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Nanohedron wrote: I'm wondering, s1m0n; what part of all that episode would you say was only instinct?

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Lester heard a noise in the hall and mock-charged it? That's the play instinct. Any cat'll do that. In your head, is it a witty practical joke?

I'll consider an argument made when I see some backing for it. Simply saying we're all projecting, and leaving it at that, says nothing better than "So's yer mom." You even quoted it. I provided as an example a video, which (quite cleverly, I thought) you yourself had introduced into evid...

Nanohedron wrote: No, s1m0n. That doesn't fly. I'm starting to think you just like to hear yourself talk.

I'm making actual arguments. You're merely contradicting.

Nanohedron wrote: No cat breeds are like what?

Free of the 'kill' instinct.

It's why cat videos like the one you posted are so ubiquitous on the web: we can't help projecting human thoughts and feelings into what we see. Now who's projecting? Everyone, you included. Which was my point. Most felids aren't pack animals, so they likely do a lot less communicating in general. ...

The passage from s1m0n that I've quoted implies that a cat simply cannot win. As someone who has cared for several cats over the course of almost 40 years, that sentiment (be it expressed or implied) angers me. It might be different with multiple cats that can amuse each other, but I've never had m...

Incidentally, the most interesting evolutionary biologist of the past century was a russian named Belayev who successfully domesticated red foxes by selecting for only one trait: tameness, which he measured as the animal's willingness to be approached by humans. The cubs with the shortest 'scare' di...

...wild dog species and cats have very little (if any) vocal communication in their colonies and packs, and that meowing, barking, and other vocal noises have been the solutions cats and dogs have developed to communicate with humans. This is part of our socializing of cats/dogs and their socializi...

I've had 4 cats. Two died; one of old age and the other young, of distemper (it was one of a neighbour's barn cats, and was ill the day I found it & tried to nurse it to health). Two went with exes in the split. I gave up adopting kittens when I realized that keeping an indoor cat is cruel to th...

And if your memory were at all of any service to you, you'd recall that Lester is no longer with us. So no essay, I'm afraid. See, that's just it. I don't think it's Lester at all; I think it's you projecting your own words and thought into his head. Anthropomorphising, as I warned you earlier. It'...

Well, you were just boasting about Lester's degree in communications studies. And that he thinks of his squirrell as a young Maasai warrior thinks of the spirit-quest that culminates in a ceremonial lion hunt. Were you just making it up? Or merely projecting?

Perhaps you could invite Lester to draft a 500 word personal essay on the spiritual nature of squirrel-conquest, and how that can lead to enlightenment and spiritual fulfillment.

Not necessarily as a matter of habit. It is safe to generalize that cats are opportunists, so if they don't have to roam for prey, why do it? Each will have their own reasons. Lester of the Uncanny Mind roamed, but it was for pure fun and adventure, and in particular to try to get into people's hom...

Yeah, but they're Burmese Buddhists, not Tibetan Buddhists. Ask the Rohingya how pacifistic the Buddhists in Myanmar are. Cats are like that.

Rebuttal: http://www.saveacat.org/cats-birds-and-predation.html The fact that the URL is "save a cat" might show this to be a fairly partisan source, no? In any case, this is pretty much a non-denial denial. In fact, the link doesn't deny that feral cats kill wildlife at all. It's hard to...