This is my favorite, mainly because it’s been well argued by some respectable scientists.

Another is that we’re in a simulation, and aliens aren’t part of it. There are also some very good statistics pointing to the simulation theory, from just sheer scale.

Of course not. Aliens don’t use slavery.

Yeah, me neither. I’ve liked some horror genre stories, like Clive Barker’s Book(s?) of Blood, Rawhead Rex and all; but I wouldn’t say it was because it made me afraid.

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say a lot of people do, or else slasher flicks wouldn’t be so popular. Hell, some years it seems as if that’s the only genre of movies released.

But, I also loath the cringe inducing reality shows many people love; and I’m so very tired of every show having to be nonstop angst and tension: GoT was the pinnacle of this, and I absolutely hated it. Books and TV. Boardwalk Empire was so frustrating, because it so well written, acted, and produced, but I just can’t stand the unrelieved tension. Obviously, a took of people do, or else there’d be more diversity in media. It’s like, the one tool media writers know how to use, anymore.

I say all this because I wonder if there’s a correlation: what’s the overlap between people who don’t like being jump-scared or otherwise frightened and the people who don’t like watching people being made uncomfortable (a-la Borat); or constantly bickering (The Kardashians). I love action movies, and a good adventure sci-fi or fantasy, so I’m not adverse to conflict, but I won’t watch Breaking Bad because - while I’m aware it was an excellent series - I also know it’s going to be a non-stop angst-fest, like The Sopranos.

It’d be an interesting survey. Maybe a list of shows and movies with a simple “enjoy/don’t enjoy”, and secretly ranked by dominant emotional manipulation. Is it an endearing love story tinged with bittersweet? A slasher? A torture-tension (what’s Saw? Not a slasher). See how people are grouped.

I’m afraid you’ve angered me, Sir!

(I didn’t downvote you - it wasn’t me!)

Yeah. I think anything that passes time by giving you dopamine hits qualifies as a game. However, that wasn’t my point. I was saying, you declared a statement, and then when given counter-examples, declare they aren’t really games because they don’t meet your previously declared statement. It’s a logical fallacy.

I would argue those are not really games though.

You were doing well until the No Real Scotsman fallacy.

When I was in the Army, shaving was the bane of my existence. Well, shaving in the field was; I hated it so much. Never enough water, more shit to carry, winters are the worst because getting hot water is hard enough, and shaving with cold water sucks.

So, like OP, I found hair remover for men, and I’m like, “WTH why do men shave when we have this??”

The answer is: because these are all noxious chemicals, they feel like noxious chemicals, they smell like noxious chemicals, and they leave your skin raw and red. They really are only useful for guys for whom normal shaving is even worse, usually because of a tendency to ingrown hair problems from shaving. Or maybe there are guys with sandpaper skin; I don’t know. But there’s a reason why men (at least) still shave.

Someday maybe there will be a depilatory that’s as gentle as it is in sci-fi, but right now it’s just a caustic, irritating hot mess.

I really feel for OP. :-(

I know, right? Like, people are always saying “parallel” when they mean “concurrent!” “Hard drive” when it’s clearly an SSD. Dummies.

Scurvy?

Cottage cheese is not a significant source of vitamin C, and scurvy symptoms begin to appear between 1-3 months of vitamin C deficiency.

Good point, Mr(s) Reverse-Time-Lawyer!

As time goes by, you’ll forget more and more, until you lose the ability to speak, object permanence, your mother’s face, and the ability to focus your eyes - at all.

If there’s any part of you that’s aware of this process, it would be terrible. The worst part about having Alzheimer’s, my father-in-law once told me, was being aware that he used to be more; that he couldn’t remember things, but that he could remember once being able to remember them. I think it was a small blessing when he moved past that stage, and was merely angry and frightened at a world he just couldn’t understand anymore.

Wait… what were we taking about? Reverse-birth? You know, many civilizations didn’t consider children real people until they were a couple of years old. Before that, they were just dumb animals with some potential; perfectly legal to kill. An adult horse has more self-awareness than a 1 y/o. By the time the doctor’s shoving you back where you came from, you’re barely human anymore.

I can’t wait to see the angry downvotes on this one.

This. The League of Women Voters is really good at doing summaries about candidate positions. And while they obviously have an agenda, they tend to be pretty level-headed about their analyses, and avoid rhetoric.

So the answer to OP’s question is: it’s random, I assume with some filter for incompatibility.

Basic K12 biology didn’t go into deep details; OP is asking, I think, what decides which genes are combined. You can only get at most half of each from the parents - you don’t get all of each - so what exactly selects which genes from each are combined?

So, what: each individual sperm has half the father’s genes? Does each sperm have a different set, or are they all the same? What process in the father decides which genes make it into the half that goes into the sperm?

If the same process is happening in the egg, then same questions.

I didn’t realize I have the same question as OP, and I don’t think you answered it. The question is: how do the gene selections happen? What process decides?

Not every combination is being tried in the egg during fertilization, right? You describe the outcome, but not how the gene combination selection process happens, and what decides which genes are used.

Texas has Austin, Dallas, and oil. All three are things we’d like to keep; the first two are mainly dragged down by the rest of the state, and the rest of the US still needs the last, for now.

Snot on a finger? Ew.

My bowsrer also had sprl chek, i knoe exatcly what yoi me E n!

At least the “how” should be easy: drop Tsar Bomba down Old Faithful, and set off the Yellowstone caldera.