"The Big Thread Of Curious Curiosities" or "Seil's Big Thread Of Questions"

[Seil]

Since there is so much Seil doesn't understand (Zim Moment) SO MUCH! I thought it prudent to make a thread to ask them. Feel free to ask a question, too! Let's see if they get answered:

What is wind and how is it... well, windy?
I smoke, and people tell me it's adictive. How are cyanide and all that crap that people tell me are in my smokes addictive?
Why is the sky blue?
Why are people aware of the suffering of others, but don't turn to foodbanks or communism or whatever we're supposed to turn to?
Why are human beings religious?
Why - when humans have no claws, teeth or speed - are we the dominant species?
Why do we kiss each other?
Why do we gamble? (Like, literally, Vegas and such.)

[Fenris]

What is wind and how is it... well, windy? - Air from high pressure systems moving into areas with low air pressure.

I smoke, and people tell me it's adictive. How are cyanide and all that crap that people tell me are in my smokes addictive? - Nicotine causes your brain to develop a chemical addiction. It also relieves stress and your brain likes that.

Why is the sky blue? - Reflection of the oceans on the water vapor in the sky.

Why are people aware of the suffering of others, but don't turn to foodbanks or communism or whatever we're supposed to turn to? - Someone else will do it.

Why are human beings religious? - Gives them answers and comfort.

Why - when humans have no claws, teeth or speed - are we the dominant species? - We have tools and brains.

Why do we kiss each other? - Pheromones.

Why do we gamble? (Like, literally, Vegas and such.) - Provides an adrenaline rush, which is addictive.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Why - when humans have no claws, teeth or speed - are we the dominant species?

(Warning, kind of a rambly post. I had a nasty "hoomans r teh suxxors" phase when I was younger that I'm embarrassed of now. Consider this overcompensation)

Because we figured out that even if we aren't born with those things, we can use our brains to make them. Also, speed means jack shit if you can't keep it up, and most speedy animals can't; look up persistence hunting. It didn't matter how fast a gazelle could run from a hunter if that hunter was smart enough to track it by signs at a leisurely pace while the gazelle ran itself to death. Sociability is a big factor as well; one human with a spear might not beat a lion, but five or six working together would have a better chance. Finally, we have fire. No other animal uses it and boy did we come up with a lot of uses for it. It kept us warm, let us work later at night, helped us fashion complex tools, prepare food, and mold the environment to suit our needs. Cooking is surprisingly important here; cooked meat is mostly free of parasites and disease and fire can also break down harmful compounds in fruits, vegetables and nuts. As a result, we can acquire nutrition from just about any other living thing. Cooked food also breaks down more efficiently in the body, so we get the new calories and nutrients without wasting energy on digestion. Higher protein diets allowed the brain to develop greater complexity, which further allowed for development of core abilities like logical and abstract reasoning.

[Amake]

The different air pressures come mostly from the temperature difference between the equator and the poles. All that expanding air has to go somewhere.

It should be noted that smoking only relieves the stress built up by nicotine abstinence. They've done studies you know,

I think the atmosphere filtering out most of the visible light except blue also contributes to the color.

It's hard to do what's right. People are often confused or scared or worst of all lazy.

Religious ecstasy has been connected to a spike of activity in the left temporal globe of the brain. If that's how God chooses to show herself or if it's a hallucination generated by one of the many mysterious workings of our brains is pretty irrelevant, as long as you may experience this particular pleasure. If you're asking why we organize in religious groups, it's because of traditions going back to the time when hallucinations was a fact of life plus our social instincts creating a craving to belong with someone.

Humans are extremely generic as animals go. We're specialized in having no specialization. We're adaptive, creative, and we invented agriculture which led to a population explosion. It pretty much follows from there.

Kissing constitutes an intimate physical contact involving some of the most sensitive parts of our body plus the psychological contact of seeing eye to eye. Surely you can see the attraction.

Gambling is basically risk management. It combines real and immediate danger - which we crave because the awareness of the presence of death makes us feel so alive - with a sense of control, because obviously you choose to stake your rent money. Throw in the ecstasy of gold - the very real, similar to a shark's feeding frenzy need to reach greedily for any prospects of great wealth - and you've got a reliable moneymaker in a casino.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

The sky is blue because of rayleigh scattering of sunlight on the air. This is why the horizon is a more lighter blue than overhead because the light coming from the horizon goes through more air to get to you so there is more scattering which means more blue.
This is also why a sunset is for example red- blue light scatters out of the sunlight preferentially but because the light path through the atmosphere is so long it scatters out before we see it and this leaves the red which then scatters and we see it.

Cigrattes- while they put in lots of ingredients to addict you (it is one of the reason a cigarette has about 500 ingredients) nicotine is the prime cause. It is a stimulant and increases dopamine in the mesolimbic pathway which is the pleasure pathway- the brain likes pleasure so you get addicted in the rush-withdrawal cycle.
Smoking does not relieve the stress brought on by abstinence initial- it reeased dopamines (and lotsof other neurotransmitters in the brain) which are pretty much how you define nice things. Once you are in the rush-withdrawal cycle this is pretty much the case but only because the withdrawal part of the cycle is very harsh/


Religion- provides a sense of orgasiation, community, belonging as well as an explanation of the harsh, cruel impersonal universe and provides meaning to your live and to give you goals.

Re helping out the world- combination of bystander effect (why should I be the first one to help, all these people aren't elping), removal from the cause of suffering- they don't have to encounter it constantly so they can minimise it and our brains are geared up to tackle immediate intiial danger that affects us rather than abstract problems- and attribution fallacy (you know what you have been through, all the struggles and you appear to work hard whereas you cannot see what the poor people have been through so their is a tendency to attribute their problems to their own defects)


Wind- as other have said it pressure/temperature effects.
Wind moves from high pressure to lower pressure, which is pretty much straight up. But when you combine that with a rotating planet and temperature differentials you get wind.

Gambling- releases dopamine, pleasurable.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

1. Fluids, like air, move from areas of higher density to areas of lower density. These density differentials can be caused by many things but are primarily caused by uneven heat distribution throughout the atmosphere. Other sources of atmospheric movement that may impact on a larger or smaller scale include the Coriolis force and centrifugal force -- which is to say, conservation of angular momentum.
2. Nicotine, the primary chemical of note for the addictiveness of tobacco, is a stimulant and an inhibitor of certain autonomic neurotransmitters related to stress response. It also interacts with enzymes that would normally break down dopamine, norepenephrine, and serotonin. It can also alter the development of the dopamine regulation system if used often early enough, leading to leading to chronic under-production of dopamine. Lastly, it produces severe withdrawal effects during disuse.
3. The atmosphere in general acts as a disperser of light, similar to a prism. The shorter wavelength of blue light makes it more susceptible to scattering downwards, towards the earth. Other wavelengths of light are scattered, but tend to move in a straighter line. This light, now less its lower-frequency wavelengths, appears redder and creates the sunrise/sunset band and strikes the moon during lunar eclipses.
4. Just because people are aware of the suffering of others, doesn't mean they care. Or, more accurately, doesn't mean the dis-utility associated with their level of interest is greater than the dis-utility of the forms of making a difference. The other psychological forces at work include learned helplessness and the bystander effect.
5. This is a complex question with thousands of complex answers and very few people completely at ease with our current answers (or even definition of religious behavior in the strict terms of mechanisms of appearance) but generally the idea is that humans seek to explain the unexplained through the location and extrapolation of patterns, and humans tend to be tuned to see human-like tendencies before other tendencies in objects and events, leading to pareidolia and anthropomorphism.
6. Tools and social structures.
7. There seem to be numerous reasons, including closeness of body and the sensitivity of the human lips. From a strictly evolutionary perspective it possibly relates to social grooming behavior or intentional exposure as a sign of social intimacy. There is even a theory cataglottism or tongue-kissing in protective environments can help align immune systems. It is also not confined to humans, most primates, and many non primate mammals kiss. Many types of birds also engage behaviors ranging from active, reciprocal cataglottism to simple billing.
8. Perseverance and pattern acquisition are important survival traits. To that end, most animals feel pleasurable sensations when they succeed despite adversity, or when they succeed in identifying patterns in seemingly random outcomes. Gambling utilizes both of these mechanisms to promote prolonged engagement.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Blue light isn't scattered "downwards" which is a meaningless direction. Rayleigh scattering is proportional to wavelength, being stronger as wavelength gets shorter thus the shorter wavelength blue colours are scattered more strongly. The colour you see is all the wavelengths but blue is just much stronger.
And then the sunrise/sunset band because the light goes through the atmosphere more before t reaches us and the blue light is scattered away

[Seil]

Neat.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I have a question: Why are electrons always sad?

[Toast]

Why are people aware of the suffering of others, but don't turn to foodbanks or communism or whatever we're supposed to turn to?

Bystander effect and anonymity. We're much more likely to offer aid to those who we think are within our group than those who are without.

Why are human beings religious?

We're meaning making beings, but we're also lazy and socially groomed to accept the meaning making of others rather than doing it ourselves. Religion is the quest for certainty in the face of the indifference of the universe.

Why - when humans have no claws, teeth or speed - are we the dominant species?

Endurance, communication, agriculture, long term planning, complex tool use and probably a host of other little factors too numerous to name.

Why do we kiss each other?

Kissing serves a lot of social and physical functions. Chimpanzees kiss to reconcile after disagreements. bonobos frequently have sex facing each other so that they can communicate wants/desires and enhance intimacy. Humans have a similar basis, and have added other social functions to it as well.

Why do we gamble? (Like, literally, Vegas and such.)

Combine the variable rate of reward with the variable value of reward and you have the most powerful reinforcement schedule we know about. Gambling and mmos both rely on this behavior pattern.