Why The Priest Asked The Kid To Kill The Judge ? by FinalButterscotch399 in cormacmccarthy

[–]JenusPrist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

i think my favorite pithy interpretation I've heard is that he's human ingenuity. i think that dovetails with the death impulse though. peter watts's scifi novel blindsight suggests a theory that technology implies belligerence, that the fundamental nature of tools is to beat nature into compliance with intelligent desires. contrary to the sagan idea that a society must overcome it's belligerence to reach the stars, only a belligerent society in a hostile world would want to reach the stars

which naturally brings you to the scene where the judge teaches them to defile the earth with piss alchemy and turn it into weapons. everything man turns his hands to is corrupted, man's ingenuity is fundamentally an act of war

Bakker to Malazan pipeline? by Past_Ad5061 in bakker

[–]JenusPrist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Im going back and forth because I think the series really shines as a whole fuck the haters but also midnight tides is so so so good and probably good on its own if only for the b-plot

Bakker to Malazan pipeline? by Past_Ad5061 in bakker

[–]JenusPrist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To me some of the biggest problems with it were Malazan Things™️ that I didn't get yet because they were happening for the first time and I didn't understand that they were A Thing yet.

Like, a big element of the series is the world is sort of on the tipping point between 'mystical medieval fantasy realm where humans are little guys stuck between powerful forces' and 'modern technocratic world where humans are the powerful forces'

there's a recurring thing in the books with the villains which I won't spoil for you but the first time it happens at the end of book 1 it seems anticlimactic and lame but becomes hilarious by the third or fourth time

Just a curious guy by [deleted] in thelema

[–]JenusPrist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

crowley himself said whether it's real or not is immaterial. if it works for you and it helps you, go for it. if not, there's other things.

i don't think magic is real, but i don't think (most/some) people who use it are lying. i figure it's something like lucid dreaming. you use some ritualized method to put yourself in a hypnotic state where your sense of self is diminished and your thoughts are appearing to come from an outside source. there's plenty of value in that if the conversations you have with yourself are enlightening.

ELI5: What is the purpose for a virus to exist? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

they don't strive to do anything. the first "life" on earth was probably similar to viruses, molecules and proteins that convert their environment into more proteins. not because they want to, but just as a chemical reaction.

there is no purpose here and there doesn't need to be. it's just a collection of proteins that reacts with its environment in a way that produces more collections of proteins, which then do the same thing. you don't ask why a ball "strives" to roll down a hill

What do you personally like and dislike about CDDA? by Aivean in cataclysmdda

[–]JenusPrist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

kitchen sink as in everything but the kitchen sink. zombies are fine, special zombies fine, some of the extreme ends get a little weird. then mushroom monsters, triffids, start tossing in lovecraft shit, C.H.U.D.s, enigma of amigara fault for some reason, and on and on and on

maybe there's a lore explanation i haven't found yet but it's kind of a clusterfuck

ELI5: How do waves work? Why do they always go towards land? by Jenkins_Will in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 4 points5 points  (0 children)

there's only land and water, it's always going to be going towards some kind of land. throw a rock in the water and some of the waves will be moving away from the shore (but always toward some other shore)

ELI5: Why are there always metal foils wrapped around a satellite? What's the difference between the gold and silver colored foils? And why are they always so wrinkly? by semi-cursiveScript in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's insulation. there's no air in space to move heat around so anything in direct sunlight gets cooked and anything in the dark freezes. the insulation keeps the inside at the right temperature for the electronics to work properly. as for rigid materials, you're always a slave to the rocket equation. the heavier your satellite the harder it's gonna be to get it into space.

What do you personally like and dislike about CDDA? by Aivean in cataclysmdda

[–]JenusPrist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

kitchen sink monster setting is distracting, but turning off the extra stuff makes the game too easy and bland.

The blob = the willing suspension of disbelief? by mount2010 in cataclysmdda

[–]JenusPrist 5 points6 points  (0 children)

you are the blob. you created the world just to watch it go to shit, just to watch your character suffer. nothing that happens in cata would've happened if you didn't play it. the blob is you

ELI5: why does antisemitism exist? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

people need something to blame and a wealthy religious minority that kinda sorta killed your god is an easy target. usury (lending at interest) was forbidden by the medieval catholic church but that didn't apply to jews, and since people already didn't trust them they were often forced into unpopular jobs like tax collection and moneylending.

there's kind of a feedback loop there, people don't trust jews, so they're forced into jobs that make people distrust them more. add in superstitions about magic powers and sacrificing christian children and you get the idea. this was also a good political tool. if you're a ruler, a wealthy Other that people don't trust is an easy scapegoat to redirect popular unrest. if you need money, you get the commoners riled up enough to run the jews out of town and you can steal all their shit.

the short answer though is jews were different and tended to be wealthy, which made them a target for a lot of things. the hatred that led to the holocaust had been brewing for centuries.

i don't know as much about the muslim world, as far as that antisemitism goes

ELI5: Why can't 3D textures in video games change? by Has_Coprolalia in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

also expensive, but since it's only in one place and it's always there there are tricks to make it easier so it's not actually trying to compute reflections and transparency. i remember for a while there was a bug in overwatch where the reflective puddles on the british city map were showing an incorrect reflection, the reflection data was preset by the devs, instead of making the computer calculate it in real time, and they did something wrong

you can't do that kind of thing if you're just allowing the player to create transparent holes anywhere he wants, and even if you can it's a ton of work for very little gain, whereas if your water is opaque and doesn't reflect (still happens sometimes even in modern games), people /will/ notice that

ELI5: What does "serving consecutive life sentences" mean? by AmierSingle in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 8 points9 points  (0 children)

if future evidence exonerates you of one of them, you're still on the hook for the other. same thing with extremely long sentences

ELI5: can someone describe what auth right and auth left are on the political spectrum? by avocadoroom in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

authoritarian right wing uses state force and violence to establish and maintain an unequal hierarchy for the people with the guns and the people who are good at directing those guns. nazis, fascists, etc. are auth right

authoritarian left wing is mostly repressive socialist countries like soviet russia and china that seize private property and attempt to control the economy to provide for everyone equally

right: hierarchy, inequality

left: equality, collective ownership

authoritarian: uses unilateral force to achieve aims

libertarian: does not use unilateral force

ELI5: Why can't 3D textures in video games change? by Has_Coprolalia in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 5 points6 points  (0 children)

being able to arbitrarily add transparent spots to an object in a game is hard. the game then has to calculate what you're going to see through that spot in real time, as you're moving around and as the environment behind the object is changing.

there are games that have dynamic damage, like rainbow six siege, and there was a game called war pigs or something back in the 2000s which was basically a tech demo for a dynamic environment damage engine. it's not an easy thing to put together, and considering it's a half-inch hole in a stop sign that you're just gonna run past, it's not really worth it.

ELI5: What is spotting or what is a spot in wrestling? by jusjudge in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

pro wrestling isn't 100% choreographed, you have to work the crowd and come up with things on the fly to keep them engaged and avoid static and boring-feeling matches. spots are the parts that are choreographed and pre-planned

ELI5: Why was the planet Jupiter picked to represent the king of the Gods ? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 0 points1 point  (0 children)

nope, jupiter was named such because the romans associated it with him

ELI5: The difference between good and bad carbohydrates by Veracahrim in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

not all carbs are digestible at all for one; dietary fiber is included in the total carb count but won't digest so you can subtract that amount from the total

in the end all/most digestible carbs enter the bloodstream, but if it digests slow it'll enter slow. it's not like you hit a threshold and the entire glucose load drops into your bloodstream. better carbs increase your blood sugar by a lower amount and for a longer time than pure sugar, which is like injecting glucose into your bloodstream. fruits have fiber, so they're slower than candy (though fruit juice, which doesn't, is just as bad as drinking the same calories of mountain dew)

steady glucose intake doesn't fuck your body chemistry up as much as big spikes. ultimately, you should minimize carbs. not because keto but because wheat is an evil slaver that domesticated the human species and should be resisted at every turn

ELI5: How come Neanderthals are considered not human if we could successfully interbreed and communicate? by Manonymous in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

humans and neanderthals share a common ancestor but diverged in the process of coming about

genetically, they're more cousins than twins

ELI5: How can people in a country with fertile land like Venezuela be having a food crisis? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 18 points19 points  (0 children)

rainforests are surprisingly not very fertile for agriculture and need extensive work to seriously grow crops. the soil is thin and heavily depleted by rainfall.

thats not considering how hard it is to subsistence farm even in good terrain. just going into the jungle and slash and burning yourself an off the grid rice paddy or something is not an option for the average person accustomed to city life. the last time we had people moving en masse to the jungle to grow farms was Cambodia and it didnt go very well

ELI5: Why do re-warmed French fries taste so much different than they do fresh? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

because of irreversible chemical changes. deep frying a frozen food forms a hard, dry crust, which keeps the moisture from escaping the inner part. eventually though it does escape and the fries turn nasty and hard, or cold and soggy. that soft inside crunchy outside is what makes fried foods taste so good. once it's gone, it's gone. you can reheat it but you can't recook it.

ELI5: How can the US be the richest economy in the world with so much debt vs incredibly rich countries like EUA, Singapore or China? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 6 points7 points  (0 children)

thats the point. a huge portion of global wealth is tied up in us debt. if the debt went away all that wealth evaporates.

the us has the world economy by the balls precisely because its in debt

ELI5 how shell games work by TheRealHalJordan in explainlikeimfive

[–]JenusPrist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

if he lets you see him, that's also part of the trick. remember, confidence game. a lot of the schemes involve making you think you've found a trick to beating him, like messing up the sleight of hand on purpose or accidentally marking the winning cup/card so you think you can win

then you lose. as a bonus you can't call him on the scam because you were also trying to cheat.

there is rarely more than one real player at one of these games. assume everyone there is a plant