Dharma Curious (he/him)

Same great Dharma, new SolarPunk packaging!

Check out DharmaCurious.neocities.org for ramblings on philosophy and the occasional creative writing project!

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: March 22nd, 2024

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  • Here’s a fun little story about the first time we saw black squirrels.

    We had just moved to Norfolk, Virginia. My mom is driving through Norfolk, Virginia. Have you been to Norfolk, Virginia? Norfolk, Virginia is heavily African American. Heavily. We are white.

    My mom is driving, downtown Norfolk. It’s very heavy traffic, we’re going slow. It’s one of those areas where you worry about someone randomly starts cleaning your windshield, or if it’s late at night you might you may worry about carjackings. We do not have air-conditioning, and our windows are down.

    My mom sees a group of black squirrels for the first time in her life. And she yells out “OH MY GOD THEY’RE BLACK! THEY’RE ALL BLACK”

    I swear to you, I have never seen turn so pale so quick. She looks around and sees that lots and lots of people walking around have, indeed, heard her.

    Luckily, traffic was moving fast enough there wasn’t too long of an awkward time with the people on the street.

    Given the reaction everyone has to black squirrel I’m pretty sure the folks on the street knew why she’d yelled, but we didn’t know that at the time. Lol




  • How about reread what I wrote?

    I’m not a vegan; I’m not a vegetarian. I’m far too broke and dependent on other people to be so picky as to choose what I get to eat. My dogs are also not on a vegetarian diet, neither is the cat.

    I am not making an argument for or against veganism, and especially not for or against a vegan diet for pets. I was explaining what the difference was between a carnivore and an obligate carnivore is. I’m also not the originator of this thread, in case you missed that, too.

    Normally I’d try to be nicer and more respectful, so as not to further inflame a situation, but honestly, the transphobic dig at “people like me” screams of someone who isn’t worth my time or respect. Be better. You can get your point across without needing to disrespect trans people and indigenous people. 'sfucked up


  • That’s not really the argument, though. Cats are obviously, objectively, and indisputably carnivores. The question is whether they are obligate carnivores. If they can live healthily without detriment on a plant based diet, then they are not obligate carnivores. If they cannot survive healthily on a plant based diet then they literally require meat to live, in which case they are an obligate carnivore.

    The moral, ethical, and health discussion around feeding cats (both house- and big-) a plant based diet is beyond my scope, but arguing whether the cat is going to go for the tuna or the spinach isn’t the point. They’ll clearly go for the tuna. The question is whether they need that tuna to survive, or if they could live (healthy and happily) without it, if they could get their nutrients from, and be effectively tricked by, a plant based substitute.












  • If you don’t mind me asking, are you visually impaired? We think my mom may have non-24, but the doctors have said they’ve never seen it in someone who wasn’t legally blind or totally blind. It’s been very tough on her in the last ~20 years or so

    Also, you said there’s decent healthcare in your state. Are you in the US? If so, I’m not sure about proctologists, but there’s normally some kind of community GP/PCP clinics in most cities, but my trick has always been finding one in a fairly rural area within an hour or so of the city, and if you can manage to convince them you live in the county, there’s normally much better care out there, since they aren’t as overwhelmed as they are in the city itself. Not technically legal, I’m sure, but it’s always helped me. Free clinics in Metro areas are so overwhelmed and underfunded, but outside the city they’re still underfunded and overwhelmed, but not quite as bad, at least in my experience