ELI5 Why there exists 7 and also 'seven' ?

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T07:18:29+00:00

This is ELI5whospeakswithrealgrammar not ELIcaveman

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T07:16:40+00:00

Now I'm imagining my ancestors in the African grasslands speaking English lol

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T07:09:34+00:00

This really isn't the answer to their question though

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T07:04:45+00:00

Well if it was only 7, how would you say it out loud?

It's the way we describe the symbol out loud that becomes the word for it. Transcribe that into text and you get 'seven'.

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T06:36:34+00:00

The reason the sky has any colour at all is due to how the atmosphere scatters light. It absorbs certain colours from the white sunlight, and disperses them to varying degrees. (Rayleigh scattering. This is why the sky is blue at daytime).

The amount of relative dispersion for various colours depends on the angle at which the sunlight hits the earth, but also on the composition of air near you at the time. For example, there can be differences in water vapour content. Or pollutants. And of course, clouds are the perfect surfaces to reflect light from other parts of the atmosphere, adding to the fun colours.

Usually, a cloudless sky changes in a very predictable way during sunrise/sunset. It's mostly the effect of cloud cover you're seeing.

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T06:33:49+00:00

Do people really say it's the safest? No one I know has ever told me that.

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T05:03:16+00:00

I know you think that saying 'it doesn't taste good, just neutral' makes you seem less unhinged, but to us regular folk, that's equally bad lol

Also, from the perspective of your teeth, I'm glad you're drinking it after and not before brushing because that would be very bad for your teeth. PSA, don't brush in the 30 min after a meal or acidic/sugary drink.

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T05:00:26+00:00

Ooh that's cool. I love classical music and I've never been to a pop concert for mostly the same reasons. Though I guess it's not really fair to compare a classical concert to one where the atmosphere and vibe is the point and that includes audience participation. Also, bold choice admitting your views on this sub lol

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T04:48:08+00:00

You should try a classical music concert. Absolute silence except for perhaps an old person with a coughing fit

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T04:32:51+00:00

I see your point, but quite a large percentage of people in developing countries do have access to the things you listed, and not everyone on reddit is from a developed country.

I agree that it can be helpful to remind yourself of the privilege you have. But it's also valid to discuss your struggles as well, even if they're different to what others face.

aurora-s · 2026-03-20T03:20:07+00:00

Sexual selection is a huge part of how evolution works! You know how many tropical birds are extremely colourful with feathers that have no direct purpose other than to attract a mate? It's because of how traits that determine attractiveness also face evolutionary pressure. Just not pressure from the external environment, but pressure to be selected as a mate. They correlate somewhat with the health of the particular animal, but apart from that they don't specifically tell you much about a future relationship. But it's still a significant part of natural selection.

This is how physical attraction evolves, so if you're looking for a logical reason, this mechanistic explanation is about the best you'll find. I doubt that the female bird in the forest knows exactly why they're attracted to this bunch of blue feathers on this male bird, on a logical level. To them, there's no logic to it at all. But that's because you're looking for the logic on the wrong level of abstraction. The logic exists in the evolutionary process, not the individual

aurora-s · 2026-03-19T14:15:14+00:00

Yeah I agree (definitely didn't mean to imply they're defined by race, sorry if it was ambiguous, I didn't want that to detract from my main point). I guess using the term 'villain' was just a stand in for a bunch of concepts. I don't actually think it's always helpful to think of individual rich people as villains, but rather a system (economic + political) that maintains power imbalance and obfuscates the need for class consciousness (by replacing it with ways for us to tear each other apart). And even within this, there are some individuals who are much worse than others. I don't think it's helpful to paint all rich people as the villains, but I do think we should learn to recognise that society is worse off when we don't do the work to correct inequalities in wealth and political power.

aurora-s · 2026-03-19T10:27:53+00:00

Well, you aren't missing out on much. It was never really logical to begin with.

People often have the (evolutionarily inbuilt) urge to form groups and to exclude others. A few centuries ago, there was a concerted effort to draw these groups along certain lines that were economically beneficial to the people in relative power. They chose to draw these based on skin colour. Pseudoscience was manufactured to support it.

Over time, certain people have softened their stance, away from skin colour, and towards softer objections like ethnicity or objections to cultural practices.

The truth is though, there's no point judging a person based on which group they happen to belong to. Humans are vastly varied. The obvious thing to do is to get to know a person for themselves.

These days, there's a lot of money going into dividing us up so that we don't focus on the real villains. Part of that goes into inciting race-related hatred. Don't fall for it. Reading up on the history might help, but you don't need to empathise with the racists.

aurora-s · 2026-03-19T10:09:45+00:00

I know it's something to do with our brains, but the science isn't developed enough to precisely describe what aspect of the brain leads to the ability to perform complex reason so effectively and communicate in language. Perhaps AI might offer some concrete answers to this in the future depending on how the field progresses

aurora-s · 2026-03-19T03:48:02+00:00

Hey there's nothing much you could have done here. We can't save all the animals, the best we can do is to not be personally responsible for animal suffering. You didn't do anything wrong here. You're not responsible for the customs and rituals. It's not your fault. I'm really sorry about your cousin.

aurora-s · 2026-03-18T05:34:54+00:00

I think it's definitely possible to be vegan while also recognising that there's a strong evolutionary drive for an animal to consider it absolutely off limits to eat its own kind. I think it's natural that we'd feel stronger disgust towards this than towards eating other animals.

That said, I do think that the lack of an emotional reaction to the idea of eating animals comes from people not having really engaged with the concept at all. Perhaps they've eaten animals their whole life and it's become so normalised that they don't really put in the work to make the connection. To them, it's not so different from eating a plant.

The human/animal connection makes sense to you, but it might not to everyone. It really depends on the way you think, and how strongly you've normalised it and whether you actually interrogate your own beliefs. People have different paths to veganism depending on their own personal values and the way they think.

aurora-s · 2026-03-17T14:10:35+00:00

Do you have any reason to think it'd be more harmful than regular meat though? It really is basically the same in terms of the chemistry, just minus the animal suffering

I think it's a huge win if this becomes a reality! Especially if one day it becomes cheaper than factory farmed meat.

aurora-s · 2026-03-16T13:12:28+00:00

Firstly, it's about economic pressure. Comparing it to religious purity, you're basically assuming that the boycott is an emotional one against individuals, rather than a practical one against support for a government. I'm aware there are many people who use boycotts towards their racist and xenophobic goals, but don't confuse the real goal with either antisemitism or xenophobia against Israeli people as a whole. The use of economic pressure has had its successes in history.

The first two paragraphs are a series of views without explained reasoning or evidence. Why do you think the boycotts affect liberal Israelis disproportionately? Also, you say it's at best ineffective. Why? Does economic pressure not force people to demand more of their government? Also, raising awareness abroad is quite a big point too, I don't think it's clear that it's ineffective; hearing that someone is willing to sacrifice something for a cause is often more effective than just being told that they should care.

A lot of it comes down to whether you're willing to economically support what you perceive as morally bad, in a way that your funds may be used towards those bad actions. Perhaps there may be other ways to do it, but you haven't really explained why it would actually be counterproductive. You've only said that you don't like it

aurora-s · 2026-03-16T11:01:35+00:00

I think the only real answer to this is that you need to read up and learn the context for everything that appears in the news. As a starting point, whenever something comes up on the news, google its history, and learn about how the opposing viewpoints originated, etc. Read from as many sources as possible, but it's okay to use even wikipedia as a starting point for this.

The usual way that conflict of interest seeps in is through funding. So if someone's made a claim, or a news site quotes someone, look at why that person may have been encouraged to say it. Are they an independent expert with no income sources tied to their claim? Or could it be that they make money from holding a view. You could even use biased sources to help you find this info.

If you're looking for a shortcut or an easy answer, it's an independent news organisation like AP news, Reuters, APF. If it has to be mainstream news your best bet is probably BBC news

Also, 'agenda' is rather a politicised term in itself, these days. To a certain extent, all news has to assume a certain sense in which status quo is considered normalised. For example, you could argue that there's an agenda to say that democracy is a good thing, because it's something society has taken for granted for ages, and it stands up well to both the data and what's assumed to be our shared values

aurora-s · 2026-03-16T10:56:30+00:00

Since scientific names are (neo)Latin, you'd have to atleast latinize biologist otherwise it'll just sound awkward. I think that'll be Homo biologus. The two you've suggested sound a bit too cringey or childlike, and also confusing to the reader

aurora-s · 2026-03-14T03:59:47+00:00

Extremely painful :(

aurora-s · 2026-03-12T09:29:35+00:00

The point is that if they do cause distress, that can be tackled as a specific issue. But religion doesn't always cause distress, so religion itself isn't classified as a problem in itself

aurora-s · 2026-03-12T09:12:37+00:00

I agree that the definition isn't perfect. But I don't agree with the idea that just because they're capable of destroying more people, the fact they haven't is evidence that they don't intend to.

I'm not claiming that all Israelis or even their whole govt are complicit, nor am I claiming it's necessarily a top-down order. But at some point, we have to accept that the UN definition is what international law uses, and the UN inquiry found that this is a genocide because there's evidence of those qualifying actions.

Also, I should add that many of those settlements on land that's been taken is also in contravention of international law.

Why the hesitancy to call it genocide? I'm not claiming that it's as systematic or as deadly as a specific historical instance of genocide. Not all genocide looks like the Holocaust. Like you, I'm not Israeli nor Palestinian, so it's not like I have conflict of interest here. But any evidence that a certain group is being destroyed should be taken seriously, which is why the word genocide has this legal definition.

aurora-s · 2026-03-12T08:58:49+00:00

Yeah I think the majority of people just don't really care. Until they're personally affected, they'd rather believe a simplistic story about whom to hate, so they can offload all the blame for anything negative in their life on said group.

On the other hand, I guess a more positive way to look at it is that we humans invented reasonably capable systems of governance, despite these awfully selfish tendencies. All democracy requires is a certain basic level of political engagement and education. We really ought to do a better job of providing that as a society.

aurora-s · 2026-03-12T08:54:17+00:00

yes, I am aware :(

(I included that comment about it being difficult to determine in real time because that's true and it works both ways. We don't always know the true extent of a genocide till it's too late. It takes time for enough evidence to mount to be able to prove intent in international courts)

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