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CMV: Marriage doesn't make much sense in the modern world (modern western standards) and I don't see the need to get married. | People don't need legal paperwork to enforce a union anymore, now marriage is (or should ideally according to modern western standards) based on a mutual decision to stay together. There are benefits such as tax cuts, custody rights for children of course, but these are outweighed IMO by the disadvantages when things don't work out, such as divorce fees, wealth splitting enforced by courts. If the argument is about commitment, several other large gestures such as having a child together or buying a property are probably bigger commitments than signing a symbolic piece of paper. Again in the past when marriages were more about securing alliances or people controlling each other marriage was more important but now legal contracts should have little to do with love. Of course I am assuming modern western standards are the most enlightened in allowing freedom and that freedom is an important thing to have over social stability which could be enforced by forced marriage / social pressure and legal penalties for adultery that exist in other cultures. | 41 | Marriage provides legal protections if one partner plans to take time away from a career to raise children.
Marriage is legally recognized and can gain access to things like spousal visas for non citizens.
When you make an irreversible decision, your brain feels better about it than a reversible one because it will retroactively find reasons to justify your decision as correct. By going for an irreversible relationship, your brain will feel better about it and create more justifications. | 45 |
[Warhammer Fantasy/40K] What does "ever" part of "Everchosen" mean? | As far as I know there were multiple of them and got replaced when they died. | 18 | The Everchosen of Chaos is the the final champion, prophesized to herald the End Times.
Each *Everchosen* is just the latest person claiming that title. All others before them were false and unworthy of the title. The prophecy could not have been about them because they did not bring the end times. | 29 |
ELI5: how are we able to see planets that are 100’s of lightyears away? By continually increasing the magnification of a telescope? How do we know anything about the planets atmosphere if it’s that far away? For example, the Corot-7b, we are told it rains rocks there. | 18 | We’re not able to see them.
We see them block the light from their star.
Or we see their gravity tugging on their star.
We know about their atmosphere because when they block that star, some light pass through the atmosphere, which filters out some light but not others. | 20 |
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[South Park] Since Butters is always being grounded by his parents, how does he seem to be hanging out with the guys in every episode? | Almost every episode that Butters features in, he is grounded for at least a small period of time, leading him to be in an almost eternal state of 'grounded-ness'.
How is it then that he appears to be out with the Cartman and co, for extended periods of time in nearly every recent episode. | 90 | Butters usually only remains grounded for a day or two at most, unless Butters (or Cartman who then frames Butters) does something much worse. And given how much time elapses between new adventures and shenanigans with **the boys** (as they still find time to no-life Xbox and LARP), it's not unreasonable to suggest that Butters only spends a couple of days a week grounded. | 64 |
ELI5: If "black" is the absence of all colour, why is the outcome colour "black" when I mix a bunch of colours of paint together? | 31 | Paints color is based on what light they absorb. So red paint absorbs all colors but red, the red light bounces away from the paint and hits your eyes.
So mix a bunch of paint together and you end up with a mix that absorbs a little bit of everything, and the result is black. | 53 |
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CMV: A direct online democracy where people vote on issues instead of candidates would be better than always having to vote for the less bad of 2 candidates. | A direct online representative democracy would work better than a republic now that the internet exists.
Before, geography limited people so that they couldn't all participate in an election. Now we have the internet. True democracy hasn't been around since Athens--the last time all the people in a society was feasibly able to get together in a forum to vote. But now it's possible.
I think it would work just fine, and it would even mesh well with our current system.
It's very frustrating how our current parties align. It's like they're perfectly aligned to create maximum fighting between themselves, but in the end up being exactly the same on all the most important issues, like war, monetary policy, labor rights, and energy investment--where the policy of both is pretty much "Fuck you."
Voting on issues would make it so someone who is very religious could vote pro-life, but also pro-environmentalist.
Someone could vote for gay marriage, but also against gun control. Right now, these things are essentially impossible in national elections.
CMV
Or go to /r/openparty/ and start working it out if you agree:
Edit. One thing that has been brought up, that affects the discussion pretty deeply is the distinction between:
a)a system where every single vote has to be done through every single person.
b) a system where people can then vote on policies related to the system itself, and so could evolve.
I was imagining (b) when I posted this, but there's a lot of discussion around (a) as well.
Edit2. Just to pre-empt a few of the common counter-arguments:
-Most people are stupid
OK, that's a common opinion, not one that I personally hold. But even if people are stupid, we now have a science committee full of people who don't believe in evolution or climate change. I would trust randomly selected people from the country over that. It's been shown time and time again that crowdsourcing performs just fine.
-Voter Turnout
People wouldn't be forced to vote on topics that don't apply to them or they don't understand. In fact, they could just as well be encouraged not to. I see it as a negative that I vote for Obama because I want public healthcare, but then I also have to go with his opinion on farm subsidies, when I don't know what that is, and I don't have time to research it. In this system, I wouldn't have to.
-Hackers
I think if the vast majority of the internet can run on open-source software, we can figure something out on this front. There are security issues with our current methods, too, but we figured it out.
Edit 3:
OK people, we can throw it in. Cmall2 C-ed my V. It was pretty good.
The basic points were:
-The dynamics of when a minority would get totally screwed would be very hard to predict.
-The whole system would potentially be very volatile. Some things which should probably change slowly could change very quickly.
While I still think a variation on such a system could be more effective, the statement I made is that this particular kind of system would be better than the one we have now, and now I don't know if that's true. So it's no longer my view!
Thanks for the good times guys!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSz16ngdsG0
Edit 4: One last edit for posterity: It's kind of funny all these people who are deathly afraid of people voting in their own interest, yet believe firmly in the invisible hand.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 48 | 1. This is simply mob rule. We have an indirect democracy for a reason.
2. What about hackers?
3. What about the fact that some people are just more fired up about issues than others? Anti-abortion people are better at mobilizing than pro choice.
4. The layman isn't an expert on most issues, tell me how would you vote on farming? Whatever SOUNDS good, may not yield results but it sounds pretty. | 19 |
[MCU] Did nobody seem to really care that a Ego (a nigh-omnipotent Celestial) was able to go out and about the known Universe? | I mean, we figured out why Ego went exploring for life. But everyone was aware of the existence of powerful Celestials that could use Infinity Stones to mow down civilization (like in GOTG), be large enough that Knowhere is a dead Celestial's head, and be the size of a planet. But why did nobody really care that Ego the Celestial (whose existence was recorded in navigation computers, seen in Vol. 2) was able to go out and about? Or did nobody really know that he was a Celestial in the first place? | 320 | What was anyone meant to do? You said it yourself Ego is powerful. Like one of the most powerful unbuffed characters in the MCU. He is a reality warper with billions of years of experience both using his powers and gaining knowledge. The only reason the guardians were even able to get close to the true Ego was because they were invited on planet. It would take an extremely large force to even think of taking on Ego and as far as anyone knew he was not really Causing any trouble. So why would anyone bother? | 216 |
CMV: People who lean their seats back on planes and trains are selfish. | They believe that their comfort is more important than the person behind them’s comfort. I understand “the seats were made to lean back so why shouldn’t I lean back?” argument. But that’s a lot like saying “couches were made to lie down why shouldn’t I lie down?” When there are a few other people in the room who are sitting on the on your kitchen table chairs because you wouldn’t get up. Yeah they still have a seat but the are far less comfortable because your selfishness.
Just because something is convenient for you does not mean it is convenient for anybody around you. I’m sitting here with my knees jammed against the seat and my tray pushed into my chest wondering why does this man put his own comfort in front of mine? It’s because he is selfish. | 29 | Wouldn't the true fair result be a middle ground where he leans his seat back a bit, but not enough to inconvenience you?
Because by saying he shouldn't lean back, you're doing the same thing you're mad about. You're putting your own comfort over someone else's. You're right that neither of your should place your own comfort over everyone else's. So the real fair solution would be some sort of middle ground.
Expecting nobody to recline at all in order to facilitate your own comfort is also selfish. | 22 |
Why do we assume that "intelligent life" on other planets needs oxygen? | I guess looking for oxygen on other planets makes sense for our use...but why do so many papers assume oxygen = alien life? | 44 | Just about every living thing on this planet requires oxygen and is carbon based.
While we can guess at other types of life forms that are based on, say, silicon, etc - and may use, say, methane - we don't have any proof that these exist.
It is easiest to look for what we are familiar with. If it exists here, it probably exists elsewhere.
On the other hand, we would have no real way of knowing what a methane based life form would exhibit - that we could easily test for at a distance (e.g., looking at a planets spectrum, for example). | 27 |
ELI5: Why do airplanes get shaky when passing through clouds? | That might be false but that's just based on most of my observations in the plane... | 18 | Think of the atmosphere like it is millions of balloons. There are pockets of balloons that are different temperatures, and the warmer ones rise to the top. Clouds have different temperatures and humidity, so the contrast is more noticeable as the aircraft passes through | 15 |
Eli5 How does text to speech work? Do they get the people voicing the "speech part" to say a lot of words or is it a different way all together? | 29 | Depends of how advanced the text to speech is. In the early days of text to speech they only recorded sounds like "Ch" and "ee" combining them to make the words, The result was sloppy. These days they voice whole words by getting the voice actors to read whole sentences, like from a book and put that into an AI. The voice actor for Alexa spent weeks to months reading out loud and recording it. The voice actors try to read with little to no emotion yet still fluid speech so when the AI does need to chop up a word it can without it sounding strange. | 21 |
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[Bioshock 2] Why did Subject Delta have a drill? | From my understanding the Bouncer big daddys were brought in after the Alpha series was deemed ineffective, so why was subject delta equipped with a drill before the bouncers were used? | 37 | As a prototype, Delta was kind of a trial run to see what worked and what didn’t. That’s why he can use multiple weapons while the Alpha Series you see in the game only use one type. He was used to see if a guardian that used a drill as a weapon could be effective, as drills don’t use ammunition and are thus cheaper to equip. Bouncers are essentially an Alpha Series that is a lot tougher, but can only use the drill. | 34 |
ELI5: How is it possible for red card owners in Colorado (and I assume other states as well) to be denied the ability to own/purchase a gun? Doesn't this infringe on the 2nd amendment (which is federal law)? | From my understanding there is a question (11e) on form 4473-1 that asks, ' Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?'
Even though a red card owner would be required (I assume so) to answer yes to this question, doesn't the second amendment still indicate the right for all americans to own guns as long as you are not a convicted felon, have any warrants etc.? | 19 | > doesn't the second amendment still indicate the right for all americans to own guns as long as you are not a convicted felon, have any warrants etc.?
The second amendment doesn't talk about any of these issues, it literally states:
`"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."`
The amendment does not specify what limitations (if any) can be placed on the sales of firearms by state or federal governments. It is up to judges to provide a legal interpretation of the amendment to determine whether (and to what extent) the government can regulate firearm purchases. | 10 |
[Groundhog Day] Would Phil's achievement of spiritual peace remain permanent had it not freed him? | Had Phil had to continue the cycles regardless of his good behavior, would he eventually have become disillusioned again and turned to a different direction from what was originally the activity and outlook that freed him?
I.e. Would he have gotten bored of being at peace and well-loved after, say, another thousand years? If so, what do you think would be other directions he would go? | 49 | The end game for Phil would be dark.
As the centuries passed by Phil would become tired of living. Everything that could be experienced he experienced. Every book within a hundred miles he has read a dozen times. Nothing excites him anymore. He finds it harder and harder to get out of bed each day.
Eventually Phil learns how to 'die'. Now if Phil really dies he just comes back to the beginning of the day. He doesn't want that, he wants it to be over. So instead he learns how to just turn himself off. It takes many years of searching his mind and training but eventually learns how to switch his body and brain off.
Phil lays there every day. His mind and body unresponsive. At first he would be conscious for a short time each day as he goes through the process of shutting himself off. As he gets more efficient at it, it becomes effortless. He is aware for only a brief moment each day before he returns to nothingness. Eventually the process becomes automatic. Even if Phil wanted to he couldn't wake up.
Hundreds, thousands, millions of years pass. Phil lays in his bed, divorced from existence. He probably doesn't even remember anything anymore. His mind as developed as a newborn child. All he knows how to do is sleep. | 37 |
ELI5: How does alcohol interfere with the fat burning process in our body? | 17 | Alcohol can be metabolized for energy but it produces toxic byproducts. It also is easier to metabolize than fat so while your body is processing alcohol it isn't burning fat.
Also alcohol has significant amounts of calories so drinking alcohol is similar to just eating more food. For obvious reasons that tends to interfere with losing weight. | 17 |
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CMV: I think the only people who should be allowed to vote in an election (any election), are people who pay taxes into the pool of money governed by the election. | People always think that women didn't get the right to vote until suffrage but that's actually not the case. Originally, before there was an income tax, the only taxes a state collected were property taxes. And the only people allowed to vote were property owners, of which women were not allowed to be unless their husband died. In those cases, the women inherited their husband's property and became eligible to vote at that time.
The reason why a person was only allowed to vote if they paid taxes was because there's a moral hazard that comes along with an ability to vote on how *other people's* money is spent. People are more fiscally conservative (or at least fiscally aware) when it's their own money being spent.
Now, I know there are several different types of taxes and there are also several different elections in which people vote. There could very easily be a situation where a person gets to vote in all their own state elections but not the federal elections. The only taxes collected federally (from an individual) are income taxes and payroll taxes. But payroll taxes (theoretically) only fund Social Security.
I believe that if a person's net federal income tax bill is $0 or less (approx 45% of households in the country), they should not be allowed to vote in federal elections since the people being elected will only be spending other people's money.
Clarifier: I will say that I don't believe there should be any type of proportional voting. A person who pays only a few hundred dollars in federal income tax (based on their income) should have a vote that counts just as much as a person who pays millions. It's the point of each person having skin in the game.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 19 | Contributing income tax dollars isn't the only "investment" a citizen has in the country. Even if a person doesn't make enough money, they are still expected to sign up for the draft if they are male, join a jury, uphold the law, and all other responsibilities of being a citizen. This is also ignoring the fact that those citizens work for businesses that pay taxes, purchase goods with a sales tax, and otherwise contribute to the economy that keeps the country running. To deny these people the right to vote is unethical | 40 |
[DiabloII] Why isn't Andarielle destroying the Rogue basecamp with the fuckton of devil force she's got available? | Kurast got a defensive spell cast on it. Pandemonium is protected by angels, and Harrogath is under siege, but why are the evil forces not taking the base of Act I and II already?
I can't step ten meters out of them without being already face to face with a lot of them, so it's not like they don't know where it is.
| 37 | Remember the Den of Evil quest? Andariel sent her minions to establish a base there so that they could finish off the Rogues. Andariel's minions were only about a day or two away from kicking off the final stages of their attack when an unnamed group of heroes got there and purged it at Akara's request.
EDIT: As for Lut Gholein, you may recall that the city gets invaded by Radamant's minions at night. ~~Warriv~~ Meshif has had to fight them out of his boat once or twice, so he keeps a close eye on the southeast sewer entrance at night. The palace itself has been overrun, and pretty much all of the guards are dead by the time the unnamed heroes arrive. In short, Lut Gholein is royally screwed. | 38 |
Emojis should be embraced ☺️ | Emojis are a natural evolution of our written language. We have essentially added heiroglyphics that provide nuance to short, written messages. I believe they are first step to a universally understandable language.
I want to challenge the widely held view that emojis are childish and unprofessional. Another dimension of written language is a necessity for the future of efficient communication. How many office disputes could have been avoided if someone hadn't misinterpreted the "tone" of an email?🙄
If you don't use emojis, you are standing in the way of progress. | 25 | While some emojis can be useful in helping identify tone of a written message, with the current array of emojis we still have problems.
A much better way of communicating tone would be to follow that of HK-47 and his successors the HK-50 and HK-51 series of protocol droids from the *Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic* Franchise. Where each section of speech begins with the type of speech being listed such as "Statement" or "Observation" or "Query" with further adhectives being listed such as "Gleeful Statement".
Simply listing the tone would be much better for a writteb language than small pictures which can still be misinterpreted. | 12 |
[Disney's The Little Mermaid] - If Ariel had gotten Prince Eric to kiss her before the sun set on the third day, would she have gotten her voice back? Or was the deal only that she would stay human forever? | I think we all assumed she would get her voice back, but this wasn't really clear in the terms of Ursula's contract. | 26 | If Eric had kissed her, she'd have stayed mute. Her voice was payment for services rendered.
I would assume, however, that there was some kind of additional clause where if he had, Ursula would have received a secondary payment of some sort (most likely a firstborn child) in exchange for making her human permanently
Ariel should have had an attorney read that contract before signing it. | 23 |
eli5: why does it get so cold in the desert at night. | Let’s take the Sahara for example, it’s a lot closer to the equator, yet at night temperatures fall to -4c (25f). Yet in the uk which is a lot further away from the equator, the night temperatures are around 15c (60f) during the summer. Why is this? | 99 | Large bodies of water act as a temperature shock absorber. Water is relatively difficult to heat or cool. That means large bodies of water tend to stay about the same temperature despite the ambient air temperature. When the air cools at night, the warmer water heats the air. The opposite happens during day when the warm air is chilled by the cooler water (which is still the same temperature as it was 12 hours prior). In the desert, there is no water to do this resulting in larger temperature swings between night and day. | 216 |
[MARVEL] If Rhino and Juggernaut charged each other, what would happen? | 331 | Rhino goes flying/gets trampled/insert other gruesome fate here. Rhino's powers are that he's super strong and tough. Juggernaut is literally empowered by a god/demon with the power to be unstoppable. Not figuratively, *literally* unstoppable: characters can redirect his momentum or shut down his brain or body, but if juggernaut runs in a direction, no physical barrier will stop him. | 660 |
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What happens when an atom of anti-matter hits a regular atom of a much heavier element? | I heard this question on NPR's "Science Friday" recently, and the guest's answer didn't seem to make any sense. So I thought I'd ask you guys. If an anti-particle of hydrogen hits a heavier atom (like gold), my understanding is that the entire anti-hydrogen is annihilated.
But what happens to the gold atom? Is it also annihilated? Is only part of it annihilated? Is it still gold at the end?
Thanks. | 180 | an atom of anti-hydrogen consists of an anti-proton and a positron, which will annihilate with one regular proton and an electron, respectively. So at the end the Gold particle would be left with one less proton and one less electron, turning it into platinum. | 97 |
[Interstellar] Where did the wormhole come from? | I finally got around to watching Interstellar, and it was amazing. I think I understood most of it, but one thing really bothered me. Who exactly are "they"? Did "they" make the wormhole? Or did Cooper make the wormhole?
| 54 | It was built by the robots. Its the only way to avoid a predestination paradox where humans made the wormhole to save themselves, but wouldn't have been able to survive the blight and live long enough to do so.
So basically, here's how it goes:
1. Humans die from the blight, our AI robots live on and evolve (CASE/TARS)
2. Eventually, the AI develops the technology to build wormholes, and creates the one we see in the movie.
3. Humanity then goes through the wormhole and leverages technology allowing it to survive (figuring out "gravity" and all that)
The reason this works is because the AIs would evolve anyways to their next state and simply shepherd and safeguard their creators.
The clues are pretty clear:
1. When in the tesseract, TARS is more aware of what is going on than Cooper is. Why? Because a robot is not constrained to a human viewpoint of 3 dimensions + time.
2. Cooper says something along the lines that "it's us, we built [the tesseract] to save ourselves", but then TARS chimes in: "i don't think that is what it is".
TL;DR - Humanity didn't save humanity, the robots did. Even despite their best efforts, we still almost failed thanks to general human shittiness (Dr. Mann) | 41 |
[Mass Effect] Why aren't Geth Fighters remotely operated? | Geth, as we know, are code based entities who can communicate and travel between mobile platforms(bodies). From what Legion tells us in Mass Effect 3, Geth don't even use escape pods because they can simply travel to other servers/platforms, So then why do physical Geth bodies pilot their ships? Not only are they then restricted by the physical response times of their bodies, but they're pretty much just wasting resources on manufacturing physical geth pilots. Wouldn't it be much more efficient to just have their ships controlled remotely, seeing as how they don't actually need bodies? | 37 | Physical pilots allow for more versatility than simple drones. They can preform complex repairs, can function as boarding units, or provide a threat on the ground. Furthermore, if the fighter is in a place where it can't easily transmit the consensus to save them a platform can be useful for recovering the AI.
They already manufacture largely homogenous units so it likely doesn't increase the resource cost of building fighters or platforms. | 32 |
ELI5: What happens to the leg muscles during leg lengthening surgery & recovery? Do they stretch permanently? Is muscle taken from somewhere else? | 87 | When bones are lengthened, the stretch on the tissues causes them to grow and lengthen. We know that his happens normally in growing kids as well. Only the bones themselves are lengthened in the surgeries. | 82 |
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ELI5: Why do horror movies get low critic ratings and high audience ratings, or the exact opposite? | Usually on any site that collects both Critic scores as well as Audience/Viewer scores, you'll find that they're usually polar opposites for horror movies. A movie with a 96% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes will have a 1 star on Netflix, or a 4.5 star horror on Netflix will usually have a <30% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
What gives? | 135 | Many people go to the theater for the experience. They want to laugh, or cry, or be thrilled, or terrified. You need a reason to go to the theater. Movie critics view several films a day. The novelty of a "theater experience" is irrelevant to them. That's their office. Critics instead are looking for something new, fresh, and original. After all, if you watch movies all day long and every single one seemed like a rehash of something else, you'd be dying for ANYTHING new and different. Well most regular people want to spend their money on a sure thing - not something risky and new. If a regular person is going to spend their money on a horror film, they expect to see all the staples of a horror film. And when they do, they enjoy it. Meanwhile, when a critic sees what they are already expecting, they are bored by it. | 150 |
CMV: The pharmaceutical / medical industry exists almost entirely as a money maker as opposed to helping / saving people | Ironically, I am a Biology student trying to get into medical school, and am not an anti-vaxxer. But the realization / belief that I may be harming people by giving them unnecessary drugs has really eaten away at me recently and is making me completely rethink my goals, so I would love if I could be enlightened. I know I am genuinely ignorant in many ways but I really do believe a lot of negative ideas about medicine in general.
I hold this view primarily because I understand the world operates based off money. I believe almost everything (wars, drugs, etc) is fueled by greed and money, and the pharmaceutical industry is no different. These companies are always advertising their special products on TV, practically begging people to buy them, and it honestly makes me question whether I'm even cut out for medicine if I don't feel right about seeing this lobbying and pharmaceutical sales reps trying to score all of these deals.
I lost a friend a few years ago to liver failure, and I am certain his acne medication (which contained Accutane) was to blame, or at least played a role. If I were a doctor, I would undoubtedly feel awful about killing a patient over something as minor as acne, and the last thing I want to do is kill someone.
I cringe when I see new articles about the opioid epidemic and how it is ruining people's lives while making CEOs rich. I believe an executive even referred to those suffering opioid addiction as "Pill-billies", which I find quite sad, bringing into question the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.
I also disagree when I read articles that say "researchers have worked so hard to develop the covid vaccine that will save us all!" Do they think these companies really care about their personal health? These companies (Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, etc) were in an arms race to develop and deploy a vaccine so that they can earn the most money, not so they can save your grandma. They don't really care about people, and the medical industry doesn't either, they are after the money.
I feel that this is the same reason flu vaccines and so many unnecessary tests / immunizations are given every year. They make more money for these pharmaceutical companies while jeopardizing the health of the patient. I have tried to disprove this idea myself, but just can't can't to ignore the idea that "A patient cured is a customer lost." I truly want to believe this is not the case but I know that money owns the world, and this would make perfect sense. You don't want to cure a patients cancer, you want want give them as much treatment as possible because that is how more money is made. If this truly is the case, I could not continue to pursue medicine in good faith.
Please try to CMV, as I would love to become more educated on this topic! | 36 | Companies in a capitalist society exist to make money, restaurants don't exist to feed us, supermarkets don't exist to feed us. But they do feed us regardless, the same is true about the medical industry, they might exist to make money but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use it | 26 |
ELI5 How did they find the exact location of the south pole in 1911. I know sailors used constellations to navigate but when they were in the south pole back then the sun never set. | 40 | Amundsens second in command was a naval navigator and the expedition spend three days taking observations of the exact possition of the sun and the moon from various possitions around the south pole to determine its exact possition. For Scott it was much easier as he could just see the big tent with the Norwegian flag marking the exact possition. | 137 |
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[X-Men/Fantastic Four] Why was Magneto so traumatized by Reed Richards using a wooden gun to defeat him? | Video Of The Incident - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5-JVvCrGC8
Magneto has been in tougher scraps than this, I assume.
Why did this trick traumatize him so much?
Not to mention, now that he realizes that his powers haven't gone away, why doesn't he just kill the cops and escape/attack Richards? Instead, he just keeps muttering, "A wooden gun! He tricked me!" over and over. | 17 | Magneto places a lot of faith in his superpowers. His whole identity is built around his powers. He has committed atrocities in the name of those powers. If a normal, sane person got telekinesis one day and then found something it didn't work on the same day it wouldn't be so unsettling. Imagine reaching up to grab something only to find that both of your arms were bloody stumps. | 24 |
ELI5: It makes sense that high power cell towers can reach cell phones. How do cell phones send signals back to towers? | 135 | If you have a flashlight, it will illuminate a few feet in front of you. Not very bright, definitely not as bright as a high-powered lamp. But, if you move quite far away from a person holding a flashlight, you can still see the flashlight, even if you can't see anything it's illuminating.
Same with cell phones. The signal may be weak, but it can still be "seen" by the tower from very far away. | 134 |
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How many Minions are there, and what's with their language? [Despicable Me] | I cannot for the life of me get a good estimate. I'm also very curious about how their pidgin language formed, seems to have pieces of English, Spanish, French, and maybe more. Did Gru try to teach some of them different languages? Why would he do that? | 18 | 1. Assuming they're all present during Gru's State of the Union address in the first movie, about 1,000. 2. Best guess? Due to their unique vocal cords they can only say certain sounds ("Apples" are "Bapples", for example). So they created a language to let them communicate easier. Sometimes they borrow words from other languages because they find them easy to pronounce. | 10 |
[MCU] Why was the government mad at Tony Stark in Iron Man 2? | In IM2 the government wants Tony's armor, and Tony doesn't want to give it to them. One of the arguments he makes is that no one would have the resources and the knowledge to build an armor like his for the next 15 years. But after Whiplash attacks Tony in Monaco, everyone is like "Tony, you said no one would have armors like yours for the next decade, but these armors exist now". Bruh... The Whiplash equipment is clearly not on the same level as the Iron Man armor. It can't even fly. It didn't even have a helmet, Vanko could have been killed by a regular sniper. Tony didn't lie. He said no one would be able to build an armor like his, and he was clearly right! | 493 | Vanko built that in a garage.
With a box of scraps.
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He was able to build something that could take on two of Tony's armors at the same time within only a couple of months once he had the resources.
The only hurdle to building an Iron Man-esque armor if you have the basic idea is miniaturizing the Arc Reactor. Literally any competent robotics expert could build a functional facsimile of Iron man (minus repulsors) once they had a Mini Arc. Whiplash overcame this hurdle under much the same conditions that Tony did. It wasn't a *completely* baseless problem the Government had.
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That said, they wanted his suit because it was a weapon, plain and simple. Everything else was just an excuse to try and take it. | 671 |
[The legend of korra] Since zaheer spends so much time in the spirit realm nowadays do you think its possible he would seek out P'li or try to find Guru Laghima? | Bonus if he connected with P'li again would it inhibit his flight? | 32 | The Spirit World isn't an afterlife. Its just a different plane of existence to the material world where the rules of reality are a little different.
The only human spirits that are there are those with an innate spirituality (like Iroh) who chose to move there instead of passing on, those with a connection to a spirit (the Avatar and past lives), or those brought there by other means (Zhao and the others in the Fog of Lost Souls). | 53 |
ELI5: How did Prohibition get enough support to actually happen in the US, was public sentiment against alcohol really that high? | 10,453 | Yes. Prohibition was very popular (when it was enacted: it rapidly fell apart afterward). Polling as we know it today wasn't around at the time, but it passed pretty overwhelmingly: only two states (Connecticut and Rhode Island) didn't ratify it.
The early 1900s was sort of a weird period from a modern perspective. There was a great belief all around the world in a natural progression to history that matched the progression of technology, and all sorts of movements were popping up to try to reform the world. Eugenics was popular almost everywhere, racial and gender rights were on the march, the labor movement won a number of major victories. The notion of trying to improve people morally came alongside a major religious revival in the form of the original Progressives (only loosely related to the modern movement by that name), who believed in progress in all its forms (hence the name), including some we do not look back on quite so fondly today.
It's probably worth noting that people drank a *lot* at the time. Think, like, Japanese businessmen or Russians - on average, about three times more than modern Americans drink, which is more than *any* country drinks today. And that drinking came with some of the same kinds of problems we associate with it today, e.g. spousal abuse. The newfound rights of women made them a major bloc in the temperance movement, campaigning against the drunken misbehavior of the men around them. Most suffragettes were also pro-temperance, and the two movements campaigned together. | 10,094 |
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Why is the whole world not covered in mildew? | Specifically in rain forests and things why is the whole thing not just covered in it? | 15 | Plants basically wage constant chemical warfare against each other. Look at pine trees for example: When the die they take a really long time to decompose because they are filled with resin. Insects can't chew through that and other plants and fungus (usually) has a hard time growing on it.
Below living pine trees you won't find many other plants because the needles they constantly drop contain resin too. Eucalyptus trees do the same with eukalyptus oil. Species have to adapt (like Koalas) to these poisons before they can coexist or compete with these plants.
The same goes for mildew: It can't easily attach itself to plants that actively defend themselves, so it usually grows on dead plants, that cannot produce enough poison. | 16 |
ELI5: Why don't we crowd fund our own ISP? | We think of the internet as public domain. Why don't we literally make the company providing us internet public domain too? At the very least we could crowd fund a new company to provide these services and infrastructure?
I don't think this is a novel idea so I assume there's a number of reasons why we as a people(the actual people, not some government) can't provide our own services.
First ever submission, sorry if I broke any rules.
Edit 1: For arguments sake let's say we're talking about the UK or America, although if anyone has input on how it might (not) work in another country I'd still be as interested to hear it.
Edit 2: This kind of explains my thinking behind this idea.
"I dedicate all of my work to the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible. I say our “hearts,” because our minds sometimes tell us it is not possible. Our minds doubt that things will ever be much different from what experience has taught us. You may have felt a wave of cynicism, contempt, or despair as you read my description of a sacred economy. You might have felt an urge to dismiss my words as hopelessly idealistic. Indeed, I myself was tempted to tone down my description, to make it more plausible, more responsible, more in line with our low expectations for what life and the world can be. But such an attenuation would not have been the truth. I will, using the tools of the mind, speak what is in my heart. In my heart I know that an economy and society this beautiful are possible for us to create-and indeed that anything less than that is unworthy of us. Are we so broken that we would aspire to anything less than a sacred world?" - http://sacred-economics.com/sacred-economics-introduction/
Edit 3: Gonna mark as answered because the general consensus seems to be too much effort and a lot of legal mitigation from established companies. | 22 | The really expensive part of running an ISP is 'the last mile' - all the millions of connections between exchanges and houses. These are owned by the existing ISPs.
But, if you think it might work, start a crowdfunding effort. You'll need a 30-90 billion dollars to make it work. | 11 |
Sartre’s Existentialism and Marxism | So, Sartre was one of the first philosophers I ever read, and I still adore a lot of his work. However over the past year I’ve been going through a little Marxist phase and going to campus reading groups and events and things of that nature. I now feel decently well grounded in both Sartre’s Existentialism and Marxism, although notably I haven’t read later Sartre. I have heard as he got older he adopted more Marxist views into his philosophy.
That turn Sartre took seems very strange to me, because I would have thought that Marxism and Existentialism were incompatible, as Sartre spent a good bit of time rebutting Marxist critiques of Existentialism in Existentialism Is A Humanism. I was under the impression that Marxists would scoff at some of Sartre’s ideas about human freedom and agency, and that Sartre could never reconcile himself to Marxism’s rigidity.
So, I was hoping this sub could help explain Sartre’s turn towards Marxism, as well as in what ways he reconciled it with his Existentialism, and what the reaction to this has been from Marxists and other philosophical schools?
Now, I know the answer to my question is probably just “read later Sartre”, but I’m busy right now and have more time for Reddit comments. I definitely plan on reading his later works in the summer, so I’d love recommendations for what to buy as well as any insights you guys have! | 32 | When Sartre was alive, Marxism (or a plurality of its adherents) was far more rigid and deterministic than it is today. The fact that Sartre tried to reconcile existential phenomenology with Marxism shows he saw himself as a kind of Marxist - just one at odds with his peers.
Sartre's leftism is indebted to the famous Marx quote of *"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past."* He is particularly concerned with the "*making"* as a verb. Marxism provides the field of opportunities to an agent but doesn't explain the radical particularity of any one choice.
The most clarifying comment from Sartre to me about his Marxism comes from his late career writings (A Search for Method and Critique of Dialectical Reason) where he says something like *"Existentialism would have no reason to exist if Marxism ever abandons its teleology."* Sartre wanted a Marxism that explained and reinforced human agency in a world that is fundamentally ambiguous. | 20 |
[X-Force] I own a business and Domino just invested in my biggest competitor. How screwed am I? | 63 | Not at all.
Domino's luck is immediate and situational. If you decide to drive 20 miles to her house and shoot her, your car will start just fine, but your gun will jam while it's pointed at her face. If your schedule for tomorrow includes "kill Domino", you won't slip and break your neck getting out of the shower that morning; you'll slip and break your neck in the moment of trying to stab her.
Long term, at a distance, it doesn't apply. If Domino wants to get rich she needs to play roulette, not the stock market. | 125 |
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We've all heard stories about people acting drunk after unknowingly being served non-alcoholic beer, but could this placebo effect potentially impair one's ability to operate a vehicle? | 718 | Neuropsychology researcher here. Some research has shown that expectancy/placebo effects of alcohol can affect more than social inhibition of behavior.
For example, Assefi and Gary 2003 showed placebo-induced impairments on eyewitness memory/response to misinformation.
Much more relevant to operating a motor vehicle is Gilbertson et al. 2010. Participants who believed they had received alcohol performed worse on measures of covert attention. The findings suggest that this effect may be mediated by one's previous experience with alcohol, but that conclusion is not fully substantiated and requires more research.
*edit for spelling* | 296 |
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[mass effect] why did the council favor humans compare to the other races? for example the, drell,hanar, elcor and even the volus seem to have less favor with the council compare to humans. | 29 | The Truth?
Because the council's favor is based on how worried they are you're capable of wrecking the current status quo. Humans showed up on the scene ramping up to throw down with one of the biggest militaries in council space, and the council is actually worried the Alliance might have put up a decent fight if not win. | 66 |
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ELI5: What does ego death mean? | 16 | So, what is ego in the first place? What does it do?
It fills a void. That void is there because we don't know ourselves. Therefore, a false identity is created, nourished, and it grows. Unless it is constantly fed, it dies. Stop feeding the ego.
What happens then? When we stop identifying with titles, accomplishments, possessions and concepts, our true Selves begin to emerge.
Uncovered, our nature arises, like the sun. The ego, which is like a candle flame, is simply no longer noticed nor necessary.
Like a crutch, it is tossed away and we move freely on our own.
We trust our own wisdom and a new life dawns. | 30 |
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What things should I look forward to in studying computer science/programming in college? | I feel the need to have an idea how computer science classes are in college. Did two years of it in high school, so wondering if in college it would drastically different or pretty much the same. | 16 | Less about CS and more about college. You may feel like a big fish in a little pond right now, and college you will be a little fish in a vast ocean.
How are the CS classes? Depends on the professor.
What do you have to look forward to? Likely a lot of theory that wasn’t covered in highschool. You might know a language or two, and a few frameworks. Maybe you’ve done some robotics or something. But the real value of college CS is that you learn some history of the field as well as how it evolved. You will learn about algorithms and discrete mathematics and theory of computation and programming abstractions. Sure there will be some classes like game design or web development or mobile apps, but those can all be learned on YouTube. The real value is the fundamental understanding of the entire field. Don’t rush into these elective classes - you will get more from them if you have a better understanding of them if you have strong fundamentals | 18 |
CMV: I don't think the Chattanooga shootings were terrorist attacks | [On July 16, 2015, a gunman opened fire on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing four service members immediately. Two other service members and a police officer were wounded, with one of the servicemen dying from his injuries two days later. The gunman, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, was killed by police at the site of the second shooting.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Chattanooga_shootings)
I feel terrible for the families of the victims of these attacks, but to me, this was an attack on soldiers at a military target. The US military today is able to conduct war through drone strikes from across the planet. The attacks weren't on traditional war targets, but the US blows up enemy training grounds and recruiting sites all the time. We don't consider those attacks terrorist attacks, we consider them strikes on legitimate military targets that weaken our enemy. I think it's naive and arrogant to arrogant to think an American drone strike on a Taliban recruiting ground is a legitimate act of war and that an attack on an American recruiting ground is a terrorist attack.
I'm not trying to justify his actions or his beliefs, I'm more sayitg that **Terrorist Attacks** in my opinion are unjustifiable strikes against non-combatants, they are war crimes, they are despicable and criminal, but that the Chattanooga attacks were something different. The perpetrator is still our enemy, but we shouldn't demonize him as a terrorist.
If you have any further questions about my view or want me to clarify something, please let me know
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 274 | I would say the difference is that this was not in any way a militarily strategic target. It was an attack on a military recruitment center, but there was no strategic aim. It doesn't weaken the US military capabilities or government in any direct way whatsoever. Instead, the goal was intimidation and frankly, well, terror. | 175 |
If my speed is relative, not absolute, and the speed of light always appears the same no matter my reference frame, how is a statement like "I am travelling at 99% of the speed of light" meaningful? | 57 | It's true, this statement should be always be followed by "with respect to some reference frame." If you're carrying a cup of tea in your spaceship, the cup of tea doesn't care that some guy on the moon is measuring your speed at 0.9999c. | 52 |
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Why is the depressurization of Taal Volcano a bad thing? | The local authority in the Philippines says that the ground fissures from quakes are concerning because they suggest there will be an explosive eruption. However, to an ignorant fool like me, depressurization sounds like a good thing. It seems to me if there is less pressure then there would be a less forceful eruption. But it seems like I'm wrong and I would like to learn why. | 4,824 | Think about what happens when you have a bottle of carbonated water that has been shaken, and you try to open it gently. When the bottle is sealed, the contents is under pressure, and thus stable.
Now you slightly unscrew the cap so that the over pressure can start to equalize. Some of the carbon dioxide dissolved in the liquid will start to escape and form gas bubbles when the pressure drops. Since a gas is much less dense than a liquid, these will quickly rise to the top and escape out through the opening in the cap. However, if the amount of gas that escapes is large enough, the temporary increase in volume will force the liquid all the way up to the cap and, if you're not fast enough in your reactions to screw it back in place, will cause the water to spray out. If you're fast enough, the liquid settles back down, and you can repeat the process until the pressure is equalized to the outside.
In both cases the end result is a completely un-pressurized container of water. But in the first case, you will get sprayed by some of it due to the violent manner of depressurization.
Now imagine the water is molten rock and shit, and the bottle is as large as a mountain, and someone just unscrewed the cap slightly.....
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Edit: Clarified the conversion from dissolved carbon dioxide to gas a bit, to make it a bit more accurate and less hand-wavy. | 8,127 |
[Star Trek] Hey I just had my memory scrambled a bit in a transporter accident. What was all this crap with Shinzon and the Romulans having some slave shadow planet populated by Remans? Was this some sort of delusion brought on by my scrambled brain? Did that really happen? | 21 | Romulan intelligence have suppressed the existence of the Remans due to the repeated atrocities the Romulans have inflicted upon them.
As you know, Romulans are decended from Vulcans - and so are Remans. When the Romulan ancestors abandoned Vulcan, they forsake their telepathic abilites, but the Reman's ancestors refused to do so. For this, these telepathic holdouts were enslaved by Romulans on Remus to mine dilithium.
Remus is a tidally locked world, and Remans live on the dark side of the planet. This effected their evolution by tinting their skin very pale and making them extremely sensitive to light.
Remans are also fierce warriors. Romulans used Remans as front line shock troops in several Dominion War battles, and the Remans suffered high casualties.
In short, the Romulans have mistreated Remans for a very long time by enslaving them and using them in war, so much so that it has effected their physical development as a species. It is no suprise they attempted a coup d'etat under Praetor Shinzon.
I regret to hear about your transporter accident. If you require further assistance, report to your starship's counselor. | 27 |
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ELI5 Why does high volume damage speakers. And why are TVs designed with the option to go so high if it damages them | 230 | Speakers work by moving a cone back and forth with a magnet which creates sound waves in the air. To make something louder, you need to move the cone a bigger distance.
Rapid movement over bigger distances can physically damage a cone. Also, the higher you go with volume, the more distortion which can also cause damage.
The reason TVs have settings beyond the damage threshold is that input 'line level' us not normalised, so some inputs are quieter and need more amplification. | 161 |
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ELI5: Why do extremely hot items glow "red hot" as opposed to other colors, like green, blue, purple, etc.? | I was watching those recent videos on YouTube where a knife is heated until it's red hot and cuts into various objects...
I never considered it before, but I started to wonder why things turn red when they're extremely hot instead of other colors... | 188 | Heated objects produce light.
Even room-temperature objects are emitting light. It just isn't *much* light and the wavelength is way too long to see (it is low-energy).
The more an object heats up, then more energy it emits. It also starts to emit more energy of higher frequencies (higher energy levels). So if it gets hot enough, some of that light is now going to be in the visible spectrum, since it will be energetic enough to produce red light (but not much of a higher wavelength like green or blue light).
If you keep heating it, it will get yellower and yellower as more yellow light gets emitted (relative to the other energy it is emitting).
Eventually it does reach a point where it emitting enough higher energy light that it has a considerable amount of green or blue light being emitted. However, at this point, so much light is being emitted (and a lot of it is still red light) that the object will just appear white to us. | 202 |
ELI5 how does the national debt affect day to day lives of its citizens? | 45 | Interest has to be paid on the loan. Every dollar that goes towards the interest on the debt is a dollar that can’t be spent on other services.
It’s worth noting that just like in your own personal life, not all debt is bad. Taking out a loan for college that then (usually) results in higher lifetime earnings is good. Likewise, the government borrowing and spending can often have greater returns than the interest paid on the debt. | 29 |
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How does a hard drive compensate for the expansion of itself when in use? | It is my understanding that there are very precise points of magnetised sectors within a hard drive, an expansion of just fractions of millimetres could disrupt the whole hard drive, or so I would presume. Why does it not? | 1,009 | The head positioning amplifier is driven from processed feedback out of the heads that are reading in a dynamic fashion. Fine positioning is determined by the picked up signal, not absolute, predetermined locations. | 510 |
ELI5:What feminists mean when they say "empower women" and how "empowering women" will lower rape rates. | 32 | There are a number of stereotypes about sexuality in women in modern society, and many of them are problematic. The major one when it comes to rape, is that a woman’s value lies in her genitals, and that sex is an object or ‘treat’, that a woman can ‘give’ or ‘grant access to’. To say it as simply as possible (minding that it is more complex than this), if someone believes that they are ‘owed’ sex (whether it be because they have been dating someone for a while, because they are married, or even just because they were being flirted with), and they are sufficiently violent, frustrated or mentally unstable, they may try to ‘take’ the sex that was ‘owed to them’. The ‘empowerment’ idea comes from reinforcing the idea to women (and men) that women are not objects, or gate keepers to sex, but muti-dimensional **people**. Who have choice. And the choice to say no is one that they are entitled to.
(Subnote: Not all rape occurs in a dark alleyway with a stranger. A lot of the time, it is someone known, or dating; where the woman is either too afraid/feels unable to say ‘no’, or the man does not listen to that ‘no’.)
| 74 |
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Why exactly do the tectonic plates move in different directions? | I fully understand that tectonic plates are just pieces of crust that move because of the convection cells of lava and rock beneath the surface moving them towards a certain direction. But my question is *why* do the different convection cells all move in different directions, what determines that? So for example, the Indo-Australian and Pacific plates have a convergent border, so my question is why does the Indo-Australian plate's convection cell move east and the Pacific Plate's convection cell move west rather than both of them just moving in the same direction? | 21 | There are a few different forces driving the motion of tectonic plates.
*Slab pull* is thought to be the main one. The part of the plate that is subducting is old, (relatively) cold, making it dense, making it sink in the mantle. It pulls the surface part of the plate along. Like a tablecloth sliding off a table because of the weight of the part already hanging down.
*Slab suction* is also associated with the subduction. The sinking slab drives flow in the surrounding mantle which then acts on other parts of plates. Slab suction means that even if the slab breaks it can still drive plate motion.
The fastest moving plates are the ones with most subduction, and this is taken as a major piece of evidence for subduction-related forces being dominant.
*Ridge push* is from mid-ocean ridges. The plate near the ridge is new, warm, so it's less dense and sits high. Away from the ridge it's colder and more dense and sits low. So the plate basically slides downhill. Ridge push is estimated as 5-10% as strong as slab pull plus slab suction.
Mantle convection acting on the underside of the plates was once assumed to drive the motion, but it's now thought to be a very minor part. For it to be significant the convection cells would need to be comparable in size to the plates themselves, but evidence based on density measurements of the mantle by seismic waves indicate any convection cells are actually much smaller. Thus to the extent they exert forces on plates, they'll be pushing different bits of the same plate different ways with little overall effect. | 15 |
I don't think Native Canadians should be given any special concessions simply because they first inhabited the land, CMV. | Native Canadians have been afforded many concessions by the government due to historical reasons. No taxes on reserves, free education, job privileges through affirmative action, scholarship priority, increased hunting and fishing rights, monetary payouts, etc. I feel as if the reasons they have been provided these things is now too far in the past to be a legitimate reason to be providing them anymore. The argument that Native Canadians have been exposed to trauma that makes these benefits necessary is outdated. I think it is well past time that the Canadian government cut these benefits and tried to put an end to this shameless victim mentality that hasn't seemed to actually help the situation at all.
I may just be bitter because I am from Saskatchewan, but please try to change my view. I have grown up with white shame for what my ancestors did. One of my parents have also worked in the poorest neighbourhoods where I live (90% Native) and I feel as if it has skewed my view as well. I constantly see my parent taken advantage of and being made to feel guilty because she is white.
EDIT: While I now understand that my opinion is kind of harsh, I am still of the same opinion. Thanks everyone! | 15 | You are completely missing the main reason for the Treaty rights. It isn't about social justice, preserving traditions, or guilt. The Treaties are in effect because we promised that they would be, and that's it. Breaking treaties is very bad for a government's reputation, no matter if it happened centuries ago or not. | 36 |
CMV: Jake Paul fights are staged | The whole boxing Youtubers thing started as a joke and was a successful money grab.
Jake meets with very successful people (as seen on a video with Gary Vee) to discuss ways to money grab the public (ex. Happened with the bored ape NFTs).
The boxing community + the general public love the “undefeated fighter” narrative and that’s the exact narrative he’s reaching for.
Which is why I think he’s either cherry picking or paying fighters.
Mayweather could’ve easily knocked him out. But they decided to not keep score and call it friendly because they both need their “undefeated fighter” narrative. | 28 | He's absolutely cherrypicking. These are exhibition fights organized *by* him. He picks who he fights, so of course he is going to pick people he thinks he can beat, rather than picking someone who could take his skull off.
Actually throwing the fight, on the other hand, makes no sense.
For starters, they're paid more when they win. So unless they are illegally gambling on their own fight, it would be financially stupid. It is also an embarrassment to men who are often extremely prideful. No competitive fighter wants to get knocked the fuck out by some youtube moron. | 14 |
[Blade Runner] If replicants have major physiological differences from humans (e.g. the ability to lift 400 pounds of cargo all day every day), why is something as nuanced as a voight-kampf needed to identify one? | 147 | Its unconstitutional to forcibly perform any inspections which would easily identify most replicants (MRI, open surgery, dna scan) without probable cause.
The Voight-Kampf test relies on exterior observation and a simple interrogation which doesn't even require the person to answer honestly. That's why its so advantageous in identifying replicants. Its completely legal and non invasive. | 174 |
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Would it be beneficial or harmful to get more than two doses of the Pfizer or Modern COVID-19 vaccine? | If the purpose of two shots is to increase the efficacy and long term staying power of the antibodies, then could you theoretically get as many vaccine doses as you wanted? Would this be helpful for protecting from COVID? Would it be harmful? Is there a diminishing return after a certain point? | 18 | It would not be harmful, but it probably would not provide much in terms of additional protection.
For example, in the MMR vaccine, they give it in two doses. One dose is 78% effective against mumps, the second dose raises it to 88%, certainly a diminished return, but still significant. Two doses of COVID vaccine gets you to 95%, not much more ro be gained. | 17 |
[Attack on Titan/Shingeki No Kyojin] How does such a corrupt/lazy government and society grow out of an apocalyptic event? | Those who survive in these times are born of those who managed to build three layers of walls, the outermost with a 480km radius, in the midst of the extermination of their species by a far more powerful adversary. Surely such people would not be the kind to spawn a system of useless lords and cowardly warriors? | 29 | First off, the walls were not built, they were discovered. The surviving population took refuge within, and has conducted some minor detailing, but the walls themselves were found largely as they are.
Second, the fall of the outer wall was the first breach ever. For the most part, people just lived inside the walls for a century with only the Rangers actually encountering Titans.
A century of no real fighting, and no real concern, is more than enough time to breed an ineffectual military and a corrupt government. | 47 |
ELI5: How did the modern guitar come to be? Why aren't there any guitars with strings designated for each note? | 27 | >Why aren't there any guitars with strings designated for each note?
Because at that stage it stops being a guitar and becomes a harp. The important part of the guitar is the fingerboard, and an important aspect of being a guitar is that it's organised into spaced by frets -- the little wires you see going across the fingerboard at various intervals. Other string instruments can be fretless, such as the violin or the double bass, and violinists and double-bassists have to be much more precise about where they put their fingers; that's why chords on these instruments tend to be less common than they are on guitar. Other string instruments, such as the Indian sitar, have movable frets, which means you can change how the strings behave in relation to one another and to themselves.
Those frets are wider at the bottom than at the top because of the mathematical basis of music: it's all about ratios. At the bottom of the string (up towards the top of the neck of the guitar) the spaces are wider than they are at the bottom because the ratio changes. This is analogous to the way the strings of a harp change as you get closer to the player, from the long low strings at arm's length to the short, high strings right next to the harpist's nose.
Being able to isolate a few different strings in different positions you can make pretty much any chord imaginable, and you also get lots of different options for making the same chord. That gives the guitar some of its trademark features; chords and versatility. | 23 |
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[The Simpsons] What kind of friend relation does Bart and Nelson actually have? | Sometimes Nelson is portrayed as a terrifying bully that Bart wouldn't want to go near, or even look at. In other episodes however, Nelson is rather shown as a member of Bart's friend group, occasionally staying at his house, and at worst being a bit rude. It doesn't appear things changed drastically over time; sometimes we see one version of Nelson, sometimes the other. | 36 | Bart is a troublemaker and Nelson is a dirtbag. Nelson's behavior is worse than Bart's only because it's slightly more malicious. Bart is often an asshole, but he mainly acts that way because he thinks it's funny. Bart as the troublemaker doesn't want to get on the wrong side of Nelson, but troublemakers and dirtbags often find themselves in similar circles. | 55 |
ELI5: How are telemarketing and robocalls consistently violating the Do Not Call list and not getting shut down? | Isn't there someone out there that can put an end to it? Criminal fines, class action lawsuit, etc.??? | 27 | You can report telemarketers if you are on the do not call list. Go to the FCC government page and you can file a report there.
If the call is political in nature though, they're except from paying attention to the do not call list, so those will continue through any campaign season.
Also, make sure you re-register every few years. Numbers will cycle through and if you're noticing an uptake in calls, you may need to re-add to the list | 14 |
ELI5 : How are grass seeds made? | 3,208 | Grass produces seed heads, you've probably seen those before. The seeds from those seed heads are harvested, dried and sold. If you put them into soil and water them, they sprout and grow into new grass. People who don't want those on their lawn make sure the conditions for the grass stays constant, it receives enough water and is mowed regularly (so seed heads can't develop). | 1,784 |
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ELI5: Why do diseases only do bad things to us? Why are there no diseases/viruses that are actually GOOD for us? | Ladies and gentleman I don't need the old "Well it wouldn't be a disease if it was good for you" answers. That's obvious, but the spirit of the question is how come no one can cough in your face and give you increased strength for 2 days instead of making you feel ill? | 2,734 | Yes, there are good diseases. For instance, retroviruses and bornaviruses account for 8-9% of the human genetic code, and the same is true for most mammals and birds. One pretty useful thing retroviruses help with is the formation of the placenta and differentiation early in fetal development. These genes have been proven to come from multiple strains of human endogenous retrovirus (herv), and suppressing them slows and hinders development and the ability to latch onto the uterine wall. Just one example of a beneficial virus, and 8-9% of our DNA comes from them.
There are a surprising number of retrovirus genes that protect and aid the development of the fetus. It is kinda strange, but it fascinates me. | 2,898 |
[SW] Is every Knight required to take a Padawan? | Despite his promise to Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan seems reluctant to take on Anakin,considering he had almost no interaction with him. And Anakin was the same with Ashoka. | 70 | It’s not something they force you to do but it is heavily encouraged and by the time you are a Knight you can likely see even if it’s not something you specifically want it’s still the will of the force. | 74 |
[Star trek]Why don't tricorders have bigger screens? | http://tehne.com/assets/i/upload/event/medical_tricorder_2369_0.jpg | 37 | There are multiple possible explanations.
Based on how we see them used, they probably have some sort of advanced artificial intelligence that automatically identifies relevant information. Eg. a medical tricorder probably automatically analyzes a person's vitals and presents only the things that deviate from normal. That probably only takes a few lines of text.
Or: the interface is so advanced, it just isn't necessary. In the future, they will have had hundreds of years worth of improvements that make it unbelievably easy to get information out of a computer.
Or, for battery life, since screens usually take up the most battery on modern phones. | 31 |
[Harry Potter] What would have happened if Voldemort had instructed Nagini to eat Harry? | There's a brief period - maybe 45 minutes to an hour where Voldy and the Death Eaters amble back to the castle with Harry's body to show it off. What would have happened if Voldemort had Nagini eat Harry's corpse? I know it's counter to his trophy-collecting lifestyle to have your pet consume your trophy...but when Harry came back from his conversation with ghost Dumbledore, would he have simply suffocated from being inside a snake's digestive tract? | 16 | Yep, can't imagine many people survive being stuck inside the stomach of a giant man-eating snake. At that point, he's no longer a pseudo-Horcux so provided that the rest of the Horcruxes are destroyed then Voldemort becomes mortal.
Normally there'd be no chance for someone to kill Voldemort but given Harry invoking sacrificial magic on the Hogwarts army there's a decent chance that one or both of Professors Flitwick and Mcgonagall are able to finish him for good. | 22 |
[X-Men] What events occur between the time of X-Men: The Last Stand and Logan (2017)? | 44 | #Spoilers for all X-Men movies below
**Original Timeline:**
**2013:** Logan travels to Japan. (*The Wolverine*)
**2015:** Xavier and Magneto find Logan at a U.S. airport. (*The Wolverine* ending)
**2023:** Sentinels hunt mutantkind. X-Men send Wolverine back in time. Wolverine wakes up in the body of 1973 Logan. (*Days of Future Past*)
As a result of Logan’s time-travel, the timeline is altered. People are born earlier or later. Events happen differently. Logically, only the timeline from 1973 and forward should be affected, but the movies haven’t really established how time-travel works in their universe. Therefore, there are also changes happening before 1973, such as Wade Wilson being born much later.
**Altered Timeline:**
**2023:** Logan wakes up in X-mansion after his time-travel adventure in *DoFP*. Sentinel future has been averted. X-Men still live in X-mansion. Jean and Cyclops (who died in *X3*) are alive.
**2029**: Events of *Logan*.
Apparently, something happens between 2023 and 2029 that causes eradication of almost all mutants. | 37 |
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Does high pH water have a lower capacity as a solvent to dissolve more because of the electrolytes and minerals already in the water? | Just a random question. I have some water with a pH of 8.8 and had the thought of using to make things like powdered gatorade, coffee, tea, etc. | 21 | It depends on the ions that are already in the water. If the ions are also the same ions that are in the substance you are trying to dissolve, then the substance will dissolve less. If the ions can react with the ions in the substance you are trying to dissolve, then the substance will dissolve more. And if neither of these occur, then your water will behave just as pure neutral water in terms of dissolving your substance. | 14 |
ELI5: Why do Microsoft & Google spend $$$ making free browsers? | What do they get out of it?
| 665 | In the case of almost every browser developer, it's a way to draw you into using their other products.
With Microsoft, the advantage of Internet Explorer being integrated with the operating system was a smooth transition from your computer to the internet, thus promoting Windows to the user.
Google built its browser to offer better support to web-based applications, where Google has a nice stronghold. They, of course, want to draw you into using as many of Google's products and services, especially the paid ones, as possible.
Firefox probably has the most unique approach to making money off browsers. 90% of their money comes from ad sharing with Google, which is why all their search bars default to Google. (Much of the remaining 10% comes from charging mobile device makers for the right to use their software.) | 423 |
[Pokemon] Are Gym leaders not allowed to level their pokemon above a certain number? | If Gyms are supposed to increase in difficulty, would that mean that Brock and Misty's gyms are not allowed to be super powerful? | 139 | Gym leaders have several teams. The team they use to fight a first-time challenger with less than 2 badges isn’t the same team they use to fight on the weekends with their friends and/or seriously train. | 234 |
ELI5: Why do we raise our hands when we get excited; and for that matter, why do we clap? Is this the result of some kind of evolutionary process? | 18 | Clapping isn't a reflex -- it's something you are taught to do. Likely, the same goes for this hand raising thing.
Why does it happen? Probably because people like to do what is expected of them. (Or, what they expect is expected of them.) | 10 |
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ELI5: Why do we use "pair" to indicate singular things? | For example, a pair of jeans, or a pair of underwear. It's a single clothing item, why do we call it a pair? Is there any situation on which we use this for anything other than clothing? | 142 | Pants were originally two things - actually a pair. "Pantaloons" were put on one leg at a time. Underwear, shorts etc. are all derivative things and have inherited their pluralness from their full-legged friend. | 81 |
[Pokemon] Could a pokemon be a pokemon trainer? | I mean you don't *have* to talk to anyone, even though some pokemon can. I know most are smart enough to have very real conversations with their trainers. They don't seem like dogs, they seem more like small children in their level of competency.
Where would it even start, and would it be allowed to swap itself into battle as a 7th pokemon? | 45 | Mewtwo does exactly this in the first(?) movie.
As for in-game, there are plenty of Pokemon that could, the question seems to be more "why would they." Basically, all the Pokemon smart enough to do so either actively avoid humans or have their own thing going on.
So yes, theoretically possible, but unlikely, purely by choice. | 49 |
What causes powder mixed into drinks (such as protein powder or Nesquick) to clump together in a globulous ball that is wet on the outside, but still dry and powdery on the inside? | I'm sitting here drinking my protein shake and although most of it has dissolved into warm water, there are large clumps of powder that somehow remain dry on the inside. As I drink, I find that I sometimes have to chew the powder, and it's dry and disgusting. To clarify, this is MET-Rx 100% Ultramyosin Whey protein powder. I've also noticed this with Nesquick; could it have something to do with chocolate?
Thanks scientists! Laypeople, could you report in if you notice this phenomenon in other drinks with water and powder? | 73 | Proteins (especially mixtures of proteins) are often amphiphillic, meaning part of the molecule has an affinity for water (hydrophillic), and part for fat/oils (lipophillic or hydrophobic). This means that they tend to orient themselves into structures known as micelles where the molecules all orient themselves to isolate their lipophillic ends away from the water, which can result in spherical, tubular, or sheetlike structures. While micelles are a microscopic phenomena, a similar thing is what causes the clumps - along the protein powder-water interface there will be bi-layer sheet type structures where the hydrophillic parts of the molecules are facing the water, 'protecting' the rest of the clump for getting wet. Additionally, since you are using warm water, the proteins can become entangled, so it makes it very difficult to break up the clump since the outer surface has essentially polymerized.
As others have said, the solution is to wet each of the solid particles individually first before dispersing them (eg, mix them in a small amount of water to form a paste), this will ensure that they disperse well. Cold water will also help, since it will keep the proteins tightly coiled up and less likely to get entangled with each other. | 48 |
[Star Trek] Why is the Federation ok with the ethical quandaries of holodeck technology, but not genetic engineering or breaking the Prime Directive? | The holodeck is capable of creating what are essentially sentient beings, pretty much for the use of the Federation as entertainment or what have you. How does this not conflict with the same ideas behind establishing the Prime Directive or banning genetic engineering? | 50 | They aren't sentient, they're simply very intelligent AIs. The 'mind' behind them is the ship's computer, which isn't sentient either. It merely predicts how they would react and makes them act accordingly.
The few times a sentient program has come up, such as Moriarty, it's been a glitch in the computer that is normally impossible. | 37 |
Is an infinite Universe, and the Big Bang mutually exclusive? | How can the Universe be infinite, if it started out as something finite?
I understand the idea that if you go in a straight line, you'll end up back where you started. But, that's a function of gravity. Does an infinite Universe contain an infinite amount of mass? | 22 | No sir.
We currently have no idea if the Universe is infinite. None whatsoever. Fortunately, that question has nothing to do with the Big Bang, because the Big Bang isn't an explosion of some small finite region of space outward. Rather, as you'll hear a million pop-sci expositions tell you, it was an explosion *of* space.
If the Universe were 2-D, you might think of it as a grid, and the expansion of the Universe is the expansion of the lines on that grid. The Big Bang is just what happens when you take that all the way back, when the grid lines were together.
Now, this can happen whether or not you have an infinitely large grid. | 19 |
CMV: Laws mandating that women wear a hijab are morally equivalent to laws mandating women wear shirts | I believe that laws mandating that a woman wear a hijab are morally equivalent to laws mandating a woman wear a shirt - but differences in culture make many in the west feel like one is oppression and the other is natural.
I'm not addressing the religious side of this - I am merely pointing out that judgement/discomfort that many Westerners have toward mandating the hijab is unjustified, because our rules on women's dress aren't that different.
Both are cultural mores written into law, based on the idea that women’s bodies are dangerously evocative to men and in bad taste to display. All of the discussion I’ve heard about women and toplessness, and all the reasons women prefer not to go topless, sound similar to discussion around women wearing hijab. For example, women shouldn’t go topless because men would be distracted by seeing their breasts and can’t help being turned on, that’s a private part of the body that’s just for your partner/husband to see, and it insults him to to show your breasts to other men, women going topless are promiscuous, it would harm children to see a woman’s naked breasts (even though most children see their mother’s breasts in childhood), it’s fine to be topless around other women (at a gym, spa, changing room) but if a man happens to be around it’s a huge violation.
When I’ve proposed this idea in the past, people have told me it’s different because the breasts are “sexual” - but they’re not involved in sex, just breastfeeding, so I don’t believe that argument holds up. Also the idea that the reason is because women have breasts but men don’t doesn’t hold water as a counterargument because that doesn’t have anything to do with morality - and women’s faces and bodies have many other differences than men’s, so an argument about men’s and women’s differences to me suggests that even more of a woman’s body should be covered, no?
Many people in Western culture are uncomfortable about the idea of a hijab, but fail to see that the west also has restrictions on women’s dress based on similar reasoning. Those cultural ideas are so ingrained that it’s impossible to see the irony of arguing that a hijab is morally wrong but that covering breasts is morally right, or “natural.” Western ideas of natural vs unnatural might “feel” right to westerners, but it’s because of the culture we’ve been steeped in.
Societies that mandate each of these rules are just drawing the line in a different place.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 33 | But when women are required to wear shirts, men are too. It's equal. It's bras or bikinis that women are usually required to wear to prevent indecent exposure charges (and even then, not everywhere). Women can run around shirtless in a sports bra on the streets. If men also had to wear hijabs when women did, *then* the comparison to shirts would make sense.
There's also something to be said for the punishments for the laws. A fine =/= being literally stoned to death. That absolutely weighs into the moral equivalence. | 30 |
CMV:Jean Valjean could have simply bribed the other man free instead of outing himself | In Les Miserables, a man that bears a striking resemblance to Jean Valjean is on trial for Valjean's crime of breaking parole. In the story, Valjean outs himself as the real Valjean, thereby pardoning the innocent man.
This was a stupid move on Valjeans part. With the amount of wealth and political power than Valjean had amassed since his parole, he could have very easily paid off whatever judges and used his political clout to get this man free. After freeing him, Valjean could have given him a job in his factory.
Nobody would have been any the wiser that he was Valjean and he could have lived his life peacefully.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 16 | The whole point of this is to show that Valjean had undergone a meaningful moral transition after his encounter with the bishop. If he had just bribed the man free, that would have subverted the whole point of a fair trial. The scene where Valjean agonizes over his decision to intervene is made so powerful because of this moral dilemma and his decision. | 20 |
ELI5: Why is a dish cooked at home considered "healthier" than the same dish cooked at a restaurant? | So why is a dish made at home considered healthier than the same thing I get at a restaurant? | 68 | It's not inherently healthier, but restaurants tend to do things slightly differently. They use tons of salt and butter or other fatty oils and sauces. It helps seasonings stick to the food better and tastes amazing, but does a number on its calorie count.
I used to work at a chain restaurant where, for a regular burger, they would butter the insides of the bun before lightly toasting them on the flat-top. Speaking of which, it did not get as hot on that surface as the regular grill and let the beef keep more of its grease and juices, compounding the "unhealthy" nature of it. | 86 |
[Star Wars] Has there ever been a large scale battle of Jedi vs Sith? | I'm talking hundreds of lightsaber users just going at each other. In legends or canon. Not even Jedi and Sith specifically, just lightsaber users. | 21 | In the Expanded Universe/Legends there are several battles that fit your criteria.
The Great Sith War of 2996 BBY had many such battles, and was one of the earliest wars to have battles like that.
The Jedi Civil War (the conflict that Knights of the Old Republic takes place during) also had many battles between large numbers of Jedi and Sith.
The Great Galactic War (the war that the Old Republic MMO takes place during) had plenty of battles in which many Jedi and Sith took part.
The last of the great wars to include massive numbers of Jedi and Sith taking the field was the New Sith Wars that lasted from 2000 BBY until 1000 BBY. The most climactic of this war's battles was its last battle, the Battle of Ruusan. The Battle of Ruusan was fought between the armies of the last great Sith empire, the Brotherhood of Darkness, and the Army of Light, which was a joint effort between the Jedi and the Republic.
This war was so devistating, that many systems had to be taken under the direct control of the Jedi, and a Jedi was almost always elected Chancellor of the Republic. The systems controlled by the Jedi became little fiefdoms of certain Jedi Masters, who were referred to as the Jedi Lords, ruling over the their kingdoms as enlightened despots.
By the time of the battle of Ruusan, the Sith had lost all the territory they gained due to the fact they had been greatly weakened by infighting as the Republic and Jedi continued to gain strength.
The most influential and powerful Jedi Lords, Lord Hoth, assembled his army, the Armies of his fellow Jedi Lords, the Jedi Order, and the Republic military calling this coalition the Army of Light. Lord Hoth led the campaign to destroy the Sith once and for all. Eventually the last great Sith army, the Brotherhood of Darkness, gathered on Ruusan to make their final stand.
The battle was long and bloody. Both sides sustained massive amounts of casualties, but the Sith's resources were far more limited than their adversaries in the Army of Light. So, as the battle dragged on, the Sith Started losing more and more ground to their foes. Eventually, in their desperation, the Sith unleashed their ultimate weapon, the Thought Bomb. The Thought Bomb was a special Sith force technique used by many Sith simultaneously, it created an explosion that engulfed all living things for miles around. The Thought Bomb killed many of the Army of Light's troops and all of the Brotherhood of Darkness, save for one Sith Lord, Darth Bane, who would go onto establish the Rule of Two and preserve the Sith in secret.
A monument was erected to honor the fallen from the Army of Light, called the Valley of the Jedi at the site where the Thought Bomb went off. Unknown to those who erected the monument the souls of all those who died from the Thought Bomb would be trapped in the Valley of the Jedi, creating a force nexus that could increase someone's raw force power if they were to enter it. Unfortunately the location of the planet Ruusan and the Valley of the Jedi were lost, due to changing star charts and some topographical errors. The plAnet's location would eventually be discovered by Jedi Master Rohm, who gave this information to Reblel sympathizer, Morgan Katarn, before he was slain by the Dark Jedi Jerec, and Morgan gave the Valley's location to his son, Kyle via a secret holo-recording tgt he hid away to give to him at a later time (he died before he could give it to him directly so Kyle had to find it himself). The trapped souls were freed many centuries later when Rebel commando-turned Jedi Kyle Katarn, son of Morgan Katarn, defeated Jerec in the Valley, fulfilling a prophecy that stated that a hero would free the trapped souls after defeating a great evil in the Valley.
Large scale, Jedi vs. Sith battles would not be seen again until the Sith-Imperial war over 130 years after the Battle of Yavin, as the New Jedi Order and the Imperial Knights fought Darth Krayt's One Sith. | 40 |
Can someone explain to me the Big Bang Theory LI5? | 26 | When we look at the universe around us, we notice that everything seems to be moving away from each other. Imagine if you drew a few dots in marker on a balloon and started to blow it up, you'd notice every point moving away from every other point as the balloon expands. This is exactly what space is doing, it seems to be expanding.
So a bunch of scientists got to thinking, if everything is expanding away from each other, what if we ran time backwards? Where is everything expanding FROM? Is there a point at which the entire universe was collapsed into a single point that exploded and caused everything to expand outward?
An explosion generates a lot of heat and energy when it goes off and we even think we've detected some of the heat from the giant big bang explosion in something called Cosmic Microwave Background, which is really just another way of saying heat.
Also, by looking at how fast everything is moving away, we can easily see how far we need to rewind for everything to be in the same place, 13.7 billion years. This is how we arrive at the age of the universe.
EDIT: Spelling. | 27 |
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ELI5: Could we change the US-Mexico border by redirecting the Rio Grande River? | 86 | Maybe.
These are the sort of things that cause international incidents where two governments end up in a heated fight over their interpretations. It would, if not agreed upon in advance, certainly strain relations and possibly also strain relations with other countries that take offense on Mexico's behalf. | 31 |
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ELI5: How do we get other pictures of far away galaxies that we can not see? | 19 | Long exposures with cameras using powerful telescopes.
Many galaxies and other celestial objects are too faint to see with the eye, or with a regular camera. But if you let a camera have a long enough exposure these faint objects reveal themselves in the picture taken by the camera. | 17 |
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What does "m" in atomic mass number mean? | I sat down here reading and I don't seem to understand what "m" means in the ending of an atomic mass number. For an example the isotope 234m Protactinium. First of all what does it mean? And how would it affect decay? | 18 | It denotes isomeric states. These are nuclear excited states which have long half-lives.
When the nucleus is in a metastable excited state it will eventually decay, either to the ground state of the same nucleus via gamma emission or internal conversion, or it will just decay directly into some other nucleus by alpha, beta, or whatever. | 14 |
ELI5: If light doesn’t experience time, how does it have a limited speed? | 1,949 | We don't know. We have no idea why the speed of light (the speed of causality really) is what it is. We are pretty certain our physical law would work just as well no matter what the speed of light is, but things might seem different if we were in that world, especially if lightspeed was "everyday speed" slow.
What we do know is that this speed limit is the only speed massless particles (without rest mass) can travel, and that at that speed, time doesn't pass. It's as if the speed of causality/speed of light is a combination of movement in space and time - move faster through space, you move slower through time, and when you've reached the speed limit, there's no more time left to move through. | 2,075 |
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ELI5: How does ironing work? | 50 | Through a mixture of different forces. First, HEAT & STEAM- the heat and the steam in the iron makes the bonds between the molecules of the fabric weak and pliable. Second, WEIGHT- the weight of the iron makes the (now pliable) fabric press flat. When it cools, the molecule bonds strengthen again, so they will stay in their new flat shape. | 29 |
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ELI5: How is it that fission and fusion both create enormous amounts of energy when they seem to be the exact opposite processes? (i.e. splitting or combining atoms) | 301 | For the same atoms, they don't. You're correct that undoing a fission reaction takes as much energy as it would release.
But they're not done on the same atoms. The binding energy of nuclei (basically the energy you'd need to rip them apart = the energy you gain by putting them together) peaks around iron and nickel. For smaller atoms than that, fusion produces energy and fission consumes it. For larger atoms, fusion consumes energy and fission produces it.
Most fusion (both in stars and for power generation here on Earth) fuses hydrogen, the lightest element, into helium. Fission takes place spontaneously (i.e. without you doing anything to the nucleus) only in the heaviest elements. | 298 |
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[Star Trek] Why isn't there a transporter pad in sickbay? | They have at least 5 separate rooms for just transporting, most of the cargo bays have transporter pads, and it seems like every other episode someone is being teleported directly to sickbay. Why not put a pad directly in sickbay to save power? Isn't that the whole point of having transporter pads to begin with, to save power when transporting someone? Seems like a pretty big oversight to me. | 27 | A transporter pad a is a key security point for hostiles to make for or try to take over. In the event of boarding or other critical situation it is best to keep hostiles away from sickbay.
Also, transporter pads need routine maintenance. Notice that there is always a chief on station. A sickbay is not a place for unnecessary personnel.
If a medical emergency is called a site-to-site transport is still available. The power savings is a minor concern. The power produced by a M/AM warp core is more than enough. | 36 |
What are the differences between the types of gasoline at gas stations and how does it effect your car engine if you put one grade in over another? | 19 | The efficiency of an engine depends on the *compression ratio*, which is the internal volume of the cylinder with the piston at the bottom divided by the volume with the piston at the top. The higher the compression ratio, the more energy goes into turning the crankshaft and the less goes out the tailpipe.
So you want the compression ratio to be high. Unfortunately, if it gets *too* high, the fuel-air mixture will detonate instead of burning progressively. This means the piston gets a hammer blow instead of a push, and it can wreck the engine.
The maximum compression ratio your engine can tolerate depends on the chemical makeup of the fuel; some fuels let you go higher than others, and the *octane rating* is a measure of this ability.
Your engine is designed to use fuel of at least a certain octane rating. If you use a lower-rated fuel, you're risking engine damage in a hard acceleration. If you use a higher rating, it won't *hurt*, but you're throwing money away because it won't *help* either. | 12 |
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Why are planets always round? (Not a flat earther at all here btw) just wondering why a planets are not a more random shape? | 109 | The definition of a planet has a few criteria and one of them is that it has to be round. So if an object isn't a sphere, we wouldn't call it a planet.
But that's a bit of a lame explanation. The reason why the things we call planets are round (and the reason that we added "being round" as a requirement for something to be called a planet) is that a sphere is the most energy efficient state for an object to be in when its own gravity is sufficiently strong.
So if a celestial body becomes large enough, its gravity will automatically force it more and more towards a spherical shape. Imagine an object that is otherwise spherical, but contains a large mountain-like structure sticking out from the spherical surface. A rock will roll down from this mountain without requiring additional energy input. This rock rolling down the mountain brings the object closer to a spherical shape. But rolling a rock from the surface up the mountain, making the object less spherical, requires some external force.
So any objects in space that are not spherical are simply too small for their own gravity to pull them together into a ball. | 250 |
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CMV: The pro and anti-pineapple pizza debate is meaningless so long as the real enemy of the people continues to exist: Big Anchovy | Back in the 80s and early 90s, if you wanted to gross someone out with pizza, you'd put anchovies on it. In theory, fish shouldn't be terrible on pizza. Maybe a nice salmon bake, maybe some crab. It could work.
But it didn't.
But did Big Anchovy remove the product from market? No. The contracts were already in place. Pizza suppliers already owned the fish so they did their best to use it.
Once the contracts ran out, though, Big Anchovy wasn't doing so well since pizza places weren't ordering any more. But what's worse, anchovy pizza's been totally demonized and no one... NO ONE is buying it anymore.
The last thing Big Anchovy needs is their respective brands being hated on. So they come up with an ingredient that could never work and start marketing it: pineapple.
The idea is, if Big Anchovy can get people to hate on pineapple pizza more than anchovy pizza, they can distract from all the hate they get and keep out of the negative attention and bide their time for when Big Anchovy can do a relaunch, maybe in a few years.
The problem is, for some reason, people ended up loving pineapple on pizza. Now, I'm not here to argue for or against pineapple on pizza. I get the idea behind the flavor combinations. I get why some may like it and others not and for the purposes of this post, I'm taking a completely neutral stance on it.
Big Anchovy, though, is still up to their old games. They constantly make posts and memes taking both sides of the argument in the pro/anti pineapple debate, increasing rhetoric and polarization simply for the purpose of misdirecting the hate of the people away from anchovy pizza.
And it's working. Friends have fallen out. Marriages ended. Families torn apart. And for what? So a Big Anchovy company's stock can increase by a quarter of a point. | 5,238 | But what of a pineapple and anchovy pizza? How do you reconcile people who have no taste buds left from all the years of drinking, rife with the guilt of picking one over the other, to only come to the conclusion that they must have both? | 489 |
Why does eye color change if you have blue/green eyes? | Is there a reason to it? And how does it happen? | 43 | It has to do with the dilation of the pupil.
When the pupil dilates it also causes the Iris (the colored part of the eye) to compress a tiny bit. Because of this the eye tends to appear as though its different colors at different times. | 31 |
In the context of the Ohio abortion bill, how is the reimplant of the embryo different than a surrogacy? | Sorry if I got any terminology wrong, it's not one of my strengths. Everyone keeps saying it's impossible to perform what the bill requires but it seems similar to how I imagine a surrogacy implantation in my head. | 15 | Surrogacy takes a pre-implanted embryo and puts it into a non-pregnant woman’s uterus, where it implants; alternatively, sometimes surrogacy involves the woman’s own egg and artificial insemination. In either case, the embryo implants in the uterus.
The process of implantation is complex and detailed on a microscopic level; the embryo’s placenta builds up blood vessels that grow into the lining of the uterus and line up with the woman’s vessels on a cellular level and makes millions of connections. This *very intimate* connection has to be made to allow the embryo’s/fetus’ blood to be oxygenated, filtered, and supplied with nutrients by the woman’s body. Basically, the placenta is a liver, kidney, and lung combined for the developing embryo. On the woman’s side, the lining of the uterus is a specialized tissue that allows this intense, deep ingrowth of embryonic/fetal tissue *temporarily.* the whole structure is shed, (usually) safely, after a baby is born.
An ectopic pregnancy is when the embryo attempts to grow into the tissue of a woman’s (usually) Fallopian tube, the lining of which did not evolve to safely allow this kind of invasive ingrowth, nor to stretch to the degree that a uterus allows as the fetus grows. The developing placenta can’t be removed without tearing up the Fallopian tube, because it doesn’t have that detachable lining, and the placenta can’t re-grow those fine, microscopic, millions-fold connections after it has already tried to implant somewhere else. Just sticking an embryo in the right spot would be like sticking a raw chunk of liver in someone and calling it an organ transplant, without joining up any of the blood vessels or ducts, etc. Except worse, since the placental connections are microscopic and there are about seven orders of magnitude more of them.
Basically, it is entirely physically impossible to do with current technology, and will be until we have nanobots.
Edited for a terminology error. | 32 |
ELI5: Why is Atheism in the US associated with Science? | First of all a little background. I was born a Moroccan Muslim and grew up to be an atheist, now living in Canada.
Whenever I see American atheist subreddits/forums etc., the content seems to be 95% science instead of religion (or lack of).
In Islam, there's that thing where you're always supposed to be researching science ("*Seek learning from the cradle to the grave*" and such...). Given, you end up with weird interpretations of the religion, but there isn't much opposition to the science (except of course when scientists say stuff like there's no God).
Now, I do understand that in Christian history, church has always been a roadblock to science. However, I do not understand how being an atheist seems to be 95% about science. To me, these are totally different things!
So... ELI5? | 41 | One thing that you see a lot in the US, maybe also in other countries: Some religious people try to change science to fit their views. The big one is that the book of Genesis has a narrative of the creation of the Earth and the life on it over the course of 7 days. Now, there is overwhelming scientific evidence to show that over the span of billions of years, the earth was formed from space matter, and life evolved from there. However, since that doesn't fit into the box that religious people have subscribed themselves to, they'll try to manipulate the evidence to show that their preexisting notions are correct. In that sense, science being anti-religion is kind of a reaction to religion being (in this case) anti-science.
However, strictly speaking, science and religion don't have to conflict, as long as you accept that science deals strictly with facts and physical things, whereas religion primarily deals with philosophy and the metaphysical. | 24 |
[Wall-E] After the captains die are they chosen from the passengers or is their a certain unseen human worker class that are promoted? | It would be unusual for AUTO to pick a passenger if they are a paying customer descendant. | 650 | Children receive an education and undergo aptitude testing. Likely candidates are offered further training to become crew members.
The best of those qualify for the position of captain when the old one retires. Usually the captain chooses his successor based on observation over years of faithful service.
Like all things on the ship, AUTO is able to manipulate the captain and candidates. | 458 |
ELI5: How do people afford to be on a jury for weeks at a time? | Like in high profile cases, how can the jurors afford to be sequestered for more than 2 weeks?
Most jobs don't give jury duty pay, and those that do offer 2 weeks max. Do all of the jurors just happen to be able to take 6 weeks off from work and not receive paychecks? | 108 | I just had to do jury duty that lasted 3 weeks. Before the trial starts during the selection process the judge will ask if anyone has any hardships that would prevent them from serving the entire trial, and they have a general idea of how long the trial lasts. So a lot of people said that they couldn't afford to take that much time off of work, they wouldn't be able to pay rent etc. and were excused. So in the end you wind up with a lot of people who can afford to miss the time because they're married and have dual incomes that can hold them over, housewives or retired people, and people who are on salary and don't need to worry about missing the time. | 66 |
[MCU/Eternals Spoilers] So if the celestials.... | If the Celestials are responsible for creating new stars/galaxies/etc., Does that mean that all the scientific phenomena of these processes occuring naturally is all a façade for their creation? And if that's the case, is it even possible for stars or planets to form naturally? And if they can't, wouldn't that mean gravity as we know it pretty much doesn't exist? | 31 | The fact that they do it artificially doesn't mean those processes don't also happen naturally. In our world lakes and rivers naturally form over time, but we can use technology to form them much more quickly if it suits us.
Each celestial born requires (and destroys) a populated world, so it seems like the celestials are reshaping the universe as they see fit to use it as their breeding ground, like humans terraforming a natural landscape. | 33 |
[MCU] If Stark used all his battle data from fighting Thanos to create a Thanosbuster suit, what do you think that armor would be like? | 598 | If Earthman Stark could singlehandedly build a suit that could go toe to toe with the Infinity Stones, I'd have to think Thanos was pulling his punches. How do you tech around the ability to stop time? Or the ability to manipulate the very fabric of reality.
Is there any suit Tony could build that Thanos couldn't immediately overcome by turning the power off? Turning into a fine Gouda? Mind wiping Tony so he thinks he's a set of mahogany drawers?
He phoned it in during the final assault on the Mind Stone, being about as unimaginative as one could get given the power at his command and yet barring a moment of shock/respect at Cap holding him up, he didn't even break a sweat.
If Thanos is anything more than comatose, you can't build around that. Tony can't win, Thanos would have to lose... pretty much intentionally. | 343 |
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[DC] If the flash, superman, or any other speedster were to clean a room would it be happening in real time to them | Ok say for some reason Barry is having to clean up the living room. To us its happening at super speed. But to Barry would it be like he is doing it at normal speed. IE would it feel to him like it was taking just as long as it would to do it in normal speed. | 19 | Yes. Just because it seems fast for them, it's still taking the same relative time for them.
Washing dishes. Say it'd take ten minutes normally. He speeds through it, getting it done in ten seconds, but it still *feels* like ten minutes. Of course, with the Speed Force, he can slow down or speed up his perceptions so that each second feels like a second or feels like hours. | 25 |
[Avengers: Age of Ultron] Could HYDRA have realistically defeated the Avengers at the beginning of the movie? | 188 | Dug-in position, heavily armed, and with resources including two superhumans and an Infinity Stone?
They could win in the sense of repelling the initial assault, and possibly score multiple kills in the process; Quicksilver with a sharp knife is a very real threat to about half the party, and Scarlet Witch is a heavy enough hitter that even folks like Thor and Hulk would need to take her seriously. In the long run, even if the Avengers pull back, the castle's cover is blown. Victory would take the form of being able to evacuate the facility on their own terms before the World Security Council or similar organization could deploy a conventional military force. | 195 |
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Why it is wrong to kill someone painlessly from a purely pleasure is good and pain is bad basis? Let’s assume that no one else will be affected (family, friends etc.) Only the person that is being killed painlessly is being affected. Why is it immoral? | 33 | There are a couple of ways to think about this. One is what Voltairinede already pointed out: you're causing lots of (future) pleasure not to exist, assuming the person you're killing isn't in an unusually debilitated state.
Another is to take on a slightly more sophisticated form of hedonism and think about the effects of rules and practices on the availability of pleasure and pain. Is a world in which it's normal and acceptable to kill people under the conditions you describe a world in which there's more pleasure and less pain? Much depends on exactly what this practice is like (under what conditions are we imagining people killing other people, exactly?), but plausibly such a practice would cause pain through the introduction of a source of dread and foreboding, since presumably many of us could be the potential victims of this practice and would prefer not to be. | 36 |
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