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On Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:05:35 -0700 (PDT), Tim <...@Xtra.co.nz
On Mar 13, 3:43 pm, Harald Gentexeater <...@yahoo.com
We have opposable thumbs. That gives us the edge...
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:08:53 -0700 (PDT), Des <...@gmail.com
On Mar 13, 2:43 am, Harald Gentexeater <...@yahoo.com
There were intelligent 2 legged cats and humans in "The Stone God
Awakens" by Phillip Jose Farmer. I think they later turned out to be
evolved from racoons and apes?
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:11:22 -0700 (PDT), Will in New Haven <...@taylorandfrancis.com
On Mar 12, 10:43 pm, Harald Gentexeater <...@yahoo.com
Why would anyone go around on two legs and, like, work and stuff? Why
would anyone provide their own food or develop those ugly thumb-things
to do chores better fitted to servants?
Don't ask such silly questions, man, go fetch me a dead mouse.
--
WooToo
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:04:02 +0100, "Michele" <...@tin.it
"Harald Gentexeater" <...@c36g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
Either the cats develop manipulative forelimbs - which is the reason for
walking on the two other limbs - or they remain good hunters. Note even the
bears, who can walk on the hind legs, and still are good hunters, and are
intelligent enough to play circus tricks, are not as intelligent as the
humans and can't really handle a tool.
If they remain good hunters, the story is the same as the actual one.
If they develop opposing thumbs and an intelligent mind, then they are no
longer as good as hunters, and they are also playing catch up with the
humans on the humans' playing field. They go the way of the Neanderthals.
The only possibility is a Madagascar or Australian enclave. Assuming the
intelligent cats don't start their own age of explorations - which would put
them at odds with the humans at a time when humans had no qualms about
extinguishing local _human_ native populations - then they will be sheltered
until a time when the humans might be more fussy about extinguishing a
sentient species. The humans will attempt to enslave them, and probably to
convert them to their own religions, to little avail. Coexistence will be
doomed to bouts of violence because of specism and the recurring tales of
cat tribes stealing human babies for food.
Maybe the cats survive as independent communities in tiny reserves, today,
apart from individuals who were grown up and educated in human societies and
will be considered as weird and harassed by specists. But I suspect the most
likely outcome is extinction.
That all assumes neither side develops a flu or other illness that is mildly
obnoxious to them, but lethal to the others. There are strains that cross
over between these two species, but ages of coexistence has made both
resistant. Not in the above scenario. Numbers will rule in this scenario,
and the numbers are against the carnivore, not to mention that the only way
for them to survive this long is to be confined in one secluded location. If
it's the humans who catch the feline flu, they may die in the millions and
still survive - and will probably get rid of the problem in the most radical
way. If it's the cats who catch the human flu, they'll die.
In both cases, the outcome is the same for the cats, extinction.
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:20:42 -0700, "Anthony Buckland" <...@telus.net
"Harald Gentexeater" <...@c36g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
Aside from the number of legs, how does this differ
from the current state of affairs, furless one?
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:08:46 -0700 (PDT), Firelock <...@hotmail.com
On Mar 13, 1:20 pm, "Anthony Buckland"
<...@telus.net
Competition between a sentient pack omnivore and a
sentient obligate carnivore that's probably solitary.
That could be interesting, but I wouldn't bet on the
carnivore.
--
Walt
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:30:08 +0100, Ingo Siekmann <...@web.de
Harald Gentexeater schrieb:
-snip
I think we have dealt with meaner threats than a bunch of furball
coughing, milk-lapping, ball-of-yarn chasing pussies who sleep during
most of the day.
Bye
Ingo
PS: Anybody who babbles about how smart cats are is either lying or has
never owned one.
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:01:47 -0500, David Johnson <...@earthlink.net
Ingo Siekmann <...@news01.versatel.de:
I own four...and *some* cats are smart, *others* are thick as a post. And I
know, having one of each as examples.
One can figure out how to turn on faucets for a drink of water, or turn on
the electric blanket at night...
...the other just can't grasp the concept that going around the curtain on
the *left* side of it is the same as going around on the *right* side of
it.
David
--
_______________________________________________________________________
David Johnson home.earthlink.net/~trolleyfan
"So many of you come time and time again to watch this final end of
everything which I think is really wonderful and then to return home to
your own eras and raise families and strive for new and better societies
and fight terrible wars for what you know is right, it gives one real
hope for the whole future of lifekind...
...Except of course we know it hasn't got one."
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On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:40:28 -0700 (PDT), Scott Eiler <...@eilertech.com
On Mar 13, 2:30 pm, Ingo Siekmann <...@web.de
Perhaps we all need to think "tiger".
I agree, omnivores probably beat carnivores in this cultural model.
The more powerful the carnivores are (like dragon-size cats), the more
highly developed the omnivore civilization becomes to defeat them.
But that is itself an interesting effect upon the world.
I also agree we can rule out coexistence without some kind of
carnivore enclave. Homo sapiens seems to not have coexisted nicely
with Homo neanderthalis, after all.
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