Split (1)

train · 52.8k rows

text stringlengths 82 65.5k
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Is the amount of wealth which exists in the world a constant? If I gain more wealth, is someone else somewhere loosing money? I just want to know like if above is not the case if it is increasing or decreasing, is it possible that everyone will be rich or poor someday?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Wealth is generally increasing because value is increasing, primarily because people use their labor to turn natural resources into valuable things. Suppose you went out into the woods and built yourself a cabin. By making a place to live, you've improved your life and your wealth (if you decided to sell the cabin, it would be worth a lot more than selling the plot of land before the cabin was erected). But you didn't have to take away anyone's home to make your own. Even if you had to pay the person who originally owned the trees you cut down, the value of the cabin would still be greater than the value of the trees. There ARE absolutely ways to enrich yourself by depriving someone else, but most economic activity is productive rather than redistributive. That said, it's unlikely we'll reach a state where everyone is considered "rich". Rich and poor are relative concepts, and many people who are considered poor today have more resources than people who would have been considered rich long ago.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why do accidental notes in music have word accident in them?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant In old-school philosophy things were described as having an essential nature. Objects behaved according to their essential nature - rocks fell downwards, smoke rose upward, dogs barked, water flowed, old men were grumpy, and so on. Anything that happened that was contradictory to something's essential nature was accidental. So if you threw a rock upwards, that was accidental motion of the rock. If you dammed a river to stop it from flowing, that was accidental motion of the water. Make an old man happy, that was an accidental mood, and so on. Expanding that into music, the key signature at the start of the piece sets the "essential nature" of the notes. If there are notes that go against this essential nature, that have to be marked with their own sharps or flats, those are accidental notes.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why is Disney allowed to merge with all of these other big companies, most recently 21st Century, and not suffer from monopoly laws? Just off the top of my head, they own Marvel, Lucasfilm, 21 Century, ESPN, ABC. How is this not considered monopolization in the eyes of the law?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Monopolization is, generally speaking, when you control all (or a substantial portion) of a _market_ or _industry_. Standard Oil was a monopoly because they controlled almost all of the oil industry; Microsoft was thought to be a monopoly because they controled 90% of the PC OS market. Disney, even as big as they may be, controls only a tiny fraction of the entertainment industry. There are many, many other companies producing entertainment, so they are not where near the level of market share you'd need to think of them as a monopoly.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How and when did we realize stock trading was something we needed? What prompted the first companies to issue stock for outsiders to buy shares in their company? Since the whole sector from the outside looks really silly (it isn't), how did the first few pioneers in the sector realize there was a need for it?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It was a long time ago (think like the 1700s) and it was necessary to fund growth and to create bigger opportunities. To start, let's understand what came before. If you were a merchant in the Middle Ages you were basically trading on your family's money. You paid for the goods, you paid for the ship to transfer them, and if that ship sunk you were in deep trouble. You were personally liable for the debts of your business. Even a group of people funding an expedition would be in the same boat (heh) in regards to what happened. Obviously this means that early companies tended to be a single very wealthy family and relatively limited ventures anyway. You simply couldn't fund the kind of large scale companies that you see today. There wasn't enough money in one or a few people's hands, and it was risky. A single bad deal could break an entire family. Jumping forward a bit, as business ventures got larger and more complex (because empire) people came up with an interesting idea. Instead of paying for an expedition to the Americas or to sell wool in Flanders or whatever by yourself... why not crowd fund the thing? So you would create a company, and sell ownership stakes in it to your wealthy family, friends and fools. This gave you a source of funds to make it happen without having to fund it all yourself. Everyone risked a little bit and would get paid based on their stake at the end. Of course there was still some issues with the debts of the company falling back on the owners... but this was fixed with the notion of "limited liability" which basically means that as a owner of a company you are only responsible for YOUR share of the company and if that hits zero that is the limit of what you can lose. That developed into our modern system where shares of ownership in massive companies are traded at the rate of millions a day.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Should I switch to Linux? Hey I just won a laptop in a coca cola prize contest (Lucky me). And I am studying programming (currently first year), so it will come in quite handy. Since I will be using it only for college work, i taught i should install Linux on it. I never used it before, so what do you think? Better learn it now than never. Also do you know some good Youtube channels where you can learn basic and advanced Linux stuff. Also what are benefits of using Linux?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Benefits of using linux: easier to be closer to the code, it's the lingua franca of backend (servers, the web, etc.), it's got great security, an open source culture and a lot of tools ready to go for developers. Ubuntu is the most painless distribution to use, as it's focused on ease of use, has a large installed userbase and lots of help information online. For 18.04 (the most recent version) its front end is gnome. Mint and kubuntu are variants of ubuntu that use other front ends. I really like fedora, which is a different distribution, but they're all mostly the same. I'd suggest getting accustomed to the linux terminal and file operations in the terminal, and get comfortable with the package manager for whatever distribution you install. At a high level, these distributions all behave similarly to windows and macos. As you proceed though, access to the linux terminal will slowly give you exposure to a more powerful set of tools. If you're concerned about which to install, dont be! Load up a couple usbs with different distributions and try them all and see what you like the best. Its all free. Just takes a little time.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [WH40k] Chaos marines and death and other things. Does chaos marines truly die in battle, or are they reborn in the warp like demons? Or is that exclusive to people who have achived demonhood? If they premently die, how do they substain their numbers? I know that every leagion started at about 100 000 strong, but 10 000 years of war must have taken its toll. I've also heard that they sometimes steal geneseed, is this enough to substain their numbers or do their own geneseed still work? Even if its corrupted, aint that what they are aiming for, corrupted marines? Also, have any traitor leagion been totally erradicated, had their numbers reduced to zero, or to few to come back?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant So, here are some answers. As far as replenishment of numbers is concerned, there are a few different methods. There's the daemonculaba, there are Dark Mechanicus/Hereteks to assist with creation (remember, they're unbound by typical Mechanicus rules), there are plain old traitors and mercenaries, and there's... well... the nature of Chaos itself. Time is all wonky for them... from their perspective it could have only been a few years since they turned traitor, or it could be a million years. Chaos doesn't play by the rules of physical reality. As far as death goes, their souls would return to the warp. Unless they're remarkably willful and powerful, their soul would just sort of "unravel" and become part of the warp rather than its own entity.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: how are employees forced to sign non disclosure agreements? I always hear that former employees of corrupt companies were forced to sign NDA’s so they can’t speak about their time at their companies. Do they receive large settlements for these or what?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It's usually a condition of employment. So before an employee starts work on their first day they'll be told "your job will have access to sensitive information. In order to work for us you must sign a Non Disclosure Agreement. If you are not willing to sign the offer of employment will be withdrawn". I've worked in two companies who have required then for legitimate reasons (one was prevention of insider trading, the other worked with the government and had access to classified information - had to be sec screened for that too) but if you're concerned about the dodgy state of it you can question why you need to sign an NDA. Also, in the UK at least, there are whistleblowing laws that allow you to work around the NDA if the company is involved in illegal activities, so it is not really as much of an excuse as people make it out to be.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: It's a waste of money to buy protein powder. I like to workout, and protein powder has always seemed like a useful way to get a few extra grams of protein, especially if i'm busy. I have recently learned however that the FDA does not regulate the honesty of supplement labels, and only steps in when supplements kill or harm people. This leads me to believe that my protein powder might not actually contain the things on the label, and this is corroborated by scandals where protein powder companies have been caught amino acid spiking their powders. By this process they artificially raise the tested levels of protein in their product, so even with a home protein test kit there really is no way to know if the readings are accurate. This excerpt from the Wikipedia article on bodybuilding supplements captures many of my feelings. "Mislabeling and adulteration While many of the claims are based on scientifically based physiological or biochemical processes, their use in bodybuilding parlance is often heavily colored by bodybuilding lore and industry marketing and as such may deviate considerably from traditional scientific usages of the terms. In addition, ingredients listed have been found at times to be different from the contents. In 2015, Consumer Reports reported unsafe levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury in several of the protein powders that were tested.[4] In the United States, the manufacturers of dietary supplements do not need to provide the Food and Drug Administration with evidence of product safety prior to marketing.[5] As a result, the incidence of products adulterated with illegal ingredients has continued to rise.[5] In 2013, one-third of the supplements tested were adulterated with unlisted steroids.[6] More recently, the prevalence of designer steroids with unknown safety and pharmacological effects has increased.[7][8] In 2015 a CBC investigative report found that protein spiking (the addition of amino acid filler to manipulate analysis) was not uncommon,[9] however many of the companies involved challenged these claims" Amino Acid Spiking: https://www.t-nation.com/supplements/protein-trickery-nitrogen-spiking<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The solution to this is to find protein powders that are evaluated as food, not as a supplement. If it says "supplement facts" on the label you're dealing with a supplement. If it says "Nutrition Facts", it's been evaluated as a food product and the label is much more reliable. The difference between the two is literally whether or not substances that aren't considered food (or substances that are food components in levels not known to be safe) are used in production. Of course some companies will try to spike the tests, but the article you linked to says the problem is nowhere near universal and gives tips for spotting spiked protein. Just do your research and find a brand you like.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:In Golf, how do they determine what the Par is for the hole?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Currently administering a college beginning golf class final exam. As stated above, par for the hole is based on yardage of the hole. Each hole, no matter the length, is appropriated 2 strokes for putts. Therefore, par for the hole is the number of strokes it should take a golfer to reach the green plus the 2 putting strokes. Par 3 = 1 stroke to reach the green + 2 putts Par 4 = 2 strokes to reach the green + 2 putts Par 5 = 3 strokes to reach the green + 2 putts<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Does the moon have the proper nutrients in its surface "soil" to grow plants? If we dragged in a bunch of lunar dirt to a pressurized area and planted something like wheat grain into it, then added a bunch of earth soil bacteria into it, would the plant be able to healthily grow in the soil?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It likely has enough mineral context but making soil is a lot more than that. Since lunar regolith is basically dust/sand and rocks without anything else, no microorganisms no organic matter nothing. That’s not really soil by any definition and the best you’d get is things like lichen. To get proper soil though you’d need to break the rock down to the right size, mix it with organic matter as you get it, add water and perhaps with the right microorganisms you could get something recognizable as soil but it takes a lot more work than just lunar regolith and add water and atmosphere to get soil.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Do we actually LEARN to walk, or do we ACQUIRE THE ABILITY to walk as our brains continue to develop? In most(?) species, newborns begin walking right away, so that's clearly not a learned behavior. I also know that humans are born with a LOT of neurological development still to occur. So... do human children actually learn to walk, or is more accurate to say they start to walk as the necessary neurological wiring matures (i.e.: walking is hardwired, but the wiring isn't complete at birth)?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Humans are born with a walking reflex that serves as the basis for walking behavior. Applying pressure to the bottom of the foot will cause the same leg to extend and the other leg to swing forward. Like many reflexes, this is based on nerves traveling from peripheral sensory receptors through the spinal column and back to muscle effectors.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Labeling people as the "First African-American" or "First Woman" to do something does more to separate us than bring us together I think that all humans deserve the same amount of respect, all else being equal. In other words, if I don't know you at all, my respect for you won't change based on your gender, orientation, race, religion, etc (If I do know you, and you give me reason to increase or decrease my respect for you, I will, of course). I think that referring to people based on their accomplishment is just fine -- being the First Person in Space is a grand title for Yuri Gagarin. But why is he referred to as the first man in space? To me, calling Valentina Tereshkova the First Woman in space simply emphasizes her difference -- she's female -- instead of her accomplishment. If we're all supposed to treat everyone equally regardless of race, nationality, gender, orientation, religious views, etc; wouldn't referring someone as the first whatever to do something simply remind everyone that the difference is still there, and make it that much more difficult to ignore in the future? EDIT: My V has been C'd! I see that the social impact of the accomplishment is equally important, and we need to recognize what these people had to go through in order to actually get there! I do think, though, that these types of titles will slowly become irrelevant for future accomplishments, and eventually will be relegated only to the history books. _____ > 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!*<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant I'd say that there's a notable exception to this principle, and that's when a person had to overcome a major social barrier to become the first whatever of their category. For example, Jackie Robinson and his whole team took a major risk to be the first baseball team with a black player. When we celebrate these people, we're celebrating the battles previous generations fought to bring us together.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why do your eyelids get puffy after crying?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are a number of factors. Tears from strong emotions are less salty than regular tears which keep your eyeball moist. Since your eyelids are "more salty" than the tears, the water from your tears goes into your eyelid tissue to balance out the amount of salt, causing the eyelid to swell. You could also say that blood vessels around the eyelid have to expand in order to be able to deliver that much fluid for waterworks. Also, rubbing your eyes can cause it to swell, as the friction can cause irritation of the membranes around your eyes (conjunctiva).<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Can you explain 'Gödel Escher Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid' to me LI5?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It tries to answer a question about mind: "Does mind follow rules?" and the related "Is Artificial intelligence possible?" While explaining this, Hofstadter references art, music and logic through the works of Escher, Bach and Godel. Another important theme is the concept of what he calls Strange loop, for example "this statement is false", so something that refers to itself. Every chapter has an introductory dialogue between Achille and the Tortoise. Another interesting fact about this book is that even though it is an essay it has many wordplays. However this boook is surely too complex to be discussed here.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What should undergrad philosophy majors be doing to be successful in grad school? There are a couple of similar posts in the past, but it's always nice to hear from different/more people. Anything from study skills to networking is appreciated.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant 1. Get good grades 2. Write papers which could serve as the foundation for a writing sample 3. Make substantial professional relationships with professors for letters and advice 4. Do what you can to participate in profession adjacent events (talks, colloquia, department events) 5. Do what you can to participate in grad school adjacent events (seminars, student TA work, UG thesis) to ensure you know what you’re getting into<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [MCU] Why Kangs from different timelines fight each other, but from another universes that exist in the multiverse don't?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Each universe has a timeline. There are multiple universes in the Multiverse. The Multiverse has its own timeline. He Who Remains was the Kang that defeated all the Kangs in all the universes and now sits at the end of the Multiverse Timeline running the TVA to prune timelines in other universes that produced Kangs.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How do some mountains have an ecosystem around the peak? Wouldn't the nutrients from the soil of any wash down and make it difficult?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant "Life, uh, life finds a way" Extremophile bacteria can find ways to make energy/nutrients out of basically anything that'll react, and lichen can survive on nothing more than air, water, sun, and minerals in the stone They can create soil conditions in pockets or depressions (where nutrients don't wash out) suitable for alpine plants and insects. Once plants get established, their roots can help hold soil in place and prevent nutrient leaching.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why is there such strong disdain towards non-physicalist theories of consciousness? I say disdain, cause I've read a few papers and articles recently and it seems like alongside regular criticisms of stuff like dualism, panpsychism, a lot of people really seem to have these really like....emotional reactions to it. Whether it be throwing insults and buzzwords or being just completely dismissive and scornful towards the mere existence of other ideas.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant A lot of these other ideas depend on undiscovered or undetected physics (or some other nature for the universe), for example that the brain is a radio for consciousness, but the argument doesn't make a claim for the medium of transmission or what the underlying nature really is in a physical way at all etc, so this makes it less-well founded under the scrutiny of current understanding. People have very strong beliefs, and argue very passionately or even claim that we can't know anything about consciousness at all. Coming up against that passion would make anyone salty about the whole thing. The journey to Physicalism being a natural conclusion is very short for some people today and the frustration isn't always dealt with responsibly or with patience and charity.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How does a database handle 1 billion users? I'm really interested in how companies store such HUGE amounts of data but somehow retrieve and display the information in <1s. I was looking at my Facebook activity for 2010 and it has the thousands upon thousands of posts I liked. You can't possibly store this in some sort of pivot table database, could you? Facebook would have literally 800 billion rows. And my actual question is, how does a company, like Facebook, store more than 1 billion credentials? Is it split into regions like Users_GB, Users_US? I work as a web developer. But as I work for a small company, I just can't fathom data this big. Any insider knowledge, anecdotes and discussion from anyone who works on large databases would be appreciated. Edit: Went to bed, woke up and the blew up. Thanks for all the great discussion, and thanks for the gold.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The good news is that data isn't stored in one giant table. It is actually made up of multiple tables. Tools exist that then link those tables and read the information in them fairly effeciently. Oracle, MySQL, etc handle massive amounts of data pretty easily. Because these tools don't actually care what the data is, they just need the reference points, they can quickly retrieve the data. Think of how RAM works: fast switching pointers. This is how you get a user's data out of billions in a table. The software doesn't need to know that the person's first name is JOHN, it just needs to know that that user's pointer is here and it points to that table and then that table points to the next connected bit of data, etc. It is a chain of tables. Again, most of the retreival of the data isn't getting ALL of the data, it is just getting the pointer. That pointer leads to the next pointer, and so forth. Just fast swapping pointers and then one DISPLAY of the data. Big Data as it is termed, is a huge industry specifically for this challenge. It isn't perfect, but an entire industry exists simply to find better ways to store data so that that pointer chain can be processed faster and faster.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [General Sci-fi] How can a multi planet/multi system empire be governed in any effective way? Isn't there just too much to govern? And how does life really change much for the average person?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Technology is a major contributing factor. High tech settings like Star Trek or Star Wars where communication between systems is almost instantaneous and travelling light years can be done in days or hours, it's more than manageable. Settings like The Expanse where FTL doesn't exist and traveling to other systems can still take months or years, ruling other systems is done pretty loosely.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why personal computers mostly use graphical user interfaces and mainframe/servers & supercomputers are mostly controlled through command/text line? I know why PCs use GUI that is interactive for personal usage but for the sake of making a complete el5 question for others, I've included it.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant People who use the latter category are mainly IT professionals and computer scientists who a) may not need the more user-friendly interface, which saves development costs, and b) might actually be restricted by a GUI. Pure command line interfaces give the user complete control of whatever the program in question is capable of, generally speaking. E: the resource cost of running a GUI may also matter, as another comment says, especially when you're in the business of optimizing algorithms.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why do animals like parrots and tortoises' live so long<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Most of the time, sexual organisms take one of two evolutionary paths to reproduction: either produce a ton of kids in a short life or fewer kids over a longer life. You usually don't see longer lived organisms producing tons of offspring (elephants, whales, humans, etc.) because the energy of these animals is devoted to repairing cell damage as the body ages. Basically, it's hard to send all of your energy into your uterus if you're all trying to prevent cancer mutations from creeping up in your tissue. Conversely, animals like mice and many fish produce tons of offspring over relatively short lifespans because they simply don't live as long and fixing mutations/putting energy into repairing a body that only lives 1-2 years is inefficient.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user "The scandal of philosophy" - the unsolved problem of induction and its impact of rationality Before I start, let me state that I'm not trying to put forward an idea here rather just asking a question out of pure curiosity. Every time I read about the problem of induction and it's many proposed solutions, I'm always left unsatisfied. It seems to me at least that no proposed solution is satisfactory. I'm starting to wonder whether the correct response to the problem is to revise our concepts of rationality or revise what we want from our arguments. From what I've read of the literature it seems that attempts to solve the problem try to show inductive reasoning to be rational in a traditional sense. Of course what is meant by 'rational in a traditional sense' is debatable. But, is this the correct response? Hume's problem seems to be too strong. Inductive reasoning may be impossible to ground rationally (as we traditionally understand the concept). Should we need weaken our concept of rationality to include inductive reasoning? Has anyone attempted this strategy? Sorry about the vagueness of the terms used and the lack of directness of the question. It is a question of mere curiosity rather than a fully fleshed out one; but if this subreddit is not the place for mere curiosity where else is?!<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Briefly, yes, many philosophers have tried some variation on the strategy you suggest. There are several options. First, Hume himself (at least on one reading -- Hume isn't especially clear on this) suggests justifying inductive reasoning non-rationally, by way of custom and habit. Loeb and Qu have developed readings of Hume along these lines, if you want to look into professional literature on it. Other naturalists in the Humean tradition, most prominently Quine, have also pursued this kind of line. Second, some philosophers such as Strawson think the way to go is to simply take inductive reasoning as constitutive of rationality. It is just analytic that using induction is rational. You might understand this as revising the meaning of "rationality" or you might understand it as challenging Hume's understanding of that term. Third, some philosophers, such as Popper, think that Hume's attack is entirely successful but that it doesn't really matter because in our best reasoning, we don't use induction anyway. It's not obvious to me that Popper's strategy really works, but that's a longer conversation. Fourth, there are some Bayesian philosophers, such as Howson, who think that Hume cannot be answered directly but that there are deductive constraints on permissive credences and how they are updated. You could understand Howson's position (I think) as approximating induction with some stipulations. And then you could take the stipulations as what we add to our account of rationality. Is this the sort of thing that you're looking for?<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Is it more energy efficient to leave the heater on low when nobody is home, or to heat it up from cold when you get back? So this morning as I was the first to walk back into my freezing office after the holiday, I was reminded of an argument I used to have with my roommate when I lived in a drafty old house in upstate New York. We would both leave the house for one to two weeks every Christmas, turning the thermostat down to something like 5C while we were away, and when we returned we would have to run the furnace full blast for about three days to get the house up to 22C again. I would always suggest that it would be better leave the thermostat on something in the middle while were gone, like 15C, but he thought it was a waste of energy. I argued that it took just as much energy to run the furnace continually for those three days when we returned than it did to maintain a modest temperature while we were away. In reality, I have no idea, but I just hated those three days of feeling cold. Obviously, this depends on lots of factors, like how cold it is outside and how long we are gone. But in general, ignoring issues like pipes freezing, does it use more energy to maintain a moderate temperature for a long time and then heat it up for a short time, or to let something cool way down and then heat it up all the way?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The amount of heat lost by an object to the environment is proportional to the temperature difference between the environment and the object. So if the object is at 20C, while the environment is at freezing (0C), then the rate of heat loss will be twice as high than if the object was at 10C. If you keep heating the house while you're away, you keep the temperature higher and the total heat loss during your away time will be higher. Whereas if you turn the thermostat down very low, the rate of heat loss will gradually slow down as the house becomes colder and colder. The total amount of energy you consume during this absence and the reheating that follows will be equal to the amount lost. In the case where you keep heating your house, this energy loss will be higher than in the case where you don't heat your house at every point in time (except for the initial period where the temperature drops from the starting point to your "something in the middle" value, in which case the energy loss is equal in both cases). So from basic physics, it will be more efficient to turn the heater down as much as possible (without risk of freezing pipes) and heat it back up upon return. To overcome the discomfort of returning to a cold home, consider a smart thermostat that can be programmed to reach the desired temperature when you return (and will start to heat before you get back). Some can even "learn" how long it takes to heat up your house specifically with repeated use, so that they start at the exact right time.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: When and why does a company require a board of directors? How come it can sometimes overrule or even push out the owner?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant A board of directors is usually found at a public company. The board is elected by the shareholders (the owners) to run the company on their behalf and look out for their interests. Usually, the board then hires the executives who actually run the company per the board's instructions. The board works for the owners. However, in lots of cases, "the owner" is one of the original owners from before the company went public and they still own a lot of shares. But if they don't own a majority (very common with large public companies) then the other owners (the rest of the shareholders) have enough votes to push a particular person \off the board\ or \out of working at the company\. And since the board represents the \majority\ of the shareholders, minority owners may not always get their way. If the majority of shareholders decide to sell the company, then the minority can be "forced out". They will still get whatever they're due from the sale but they may not be able to stop the sale.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How does Velcro retain its strength through continuous use? Given the basic hook-loop mechanics, I would think it would become significantly less effective extremely quickly.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are a couple factors that explain this. First, most loops don't find a hook each time the Velcro is sealed. Only a minority of the loops need to find a hook for the Velcro to hold. Second, not every loop tears when you rip apart the Velcro. There are many times more loops on the one side than there are hooks on the other, so this combination of factors gives Velcro an appreciable use\-life. If you notice your Velcro is getting less sticky, you'll get more bang for your buck by trying to clean lint out of the hook side first.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user If an ant was the same size as a tiger, would still be able to lift 20 times its own weight?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant No. The problem starts when you scale up the length and all other measurements in equal proportion, then your volume (i.e. mass) grows with the third power of that length, while the strength of your bones and muscles, which depend on their cross section, only grow as the square of that length. An ant the size of an elephant would collapse under its own weight. You just have to look at the body shapes of very small animals, e.g. ants with their long thin legs sticking out sideways and their large abdomens supported by a very narrow waist, to very large ones like elephants, where the legs are very massive and under the body to be able to support its weight.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user When citing a review in APA, do you cite the review, or the paper the review is citing? Usually if I'm reading a research paper and they cite something I want to cite, I read the original paper and cite it directly to make sure its correct and relevant, but I do not want to read 18 papers to write 2 sentences, so can I just cite the review?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant If the assertion or point clearly originates from the authors’ synthesis of the literature, consider citing the review. If the authors’ assertion or point clearly stems directly from a particular cited work, consider looking at that specific citation and using it as your reference.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: why are humans so fragile and dependant to be successfully birthed but other animals are dropped onto the floor at birth and walk it off<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Other animals, such as the giraffe, have a much greater developmental focus in their legs and general musculature. Many of these animals can stand minutes after birth. While weak, they are still able to survive to some extent. Humans in contrast have an importance placed on brain development that far exceeds any other trait, like the ability to run from predators just after birth. Thus, the physical development is much slower for us, but that time is spent absorbing all the information necessary to be a proper human with a nice, full brain.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why is it uncomfortable to stand with both legs straight for extended periods of time?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Muscles in the legs massage the veins when you're walking. This helps the veins return blood back to the heart. If you're standing still all your muscles are tensed to keep you upright. This means they're not in a cycle of contraction and relaxation, like when you're walking. No cycle, no vein massage, which in turn leads to less back flow of blood to the heart. This causes your feet to swell with fluid that pools in your legs (if you've ever wondered why the elastic bands on your socks leave imprints on your skin after a long day, it's the same phenomenon). Besides, your muscles don't particularly enjoy being contracted for very long amounts of time, because when they contract and tense up they tend to shut off parts of their own blood supply. All of this contributes to the uncomfortable feeling you're describing.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Standardized testing should be abolished especially for children. Standardized testing is bad for a bunch of reasons: 1) It's stressful, you're under time pressure and what's on the test could be unexpected. 2) For many people it causes test anxiety 3) I don't believe it's an accurate reflection of your knowledge. You need to in depth understand everything to get a good mark. Especially in uni where they expect you to be able to apply everything you've learned. Missing one or two things could tank you. This is unfair. 4) Grades aren't a reflection of how intelligent you are and people shouldn't define themselves by these numbers. This goes especially for elementary and middle school children. 5) It's not an accurate reflection of your abilities in the workplace. Where you can ask questions and look up something quickly if you've forgotten. Because of the reasons above, we should completely get rid of this testing. Opting for knowledge being proven by projects, assignments and oral tests.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The major benefit of standardized testing is standardization - the measuring of different people in exactly the same situation. I'll address each of your points in turn: 1. Timing tests how well one performs in a timed setting. If you aren't going to test how well someone performs with limited time, how are you going to measure how well they perform with limited time? Time limits are a feature of standardized testing, not a bug. 2. Does anxiety caused by standardized testing make standardized tests inherently bad? Are the benefits of being able to measure large groups of people against each other in a controlled environment outweighed by the anxiety people feel during the test? I'd argue that they are not. 3. A person who scores a 75 out of 100 on a math standardized test is not going to have the same level of math knowledge as someone that scores a 95 out of 100. You say that it is not an accurate reflection of your knowledge without any type of support; why would testing your knowledge of a subject directly and on exactly the same level and scale with the same questions as everyone else not be an accurate reflection of your knowledge? You say that missing one or two things "could tank you," but if everyone else gets those one or two things right, and you do not understand those one or two things, you do not have as thorough of an understanding of the subject material as the others and should be graded as such. 4. You're right, grades are not a reflection of how intelligent you are. Rather, they are a reflection of a combination of innate talent, learning ability, and how hard one worked compared to others. Ultimately standardizing a test does tell you how well people understand the material presented in the test when compared to other people. They are also a proxy for how hard you worked to prepare for the examination. This is extremely useful when ranking students for something like university admissions. 5. Standardized tests are generally not a test of how well someone will function in the workplace, nor are they meant to be. They are meant to measure the current aptitude in the subject tested, and then (usually) rank individuals by their performance. These tests do not measure how well someone will do in the workplace, nor do they try to. With very few exceptions, there are no standardized tests that you take to get a specific job. If you were to get rid of standardized testing, how do you propose that universities would measure you when entering in such a way that would be realistic and efficient enough to get the job done?<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why are multipack can and packets always "not to be sold separately"?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There's laws involving how foodstuff must be labeled. They need nutrition information, ingredients and whatnot. Some products packed in multipacks don't have that info on them - it's on the outside of the package - so they're not legal to sell individually.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user How did scientists measure the radius of atoms and other stuffs? They can seem to measure very accurate things at 10 decimal places. How do they do it?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The most accurate measurements are spectroscopic measurements, in which the energy between states of e.g. atoms is measured. These measurement happen typically with lasers, the frequencies of which can be very well controlled. This is the domain of atomic physics, which is mainly quantum mechanics dealing with discrete energy levels and interaction of matter with photons. First, remember that the energy states of electrons orbiting a nucleus are quantised. In a spectroscopic measurement, the frequency of a laser is scanned along a certain range while it passes through a sample, e.g. a gas of atoms. Most of the time, the light will not interact with the sample. Only when the frequency (and thus the energy of the photons that make up the light) is equal to the energy difference of two internal states of the atoms, some of the light can be scattered. In this way, the energy levels of atoms are measured very precisely. Finally, one can calculate from theory what the electron orbits and the corresponding energies should be. These calculations depend however on some constants, such as the Bohr radius, which describes the distance between the nucleus and the electron in a hydrogen atom. By comparing these calculations to the results of the measurements, these constants are retrieved. (The Bohr radius is now known with a relative uncertainty of 0.2 parts per billion.) These constants can then be used in the theory to calculate the sizes of different atoms. TL;DR: Experiments measure the spacing between energy levels, theory relate these energy differences to (among other things) the sizes of electron orbits. Both lasers and quantum mechanics are very accurate.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How come my contact lenses are thin as paper, yet my glasses with same prescription have thick lenses<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The contacts are closer to your eyes, so less refraction is necessary. There's a point when you can no longer where contacts because they'd be too big. There's also glass contacts. They're very painful though and you have to put them in with a special tool. They are a lot thicker.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user How does one respond to the assertion that because we haven't discovered the Higg's Boson, the entire field of particle physics is 'just a theory.' The person making this assertion disregarded my explanation that a Theory is the graduating point of an idea in the scientific community... They hold that a 'theory' is 'just an idea' or 'just an opinion.' They disregard that facts are true regardless of one's opinion... I expect they are a lost cause... But, I need rational humans to help me feel as though I am not losing my mind.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant A theory is an attempt to explain evidence. A good theory can make accurate predictions, can be easily falsified if contradicting evidence appears, and is simple. The evidence in this case is the readings of the particle accelerators that occur after collisions, and our theories are built up around that data. If they want to disregard the whole field, ask them which part they think is "just an opinion".<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What does Foucault mean when he says “everything is a prison”? Does he even say that or is that just a meme?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Broadly, it's a perspective on power, where power is less directly possessed by people and groups than it is distributed through institutions and their logics of flow. Bodies and statements are organized, shaped and channeled by power, the example of the prison demonstrating how bodies are materially organized into spaces (individual cells, counted and checked, allowed to flow under constrained conditions), with accompanying, collectively-observed expectations for talk and behaviour (defer to the authority of guards, don't talk to each other, etc.). On the meme side of things, the prison example leads people to miss his point here that power is not just oppressive as a result, it's PRODUCTIVE.. Yes, the prison is repressive on the terms of this combination of bodies and statements, but you can analyze a classroom in the same way: materially, bodies are organized in individualized desks, for x number of minutes a week to listen to a lecture, chairs are oriented towards the front of the class. And in terms of talk and behaviour, students usually speak much less than the lecturer, and there's a shared sense that the latter is more authoritative than the former. In other words there's an asymmetry of roles, akin to the prison guard and prisoner. But in this case students and lecturer each get something out of it, eventual credentialing and knowledge and other things that contribute to driving the productive regimes of a given society. So it's less that "everything is a prison" and more that "every institution has a power diagram that organizes people and things and statements in certain productive ways, and let me use the prison as an obvious (but potentially misleading) example."<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: What is a Markov chain? I keep hearing about them and after looking it up I'm not much closer to figuring it out.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant A markov chain is simply a "path" of various destinations, where each direction you take has a certain probability of happening. For example, lets say every time you encounter a crossroads, you always take a random turn. This means that you have A->B(0.5)/C(0.5) chain. Thats a very simple markov chain. An example of a slightly more complex chain would be: 1. Start in A 2. 30% chance to stay in A, 50% chance to go to B, 20% chance to go to C 3. B has 80% chance to stay in B, 10% chance to return to A, 10% chance to go to C 4. C has 0% chance to stay in C, 50% chance to go to A, 50% chance to go to B. That is a markov chain. If you are in the chain, all you care about is your current position - if you are currently in C, it doesnt matter what probabilities A has, all that matters is what probabilities C has.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: People's weight is none of your goddamn business. Generally speaking, you have two sides on the "Fat Debate": the fat acceptance movement (Healthy At Every Size, etc.) and the fat shamers (who cajole fat people into losing weight, with either benign or malicious intentions. First of all, I don't buy HAES. I believe that anyone of any size can be healthier at that size. If I start jogging once a week, I probably won't lose weight, but I'll be a teeny-tiny bit healthier and that's good. Secondly, BMI is an overall population indicator. There are of course given people who are overweight who are healthier than given people who are within normal range. Same goes for given people who are underweight vs people in normal range. However, I would state that in general, the further you slide on the scale from 22.5 in either direction, the further you're getting from optimal. However, wherever people lie on that scale - underweight -> optimal -> fat is none of your fucking business whatsoever. You are not a stakeholder in a stranger's health and people would do well to keep their mouths shut about other people's appearance. If you are stakeholder in their health (and this is exclusively limited to loved ones and the person's healthcare practitioners) then maybe you get to say something. Maybe. The best analogy for this is smoking. I smoke and am slightly overweight (~10lb) and it is certainly the smoking that is more detrimental to my health than the few extra pounds. I know that smoking is bad for me - I'm not an idiot. I view the HAES as a bit like "Healthy No Matter How Much You Smoke". It's not true, it may even be damaging. On the other hand, encouraging hardened smokers to run around despite being smokers ain't a bad thing. Attack the campaign, if you must, but leave the people alone. It does not matter how many people tell me that smoking is bad for me. Their statements are uninvited, irritating and will do precisely nothing to change my habits. They may even reinforce them. It is none of their business if I smoke. You know when you're eating pizza and you have that one vegan health nut friend who tells you about how pepperoni is full of carcinogens and dairy will cause all kinds of damage to you? That, at best is what fat shamers come off like. I'm not saying there shouldn't be public health campaigns (much like we have anti-smoking campaigns), just that YOU PERSONALLY should never say a damn thing about a stranger's weight, EVER. EDIT: Good discussion, guys. I'm going on a delta spree now, because as /u/ThereOnceWasAMan put it: "OPs view is that "others' weight is none of your business", not "you shouldn't shame people for being overweight". They are annoyingly correct in that that is how I should* have phrased it. EDIT 2: Work has come up and I have to run off for the evening. I'll come back to this to give ∆s to the deserving. Sorry for the delay! Don't bully fat people, kids. It helps no one. _____ > 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!*<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant If people on your health insurance plan are overweight, you'll have to pay higher premiums to cover their inevitable medical care. If people in your society are overweight, you'll have to contribute more money and effort to cover the cost of their choices. That's the fundamental argument behind why anyone else's concerns are your business. You can apply it to obesity, gun control, taxes, drug use or pretty much any other issue. As for whether this is a good argument or not, you can argue it both ways. Political philosophers from Aristotle to Plato to Hobbes have debated this point for centuries.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Venture Bros/General] What is the difference between science and "super science?"<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Science is when you spend years of your life researching a single subject until you manage to make a slight advancement in your field. Super science is when you take a toaster and turn it into a sentient robot.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Spirituality or ways of living should not be considered a part of physical activities like Yoga or Sports. I was reading through the comments on [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/4xer5w/egyptian_judoka_refusing_to_shake_hands_with/?ref=share&ref_source=link) on the Egyptian Judoka refusing to shake hands with an Israeli Judoka after their match. It's clear that this is bad sportsmanship but in the comments many people were saying that he showed that he didn't understand Judo. They claimed that he ignored Rei which is the mentality and etiquette attached to Judo. I find it hard to consider Rei a part of Judo, at most it seems to be a tradition that is followed by many practitioners. Judo is a sport where you attempt to defeat another practitioner by following the rules of the match. If you can defeat your opponent while following the rules then you have won the match and you are a better Judoka. It is a sport not an evaluation of personality/ dogma. You could argue that there are penalties in scoring for unsportsmanlike behavior in the match but that seems like an effort by organizers to dissuade it from happening rather than it being a core part of the sport. The same for Yoga. Yoga often has a spiritual element attached to it. You can find many examples online of Yogis talking about how you have to get on the spiritual journey of yoga to get the full benefits of the practice. It seems to me that anyone who practices the stretching techniques and forms found in yoga is a yogi and gets the exact same benefit from the movements. That is not to say that the mental journey they talk about doesn't have value on it's own, simply that it is separate and not necessary for yoga. I can find other examples in various martial arts and other hobbies of this type of thinking. I do find it more often in hobbies originating in Asia, where concepts of energy movement / spirituality are more prevalent. I don't think that the mental / spiritual aspect should be considered a part of these activities. They can be beneficial, and they can often correlate with the activities. But they are not necessary to perform the activities nor compete in them so they are not really a part of those activities.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Yoga is a sanskrit term which comes from a similar root to our English word "Yolk" (not the egg kind) and has been a religious practice for millenia. Yoga outside of modern Western interpretations is entirely spiritual. Banning spirituality from Yoga is turning Yoga into "stretching". I am 100% atheist but you're argument is like saying "take spirituality out of buddhist meditation".<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: The Double-Slit Photon Experiment In the wise words of Bender, " Sweet photons. I don't know if you're waves or particles, but you go down smooth." Please help me understand why the results of this experiment were so counter what was predicted, and why the results impact our view of physics?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Briefly, in the early 20th century, people like Rutherford, Planck and Einstein had competing theories as to whether light was fundamentally a particle or a wave. Thomas Young had performed the double slit experiment by showing that light that passed through two slits resulted in an interference pattern on the detector screen. This is analogous to dropping two stones in a perfectly calm lake. Waves will recede from each stone's landing spot, until the waves collide with each other. Wave crests will collide with other crests, causing supercrests, and troughs will collide with troughs, creating supertroughs (as long as the waves are in phase, which they would be in you dropped the stones at the same time). This pattern of supercrests and supertroughs is called an "interference pattern". When Young saw an interference pattern on the detector screen, he declared that light behaved in the exact same way as water waves do, and therefore, light is fundamentally a wave. However, Max Planck had shown that whether light was a wave or not, it existed in discrete packets called quanta. Like a case of beer is divided into 24 beer-sized quanta, you can't have a case of 24.6 beers. So they were able to repeat the double slit experiment but this time they fired individual quanta of light through the slits, without looking to see which slit the quanta went through. They observed little dots on the screen, representing each quanta of light.... so... particle? Except when they kept firing quanta of light through the slits, the individual dots accumulated to form the same interference pattern that Young saw. This was extremely counterintuitive, because it doesn't seem possible that individual quanta of light could produce such a pattern. How could it? This result suggested that the individual quanta of light were interfering with themselves, and therefore must pass through both slits at the same time. So they decided to add a detector at one of the slits and see which slit the light is going through. To their amazement, when they did this, the interference pattern disappeared, and light clearly passed through one slit or the other, and just showed up on the detector as individual dots with no pattern. So... what?!? They removed the detector and sure enough, the interference pattern returned. In conclusion, light appeared to behave as a wave, even individual quanta of light, since it appears to pass through both slits simultaneously, which is necessary for the appearance of an interference pattern. When you measure which slit the light when through, light appears to behave as a particle, and just flies through one slit or the other, but not both. The act of observing the experiment changed the result. So light can be described successfully as both a particle and a wave. As it turns out, all matter can be described this way, not just light. This was a tipping point for a new understanding of the universe through quantum mechanics, which is a whole different story. TL;DR Light is a wave, unless you look at it like a particle, then it's a particle, but also it's a wave. Simple.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How can the unemployment rate increase when jobs are added? A CNN article (linked below) details how the U.S. economy gained 215,000 jobs in March. Yet the unemployment rate increased from 4.9% to 5%. The article says that this may be a result of people returning to the job market, but can that really account for the complete negation (plus more) of those 215,000 jobs added? Article: http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/01/news/economy/us-jobs-report-march/<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Oh yes it can, quite easily. To start with you have to look at how they determine the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is based on adults that are not employed that are actively looking to be employed. So people that are not employed that do not count as unemployed are: * People in school * People that are retired * People who are permanently/temporarily disabled * People choosing not to work (eg stay at home parents) * People that have just given up on finding a job You can easily see how this number could fluctuate as people get out of school and try to enter the work force, parents return to the work force, or people that have given up search start looking for a job again. Adding to that you have to remember the US population is huge. There are about 300,000 people that turn 18 and become an adult every month. A lot of these people are entering the job market too.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What do philosophers from the analytic tradition think of Nietzsche? I originally read Nietzsche from a continental perspective (Foucault, Derrida etc) and I know his influence there has been massive. What I would like to know is what people who are more comfortable in the analytic tradition think of Nietzsche. This includes redditors and any published writers. Can you recommend readings?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant A lot of analytic ethicists take him very seriously, including Philippa Foot (who has an essay called 'Nietzsche: The Revaluation of Values' in her volume Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy), Christine Korsgaard (who cites and quotes him constantly in The Sources of Normativity), Christine Swanton (who develops a Nietzschean virtue ethics in Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View), and (as already mentioned) Bernard Williams (whose book Truth and Truthfulness was heavily influenced by Nietzsche, and who has a paper on Nietzsche called 'Nietzsche's Minimalist Moral Psychology' in his volume Making Sense of Humanity).<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What are some of the most major developments in philosophy of the last 20 years or so?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Here's some philosophy books that represent big developments: * Knowledge and its limits by Williamson * Every Thing Must Go by Ross and Ladyman * On What Matters by Parfit * What we owe to each other by Scanlon<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Humans have been around for roughly 100,000 years. Why have we advanced so much in the past 5000? I know that we have evolved to be more intelligent and capable, but why such a rapid increase lately?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Much of it is attributed to the Agricultural revolution. For some reason, humans in Eurasia stopped being hunters and gatherers to favor farming. Farming led to more food, which led to more people, which led to more people to discover different things which advanced us further.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user How is it that cable lines transmit real-time video for 100s of TV channels without a problem, but it takes hours to download that same amount of video data? I have a basic understanding of how a television receives a signal and displays its information. I understand how that it so fast. I just don't understand why downloading a video can't happen equally as fast. Is it just a limitation of how fast your computer can write the information to the hard disk?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Each channel is broadcast over a specific range of frequencies to each and every end point simultaneously. Non-overlapping frequencies can be summed together to produce the entire cable signal. Internet, on the other hand, is not multi-cast this way and requires careful routing and quality of service algorithms to queue up which packets get sent first at each router/switch. Data is sent in packets that are often acknowledged for receipt as well. Your internet "bandwidth" (as in frequency band width, not the misused common term of mbps) is much smaller than the bandwidth for all channels combined. Consider that each end point needs to both transmit and receive on the same wire.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user How many times can I ask the same professor for a recommendation letter, and how to overcome intense discomfort of asking for these letters? Rec letters are always my least favorite part of any application, simply because I feel like an annoyance to my professors/recommenders every time I ask. I have one particular recommender who has written me letters on two different occasions. I have another program coming up that I would love for her to recommend me for, but I'm worried she will be annoyed with my 3rd request. I'd consider asking someone else, but I don't exactly have a huge pool of names to draw from, as I'm very early on in my college career and the opportunity already requires recommendations from multiple people. Is a third request too many? Additionally, how do I overcome my dread of asking for letters, especially when asking the same person multiple different times?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Once a professor has written one letter for you, it’s far easier to write additional letters since we don’t start from scratch. So if it makes sense, continue to ask the same person - it will be more work for a new person. However, if you’re a junior or senior, having a person who simply had you in class as a freshmen write a letter doesn’t make sense.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: There's no issue with portraying fictional characters as different races. It's of my opinion that it's of no issue to change the race of a character if it has no effect on the overall story. This recently came to mind as there was a lot of backlash of the idea towards Idris Elba playing the part of James Bond. Personally, I don’t see why Elba couldn’t be Bond, being white isn’t character specific to Bond. His race isn’t acknowledged any longer, so I don’t see the issue with changing it. I get that for example Shaft couldn’t be white because his character is specifically based on his race. On the flip side, I don’t see why Batman couldn’t be black for instance, or even if Luther the character Elba currently plays was to be reprised by a white guy as it isn’t a factor in the story. I’m not saying we should shoehorn ethnic actors into roles they’re not good enough for, just to increase quotas, but with race being much less of an issue why does it matter with liberties taken with the race of characters. _____ > 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!*<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Often times the race of the character is very key to their over arching story. Look at Magneto from X-men for instance, he was a jew who was sent to the nazi concentration camps as a young boy. Consequently he had a natural fear that history would repeat itself and became violent to stop history from repeating itself, him thinking of mutants as the potential victims of another holocaust. Changing his race to say....asian, for instance would take away that very dark and very interesting origin story.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How can casinos tell if you're counting cards playing blackjack? Unless you were actively illegally cheating aren't they just banning players based on a hunch?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are certain red flags that can alert them, including: - Players watching the cards more intently than others; - Players sitting at "third base" (the last hand to be dealt to - a preferred spot because you can see more of the cards before making a decision); - Players watching what other cards come out before putting out a split or double wager; - Bets varying up and down dramatically (this is the most significant thing); and - Deviations from basic strategy. Some pit bosses also have a rudimentary knowledge of card counting, so if they start counting a shoe themselves, and see a player raise and lower their bets at the "right" times, this too will be a red flag (admittedly they won't know what exact system you're using, but all systems generally have you increase your bets when the conditions are to the player's advantage). Casinos also have cameras pointing at everything, so someone, somewhere can be remotely watching even more closely to determine if the player is probably counting. Having said all that, it's not like they have to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt; it's a private company so they can just tell you they don't want your business if they believe you're counting cards. EDIT: You referred to "cheating" in your post (perhaps inadvertently); for anyone wondering, card counting isn't cheating by any reasonable definition. You're accessing the same information all the other players have, and you're making betting and playing decisions that you're allowed to make. The only thing you're doing differently is mentally keeping track of that publicly available information, and using it to make certain decisions. It all happens inside your head. That's not cheating. It's thinking.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why don't humans eat one large meal and then not eat for a while, like some other predators? There are many predators that will hunt a large animal, eat a large amount of food, and then not eat for multiple days. What prevents human beings from doing the same thing? It seems our eating habits are inefficiently designed.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It is believed that during most of human evolutionary life, we lived as hunter-gatherers, and at that time, most of our nutrition came from gathering, not hunting. With gathering one can eat multiple times per day, even grazing throughout the day. The remnants of this are seen in the ways we prefer to eat today.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Federalism doesn't work in modern day populous countries and the founders of the U.S. would not have setup such a system had they known the implications at today's population levels. _____ During deliberations amongst the U.S. founding fathers, two contrary views emerged as potential models for a federation of states: 1) a strong, centralized federal government, and 2) a decentralized federal system consisting of many strong, autonomous states. Of course the system our founders adopted is the former. It is my opinion that it would have been impossible in the late-18th century for even the most intellectually gifted of our founders to conceive of a nation of over 300 million people, and could not possibly have considered the implications a strong federal system would have in governing such an immense population (the population of the United States in 1776 was roughly 2.5 million). Further, I think that had our founders been able to grasp the disconnect that exists today between our citizens and federal government, as well as the role of well-funded private interest groups, they would have been more likely to enact a system of strong, autonomous state-based rule-- a system which would be superior in the modern environment. Change my view.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The founding fathers did set up a system similar to what you are describing. In the original constitution the federal government had the power to regulate interstate commerce (this has been reinterpreted to basically mean any kind of commerce) and establish diplomatic relations with other countries (including wars and such). Basically if a power could be given to the states instead of the federal government it was. Also, the State Legislatures used to vote for Senators, and while the president was voted for by the electoral college, the way the electors for each state were chosen was up to the state (it didn't have to be by the people). It was only over time that through the Supreme Court, a civil war, and various amendments that the federal government gained the vast power it has now.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: it's a good thing that birth rates are declining Declining birth rates have been in the news lately, and most of the reporting I've read has centered around the resulting demographic shift causing economic difficulties. While I'm sure there will be economic difficulties to overcome, I think it's necessary to do so, and now is a better time than later. An economy that requires a continuously increasing population is not sustainable indefinitely. Eventually, we'll have enough people that we need more of some resource we don't have a good way to get more of and be forced into the sorts of decisions that form the basis of [dystopian sci-fi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Overpopulation_fiction). That people are voluntarily having fewer children solves the problem before it becomes a crisis. Fewer people means that each person can have a larger share of limited resources. Each person's labor becomes more valuable due to reduced competition, which is well-timed as automation reduces the demand for low-skill, low-pay labor. Of course owners of businesses that currently profit from inexpensive labor might not be thrilled about it, but as long as the world still has people living in extreme poverty, I suspect there are ways to fill any remaining demand for cheap labor. # Deltas: * Sperm counts have been dropping continually in western men for decades, so reduced births aren't necessarily voluntary. While there are some solid suspects, we don't know why for certain, and that's scary. * Too much of a good thing is possible, and Japan may have it with an exceptionally low birth rate and a low immigration rate leading to no viable way to support its elderly. * There is an education bottleneck for nursing in the US, resulting in a shortage that will only get worse as the population ages unless solved.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Depends where you look. on a macro/resource level you have a point. But if you look at countries like Japan their issue is they have such an old population, and there isn't enough young people to do all the necessary jobs to look after the elderly. A lot of western countries are facing similar impending crisis. Mainly around how populations are aging and there isn't enough money in pension pots to support them. Whilst it may seem good the population as a whole is decreasing. The birth rate decreasing comes with a major problem... Not enough young people to look after the old.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user How to get "invited talks" as a postdoc? I am a postdoc in biomedical sciences and I am in the final stage of training. In preparation for the job application and to get my name and my research more exposed I have been going to conferences and giving short talks. However, I see in the tenure-track job applicants typically list many invited talks in their CVs. It seems to me that these invited talks increase one's exposure to more experts of the field, and it also looks great on the CV. How should a postdoc get more invited talks, such as departmental seminars or alike? Would you email the departments/professors in different schools and "self-invite" yourself, or ask about the possibility of giving a talk? Many thanks!<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant 1) Have friends at other institutions. 2) Do interesting research. 3) Get a campus invite for a job interview. (semi-joking on this one) All in all, invited talks don't really do a lot for your CV or career potential. They reflect your larger involvement in the field, though, since invitations usually mean other folks acknowledge your expertise and research as something interesting to present to a larger audience.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: When saving a document on Microsoft Word "A file name can't contain any of the following characters: \ / : * ? " < > \|". Why?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Windows uses these symbols for searches, command-line instructions, and the paths that define file locations. If you save using one of these then Windows does not know whether that is the file name or should be performing some other action.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Is Plato's Republic a Serious Political Proposal? I was recently listening to the Partially Examined Life's episode on Plato's Republic and later on in the episode one of the hosts had mentioned that in academia, some treat Plato's Republic as a straightforward political proposal while others treat as a metaphor for the soul and other abstract answers. What is the general consensus regarding what Plato meant?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant In A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell says the following which if accurate gives some credence to the idea that it could have been a serious model: > Plato's Republic, unlike modern Utopias, was perhaps intended to be actually founded. This was not so fantastic or impossible as it might naturally seem to us. Many of its provisions, including some that we should have thought quite impracticable, were actually realized at Sparta. The rule of philosophers had been attempted by Pythagoras, and in Plato's time Archytas the Pythagorean was politically influential in Taras (the modern Taranto) when Plato visited Sicily and southern Italy. It was a common practice for cities to employ a sage to draw up their laws; Solon had done this for Athens, and Protagoras for Thurii. Colonies, in those days, were completely free from control by their parent cities, and it would have been quite feasible for a band of Platonists to establish the Republic on the shores of Spain or Gaul. Unfortunately chance led Plato to Syracuse, a great commercial city engaged in desperate wars with Carthage; in such an atmosphere, no philosopher could have achieved much. In the next generation, the rise of Macedonia had made all small States antiquated, and had brought about the futility of all political experiments in miniature.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:What is the difference between Jews, Christians and Muslims when it comes to the soul and afterlife? If the goal is to be a good person and you get to live forever with god in heaven, don't they all agree? They all believe in a soul that lives forever don't they?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant There are distinct differences between each. For a Jewish person, they will certainly get to "heaven" (there is no concept of hell) and because of this, they thank G-d by obeying him. Christianity is similar; although Christians do believe in hell for non-believers, the rationale is because God has forgiven you and you believe, you no longer want to disobey. Conversely, Muslims are the most action-based believers, as they strive to obey the laws set by Allah as there is a real threat of going to Jahannam (hell) if they do not. However, it is still greatly faith based with the first pillar being the Shahadah, a declaration of faith.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: After a person has earned a certain amount of money in a year (say, north of £5,000,000), they should be charged at a tax rate of at least 80% About half of the world's wealth is currently held by the top 1% in society, a significantly higher tax rate for the very top earning members of society will both prevent more money being hoarded by them, reducing the wealth gap between the ultra-wealthy and the poorest people in society, and it will mean that billions more will go towards tax which can also be used to build up the economy and help the less fortunate people. When someone has passed a certain threshold (not necessarily £5million, but that seems like a reasonable number in my opinion) they will not really need that much more than that, they wouldn't really be able to spend that on anything other than things that people would never really need. Plus, why should people be able to have millions that they can spend on extravagant items when some people cannot even afford a roof over their head, or food to feed themselves/their family.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant What you're missing is the presumed link between productivity and compensation. Elon Musk is responsible for PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX, right? What if after PayPal the government told him "Alright there Elon, you've made enough money, we're taking the rest from here on out"? Even if he's not the kind of guy motivated by money, that means he'd have no resources to fund those other projects. Those other companies wouldn't exist because we decided to stifle innovation. Some people make a thousand times more than others because they're doing a thousand times more for society.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user If I'm standing flat on a scale and swing my arms forcing my body down, where does the extra "weight" come from?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Newtons third law of motion, which basically says that for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So lifting your hands/arms up, pushes the rest of your body down, which is recorded on the scales as a momentary increase in weight.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why is it difficult to see yellow on a white background? Assuming normal human vision, what is it about the human eye or the color yellow or both that makes yellow inherently more difficult to distinguish on a white background than other colors?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Perception of yellow and white relies on overlapping mechanisms in the retina. Simplifying a bit: yellow is sensed by "opponent" neurons that are excited by medium (M) and long (L) wavelength cone receptors, and are inhibited by short (S) wavelength cones. So, when the stimulus has a lot of long/medium wavelength content but little short wavelength content, those neurons respond and you see "Yellow". The "white" (or really, "brightness") signal comes from neurons that simply pool the L and M cone inputs (but not the S! - or maybe a little bit of S, sometimes). Call these L+M cells. So, if you have a long/middle wavelength light mixture, it will look yellow and bright, since you're exciting both the opponent cells and the L+M cells. But then you can mix S wavelength light into it, and it won't get brighter but it will look white (since those opponent cells are now being inhibited). Since both colors have such common neural architecture, they are perceptually very similar. Meanwhile, blue and yellow look extremely different, because they excite almost completely complementary neurons, starting in the retina.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user During the carboniferous period, the oxygen level was ~35%. Now it is ~21%. There is less oxygen in atmosphere now. Where is that oxygen now? During the carboniferous period, the oxygen level was ~35%. Now,the level is ~21%. There was a 41.5% oxygen decrease in atmosphere. Considering the fact that the level of CO2 were always negligible - at the beginning of the carboniferous period was only 7000ppm (~0,7%),now it is ~0,04% . Where is that oxygen now? I understand that breaking down lignin was difficult and it became coal but coal is mostly carbon. This explains the fact that carbon is trapped as coal but where is that oxygen trapped now?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Oxygen gets locked up as CO2, which can be in the atmosphere (minor), or in plants, or dead plants and animals in the ground. This includes a lot in bacteria. Another major sink is capture by rocks, as in iron and silicate oxides.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: We breath the through the lungs. The air goes in and out of our lungs. So why is it that most of the time it's our stomach that inflates rather than the chest?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Your body can expand the lungs 2 ways, the ribs can stretch out to expand your chest, or the diaphragm under the lungs can expand into your gut which pushes your gut outward. You have probably been breathing with your diaphragm.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Square-Cube Law? This law dictates that a titanic animal or creature could not exist because the bones could not support its weight, it would take longer for signals to reach the brain and other obvious problems, but this is confusing for me and the law seems really flimsy, wouldn't a creature of that size be designed to thrive like that? With bones, nervous system and organs specifically made for that mass? It seems like the law is literally taking a common animal, multiplying the size of it and saying it couldn't exist which is blatant, since its made for the conditions it in. Is there anything that would actually prevent a massive creature from thriving?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Its based on principles of physics. As an animal increases in size (say, "x" times as large), its mass would increase by x^3, but the cross section of muscles, bones, trachea, etc would increase by x^2 (since the cross section is 2 dimensional, but an animal is 3 dimensional). That means that proportionally, the animal needs to drastically increase the size of these structures. This is why a cow does not look like a big mouse, and an elephant is not a big cow. There comes a certain point where further increase in size can no longer be matched by an increase in bone/muscle mass, and the animal cannot reasonably exist. The same idea with nerves. Blue whales are really big, and there is a significant lag in the time it takes signals to reach the tail. At a certain point, that delay becomes adaptive, and the animal doesn't get bigger. Could, in theory, someone design a more efficient animal? Make muscles that are stronger per unit size, or nerves that signal faster, or bones with more strength? Sure. But that isn't how evolution works. There are advantages and disadvantages to becoming a big animal, and at some point the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. The major reconfigurine of bones and muscles and whatnot that would be needed to survive is too big of an evolutionary leap to make, especially when there isn't much advantage to getting bigger.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why is the amount of work required to accelerate a body from 10m/s to 20m/s three times the work needed to accelerate a body from 0m/s to 10m/s? The kinetic energy of a body moving at 10m/s is 50\mass and the kinetic energy of a body moving at 20m/s is 200\mass. The work required to accelerate the body from 10 to 20m/s is 200-50=150\*mass, or three times the 0-10 acceleration. This seems really counterintuitive because it would seem that as the body gets faster it is harder to accelerate it further i.e. you would need to do more work. What does the force acting on the body care about the speed at which the object is moving if it just wants to accelerate it another 10m/s? What am I missing here? (I know that the formulae say that it behaves this way but I just can't grasp it.)<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Say you want to accelerated an object by a certain speed v, you can do that by applying a constant force, for a given time. So, if the body weights 1 kg and you apply a force of 1 N for 10 seconds, the object would speed up 10m/s, independent of the original speed. This is probably why your intuition syas it should be equally 'hard'. The problem is that the amount of work is not the applied force integrated over time, it is the applied force integrated over distance. So if you apply the same force for the same period of time, speeding from a larger initial speed will take more work becouse the distance travelled is larger (greater speed, equal time -> longer distance).<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user I've recently heard about people who identify as "spiritual but not religious." Is there a philosophical sense to this (in essence, philosophers who would hold such a stance), and if so are there philosophers who identify as "religious but not spiritual."<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant This seems better suited for social scientists on the clarity of defintions in surveys— but, to take a stab at it, 'religious' might imply a sense of organization around belief or dogma; whereas 'spiritual' can just mean having a sense of enchantment or enthusiasm. In general I'd say philosophers tend to describe 'spiritual'as not necessarily religious— for example, Charles Taylor describes 'spiritual' as meaning ethics in the most broad sense in Sources of the Self.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: How can eu countries have different inflation rates when they all use euros? Do euro have different value in each country? Edit: Thank you all for the answers.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Inflation rate is based on what you can buy with a given amount of currency (or, equivalently, how much cost a given item). For example, if in NY a pint of beer went from 6$ to 8$, that's a 33% inflation rate on beer in NY. If, meanwhile, it went from 6$ to 9$ in SF, that's a 50% inflation rate on beer in SF. Even if they both use the same currency. "THE inflation rate" is based on a selected cart of items that represents basically how much all the prices of stuff you need (incl. rent, utilities, gas, food, etc.) got higher. Since prices are and change differently in different places, inflation can be different even if everyone involved uses the same currency.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why are there huge numbers of Africans and Asians living rough trying to sneak into the UK from France? Isn't France a similarly wealthy country?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant France has national ID cards which are necessary to do anything involved in living an ordinary life i.e. open a bank account, get a job and so on. Britain doesn't have these, and also has a larger black economy because it doesn't aggressively pursue and punish the use of off-the-books labour to the extent that many other European nations do. There is also the fact that most of these migrants, excluding a few from Francophone Africa, are likely to have better linguistic survival skills in English than in French, and certainly than in Italian or Greek or whichever nation they landed in. Contrary to popular perception in Britain, asylum claimants are actually not especially well-catered to by the British government but they may receive a paltry amount of cash and/or food vouchers each week and be given hostel accommodation if it is judged that they have the right to have their claim heard. While this is very little it does still compare favourably with France where they get no assistance or accommodation except from the charitable sector, and are living outside exposed to the elements. It's these factors that create the popular perception among the migrants that they'll be better off in the UK. Some have through word of mouth sadly acquired delusional notions of making their fortunes here easily, others know that realistically they'll still be outside society and just existing, but under better enough conditions than France to make the last leg of the journey worth trying.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What's the difference between the vitamins you get from foods to those of supplements? Are the vitamins you get from food better than the ones you get from supplements? Say you have two clones, one who gets all of their vitamins from food and the other who gets all of their vitamins from supplements. Hypothetically, who would live longer, assuming they both have identical lifestyles?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant >Are the vitamins you get from food better than the ones you get from supplements? Assuming you're comparing apples to apples, there's no difference in vitamins obtained from supplements as compared to vitamins from food. They are usually identical substances. It's definitely the case that vitamins from supplements will be more concentrated (usually they contain 100% RDA of each vitamin). However, as long as you're on a normal diet (eating veggies, fruit, grain, meat), you don't have to take a supplement. You can very easily get all of your vitamins from diet alone. >Hypothetically, who would live longer, assuming they both have identical lifestyles? I don't personally think vitamins have a lot to do with longevity. They generally function in the body as cofactors for essential processes, and in either case (from food or supplements), the vitamins won't be limiting.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Nothing that requires action or work or money on the part of others can ever be a "right." A "right" is a legal claim of entitlement for something. In America, the Bill of Rights are very carefully worded as negative rights--meaning no one needs to do anything to secure them besides leave you alone. For me to have free speech, no one has to give me anything, do anything for me, pay for anything, or otherwise act in any specific way. The government just needs to not arrest me or imprison me for something I say. This holds true for every single one of these rights. Equally important are the words "endowed by our creator" because they certify that these "rights" are something with which we are born and are not things that are given to us by any person or entity. They exist by virtue of the fact that we exist. If I move to a place with zero infrastructure and wish to live amongst the trees, my freedom of speech still exists. And if I live in the most populated place in the country, surrounded by people and infrastructure 24 hours a day my freedom of speech still exists. Over the last few generations, the word "right" has been tied to social justice movements because of its implications. Something a person is legally entitled to is a hard thing to argue against. But the things being advocated by SJWs and other activists can never truly be rights because they rely on the actions of others to happen. The last few years has seen news stories of doctors, pharmacies, drug stores, and other health care providers making the decision to not accept Medicare or Medicaid or other local forms of taxpayer-funded payment. They've made these decisions largely because payment to them from the government has been unreliable and takes too much work to get. If the scenario is played out to where no doctor accepts Medicaid, then Medicaid couldn't possibly be a right since no one accepts it. And the same can be said for literally anything that requires work or money or action on the part of anyone besides yourself. Any government program that is funded by tax dollars falls into this category and can never truly be a right because it relies on the work of others to provide--work which is not illegal to avoid. If enough people stopped working and decided to live off the land, grow their own food, live without electricity, etc, their tax dollars would cease to exist and the government couldn't fund the programs for which people currently believe they have a "right." And since the government can't imprison you or punish you for doing this, there would be no way to continue to fund the program in question. So, anything that is a right can only be a right in an environment where the "right" exists independently of any action on the part of others. Change my view. _____ > 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!*<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The word "right" clearly has several different usages, not all of which are strictly legal in nature. When someone asserts that you have a "right" to free health care, they generally don't mean "the Bill of Rights of the US constitution states that we should get free health care." They mean something like "It is a moral imperative for each individual to receive health care, regardless of their ability to pay for it or contribution to society." Obviously, you are perfectly free to disagree with that statement if your moral intuitions don't line up with it. But it's rather beside the point to say it's not a "right"- "right" a common term in moral dialogues, and the moral concept of a "duty" is linked to rights. It makes sense to say we have a moral duty to rescue a drowning child (a positive action) so we might coherently say that someone has a right to be saved by someone if that comes at no cost to the savior.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Changing your name after marriage? Hi folks, I'm in the first year of my MA psych program and I got hitched (yay!!) in October. Under my maiden name, I have been second/third author on two published chapters, and have presented about 5 posters at local & international conferences. My question: will changing my name legally negatively interfere with my academic life? There will obviously be some discontinuity in my CV, which I'm not super worried about. I'm more wondering about perceptions of women in academia who change their names to take their husband's last name. Also - is it possible for me to legally change my name and use that socially whilst still publishing and working under my maiden name? Any input is appreciated :) Thanks!<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant You can change your name and publish or work under your birth name. You will need to tell HR for legal/tax reasons, but tell them you’d like to maintain your original name within the directory, email, etc. Also tell whoever maintains your department website to keep it the old way. If you’d rather change it professionally though, in your CV’s publications list, bold your name wherever it appears (whether old or new name), and you can also check with the journal editors of your publications to see if you can change your name on the publication. I suspect there are guides out there for changing your name for academics, aimed at academics who take a married name, and/or at trans academics, they can likely help you make decisions on what to change and then how to do it.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:Why can't fish that live in salt water survive in freshwater?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Osmosis is a process in cell membranes under which water goes from areas of low solute concentration to high solute concentration. Organisms generally can't live with lots of salt inside them, so saltwater fish have low levels of salt inside themselves, but are surrounded by water that has high concentrations of salt. So they are constantly losing water through osmosis. As a result, they are built to constantly "drink in" more water (and have their kidneys filter out the salt). Freshwater fish generally have a higher level of salt inside their bodies than in the surrounding water. They are constantly taking in water through osmosis. They are therefore built to constantly "pee" out excess water. Since most saltwater fish are built to deal with osmosis in a way that is opposite from the adaptation they need, they cannot survive in fresh water. They do not have the same adaptions to rapidly get rid of water from their bodies, since they are used to water naturally leaving their bodies through osmosis.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why do some countries still struggle to make nuclear weapons? We hear pretty often than Iran is attempting to enrich uranium and make nuclear weapons. The same has been said of some other countries and there are countless other nations that would like nuclear weapons but can’t make them. How is this the case when this is 80 year old technology at this point? If we could make them in 1940, shouldn’t even technologically behind the times countries be able to make their own now? Was 1940 America really more scientifically capable than large African or middle eastern countries are today?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It’s not a matter of scientific difficulty, the process is well known and you can look it up online. The difficulty is mostly in procuring the materials and equipment against the will of the international community. You need enriched uranium and a large number of centrifuges to refine it to weapons-grade, but these aren’t easy to come by. When your geopolitical enemies embargo these items and dispatch spies to disrupt the process, you’re forced to procure equipment through other unsavory channels and try to do this work in secret. Iran has a lot of very powerful enemies and very few friends, and they can’t just go buy nuclear weapons equipment.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why do bacteria build resistance to antibiotics, but not to things like alcohol, bleach, and boiling? Why is nobody worried that a new chlorine-resistant bacteria strain will show up?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Antibiotics work to stop a particular bacterial process - say making proteins or building a cell wall. This is very specific to the bacteria in question, and will not harm you when you take them. But that means the bacteria can invent ways to become resistant, such as pumping the antibiotic out of their cells or producing a protein that breaks down the antibiotic outside the cell. Alcohol, bleach and boiling are non-specific. They destroy multiple systems in the bacteria. They also destroy your cells. So they are not as safe as antibiotics, even though bacteria cannot become resistant to them.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: When bacteria die, for example when boiling water, where do their corpses go?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant When you take a close look at a bacteria, it's just a little bag of chemicals with a protective skin around it, plus some other stuff like hairs that can help it move. The chemicals are mostly water plus electrolytes and a few complex carbon-based molecules. If the bacteria is placed in boiling water, the pressure inside rises and ruptures that skin, and then the chemicals inside leach out and dissipate into the water, while some get changed into other chemicals in the same way stuff like an egg changes when it cooks. But it's such a tiny amount of material and it's dispersed so thoroughly through so much more water that it's not noticeable or harmful or anything. Baking or frying it does the same thing, rupturing the skin, except in this case there's no water to carry the chemicals away, so after the fluid in the bacteria evaporates you have a itsy-bitsy stain. RIP bacteria.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why can we effectively fight off bacteria but it seems like modern medicine can't help at all against viruses. Why are we still helpless against viruses?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Viruses and bacteria are inherently different things. Bacteria are simple prokaryotic organisms and with that come with a variety of ways you can destroy them (based on their cell wall type, etc.). Viruses are a little bit more tricky because they aren't "alive" in the traditional sense. They are a bundle of DNA/RNA in a protein capsid that utilize a host to propagate themselves. Depending on the type of virus, it can either be lytic and explode the cell with newly formed viruses (it utilizes the mechanisms that a cell would normally replicate itself while inherently destroying the cell) or be lysogenic and incorporate itself into the host genome for generations until it is ready to become lytic. With this in mind, you can't simply destroy a virus in the same way you can bacteria because they are very different in composition. A lot of things that would destroy a virus would also destroy the proper functioning of a cell, so you'd have to find other mechanisms to fight it off (such as using an inactivated virus to teach your immune cells to recognize it and fight it off i.e. a vaccine).<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user proficiency of math required before starting philosophy of math hi everyone, im an undergraduate interested in philosophy of math. but im not sure what level of math i should be proficient in before being able to take phil of math classes. i know that set theory knowledge and how to write proofs are probably necessary but im not sure about the rest. aside from these, im planning to take calculus (1-4), linear algebra, complex variables and abstract algebra for the next 4 years. would these be sufficient in learning more about philosophy of math? bonus last question: what areas of math is most relevant to philosophy? eg. number theory, probability, topology, etc. any answers are greatly appreciated! thank you!<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Hi It depends entirely on the course. If it's an introductory course, sometimes no background information is relevant at all. Learning formal logic will be far and away the most beneficial for you, though sometimes this is offerred under philosophy courses. Number theory which you mention in turn is very relevant to formal logic. Logic is really what you need though.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:Why is it that when flies land on our LCD/LED screens, they don't get affected when we move windows or make some rapid movement which results in some colour change in the screen?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Fly fear responses are based mostly on air currents and visual stimuli from above the fly, because that's where predatory threats come from. They don't have much in the way of general intelligence, and escape responses are hardwired so they can be faster, so random visual stimuli from unexpected directions don't really register. If you want to see something funny, though, put a little jumping spider on a computer screen. It _will_ follow the cursor around like a cat after a laser pointer, because jumping spiders are incredibly visual and keyed to look for prey running around on surfaces.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Life outside academia I am a graduate student, and I always thought I would like to pursue an academic career. However, throughout college, I met many phd student, post-docs and professors; I have some real doubt that I want to have the life they have, in particular because it means dedicating -almost- your whole life to it. I would like to have some insight on how it is or not possible to conciliate an academic life with other activities, such a a family, political activity, sport activities, musical activities, etc. Practically, I would like to know what is you position, how much time you dedicate to your academic career, and how much free time you can chose to allocate to whatever you want. It would be really helpful to gain insight from here, cause I have the feeling people may tend to speak more freely here than the academic people I meet in real life. Thanks!<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Very field dependent and personality dependent too. Academics who gave their lives to the job are probably addicted to some aspects of it, either those zen 'flow' moments when doing research or getting their highs from the admiration of students. And there's never a ceiling for those since it's not a 9-5 job. You could always chase the next high and do more research, collect moar pubs. There's always some new pedagogy tricks that maybe, just maybe this time gets you a glimpse of that look in students' eyes and those small nods when they become enlightened by something you said on stage. Why would you want a life outside academia?<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What is the benefit of using telescopes outside of the visible spectrum? What information can you gather by observing other celestial bodies in radio/microwave/xray etc. that you couldnt in the visible spectrum?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant All normal matter (ie not dark matter or dark energy) emits radiation all across the electromagnetic spectrum, and the visible spectrum is only a tiny part of that! The distribution of intensity across different wavelengths tells us a lot of important things about what we observe, and that information is not limited to visible light. There are also plenty of interesting things that are brightest outside of the visible spectrum, if not totally invisible, for example the cosmic microwave background, x-ray pulsars, gamma ray bursts. Looking at longer wavelengths is also essential for observing the most distant objects, since expansion makes distant galaxies that emit visible light appear redshifted down to the infrared and microwave range. Radio astronomy is also very useful because radio waves are easier to use in interferometry, allowing us to make very high-resolution observations like the recent image of a black hole.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why does squinting slightly improve vision?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Squinting limits the directions from which light enters your eyes, which limits the number of rods and cones that activate. It also limits the amount of light entering your eyes, which can be helpful if you are in a very bright area (creates less strain on your eye muscles and receptors). If you have abnormal vision, squinting can reduce the confliction of different receptors firing in the back of your eyes, which can lead to clearer images. Try this: take off glasses/contacts if you have any, and curl your fingers so that only a small hole exists in the center of the curl. The hole should be very small, like a pinhole. Then, look through that hole, and you should be able to see very clearly. This works because light is only entering your eye from a small number directions and does not activate as many receptors. Your brain only has to interpret the image from these receptors, and not try to synthesize a large number of images from many receptors, as would be the case with an unaided eye. If you have impaired vision, these images normally become confused in the brain, creating blurry vision unless corrective glasses or contacts are worn. Squinting works by reducing the amount of light entering your eyes, which both reduces strain on muscles and receptors and limits conflicting images of the world. EDIT: Grammar.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Is it possible to come up with a scientifically perfect diet for optimum human function?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant No. There is too much genetic variation in the metabolism of certain compounds to develop a single perfect diet. It is possible to develop personalized diets once we have a firm grasp on the above mentioned metabolic variations. But where's the fun in that? I'd rather have a steak than a bowl of goop :)<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why's there still a "share" button for internet porn videos despite there being zero demand for it?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Three possibilities: 1) Someone out there actually uses the porn sharing function, so websites continue to use it. 2) Its a default option in the web video program that porn sites use, and removing it would cause some issues with the playback. 3) Web developers have a weird sense of humor, and have programmed it in the hopes that people click it on accident.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Star Trek] How do Combadges work? sometimes someone presses them before talking but other times they just speak a name into the air and they reply?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Combadges can detect when someone intends to communicate with another officer, so speaking into the air will generally automatically activate it. However, tapping it manually activates it, and most officers presumably prefer to do that to make sure it activates.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user I believe that calling yourself a "feminist" implies that you only recognize socio-economic issues as they relate to women, and give no regard to issues regarding men, otherwise you would call yourself a Humanist before a Feminist. Please CMV I think this is a big reason that people like myself don't take feminism seriously, even though we care about women's rights. I want to feel like I actually support women's rights and feminism, but there is something in my head that makes the idea fall flat on its face straight out of the gate. CLARIFICATION: I may not mean Humanism literally, but I think you catch my drift. Just being an advocate for humans rights. Humanism has a lot of definitions and I don't want anyone to get too focused on that.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant I believe calling yourself an "oncologist" implies that you only recognize health issues as they relate to cancer, and give no regard to health issues regarding other maladies, otherwise you would call yourself a general practitioner before an oncologist.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Americans have high material wealth because of smart protectionism, not free market policies America often takes credit for being a prosperous nation. This stems from the intuition of it practicing free market fundamentalism. What many overlook is that America's success derives from smart protectionism. American workers are given high pay premiums from restrictive immigration laws and quota systems. When you're a user of a reserve currency, you're fortunate to work less hours than users of pegged currencies for the same products. Many industries are protected by occupational licensing. This protects incumbents from having to compete with new entrants.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant > Many industries are protected by occupational licensing. This protects incumbents from having to compete with new entrants. The reduction in competition increases the prices of this service and reduces the quality. These policies hurt America as a whole, although they help the people who happen to be working those jobs. > When you're a user of a reserve currency, you're fortunate to work less hours than users of pegged currencies for the same products. A pegged currency is the opposite of free market, as its price is set by the government. Reserve currencies are part of the free market. >American workers are given high pay premiums from restrictive immigration laws and quota systems. This creates lower quality and/or more expensive goods for the average consumer. These laws only help specific workers. Overall, these things do help some Americans, but hurt the country.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5:Why Doesn't the government tax churches?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant The idea is that religious institutions (e.g. Buddist temples, Christian churches, Jewish organizations) benefit society, so they should be assisted (or at least not hindered with taxes). For example, people that attend Christian churches are bombarded with these messages every week: * You must help the poor, elderly, widows, and sick. * You must forgive those that have wronged you. * If you kill, lie, cheat, steal, or provide a false witness you are in serious trouble.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5, what does junk food actually do to our bodies that’s so bad? For example Mc Donalds. I know can cause cardio vascular diseases, fatty liver disease and cancer, but why? What does it actually do to my body that’s so damaging? It’s easy to say it’s bad for you but without knowing how it’s also easy to forget.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant LOTS of different things High sodium foods increase blood pressure by increasing sodium content in blood, which draws more water into the blood to balance it, straining your blood vessels High calorie foods lead to increased body fat, which stresses joints, and the heart because it has to work harder to support a larger body High fat/cholesterol literally leaves deposits of fat in your arteries which can clog them These foods also lack many nutrients you need, leading to a deficiency in vitamins and minerals<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user What factors cause/increase the chance of rain? I am a student studying software and im playing around with a simple machine learning library. I want to create a small program that can predict if it is raining or not by looking at a list of numerical attributes that may suggest rainfall. Im dont have much knowledge of meteorology, what atmospherical attributes am i looking for? (things such as high humidity % or high pressure) &#x200B; thanks<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Sure, there's a bunch of factors which produce rain: I'll start with three. 1. Humidity / dewpoint. Air itself can hold a certain amount of air. You can inject more and more water into air and it'll absorb it. However, once you reach 100% saturation, then it'll precipitate out, in the form of liquid water — rain! 2. Cooling / lapse rate. Air cools as you go up in height. The atmosphere's air is heated by the hot earth surface after sun heating. Rain can only come from clouds' water vapour. Another way to condense water is to cool the air, as cold air can hold less water (think, tropics = humid). So, rain formation can also be expedited if the cooling is quick - or, if the temperature drops faster with height. 3. Particulates. If air is saturated, it'll only form water droplets if they have something to 'cling' onto, so things like dust, smoke, etc. are the sort to promote this. Hope this is helpful!<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Why does it take so much longer for the eyes to adapt to darkness than to brightness?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant When going from dark to light, all your eyes have to do is constrict the pupils to restrict the incoming light to a range that allows proper vision. When going from light to dark, 2 things need to happen. The fast step is (like above) dilation of your pupils to their maximum size to allow as much light in as possible. The slower step is regeneration of rhodopsin (what the other commenter called visual purple), the light-sensitive protein in your retina, which takes 30-60 mins.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user CMV: Your tip shouldn't change depending on the cost of the meal I don't really get why tips are typically thought of in terms of percentages rather than absolute dollar value. Like--it's not substantially more work for the server to bring you a sixty dollar bottle of wine than a five dollar shot, so why would the former substantially increase how much they get paid and the latter have a negligible impact? What i'm proposing is that you should work out an amount of money that you typically tip that more-or-less equals the average dollar amount you'd be tipping on meals, and use that as the baseline rather than 15%. Like if your meals on average cost around 30$, you should have a baseline tip of 5$ whether you're getting a 15$ meal or a 45$ meal. (That's if we accept that 15% is an appropriate baseline tip--i know there's a push in some areas for that to be higher. i don't have a strong opinion either way but am probably vaguely supportive of people tipping more if they can afford it.) You might still have reasons to adjust that tip up or down. I don't necessarily think you should always pay servers the same--if you're staying for a long time, or having multiple courses, or have a large/disruptive party, or are going to a place with very good service or strict regulations about how the servers can act, i think those factors should increase how much you tip. And some of them are loosely correlated with expense--but I don't think that correlation is strong enough to really justify using expense as a proxy instead of tipping more specifically when those factors apply. Advantages of this: \-increased income stability for waiters. it's still contingent on how many tables you get and whether they're generous tippers or not, so hardly ideal, but now at least it's not about whether the table ordered a 100$ bottle of wine or a 20$ round of shots \-more equal for waiters at cheap places. it doesn't seem right that waiting at a place with high prices is a way better-paying job than waiting at a place with low prices, all else being equal. it's possible that the place with high prices is a more demanding job, but it's also totally possible that it isn't. \-doesn't require constant recalculation. You'll probably only need to work out how much you should be tipping every few years as your income changes and you start being able to spend more--the rest of the time you can just give a steady dollar amount, with more for good service. Obviously I don't expect you to exactly calculate the average, just give a good enough estimate that you probably aren't paying less than you otherwise would overall. This is a comparatively minor issue but, well, rule of threes y'know? The only real problem with this that I've been able to see is that it bucks social convention so you'd seem like a dick whenever you get an expensive meal and leave a comparatively small tip, even if you're actually being more fair overall. But it doesn't seem right to continue tipping unfairly just to look good/fit with social norms. Incidentally, i'm also down for abolishing tipping as a practice, but what I'm proposing here is more of a best-practices when you go to a restaurant--I think it's pretty obvious that the way to get rid of tipping is to put pressure on the restaurant owners, not to screw over the wait staff. (Not very interested in debating this part of the post though) EDIT: I'm not advocating for a flat-rate tip. I'm fine with tipping more for things like good service, expertise, or having labour-intensive orders. Also, in my system, different people will have different baseline tips, depending on how much they can afford to spend. I'm saying that I don't think the cost of the meal itself should change how large a tip is left, not that nothing should.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant >What i'm proposing is that you should work out an amount of money that you typically tip that more-or-less equals the average dollar amount you'd be tipping on meals, and use that as the baseline rather than 15%. ... >-more equal for waiters at cheap places. it doesn't seem right that waiting at a place with high prices is a way better-paying job than waiting at a place with low prices, all else being equal. it's possible that the place with high prices is a more demanding job, but it's also totally possible that it isn't. Do you think a server at Denny's goes through the same training or is held to the same expectations as one at a fancy Italian joint?<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [MCU] What happens if Ant Man drops an enlargement disc into a pool of water and activates it? Does the volume of water increase, do the water molecules get bigger, or something else?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It would increase the atomic distance between the atoms of Hydrogen and oxygen in the molecules only for the molecules that were touching the disc. So there would be a few million really big water molecules.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: why even when you’re dehydrated, do you sometimes have to wake up to urinate in the middle of the night?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Dehydration is your body not having enough water, that doesn’t mean that your body does not have any water. So you can still drink water, have you body ingest the water, and urinate even if you’re still dehydrated. Your body urinates all liquids you drink regardless of whether your dehydrated or not because dehydration is the result of an amount, or unable to reach that amount.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [Jojo's Bizzare Adventure] [Stone Ocean] So can Whitesnake only remove Stand abilities specifically, or can it remove any "Ability" In the Heavy Weather arc Pucci used Whitsnake to remove his eyesight. Does this mean he can remove more mundane and non-stand related abilities and implant them into other people?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant It is implied that his ability is more general, and can remove abilities and somewhat abstract concepts. We see whitesnake remove sight from Pucci, and we see him insert abstract commands into people. It does seem like the ability is limited to living creatures though.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user [40K] What happens to wounded Imperial Guardsmen? Hey there. So I was doing my Guardsman 'thing' and defending a Forge world from horrors so dark that to contemplate them shrivels my will to speak forwards. Anyways. My Lasgun literally exploded in my hands, and my arms required double-amputation. I am now an armless bastard, writing this via dictation to a servo skull. What's going to happen to me? I get to go home, right? Edit: If the Imperial Guard is just handing cybernetics out, then how come I never see any cyborg infantry?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant They tend to have trained people, imperial guard medics and field chirurgens who have advanced healing technology and bioscanners, and so they tend to be very good at patching up injuries and handling poisons and infections. But no, you don't get to go home. You're not very highly ranked, and so, unless you did awesomely against chaos or your commander really likes cybernetics, you'll get some crude cybernetics to help you hold guns, and will be sent back out to hold the line. See Gaunt's Ghost series for an example. A guy gets his arm blown off and it's replaced with a crude cybernetic arm that can't rotate quite right. Or you might get lucky, and get a top of the line limb better than your own.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: Why is so much food packaged in plastic? I understand it's probably cheaper than using wood or metal or other forms of packaging but it's just so wasteful. I think people would prefer more "premium" packaging materials as well.<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Not only is it lighter than metal and more durable than glass, many types of plastic packaging also extend the shelf life of perishable foods, which reduces food waste. Before modern packaging and refrigeration a lot of food was wasted because it didn't survive being transported from the farms to cities. Also, people used to get food poisoning more frequently because of food spoilage and poor sanitation. For instance, a head of lettuce will wilt very quickly after it's picked. If it's put in a completely sealed container it won't wilt but it will start to rot after a couple of days so you need lots of holes for ventilation. Plastic clamshells keep the lettuce at just the right humidity plus they prevent the leaves from being crushed. Meat packaging is similar. Vacuum sealed plastic bags keep oxygen away from the meat, which keeps it fresh longer and plastic wrapped trays are often filled with nitrogen or carbon dioxide to displace the oxygen for the same reason. Paper wrapping isn't airtight and wouldn't work the same way. From a producer's perspective, if $50 worth of plastic packaging means an extra $1000 worth of food gets sold instead of rotting in the truck or on the shelf, it's worth the price. Right now about 80% of people live in cities and there just isn't enough room in and near cities to grow enough food for all those people. Food has to be transported from the places that have enough land and water to grow it to the places where people live. And without a good market for their food in the cities, many farmers wouldn't be able to stay in business. Making transportation more efficient means a lot more of that food gets eaten instead of being thrown away. Source: Ag major in grad school.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user How seriously is the golden rule taken in modern philosophy? I ask as someone who's never quite been convinced by deontology, utilitarianism, or virtue ethics. All of them make ethics seem too abstract, as almost otherworldly Ideals pressing down on us and demanding our attention. Forgive me, but it all seems a little mystical. More realistic, it appears to me, is the notion of reciprocity: I won't harm you if you don't harm me, I will treat you respectfully and fairly if you treat me respectfully and fairly, I'll help you if you help me etc. If we universalise these ideals within a group, community, or society, it appears to me we have a pretty solid, even objective source of ethics; essentially, if people wish to live well in a society, those people ought to agree to treat each other well. Or have I just argued myself into contractarianism?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant I think Kant views his ethics as an explicit development of The Golden Rule, in the Critique of Practical Reason he says as much. >It is a very beautiful thing to do good to men from love to them and from sympathetic good will, or to be just from love of order; but this is not yet the true moral maxim of our conduct which is suitable to our position amongst rational beings as men, when we pretend with fanciful pride to set ourselves above the thought of duty, like volunteers, and, as if we were independent on the command, to want to do of our own good pleasure what we think we need no command to do. We stand under a discipline of reason and in all our maxims must not forget our subjection to it, nor withdraw anything therefrom, or by an egotistic presumption diminish aught of the authority of the law (although our own reason gives it) so as to set the determining principle of our will, even though the law be conformed to, anywhere else but in the law itself and in respect for this law. Duty and obligation are the only names that we must give to our relation to the moral law. We are indeed legislative members of a moral kingdom rendered possible by freedom, and presented to us by reason as an object of respect; but yet we are subjects in it, not the sovereign, and to mistake our inferior position as creatures, and presumptuously to reject the authority of the moral law, is already to revolt from it in spirit, even though the letter of it is fulfilled. >With this agrees very well the possibility of such a command as: Love God above everything, and thy neighbour as thyself. * For as a command it requires respect for a law which commands love and does not leave it to our own arbitrary choice to make this our principle. Love to God, however, considered as an inclination (pathological love), is impossible, for He is not an object of the senses. The same affection towards men is possible no doubt, but cannot be commanded, for it is not in the power of any man to love anyone at command; therefore it is only practical love that is meant in that pith of all laws. To love God means, in this sense, to like to do His commandments; to love one's neighbour means to like to practise all duties towards him. But the command that makes this a rule cannot command us to have this disposition in actions conformed to duty, but only to endeavour after it. For a command to like to do a thing is in itself contradictory, because if we already know of ourselves what we are bound to do, and if further we are conscious of liking to do it, a command would be quite needless; and if we do it not willingly, but only out of respect for the law, a command that makes this respect the motive of our maxim would directly counteract the disposition commanded. That law of all laws, therefore, like all the moral precepts of the Gospel, exhibits the moral disposition in all its perfection, in which, viewed as an ideal of holiness, it is not attainable by any creature, but yet is the pattern which we should strive to approach, and in an uninterrupted but infinite progress become like to. In fact, if a rational creature could ever reach this point, that he thoroughly likes to do all moral laws, this would mean that there does not exist in him even the possibility of a desire that would tempt him to deviate from them; for to overcome such a desire always costs the subject some sacrifice and therefore requires self-compulsion, that is, inward constraint to something that one does not quite like to do; and no creature can ever reach this stage of moral disposition. For, being a creature, and therefore always dependent with respect to what he requires for complete satisfaction, he can never be quite free from desires and inclinations, and as these rest on physical causes, they can never of themselves coincide with the moral law, the sources of which are quite different; and therefore they make it necessary to found the mental disposition of one's maxims on moral obligation, not on ready inclination, but on respect, which demands obedience to the law, even though one may not like it; not on love, which apprehends no inward reluctance of the will towards the law. Nevertheless, this latter, namely, love to the law (which would then cease to be a command, and then morality, which would have passed subjectively into holiness, would cease to be virtue) must be the constant though unattainable goal of his endeavours. For in the case of what we highly esteem, but yet (on account of the consciousness of our weakness) dread, the increased facility of satisfying it changes the most reverential awe into inclination, and respect into love; at least this would be the perfection of a disposition devoted to the law, if it were possible for a creature to attain it. >* This law is in striking contrast with the principle of private happiness which some make the supreme principle of morality. This would be expressed thus: Love thyself above everything, and God and thy neighbour for thine own sake.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Essential texts on ethics Hi all, I have been tasked to create ethics rules of judicial conduct for my country (yes, I absolutely want to brag) and besides the rules I am to produce also a commentary. I have pretty good idea about the rules themselves and how to spin them off of some legal concepts, however for the commentary I would like to support them by some more philosophical rather than legal reasoning. This is where I fall short, my philosophy education reached only to some "legal" philosophy like Plato, Rawls and Radbruch (and some Wittgenstein because lawyers are weirdly into that) and some Nietzsche and Camus during my angsty teenage years. This is definitely not enough for what I am looking to do. Can you please provide me with tips for essential texts to study, be it the works themselves or some text-book styled general overview things. Great many thanks to you all<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant 'A Theory of Justice' by John Rawls is one of the most influential works of political philosophy and ethics of the last 50 years. 'On What Matters' by Derek Parfit is probably the most influential recent defence of objective morality. 'What We Ough to Each Other' by T.M. Scanlon is a highly regarded recent defence of contractualism.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user ELI5: What is a think tank and what do they do? In political news stories you often see mentions of "think tanks" that lean either left or right. I'm curious what exactly a think tank is. How are they formed? How are they funded? What do they do?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Think tanks are a specific kind of lobbyist organizations that advocates for certain things by employing university level academics to write white papers, policy documents and model legislation. These documents are, of course, the same documents that governments themselves prepare as part of the legislative process, and think tanks contribute their documents to relevant governments free of charge in the hope that the government will adopt the think tank version in whole or in part, rather than writing their own version. Obviously, as a type of lobbying organization, they may be general purpose and lean towards a broadly leftist or rightist agenda, or they may be single issue or specialist focus in which case they may not really align fully with either party. But they will almost certainly have some viewpoint that they are pushing for. Like all lobbying organizations, they get started by various people or organizations that want to lobby for a particular viewpoint and who like the think tank model. They are also funded in a whole variety of ways, some by various industries, some by various individuals or foundations, some by political parties, and some are even partly publicly funded.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user If a human were to have a blood transfusion with a blood type that was not their own, what would happen?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Because of the way the body recognizes the proteins on the erythrocytes (red blood cells), it depends. A simplified way of looking at it is purely using blood types. Let's say person 1 has type AB blood. That means their blood cells have protein A and protein B on them. If you were to give them blood without those proteins in it, person 1's body wouldn't see anything amiss, as there are no recognizable foreign pathogens. Person 2, on the other hand, has type O blood. that means their blood cells lack proteins A and B. If we give them blood that is their own type, nothing happens. But if we give them blood with proteins A, B, or both A and B, their body raises its defenses, because it sees these strange new contaminants that it has never dealt with before. So the body attacks anything with these new proteins A and B, "rejecting" the transfusion and causing some serious medical problems. A similar thing happens with Rh- people receiving Rh+ blood. That is why people with blood type AB+ are known as universal receivers, and people with O- blood are called universal donors.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user Is it normal to still make silly mistakes as a postdoc? Started my first postdoc position three weeks ago. It's a bit of a shift for me; my PhD was in protein-RNA interaction biochemistry and crystallography, very in vitro, and I'm now shifting to a cell culture and bioinformatics lab. Well, I was doing great, but yesterday I made such a DUMB mistake... I generated six CRISPRi knockdown lines, and I was subculturing at the end of the day when I mixed two of them together in the same flask. So now I pretty much only have four CRISPRi lines for downstream experiments. I have lentivirus in the -80 so I can just reinfect and have the two lines ready within the upcoming week. But I just feel so dumb and so awful. I haven't told my PI yet as this happened Friday evening, I definitely will let him know on Monday. I don't know him that well and he is a little bit intimidating, which he is aware of and told me not to be intimidated by him. But I just feel so stupid and so scared to tell him. I know that he won't yell at me or anything, I just feel like he might regret hiring me. How bad is this?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant Everyone makes mistakes and this one wasn’t a big one, but they can have serious consequences and the key is to develop processes and procedures so that they do not happen. This is a new area for you and you are going to make some mistakes. The right question now is how you are going to ensure that this one never happens again.<\|im_end\|>
<\|im_start\|>user How often do cancer cells develop in our body that self-terminate or are caught by the immune system before doing any harm?<\|im_end\|> <\|im_start\|>assistant We can estimate each parent line experiences cancer cells within 10-100 generations, depending on the cell type and risk factors. With each variable generation speed, you're looking at between 4,000 to 40,000 new cancer cells every day.<\|im_end\|>

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.