Taomeow

Haha. I don't think he could avoid domestication entirely -- if you're caught in the rain you can't avoid getting wet -- but he did a pretty good job.

Interesting. "Tao gives birth to one, one gives birth to two, two give birth to three, three give birth to ten thousand things." This statement, physically and biologically absolutely accurate for our 3D world,* contains within itself "laws" that can't be broken by 3D beings, whether domesticated or wild, whether benign or malicious. Now of course beings from a realm that has more dimensions can overcome these limitations unless there's a law that stops them. But determining whether those interdimensional criminals are the ones responsible for our plight is above my pay grade. *Tao: from wuji with no dimensions, to one which is a single point, to two which is a 2D line, to the 3D structure that breaks out of the flat 2D plane into the next dimension, to ten thousand things you can build out of these building blocks by stacking them together this way and that way. A 4D being can manipulate objects and entities of a 3D world as easily as you can draw on a 2D surface of a sheet of paper or type on a 2D surface of your computer screen. If they choose to write malicious code, they can. Scary, huh? You can write outrageous laws on a flat sheet of paper and 2D beings will obey them. 4D beings can write outrageous laws into a 3D world and we will obey them. The only way to not break the laws of nature is to imitate it ("tao patterns itself on itself"), approach nature as complete and perfect, and write no additional code into that. I don't know who's that wise (or that lucky) but it's not us.

Cats do break the law they are under. Granted domesticated cats are under domesticated man's law -- but they do break it unless the owner bends them into submission with early detachment from mother, nutritional deficiencies and toxicities, veterinary iatrogenic damage, impoverished non-stimulating environments, obligatory boredom and loneliness and removal of parental and mating behaviors via surgical mutilations, outright cruelty, and other human laws a cat may be too overwhelmingly changed to break. We are in the same boat. No one knows what non-domesticated man is like. (Let alone non-domesticated woman.) But I have a hunch that domestication breaks all the laws of nature, whether in man or in cat or in cattle. Whatever we think up to take their place serves somebody I guess -- but hardly the species itself. Somebody else. The owner.

Have you ever had a cat?

Good one. Humans specialize in what my primal guru called "acting-out" -- creatively reinterpreting and imitating externally what they don't get enough of internally, whether in quantity or in quality. I used to maintain a mental collection of things humans created that all grew out of this common root. It was an exercise of sorts in identifying in the world this or that object or practice and trying to guess how it might reflect our original pre-domestication psychophysiology. This should have been bonding between mother and baby but became the medieval cult of the dame and of Mother Mary. This should have been the nightly gathering together for storytelling by the fire and became the TV (which, unlike the fire, has light but no warmth, and even that just on one side.) This should have been an entheogen and became a street drug. This should have been a powerful orgasm and became a firearm. And so on.

He merely gave you a downvote, there's nothing therein that's either immature or signifies a problem. And if you wanted to follow up on why exactly you got a downvote on that bit of confabulation (not yours I understand, but repeated and quoted by you), you could just ask. (Though I'd be happier if you just ignored it if you didn't like it. The thread has been free of most unnecessary interpersonal frictions so far, and I like it this way.) I am very happy for your wife and for you. May she stay healthy. I don't mean that everything medical out there is useless or harmful. But to accept everything it is, does, and says for face value in its totality might be a big mistake in many situations. Too many if you ask me.

@old3bob I'm pretty sure OTC cold medications are harmful with or without vitamin C, and one reason I started looking into "what else is out there," many moons ago, was that one of them (later banned by the same FDA that had approved it, after an undisclosed number of deaths among young women specifically) nearly sent me into a coma from a single dose. And no, I wasn't taking vitamin C then, I was still a total NPC looking to the medical officialdom for all the answers and gobbling up all the health-related prolefeed like a good little robot. Ah, the age of innocence... the starry-eyed trust... blessed are the sacrificial lambs who retain that trust all the way to the altar whereon they're slaughtered.

Humans and monkeys -- and just one more species, the guinea pig. Another genetic experimentation favorite?.. -- to this day, by the way. Yes, I've researched the vitamin C story in much detail, beginning with Linus Pauling's take, and also had the audacity to compare the RDA for humans according to the FDA (75 mg for adult females, 90 mg for adult males) and the amounts zoo keepers give their apes -- 3500 mg to prevent deficiencies, and up to 10g if they want them to thrive. Interestingly, books for MDs and medical students, which I used to read for fun for many years (I have some stranger hobbies), describe in gnarly and very, very scientifically presented detail how exceeding the RDA even by 50 mg will destroy you. (On occasion I've taken up to 17 grams in a day -- 1000mg every hour -- to stop a cold, Linus Pauling of two Nobel prizes told me to. There were no ill effects whatsoever, and 9 times out of 10 it stopped the cold in the space of the same day when it started. The trick here is not to stop taking it abruptly and taper off gradually instead, because at such high orthomolecular* doses the body sets the metabolic mechanism for removing it higher and takes a few days to wind it back down, so if you stop abruptly, you might wind up with a deficiency.) *Orthomolecular medicine, a branch of "alternative," advocates using certain natural substances which normally act as nutrients in "unnatural" amounts, effectively turning them into drugs. This is used as temporary interventions for various health problems, not as a nutritional strategy.

Everything of top/stupendous value and of narrative-devaluing controversy is in private collections... and I'm not talking Egypt only. Museums have very little compared to that. Although the Vatican might be an exception -- here's what Grok tells me: The Vatican Apostolic Archive (formerly the Vatican Secret Archive) and the Vatican Library house vast collections. The Library alone has about 1.6 million printed books, 75,000 manuscripts, and 8,600 incunabula (books printed before 1501). The Apostolic Archive contains around 85 kilometers (53 miles) of shelving with documents dating back to the 8th century. Access to these is heavily restricted—only accredited scholars can enter, and even then, they must request specific items without browsing. General public access is essentially nonexistent, except for rare exhibitions like the 2012 Lux in Arcana, which displayed 100 documents, a tiny fraction of the total. The Vatican Museums hold roughly 70,000 works of art and artifacts, of which about 20,000 are on display at any given time. This suggests around 70% of the museum’s collection is not publicly shown, stored in reserves or used for research. However, this doesn’t account for items too fragile, sensitive, or controversial to ever be exhibited. Combining these, a conservative estimate suggests 80-90% of the Vatican’s books and artifacts (across the Library, Archive, and Museums) are never shown to the public, with the Archive and Library being far less accessible than the Museums. This is driven by the need to protect fragile items, maintain security, and control historical narratives.

Traditions that maintain that "there is no self" never asserted that "there is no selfie."

Heard several stories already about shelters catnapping cats from people's yards to re-"adopt" them for profit. (In our neck of the woods, e.g., adoption fee was around $200 a few years ago, don't know what it is now but I'm sure it went up like everything else.) Some people reportedly go wild when this happens to their cat.

$cience

From my conversation with Grok: Very briefly summarize speculative evidence for alien design of humans undertaken for alien purposes rather than for our thriving Speculative evidence for alien design of humans for alien purposes, not human thriving, includes: High Mutation Rate: Elevated genetic variability (e.g., diverse MHC genes) suggests humans as a testbed for alien experimentation, prioritizing diversity for alien utility over stability, leading to disease susceptibility (Nature Genetics, 2003). Loss of Body Hair: Absence of fur, unlike most mammals, implies engineered vulnerability to environmental stressors, possibly to enforce dependence on alien-controlled environments or technology (Journal of Human Evolution, 2006). Loss of Tail: Vestigial coccyx and lack of tail indicate deliberate reduction of physical agility, potentially to limit autonomy or escape in alien-managed settings (Evolutionary Biology, 1999). Continuous Sexual Receptivity: Unlike seasonal estrus in most mammals, permanent fertility could maximize reproduction for alien labor or subject supply, fostering social conflict to weaken human unity (American Journal of Primatology, 2001). Menstruation: Energy-intensive, overt menstruation, unique among primates, may serve as a biological marker for alien monitoring or to periodically weaken females, reducing resistance (Quarterly Review of Biology, 1996). Genetic Quirkiness: Unstable genetic elements (e.g., retrotransposons) and rapid adaptability suggest humans were designed as versatile tools for alien genetic or environmental experiments, at the cost of health inconsistencies (Genome Research, 2007). Interpretation: These traits—seemingly maladaptive for thriving in isolation—could imply an alien agenda valuing human malleability, population control, or experimental utility over resilience.