should be tested on your knowledge of the candidates you are voting on before being allowed to vote. CMV | I'm 18, so legally, I can vote in elections. However, I know very little about politics, so I don't believe that I should be able to have a part in choosing how the country is ran, when I don't even know what I'm choosing. I certainly don't want Jim over here voting for Bob simply because he belongs to a party that Jim... | 27 | Whats more dangerous, people voting for candidates they don't have much knowledge of, or the people running the test setting it up to target some demographic they don't want voting? Because thats what happened the last time ssimilar policies were applied in America. | 39 |
Would someone who has both legs replaced with fully cybernetic legs still get tired when walking long distances? | 30 | Depends on the exact mechanism, but most likely there would still be pressure on the place where they connect to the body, or possibly somewhere else on the body, that would cause a person to tire out. | 22 | |
CMV: Being whatever-phobic is fine as long as you don't attack the individual. | Phobic means " a person with an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something. " This means that being phobic of something is just being scared of something, so what if someone is scared of a particular group of people? Leave them be. As long as they don't attack them for it, that's fine.
Now I foresee you gu... | 37 | Would you think it's fine to be silently transphobic if someone were, say, a paramedic refusing to treat a transgender person in medical distress?
Is it fine to just silently never recommend a fat person for hire as a job interviewer because they are fatphobic?
Would it be ok for a police officer to not respond to a ... | 24 |
What is "The Culture" | In the who would win subreddit I keep hearing about an overpowered group called The Culture. Who are they? | 109 | In universe, they're an anarcho-socialist space-based society, primarily human and near-human, and nominally run by "Minds" - extremely advanced synthetic life forms, that usually take the form of the multiple-kilometres long ships that the majority of the Culture's human and Drone population live on.
They have a pop... | 90 |
ELI5: How does "YouTube money" work? | 94 | Yeah. People watch these videos, you -as youtuber- can be allowed to put ads in front of the video. Per 1000 views or something you get like 1-5 dollars. (Google and the Youtuber split the revenue)
So you really need many views to make a decent living from it. | 37 | |
ELI5: Why do some foods seem to "go right through you"? | I think Taco Bell would be the place that comes to mind most with this title but why do some foods seems to slide right through you when others seems to take your normal digestive cycle to be processed?
EDIT: WOW! Thank you for my first award! All the comments have been a joy to read through. I've laughed and learne... | 3,153 | Your GI tract does a lot more analysis and evaluation than you expect.
When you eat something that makes your gut decide, "Nope, this is toxic." it will release instructions to the entire GI tract that more or less translate to, "MAKE WAY!"
So it's not actually the Taco Bell that you're passing a couple hours later,... | 4,669 |
(Starship Troopers/The Forever War/The Lost Fleet/Star Trek/Star Wars/and others) Differing principles of interstellar travel. | Two questions
Which fictional travel method is more favorable?
Which fictional travel method is more realistic?
Starship Troopers = Cherenkov Drive days to weeks between A to B no time dilation effect
The Forever War = Collapse Star jumps almost instantaneous travel between massive distance from A to B suffers from... | 34 | You forgot one.
Warhammer 40k = Warp drive, enters a dimension filled with demons made of rape, lemon juice, and torture, to travel from point A to point B. Destination may be off from point B by a few dozen light years. Suffers from variable time dilation ranging from -1000 years to 1000 years. | 32 |
[Star Wars] Do human Jedi live longer than normal non Force Sensitive humans? | With their perfect physique and force powers it would seem so. | 24 | Typically in legends they lived slightly longer that average humans so long as a war wasn't happening but that was as much to do with access to advanced medical technology as anything with the force itself. | 13 |
ELI5:Why are internet upload speeds always much slower than download speeds? | 91 | I have 10 lanes on a highway that can go in either direction.
Most people want to leave the city, only a few want to go into it -- so dedicate 8 lanes to outbound traffic and 2 lanes to inbound traffic.
Same thing with the Internet. | 117 | |
[Star Wars] How was Vader able to choke out Admiral Ozzel through a monitor? | How did he do it without even moving his hand? | 60 | Using the Force is mostly a mental undertaking. Using body movements just makes it easier.
The force being present throughout the entire galaxy, range isn't an issue, either. Sources say you just gotta imagine the target well enough, and you can affect them.
A video feed makes it much easier to imagine the victim ... | 73 |
In regards to classification (E.G.: Solid, Gas, Liquid, etc) What is fire? | This is a question my family asked in a recent discussion. It obviously isn't a solid or liquid, but it isn't exactly a gas either, right? | 144 | The fire you see is just the effect of incandescence. When atoms are heated up to that degree they emit light, hence the visible flame. The variation in colours depends on what you're burning.
The conglomeration of atoms that comprise the flames you see would be classified as a gas. | 226 |
ELI5: Why do some people in India defecate in the street? | I know this is a meme at this point and I'm not trying to spark off any trolling or racist attacks at Indian citizens, I'm genuinely baffled that a country with a growing economy and industry has such poor public hygiene rules. Is this a systemic problem or a cultural one? | 43 | Much of India is still very, very poor, combined with a massively dense population of essentially homeless people. Combine it with developing infrastructure, and you get way more people than restrooms. People gotta poop, though. | 43 |
[Star Trek] Why does the Federation have a shipping industry if replication exists? | I'm watching TNG season 6 now, and there's mention of some Federation shipping lanes that need protection - but just 2 episodes ago the Enterprise replicated an entire engine for a starship. What are the limitations of replication that they require long range shipping for? | 46 | Replicators can't create **anything**. For example, latinum which is used by the Ferengi as currency is valuable precisely because it cannot be replicated.
Further, fuels (such as dilithium) could probably be replicated, but why bother? The replicator uses orders of magnitude more energy to create a material than the... | 36 |
CMV:"Vote with your wallet." Is generally ineffective and so it is ideologically an ok argument but a realistically useless one. | So when a product or string of products comes out that are not satisfactory in come capacity. Such as faulty equipment or offensive media or anything in between, and people get up set a common argument is to "Vote with your wallet." In general this argument is a very poor one unless the business in question is so small... | 99 | That is exactly what voting with your wallet is. You cast your one vote for or against that business in the form of shopping there or not. And it gets added to everyone else's vote, and that decides who stays open or doesn't.
If you don't like Walmart, don't shop there. If they stay open, then it sounds like you ... | 66 |
ELI5:What was the universe like prior to the big bang? | I have googled and I have wikied this multiple times but despite being a relatively intelligent person my brain refuses to wrap itself around the concept, and I have a hard time believing what I do understand. | 38 | The big bang is what we get when we take all the evidence we have for the expansion of the universe and rewind the clock back as far as we can. The farthest we can rewind shows us that the entire universe was condensed in a very small fine space. But that's where our current physics and mathematics fail us. We exhauste... | 22 |
[Simpsons] Why does Homer only have a picture of the baby at his famous "Do it for her" work station? | That sounds like favoritism. | 34 | Because it's not for them. Remember he was debt free and quit the plant because he was able to support Marge, Bart and Lisa with his job at the bowling alley. He was happy. Maggie killed those plans. He was forced to return to the plant he hated. So why is he willing to tolerate that shit? For her. | 110 |
[Fallout] What hypothesis were they testing for in each of the vaults that would have contributed to their goal of colonizing space? | Example: Vault 101 = Survival Rate of dwellers or societal decay rate under authoritarian rule. | 53 | Vault 11 - Experiment in ethical pressure designed to test how long humans would compromise their ethics for the sake of survival
Vault 12 - Effects of prolonged exposure to low level radiation
Vault 13 - Study on isolation and genetic bottlenecking
Vault 15 - Study on conflict vs compromise with radically different... | 53 |
CMV: Japanese conservatives are right to protest against North-Korean schools on their territory | After the Japanese government stopped funding North-Korean schools, the North-Korean association demanded that the subsidies should be resumed and want to stop being stigmatized as a propaganda outlet for Pyongyang. But I believe that it is just what they are.
Since Japan doesn't award citizenship by right of birthpla... | 127 | >but they should then just decide to become South-Koreans
The biggest flaw in the OP's portrayal of the issue is the assumption that these Koreans have no real reason to prefer North Korea over South Korea.
Immediately after the Korean war, while a majority of the Koreans in Japan went back to their homeland, the ... | 28 |
ELI5: What does this patent troll bill say and do? | The passing of this patent troll bill is all over the news. Does it have any impact on my company's existing patents? Will it affect plans we have in place for future patents?
http://www.infoworld.com/t/government/patent-troll-bill-clears-house-huge-majority-232218 | 92 | Let's say you own the patent on brass plated, triangle shaped bottle openers. Here are some of the basics.
Right now you could file a lawsuit on someone making gold plated square shaped bottle openers saying, "Hey, we have a patent for bottle openers!" The people making gold plated square shaped bottle openers don't... | 36 |
ELI5: Why shouldn't Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons? | There always seems to be a lot of talk about Iran getting ready to have their own nuclear weapons and I don’t really understand why the US (and other countries) is/are talking about it like it’s the worst thing that could ever happen. Why are the US & Russia (and others) “allowed” to have them if these people also ... | 191 | Basically its to do with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which almost all countries signed.
You're right that it basically says "No-one is allowed to get nuclear weapons if they didn't already have them when they signed the treaty", which seems a little unfair. However, the treaty is what it is, and every country... | 131 |
0 Kelvin is considered the lower limit of temperature. Is there an equivalent upper limit of temperature? | 914 | No, there isn't. There are a few misconceptions though. One is because temperature is related to molecular velocity there must be a temperature at which the molecules are moving at light speed, and this is the limit. However, the relationship between energy and speed isn't the same at very high velocity; things get arb... | 496 | |
Would a fork actually be better than a spoon for stirring liquids? | Stirring is essentially the creation of turbulent force to blend the two or more ingredients, so wouldn't the tines of a fork create more turbulence in the liquid - and, thus, a more thorough blend - than just the concave shape of the spoon? | 23 | Moving a spoon through a liquid delivers more energy to it than a fork would. Think about the relative force it takes to move either one: having to push harder on the spoon means to stir with it exerts a greater net momentum change in the molecules of the liquid. The tines of the fork may cause some turbulence in the l... | 18 |
[General] I've won the lottery and accepted my winnings. However, it came out that my lottery numbers may or may not be related to the fact that I recently invented a time machine. Have I violated any laws or lottery regulations and have I opened myself up to any litigation? | 62 | There's probably not a law or regulation, but they're sure as hell not going to pay. They want people to play the lotto, this undermines that. They'll have a team of lawyers explaining to your time travelling ass why you get no money.
Luckily you have a time machine and can make money easier ways. | 46 | |
When and how do infants learn that their limbs “belong” to them? | Cognitively/neurologically, how does a child learn to distinguish between “an arm” and “my arm”? | 35 | Antonio Damasio's book Self Comes to Mind discusses this within the context of how our brains and minds develop a mind map of what and where our body is. The concept is ongoing and fluid, and can change if for example, you lose a body part, or use a tool for an incredibly long, repetitive time. The sense begins to form... | 14 |
ELI5: why does illegal money need to be "laundered"? | for example, in breaking bad walt needs to have his meth money laundered as to not bring suspicion, but if he walks into a store and buys something with the cash, how would anyone ever know the money was meth money and how would he ever get caught? | 90 | Because people have to pay taxes, and the government would notice huge amounts of money appearing from nowhere.
Let's say that you are a drug dealer. You make cash money, and you buy a big house and a car. But, you don't pay any taxes. The IRS sees all of the sales records (the person that sold you the house files tax... | 174 |
Why is the verb for 'to be' so irregular in so many languages? | This is true of every language that I have more than a fleeting knowledge of: English, Hebrew, Greek, Spanish, and German. Some of these languages (German and English) are very similar, but some (Hebrew and Spanish) are very different. Yet all of them have highly irregular conjugations of their being verbs. Why is this... | 6,024 | In language, common words are more likely to be irregular.
This is mostly because these words aren't likely to undergo "analogy", which is effectively people applying common patterns where they otherwise wouldn't be
The past of "Dare" used to be "durst", but through analogy, people just gave it the "-ed" treatment
... | 7,166 |
How did Schopenhauer manage to form a pessimistic philosophy while he was an utmost fan of Vedanta? | The core of Schopenhauer's philosophy was the 'Will', which I think in layman's term can be described as an evil force at the heart of everything. However, he also was an avid fan of Indian religion school Vedanta (the philosophy of the Upanishads). Vedanta, for layman's term, states that the heart of everything is the... | 18 | So, two things here. Schopenhauer doesn't privilege the Upanishads over his other sources in his thought, which include strands as diverse as Kant, Plato and Karl Friedrich Krause. On a very simple understanding, Schopenhauer is simply borrowing monistic concepts from Hinduism and integrating them to his own thought, w... | 22 |
eli5:with billions of stars emitting photons why is the night sky not bright? | 492 | This is known as Olber’s Paradox. If the universe is populated with a distribution of stars similar to what we see nearby, then the math works out that every sight line should end at a star and the night sky should be bright. However, because the universe appears to have a finite age and the speed of light is also fini... | 1,242 | |
How to tell a struggling PhD student who wants to stay in academia that it's time to look for other jobs? | I have a PhD student who is finishing this year who ended this job round with no postdoc offers. It's not completely surprising, unfortunately. The student, let's call them P, has had 4 years to improve on things like writing, communication, technical skills, and programming but has fallen short on all of them for wher... | 305 | This is a hard conversation, but you owe it to P to “dash their dreams” as you say. Practice your script beforehand, warn them that this won’t be an easy conversation ahead of time, then tell them exactly what you said here and just as directly. Don’t leave any room for nuance. Resist the urge to couch your feedback in... | 200 |
ELI5: how do really big dams get built? | As in, how do they deal with the water if the dam hasn't been built yet | 56 | They divert the river to go around the construction site. The most common way to do that is they build diversion channels around the side of the normal riverbed and then dump dirt into the river to build what's called a cofferdam. This temporary earth dam will hold back the water and force it to go through the diversio... | 72 |
[Star Wars] If Jedi are not to develop attachments, how does having one Master teach one Padawan seem effective? | 22 | It's far more effective to have one-on-one training, particularly out in the field. Having two padawans means spending half the effort on each one. One-on-one, you have more time and energy to spend helping your one padawan to grow and learn and develop, and to keep an eye on them to prevent their mistakes. It may b... | 21 | |
What do roach sprays and barrier sprays actually DO to roaches to kill them? | As I'm sitting in my living room, I can see a roach on my porch in the throes of death, on its back, kicking and writhing. It'll probably do that for another half hour or so, and then finally kick the bucket. But what is it dying of, specifically? Asphyxiation? Some nervous system shutdown? | 1,293 | Many bug sprays contain pyrethrin family compounds which mess with the nervous systems in most insects by preventing the resetting of their nerves. Once tensed, muscles cannot relax so the bug basically siezes up. Larger vertibrates have sufficient enzymes to inactivate these compounds before they can affect our nervou... | 780 |
CMV: Restricting access to assisted suicide only for persons with physical and/or mental illnesses is philosophically groundless. | I honestly can't see any reason as to why someone perfectly healthy should not be able to acquire a quick, painless and foolproof method of curtailing his own imposition. Cause that's what life ultimately is - a burden. Enslavement. Anything but a gift. Comparisons may vary but it's hardly a matter of personal perspect... | 397 | On mental illness;
Speaking from experience, mental illness can be a very slippery problem to pin down. Depression and anxiety are not "always on", and somebody can go through cycles of relatively calm and stability, and then cycles of heightened distress or mania. During these bad times where the illness is exerting ... | 65 |
A property of metals is that they conduct heat. If that is the case, why do they feel cold at room temperature? | Because it conducts heat so well, I would expect it to 'receive' the heat energy from the air far more readily than other materials such as wood and plastic, yet wood and plastic feel warmer to the touch than a piece of metal in a 20°C room. Why is that? | 17 | It feels cold precisely *because* it conducts heat so well. If the metal is at 20C, and your body temperature is 37C, then the metal will very efficiently conduct heat away from your body, and that feels cold. It does this much more efficiently than wood or plastic. | 82 |
How significantly do plastic dental appliances, things like retainers, Invisalign, or night guards, contribute to the build up of microplastics in the body? | 3,466 | Generally microplastics are formed by either the degradation of plastics disposed of into watercourses, or from the shedding of plastic fibres from fabrics, ropes etc.
Large, solid plastic objects are unlikely to produce microplastics. You might as well worry about the miles of plastic piping bringing your water to yo... | 1,014 | |
Where do the light waves go when you turn of the lights? | This might sound like a joke, but I genuinely don't know the answer.
So, when you turn on the lights, the circuit closes and the lights turn on. The light bulb or whatever sends out beams of light, which are reflected and absorbed by objects. That's my understanding of it, though I might be wrong.
But what happens wh... | 27 | You already answered your own question:
> absorbed by objects
Light that is emitted is very rapidly absorbed by the objects and surfaces it hits. Even light that is reflected once or multiple times ends up being absorbed. This process is extremely fast because of how fast light moves. It takes a mere 3 nanoseconds... | 71 |
CMV: It is utterly unethical under any circumstances for Scotland to not take on its share of UK debt if it votes for independance | Simply put, Scotland's residents and companies have contributed towards the debt. They should therefore help pay off the debt.
Government debt is LITERALLY government expenditure less tax receipts. It is disingenuous for any Scottish person to say 'Why should we pay off a debt we shouldn't contribute to', any Scotti... | 78 | Are they going to get an equivalent amount of cash/assets in government accounts, real estate, military equipment etc? If so, then sure they should share the debt. If not, then they shouldn't. They should only split the debt of they also get to split assets. | 17 |
[Marvel] What is in the Avengers Tower in Manhattan? | I'm sure each member of the team probably has some kind of armory in the building, maybe some labs or something, but the tower is MASSIVE. What do the Avengers need with all that space? Do they have employees working in the tower or is it just the Avengers? | 41 | It was originally the Stark Enterprises building - despite the signage change and the renovation of Tony's personal floors at the top levels to better suit Avengers affairs, I'd imagine the lower levels wouldn't have changed much. It's probably still Stark Industries offices and labs and stuff, commercial tenants, etc. | 52 |
ELI5: Why does a candle not create smoke when burning but lots of smoke when you blow it out? | Source: blew out a candle today | 23,181 | When the flame is lit...that smoke is being burned. The smoke is vaporized wax. When you blow it out, the wick is still hot enough to vaporize wax, but not ignite it.
If you cool the wick like lick your finger or put in water, the wick is no longer hot enough to vaporize wax. | 13,822 |
Do deep learning algorithms experience qualia? | A deep learning algorithm trained to identify images, colors and so on seems to work in ways that are importantly similar to how animal brains identify visual patterns: using neural networks in layers. It might stand to reason that such machines experience qualia. If so, this could have important implications in the et... | 19 | Your understanding of neural networks is highly abstract, and in reality, neural networks are very different than the salesman hype definitions presented to those outside the field. Neurons are parameterized mathematical functions, and the intricacies of their output is a result of "learning" where the parameters are f... | 11 |
[Dragon Ball Z] Will all of Goku’s descendants have some form of Saiyan power? Or is there a point where it becomes so diluted that they’re basically human? (Assume that none of them have full-blooded saiyans for parents.) | 91 | If Dragonball Online counts for anything, then yes, even after full blooded saiyans go extinct, humans with Saiyan blood still have the latent ability to do things like become Super Saiyan. This is also further backed up by the fact Goku's children seem to be naturally stronger and achieve Super Saiyan earlier than Gok... | 81 | |
CMV: Tactical voting is illogical in the upcoming British general election | The UK general election is happening next Thursday and I am hearing more and more people claiming that they will not vote for fringe parties because they do not want to waste their vote.
However, my argument is this: No vote is wasted even if your preferred party candidate does not win. This is because your vote is s... | 15 | If you live in a safe seat then all of your logic applies. Just vote for whoever you like the most. This will send a message about what the voters want and for the next election the parties will take into account what people voted for and shape their policies accordingly.
In a marginal seat the situation is different.... | 10 |
[Marvel] Could a psychic shut down the Hulk, or at least contain him ? | it's pretty clear even an entire armed battalions can't even dent the Hulk depending on how angry he is. Banner himself is unable to kill himself to rid the world of this plague. So why not try a less physical approach ? Use one of the universes many myriad psychics to try to pacify the beast, or if worst cast just ou... | 32 | At one point, Jean Grey shut down Bruce Banner while Hulk was in charge, thereby increasing the power and uninhibited rage of the Hulk.
I don't think it would be as easy the other way around, though. Something about "contain the Hulk" has a ludicrous ring to it | 31 |
[Jurassic World] Would the Indominus Rex have been an effective military weapon? | **[Spoilers for JURASSIC WORLD]**
Vic Hoskins wanted to use the Indominus Rex in warfare. This was obviously a stupid idea. I wasn't there when it happened, but I heard that the animal escaped captivity and managed to outsmart its creators, causing massive amounts of death and destruction.
However, let's assume that ... | 29 | The I-Rex was a prototype that had exceeded it's original design specifics and was going to be displayed in the park as a means of recovering some of their development costs. The plan was always for something more like the raptor in size with some of the features of the I-Rex, Hoskins mentions as much when discussing t... | 38 |
How is it possible to survive rabies and why will it almost always kill you? | 28 | It has a point of no return. If it progresses to the point that you are showing symptoms, its already too late. Basically, if you get bit by a wild animal go get a rabies shot immediately because the sooner you get it the more effective it will be(if you were actually exposed). | 27 | |
[The Incredibles] How well would things have gone if Mr Incredible didn’t break Buddy/Syndrome’s dreams and told him if he wanted to be a superhero, he would have to use his head and avoid accidentally endangering himself or others? | I mean his tech was powerful and useful, he just needed to sorta calm down | 21 | I feel things may not have gone well.
The kind of person who goes from "rejection" to "literal serial killing supervillian" with, seemingly, no steps inbetween? Unlikely to take other things well. It was only a matter of time before *something* pushed him over the edge and created syndrome. | 50 |
Does dissolution affect volume differently than just addition? | Say I have two glasses of x amount of water. If I add y amount of salt to one and y amount rocks to the other, will both volumes be x+y | 17 | Yes. Well, sometimes. Take alcohol, and add water. The total volume won't be x+y as the tiny water molecules "nest" themselves in the spaces in between the way bigger alcohol molecules, taking up less space in the end. This isn't always true though | 11 |
[Lord of the Rings] Just how elite were the members of the Followship as warriors compared to the rest of their races? | For example it's shown that Elves are exceptional archers by human standards but was Legolas notably proficient even amongst his peers? Was Gimili stronger and tougher than the average Dwarf? | 121 | Pretty elite. Bloodlines/royalty are a pretty big deal in Middle-earth. Those of the royal line, either through hereditary or magical reasons, tend to be stronger than those not of the royal line. This is pretty common across a lot of Middle-earth, even in Northmen who are the most similar to modern humans".
Aragorn ... | 149 |
[General Fantasy] If a wizard belonging to a monstrous race casts a summon monster spell could they get humans or humanoids of the appropriate level? | Particularly if it is a race that is often at odds with humans/humanoids doing the summoning. To an Orc Shaman, elves might seem pretty monstrous. | 51 | It's all of a matter of perspective. Generally you can only summon something of lesser intelligence than you so that you can maintain control. The exception of the rule is summoning demons where you summon them for a specific task with built in punishments if they stray from said task | 33 |
ELI5 - How do ointments used to treat body parts besides the skin (like ointments for muscle pain or joint pain) work? Do they even work? | 24 | Really depends on the ointment.
Some have lidocaine or related meds that work as direct numbing agents- think novacaine. It can block the nerves from the whole region, even beyond the skin.
Others have drugs like aspirin, which absorb through the skin and act as they would if they were swallowed
Still others have ... | 19 | |
CMV: People should not automatically blame an establishment / business for letting someone go without actually knowing the full details . | 28 | Its a bit different here.
Its a communication issue. If you rely on someone at work and then they let them go, it should at least be communicated to you in some formal way. Same thing should have happened here, it should have been communicated to the mods of /r/IAMA and be told what the plans are. Not doing so make... | 10 | |
ELI5: How do countries get their names? | Places like America, Britain, Kenya, Mongolia, Russia.
Who names countries and how does the name come about? | 24 | Really, they're named for all sorts of different things.
- Some of them are named for the ethnic groups that resided there before modern countries emerged — Britain, probably, for a celtic-speaking tribe that the Greeks wrote about in the 4th century BC.
- Some are named for individuals — America, for Amerigo Vespucc... | 10 |
ELI5: How far into space can we go before video or voice transmission would cease? | Even if the home base would not be on earth, what is the distance, if there is any, that would stop communication. | 55 | No distance would be too far. The only limit is the lifespan of the people trying to talk to each other. All forms of light travel at the speed of light. This includes radio waves, which is how you might communicate. If you broadcast such a signal, it will travel out into space forever and ever. However, if you're... | 30 |
ELI5: Why do we have to brew tea or others herbs instead of eating them raw? Why (probably) can't we get the same health benefits from dry herbs? | 300 | You can (and many people do) chew fresh herbs, either for their taste or their perceived health benefit.
But fresh herbs only stay fresh for a very short time after being picked. Within a couple of days they're usually starting to go limp, to lose some of their flavour, and generally to be less desirable.
So the answ... | 462 | |
[General] How do beings who experience time non-linearly feel about the end of the universe/multiverse, if it does end? | 18 | Experiencing time non-linearly doesn't mean you're immortal. It doesn't mean you experience the entirety of time.
We experience the other 3 dimensions non-linearly, but that doesn't mean you can be anywhere in space. If we experienced time non-linearly, we'd be able to experience our entire *lifespan*, not the entire... | 18 | |
ELI5: Why do we pay sales tax on used (pre-owned) vehicles? Hasn't the tax been paid already on it once (when it was new)? | Is there such a thing as a double taxing rule?
I know when normal items are purchased regularly, the business are tax-exempt and the sales tax is then passed and paid by the consumer. Why can a car be taxed and retaxed every time it is sold? | 23 | Sales tax is a tax on the transaction, not the item. There's other sorts of taxes, such as a VAT (value added tax) that specifically target goods.
The item being secondhand makes no difference to sales tax. | 17 |
CMV: The negatives of consuming alcohol far out weight any positives. | **Edit: Some people are trying to draw attention away from my points by focusing on the experiences of the minority of people. My post is more about society as a whole and yes, I am speaking in general terms, but I think it’s fair to say that there is an issue with alcoholism in many societies and that the positives th... | 48 | You're not really talking about the negatives to consuming alcohol, you're talking about the negatives to alcohol addiction or extreme intake. Too much of anything is a bad thing, big surprise. That doesn't make that thing bad though. | 36 |
Do people who have undergone gender-reassignment surgery have life expectancies similar to those of their 'original' gender or those of their 'new' gender? | My apologies if the terms 'original' and 'new' offend anybody from the transgender community - if that is even the correct term.
Anyway, I was wondering about this and I could only find very patchy and strange information via Google. I understand that the suicide rate is high for transgender individuals, but I was won... | 37 | Surgery doesn't impact life expectency much, though trans men have drastically reduced breast cancer risk after chest reconstruction.
Hormone therapy, however, changes everything. For one, estrogen and anti-androgen treatment (or post-surgically the removal of one's testosterone factories) basically reduces the risk o... | 27 |
[ELi5] What's the difference between hard and soft water, and what does salt have to do with it? | 24 | hard water has lots of minerals in it (usually calcium or magnesium), soft water does not have these (or in lesser amounts). Water softeners usually use an ion-exchange resin, which is porous material which the water flows through. The resin has a bunch of sodium ions in it, when the hard water flows through, the sodiu... | 18 | |
[Physics] [Chemistry] Why does something smoulder instead of be on fire with a flame? What's happening physically? | 18 | its important to realize that burning and smoldering are both examples of exothermic oxidation reactions. Smoldering usually occurs because there is some impurity absorbing some of the heat energy causing the reaction to proceed more slowly than outright burning. For example a fresh leaf has a great deal of water in it... | 21 | |
CMV: You have no inherent right to determine what happens to your body after you die. Organ donation should be mandatory, with no opt-out. | I'm going to focus on one consequence of this belief, which is that organ donation should be mandatory, and that there should be no opt-out.
The way I see it, the rights of a currently living person to medical treatment outweigh the rights of a deceased person to determine what happens to their body. We should still ... | 41 | The problem with this is the basis of all religious freedom in the Western World.
Which is essentially "As long as you aren't harming anybody, you can do whatever you want religiously".
You could make the argument of "by not donating organs you are harming people." But that isn't exactly true.
In order to harm someo... | 24 |
CMV: Subminimum wage should remain legal for the developmentally disabled | I work as a social worker for the developmentally disabled, and my state is thinking about eliminating subminimum wages for those that work in sheltered workshops (day programs for the developmentally disabled, basically).
Most of my clients attend a sheltered workshop during the day. There is both subminimum wage wo... | 19 | The problem with sheltered workshops they essentially act as a poverty and segregation trap for people with disabilities.
I work in the same field and individuals out-right tell me they'd prefer to have something to do even at less than minimum wage. However this is entirely in the context of perceiving nothing bette... | 15 |
[Batman/DC] How safe is working at Arkham, and what precautions should I take? | I just started working here today. I was wondering what are the tips and tricks for staying alive and working here. It seems like on the news there's near-daily breakouts and murders. Is that true? What do I need to do to stay healthy, sane, and living while employed in Arkham? | 24 | Odds are one or more of the following will happen:
* Henchmen kidnap you, your friends, or your family to insure their bosses release
* You will be bribed
* You will be killed/hurt/maimed in an escape attempt
* You will be killed/hurt/maimed in a needless display of how evil the inmate is
* You will be replaced with s... | 27 |
CMV: I believe a Palestine state should be established in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt | The state of Palestine has 4 million people residing within Isreal. The West Bank and Gaza strip together have 6,000 square kilometers of land. The North Sinai Governorate alone has 27,000 square Kilometers of land, that's more land than even Isreal has (22,000 sq km).
[Here is what a State of Palestine could look lik... | 55 | 1) What do you propose is done with the West Bank?
2) Even ignoring the difficulty of actually growing crops in the Sinai, Israeli efforts to reduce desertification were possible only due to large amounts of foreign funds and resources that poured into the state after its foundation. The Palestinian diaspora has no su... | 52 |
How is it that sleep depravation can actually kill you? What is the human reaction that leads to death? | 15 | No one knows for certain. In a study involving rats, all of the sleep-deprived rats died in about a month. The specific cause of death in each case was unknown. Various suggestions were posited, but nothing was agreed upon. There was evidence of brain damage in some, but not all.
So, in short, the specific cause... | 12 | |
ELI5: What is this new Canadian Anti-Terror bill and why are people protesting it? | 75 | It's basically our version of the Patriot Act, meant to expand police and intelligence services' surveillance powers. People don't like it because it means the police will need less evidence to detain or charge people and the intelligence services will be able to do more surveiling of Canadians. People also don't lik... | 35 | |
Eli5: Why do waves break left to right/right to left instead of breaking all at once? | 55 | How the waves hit land depends on the direction of the wind that made the waves, and they break when they hit a certain surface level of the sea bottom. If you have ever dived you will know that the surface bottom us uneven. Ironically because of waves.
Wind can come from all directions. Which is 360 degres all around... | 19 | |
[generic fantasy] What happens if you force an undead to drink a health potion? | Say you captured a mindless wild ghoul or zombie.
Also would it make a difference if the potion is injected? | 42 | They tend to take damage from it. Health potions reinforce life energy. Undead have the opposite, so forcing them to take (whether ingested or injected) one will usually cause them equivalent damage to what a living person would get in healing. | 40 |
Does the concept of Altitude exist in space? | Is there an "above" or "below" in space or do all objects exist on the same plane? To be more precise, does the equator of all objects exist on the same plane?
Edit: Thank you for the Gold, wonderful stranger. It's my first. | 4,908 | No - the equator of Earth is different from the plane of the solar system, which is different from the plane of the galaxy. Galaxies are in amorphous groups or spherical clusters rather than planes. These groups and clusters are in a "cosmic web" filamentary pattern.
We do use latitude/longitude style coordinates for ... | 2,731 |
[Community] How much is Pierce Hawthorne worth? | 15 | In the episode where his will is read, according to his attorney Mr. Stone, the total inheritance from Pierce Hawthorne is over $20 million. The shares in the Hawthorne Wipes Company given to Troy are worth $14.3 million, leaving $5.7 million unaccounted for. It is highly unlikely the remaining fortune was used entirel... | 12 | |
ELI5: Why isn't solar power the most used source for electricity? | Why isn't solar power the most used source for electricity?
I feel like the cheapest form of electricity should be collected and regulated everywhere. I'm just curious why it isn't. | 28 | Because it's the least dense form of energy available to us. You can only get about 150 watts per square meter out of sunlight. That's barely enough to run a lightbulb. Solar power is plentiful and free, but *very* paltry unless you want to spend billions to pave over whole states with PV arrays. | 17 |
CMV:All states should adopt laws similar to the "Idaho Stop Law" with regards to people riding bikes | **Final Edit: Thank you to everyone who contributed to this discussion! I'm pleased with how it went and the back and forth was impressively civil. Kudos! I awarded two deltas: one disputing my included claim that bicycles are more capable of maneuvering a rolling stop than cars, and one for a caveat that municipalitie... | 311 | You provided a lot of evidence why this is beneficial to cyclers. You haven't provided reasoning why everyone else benefits from this. The only logic is "it gets bicyclists out-of-the-way".
Why can't bicyclist just follow the same rules as cars and everybody act in a safe manner? | 91 |
[DC/Batman] How does Mr Freeze's body function at Sub-Zero temperatures? | I mean in the sense that how can his blood continue to flow and organs function while he lives in a sub zero bodysuit and why returning him to standard or warmer temperatures effects him so much | 84 | I think that the Liquid Helium that he got blasted with replaced at least some of the water in his body. So, all the bodily processes we do that require water, he does with a water/liquid helium mix. Because helium is a gas at room temp, he needs to say below the evaporation point of his new bodily fluid temp or he wil... | 55 |
ELI5: Why do most smartphones not have built-in FM receivers? (When they have many other technologies like WiFi, GPS, 4G, etc.) | 46 | This is probably for a number of reasons. For one, people care less about FM radio than before. Second, device manufacturers might have a profit motive in selling audio content and other sources of media rather than FM radio.
There are some unique complications with FM, though, compared to the other radio technologi... | 17 | |
How to engage with people doing similar research to yourself? | Whenever I meet someone doing very similar research to what I'm doing, I don't know how to act. A part of me feels really excited to find someone interested in the same topic, and begin day dreaming about asking them to co-author something. But the other part of me feels incredibly stressed at the thought that someone ... | 33 | The main point that you want to communicate in this situation is that you are interested in knowing more about their work. Try not to think about issues like future collaboration, etc. because the first step is to build a connection around your shared interest, and that takes time. If you just give someone a chance to ... | 21 |
[Hellraiser] For a sadomasochistic in an immense and constant state of pleasure and pain, why does pinhead sound so…. lethargic? | 32 | He has been a cenobite for 60-some years by the time that we see him in the mid-1980s. He has experienced both immense pain and pleasure for 6 decades and over that time, he's built up a tolerance to it. He does still enjoy it, but he is basically to the point of needing a good flaying just to get out of bed in the mor... | 58 | |
ELI5: What's the difference between a subsidiary of a company and a division of that company? | 274 | Imagine you own a big supermarket with many departments, meat, sea food, produce, paper goods, etc. Each department would be a 'division' of the company. Everything gets sold at the same registers, and the stock crew fills up all the shelves regardless of what the product is.
Now you buy a deli across town. You own ... | 418 | |
cmv: Voting party lines is a cancer in American (potentially others) politics. | By voting "Party Line" I mean selecting the option to not look at the entire ballot and just cast a vote for a single party. By cancer I refer to the increase of separation between people of different political parties.
There was a lack of basic information available (at least for me in SC, USA) on candidates and an ... | 42 | Saving time at polling places is a HUGE perk. In states with restrictive early voting laws, a small number of locations to vote and high thresholds for ID verification, people have to spend hours waiting to vote. Couple this with the fact that voting takes place on a work day, and is not a national holiday, and you hav... | 13 |
ELI5: When you're on a roller coaster or something which drops quickly, what is the feeling in your stomach and why do you get it? | 65 | That feeling is two things. One - you have special sensory cells that detect acceleration. These feel rapid acceleration and essentially cause a panic response.
The other part of it is more visceral - literally all your organs are moving and you feel it. | 61 | |
[Scott Westerfelds's Leviathan] It's modern day, and the Darwinists and Clankers have both progressed in their tech/knowledge. What does their reality look like? | Assume they're both at relative peace with each other, with similar relations to reality's.
What does their society, military tech, etc look like? Are there more mechanic/fabricated beast hybrids? Are computers put into any use?
Edit: [Wiki link](http://leviathanscottwesterfeld.wikia.com/wiki/Leviathan_Wiki) since it... | 32 | much like actual history after WW2 america becomes a major superpower. if you recall in the books america has a mix of the 2 types of tech. thus with their influence the divide between the 2 techs gradually closes until neither is separate from the other. computers would still be used but i feel like they'd still be me... | 13 |
Economic Models in Excel? Or online? Change variables, see effect. Solve for max/min. Revise model. | I did a dual-major in university, half in economics, 20 years ago. I thought by now I would be able to find an online economics course with functioning economic models. Nope. Am I just looking in the wrong places? I found online courses with static diagrams, but not functioning models.
Bonus #1: users can change ... | 19 | Most economic and econometric models are written in languages like Stata, R, Python, or Matlab. For example, many central banks provide data and code in Matlab format. Many applied microeconomics papers provide data and code in Stata format. | 20 |
Why is it that whenever we are anxious or nervous, we feel it so strongly in our stomachs? What is the link between the two? | 109 | Being in a situation that provokes anxiety or nervousness can activate the body's sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight response). This causes a release of epinephrine (adrenaline) which inhibits motility in the small and large intestine (your body does not need to waste energy digesting food while you are runni... | 57 | |
[MCU] What would Ultron think of Thanos and his goal? | Would he disagree with Thanos or would there be a part of him that agreed and would even like to help him? | 20 | Mostly they are irrational in there own ways and probably wouldn't agree. Ultron had overcoming disaster and coming out stronger mixed with a superiority complex leading him to want to replace humanity. Ideas like rock that killed the dinosaurs and things like that.
Thanos has ideas about cosmic balance, he doesn't ne... | 19 |
Why does it take more power to increase from say 170-180mph than it does to increase from 50-60mph in a car? | 56 | Drag from rolling resistance increases at a linear rate to velocity.
Drag from aerodynamic forces increases at the *square* of velocity. The larger the velocity, the bigger the square.
Just to give some rough numbers: 60^2 - 50^2 = 1100, 180^2 - 170^2 = 3500, over 3x as much | 46 | |
[Cinematic Marvel] Does the Avengers universe overlap with the new Spider-Man universe? | Is there anything that separates the Amazing Spider-Man universe from the Avengers universe? Can we assume that it's possible that The Amazing Spider-Man can be a member of the Avengers reserve team, or was there anything that officially separates the two versions of New York? | 29 | No. The universe where Spider-Man has organic webshooters is Earth-96283.
The universe where his first big foe was the Lizard is Earth-Earth-120703.
The universe where Loki aided an alien invasion of Earth is Earth-199999.
They're in different universes entirely. Some similarities might apply, but it's highly unlike... | 32 |
ELI5 Why is it more difficult to put clothes on slightly wet skin? | Often after taking a shower, it is difficult to put, say, socks if the skin is not well-dried. This is cause the fabric kinda sticks to the skin in ways it doesn't when it is not wey. Why is that? Shouldn't water generate less friction than normal, not-wet skin? | 185 | The water causes the clothes to stick to your skin because the fabric is attracted to the water. It's the same basic principal that allows paper towels to soak up water. This increases the total amount of fabric-to-skin contact.
>Shouldn't water generate less friction than normal, not-wet skin?
Yes but normally wh... | 110 |
[40k] What are the relationships between the non-nemesis chaos gods? | Khorne despies Slaneesh above all, and Tzeentch opposes Nurgle. We also know Khorne isn't too found of Tzeentch because he relies on magic.
But what about the other relations? What is Slaneesh's opinion on Tzeentch, and vica versia? What is Nurgle's opinion on Slaneesh? How does Tzeentch feel about Khorne? | 37 | They hate each other.
They just hate someone else extra much.
Khorn:
Tzeentch is bloody dishonest schemer and use weak magic.
Nurgle WON'T DO SHIT! JUST DIE ALREADY!
Tzeentch:
Khorn is a tool, he won't see the greater picture.
Slannesh, stop masturbating, your making a scene and we have greater use then to... | 43 |
Eli5: why are the majority of wealthy/developed countries concentrated into the northern hemisphere of the world? | It seems that the northern half of the world contains most to all of the developed countries in the world. Why is this? My best guess is that explorers from Europe never settled too far south of the equator. | 139 | There's a really great book about this called Guns, Germs, and Steel that explains why some societies have gotten so much more progress than others.
A couple of things.
The "northern half" includes North America, which is one of the least advanced, historically. So saying that "the northern half" contains the most de... | 120 |
ELI5: Why does my son's stutter go away when he talks in an accent? | My son has a moderate stutter. When he talks in an accent - and his Scottish is on point, let me tell you - his stutter goes away completely. He is 13 but wants me to ELI5 to him. Help me? | 16 | It's the same reason that James Earl Jones (yes, the famous actor) doesn't have one.
Singing, and well . . . accents. They both use the same part of the brain, that regulates speech patterns and rhythm.
Because he isn't using the part of the brain that natural wants to be used while speaking, he sort of "bypasses" th... | 19 |
Does my phone have an IP address when I'm using the internet, but not connected to WiFi? | If so, what's providing it? The nearest cell tower? | 270 | Your phone will certainly have an IP address if it is communicating over IP, and everything that you would typically think of as "software" on your phone (aside from the telephone itself and SMS) does so, typically using TCP/IP (web, e-mail, most apps) or UDP/IP (video/audio streaming, VPN, some games).
Whether the IP... | 132 |
[Marvel] What was Wakanda like before the landing of Vibranium? | And why didn't it cause massive damage to the city and surrounding area? | 19 | Wakanda was very primitive at the time. Bear in mind that the vibranium meteor landed centuries ago, so the Wakandans were, at the time, no more advanced than the rest of Africa. At least, the parts that hadn't been colonized by Europeans.
It did cause quite a bit of damage when it landed, but the vibranium inside the... | 17 |
ELI5: Why is it called "giving up"? | If you think about it, it doesn't really make sense. Try explaining it to somebody whose native language isn't English. | 49 | "Give" has meant "to yield" since the 1600s, from a Middle English word (yeve) merging with the original definition, the Middle English "yiven." And it's based on the concept of giving tribute.
From there, it'd be a relatively simple leap to "give up." To present tribute to someone above you, to surrender. | 47 |
CMV: Pansexuality is a completely unnecessary term and not a legitimate sexuality | To start off, let’s establish what pansexuality is. Googling the definition of pansexuality, we get **an individual not limited in sexual choice with regard to biological sex, gender, or gender identity.**
Because the definition mentions both sex and gender, I think that it’s important to acknowledge the difference. ... | 261 | What about those who are attracted to intersex people with ambiguous genitalia? What about those who are attracted to transgender people who have only had hormones or top surgery and not bottom surgery (as many choose to do because of technical or financial concerns)? Bottom surgery for FtM transgender guys can be es... | 81 |
What happens to a displaced ant? Like if one climbs on my shoe and I get in my car and go somewhere and once I get there he climbs off my shoe onto the ground 10 miles from his colony. | Would he find his way back, try to live on his own, assimilate with a new colony, or just feel doomed and let itself die? | 231 | Depends on the type of ant, some species (specifically Argentine) can assimilate into new colonies provided they are the same type of ant. For every other species, in all likelyhood yes they will just wander around until they either die naturally or reach another colony where they will be killed. | 86 |
Why did we go from a Delta variant of COVID straight to Lambda? What happened to Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, and Kappa? | According to [this article](https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/07/health/lambda-coronavirus-variant-wellness-explainer/index.html) there is now a lambda variant of COVID that is impacting people mostly in South America.
This of course is coming right in the middle of the Delta variant outbreak in the United States and other ... | 11,916 | They didn't skip them. There are variants that use the other greek letters. Lambda is just a variant making a larger impact. You won't hear about all the variants unless they were influencing more public action. | 13,439 |
[MCU] What was Hulk's plan in New York? | Hulk/Banner assumed he'd run into Doctor Strange in New York. What was his plan if he actually ran into the Doctor? Every other group went in stealthy with a plan. Hulk isn't exactly subtle. How was he going to quietly get the stone from Strange? | 33 | Much like with The Ancient One, he figured that he'd be able to reason with Strange, explain the situation and they could come to an arrangement. And of course, if that failed, much like with the Ancient One, he would attempt more Hulkian methods of persuasion.
Likely to similar impotence. No-one expects the astral pu... | 46 |
Did they have to bring the air up to the international space station? | how did they get the air to the international space station? | 287 | Sure. And they keep bringing up "air" - now mainly as water, which is split into hydrogen and oxygen at the station. The oxygen is needed for the crew, the hydrogen is used in the CO2 removal system. A bit of nitrogen covers losses to keep the interior at an Earth-like gas mixture.
It is part of the usual missions for... | 309 |
ELI5: How do we know so much about far away planets (what they're made of, their atmospheres, possibilities of water, if they are exoplanets etc) just by looking at them through a telescope? | 22 | We can tell if a planet is an exoplanet because if it was orbiting our sun it would move across the sky. Exoplanets can't actually be looked at through a telescope, they're too faint. They have to be indirectly observed - for example, if a star's light dips for a long period then returns to normal that probably means a... | 24 | |
ELI5: Why do our eyes become bloodshot when we are tired? | 67 | Strain on your eyes throughout the day can cause you to not blink as much as you normally would (e.g you're concentrating on something for a long period of time). In order to keep your eyes well lubricated, you blink throughout the day, but when you don't blink as much, your eyes dry out a little. The next time you bli... | 24 | |
ELI5: Why does scratching an itch make it stop itching? | 111 | The itch is usually caused by histamine, a substance that exists in basophiles, which are a type of white cell that moves to inflammated parts of the body (for example, a mosquito bite). Due to the inflammation the basophiles release the substance and when you scratch it you make them release it all the more fast and e... | 37 |
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