The Handmaid’s Tale (TV Show), hands down.

The first season was emotional but I’ve gotten through it multiple times as I’ve tried re-watching to get through season 2. I got a little farther the last time I tried, but man, it’s so visceral and constantly beating down the protagonist and everyone around her. That’s the point and it’s great, it’s just so depression-inducing when there’s just no uplifting points. IT does not let up in beating you down with the horribleness. I just can’t keep going when it goes on for so long.

Yes! I completely forgot this one, thank you!

In fact, OP, I’m going to suggest a Youtube channel, but with some stipulations. Jackson Galaxy. He’s an interesting guy who had (has?) a show on animal planet, but he has a really good grasp on Cat behavior. He get’s a little weird with some of his homeopathic products that he has for sale that I’m a little skeptical of. But his cat behavior stuff all seems pretty spot on and his advice for cat care (As long as it’s not about a product he sells on his site) is really good. It’s worth a look I think.

So I know this is a thread about toys, but it looks like you got a lot of good advice, and since you’re new to cats, one thing that most people either don’t realize or ignore is the number of litterboxes. 1 is not enough, even for a single cat. General rule of thumb for litterboxes is Number of cats + 1. You want them to view the entire place as their territory and a big part of that is scent markers. And the biggest of them is the litterbox. Many cats will, as soon as you change the litter, use it. That’s because they want it to smell like their territory (To their sensitive noses). Spreading that around for them makes for a happy cat and reduces the chances of “accidents” or just marking territory later on in times of stress.

I’ll also say you should probably have a scratching post on every room that they hang out in regularly. They’re not going to go to another room to find it if they want a good stretch or scratch. I suggest angled or flat ones at first because they will often use them to really stretch out their spine so they need to get a lot of distance between stretched out back and front feet. That’s a lot easier (and cheaper) in flat or angled ones. If they end up preferring upright ones they got to be real tall to give them what they want. And those are expensive.

One more tip. Even if you decide to feed them dry food, use designated feeding times. Read the package and figure out how much they should eat a day and split that in 2-3 parts and measure that out giving them meal times. It’s better for their physical health and it’s more in line with their body’s natural rhythm.

In general though, it’s best to establish routines for behaviors you want to promote (Cats love routine) early on and keep it up. If you try to introduce new routines later it’s a lot harder to establish. The change of moving into a new home is the perfect time to create a new routine since everything is kinda chaos for them anyway and it helps them establish order in their lives.

To maybe build on this a little, as someone who grew up in a household with a parent with anger issues who would take their own frustrations out on the family, it definitely helps as something to avoid, but I’ve found that my inward reactions have gotten better as well once I realized that anger being my immediate reaction was due to growing up in an environment where that was normalized. Even if at the time it could be frightening and I knew even then that it was bad, the human brain is funny and children are impressionable.

I was in my 30s before I came to terms with the fact that my anger issues, however well controlled the outbursts were and no matter how much I avoided letting other people know it was happening, they were still there and I was still following in the steps of my father emotionally. And recognizing that it’s not how everyone feels and it’s not just “how my brain works,” but conditioning, and conditioning that can be broken. Similarly, I would remove myself and reflect, but I’d start to focus less on me and my reactions and force more empathy by thinking about the person or thing or situation and what led to me being upset. Eventually it got to the point where now my immediate reaction is to rationalize the situation before I emotionally respond. If I think through it and I feel I should actually still be upset, then I can confront it, but in calmer and more rational state, confident that I’m probably justified.

It still happens sometimes. Mostly it’s the normal irritability that everyone feels when they’re stressed or tired. And sometimes that old habit comes back and I react a little more hotly than I should for no reason. I have cats that, like your dogs, even if the anger is not directed anywhere near them, they get scared. Seeing that pulls me out real quick and I’ll calm down if only just to calm them, then give then scritches and pats to let them know it’s okay and they’re safe. So I’d probably say that even just having them around has given me a little accountability to help as well and made it easier to avoid. Say I’m having one of those days where I’m just clumsy and uncoordinated and keep dropping or breaking things. I get real close, but my reaction will immediately be to think about making sure they don’t get upset. I think it helps over-wright that anger conditioning with conditioning myself to focus on something else.

So the conclusion I’ve come to, literally just now while typing all this since I haven’t given it a ton of active thought before, is that the conditioning to that reaction has to be broken, and that’s usually easier by replacing it so you don’t even go to anger, but to something else every time. As every therapist I’ve ever been to says, you also can’t feel shame or upset with yourself for the anger. It’s a thing that you want to work on and the bet way to fix it is to dispassionately view it and work on it. Beating yourself up will only make it worse.

Ooh! I’ve actually got something for this! It takes some work and consistency, but it’s pretty fool-proof eventually.

You got to play with them right before bed.

And I don’t mean just a little waving the wand around and watch them jump at it a bit. Give them a workout. My two cats, one’s pretty chill and her energy level isn’t too high. The other guy though, he’s basically a dog. Always wants to play, and play a lot. This worked wonders for him.

Anyway, so you find a toy they really like, and figure out the kind of play that gets them engaged. Some like to hunt, some like to chase. But whatever it is, you got to get them moving, and keep it up until they’re panting like a dog. It’s perfectly healthy, cats just don’t often get that much of a workout so we don’t see it. So you do that, and they’ll rest for 5-10 minutes, then want to go again. Do that over and over until they don’t get back up begging for more after 10 minutes. They’ll be exhausted. Then do your nightly routine and go to bed.

This won’t work overnight as their routines will get them up and running soon. But you do that every night for a couple weeks and they’ll start to sync up to your schedule.

Couple other things that make it easier:

1. When they try to wake you up in the morning and get your attention, don’t get out of bed. Don’t give them attention. You’re trying to get their sleep schedule to match yours so you have to let them know that you’re not available until a certain time.

2. Having your own routine of going to sleep at the same time every night. Cats are really good at knowing about what time it is and they need consistency. I’m in bed by 9:30 every night, play-time starts at 8:30 every night. If you vary it up they’re never going to know when to sleep.

3)Feeding times. I know a lot of people just leave food out in a bowl, but that’s not healthy for most cats (And honestly, for the healthiest, at least wet food is best). You want to figure out how much they should be eating every day and measure out just that much divided by meals. Most are fine with twice a day, since cat’s would naturally eat at dusk and dawn, so just before you leave for work (assuming typical 9-5 schedule) and right before bed. I work from home so I do 3 meals a day, and that helps to wake them up mid day so they’ll need more sleep at night.

3b) This can vary a lot, but typically a wild cat’s routine would be to hunt, eat, groom, then sleep. So you organize play-time with eating, you play them tired (simulate hunting), feed them, They groom themselves while you get ready for bed, then you both sleep. My cats are weird though, they don’t play before eating. Not into it. But right after they eat they get excited to chase each other around a bit and play, so we do it then.

It did take my energetic boy longer than 2 weeks (closer to a month), but his energy levels even after a year old were through the roof and abnormal. I think it’s the breed. But now when it gets close to play time he waits next to the toy closet anticipating it. Then I play with them, then they chase each other around for about 10 minutes, but then they’re tired so we all go to bed and he sleeps next to me in bed every night instead of running around.

You’ve got some good points there, but it feels a little naive of nuance in parts.

Like, if these are natural rights, presumably this still counted before humans banded together to form the first societies. Before, even, we were small roving migratory groups that only just managed to climb out of the trees. humans, as they were, are basically animals at that point, right? I mean, we’re still animals, but you know what I mean. So we still have those rights? What makes us different than the other animals (or even other ape descendants) that we see as food? As a species, we were evolved to eat meat, which requires killing something else that presumably has these same rights that we have to violate to enforce our own right to life. Or did natural rights come later, when we were “better” and “more advanced” than the animals we hunted? Does that mean we get these rights when we reach a certain point in self-awareness?

It’s tough to argue with the base arguments you present, and I don’t disagree with them… but they can be argued against. Like your slavery argument. It goes against these natural rights that we have always had, yet we started taking our first steps toward stopping it, like, 600 years ago? Slavery predates writing. As far as we know, mankind was enslaving other people as far as we can track, and definitely hundreds, if not thousands of years before. So were they not aware of these natural rights or just didn’t care?

It sounds like you’re saying these are natural rights that everyone has because it feels right to you dues to the society you grew up in that appreciated these rights. They have to come from somewhere to be natural but only really count for some living things and not others.

Personally, I don’t believe in natural rights. We’re animals that grew opposable thumbs and learned to make tools. Human rights come about only because we live together in societies. In a way that sounds contradictory, we formed groups and gained rights among those other humans, and in the same instant traded some of those away for that group to function. Rights have to come from somewhere. Without groups agreeing on what those rights are, then the decider of rights is whoever is strongest. Might makes right started to decline only because we got into groups large enough to defend against outside forces, and even then it was only within the group in which those rights existed. Rights themselves are part of the social contract we all participate in when we exist in society and universal human rights is a relatively recent advancement, and we definitely haven’t come to a consensus as to what they all definitely are. But if society breaks down, those rights definitely disappear overnight. But I’ve always been the kind of person who needs reasons to believe a thing and have sound reasons to believe it.

I’m with you on right to life, and bodily autonomy are things that all humans should have. I think we just differ in their origin and universality.

So who decides what rights are natural ones and which ones need a government to enforce? And what are the natural rights? Not just that you believe it to be so, but why? And what you use to make that decision.

Forgive me, but I’ve been doing a lot of research lately on natural rights and their protections, limits, and origins. I’ve been reading a lot of philosophy on it and it’s extremely interesting. I’m genuinely curious how people come to these conclusions and I love hearing different viewpoints.

So where do these rights come from, if not the laws? I wonder if you may be taking free speech as a right as a given because of the time you grew up in. You speak of it as an absolute, but where does that belief come from? You say “rights” as if they’re something enshrined in our souls by a god, but like, how do you know that? Where does this information come from?

This is purely a philosophical question. I’m on the free speech wagon here. But realistically, Who gets to decide what’s actually an inalienable right that everyone has vs. rights that are encoded in laws?

That might be due to our heavy government surveillance system. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that a militia was arrested before they could carry out their plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan. The year before that a Coast Guard lieutenant was arrested before he could kill journalists and Democrat politicians. There was that nutjob who took a hammer to Pelosi’s husband’s head (Didn’t even catch that one in time!) There’s tons of attempts to assassinate presidents. Kinda feels pretty par for the course.

But the original point, I think, was that it’s kinda weird for someone to say it’s not surprising for it to happen in Mexico, as if it’s some third world country run like New York in Escape from New York while pretending it doesn’t happen in the US frequently. The US is just a bigger police state so they catch most of them before anyone dies. The FBI has plants in militias and groups like them all over the country specifically to catch this kind of thing. Most governments just can’t afford that kind of manpower. The US is not special or really that much safer, and comments normalizing this kind of thing for Mexico is why anyone even made that argument. It’s definitely shitty, and probably racist to think that it’s reasonable, when it’s in Mexico, people say "Eh it happens.”

I mean, the thumbs help hold stuff, sure, but it’s our large pre-frontal cortex that really comes in clutch. That and our penchant for violence. There’s evidence to show that the Neanderthals were possibly more advanced than us before they “died out,” but also less violent and selfish. It’s those traits that led us to kill them or cut off their access to resources while we took them all.

We are still animals. Any biologist will tell you that, but that’s not a negative thing, it’s just a facts. It’s like saying we’re mammals. It really comes down to how you define “better.” and “successful.” Obviously, we are making those determinations from our point of view, so we tend to define them with the things only we do. But if we’re defining successful by technological advancement or the ability to do advanced math, or even versatility in abilities, we’re at least top 3. But those orangutans are pretty nifty with their use of twigs sometimes, so don’t count them out.

remained mindful of the naivety of all people, including themselves,… to prevent allowing hubris to allow poor decisions.

Not to spoil a 60 year old book, but didn’t they have a plan to genetically engineer a literal savior to mankind with hundreds of years of selective breeding? A little like the pot telling the kettle it’s too sure of itself.

What do you think the reasons are?

The stated purpose of the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 is to maintain sanctions on Cuba as long as the Cuban government refuses to move toward “democratization and greater respect for human rights.” ^cite

If that was actually true, half the countries the US trades with should be embargoed. Saudi Arabia, a monarchy?

U.S. goods and services trade with Saudi Arabia totaled an estimated $46.6 billion in 2022. Exports were $21.6 billion; imports were $24.9 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with Saudi Arabia was $3.3 billion in 2022. ^cite

Let’s not lie to ourselves, it’s always been about the Communism Boogie man. But if you want to cultivate capitalism in a country, cutting off the ability for free trade outside that country isn’t the way to do it. America’s influence stops other countries from trading there as well so they have no option but to rely on a government focused economic system as they’re the only ones with the ability to really participate in any market elsewhere. I agree that tankies can go fuck themselves, but you’re letting 60 year old propaganda get to you. The rest of the world has no problem with Cuba and it’s getting weirder and weirder that the US continues these unreasonable sanctions like a middle school bully holding a grudge well into middle-age. I can only assume you’re so sure because it’s just always been that way and you assume it’s for a good reason.

So, I find myself doing something similar at smaller meetings at work as well, when it’s just my immediate team. But I wonder if there’s some context that may make your situation different. On our team, I’ve gained a reputation for being a data goblin and supplying that data to many departments that help them focus and make decisions on changes or solving problems. With that, I’ve been able to cultivate a reputation for being very knowledgeable about the business being able to see past the fluff and cutting straight to the real issue that needs to be solved, like you talk about for yourself, so when I speak about these things, I’m taken seriously. And probably more importantly, I also always offer a potential solution, even if it’s not implemented (No one likes the guy who just brings problems but never solutions). Most importantly though, I only do this in meetings with my immediate small team. When other departments come in, they have their own ways of communication and I don’t make assumptions that my way is acceptable for them.

In summary, some things to take into account:

• Is this a meeting where your input is warranted? Would the group maybe see the problem as out of your lane? Are there people more qualified to talk about the problem already talking?
• Do they have a reason to think you “putting it in a perspective” is not your place to do? Are there higher-ups here who’s job you’re usurping?
• Are you bringing anything to the problem other than reframing it? Are you bringing solutions? -Tone is important. Does it sound like you think you’re in charge of the meeting and it’s your job to keep them on track when it’s not? (Verbal inflection can go a long way to convince people you’re working with them to solve it, not telling them how to solve it).
• Finally, and this one may be tough, are you sure you’re doing a good job of putting it in perspective? I’ve worked with people who don’t contribute to solving anything and seems to only pipe up in meetings to restate the problem as if that’s a contribution and then shut the hell up while everyone else works as a team to come up with solutions. Everyone sees their interjection as a waste that gets us off-track. Even if they think they’re helping, we usually already have that context in our heads and it was unnecessary.

None of this may apply to you, and maybe you’re actually surrounded by people that genuinely need you to help get the conversation focused. But I’ve seen people (and myself) make these missteps. And I agree with the poster who mentioned ADHD. I have it and have been over-talking people my whole life until it was pointed out to me and I got better about checking myself, while still contributing. You have to learn to read a room and know instinctively when and how your contributions are welcome.

But you need to make it clear in how you phrase things that you “highly value other people’s input.” I have phrases I use over and over that seem to help.

“I really like what Jane was saying there about the Bobbles. It got me thinking about how the doo-dad’s flipperdoodle can cause this issue. I wonder if there’s a way we can head this off? Maybe cut out the whats-it protocol? Tom, you’ve been looking at the flipperdoodle process lately, do you think that’s a possibility or if there’s something else we could do to streamline it?”

But again, this really only works if you’re in a group where that’s how equals talk to each other like that. If there’s a superior in the meeting who knows about the Bobble department, that’s probably their responsibility. You’ve got to make it sound like you’re working with the team to solve it, not sitting above them and keeping them on-track like you know better. Try listening to how other’s phrase things and try to imitate it, tone as well, not just saying the words. I did not come up working in offices so I’ve had to adapt to the environment, and that’s what I did.

Several years ago, when I was still going into the office, I made a similar decision. I tossed all my old socks and bought like, 12 pairs of argyle socks in a variety of brighter colors and deliberately wore different colors every day. They’re the same brand so they all wear the same, just sometimes bright green and orange(or whatever) on each foot. I got a few questions at first, though never negative. People thought they were being helpful letting me know my socks didn’t match, but when I told them it was intentional they thought it was a great idea. Now it’s expected for me to have mismatched socks and no one notices. Of course, being WFH now, I almost never wear socks anymore. But on the occasion someone notices these days, they don’t really care.

Why do people always do that? I agree it would be a good move, but because smoking is unhealthy and addictive and it’s existence in our society makes it collectively worse. But here I keep seeing people just say they’re glad because they think cigarettes are icky.

They said you can’t. Your cat can own whatever it wants, and does if you ask them.

You make a lot of assumptions there though, don’t you? You’re assuming that you would be motivated to “return the favor,” but where does that motivation come from? Humans reciprocal acts are learned traits. There’s nothing they get in return for that act alone. The return only comes from the potential impact on the community, which is a social function, not biological.

I used lions as a contrast specifically because they’re behavior is different. They are baser creatures who’s community does come directly from biology and it’s drastically different. I also also gave canines as an example because they are specifically social animals and those behaviors that are similar to ours are derived from the social aspect, not biological since it’s community specific, not species.

Sociology studies how humans behave as groups in relation to each other. It’s specifically about the things you’re describing. Evolution drives us to pass our genes on. That’s it. What you’re saying can be just as easily used to trace literally everything humans do back to evolution. The argument could just as easily be made that religion is a result of evolution. Humans are curious because looking for answers gave us a cognitive advantage over competition. That trait leads us to searching for answers. If none are available, we find one. And now we have gods. But religion is organized and requires groups, which brings us back to sociology again.

I think it’s really more of a sociology thing. Like, it’s pretty well accepted that our natural inclination towards fairness is not from a biological drive, but because we would want to be treated that way. The best way of ensuring that is creating a society where that is the norm. Mankind decided that killing others is wrong because we don’t want to get killed ourselves. If we think stealing from others is fine, we have no redress if someone steals from us.

When I was young, I noticed that the some of the Hammurabic Codes shared a lot in common with Christian teachings. I brought this up to my dad and he said “Yeah, where do you think Hammurabi got the idea?” Now, obviously, he’s got his timeline confused, and even as a small child I could do that math and knew the royal edicts pre-dated the 10 commandments and are of a completely non-religious nature. Groups living together need fairness to prosper.

Evolution, however, tends to lean more towards the strongest surviving. Evolutionarily, we need our genes passed on. Sure, we might manage to procreate before we die, but then we’re not around to protect that lineage. Lions are a good example of that problem. If a rival male takes over your pride after killing you, they will also kill all the cubs. Presumably so only their genes are the ones moving on. That is the evolutionary drive. Wolves, however, are much more social creatures. They function as a group that doesn’t necessarily need to be related and they make decisions similar to how we would expect our own group behaviors. If one of the pack is hurt, they don’t leave it behind to die, they protect it and even leave them behind with the pups to heal when they go out on hunts. But this only extends to their pack. Anything outside the pack does not get that consideration. It’s only in groups where being grateful and kind is an advantage.

Sociology is still a science though! A very good reason to follow those precepts.

Oh man, and that other poster thought they were rambling… I get real wordy when the Adderall kicks in first thing in the morning.

I think what you’re proposing isn’t something they can do. Are you saying “What if I asked it to create a short story who’s pieces don’t resemble any pieces of known stories?” or are you saying “What if I asked it to create a short story who’s whole doesn’t resemble any known stories?”

The first one can’t happen. The second? Yes, it’s stealing.

Where is it getting this story? LLMs don’t have creativity. They don’t understand story structure. It pulls sentences and paragraphs from work in it’s training data. If the generated output contains work that others have made, that’s called plagiarism. If it doesn’t, then your hypothetical isn’t realistic. LLMs can’t create original works. That’s the whole point. It pulls pieces of the training data and rearranges them. It would be like if I was writing a college paper and instead of writing anything myself I just pulled 100 different sources and copied a sentence or two from each source and structured them as my paper. That’s 100% plagiarism.

If a human being takes people’s work and pieces it together in a way that resembles other works without using any LLM/AI or automation tool, is the final result content theft too?

Yes, obviously. Artists and writers can learn from others and can be inspired by other’s works, but they can’t use parts of those works. That is content theft. Imitating a style is fine, but you have to create something new. LLMs cannot create, only steal.