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5qwyfv | Why can't we breed bees on a massive scale and release them, to help with the dwindling bee population? | Edit: Also, can we genetically modify them to make them more able to survive? Edit Edit: And make them produce honey faster | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Hi there, PhD student working with honeybees here. First, it's worth noting that honeybees have largely bounced back from the Colony Collapse Disorder (presumably what you're referring to by \"dwindling population\") epidemic of ~2006-2013. CCD was a weird, difficult problem and we may never truly understand what caused it, but neonicotinoid pesticides combined with varroa mite infestations and subsequent disease seem to be the general suspects. We have indeed genetically modified honeybees for desirable qualities using good ol' fashioned selective breeding. Bees are considered domesticated, and there's several major lines in production that are cold-tolerant, honey-producing, etc. Noteworthy to decline is we have produced lineages which are termed \"hygienic\" and behave in such a way to reduce the impact of varroa mite infestation. We can and do artificially inseminate queen bees, but it doesn't seem to take well. We probably could genetically modify bees with modern gene techniques to be even better, but honestly that's a load of paperwork, effort, and funding to fix a problem that's not really a problem. Lastly, honeybees are already an \"invasive\" species in the United States. They were brought over from Europe a couple centuries ago. You could release a ton of them but there's really no point. There are already feral colonies pretty much everywhere filling the available niche. Interestingly, they don't seem to compete with native bee species but actually have synergistic effects in some areas such as pollination. Right now dwindling native pollinators are the big issue and there's a bit of effort to conserve them and utilize them in agriculture, but by and large honeybees do a great job so there's little economic incentive and probably not much hope in the long run. Edit for Clarity: Bee populations tanked rapidly over ~6 years due to CCD which stopped in 2013. Populations of bees have recovered and remain stable *HOWEVER* bees are failing to overwinter or otherwise die early at increasing rates. Right now, we can compensate by simply producing more bees. We don't know exactly why, and as CCD showed us, we don't want to be caught in a situation where we suddenly have no bees and no alternatives. It *is* a cause for concern, but we are not presently in any sort of \"beepocalypse\" *for the moment*.",
"The last attempt to make bees produce more honey resulted in a dangerous breed of honey bees known as Africanized honey bees.",
"The bee hives that are dying off are captive hives - those owned by beekeepers and rented out for pollinating crops. Wild bees are fine. And for that matter, [so are domesticated bees]( URL_0 ) - Colonies are dying off faster than usual, but not fast enough to stop the number of overall colonies from rising.",
"Because we will kill them again! And because bee populations aren't as endangered as they are portrayed. Anyway half-related story time: My parents own a house that was owned by an extremely old couple. The back yard had raspberries, roses bushes and sunflowers etc all neatly kept. Well the lady that sold the house to my mom told her not to kill the bees under the shed and to protect them from the neighbors, because they were the reason she had the most beautiful flowers in the neighborhood. This bee hive was massive, and the bees would form a constant black cloud in the far corner of the yard, but they never hurt us (four young kids), so my mom left them. The nosy neighbors next door complained about the danger constantly (I would guess that they were 50-60, never any children around) but their entire back yard was an industrial garage and five feet of patio where the set up chairs facing our yard and watched us play all day (creepy nosy fucks). We moved and my mom let her brother (who also has young children) rent the house. Same complaint from the neighbors about his kids being in danger, but nobody ever got stung so the bees stayed. Eventually the neighbors waited for them to leave the house and went into the yard and killed every single bee, even though the bees were on the opposite corner of the yard from where their patio bordered and they never went near their plantless yard. The house has crappy plants now, and all the fruits and vegetables in the yard stopped producing. Bees will be fine if people would let them live. I think all the endangerment fuss is aimed towards stopping needless destruction (not creating more bees) because they would be fine if everyone wasn't so hell bent on killing every bug in sight. In a way, it scares people into stopping their stupid behavior, rather than putting money into making them people proof.",
"Dude , did you not watch Black Mirror? It's just not a good shout to make GM bees.",
"the problem is a lot of the chemicals farmers use are killing them. So you can raise and release more but they just die.",
"We basically can/are. As a beekeeper here I can tell you that while there was and is still massive death, we have the ability to create more bees quite easily. The total population isn't so much down, as the death rates are massively up. Bees are constantly dying year round. We try and start the summer with around 1000 hives, by fall we usually have about 800 left, and after a few months in California we usually hit a low point of about 600. For some bad years those numbers would be 1000, 600, 300. Once spring rolls around we split one hive in half, buy a new queen for the \"baby\" hive, and turned one hive into two. On a good year we can split hives once and by the time spring rolls around our remaining hives are get back up to 1000. On a bad year we might have to split all our hives, wait a few months and then split them all again. Splitting one good hive results in two weak hives, and spitting a weak hive results in two barely alive hives. The more times you have to split a hive, the longer it takes to reach a productive size. They spend the whole summer growing to the size of a good hive and don't end up making as much honey as a larger hive would. TL;DR: The CCD problem isn't as bad as it was made out to be. We do have the ability to create new hives but it is expensive and results in less efficient bees.However, If the downward spiral gets out of control it may become impossible to keep up the bee population.",
"Mass producing and releasing any animal is horrible for the environment. People have learned from experience the terrible consequences of breeding and releasing animals to fix problems. It's nearly impossible to calculate how many bees we would need to breed, while factoring in the problem that the bees would continue to reproduce at an exponential rate. I can't be sure if this is the biggest reason why we can't breed and release bees, but I would think that after the population was back up we would then have the problem of too many bees once they start reproducing",
"I'm sure you could get a lot more specific information from the folks over at /r/beekeeping on how to increase honeybee populations. But one thing to consider is that a lot of bee species that are important pollinators don't produce honey, at least not in commercial quantity. You would not want to crowd them out because of the need to preserve genetic diversity. So tread carefully."
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5qwzmm | What is the constant ringing you hear when in silence? | Such as when you're in bed, or in an otherwise silent room. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The phenomenon of ringing in the ears is called tinnitis. It is not normal and can be caused from disease, head injury, or earwax, for example. The most common cause is hearing loss, and is your brain adapting to the loss.",
"A lot of times you can hear noises/things in a silent room that you can't hear while awake and surrounded by all the other stimuli in life. They might be outside noises, electrical buzzing, or sometimes your own blood flow in your inner ear canal. Tinnitus is a pathological ringing that is not normal. I sat in an audiology sound deadened room the other day at work and couldn't hear anything at all, the silence was creepy.",
"Hey there, I used to be a sound engineer and then a hearing aid repair guy for a few years after so here's my input anyway. It may be tinnitus, but just to be sure, check your electronics in your quiet room, It could be a telly or a power adapter or something as well. You could try unplugging everything and seeing if you still hear it, you'd be amazed the noises some of these things can make. Also if the noise goes away after while on its own then its an effect being around too much noise during the day and your ears are readjusting, as someone else mentioned in the comments (You should still take precautions if this is a regular occurrence). If however it doesn't go away you should look at making some adjustments, like turning your headphones down, or wearing earplugs if your workplace is too loud etc.. Tinnitus is in fact repairable to a certain degree, but if the damage to your ears does go too far, it can be irreversible and cause you a lot of trouble in the future. So TLDR theres no need to panic, but you should start looking after your ears Hope this helps you"
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5qx3g7 | People always talk about nuclear warheads, why wouldn't a nuclear shipping container in a port city do the same job? | It's not like containers are checked offshore. I'm not sure I've seen anyone address this though it seems like the no-brainer way to kick off an apocalypse. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Big fancy warheads are popular among TV shows and entertainment because it makes it super dramatic. In reality a bomb in a shipping crate is a valid concern for most international ports. In the larger ports there are radiation detectors that scan incoming and outgoing containers. ( URL_0 )"
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5qx85w | What happens in our minds at each stage of wanting something really badly, getting that thing, and then not wanting it anymore? | There is a classic example of a child wanting a toy. He begs his parents for it and they eventually fold and buy them the toy. After a while the child doesn't care for the toy. What happens in our minds during such scenarios? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'm wanting to use a No Man's Sky as a base model for this. When you first come across something you think it's pretty cool and then it's possible you hype it ups mentally and set an expectation for the amount of dopamine that will be released once you achieve your goal. If the release of dopamine is too low you will end up being sad, if it ends up being higher you will be glad. Essentially you release the dopamine based on a subject then once you get that subject if it pleases you less than imagined you are sad due to being use to that level of dopamine or less.",
"This is me with every hobby I've ever tried. Love it more than anything. Buy proper equipment. Lose interest.",
"URL_0 PREDICTIVE UTILITY EXPERIENCED UTILITY MOMENT UTILITY remembered utility",
"People who are not happy, especially those who are just incapable of genuine, self-generated happiness, believe that something else will make them happy. The next toy, the next car, the next house, the next job, the next SO, whatever. It's always some other thing that will cause their happiness. They're not unhappy because they're unhappy people; they're unhappy because they don't have the right external thing. When they get the next thing, after experiencing a brief \"happiness,\" they realize that it only makes them happy for a little while. It brings fleeting joy, at best. It isn't an answer, it is merely a distraction. That thing stops making them believe they are happy, so they need to move on to the next thing. Worse, the first thing reminds them that they can't be made happy by the things they thought would do it, so they want to discard it entirely. In a child, with a toy, this is understandable and good. Adults should, but unfortunately often do not, grow out of the expectation that the rest of the world should cause their happiness, rather than expecting them to find their happiness within.",
"A couple of different aspects of human nature come into play: * A case of be careful what you ask for, because when you get it, you may not like it. Like how Rick Perry wanted to be Secretary of Energy, and once he got it found out it wasn't about regulating energy but maintaining a nuclear weapons arsenal. Or how the Republicans wanted to win the presidential election at any cost, but the candidate from their own party that won may do more damage to their party than anyone expected. Or the management position you always wanted, but once you got it you realize the stress of being a manager isn't as personally rewarding as you thought. * Love and excitement of a challenge or power grab, but once you get it there is no challenge to get excited about. Like the guy who hopes to date a specific girl, but once he does looses interest. Or the job acquisition you always wanted, but once you got it, you immediately start looking at your next advancement. * Insatiable greed. Like once you made your first million dollars, you are drven to acquire more wealth."
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5qxl67 | Why do certain companies give their products different names in different regions? (Ex: Hardees/Carl"s Jr, Hellmans/Best Foods) | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"That is what happens when there were two separate companies with different names that already had a presence in a specific geographic area, and then they merged into a single company. Since the original companies were already well known in their part of the country, it would be foolish of the new, merged company to re-brand those stores.",
"In most of these cases, its when one company buys another and each product already has a significant following and recognition in one region. They will keep the brand names separate, but often merge the actual products and such. For example: [Lays Potato chips]( URL_0 ) are quite well known in the US. and the [Walkers]( URL_1 ) brands is very well known in the UK. Guess what? Same owner (Pepsi, yes that Pepsi), and they are even the same item. They use the well establish brand name for each region, retaining that identity that consumers know, even though the products are the same",
"there are the reasons already listed but sometimes it also just comes down to the language. Mazda for example had to rename it's modell \"MR2\" in France because there it was pronounced just like \"merde\" which means \"shit\". So obviously the car wasnt selling there. Other times the company wants to appear local and thus changes the product name (or even company name) to something \"more normal\" in that country."
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5qxt62 | What is the difference between a president doing something "unconstitutional" and doing something "illegal/impeachable"? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\"Unconstitutional\" = contrary to the Constitution. \"Illegal\" = contrary to a law (including contrary to the Constitution). To some extent both of these things are a matter of interpretation, of course, but when it comes down to it they're either decided in a court of law or not decided at all. As for \"impeachable\": Before Gerald Ford became President, he was the Speaker of the House of Representatives. At that time, he made a famous, quotable saying about exactly what \"impeachable\" means: **An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.** That is, in my opinion, actually a pretty accurate summary of the situation. \"Impeachable\" is not terribly well defined. The Constitution doesn't define it at all. It does define some related ideas: * The House of Representatives is the body that has the power to impeach. * The Senate is the body that has the power to try impeachment cases (i.e. after the House impeaches somebody, the Senate says whether they're guilty or not). * Some detail about how an impeachment case is tried (for example, it's required to be heard before at least 2/3 of the Senate (**Edit:** misremembered this - it's 2/3 for conviction, not 2/3 for hearing)). * Some detail about the limits of punishment of a conviction for impeachment (can't be more than removal from office and barring from holding future office, something like that). * If the defendant is a civil officer of the US (e.g. the president), and the impeachment is for \"treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors\", then conviction will result in (at least) removal from office. * The president's pardon power does not extend to impeachments. But it's silent on what a person can be impeached for. The \"treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors\" thing is the closest it comes to doing that, but it's not really that. It's just saying IF that's what you're impeached for, then here's the minimum punishment. It doesn't say those are the only things you can be impeached for. And even ignoring that, it doesn't say what \"other high crimes and misdemeanors\" means.",
"Trump signed a presidential order that immediately changes the rules for Middle Eastern immigrants. The courts now are going to review that and decide if it's legal or not. Nixon hired private goons to break into his oppositions headquarters to steal documents. In the first case the president is trying to change law to fit with his and his constituents beliefs. Elected officials are always trying to push the law one way or the other and that this constitutes a healthy democracy. In the second case a paranoid man is hiring people to perform illegal activities. Any person should know better, and the president more than anybody should know he's not above the law. That's an anecdotal attempt at the difference as far as I see it.",
"Your question is predicated on either the legislature or the courts doing their constitutionally mandated job, the issue is they do not do this. Or they only do this when it is for \"questionable\" personal behaviour or when it comes to the internal affairs of the US and/or the rights of US citizens and not when it relates to foreign affairs or the rights of foreigners. When the Reagan administration ignored the law and congress to trade arms with Iran, via Israel, to use the profits to fund right-wing death-squads in South America, or should i rephrase that, cocaine smuggling right-wing death-squads in South America, the legislature and the courts let him get away with it. When the whole Bush administration was involved in the most horrific war crimes imaginable, torture, kidnapping, waging aggressive war, based upon lies, the Democratic party controlled legislature and the Obama administration did nothing, despite these crimes fall under federal stature for which the death penalty applies (causing the death of a protected person as defined by the Geneva convention is a federal capital crime). The people that ordered the torture that resulted in the death of innocent people should of hanged based upon the Nuremberg principle. The US government hanged top Nazi's for the same type of crimes. The courts also let the government get away with murder when national security is invoked or the evidence is deemed so secret that the plaintiffs can't prove the evidence exists or that they have standing. Given these facts I think it is fair to say that the President and his administration are for all intents and purposes above the law and in the modern era there is no such thing as unconstitutional and or illegal/impeachable and executive privilege is unfettered and limitless in practice if not in theory. The worst part is you can't even really blame the current administration, they are only taking advantage of \"facts on the ground\" created by a succession of previous administrations, Republican and Democrats alike who pushed the boundaries over and over without holding each other to account. Speaking personally it angers me a lot that Obama and the Democrats had a opportunity to end this but chose instead to codify many of the abuses of the Bush administration into law and by default or design handed the current administration a turn-key system of oppression. The current administration is also safe in the knowledge that even if they start illegal wars, even if they engage in mass-surveillance on a global scale, even if they murder and torture, then the next Democratic administration, the one that is protesting loudly now, will do nothing to punish them once they get voted back into power. I know this is not what people want to hear but it is reality, so please consider the facts before you react to me reflexively or defensively.",
"The biggest difference is that \"illegal/impeachable\" is meant to refer to actions that are \"criminal\"---things like theft or corruption or graft. Many of those things might be unconstitutional as well (if done in an official government capacity), but unconstitutional is a larger umbrella that covers official government actions that turn out to be unconstitutional but aren't \"punishable\" except in that the courts will tell the executive it doesn't have the power to do that.",
"If you are wondering if Trump can be impeached if his Executive Order regarding refugees is declared unconstitutional, the answer is \"no.\" Likewise if Congress passes laws that are later declared unconstitutional, the members of Congress who passed or drafted that law are not criminals for having drafted and passed an unconstitutional law. The Constitution grants certain rights to people by forbidding *the government* (not individual people) from infringing upon those rights, with language such as \"Congress shall make no law\" and \"no State shall\" and \"shall not be denied or abridged by the United States.\" The Constitution places limits on the actions of the government, not individual people. The remedy for a law or executive order that is declared unconstitutional is to strike down that law or order, not to criminally charge the people who passed it or issued it.",
"Something is illegal if it violates the law, including the Constitution. Something is unconstitutional if it violates the terms or interpretation of the Constitution. One is a subset of the other.",
"As other people have said, illegal and impeachable are in fact two different concepts. A large part of the power of Congress derives from their ability to define what is legal and what is illegal for any citizen to do, including the president. For example, if Congress appropriates money for a particular bridge over say, the Ohio River, they pass a law directing that money be transferred from treasury to the executive for this purpose. According to another law passed in the 70s it is illegal for the president to refuse to spend this money as directed. Failure to spend the money wouldn't be directly unconstitutional, and it may or may not be impeachable (depending on the whims of the house), but it would be illegal, or at the very least unlawful, and the court could step in if a party with suitable standing asked the court to.",
"Things are generally only labeled unconstitutional after the fact. Congress passes a law, the president issues an executive order, it is challenged in court and only then declared unconstitutional. It is basically the difference between grabbing the wrong bag at the airport, and stealing bags at the airport.",
"In simplest terms one is changing the law and the other is breaking the law. Changing the law is not illegal and courts can overturn that change by declaring it unconstitutional. Breaking the law is, well, illegal (duh) and can lead to impeachment, jail time or any number of punishments. edit: I assume that is what you are getting at with the statement unconstitutional and Trump. He is creating executive orders that are essentially laws. New laws are enforced until challenged in a court of law. This is where courts check the power of the executive branch. It is their duty to interpret the constitution to determine if the law is constitutional or not. If it is unconstitutional they declare it so and in almost all instances it kills any enforcement of said law. Of course then the president could ignore that declaration and attempt to enforce the law. This has happened in the past (most famous being Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, yet this is ELI5 so I digress...). Now you run into a mess where you have an executive order that congress never voted on and one branch of government disagreeing with the other. Then congress can ignore the presidents actions (essentially agreeing) or attempt to pass a bill that overturns the executive order (which would require a 2/3 majority since the president would likely veto any such bill). If he then continues to ignore both the Supreme Court and Congress you would most likely see impeachment."
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5qy54z | why are smaller guages actually bigger such as on shotguns and wire? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"gauge is the measure of how big a lead ball will fit into the barrel. 12gauge means that a spherical 1/12 pound of lead will fit into the barel. 16gauge means that a spherical 1/16 pound of lead will fit in. less lead, smaller barrel 10 gauge means that spherical 1/10 pound of lead will fit in. more lead, bigger barrel. however this does not measure how much lead is actually being propelled for a specific shell. the size of lead shot in the shell is scaled by the number shot it is. 00 buck or #7 bird. the amount of lead that's in the shell is measured in ounces. 1 1/8 oz. of #7 birdshot",
"Not sure about shotguns. But with wire, the correct answer is, nobody knows. The system of larger numbers for smaller sizes has been around since the early 1700s and one theory is that it has to do with the number of steps involved in creating the wire. You start by making a rod of ductile metal by one means or another. This is gague 0. Then you heat the rod and draw it through a mould that reduces the diameter. This mould can only reduce the diameter by about 10% at a time, so a wire that is 10% narrower than 0 gague can be made by drawing it through the mould once, ie 1 gague. A wire that is about 19% narrower can be made by passing the rod through a 10% reducing mould then passing it through a second mould that reduces it by another 9% (that is 10% of the new smaller diameter). This is 2 gague wire. And so it goes. But this is just a popular theory. Nobody actually knows for sure."
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5qyh72 | Why do we intentionally seek out depressing music when we are sad? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Misery loves company. When you're hurting, it helps to know that other people have gone through the same thing and know how you feel. Probably the person who wrote the music was sad or depressed when they wrote it and getting it out helped them feel better. Maybe listening to the music they produced has the same cathartic effect on people who listen to it."
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5qyhz8 | Late-term abortion legality | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There is *no law* that allows *arbitrary* terminations at a late stage. None at all. There are *rare* incidents where a late-term termination is medically necessary, and this is *always* a tragic case. There s a lot of misinformation about this, from wild claims to fake videos to videos of still-birth deliveries that are touted as \"late-term abortion\". This is a **non-issue** that is used to sway uninformed people."
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5qyp7f | What is ActiveX control? And what does it do? | I tried searching the internet, but I couldn't find anything that I can understand. | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Before the advent of HTML5, it was difficult for developers to build sophisticated web apps or multimedia sites because the HTML and JavaScript features supported by web browsers at the time were more limited. There also wasn't a standard way to build cross-platform compatible browser plug-ins to extend the functionality of the browser. Basically ActiveX was a proprietary 'Object Linking and Embedding' technology developed by Microsoft which helped faciliate the exchanging of data/content between applications and the embedding of data/content from one application into another. ActiveX was well known because it was integrated into Internet Explorer. It effectively allowed developers to build more advanced web applications (that could run inside a user's web browser and be embedded into webpages), but the problem was that the web applications were only compatible with Internet Explorer. ActiveX controls also became infamous because they introduced all sorts of security risks by allowing developers to run potentially dangerous and malicious code in a user's web browser simply by a user visiting a webpage."
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5qz3ae | E=MC^2 so... if we had a ton of energy we could make matter right? | Like if I had a magic energy box I could make a 3d print whatever I want device right? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Absolutely. This is how CERN has been able to produce antimatter URL_0 On a much smaller scale energy is converted to mass around you constantly. Photosynthesis \"stores energy\" from photons chemically in hydrocarbons. Changing the chemistry very slightly changes the mass. It's negligible compared to the mass of the atoms themselves but it still occurs.",
"Correct! But the relationship between matter and energy is even deeper than you might think! When we say that \"energy is mass\", we literally mean that *all energy is mass, and all mass is energy.* You can seriously increase the mass of a glass of water by microwaving it. For instance, say you microwave a 12-oz glass of water that was at room temperature (293.15K) to just slightly under boiling point (373.15K) [source]( URL_0 ). That's a change in temperature of 80 kelvin. The thermal capacity of of water is [4.184 joules per kelvin per gram]( URL_1 ). (That is, it takes 4.184 joules of energy to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree kelvin). Finally, our 12oz glass of water weighs 354.882 grams. Throwing this all into the math-blender, we get: Total energy added = 354.882 grams * 80 K * 4.184 J/(gK) = 118786.10304 J, or 118 kilojoules of energy. Now, we may apply ~~Mr.~~ Dr. Einstein's famous equation: E = m * C^2 Solving for mass, we get: m = E/C^2 Plugging in our values (including the speed of light), we have: m = 118786.10304 J/(299792458 m / s)^2 = 1.32167364 * 10^-12 kg In other words, the weight of your cup of water *will* be increased by roughly ***one millionth of one thousandth of a gram*** Not nearly enough to be noticeable, but interesting nevertheless. This works for *all* forms of energy too, including potential energies, such as the charging/discharging of a battery or capacitor. The key thing to understand here is that, even in extremely high energy processes like fission and fusion, we're not creating or destroying *matter* at all -- instead, we are either releasing or trapping energy, which also happens to be mass, causing the matter that is *already there* to become either heavier or lighter. However, if you can get the energy of your interaction high enough, like in the case of the LHC, matter itself *can* spontaneously appear, releasing some of the energy as true, physical mass/matter, rather than just increasing the weight (and speed) of any matter that was already present.",
"I've been severely downvoted for this explanation in the past, but I'll go over the equation, not the reactions. E=mc^2 where: E = energy m = mass (or more importantly a difference in mass) c^2 = speed of light squared (this gets tricky so let's address it first) c^2 is ***basically*** a conversion factor of 931 MeV / amu. There's more to it, but it suffices for calculation purposes. Given that conversion factor and unit analysis, it's easy to calculate an amount of energy released from a mass differential. Basic algebra and all. So, what does that mean? First fission. In fission, a large atom splits into components. After fission, all the parts have less mass than the original atom and whatever caused it (a neutron, for example). The totals don't match. Calculation time! Now fusion. Basically the opposite of fission. Fusion is the fusing of two small atoms. When it happens, you guessed it, there's less mass at the end than the parts you started with. Again, calculation time!",
"It truly needs to be a magic box however :s In reality it's more complex. E=MC^2 (or M=E/C^2 has it was originally presented) Proves that Matter is a propriety of energy: The more energy a system has the more it weights. Most of the registered mass of an atom comes from the energy holding the sub-atomic particles together. The rest comes from \"regular mass\" of those sub-atomic particles. But yes, It is possible to make matter from energy. Not as a regular 3D printer because we are talking about stupid amounts of energy. associated with radiations and extreme temperatures."
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5qzi7y | When a bank is robbed, do the people/companies get reimbursed by an insurance company or the bank for all of their money that has been lost? | Or is it not even their money in the bank? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It's not their money in the bank. When you give your money to the bank, it's just that: you're giving it to them. What the bank does in return is give you a slip of paper otherwise known as a \"balance\" of how much money you have with them, that they need to be able to pay you should you request it back. As an added bonus: think about how a bank makes money, and incentivizes you, the customer to have them hold your money instead of another rival bank. The interest rate the bank advertises is the major selling point that most people would care about. How can they provide interest if your money just sits there? It certainly doesn't multiply on its own, otherwise under the mattress would be the ideal place to store it. Where the real money comes in is from loans. The bank uses all the money that people have given it, and attempt to make good investments on people applying for loans and earn additional income through interest they charge on top of those loans. A sound loan applicant with a well thought out business stratagem will most likely generate a return on the initial investment that the bank gave out, thus turning a profit and having more money than it had with everyone's deposits. A lot of these happen every day and it's why bankers look at \"risk\" which is between 'none' (a sound investment with no chance of losing money like an arbitrage) and 'high' (an unwise investment unlikely to get any money back from, such as fedoras for dolphins) The bank gives out this Return On Investment in very small amounts as a reward for using them across all the customers. And because you don't own the money you gave them, just a balance that's good for that much money from them they give you a little extra to incentivize your continued patronage.",
"When a bank is robbed it is not the customers of the bank that is robbed. The bank still owes their customers the money they had deposited no matter what happens. The bank may have insurance to protect against bank robberies or they might be able to foot the bill themselves. If the bank is not able to pay back their customers they are by definition bankrupt. The government does make sure that any deposits is insured up to a limit. The limit depends on the legislation. So even if the bank is not able to handle a bank robbery the customers will get their deposits back."
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5qzlvu | Why is middle finger considered as offensive? Who established it as something vulgar and how? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The middle finger represents the penis, the fingers curled up either side the testicles: so the gesture basically represents the phallus. The Ancient Greeks knew this gesture, so it has a very long history. It was a way to insult a man by suggesting that he enjoyed receiving anal sex.",
"Being the longest finger (in most cases), the middle finger is consequently the most useful for insertion into various orifices, especially in a sexual context. Therefore, it's not a huge stretch of the imagination to interpret the gesture as a literal 'fuck you'. I've only ever heard of the bowman theory being applied to the 'V' sign gesture, never the middle finger. Also, I've never figured out why Americans call this gesture 'flipping the bird' - anyone able to enlighten me?",
"in Italy it's usually associated with the expression \"Vaffanculo\", that's the short for \"Vai a fartelo infilare nel culo\", in english \"go put it in your ass\"",
"Every comment here says something completely different... This is why I dislike ELI5, you don't have to back your story up or have any credentials. Generally subreddits like /r/askscience and /r/askhistorians give more accurate answers.",
"The Agincourt thing is (obviously) a piece of false \"internet lore\": URL_0 Straight Dope has a nice piece on the gesture going back to (at least) the romans: URL_1",
"Once heard from an HBO special, (All i remember is this story and he kept saying \"when the fact became legend. print it\".) Anyway the story went that it was from English Long-bowmen being captured by the french, and the French would cut their middle fingers off, so they wouldn't be able to shoot a longbow again even if they were released. And so the English would flip the french the middle finger and say \" i can still Pluck Yew Froggie\". Pluck as in pluck a bow, and yew as in the tree a bow is made from. eventually the P became the Fu sound and the rest might be history."
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5qzpcq | Why aren't busses aerodynamic? | I know that some busses are aerodynamic but most of them are not. Why? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because they're economical when it comes to space. Buses aren't designed to go fast, they're made to carry as many people as possible; as efficiently as possible.",
"I can only speak for my country (Germany) here. We have a maximum length depending on the number of axles. There is 13.5m for 2 axles, 15m for 3 or more axles and 18,75m for a bus with a hinge. If you were to make the bus more aerodynamic then you'd loose at least 2 seats, maybe more. Same goes for trucks. At some point in the past a German politician (can't remember who) wanted to give trains the advantage over trucks and introduced a maximum length for them so they couldn't carry as much cargo. The industry's response was to move the driver's cabin from behind the motor to above the motor to create more space for cargo.",
"aerodynamics dont really apply or have much benefit when the vehicle is designed primarily to go 20 - 30 mph and stop and start very often. at high speeds it makes a difference",
"We mostly want buses to be able to carry lots of people and adding features that make a bus aerodynamic may cut in on that ability. To keep the same passenger capacity you'd need a longer bus which would make it more difficult to drive on city streets where aerodynamics aren't really necessary when you are dealing with traffic."
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5qzpt8 | How online stores can afford to offer free shipping on heavy items | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"In short the answer is volume. They do so much business with the shipper that they are given steep discounts for doing all of their shopping through their company."
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5qztg4 | They teach you things like Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe. How do they know?? | my buddy says it has something to do with sonar. but that's not a great explanation for me. | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Theory - Big Bang released a lot of energy. Lots of energy means particles fly apart from each other. The most common element will then be hydrogen since it consists of the least number of particles. By the same logic, the second most abundant will be helium. Experiment - Astrophysicists observe emission spectra (intensity of various incoming light frequencies) to identify elements. Elements can only emit light of particular frequency. Thus, the emission spectra \"encodes\" the type of elements observed."
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5r06wr | Why are diseases that people are born with, such as hemophilia, still around if in the past they were surely a death sentence? | I know about recessive genes and all that, and that a lot of royalty was effected by hemophilia in particular, which could result in higher chances of them surviving, but what about things like Type 1 Diabetes? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The genes can be there in a person, but that does not necessarily mean that the disease will actually break out. One reason could be recessive genes (everyone has two sets of genes for everything - one from each parent - and if they are different, one kind usually has priority. If that is the healthy set of genes, the person will be fine and the disease only breaks out, if a person gets \"bad\" sets of genes from both their parents) Also, a person with such a disease can still have children before they die. And finally, there are diseases that only break out in men or only break out in women, but the other sex can still pass on the genes to their descendants. There's probably more, but this is what I can think of from the top of my head.",
"Well Type 1 Diabetes usually kills you at a later age. So you had the chance to produce offspring even when there was no treatment for it hundred years ago.",
"Usually because the recessive form - where only one parent provides the faulty gene - provides some benefit. For instance, there's evidence that if a woman has one copy of the faulty haemophillia gene, the slight decline in blood clotting reduces their risk of a heart attack. A person that only carries one of the genes that cause sickle cell anaemia is protected against malaria - which is why this form of anaemia is common where malaria is rampant."
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5r0l7x | What are those sudden, weird, sharp pains that you sometimes get, usually in your chest, out of nowhere? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"if they quickly come and go and feel like someone is squeezing your heart then it is not harmful. They are called precordial catch syndrome and they are not harmful as far as we know. they tend to dissipate with age. We currently do not know the cause of them."
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5r1lu5 | Why does it seem like something spinning starts to go in reverse as it slows down? | For example, if I spin a little desktop spinner, as it slows, the motion looks as though it stops, and then starts going backwards. The same with a car wheel while it's moving. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If I have a camera taking pictures 30 times a second and a wheel with a stripe on it spinning 1 time a second you will clearly see it slowly rotating with the stripe pointing up every 30 frames. As the wheel speeds up it looks very strange on camera. If the wheel spins 30 times a second then the camera will display it as stationary because every time it takes a frame the wheel is in the same location. If the wheel spins 15 times a second you will see two stripes on opposite sides because every other frame as the stripe pointing up and every other frame has it pointing down. Now to answer your question. If the wheel is spinning at 29 times a second then every frame of the camera would have the line being just behind where it was in the last frame because it hadn't *quite* finished a rotation. The video would show it going backwards."
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5r24x4 | Why do we eat spicy food? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Because eating spicy food causes your body (pituitary gland and hypothalamus, specifically) to release endorphins. Endorphins are the same chemicals your body produces when you experience pain, orgasm, etc. They have an effect similar to opiates, causing pleasurable feelings and numbing the sensation of pain. That, and there is the social \"my balls are bigger than yours, watch this\" aspect."
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5r2ar3 | How has it come to be that the President of the US can order attacks on countries we aren't at war with? What specific acts, laws, incidents led to the bypass of a Congressional declaration of war? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The president is the supreme commander of the military. He can order the military however he wants. The president cannot declare war, but his actions can enable congress to declare war.",
"Some say this goes back to the First Seminole War in 1818 when the President set a precedent by invading Florida without being stopped by congress. The commander-in-chief has some legitimate leeway in deploying military force, e.g. after a surprise attack the president doesn't have to wait for congress to put the issue to a vote before acting (but a vote is still formally required for a continuing war). After WWII, war for any reason other than defense was outlawed (\"wars of aggression\" were considered the supreme crime because all other war crimes followed from it). The US hasn't declared war since (tacit admission that every war the US has been involved in since WWII is illegal). Korea was for instance labeled a \"police action\" (weird seeing how many bombs were dropped on Korea by the USAF). As mentioned there have been other legal devices like the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that authorized the president to escalate military involvement in Vietnam beyond the \"advisory\" role US troops already had. During the \"War on Terror\"-era there have been several AUMFs (Authorization of Use of Military Force) voted through congress that gives the president an open ended mandate to intervene wherever he sees terrorist threats."
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5r2asu | When E=mc2 is concerned, why does speed of light matter? | I realize c= approx 2999792000 meters per second. But why is it that number that needs to be squared. What does the universal speed limit have to do with energy to mass conversions? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"When you accelerate an object to relativistic speeds, the perceived inertia of the object increases. By perceived, I mean that from a non-accelerating reference frame, the inertia of the accelerated object seems to go up. An increase in inertia also means an increase in mass, since mass is what causes inertia. So now we have a relationship between energy, used to accelerate an object, and mass, which is gained when the object is accelerated. Einstein simply extended this relationship to all mass and energy. So why does c matter? Because the amount of energy needed to accelerate an object to relativistic speeds depends on c. As the speed of an object approaches c, the amount of energy needed to accelerate it further increases. This is why c, the speed of light, matters.",
"I also added an extra 9 into the speed. Sorry."
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5r2nka | if i would launch a toy helicopter in a moving train will it crash into the back of the train or stay on the same place in the train? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Before launch, the helicopter is not moving in any direction RELATIVE TO THE TRAIN. The entire thing here is motion relative to the train. Once the helicopter is launched, if the results on solid ground would be that the helicopter would raise a slight bit and stay there, then the helicopter in the train would raise a slight bit and stay there, again, because this is motion relative to the motion of the train. Do you expect the helicopter to move to the back of the train? If that were the case, then when you walk in a train, you would have experienced a tremendous pull toward the back of the train when you lift your feet to walk. This would manifest as sideways pressure on each foot while you lift it. This doesn't happen."
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5r2o7t | Why do we close our eyes when we sleep? | The title speaks for itself. I understand that some people do not close their eyes when they sleep, but why do the majority of us do? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Closing our eyes helps protect them. Foreign material, like dust or bugs, could scratch or otherwise injure our eyes. And when our eyes are open, they dry out. Keeping your eyes closed helps keep them lubricated. It's also, generally speaking, difficult to sleep when there are a lot of external stimuli. This includes noise, lights, and things touching you. When your eyes are closed, it cuts off the visual stimuli from reaching your brain."
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5r2qhz | Could you separate an electron completely from an atom? | So electrons occupy space by zipping around a nucleus. Even movement of an electron is from one atom's nucleus to another, such as the flow of electricity (I think). So is it possible to completely seperate an electron to where it merely exists by itself and is not attached to any nucleus or should I say attracted to any other protons? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Certainly. If you excite the atom enough, an electron flies off. If you pump enough electrons into metal they bunch up on the surface and start to fly off. This is the principle of the electron gun inside the cathode ray tube (that's a \"TV screen\", back in the day) - at one end of the tube is the gun, which fires a stream of electrons, which are directed by magnets to hit points on a phosphor-coated piece of glass at the opposite end of the tube. Have you ever heard of \"ionizing radiation\"? X-rays, gamma rays, and so on? The word \"ionizing\" is referring to the fact that the radiation has enough energy to know electrons free from atoms. Ever hear of beta radiation or beta particles? Those are very fast-moving free electrons produced by the decay of radioactive elements."
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5r34rq | How are rechargeable batteries different from regular ones? | Basically - how are rechargeable batteries able to be charged, but other batteries aren't? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Batteries normally store their power through chemical energy. When power is drawn from them, a chemical is broken down that produces the electricity needed for whatever the battery is powering. However, the reaction cannot go on forever, turning whatever chemical is in your battery from one chemical into it's base elements/molecules. A rechargeable battery has a certain set of chemicals that, when depleted, will convert the broken down elements/molecules back into whatever chemical your battery originally used. The non-rechargeable batteries have a chemical that is essentially impossible to rebuild with electricity alone."
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5r3590 | What is the difference between the following two sentences? Could you explain this to me? Could you explain this for me? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"In general speech they are used interchangeably. There is a subtle difference though: \"Could you explain this **to** me\" carries with it the implication that it is a difficult subject or one that I struggle with. I need some special assistance or need the explanation tailored especially for me. \"To me\" can mean that this explanation is for me especially. \"Could you explain this for me\" is more neutral. The explanation could be for anybody. I'm asking you to give AN explanation, instead of a special one tailored for me. Note that this isn't hard and fast, but more the 'feel' or implication given by these sentences. Not everybody will make the distinction, but some may. If you are writing a story for example,these are the kind of distinctions you can use to help give your characters depth or color the situation ever so slightly."
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5r35vd | How much of freedom/autonomy do states within US enjoy? What can and cannot they decide on their own? | Sorry if i couldn't put this question out well. I know that they have their own police forces, own drug laws (eg: marijuana is allowed in Colorado) etc... I, of course, am not asking to list everything, just the basics and very important ones. Thanks | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"States can do whatever they want, so long as it doesn't conflict with the judicial system's interpretation of the Constitution. The same goes with the federal government. In case of conflicts, usually the federal government strong arms the states to do what they want. Sometimes a state law goes against a federal law, and the federal government looks the other way. This is the case with drug laws, as it is still illegal to possess marijuana in Colorado, just at a federal level and not the state level."
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5r361e | Recovered alcoholics can't socially drink for the rest of their lives but recovered sex addicts still have sex, but learn to have a healthy relationship with it. Why isn't it the same for alcohol? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Not everyone believes that alcoholics must abstain from alcohol for their entire lives. There are groups that support learning moderation: URL_0 Alcoholics Anonymous is very popular but it is not necessarily the only way to recover. I know more than one alcoholic who recovered via abstinence and at a later stage in life took up alcohol in moderation ( < 5 drinks per week) happily and can now socially drink.",
"This isn't necessarily true... permanent disease and the notion of \"dry drunks\" is more of an AA philosophy, although I absolutely believe the more strongly addicted people will have permanent problems and might not be able to drink at all. This is true of almost any addiction like gambling and sex addiction too (CP perhaps being a prominent example). I can vouch for four people in my family who drank heavily 10-20 years ago and got help a long time ago, and avoid alcohol now but can still drink several beers socially with no problem. AA is not the only answer, unfortunately this is exclusively what is embraced by the US legal and psychiatric system. There are alternative recovery programs for alcohol. Moderation is a possibility, though the tragic story of Audrey Kishline needs to be read as a cautionary tale. I personally don't think it's possible to go from alcohol abuse to moderation without a long period of sobriety, and even then it's risky. Alcohol is extremely addictive and it does bring the danger of a permanent ruinous relationship, but for those who haven't been burned too bad by the addiction I am 100% sure it is possible to regain a normal relationship with it, but only after a couple of years of sobriety and after a lot of your Maslows Pyramid stuff is fixed. You simply can't go back into social drinking when you've got relationship problems, no job, and without interests that fulfill you. I'm not advising anyone to start drinking, but if all that stuff is addressed then your life is in a very secure place and alcohol is not that much of a risk. But if you had previously been drinking for 10 years and had failed marriages, DUIs, and rehab as a result of drinking, then you're a lot further along on the addiction spectrum and it's probably better to stay away regardless.",
"Recovered sex addict here. Just wanted to add that while it is true that sex addicts learn to a way to have sex, then it's much more complicated than that. There are in many cases things that we stay away from forever just like alcohol. What these things are differ from person to person but the main idea is that some things will for a fact get a sex addict back into an addictive pattern while healthy and natural sex won't. Also it's not just something that comes easy so it requires continuing work to stay on the right path. Sex addicts have to rediscover a way to have healthy sex. Since alcohol is not similarly complex then it's hard to say that some parts are healthy and some are not. Completely removing yourself from anything sexual is not healthy. Just like food addicts can't just quit food but needs to figure out what works and what triggers binging. Alcohol is not a necessity and therefor it's easier to just cut it out. I do however believe that it is possible but since it's not easy then people just tend to not take the risk. Cause even recovered sex addicts have relapses and it's just easier to avoid relapses with alcohol by staying away completely. There is not really a good reason to drink so they don't. Long story short - it can be done if you want.",
"Certified addiction treatment counselor here. Alcohol and other drugs are chemical addictions. Acts like sex, gambling, stealing are called process addictions. Chemical addictions and process addictions both change the way your brain is wired in similar ways and both cause your brain to release various chemical messengers that makes you feel good. However, chemical addictions have a far more severe and widespread effect on how your brain functions and cause much much higher levels of these chemical messengers than process addictions do. The less severe impact process addictions have on the brain allows someone to continue doing something they were addicted to without it getting back to the place where it was so out of control or causing severe problems. With chemical addictions, the severity of the effects on the brain makes casual drug use almost not possible, which is why statistically speaking, abstinence based programs are the most effective in treating addiction/alcoholism.",
"I will start by saying that I am an alcoholic and not a sex addict. I am 2 years sober after many years of struggling and desperation. I got sober and stay sober through AA. For me, that is the only way, but I know it's not for everyone, and that's fine. I am also a part of Toronto AA which is predominantly atheists and agnostics. I went to AA to get sober and I stay b/c it makes my life better. As an alcoholic I am allergic to alcohol, in that the physical alcohol in the body sets off an obsession for wanting more. While most people can stop after a few, me being an alcoholic, will always want to continue drinking. I tried for many years to learn to drink in moderation, but even when I didn't drink until I blacked out, I was always obsessing about wanting more. I can only share my story here about why I can't moderate as it's not my place to discuss other alcoholics or sex addicts and their stories.",
"It's about reframing the addiction. For some sex, food, or otherwise behavior addictions, a sufferer must recreate healthier pathways, so the behavior engaged in doesn't trigger past responses. Let's say I am a donut addict... Instead of trying to eat donuts again, I eat meat. Meat doesn't seem give the dopamine hit I got from the donuts, so I've bought myself some time. While I'm eating meat, I'm able to extinct the donut behavior habit and work on the anxiety that I used the donuts to address. That doesn't mean a sex addict engages in the same sexual behavior as before. It means that they reframe their relationship with sex, so it is healthy and not used as an emotional crutch for whatever ails them.",
"CADC/QMHA here. Sexual addicts can relearn to have healthy relationships with individuals with whom they are having sex, unlearning the unhealthy and maladaptively addictive elements of sex (usually due to bad past experiences, seeing sexual partners as objects/conquests instead of as partners or people) while retaining the positive aspects of sexual activity (intimacy/closeness, for procreation, as an expression of love or desire for another person). In short, the \"need\" for sex (since as physical creatures, we have physical needs) is far more a biological imperative, and as such, retraining the mind away from addiction is desired. Alcohol has no \"higher function\" compared to sex for reproduction. Further, its much easier to \"overdose\" with regards to alcohol, and it's a much more dangerous substance with regards to addiction. The social aspect of alcoholism is the hardest to conquer (to the point that in meetings, we tell people not to even go down the street where your favorite bar was, because those old habits might kick in, and they're hard to break). Sex is very much a biological need, where alcohol consumption is a cultural construction. Edit: CADC= Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor, QMHA= Qualified Mental Health Associate (Indiana, Oregon [the two states I've received qualification])",
"I think you're comparing apples and oranges. I've never really considered myself an alcohol or a sex addict, but I am a drug addict with a long history of pill abuse and IV heroin use. Been to inpatient rehab a couple times and hundreds of AA/NA meetings. I've known lots of serious alcoholics, including some who lost their lives because they were unable to stop drinking. The first thing that comes to mind is alcohol causes a chemical reaction in the brain that, for an addict, makes them want more. Not just another shot or two, but as much as they can possibly consume, until they black out, and eventually pass out incoherently drunk, where ever location that may be. Most addicts I've known, including myself, have a long history of relapsing, even after years sober, and one theme I've consistently heard from alcoholics is that their relapses are particularly epic. I can fuck up and take some pills and not ruin my life overnight. Alcoholics, on the other hand, once they start drinking, things go downhill very quickly. I think this is just part of how the drug works. I've seen people go from a couple years of sobriety and lots of stability (house/job/relationship) to drinking, homeless, and sleeping in a park in weeks. I can't say a lot about sex addiction. I went to a \"sex anonymous\" meeting once with a friend and it wasn't my thing for a variety of reasons. But it seems to me that a big part of sex addiction is learning how to see other people (that you want to have sex with) as more than objects. This strikes me as a totally different type of addiction and, logically, a totally different type of recovery. Which is where I think your comparison doesn't really work. I mean, think about shopping addiction, which is a real thing. Obviously every adult is going to have to purchase something at some point, even if they are addicted to spending, but they do recover and can manage to be responsible with money. Would you expect a shopping addict in recovery to never be able to spend a single penny ever again? That seems unreasonable to me.",
"I think alcoholics probably could train themselves to drink in moderation but it's extremely difficult, very risky and really is there any point? Drinking doesn't have any real benefits to your life. It costs money, it's unhealthy, it makes you feel like crap the next day, it can alter your personality in a negative way. Sex on the other hand is actually useful, it can improve a persons wellbeing, it helps strengthen relationships, its physically healthy and it's required to procreate.",
"> Aren't the fundamentals of addiction really the same regardless of what you're addicted to? Not entirely. Alcohol addiction is a physical addiction; your brain becomes chemically dependent on alcohol and needs it to feel normal. Alcoholism also has a mental component. Sex addiction is only mental; you cannot be physically dependent on sex. The unhealthy behaviors that constitute sex addiction can be unlearned.",
"From an adult child of an alcoholic, they cannot control themselves. It becomes just 1 more, we'll I'm already drunk, so why not just 1 more. I honestly think you need to learn why you drink, solve that, then you can socially drink. It becomes a matter of falling on old habits, then spiraling out of control, and any addict should know, control is really really big My mother for instance, was in and out of AA my entire life, my father just drank himself to death. My mother would start of with just 1, than, she'd be partying until 3 am every night. Then I'd be in foster care. When she sobered up, she had no idea what to do with herself. She did not know who she was, she needed to get her GED, and emotionally find herself, & repair herself to grow. When she started doing that, she became a zombie for a long time, she would emotionally shut down when she felt over whelmed, and could not be a parent. She would just zone out, and watch TV and have moments of her personality showing. She did not know how to be her without the drink. It's been 10 years, and she still shuts down from time to time, but she's found herself. She can't drink because it would be too easy to fall back into old habits, and not have to deal with life and herself.",
"Hey, the problem here is that you are making two assumptions which are not completely true, but rather only mostly true. Specifically, you are assuming that alcoholics \"can't drink at all\" and that sex addicts \"can have sex\". In reality, there is compelling evidence that for some people, a moderation approach to alcohol will work much better than an abstinence approach. But even that it really too simplistic. In reality there is a whole matrix of [stopping, starting, cutting back, adding a little etc... just once or forever, or just for a while, etc]( URL_0 ) for behavior change. Trying to compare any of these one to one leads to lots of bad assumptions, and, when you do it with actual people, hurt feelings. If you want to learn about behavior change... there is really no bottom to the subject. But one of the first good habits, is not to compare very different types of behavior problems with one another. It is also useful to distinguish between a habit and an addiction. A habit is just something you do alot. But in clinical terms an addiction is something that you do so much that it causes you to hurt yourself or others. This is an important distinction between the clinical definition of addiction and a moralistic or religious one. For instance... despite the username, I do not have a \"clinical\" porn addiction. For me, that is the case because I make sure not to indulge for very much time. Just enough to clear my head, and ensure that I am not going to have dumb interactions with the women that I meet during the day. But a moralistic or religious person might say that I have a very severe \"addiction\" because in their mind, I am doing something morally wrong, or doing \"spiritual\" damage to myself. This is the reason that AA and other 12 step programs view alcohol use the way they do.... that abstinence is the \"only\" way... because they are using a religious or moralistic definition of alcohol use. The irony is, of course, that sometimes you can have a habit that does actually hurt you enough to be a clinical problem, because you are yourself religious or moralistic. That means that a person can meet the clinical definition of an addiction, if they are so torn up about a behavior that it causes them to become depressed, anxious or even suicidal. Which is why it is so very difficult to answer basic psychological questions like yours. In some cases, the answer really does depend on your what you believe about the world. -peace",
"There was an [article in the Atlantic]( URL_0 ) that while very long does describe a number of alternatives to abstinence. IMO, if you are going to spend big bucks on pill to let you keep drinking or therapy where you hope the problem does not come back you really should be looking at why alcohol is so important to you and if abstinence is a better option. Full disclosure I'm in AA and 2 years sober. I had multiple issues with my addiction and can tell you that the only thing tougher to quit than alcohol was tobacco. From the people that I've met there are a couple of prescription medications that are pretty difficult to get off of as well. One big issue is that that are a lot of heavy drinkers and an industry that feeds off of them and the ones that are unlucky enough to become alcoholics. It is a pretty toxic cultural mix compounded by trying to make it a law enforcement issue instead of a public health issue. You get a whole lot of people offering up solutions and none of those solutions work for everyone as this is a complicated problem.",
"Due to [Kindling]( URL_0 ). Every time an alcoholic gets sober, but relapses (even by one drink) it gets easier for them to return to dependency. But each time this happens the withdrawal symptoms get worse and more dangerous.",
"It isn't the same for alcohol because Alcoholics Anonymous is the premier organization for quitting drinking, and they preach that addicts are powerless before their addiction. No alcoholic can ever have a single drink without totally falling off the wagon, and becoming a slave to the bottle once more. Drinking in moderation can never happen again. The only way to stay sober is to replace the addiction to alcohol with an addiction to going to AA meetings, smoking cigarettes and drinking gallons of coffee, and talking endlessly about how you will always be a \"recovering alcoholic\". Nobody recovers; they are perpetually recovering. An alcoholic who quits drinking without joining the cult is labeled a \"dry drunk\". They aren't even given the benefit of being called \"recovering\". It's all or nothing with AA, and other twelve-step programs. You can't simply change your lifestyle and ease up on the drinking; you have to follow their program and quit completely, or doom yourself.",
"I used to be an alcoholic. I know, now, what alcoholic drinks provided me with; numbness. I couldn't face my painful childhood flashbacks because I was not 'there'. Yes, I sought therapy. Five years, I and my therapist took me to relived my trauma. I drink a glass of wine or a bottle of beer at supper time.",
"The answer is: they can drink socially. I used to identify as an addict. Was never sober, lost 2 jobs, ruined relationships, arrested, in the ER many times, blacked out 9/10 times I drank because I couldn't stop, the list goes on. What helped me was intensive therapy at least once a week and, at first, AA. Without AA I probably wouldn't have stayed sober to clear my head just because I needed that constant support and to feel accountable to someone. About a year in, I couldn't accept of all of the dogmatic aspects of AA and the rigid structure that they implicitly communicate is the \"only\" way out. Today I am happy with having 0 alcohol in a day and sometimes when I open a beer I won't even finish it. I still do love to party, but I'm able to indulge less frequently and not suffer consequences when I do overindulge. I wouldn't recommend someone with my history to try and drink again, though. I know it was a huge risk that could've gone either way.",
"some alcoholics can, its dependent on the people. But I also recently learnt that alcoholism actually changes something in the brain which affects dependency on it, in a way that other drugs dont- so I imagine that plays a part too",
"Recovering Daily IV methamphetamine addict here. I think the big difference in substance addiction vs a behavioral addiction is drugs and alcohol impair your thinking and lower you inhibitions. The impairment can change one drink Into five. Sex doesn't give you any kind of impaired thinking.",
"It's a load of shit. Lots of people have been severe alcoholics but now can drink at levels that are not problematic. I used to be a very bad alco. Had to get off it and re-start my life. It was incredibly hard but I made it. Now, I drink a few beers every evening. Not an entire bottle of rum and whatever else I could find, every single day. It's perfectly doable and I never, ever want to go back to just constantly drinking piss all day long with no end in sight. I learned my lesson.",
"I remember reading a theory about how people create social bonds with substances and people who develop addictions have lots of emotional issues. It could be that after addressing some of those issues it would be much easier to move over into loving relationships seeing as you are already interested in some type of intimacy with actual humans and that may help develop that person's sense of well being and value whereas taking a break from drinking and then drinking again has little to no requirement for the development and healing of ones complexes or whatever it is that makes them vulnerable to substance addiction. Former addict to alcohol speaking 6 or 7 years clean. Also I recommend Rational Recovery for anyone who wants to quit drinking but thinking religion is dumb",
"3 years sober here. I've had past periods of complete alcohol abstinence for 1, 4, 5, and now 3 years. In between it always started with one drink. Then two. Then a sixpack in the fridge. Then stopping at the bar on the way home. Then stopping at the bar followed by drinking more at home. Then a downward spiral to oblivion. I can't safely drink so much as a beer. I've proved this to myself time and time again. I'm not sure if I could recover again. So that one drink is a matter of life and death for me. I can't imagine the same cycle with sex addiction being fatal at any point absent some lover's spouse going berserk, but maybe the emotional death that comes from promiscuous sex would be the same thing.",
"I'm a recovered alcoholic who doesn't practice abstinence. I'm perfectly capable of only having 2 beers a day, but it takes a lot of will power not to finish off the 6 pack.",
"I identify as an alcoholic and sex and love addict ( URL_0 ). Alcohol addiction can be thought of as the solution to any problem because I didn't learn healthier coping skills. What I found was that when I stopped drinking and experienced a complete personality rearrangement (grateful vs. complaining, proactive vs. reactive, etc) then I found out what I was trying to cover up with alcohol. For me, sex and love addiction was a coping strategy for intimacy issues. These issues were caused by childhood trauma, and in my case, childhood sexual abuse and emotional abandonment by my father. I would skip to sex with a man because I thought that was the only way to keep him around. Also, alcohol was part of my game! It helped me to justify my bad behavior. And as you can see it was faulty thinking that compelled me to look for love in one night stands. There is hope in recovery. I learned my worth and don't hold the same belief anymore but it took lots of hard work. I used a type of trauma treatment developed for Gulf War vets to address my trauma.",
"I know a few people who don't drink. Of course I don't ask why but my guess is that some people are angry drunks. I never knew it was a thing until I had a friend who was an angry drunk. Scariest shit I've seen. He turned into someone I didn't know at all and tried to pick fights with everyone he saw. If I knew that alcohol would turn me into that, I'd stop completely too.",
"This is my experience with drinking. I don't drink at all because I cannot control it over periods of time. I could have a drink here and there for a while, but I would eventually get comfortable and think that I have control and it would spiral out of control. When I went through treatment, many people had been through programs previously. AA, professional counseling, group sessions, etc. They were clean for years in some cases, and they got comfortable and it always got worse on the second and third times. For me, I didn't drink long enough to become chemically dependent, so physical cravings were never a problem. My addiction is rooted in events from my past that I was trying to drown out (sexual molestation as a child). Drinking didn't solve the problem, and only caused me more problems. So, I don't drink at all. My wife doesn't understand it, and thinks I would be fine, but she never knew me as a drunk.",
"As others have said, you absolutely can focus on moderation rather than abstinence. However, due to the damaging effect of alcohol many groups preach total abstinence. It is similar to abstinence only sex ed in my mind, they give two options, abstain or just go for it, and in that frame of mind abstainers who have one slip tend to feel that they have failed and go all out. You might see a similar thing in yourself or friends who are on restrictive diets, you might say no snack food or no carbs, but if you slip up and have one bar of chocolate, you see failure and then you may as well finish the whole box. Moderation is a different mindset, when the odd drink (or chocolate bar) is ok, and you can move on without feeling like a failure. There is a aspect of learnt behaviour, so that if you used to drink 5 bottles of wine in a row with friends then it might be difficult to have one glass, especially if you spend time with the same friends, but those are learnt behaviours and can be overcome. For many people abstinence does work, but for many others they can't or don't want to commit to that for life and those people will drop out of AA and often give up.",
"It's easier just not drinking than trying to keep yourself from going overboard. Specially when alcohol is known to influence your decisions.",
"Hey, I study neuroscience; here's a simple explanation involving the brain. Alcohol is a depressant, which means that the \"braking system\" of the brain is activated by alcohol. Typically, people who drink enjoy the \"buzz\" caused by reduced brain activity. With low levels of alcohol in the blood and the individual feeling good, there is positive reinforcement of the consumption of alcohol. The area of the brain most associated with reward expectation essentially gets the signal that alcohol is associated with feeling better than expected/normal. There is still enough activity in the brain to make this association in part due the specific distribution of the \"brakes\" that alcohol acts on and the specifically salient signals associated with feeling good. In people who suffer from alcoholism (which I'm going to simplify as the people who have genetic predisposition/are alcohol dependent), quitting cold turkey can be deadly due to withdrawal effects. Therefore a dependency on alcohol is created once the body acclimatizes to its effects. So the net effect is that alcohol used to make someone feel really good, but now it is needed to make someone feel like they can get through the day. This dependency is a hard thing to break, especially if not drinking becomes dangerous. The same area of the brain that made drinking pleasurable now associates the decision not to drink as being very bad, or associated with negative rewards. (I know I'm skipping over a bunch to demonstrate the main points). Withdrawal from sex addiction is not immediately harmful to one's health. Therefore the process to re-condition one's self is made easier as there is no strong aversion to the absence of the trigger. I hope this helps and adds to the discussion! Cheers",
"I am sure most alcoholics have tried this at one time or another. It is just extremely difficult to do. A few probably have succeeded. I recently read Kelsey Grammer was trying this. URL_0",
"Haven't been treated for either, but I have heard from employees at a psych hospital, my wife being one, that alcohol is the only withdrawal that can actually kill you. If true, it seems a good move to dissuade them from drinking and picking up the habit again. Stopping sex won't kill you; it just leads to bigger messes",
"Because when you have 1 drink it impairs your judgement, so then you're more likely to have the 2nd drink, which impairs you further, so you're more likely to have the 3rd, and on and on until you wake up 3 days later wondering why you have a broken arm and your wife won't talk to you. So while some alcoholics can pull off moderation it's generally not recommended for that reason, it's easy to fall off that cliff. Sex doesn't really work like that and is somewhat needed for normal relationships so there's a lot more emphasis on learning how to consume that in moderation.",
"Sex and look love addiction is about abstaining from certain bottom line behaviors. For example a bottom line behavior would be sex with prostitutes, sex outside a relationship, voyeurism, porn, sexual intrigue. So if your addiction is pornography you would abstain from using it, not from sex. If your bottom line is lots of annoymous sex then having sex inside a committed relationship is healthy. Sex and love addiction is not about the act of sex persay but using sex to hide from intimacy. It's different for every person. What might be a problem for one person may not be to another. Source: recovering sex and love addict",
"It's made up AA bullshit. I'm a recovering alcoholic, spent about a year and a half sober, decided to learn to drink responsibly. Now I drink maybe once or twice every few months, and limit it to around 6-10 beers so I'm pretty buzzed but I'm not blacking out. AA does a lot of good for a lot of people, but they hurt a lot more because they're so set in their ways and won't adapt the program to meet the needs of the people in the program, it's outdated and really needs a new approach. Honestly, if you're an alcoholic, you're better off asking a therapist for rehab specialists rather than AA,m.",
"Alcoholics Anonyous is the one that popularized the \"never drink again\" rule. Other organizations before AA became so widespread did not preach that. I'm also pretty sure the Betty Ford clinic had something to do with spreading that concept around.",
"The term \"alcoholic\" is not currently used by treatment professionals. The current terminology is \"alcohol use disorder.\" Complete abstinence works for some people and but not all. Alan Marlat, one of the greats in the treatment of alcoholism coined a phrase, \"abstinence violation effect\" where a drinker trying to abstain has a single drink and then feels such shame that they get fully drunk because they lost their time in sobriety. Smart Recovery, a secular alternative to AA does not celebrate sober anniversaries for this reason. Dr. George Vaillant, the Harvard researcher who wrote \"The Natural History of Alcoholism\" said that most alcoholics get sober on their own and some are able to return to moderate drinking. Vaillant said this in an interview in AA's \"Grapevine\" magazine when he was a non-alcoholic member of AA's board of trustees. I stopped drinking through AA 38 years ago and still go to meetings because I see my friends and meet people who are dedicated to supporting each other. I find the kindness and generosity of ordinary AA members to be heart warming. Where else are black and white people holding hands and saying prayers together? In the same room you'll find homeless people and millionaires, doctors, lawyers cops and criminals, people from all walks of life. Tonight I attended a meeting and the speaker was celebrating 30 years. He was a great story teller and I left feeling uplifted.",
"You cant die from abstaining from sex, but you can die from the DTs. Two different types of addiction.",
"Technically, that's not true. More success is actually generated from cutting back 90% and drinking occasionally. The AA program, however, requires people to go go cold turkey and has a high incidence of failure.",
"I was a drunk for over 20 years. I now drink a max of 3 beers at the most, *maybe* once a month. I have beers sitting in my fridge that haven't been touched for weeks and won't be touched for a long while yet. AA doesn't have all the answers.",
"Alcohol is a drug that causes progressive morphological changes the more a person ingests it. Withdrawal, especially multiple consecutive withdrawals can very quickly and dangerously accelerate this process. These changes to neural pathways are long-lasting and potentially permanent, which is why some will never safely be able to return to moderate drinking. I don't think sex has the potential for such an aberrant hijacking of several neural areas, but it definitely has some.",
"Recovered alcoholic here. Just wanted to say that my recovery, while still on-going, has seen me go from 4 liters a day, to a few drinks on the weekend. Just to give an idea, that yes, it is possible to recover and still enjoy yourself, with moderation, around others. I will also note though, that my alcoholism was deeply rooted in psychiatric issues, and clearing them up with a year or more of counseling, is what helped me get to where I am today.",
"From my experience, i was a drug addict and i stopped 7+ yeras ago and about 5 of them were in total abstinence, all this time i went to a psychologist and treated the reason of my addiction. My drug was marihuana, and at this day i've smoked about 3 times in 2+ years, no big problem, used some other drugs occassionally (LSD), and i actually feel good, i dont really know if its a big deal what im doing but, is not altering my life, my social life nor anything, is more like a recreational use just when i feel it. I may be stepping on the edge and i may be putting myself at risk, but for the moment, i fell ok and is not controlling or fucking off any aspect of my life.",
"I was once an alcoholic, couldn't make it to noon without the drink less the shakes would come, I dried myself up, but now drink once in a while with a meal, by once in a while I mean I could go months without a drink but then have it just because I crave it, but since drying up and getting older the hangovers just made alcohol a thing to be enjoyed but not indulged, hope this makes sense. Kinda the same with sex, I was a big man whore when younger, but indulged so much that it became almost boring, seriously, I would get the feeling, have it, then immediately wanted that female to gtfo after because I felt dirty...and I was, I also went through a \"drying up\" period where I resisted the urge, soon when I tried cheap sex it was completely unsatisfying, today, my wife of many years and I enjoy what a healthy sex life is supposed to be, sex with someone you have true feelings for, and it for me and her is the best and best of all no dirty feelings afterwards only the want to hold my wife and savor the experience.",
"I think the idea of refraining completely from a person's former addictive behavior is subjective to that person and their situation. Some people have may not have the control to take part in activities, without falling back into their former lifestyle. Some people have reached a point mentally where they do not want partake or be dependent on those behaviors in a way that is addictive, so the idea of social involvement or moderation isn't an impossibility. Every situation is different. People choose various drugs and behaviors as a means to cope. I will be three years sober this April, after a ten years of addictive behaviors. And personally, I was addicted to the lifestyle, not a specific drug or activity. I found my rock bottom and after I realized I no longer wanted to live that way, I didn't think twice about wanting to get shit-faced, hooking up with a random, or blowing a line. That was not an option for me, because I no longer wanted to do those things. A flip of a switch, for me it was that simple. At this point now, I can have a drink when I'm out or take pain medication after surgeries without either of those leading to a week long bender or a night in jail. People make the decisions of what they can and cannot do. With sobriety, they choose what works for them. If they believe in their program of choice and it says not to have a relationship with alcohol. That is what they will abide by. Everyone has their own way to sobriety and maintaining it. If it works, it works."
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5r39sk | Why and how do the states and regions in the United States and Canada have straight borders unlike in most other countries? | In most countries, the border lines are rarely straight as they are supposed to be geographic boundaries and hence take shapes according to the natural features of the countries. But I have always noticed that the states in the US and Canada are "arranged" in a very orderly "box-ey" manner with straight border lines (sorry for the funny description, English isn't my first language and I couldn't think of any better way to describe this) but I've never thought about asking about this before. Why is this, and how were they made that way, as in how they were decided to be constructed that way? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The US and Canada (and Australia) needed to divide up enormous, very sparsely populated tracts of land, very quickly. So rather than use mountain ridges or river valleys, which are more typically used as territorial boundaries, they just drew latitude and longitude lines. And the territories had so few people that it didn't matter that natural boundaries weren't used.",
"The Border between the US and Canada is the 48th parallel with some minor exceptions here and there. The 48th parallel is a straight line.",
"Most borders are defined by natural features - rivers, mountain ranges, the edge of a cliff or canyon, etc.. Many areas within the US were divided up by men in offices with rulers. Especially when you get out to the Midwestern US, significant geographic features become much rarer and the land much more plentiful, so you see more of these straight-line divisions than on the East Coast. In some cases these divisions were drawn up by people who never set foot anywhere close to the land in question and so had no concern whatsoever for how the divisions lined up with any existing features and especially not for any native population. Contrast this to the East Coast, which was invaded by the Europeans and *then* divvied up according to specifics of the local environment. Fun fact: many modern countries in the Middle East were defined the same way, which is a big part of the origin of the strife in that area today."
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5r3d30 | How does the United States Profit from War? | Apologies for the elementary question. How does the United states profit from war? I am under the impression taking 'spoils' is illegal under the Geneva convention... I have a simple understanding of how the lockheed martin/boeing/enron types profit but in general, How does the US profit from war? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Increased production, mainly. Government contractors are contracted for not only more equipment, but in general R & D increases in wartime. This in turn increases tax revenue from the various ways corporations and employees are taxed. WWII, for instance, saw a massive boost in manufacturing in the U.S. Whether or not that can be considered a 'profit' is a whole 'nuther conversation."
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5r3dme | How come calculators are the only computers we've commonly adapted solar panels into? Why haven't we intergrated them into things like laptops or cellphones? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Handheld calculators require very little power; tiny solar panels can power them. You'd need massive panels to power a smart phone. The power consumption difference is more than you'd think.",
"They don't require nearly as much power. Even more powerful calculators like he Ti-whatever need batteries",
"Calculators only need to power a few things. On demand. Like the LCD screen which doesn't require much power at all. Or the logic units in its brain. These units can be kept off and when they are on, they work very little while you are using the calculator. Think about how often you press the \"=\" sign. That's peak power consumption. With a smatphone or a laptop, its very different. You have a high resolution color LCD display. Many, many more pixels than the one in calculators. These devices are always broadcasting or receiving signals over the air. This requires a lot of power. These devices run complex operating systems that manage a huge set of resources. All of this requires a substantially large amount of power. tl;dr: the vastly different feature sets offered by the two devices are responsible for the difference in power sources."
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5r3dqj | What do protests actually do? Do they affect anything? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"You're talking about it, so that's half the battle. They aim to spread the word and get people who wouldn't care/know about an issue to be concern with it and possibly help with the fight.",
"I think its more a visual representation of how many people care strongly about a certain cause. 10000 people on paper signing a petition for example might not seem like much, but 10000 people standing on the white house lawn, or on wall street for can potentially open some eyes because of the sheer amount of human presense. It also helps bring attention to a certain cause or problem, as large protests usually attract media attention, and are much more likely to get the attention of who/whatever is being protested for/against. Of course, it depends on whoever is in charge though. If theyre adamant enough, they won't budge until the protest or cause becomes unpleasent, either because they've begun disrupting services or routines, or because people involved in the protest have managed to bring the majority of people around to their way of thinking. TL;DR Yeah, but it depends on whether or not the person or cause being protested for/against is willing to change",
"Many of those people are voters, and the Congress gets re-elected every two years. Wealthy contributors and businesses will think twice before supporting a certain cause. FWIW, the threat of riots and protests can impact the economy and prevent the government from functioning properly (for instance, if they block a certain government office or cause delays at an airport). I don't think any leader sees protesting mobs in the street and thinks, \"What a great job I'm doing!\" ...Except the one we have now.",
"Under a *proper* administration, the powers that be might look at large protests, consider their opinions, and make decisions accordingly. It doesn't necessarily mean that the protesters win, but they make their voice known, not just to the president (or the CEO or whoever they are protesting), but to others who might have kept quiet."
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5r3ras | Why are bubbles round? I know it sounds silly, but seriously, why is a sphere the 'default' nature shape for bubbles. | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd46fmt",
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"text": [
"Bubbles are round due to the effects of surface tension, which pull any collection of molecules together into the tightest possible grouping. The tightest possible grouping of any collection of molecules, is that of a sphere.",
"Surface tension leads to the smallest possible surface area for the mass in question. A sphere has the smallest surface area of any other shape.",
"Bubbles are round because it takes the least amount of effort. Bubbles are lazy, it would be alot of work to be a square bubble but round, thats just easy...equal pressure on all sides so its all easy and relaxing"
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5r3yfh | By mining asteroids could we ever acquire enough extra mass to alter the orbit of the earth? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd484qa"
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"text": [
"Technically yes, but it would have to be an incredibly massive amount. Odds are by the time it becomes a real problem, we'd have an equivalent amount of mass working outside the earth as spaceships and orbital factories."
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4
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5r42zz | Airplanes being able to provide Wifi (And why only now after a long time) | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd49ryp"
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"text": [
"Things in aviation take a long time. A really long time. For instance, some US registered airliners today still don't have what we would refer to in the industry as \"glass\" cockpits. Meaning they don't have the computer monitor like screens, instead they have what we call \"steam gauges.\" The name is a misnomer as no actual steam is involved, but it is used to describe the older style, analog instruments. Anyway, the reason that it's taken decades for airplanes to adapt to LCD screens (and even now the first touchscreens are barely starting to surface) is because FAA approval takes ages (as well as very thick wallets). This is a trade-off because while it is slow, it helps to ensure that any new invention will not decrease the safety of the aircraft. So relating this to the wifi provided onboard newer airliners, the company who produced the wifi system had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it would not interfere with the safe operation of the aircraft. Add to this that it isn't as simple connecting a cell phone to a cell tower, as the aircraft is above the range that cell towers can communicate with, and is travelling much faster than cell phone tower switching can handle. This leaves satellite as the only available large-bandwidth communication resource. As anyone who has used satellite internet can tell you, it sucks. So the fact that you and all of the other passengers aboard the aircraft can get wifi while crossing the Atlantic is honestly ahead of its time by aviation standards. Proof that enough money (as the incentive to sell wifi to a captive audience is high) can speed along the FAA vetting process."
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5r4i97 | Why is tobacco bad for your heart? Does it extend to chewing tobacco as well? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd4d8na"
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"text": [
"Nicotine - the main chemical in tobacco- causes the blood vessels to constrict. This reduces blood flow all over the body - including the brain, heart, skin etc. It can lead to heart attacks, strokes, etc. Higher doses of nicotine are naturally worse for you. More frequent doses are also bad. Depending on the brand of cigarette and the type of chewing tobacco, the nicotine dose per cigarette or plug of tobacco can vary widely."
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5r4llk | How do Tax Sites make money offering free filing options? | Large tax preparer websites let you file, for free, if your taxes are simple. This covers a huge swath of the American public. Do they get a kick back from the Fed/State for every one they process? Is it all the value-adds they attempt to sell as they finish up that makes it worth it? Is it just written off as 'advertising' while they make the actual money off people with more money? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"First off, the \"freemium\" model works for things like software because their marginal costs are next to nothing... so they lure you in, and while many won't pay them anything, a certain portion will end up needing the non-free version because they want to take some deduction, have capital gains taxes, etc. and don't qualify for the free version. Also, most charge for your STATE income taxes."
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5r56qq | How come some products made with dairy products (like milk in cookies) don't go bad like dairy products do? | title | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd4inhl",
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"text": [
"We cook cookies. This is far different than just having milk out and exposed to bacteria. The cooking of things makes it far less harmful.",
"The majority of cookie recipes do not contain milk. But cakes do, and cakes do not need to be refrigerated. The baking along with the sugar are enough to preserve it for a few days without refrigeration provided you're storing it properly."
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5r5ezb | How Pilots and Trucks driver communicate over the radio ? | For example, a plane is flying over a restricted area, so a military aircraft, Say Turn around... bla bla, how one plane find the radio signal of another plane ? and same with trucks drivers, for example one truck pass another truck in the route, sometimes they pick up the radio and say something to each other, how they do that ? Sorry for my bad london, i have an extra chromosome | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd4nbpb"
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"text": [
"YouTube has interesting conversations between tower and planes. Search for \"ATC recordings.\" A guy named 'Kennedy Steve' is famous because of his delivery/humor. You could just search for that as well."
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3
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5r5ffc | Why do some yogurts (especially Greek yogurts) have the yogurt separate from the the flavoring? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd4xuq5"
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"text": [
"I'm pulling this out of my butt, but I'm thinking ease of manufacture? Instead of having to make different flavours, all the ribs get filled with the same plain yogurt then a dollop of berries on top."
],
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5
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5r5ptd | Why is calculus important in the medical field? | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"When you take any medication, someone has to have calculated how long the drug lasts at each dosage level. They have determined the correct dose for each body weight. They know how that medication is affected by other drugs, including how the duration or decay rate changes. To do these types of calculations, scientists and pharmacists use computers... But they used to use calculus.",
"The science behind how modern medicine works requires calculus. Outside of certain specific circumstances a doctor probably wont be doing calculus on the fly while treating patients. but in order to conduct or even just understand medical research they need a solid grasp on calculus. Calculus is required in every scientific discipline and in order to understand and evaluate new research a medical practitioner needs to understand how the research was conducted."
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5r5vee | What is the difference between the CIA and FBI? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The quick answer is that the CIA is the Central Intelligence Agency, and their concern is intelligence - learning what information they can about foreign powers, events elsewhere in the world, etc. They're basically spies. The FBI is the Fedeal Bureau of Investigation. They are essentially police, but on a federal level. Police officers tend to be part of local or state governments. FBI is, basically, the police department of the federal government.",
"The FBI is a domestic federal law enforcement agency. They basically handle issues of federal crime, such as interstate commerce and other violations of federal law/things outside the jurisdiction of the states. The CIA is a foreign spy/intelligence agency and has no authority to for domestic powers. In theory..."
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5r5ydh | How do humans sense wetness if we don't have specific skin receptors for it? | I read this article, which it explains it in big fancy words: URL_0 But I still can't quite grasp the concept. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd4qm9o",
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"text": [
"You don't feel \"wetness\", rather you feel the difference in temperature when liquid comes into contact with your skin. But if the liquid matched your body temperature, you wouldn't feel it at all.",
"> It has been proposed that we “learn” to perceive the wetness experienced when the skin is in contact with a wet surface or when sweat is produced through a multisensory integration of thermal and tactile inputs generated by the interaction between skin and moisture. Some people think that we \"learn\" to feel that something is wet through combining sensations about heat and sensations of touch that happen when we touch wet things with our skin. > Based on a concept of perceptual learning and Bayesian perceptual inference, we developed the first neurophysiological model of cutaneous wetness sensitivity centered on the multisensory integration of cold-sensitive and mechanosensitive skin afferents. Based on a concept of learning by experience and guessing based on probability, they developed a functional model of the feeling of skin wetness based on combining sensations of coldness and touch."
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5r5yxk | Why is that headphones tangle in knots so easily, yet it requires actual force to tie shoelaces or strings together? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"The major difference is that shoelaces are not in your pocket. If you put a shoelace in one pocket and headphones in the other pocket, you're going to pull out two knotted messes after a few minutes. This is due to the fact that both of them are going to wiggle around randomly. In a confined space, this leads to knots."
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5r60p3 | They say an object is of a particular color because it absorbs all colors but that particular color that is reflected back but what is that "absorption" exactly. What is going on in terms of atomic level to make an object absorb or reflect a particular color? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"It all comes down to electrons. Electrons exist in certain energy levels around the atom. At rest, they're in the lowest energy state, but they can absorb energy to become excited - and move up to higher energy states. However, they can only absorb energy in precise amounts - exactly the amount needed to increase their energy state to a whole integer multiple. This means they can go from ground to 1st excited, or ground to 2nd excited, but they can't go from ground to 1.5. Now for light, the amount of energy that a photon contains is a function of its frequency, which itself can be determined from the wavelength - and its wavelength that determines color. This means certain energies are associated with certain colors of light. And electrons need to absorb certain energy to increase their energy level. If this amount they can absorb is equal to the amount in photons of a particular color, they'll absorb light of that color. Now, photons can also decay back to the ground state, and they do this by releasing photons. They don't always go from their excited state straight to the ground state, they can fall through intermediary states and release photons equal to the difference in energy of these intermediate steps. If that energy corresponds to light of a certain color, they emit light of that color. Put this together and it means that substances can absorb light of one color and emit light of another color or mixture of colors. Or they can absorb light outside the visible spectrum and emit light in the visible spectrum, or absorb light in the visible spectrum and emit light outside the visible spectrum."
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5r61vv | How do linguists know how words from dead languages are pronounced? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"One of the ways we know is from rhymes and other wordplay. By examining written poetry, puns, and other forms of wordplay, linguists can piece together what words rhymed or sounded like other words at various times in history and come up with general theories to how pronunciation evolved. It's not perfect, though. We definitely don't know exactly how things were pronounced thousands of years ago, but we have a clue at least."
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5r622d | Why did the USSR suffer significantly higher casualty rates during WWII in comparison to the other powers? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"After Nazi Germany and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact and divided Poland in half, Stalin knew the clock was ticking. Given Hitlers ideology of extreme nationalism and socialism, compared to the ideology of the USSR; it was quite obvious that the two could NOT co-exist. Especially when they're neighbor's. And here's is World War II favorite pun: Stalin agreed to the non-aggression pact because he was staling. Anyway, to answer your question, after Hitler conquered Norway, Denmark, and France, he turned his eyes towards the land of the bear. He waited for spring (Napoleon tried to invaded Russia during winter, he lost 90% of his army) and initiated Operation Barbarossa (red-beard). He figured the not so industrialized USSR could not match the industrial power of Germany. To his dismay, the Red Army switched to the tactic known as Scorched Earth, meaning they would burn everything as the Germans advanced in an attempt to slow them down until winter. It worked. But along the way, Germans captured many who weren't a part of the \"Aryan Nation,\" and sent them off to concentration camps to either work them to death or systematically murder them. But another reason why the Russians lost so many was because Stalin didn't really want his troops to retreat in the battle of Stalingrad. So as I mentioned earlier, they slowed down the Germans until winter. Hitler could not achieve his goal of a quick conquest, so he logically changed tactics, he went after the oil reserves that Russia had. If the Germans captured the oil reserves, the Russian military would essentially be impotent. Located in the south of Russia, Germans advanced that way. But Stalingrad was in the way. Because this city determined who'll control the oil, Stalin ordered his troops to not take a step back. Troops were ordered to shoot any Russian who retreated. By the end of the war, an estimated 30% of Russian troops were killed by their own (I recommend watching \"Enemy at the Gates\"). This is why serious historians say that the true victors of WWII were the Russians. They lost 56 million people, half were citizens who were victims of genocide, German atrocities, and German bombs."
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5r66es | When a person is asleep, why does dipping their hand in warm water cause them to urinate? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd4shm7"
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"text": [
"This is an urban myth and was debunked by Mythbusters. You can read about the article here: URL_0"
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"http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/mythbusters-database/hand-water-asleep-urinate/"
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5r699m | morning wood. How and why does this happen to guys? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Your body is sending blood flow to all your extremities in order to wake up your body parts. More blood in the penis causes an erection",
"If all above, why don't women piss the bed constantly?",
"It's a mixture of a drop in blood pressure associated with sleeping and pressure on your prostate from a full bladder. One hypothesis is that it's a safe time for your body to \"practice\" erections as you may go some time without mating. Generally everything in your body atrophies and becomes useless if they don't get used. When it did this during the day randomly, it gets in the way."
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5r6j5e | Why do some card machines ask for your pin number when using your debit card while some machines don't? | Additional question, why do card machines now require you to use the chip on your card instead of swiping? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"Chip cards use tokenization, meaning a 1-use code is used for every transaction. Your card number also tell machines that it's a chip card, so a clone can't be swiped. So if someone somehow stole your number and 1-use code, it would be worthless as that code no longer works, and the card can't be swiped. However, online transactions of course still work. This is why Apple Pay (with NFC and mobile transaction) is currently the most secure format, and the most private. As for why you wouldn't be asked for PIN, because the business ran it as a credit. Credit cards and debit cards get run through different networks, and since any debit can be ran as credit, some businesses opt to only pay to run credit cards, as the ability to run debit cards is an separate payment. I know places like Walmart only accepted credit chip cards for months before adding debit chip capability, so it may be something other than cost as well."
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5r6jt3 | Why is it that in most depictions of UFO's, their vehicle has some kind of rotating piece | ELI5: Why is it that in most depictions of UFO's, their vehicle has some kind of rotating piece? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
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"text": [
"For the same reason that many depictions of Jesus Christ are of a white Italian esque guy rather than middle eastern, it's become mainstream. However, entertaining the question, some have argued that a UFO would need to spin or else it would risk tumbling around in the sky. Kind of like when you throw a frisbee and it spins, this spinning would give the object angular momentum, which increases stability. In other words, it basically makes the spinning object a gyroscope. In regards to the saucer shape, in assuming some bright yet misguided people thought that this would be the optimum shape for this flying saucer to create lift as well as remain stable in flight. Resources: \"How does a frisbee fly?\". (2012). Retrieved from URL_0"
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5r6myf | How has homosexuality managed to survive natural selection? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because it's not something that you inherit. Straight people can have gay kids. Gay people (at least those who do have kids), can have straight children. Human genetics are FAR more complicated than most people think, and being gay seems to involve more than just genetics. The fact that identical twins, who have the same genetics, can have different sexualities seems to prove that. There's some evidence that while some people may be genetically more disposed towards homosexual or bisexual activity, some of that may also be determined through epigenetics, from conditions during development as a fetus that affect brain growth. (Basically, imagine that quirks and oddities while a fetus could impact the brain in a way that makes someone gay.) There continues to be a lot of investigation into this, but it's also worth noting that exclusive homosexual behavior is relatively rare in the animal kingdom. Plenty of animals are gay, and some animals have homosexual behavior being more common than heterosexual, but as long as some animals procreate, the species is able to survive.",
"The gay uncle theory says that homosexual men could have increased the reproductive fitness of their close family members by contributing manpower and resources to raising children. You share an average of 25% of your genes with your gay uncle. It's the same principle as many theories of familial altruism whereby helping individuals that share some of your genes might help those genes get passed along. EDIT: Studies on modern gay uncles do not show that they are better uncles than straight men. This says very little about the role of gay men in prehistoric, tribal societies and how they may have contributed to the survival and reproduction of their kin.",
"I did my PhD in the neurodevelopment of sexual orientation. I think there have been a lot of answers here that do a good job explaining it. Here's my attempt at an ELI5: As has been mentioned, genetics does seem to play a large role in sexual orientation, but it isn't a complete explanation. When one twin is gay, there is less than a 50% chance of the other one also being gay. Studies investigating \"gay genes\" have been inconsistent in their findings, so while there have been studies suggesting certain genes may be involved, next time a study is done, they don't find those genes to play any role. A particular region in the X-chromosome does seem promising though. So, if genes don't tell the whole story, what else is there? Well, in my own research, I tested the role of the environment in the womb. We found some effects that may point to factors such as immune system of the mother or exposure to hormones influencing sexual orientation. But if there is ANY role in genetics, why wouldn't it be selected out? Many people have mentioned the gay uncle hypothesis. This theory was popular for a while but has since fallen out favour since research has shown that gay men are no more involved as uncles as straight men. The other hypothesis is that the genes for male homosexuality is a gene for attraction to men, designed to get women to have more babies. There is evidence that female relatives of gay men tend to have more babies.",
"For the five-year-old that asked, the men in the family are not working at being daddies, but it's ok since the women can work harder at being mommies to make up for it and the men can help them take care of their kids by doing things like sending them to school or making dinner. That's enough weird questions for today, go to bed. Now that the kids are all gone to bed, we can have the non-ELI5 answer to this non-ELI5 question. First, we need to understand that the contemporary understanding of evolution has moved from the survival of the species to the survival of the gene. Everything living thing on this good Earth is a mere vehicle for their genes and these genes are constantly fighting to propagate themselves at the expense of other genes. When you have children you and your partner's genes have succeeded in propagating themselves at the expense of other genes in the gene pool. What does this have to do with homosexuality? Hamer et al (1993) and Hamer and Copeland (1995) analysed the families of homosexuals and found that homosexuality seems to be more common along the maternal line allowing them to conclude that homosexuality is passed down via the X chromosome. This suggests that there is a genetic component to homosexuality, but it is not the complete picture. As other redditors have pointed out there are other factors involved too and homosexuality is poorly understood. Now comes the important part - the Darwinian paradox of it. One theory called Kin Selection tries to explain it by saying that the homosexual males have more time and resources to take care of their cousins, who also carry their genes. This theory, however, has very little empirical support. The theory that has the most empirical support is known as Sexually Antagonistic Selection. This theory says that the same genes that make the males homosexual are also the same genes that make females more fertile (or fecund, if you like the technical term). Camperio-Ciani et al (2004) compared the families of both heterosexual males and homosexual males and found that while the fecundity of both males and females were roughly the same in families of heterosexual males, the females in families of homosexuals were significantly more fecund than their counterparts in families of heterosexual males. This lends support to the Sexually Antagonistic Selection theory and postulates a possible resolution to this Darwinian paradox However, this is still not the whole picture. Camperio-Ciani et al (2004) acknowledges that 79% of the variation in their results cannot be explained, meaning that there is still much that we don't know about human sexual orientation. Also, a lot of research has been done on male homosexuality but very little on female homosexuality. This is particularly important because female and male sexuality is very different from each other with female sexuality being more fluid than male sexuality through the life course (Mustanski, Chivers, & Bailey, 2002). In fact, in Mangaia society (Mangaia is an island in the South Pacific Ocean) a female homosexual relationship is used as a form of sex education with an older female teaching a younger female about sex through a homosexual relationship before she has a heterosexual relationship (Marshall, 1971). Tl;dr, there is much we do not know, and far more that we do not know that we do not know about human sexuality",
"Homosexuality does not stop reproduction, and as reproductive success is one of the most significant drivers of evolution, it is not selected against",
"So many reasons. Natural selection is when animals with traits that make it harder to survive (slower, weaker, bad at hunting etc) don't survive long enough to reproduce and pass on their poor genes. But: 1. Being homosexual does not make it harder to survive (in most countries, anyway) and does not stop you from reproducing. Even in animals those who display mostly homosexual behaviour often still reproduce, since most animals mate only for this purpose and not for pleasure. 2. Homosexuality is not simply a gene that it passed on. I don't pretend to understand exactly how and why some people are gay, but it is obviously not simply inherited from your parents since most gay people have heterosexual parents and will have heterosexual children. 3. Natural selection largely doesn't even apply to humans anymore. You can be born with any number of unfortunate medical conditions or disabilities and thanks to modern medicine, still both survive and reproduce. You can even reproduce if you are naturally infertile, which is probably why levels of infertility have actually been increasing in recent decades (I think).",
"Homosexuality isn't defined by your genes and isn't 'passed down' - at least, that's my understanding."
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5r6qpo | What's the difference between cmd.exe and Windows PowerShell? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ok the ELI5 version. Both are programs that (now this is simplified) present interfaces where the user can interact with the computer using a keyboard for input and see text as output. You type a line (some text + enter key) and program interprets what you typed as a command. This is why these interfaces are called Command Line Interfaces (CLI). Anyway in the old days the only way to interact with a computer to give commands was either to type them in a CLI or to use another program that would pass on those commands (they presented graphics and allowed other input methods like mice). In time some of those other programs became so good that people preferred them. These days these other programs are mostly used as interfaces and are called Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). Microsoft had a CLI in the old days called *command*. And it was the primary interface for people use in the Microsoft OS of the day (MS DOS). It was simply called \"command\" as this was name of the program that was run by the OS when it booted so you could interact with it. e Eventually another MS program called Windows (a GUI) became the most popular and MS made the \"command\" program live inside Windows (this is a simplification - I know all about different mode 16/32 real protected etc but it's not pertinent to this explanation). instead. The original program was called command.exe and MS produced new version with each OS version but renamed it \"cmd\" as a shorthand (again there is more but it's not important). This is cmd.exe. It has all the same features and compatibility basically with the the original command program. The biggest issue is that it's got decades of legacy to support so the commands are not consistent and not complete in function or form etc. In addition the CLIs of that vintage (cmd and the various linux ones) are character (text) oriented. So commands read text and write text out. In the Linux world the CLIs are much more comprehensive than the ones like cmd. Linux operators can do practically everything from the command line. However over the years MS sort of pushed Windows people into using GUIs for everything. As Linux servers slowly rose in popularity, Windows administrators also asked for better CLI tools to manage Windows systems. So eventually MS reengineered a new CLI from the ground up (using something called Lamda Calculus incidentally) and this is was originally called Monad.exe. It's biggest difference from cmd was that it wasn't character/text oriented (even though you interacted with it using keyboard and screen). Rather it uses object oriented/based technology that is similar to the one that is provided for developers (.Net). This allows much more powerful and comprehensive commands to created and they can interact with each other much more intelligently. Unfortunately though MS tried, they couldn't make monad 100% compatible with cmd but they made a damn good effort. After 2 versions monad was renamed to Powershell. Over time more and more of Windows was made controllable through Powershell and it's recommended that unless you need to use legacy commands in cmd, that you use Powershell. Hope this helps."
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5r6tre | self-actualization | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Step one - maintain steady supply of food, shelter, water, and sense of community. Step two - become confused because all your basic needs are met but you still aren't fulfilled. Discover unhappiness, anxiety, fear, anger, all the things that mentally suck, are all tools our brains use to drive us towards meeting our basic needs and surviving. Step three - Decide that all that stuff you had to go through to get to step three sucked, and because other people have feelings too, which often affected your own while you were building your basic needs egg, you want to lessen the suck for everyone else, thus decreasing your own suck level. However, you still have feelings and you don't want to increase your amount of suck just to decrease someone else's. Step four - spend the rest of your life learning and improving on how to be better to others and better contribute to others through something that you enjoy or find fulfilling. Because, if you don't enjoy how you're decreasing universal suckage, then it's a zero-sum game. To get the best from others, give the best of yourself. To give the best of yourself, be the best to yourself. You are now self actualized through some crazy feedback loop powered by suckage and the desire for less of it."
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5r6uyw | Why can't we charge batteries very quickly or even instantly? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Batteries are in effect repeatable reversible chemical reactions. Think of, for example, how water turns to ice when you cool it (take energy out) and turns to liquid when you heat it (put energy in). That's basically what a battery is, you load it up with the potential to create a reaction and generate electricity, and then you discharge the energy. When you charge it up again, that reaction isn't instantaneous, and you are limited by a number of physical limitations, such as heat and maximum voltage, but primarily by the fact that being too aggressive can ruin the battery, affecting its ability to reverse the reaction. This is why I'm still holding out for removable batteries.",
"Analogy time: filling a standard kitchen sink with water. You have a couple ways you can fill the sink. The first way is to turn on a tap and let it fill up slowly. This takes a flow of water and dumps it into the sink in a contained fashion. You turn the tap off after a minute or so, and there's your filled sink, nice and contained and ready for some dishes or whatnot. Or you can get a yuge bucket full of water and just upend 'er to dump it all into the sink... and then spend the next half hour mopping up the mess. Or you can bring in the high power firehose and spray it full tilt. Again... mess. Clearly, the better way is to have a controlled inbound flow of water to fill the sink. It doesn't have any risk of soaking the place at the expense of a few minutes of time. BUT... maybe you build a better sink. Put a piece of plywood over it with a hole through it to contain the splashes as you blast it full quickly. Changing the sink is certainly an option, although an expensive one, at least at first. Rechargeable batteries are like that. There's a capacity limit to how much they can absorb when electrical power flows into them and gets converted into chemical storage. We're working with new and novel materials like graphene to improve how much \"flow\" our system can absorb at once, but your bog-standard rechargeable batteries just can't take and process the inbound flow of electricity fast enough to instantly, or even quickly, recharge. That would overload the system and cause splashes and puddles... uh.. sparks and heat."
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5r72nz | When did drinking warm milk to help sleep become popular, and why if it doesn't work? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Ask any newborn if drinking warm milk help them to sleep :) They won't answer because they can't talk *but if they could* they'd probably say that it does. The oldest mention of this practice that I am aware of is in the old testament in the story of [Jael]( URL_0 ). I'm sure there are probably even older references than that but the point is it's nothing new."
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5r74jv | how does this picture work? | It looks like Rick is moving around on a second layer above the black background? How does my brain process this that way? URL_0 | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\" P-cells help your eyes to see things in high detail but can see things moving quickly or if the contrast is low. M-cells on the other hand can see things in high speed and with low contrast but can’t make out fine details. By sitting still and focusing on the image you are using your P-cells. But when you shake your head, the P-cells fail to work and your eyes rely on their M-cells. Since the M-cells are more sensitive to low contrasts the embedded image can be more easily seen. In in effect, the more you focus on the picture, the less you’ll be able to see it. \" From URL_0"
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5r7axe | Is it possible for twins in the womb to "kick" each other? If so then what happens to the kicked baby? | Yes, I know that kicking is actually the movement, shifting, or even the hiccuping of a baby. But if the baby streches out for example, or moves around and hits another baby in the womb, can this cause any damage to the kicked baby? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"How much strength do you think a baby in the womb has? They're floating in water in there, which makes movement harder in the first place. There wouldn't be enough strength in a kick to hurt the other baby even if they were trying to hurt each other. Basically, nothing happens."
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5r7gcz | what are the differences between parliamentary systems and the powers of a prime minister versus a president? | So with all the recent political shenanigans going on in the states I'm curious about the differences between the Westminster system that Aus uses for their government and the system that the states uses. What kind of powers does the president have and how does it compare to a prime minister? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The exact details vary from country to country, but basically the Prime Minister (or Chancellor, or similar term in other countries) is the head of *government*, while the President (or, in the case of countries like the UK, which are constitutional monarchies, the Monarch) is head of *state*. The US President combines both roles, but -- if things work the way they're designed to work -- his powers are limited by Congress as part of the system of \"checks and balances\", which also involve the courts in the three branches of government and the separation of powers. Usually, the PM is the leader of the largest party represented in Parliament -- so one of the elected representatives. He also chairs the Cabinet, which is also usually composed of elected representatives. From an American perspective, this means that much of the Executive branch overlaps with the Legislative branch. The PM chairs the Cabinet, which implements laws and also formulates official government policy, so the Prime Minister pretty much sets the agenda. However, most things the PM and Cabinet do is subject to debates and votes in Parliament, which includes the opposition. The role of a President is often ceremonial; and in a modern constitutional monarchy, the role of the monarch is also ceremonial. The British monarch, for example, has pretty much no say at all in the political system. In theory, the British Queen could refuse to sign an Act of Parliament into law; in practice, this would provoke a constitutional crisis and probably spell the end of the British monarchy. She does, though, represent Britain internationally, and holds some important posts, such as Head of the Commonwealth of Nations, which is a very useful platform for about 50 countries to discuss issues of mutual interest. In a republic, the President might have a few actual powers. This might be emergency powers, such taking charge temporarily if the government collapses. The German President, for example, reviews all legislation he is asked to sign, and can refer it back to Parliament if he believes the proper procedure was not followed, or to the Constitutional Court if he believes it is not compatible with the constitution. The French President has more wide-reaching powers, and is allowed to actually direct government policy if (and only if) the majority of the Assembly sides with him."
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5r7lo9 | Why are there hardly any green mammals, but lots of green reptiles and amphibians? Wouldn't they be more likely to survive due it being effective camouflage? | Green sloths exist, so we know it's possible for fur to undergo green color mutations. | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> Green sloths exist, so we know it's possible for fur to undergo green color mutations Untrue. Sloths don't have green fur; they have green algae and moss growing in their greyish-brown fur. My understanding is that the particular green pigment simply never arose in the mammalian lineage. When it comes to evolution and \"why didn't...\" questions, there are two possible answers: either the necessary mutation never happened, or it happened and then got weeded out either through chance or through natural selection.",
"Probably because green only works if you can stand beside a leaf. But once you're as big as a bush, being green doesn't help, but being shadowy colored does, so black, grey, brown, tan, etc. This is even more true where green goes away, such as in the dry seasons of summer and winter.",
"Hair color cannot be green because of how hair works. Hair gets its color from melanin and in melanin there are two types, eumelanin and pheomelanin. If eumelanin is present, you get lighter hair, if pheomelanin is present you get darker hair. So color is set by these genes, and these genes cannot produce green colors. The same thing that colors your hair, also colors your skin. So you cannot have green people, because our skin has melanin in it. Reptiles don't have skin. They have scales. Like the scales of a snake or a fish. Fish don't have hair, and reptiles don't have hair, they have scales. Scales are made of keratin. Bugs have an armor that is made of chitin. So because mammals have skin, and hair, which has melanin. This means we are limited to the colors that melanin can produce. If humans had scales or chitin, we could be green.",
"No one knows for sure. Mammals are overwhelmingly earth- colored- - mousy, you could say. A few sort- of- green mammals do exist: Tree sloths turn grayish- green when algae grows on their fur. Australia's ringtail opossums have bands of black and yellow on their hair that can look a grizzled olive drab.",
"If you look at an average forest, mammals live on the ground. The ground isn't really green. If you are in super dense shrubbery, sure its green-ish. But the rest of the forest floor is a mix of dead leaves, dirt, mud and shrubs/vines/younameit. The forest floor isn't really green. Take a look at a prairie, again, its not really that green. If you are in tropical rainforest, yeah it could be green, but not if you are in a tree, or a river, or covered in mud, etc. Natural selection would pick the best gene to avoid predators, or be able to sneak up on prey. So being green in a brown world would get you eaten, and being green would mean your prey could see you, and thus you'd die from hunger."
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5r7yxo | How come my twins have blue eyes when both my husband and I have brown eyes. | We have 3 year old twins (non identical) who both have the exact same shade of blue eyes. I have brown eyes and my husband has hazel. Their paternal grandfather has blue eyes, their maternal grandparents have brown eyes. Both my grandmothers had blue eyes. I know that the gene for blue eyes is recessive, so I'm curious how they both by-passed all the brown eye dominant genes! Thanks! | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Genes work like this: we have two sets of genes for everything (only exception is the gender-specific ones), one passed on from the father, one passed on from the mother. Which of the two sets of your parents you inherit is entirely random. This simply means that both you and your husband inherited one set of brown-eye-genes and one set of blue-eye-genes from your respective parents and you both passed on the blue-eye-genes to each of your twins. Unlikely, but entirely normal.",
"It is pure chance. If you have brown eyes that you can still be the carrier of the blue eye gene. If both your grandmothers had blue eyes then your parents were both carriers. Then there is a 50% chance that you are a carrier of the gene (but we now know this is true). If your husbands mother had blue eyes then he is certain to be a carrier. When two carriers of the blue eye gene gets a baby there is a 25% chance that the baby have blue eyes as he needs both genes. This is not that low odds and it is not uncommon to have two kids with blue eyes from parents with brown eyes when blue eyes is in the family. Note also that there are other factors involved in the color of the eyes then just the simple brown or blue eye gene and you should not be surprised of different shades of the colors or even if the colors change a bit as the kids grow up.",
"Blue eyes are a recessive trait, and can hide in a family for some time. If you and your husband both have the recessive blue gene, then your children each have a 1:4 chance of having blue eyes, and the odds of having two are only 1:16. Uncommon, but not rare."
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5r81hs | What caused the rise of alt right? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I'll speak to the US rather than UK/Europe because I'm more familiar with it. Rural areas of the US have leaned conservative for the last 30 years or so. Culturally, they've leaned that way for longer, but their voting patterns have expressed this since Regan embraced the Christian evangelical right in the 80s. Rural areas of the US have also faced the greatest economic losses over that same time period. They haven't seen the boom times of the 90s and recovery from the Great Recession of 2008, but they experienced all of the lows. Rural America is hurting economically. The growth in prosperity in the US has been focused on liberal-leaning urban areas. Over the last two decades, the US has shifted more to the left on social issues. Gay marriage was legalized, marijuana was legalized, third wave feminism saw a rise, etc. These are all rallying areas for social conservatives, who feel they are detrimental to the social fabric of the US. Over the last two decades, the rise of the internet and cable news channels have provided targeted messaging to smaller groups of people than were available when there were five channels and no chat forums. It's easier to focus on content that feeds you what you want to hear (this applies to the right and the left). So, you have a perfect storm where 1. Economically hurting people are looking for politicians who promise to focus on their needs 1. Social conservatives who fear social changes are looking for politicians to cater to them 1. Echo chambers where both sides of the spectrum can focus and radicalize (edit: some small grammar tweaks)",
"First you need to *define* the 'alt-right'. Breitbart media popularized the term ( URL_0 ). In their construction, the alt-right is a grab bag of folks who don't necessarily embrace traditional conservative ideas but tend to be less polite and more confrontational. Think of them as the conservative version of social justice warriors. In terms of its rising popularity, it's not hard to connect this to the famous quote from the The Wild One: \"What are you rebelling against?\" \"Whadda you got?\" The alt-right primarily well-educated young people and they had to pass through the crucible of an incredibly slanted academic setting where their ideas were generally shouted down and denigrated rather than addressed. So they're reacting back the same way - as provocateurs more than politicians. In terms of prominence within the Republican Party as a whole, bear in mind that any political party needs bright young people volunteering to carry some of the load. But higher education in this country isn't really a 'safe space' for conservative notions unless it's an explicitly religious college or a school of engineering. Since the latter tends not to produce political enthusiasts, you're largely left with evangelical Christians and people whose college experience was being mocked and marginalized.",
"I feel like the alt-right is part of the response to mainstream bullshit such as third way feminism, identity politics, black lives matter etc. It's mainly a millennial conservative political movement born on the internet. They care the most about free speech, the right to avoid political correctness, the right to post pepe memes without being called white supremacists and so on and so forth. They progressively gained a voice, especially on the internet, because the Trump campaign acknowledged and even supported them. I initially predicted a rise of an \"alt-left\" as well, under Bernie Sanders. It still exists as a movement (and I personally feel like I'm part of it). They come from different liberal backgrounds (some are classical liberals, some are social democrats, etc.) but they all disagree with SJWs just like the alt-right. The difference between the two, though, is that the alt-right is generally conservative (no, they're not nazis) and the alt-left is generally liberal."
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5r84pm | Why is filling out tax forms so difficult? | Edit: *are | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"It really depends on how complex your finances are. If you have no investments or property or inheritance and so on then doing your taxes is downright simple. With modern, online tax software it walks you through the steps of even more complex tax situations. If you have really complex investments then you hire someone to prepare your taxes for you.",
"Because tax law is complicated. Taxes are a matter of how much you know. At the base it's the amount of taxes for your income minus tax already assessed. However, there are deductions and credits to consider. And if you don't know what you can and can't take, believe me that IRS isn't going to go out of their way to tell you. If you pay to have your taxes done you're paying someone to know what deductions and credits you can apply. In short, taxes are simple to fill out but very complicated to optimize due to the amount of rules that aren't well communicated."
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5r84zy | What is the difference between Shell, Bash, Zsh and terminal? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"* shell - a program that provides a command line interface to the operating system, especially with Unix/Linux * sh, csh, ksh, bash, zsh - examples of specific shell programs * terminal - used to mean a keyboard and monitor that could connect to a remote computer...now it usually means a program that runs a shell in a window"
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5r89jn | What makes air feel "stuffy" vs "fresh"? | Is it a higher CO2 concentration? A higher temperature? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
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"\"Stuffy\" = more water vapor in the air; High Humidity/Dewpoint \"Fresh\" = less water vapor in the air; Low Humidity/Dewpoint Whenever the air has felt \"stuffy\" to me, it felt heavier and/or harder to breathe in. A lack of ventilation. Whenever the air has felt \"fresh\" to me, if felt lighter and/or easier to breathe in. An abundance of ventilation. However, I guess the terms \"stuffy\" and \"fresh\" are up for anyone's interpretation. In my past experiences, whenever I ran outside with a wind of 5 knots or more and the humidity/dewpoint was high, I found it harder to breathe during the run VS. when the humidity/dewpoint was low, I found it easier to breathe during the run. EDIT: clarification/past experiences",
"If I recall correctly it's to do with the level of carbon dioxide in the air. If you're in a room where lots of people (or you for a long time) are exhaling co2 it starts to feel stuffy. When you then go into a room with a more normal oxygen to co2 rate it feels fresh."
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5r8h1t | Why is our organ of equilibrium located in our ears? | Is there any logical explanation why it's in our ears and not say in our nose, our eyes, our feet...? It seems pretty random to me that it's located in the ears. (Sorry for maybe not so good English) | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"If you want to keep balance you want the system measuring it somewhere that experiences the least acceleration during normal movement and that is the head. The position in the ear is useful, too, as it is further and on opposite sides from the center of the head and therefore experience more movement and in opposite directions when you turn your head which improves signal strength. If it were near you nose it would be more or less just measuring in one spot while the ears are far apart so you have two points for measuring. It also needs to be close to the eyes as it causes/controls eye movement to compensate head movement so that the image you see is stabilized.",
"Adding on to a lot of answers about why the head in general, the ears make the most natural location when you think about evolution. Almost all animals have an extremely acute sense of hearing. Even humans can use the millisecond discrepancy between ears for locating the source of a noise. Because ears are used for a sort of echolocation (not the way bats do), they are a good organ to have the parts for balance. Hearing uses an extremely delicate form of sensory perception, unlike sight or smell which is fairly basic or analog if you understand them. Detecting subtle changes in pitch, frequency, and amplitude require high precision, and so does balance. Also, the fact that we are bilateral organisms is important. Having two senses of balance as far away from each other as possible improves balance and ensures that there isn't a local problem interfering. If the balancing mechanics were in the eyes, for example, each would be very susceptible to anything affecting the other since the two sides are so close. Edit: It seems that balance developed before hearing so my first paragraph would be the reverse, though I'm going to leave the paragraph there because it does show a nice correlation between hearing and balance. The second part of my answer seems to be a better one, since the ear evolved from the lateral-line on fish that detected pressure changes in water. They had one on both sides to increase stability. Since fish are horizontally directed they required it along their whole body, where as we only need it in the control center.",
"Well, i dont know exactly, but it has to do with your balance/eyes. Did you ever notice, that, if you tilt your head the image you see is still somewhat leveled? Thats because your equilibrium aligne with your eyes. If they where in your feet, your brain wouldn't know if your head is tilted and could not correct the image in your head. Also it balances you as your head is the highest point of your body, think of it as a water level on your head to keep you from falling to one side or the other. It also works like the water level. [Link]( URL_0 ) with detailed explanation.",
"Because hearing and equilibrium are fundamentally the same sort of sense in vertebrates. Both are senses that detect acceleration. In fact, it might be better to say that our ears are located in our equilibrium organs, since there's a decent chance the equilibrium organs came first. The thing to realize is that equilibrium organs in the \"ear\" region go waaay back. The very first vertebrates had them. In primitive fish hearing and orientation are accomplished in the same way. You've got a small \"bone\" (an otolith) located in a sac lined with cilia. There's also a tube or two lined with cilia. As the fish moves, the heavy otolith falls to a different side of the sac, always resting on the lowest side. The cilia \"feel\" where it is. This lets the fish know which way is down. A sudden twist of the head generates a current in the canal (try holding a glass of water and twisting it, and note how the water stays still as the glass moves past, now imagine tiny hairs on the inside of the glass detecting this relative motion). Likewise, hearing occurs when sound waves travel through the fish, accelerating the ear back and forth and causing the otolith to bounce around inside the sac. That's detected as sound. Now, both hearing and orientation have gone on to become more complicated in humans. But they are both basically refinements of the same system and so they remain in the same place. As for why both systems are in the head, there's a tendency called \"cephalization\" which is apparent in many animals and certainly in early vertebrates. It makes sense to cram the sense organs near the brain, because this lets them send signals to the brain more rapidly. When a fraction of a second makes a difference in, eg, being eaten, you want to minimize ping time."
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5r8hiy | How Does an Oven Cook Food Enough to Eat if It's Off for 2 Hours? | I found a recipe for prime rib that said to heat the oven to 350^o and put the steak inside for 5 minutes, then to turn off the oven and leave the prime rib alone for 2 hours inside the oven. How will this cook the prime rib enough to eat? (Recipe claimed the steak would be medium rare.) | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Just as an addendum, keep in mind that the comments about bacteria and beef apply to steaks and other whole beefs. In the case of hamburger, it should be cooked through since it has been exposed to air through the grinding process, although many people seem to be fine eating medium or rare hamburgers. At least from what I understand.",
"Beef is a relatively \"clean\" meat. Because it's so dense, all the nasties tend to live in the outer layer, which of course cooks first. And an oven heated to 350 will maintain a good temp for quite some time so... It's a combination. I certainly wouldn't do the same thing with chicken or pork because they both need to be cooked thoroughly all the way through to be safe.",
"Beef is rather unique among meets. Bacteria that is present on raw meet is what makes raw meet unsafe to eat. However, the particular kind of bacteria that grows on beef requires access to air in order to live. Therefore the bacteria can only life on exposed surfaces of the meet. With any cut of beef, cooking the outside will make it safe to eat. That is why steak can be cooked rare and still be OK. Yes it's raw in the middle but since the middle has never been exposed to the air it's impossible for harmful bacteria to be there, therefore it's OK to eat. According to URL_0 the bacteria in beef dies at 145. Bringing the oven to 350 and cooking for 5 mins, then sitting in that hot oven while it cools down is enough to bring the surface temp of the meet to 145."
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5r8hwk | What were lobotomies supposed to cure, and how exactly were they performed? | I've always been curious about why exactly lobotomies were supposed to be helpful, but I've never really gotten a clear, concise answer. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Lobotomies were based on the theory that there are certain parts of the brain that cause certain psychological problems. What a lobotomy does is hope to cut away that piece of brain that causes the issue without Damaging or killing the patient. The patient was kept under local anaesthesia and with surgical tools your skull was cut open. After that in a perfectly concious state, you were asked to answer some questions as they give minute electric shocks so the doctors don't cut the wrong part of the brain.Ex- a picture would be placed in front of you and you will be asked what it is, to check if you can still see. After cutting. The part causing issue was taken out and the skull was bolted on with rivets and the skin sticthed back on. The success or failure of the operation is irrelevant to the question but the patient was disfigured due to the surgery."
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5r8l0s | Since physical or emotional pain is so subjective, does anyone truly know the extent of someone else's? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"No. One of the key factors in having a good conversation is avoiding that \"oh that happened to me too one time\" rhetoric. If someone's dad dies, and you also lost your dad, don't go saying \"oh man I lost my dad too it was hard\", because A) it's not about you and also B) it's not the same. It's never the same. Every living experience is individual and subjective to all the things that have happened to that person leading up to that event. It's never the same. You can't know. This is where empathy comes in.",
"My sister just died. My mother in law proceeded to tell me that it couldn't have hurt because she lived far away and I didn't see her every day. I explained to her that indeed, it did hurt. She just repeated, no, it couldn't have. I don't think anyone can tell anyone else exactly what their pain is like, too many variables. We have empathy based on our own e,periences, and we can have some idea of it but not exactly.",
"No. This fits into the concept of [qualia]( URL_0 ), the undescribably subjective experiences at their most base level. Other examples of qualia include: * What color is green? * What do roses smell like? * How does mourning feel? * How does happiness feel? * How does chocolate taste? * How does it feel to break a bone?",
"Depends on what you mean by \"truly\". If you mean \"can we feel their pain just as they do\", then the answer would obviously be no, because then we would *be* the person feeling the pain, not ourselves. But we do approximate our experiences to the other. It's not some trivial thing, it's vitally connected to our very being. Ever since birth, you have interacted with the world and the world has shown you your emotional states by reflecting them back to you. So in reality, your inner experiences are entangled in the world. This is, on a general, birds-eye level, why we have the capacity to relate to others' pain.",
"Of course not, we can only know our own experience. Healthcare professionals have a very difficult role when treating pain--even if/when they may *suspect* someone is not in as much pain as he or she states, it's really better to err on the side of caution (do what is possible, ethical, and safe to reduce the expressed pain), because we just don't know."
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5r8n1g | How do pornsites check if the girl or boy in the video is 18 or above? | I've always been wondering | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Under US law, primary and secondary producers of pornography have to comply with a number of record keeping regulatory requirements. More specifically, they must maintain records of every performer's legal name(s) (past and present), nicknames (past and present), date of birth, government-issued photo ID (scan/copy), a copy of all the pornographic photos/videos featuring the performer, detailed records concerning the date those materials were created/produced and published, etc. Alternatively, the production company can hire a third-party (a \"custodian\" of records) to maintain copies of these records and performers' IDs instead. As I indicated before, US law only requires primary and secondary producers to maintain these records. A primary producer is basically someone directly involved in creating/producing the pornographic material. A secondary producer is like a commercial distributor of the pornographic material. However, a website—such as reddit—which merely allows users to upload/post their own pornographic material is not considered a primary or secondary producer. Thus, such websites are not legally obligated to comply with the record-keeping regulations for pornographic material. However, if the website knowingly hosts pornographic content which they know or suspect may feature minors without verifying the age of the people involved, the website could be held liable for facilitating the distribution of illegal pornography. For this reason, many sites will either request ID or simply remove content from users in cases where the age of the person featured in the material is unknown or suspect."
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5r8q2f | Why is the g string on a guitar the one that tends to go out tune the most. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I've always assumed it was because of a couple things - The g string has some pretty crucial notes in open chords. In an E major chord it's the third (so even if your guitar is tuned perfectly it would be a little sharp) and in an A major chord it'd have an octave (and out-of-tune octaves are particularly noticeable). In a G major chord it's the same problem - octaves. I'm sure there are some physical reasons that I don't know about, but I think that an out-of-tune G string would just be more noticeable than other strings. -- In addition, on most electric guitars, it's the lowest string that isn't wound. It requires the least amount of change in tension to change pitch. That would probably be the biggest reason. To further explain - imagine putting a new string on your guitar. If you pluck the string as you're just tightening it, the first few turns change the pitch a lot more than the last few turns - it's because of some physics I don't really understand, but in short the same change in string tension will drop the pitch of the G string more than the E string."
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5r8vly | Can a mall cop arrest me if I'm in a store that's not in the mall? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"I don't think mall cops can arrest, period. They're pretty much a liaison between the mall and the police. They're urged not to chase perpetrators and can even lose their job for doing so; reason 1 being it's dangerous and reason 2 is legal implications. If they're chasing a person across the street, and that person gets hit by a car, expect lawyers to get involved.",
"Technically... Yes. What the mall cop is doing is called a \"citizen's arrest.\" If you witness someone committing a crime, you are allowed to detain them until a police officer arrives. The detaining citizen can also use reasonable force to do so. In general, the courts grant broad authority to business owners to protect their property. But as a practically matter... They probably won't. A citizen's arrest can be legally risky because a citizen does not have the same protections as a police officer. If a cop arrests the wrong person, they are not normally subject to sanctions for it unless they were grossly negligent or malicious. If a citizen arrests the wrong person, they can be sued for \"unlawful detention.\" Not to mention, if they are outside of their place of business they probably won't be covered by their employer's insurance, etc. TLDR: Yes, because any citizen (mall cops included) has the power to detain criminals. But they probably won't, because it is risky and not worth it.",
"Is she getting her car worked on? You know on lunch or after her shift? Since its a Walmart automotive?"
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5r8y0r | What's the difference between wisdom and intelligence? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"“Knowledge (intelligence) is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” ― Miles Kington",
"Intelligence is a measure of our ability to learn concepts and make observations about our physical environment. Wisdom is one's capacity to make the right decisions based on past experience. It is more of a learnt gut feeling.",
"In my opinion, wisdom is knowledge gained overtime whereas intelligence is your current state of thinking, reasoning, and action.",
"I've always looked at it as -- Intelligence is the capacity to learn. Wisdom is the ability to put what you have learned to practical use.",
"Intelligence is useful for Knowledge checks, having more skill points, and prepared arcane casting. Wisdom helps you with spot/listen checks, sense motive, Will Saves, and non-spontaneous divine casting."
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5r98sh | If phone numbers are public record why can't they be reverse searched? | I get so many calls on a weekly basis by numbers I don't know, some local, some across the country. When there are phone books with addresses and phone numbers, why do they charge to find out who's actually calling you? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"> why do they charge to find out who's actually calling you? Because they *aren't* public record, so those companies need to buy the data from somewhere. Granted, most land lines will appear in the white pages/directories, but those you obviously do not need to pay to get info (just go on the whitepages website). URL_0 literally has a section that says \"reverse phone lookup\"."
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5r9by3 | why should one 'never start a land war in Asia?' | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Because Asia is enormous and wars are won on logistics more than anything else. \"An army crawls on its belly\" right? Maintaining a supply line 1000 miles deep into enemy territory is a disastrous proposition."
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5r9el0 | If military service in the US could be represented in hourly wages, how much would the different ranks be paid? | Economics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"There's absolutely no way to calculate this. Everyone in the military works a different amount of hours. Some will put in 24 hours in one day while others maybe do literally nothing and still get paid for it. Some start at 4 in the morning. Some start at 4 in the afternoon. Going on deployment means working 24 hrs a day every day. You're given \"days off\" that can easily be canceled for whatever reason. Remember, bad guys don't stop shooting at you during your \"day off\". The reason I'm mentioning all of this is because you CAN'T calculate a $/hr ratio because hours are never ever set. Pay grades are what we use. [These are public record]( URL_0 ) and can be viewed by anyone. Pay grade determines how much you make every month, regardless of hours put in. It's like a salary and it's calculated by your rank and by your time in the service. Officers make more than warrant officers. Warrants make more than NCOs/enlisted. If you want to know how much someone makes, take their monthly pay times 12 and then divide by 8760 (hours in a year). That's how much they make an hour every day. Edit: Before I got out (I only stayed in for 11 years) I was offered my E6. Had I taken it, I would have been making $4.77/hr every hour of every day of the year ($41,760/yr). Edit: Hey guys! How does this work? \\*Gives full explanation\\* Cool! Thanks! Have a down vote! Edit 2: Glad that grumpy people are gone and the level headed people are here. I appreciate just being above 0. :P"
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5r9goo | What do terrorists want? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"What terrorists want depends largely on the group, there are a lot of different motiviations. ISIS, the latest big name in fanaticism, is at it's core a doomsday cult. They believe they know the time & the place of the apocalypse and the ultimate showdown between good and evil: The place is an otherwise-unexciting town in Syria, the time is \"really soon\" ... and of course the good is them and the evil is whichever western power they can goad into a battle there. As for what the *leaders* believe it's hard to truly tell, but it's suspected they're as adamant about it as the foot soldiers. Al Queda actually asked ISIS *to tone it down* at one point, (they did not) because Al Queda wants to establish an ultra-conservative (but stable) environment and that's a little tough when ISIS is trying to **literally** blow everything to kingdom come.",
"They want to create outrage. The reason is simple. They want to create hate between Muslims and Christians, so that moderate Muslims will become angry enough to join them. This is what Bin Laden himself said. His goal was not to conquer the US, but Saudi Arabia, and to do this he needed Arabs on his side. He wanted them angry enough to throw the Americans out. ISIS is doing the same to create their \"Caliphate\" (Iraq, Syria, etc). That's why ISIS said thank you to Trump for his EO. It's exactly what they want.",
"Terrorism is the use of violence against the innocent to obtain political gain. So, what do they want? Political gain. How do they get it? By making people so afraid that they give concessions or change their behavior.",
"Depends on the group, but current Muslim terror organizations generally fall into doomsday cults, anti-Western, or caliphate groups. They want to destroy western civilization and/or establish an Islamic kingdom that would rule the world forever. This is a more literalist interpretation of the Koran",
"The terrorists want a reaction. In the case of Osama Bin Laden and 9/11, he knew he could never fight the Americans on a normal battlefield. So instead, Terror. Now, the idea was less about killing the people who died on that tragic day; and more about how the country reacted. As a whole, the Americans promptly gave up many of their civil rights, and proceeded to engage in several unwinnable wars at great cost in both money/resources and political capital. Americans and the world are both worse off having done so, and in that way, it's arguable that Osama got exactly what he wanted.",
"> I think the terrorists, the ones that explode themselves and the ones that, let's say, are on the field truly believe that they are taking part in God's plan and that's it. Well, that's almost certainly mistaken. Terrorists are people from various backgrounds, with probably ambivalent motives, putting themselves in situations they might not have wanted to be in, etc. They are likely also struggling with identity, a struggle with which terrorist networks provides [in complex ways]( URL_0 )."
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5r9jsb | Since smartphones are basically tiny computers, why aren't people assembling their own phones like we do for computers? | Is it just a matter of everything being too small, and the parts being too specialized? Don't most phones have similar processors and chips etc? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"you got it. same is true of laptops and AIO^*edit PCs. to gain the nescessary density, the components are uniquely designed to shoehorn together into the specially sized case. all of the bones of a phone are proprietary. Even modular parts like sensors and memory chips are largely soldered in place because slots and ports take too much space.",
"People have been hooking up telephone modems to computers for many decades, and that's all that makes a \"smartphone.\" But the trouble is that people want them to be very small and, like laptops, they have to fit a particular form factor. These design requirements make it harder to keep components accessible, and manufacturers have no real incentive to do so. This makes it a lot harder to assemble your own smartphone compared to a desktop computer with a modem. And accordingly, because most people have neither the desire nor skill to do so, there is large consumer market for the components in the way there is for desktops."
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5r9ku9 | Can the US president be impeached? And if so, under what grounds? | I have watched the TV series 24, and IIRC there was something called the 25th amendment (or something like that, can't remember exactly what it was) that they used to remove the president from office. In the show, they used majority vote of the cabinet members to decide the outcome of the impeachment. But it seemed that the process of impeachment could be initiated by one cabinet member, if he or she thinks the president has gone bat shit crazy. Does such a thing actually exist within US law? And if it does, what would the president have to do, for someone to invoke this law/amendment? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Article II, Section 4 allows for the impeachment of the president. It requires a majority of the house to impeach him, and a 2/3s majority in the Senate to remove him from office. This removal is permanent. The 25th amendment allows for the vice president and the cabinet, or the president himself, to declare the president to be unfit for office. This can be temporary or permanent. The only time it has happened were twice during the Bush Adminstration, when Bush needed to go under anesthesia for a colonoscopy. Bush declared himself unfit, went under anesthesia, woke up, then declared himself to be fit again. EDIT: The reason that this was added to the Constitution is because in 1919 Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke and spent the last two years of his administration as an invalid while his second wife ran the country."
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5r9ojc | How are vocals removed from songs to make instrumentals? | Sometimes you can hear a little bit of the vocals still but how do they completely remove them without changing the rest of the sounds? | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
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"The vocals were never there in the first place. You're just hearing the instrumental track before the vocals were mixed in. The little bit of vocals you're hearing is because a mic for an instrument is picking it up. Technically, it *is* possible to take vocals out by mixing in just the vocal track at the same exact volume, and invert the phase of the waveform. This causes a cancelation in the wave, and you *almost* don't hear the vocal track anymore, which leaves the instrumental. You'll see this referred to as \"DIY a capella or instrumental.\" In most cases, if the a capella track is available from the studio, then more than likely the instrumental track is available from the studio, also. So you would rarely have a case where you need to do the DIY method for vocals. Edit: Explained better.",
"When songs are recorded professionally, every instruement and voice is usually recorded as a separate audio track, for easy editing. It's only combined into one when it's time to put it up for sale. In this case, you just remove the one track that's the vocalist and you're done. They usually leave backup vocals intact because it 'sounds empty' without em. When songs have vocals removed *after they've been released* (as in, by some random person editing the audio file that came off the CD or online music store), they have a few filtering options which work... okayish. When songs are originally created, different instruments are \"panned\" more to the left or right speaker, which gives you a nicer-sounding stereo experience. Usually however, they leave the main vocals right in the middle. By filtering out just the \"middle\" audio and leaving what was going more to the sides, they can cut the vocals. Kinda. Usually they miss stuff, and if the instruements aren't panned the way the filter expects it might cut something else."
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5r9ool | What exactly would it mean if we were to discover a 4th dimension? | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"There already is a fourth dimension - time. But I assume you mean spacial dimension, so what is a dimension? Well, it's just a direction to move in. A point is 0-dimensional, because nothing in the point can move. A line is 1-dimensional, because movement can occur along its length. A plane is 2-dimensional, because movement can occur forwards and backwards, and side-to-side. A volume is 3-dimensional, because movement can also occur up and down. Therefore, if there were a fourth spacial dimension, it would merely represent another direction that could be moved in. We can clearly see that at our level of the Universe, there are only three spacial dimensions, because we can move in three directions. Certain versions of string theory predict more dimension (10 or 11), but these are predicted to be \"wrapped up\" in a way that I cannot even begin to conceive of but its mathematically well-described, so we would not be able to see them at this scale.",
"We already have discovered the fourth dimension. It's time. We are helplessly moving forward through it at a constant rate."
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5r9x20 | Why almost everyone crosses their legs and why it feels so natural. | I think the natural part is my personal opinion but so many people do it without realizing too. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Women are trained to cross their legs because it's the only ladylike way to sit in a skirt. It's a learned behavior, but then so are chairs."
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5r9yj8 | Could a state seperate from the rest of the United States? | I saw a post on social media where they made a joke about several Western States joining Canada. Could a state seperate from the United States and if they did how hard would but be to join canada? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"text": [
"Yes and no. There is no \"I want to leave\" button that a state can push. However the only way to make a state stay when they don't want to is through force. Assuming the federal government does not want another civil war, they would have to simply let a state leave. That's pretty unlikely, most likely it would result in a small civil war. Assuming a state DID leave. They could simply ask Canada if they can join. Canada has no formal way of letting new provinces join the federation but it's not unheard of. Canada would decide if this is something that Canada would want to do and if it is they would impose conditions on the states. Likely LOTS of stuff within the states would change. In terms of difficulty. The states that were being talked about are generally California, Washington and Oregon, combined that's about 50 million people. Canada has a population of 35.6 million. The combined country would be 85 million with the former states being 58%. Canadians would be very concerned that they would not be allowing states to join Canada, but rather giving away Canada to the former states. As a result of those population imbalances, and many other issues, Canada would not likely look favorably on this kind of merger. In addition, while there would be some significant economic benefit, the shock of those states adopting Canadian policies on things like taxation would be a big fucking deal. Silicone valley would have problems with Canada's data privacy laws, California farmers would hate our minimum wages, Ya'll might love our healthcare but the doctors won't love their new paychecks. The new combined country would be heavily influenced by the former states. So many of those benefits that Canadians have enjoyed would likely be changed to conform to what the states currently have. Canadians would not like this.",
"Yes, a state can leave. If they can either convince the other 49 states to vote them out, or if they think they can defeat the other 49 states+federal military in battle. Because of these requirements, no they can't leave.",
"No, it was tried in the 1860s. Joining Canada is another whole question."
],
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5ra4f7 | Why did "they" change the name of the phenomenon from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change"? | The overall trend is one of warming, and it seems that changing to call it "Climate Change" has only served as a tool to support deniers claiming that the globe is not, in fact, warming. | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
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"Both terms have been out there for a long time. There is famously a 1997/1998 memo by a conservative strategist named Luntz that asked Republicans to start using \"climate change\" exclusively as a term, feeling that it was a less alarming term than \"global warming\". The public use of the term shifted soon afterwards, as politicians followed his advice.",
"\"Global warming\" and \"climate change\" are not the same thing. Instead, global warming is causing climate change. Global warming refers to how the earth's average temperature is increasing. Climate change refers to all the secondary effects that will be caused by the increase in heat. Climate change also refers to other things humans are doing that may effect the climate, such as releasing aerosols or deforesting. Global warming and climate change have always been used in the scientific literature. There wasn't some arbitrary switch at some point. If you look at Google Books, you can see that both terms were used at about the same rate until around 1995. I think the reason climate change has caught on more in popular culture is that people kept arguing that warming wasn't happening because there were huge blizzards or record lows during winter in some places. Warming focuses on a small (to human perception) increase in average temperature and loses sight of the fact that (1) there will be more extreme weather both in terms of hot and cold weather and (2) that the main issue isn't the temperature itself so much as all the secondary effects it causes.",
"Because people have trouble understanding \"global warming\" in the face of more extreme winters. That resulted in a fairly large number of people going \"lololololol sure wish there was warming lololol\" and similar nonsense. Climate Change is a bit more accurate, and remove the threat of someone who doesn't understand writing off the idea due to their lack of understanding.",
"u/TellahTheSage had a good answer. And just to supplement it [here]( URL_0 is the use of the two terms in books from 1970 onward. Although global warming was used more frequently in the '90s overall both terms have been in use concurrently for decades.",
"It is largely because people are idiots when it come to statistics and probability. How many times have you seen some dumbass say \"Snow in late April? So much for global warming!\", actually thinking they are clever? Climate is complex. The general trend might be warming, but individual places might not get warmer. And warming won't be the only effect, more rain, less rain, more storms all of these things might also happen. Climate change is both a more accurate term, and a more practical one."
],
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"https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=global+warming%2C+climate+change&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1970&year_end=2017&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cglobal%20warming%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bglobal%20warming%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BGlobal%20Warming%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BGlobal%20warming%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BGLOBAL%20WARMING%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cclimate%20change%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bclimate%20change%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BClimate%20Change%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BClimate%20change%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BCLIMATE%"
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5ra4hw | Why do our leg joints have knee caps but our arm joints don't have elbow caps? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5l2j9",
"dd5m7sh"
],
"text": [
"Legs tend to be load bearing when they're straight. Arms tend to be load bearing when they're bent. Straight legs and elbows can \"lock\" in place, making them more damageable. Damageable, load-bearing things need more support that damageable non-load-bearing things. The knee provides that support.",
"It simply increases the amount of force that can be applied to the tendons that extend your legs via leverage as well as preventing wear on the tendon itself. It's hard to describe the increase in leverage via text, but [this image]( URL_0 ) does a decent job of helping visualize things."
],
"score": [
14,
3
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[],
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"https://www.google.com/search?q=knee+cap+leverage&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL2Y6VjO3RAhXjqFQKHXboBNwQ_AUICCgB&biw=1334&bih=425#imgrc=7vozinoUtZkT_M%3A"
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|
5ra9vr | Why, in statistics, would you ever want to represent data with the median as opposed to the average? | Wouldn't the average do a better job at taking in the big picture? Like if you had a median of 5 but then all the other numbers were below 2 or above 10, wouldn't this be inaccurate and misleading? | Mathematics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5mlfq"
],
"text": [
"Median is often a better picture. Imagine you have 5 company employees with the following salaries: - Jr. Accountant - $40k - Marketing Mgr - $50k - IT Helpdesk - $52k - HR Mgr - $60k - CEO - $500k Which is the better idea of overall income expectations for a job at the company? Average is $140k, while median is $52k. Or imagine that a town has 5 houses that sell for : $225k, 240k, $300k, $310k, $600k. Average is $335k, while median is $300k... not as extreme as the first example, but still only 1 of 5 houses cost more than the average while 4 are below. If you were trying to determine what towns you could afford, wouldn't knowing that 1/2 cost more than X and 1/2 cost less than X be a more useful tool to gauge affordability?"
],
"score": [
8
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"text_urls": [
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} | [
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"url"
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5rabbx | Why is activated charcoal safe to ingest while burnt grilled parts cancerous? | Chemistry | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5o88n"
],
"text": [
"Activated Charcoal or Activated Carbon is nothing but Carbon that has lots of space in it to allow gas or fluid to pass through. This nonsense that has yet to be proved about over cooked food or burnt food is actually a different chemical. If you think of food it is not just straight carbon but is actually very complex molecules. So when it is heated to a high temperature these molecules turn into something else. Not pure carbon. It is said that burnt food contains Acrylamides. I used to be a genetic engineer and we dealt with lots of nasty chemicals in the lab. One of the scariest was Acrylamide and I think this is what all the news is about. They have found small trace levels of Acrylamide on the burnt bits and so are concerned. But there is no proven link. If you smoke and eat burnt food. Cut out the cigarettes as the level of risk from the burnt food is negligible. Even drinking alcohol will be worse."
],
"score": [
4
],
"text_urls": [
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|
5rac4j | How would the world be different environmentally if the world was flat? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5oese",
"dd5noam",
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"text": [
"If the earth was flat, we would only be able to live near the center. The outer radius will basically be like a tall mountain one could never climb.",
"This would be nearly impossible to tell because a flat planet couldn't exist. So you'd also have to account for the new physics that would allow for a flat planet.",
"while obviously lots of things would be different, I think the most obvious one would be gravity: if you're in the middle of the disk you would be slightly heavier than near the borders. Also: on the borders gravity wouldn't only pull you down to the ground but but also towards the center of the disk. but such a shape would not exist for long. rotation, gravity and the atmosphere would lead to it bulging more in the center while there'd be abrasions on the borders eventually leading to a somewhat circular shape (probably more like an American Football or so for a while)"
],
"score": [
3,
3,
3
],
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|
5raihy | Why after waking up from a well rested nights sleep do people experience decreased grip strength or muscle fatigue in their hands? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5ojgo"
],
"text": [
"There are two major reasons. Sleeping reduces your heart rate, breathing rate. This contributes to less oxygen in your blood and around your muscles (since you don't need it). So when you wake up, when you want to do something that requires strength, your muscles don't have the oxygen required to operate at full power. The second reason is that your brain releases a hormone that basically paralyzes you. That's so when you dream or whatever, you don't flip out, punch your children, give away your position to predators, etc. When you first wake up you still have some of this hormone and it takes some time to get rid of it."
],
"score": [
9
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"text_urls": [
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} | [
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|
5rampi | How does the body lose fat? Where does the fat physically go after wing "burned" and transformed into energy. | Does it just pass through our digestive tract and leave with other waste? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5pc43",
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],
"text": [
"It's broken down into CO2 and water. You breathe the CO2 out. The water exits via urine, sweat, or water vapor in your breath.",
"The equation of most life is: sugar + O*_2_* = energy + H*_2_*O + CO*_2_* So fats are being converted to sugars, which are converted to water and carbon dioxide, which are exhaled."
],
"score": [
8,
3
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} | [
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5raqds | What makes something radioactive and what is radiation? | I've already tried searching, and i'm having a hard time understanding. Please help, and thanks! | Physics | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5qk7m"
],
"text": [
"Think of an atom as a knot. Some knots are harder to undo than others; some less. Some knots are bigger than others; some less. Something is radioactive if it is a knot that undoes itself randomly and turns into smaller knots. There are two ways in which this can hurt you. The smaller knots may be poison, and you didn't know they would show up because the poison was concealed in the knot. Or, radiation. Radiation is the tiny shockwave of undoing a knot. When there is a lot of radioactive material, there are a lot of knots undoing themselves. When a tiny shockwave hits you, you ripple like a speaker next to a glass of water. When too many tiny shockwaves hit you, it shakes parts of your body so much, they stop working correctly. We call this radiation poisoning."
],
"score": [
14
],
"text_urls": [
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} | [
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5rarbt | Why do our arms swing and sync up with our legs when walking? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5r1fb"
],
"text": [
"Balance. If they don't sync up, you're be much more likely to sway side to side when walking, which would be less efficient."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
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} | [
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|
5ravno | How come websites like Google and Amazon are never down "for maintenance?" | Technology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5s7wx",
"dd5s4ir",
"dd5rjuv",
"dd6o58w"
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"text": [
"Think of a big website like it's a house with an address: 200 Web Street. Everyone knows to go to 200 Web Street to get to, say, the Amazon family's house. The Amazon family's house is getting pretty worn out, though, and lots of things are broken. And the family wants to make some pretty major design changes. They need to build a new house, but they don't want to miss a friend coming to visit while they're putting up that new house. (They have friends coming by pretty non-stop! They're a popular family!) So they build a house down the block at 204 Web Street, and don't tell anyone about it. While that house is being built, everyone's still coming to 200 Web Street. Here's the secret: when the new house is built and the Amazon family is all moved in and ready for people to start visiting them at the new house, _they put the old house number on the new house!!!_ Now when all their friends visit 200 Web Street, they all show up at the new house, _not_ the old house. (See, their friends only know how to get to the house via an app -- kinda like being led by Google Maps in the car -- so they just go to whatever house has the right address. Silly friends!) Now that they're moved into the new house and all their friends are visiting them there, the Amazon family can tear down the old, broken house without missing any visits from their friends! Yay! The End",
"A friend of mine works for Facebook, and for a while she was on the team that handles their backup systems. They have \"transparent fail-over\" setups, if the main servers go down the backup ones can *immediately* kick in and users notice no difference. Facebook classifies their server incidents from Sev5 to Sev1, with Sev1 being the worst*, with \"the site doesn't work.\" Sev5-2 happen with varying regularity, but Sev1 is almost unheard of since the backup of the backup would have to break. They also, like almost all tech companies, use the \"testing, staging, production\" server setup. (Or an even fancier version I dunno all the secrets). Basically, this is when there's three versions of your website. The public can only access production. Testing is where you build and test, of course. Staging and Production shoudl ALMOST always be identical. You put your \"this should work\" code on Staging first, test it like crazy, then copy-paste over to Production so you can be sure it's identical and functional. \\* = there was an incident referred to as \"Sev 0, we broke the entire internet\" jokingly, but that's another story",
"Because they have thousands of servers and the content you receive is served by the ones that are \"up\". If they need to do maintenance somewhere they have infrastructure to replace it before taking it down.",
"If you're careful enough and have enough machines you can just do maintenance on some of the machines while others are running."
],
"score": [
344,
15,
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|
5rbhcb | Why are many members of Congress (US) so rich? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd5x2wn",
"dd5wuqr",
"dd5yf2h"
],
"text": [
"because the campaigns to get elected are expensive, it is a job with not much job security, not the highest income but high prestige. so it attracts people that have more money than they need and look for other forms of power/attention.",
"Because rich people are the ones with enough money to spend years trying to get a job that pays (for them) so little.",
"It can take 10-20 years of lower level elected positions before you reach the US congress. Most don't pay very well, a state rep might make $35K a year, some a lot less. On top of that, if you lose an election, you might spend a year or two before you find another elected position. And there is a good chance you'll have to put up some of your own money to get elected at first. For everyone who goes through all of this and makes it to congress, there are probably ten who fail. This makes for a fairly uncertain career path for someone who needs a job to pay the rent and put their kids through college. You either need a good fallback plan, like being rich, or be very, very committed."
],
"score": [
16,
6,
3
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5rbx4l | Why do people have to wait an entire year after receiving a tattoo before they are eligible to donate blood? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dd60oax",
"dd61dec"
],
"text": [
"Tattoos are a great way to come into contact with other peoples blood if everything isn't done perfectly. Waiting a year just makes sure that if you did catch something like HIV, the symptoms would show and now you wouldn't be donating tainted blood.",
"If you come into contact with a blood-bourne disease you can often be infectious, and have no signs or symptoms of being infected. In addition, diagnostic tests will often not be able to immediately detect if a person is infected or not. Many diagnostic tests require seroconversion to occur- this often takes weeks but in rare cases can take months to occur. I would suspect that the year wait is more of a precautionary measure to make sure if a person is infected with a serious blood-bourne disease, than it will be detectable with diagnostic tests!"
],
"score": [
5,
3
],
"text_urls": [
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} | [
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|
73ijaa | How did medical care become standardized? | It seemed like just 100 years ago, doctors were still going door-to-door diagnosing hysteria on women and not washing their hands. Now we have this complicated system with medical schools and residencies that are consistent across the whole country and everyone learns the same thing. How did that all get standardized within just a few generations? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnql7sj"
],
"text": [
"Many, many smart inventions. I'm not a history geek, so I'm unsure about the specifics, but the conventional microscope was only created in the last hundred - two hundred years. From this, people discovered bacteria, viruses, amoebas, cells, and how each related. This spawned vaccinations to stop smallpox and rubella, as well as people finding out microorganisms survive on skin, and can be contagious. Drugs, sanitisation, supplements; all of these things exist because of the microscope. While it'd be stupid to attribute every breakthrough in modern medicine to the microscope, it truly was the straw that broke the camel's back - or cured it, in this case."
],
"score": [
3
],
"text_urls": [
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} | [
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73imxy | Why do ancient computers deal with astronomy? | As a computer scientist, I often come across facts about ancient analog "computers": the Antikythera mechanism, astrolabes, etc. Why were the topics of astronomy and astrology of such interest as to warrant making these relatively complex tools? | Other | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnqkgm3",
"dnqkinj",
"dnqmpuv"
],
"text": [
"They're useful for religious ceremonies, many were timed by the planets and seasons. Almost everyone had a festival for the winter solstice They're useful for seasons, they can tell you things like \"when the sun rises between those two big rocks then spring is upon you and you should plant next week\" They're useful for navigation at night. If you know that you need to sail east and your tools tell you that Venus will be visible in the east at sunset tonight then your navigator just has to sail towards Venus tonight",
"Ancient people were very interested in the sky. It provided a way to navigate over long distance, and to accurately measure time. It was also important for religious reasons, and happenings in the cosmos often had religious connotations for ancient stargazers.",
"The astrolabe is an astronomical instrument as much as it is an analogue computer. It had many practical uses, most obviously in navigation. The Antikythera mechanism is, as far as we know, a one-of-a-kind object and may have been the plaything of a scientist or his rich benefactor rather than of practical use."
],
"score": [
8,
4,
3
],
"text_urls": [
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} | [
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73itt9 | Cumshot | Why is it that sometimes it shoots out but other times it just dribbles out? What affects it? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnqooh0"
],
"text": [
"On average, guys ejaculate about 1 teaspoon-worth of semen in one ejaculation - about 5 mL - which is not a large amount. The amount (volume) of ejaculate will be a little more if it's been awhile since you ejaculated and less if you ejaculated recently. A man's body is constantly producing sperm and storing it up for ejaculation. This gets mixed with fluid produced by the seminal vesicles and prostate. Apart from frequency of ejaculation, the amount of time spent in sexual activity and the amount of arousal can also affect the volume of ejaculate. The longer the build-up, arousal, and direct stimulation prior to ejaculation, the more volume of fluid can be produced to mix with sperm for ejaculation. Some men also have noticed that this increase in ejaculate volume with longer stimulation also produces a waterier semen because of the increased fluid to sperm ratio. So it stands to reason that if you are dehydrated, your volume will probably be less. Other factors that affect it are getting proper amounts of zinc in your diet, getting good sleep, stress levels and your frequency of ejaculation. Genetic factors and age also play a part, but those are not under your control. Strengthening your PC muscles can produce stronger contractions on orgasm and help push out more fluid."
],
"score": [
101
],
"text_urls": [
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]
} | [
"url"
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] |
73ixa6 | What are the differences between the way kidneys and the liver work to clean/filter our blood? | Biology | explainlikeimfive | {
"a_id": [
"dnqnhxj"
],
"text": [
"The Kidney is a sorting machine, it sorts out good stuff from bad stuff that it finds as the blood flows through it. The Liver is a chemical reactor, that transforms lots of kinds of stuff into the specific bad stuff the Kidney sorts out. The Liver puts the modified stuff back into the blood, it's not connected to the outside world. The Kidney is indirectly connected to the outside world, so the bad stuff it sorts out goes completely out of the body."
],
"score": [
5
],
"text_urls": [
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} | [
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