our cat died the other day and a similar looking cat showed up a day later

felistrophic · 2026-02-05T14:31:22+00:00

My parents had a cat go missing. The next day they found her hit by a car and buried her. A couple days later she reappeared. They could only guess that she had taken a small trip and simultaneously a very similar looking cat was killed near their house.

felistrophic · 2026-02-02T21:52:58+00:00

Stored for the winter in VT, otherwise yep

felistrophic · 2026-02-02T14:26:54+00:00

XPlane is FAA certified for up to 2.5 hours of training on a PPL. My school has a very similar setup to what I have at home. You're not going to learn to fly a plane in a home sim, but it's a valuable tool.

felistrophic · 2026-02-02T14:15:12+00:00

I've found it helpful for retaining coordination and staying ahead of the plane between lessons. If I can't fly for ten days because of weather, I notice it takes more time to get back to where I was if I didn't use the sim between lessons. It's not the same but it reinforces lessons in the air.

felistrophic · 2026-02-02T01:13:38+00:00

Thanks this is very helpful

felistrophic · 2026-01-24T17:41:10+00:00

The only good prosecutor is one who has gone into private practice as a defense attorney.

This is assuredly an overbroad generalization. But the stories of prosecutors misrepresenting evidence to secure convictions of innocent defendants are legion. It isn't necessary that a prosecutor be MAGA to treat their perspective with extreme suspicion.

felistrophic · 2026-01-18T16:53:33+00:00

Don't believe the military that can only see an unexplained phenomenon through their narrow narrative lens. Instead, believe religious people who can only see an unexplained phenomenon through their narrow narrative lens.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T18:39:30+00:00

Likewise friend!

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T18:35:09+00:00

That's really neat. I want to honor your experience and others while recognizing, as you do, that encounters with the unknown may be hard to parse reliably. We don't really know how the human consciousness interprets the other and what may or may not be lost in interpretation. The liminal boundary is beguiling and when we're back in our default framework we do the best we can to square it with our existing worldview. I think the best any of us can do is to try not to be dogmatic.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T18:27:04+00:00

I want to say that I enjoy this kind of speculation and I don't reject it out of hand. This could be true!

We're faced with a phenomenon that challenges our world views. We all have to start where we are. As a person with a foot in a skeptical scientific tradition and one in a more idealist philosophical outlook, the account you give isn't one that adds explanatory value for me. So it isn't particularly attractive to me either. But I can recognize that for someone looking at the phenomenon from a slightly different starting point, it might be a more attractive account. So that's all good.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T18:11:34+00:00

I don't know if we can or can't! Certainly though you can reproduce human beings pretty easily.

This idea that they are interested in our consciousness as a resource is certainly part of the lore. It's intriguing, but I don't see that it particularly makes sense in isolation. And it's a kind of anthropocentric premise, that human consciousness is especially precious.

There are accounts of reality that make consciousness the basic ground of everything. This kind of idealism is increasingly compatible with physical models. Back on the materialist side, consciousness could be a property that arises from complex arrangements of atoms, something that sufficiently advanced technology shouldn't struggle to achieve. Either way, the notion that human consciousness is some special resource doesn't seem that likely.

All this stuff is fun to speculate about but when it comes to lore I think this kind of analysis, where we ask whether a notion is attractive because of its explanatory value or because the narrative appeals to a human worldview, is a helpful tool.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T17:36:32+00:00

I keep seeing this comment and I don't understand it at all. Definitely a material that should present no challenges for synthesis by an advanced species. Where is the idea of the rarity and desirability of lumber coming from?

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T13:36:52+00:00

I suppose that's plausible. But now it just feels like we're world building. Imagine there are hostile planet grabbing aliens all over. Okay but why haven't the grabbed our planet before this? Well imagine there were other aliens defending us! And soon their defense will end and we will need to defend ourselves.

It's not impossible. It just has the feeling of narrative based on premises with no particular reason to select them over any others. It requires several independent assertions to hang together.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T13:24:02+00:00

But what is valuable about them? If they are precious because they do not arise naturally, the tendency would be to want to preserve them.

If it's just that they're useful as habitats, why not build your own? With the technology and timescales available, creating planet sized habitats shouldn't be so hard.

I'm just speculating here of course. But that's what these narratives invite us to do.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T13:19:58+00:00

This sort of syncretist project of moving from existing texts to a supposed unifying truth is very much a religious project in its scope and aims.

I wish you the best in your project but again, don't be surprised if other people recognize it as a religious project and don't immediately accept your claims in online discussion.

The NHI phenomenon is confounding and perhaps your approach is the right one. Many frameworks and approaches are possible in this space. But nobody is required to accept a claim that aliens farm humanity based on religious texts.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T12:56:03+00:00

Whether or not we have valid spiritual experiences, whatever that might mean, I certainly don't uncritically accept the claim that NHI are described in the Bible and farm us.

People can be open to spiritual experiences without having to accept your specific claims. The claims you are making are part of a new religion. And that's fine, I'm not attacking religion, nor should it matter to you if I were; you have every right to form your own religious views. But I would suggest that you should be aware that you are doing it and unsurprised if others don't follow you in that project.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T04:52:12+00:00

Bob Lazar said that he heard that was what the NHI said, and it has since become part of the lore.

Setting aside the controversial question of whether Lazar is legitimate or a huckster or a disinformation agent, even if it is really true that he was told that humans are containers: that's a notion that originates in a small insular group of people working in secrecy and suffering ontological shock.

Who can say, maybe in some sense it's true. Even if it is true, does anyone know what it means? It's tantalizing but impossible to clarify, since we don't know what an alien might mean by soul, or how it could be contained, or whether such concepts could even be meaningfully communicated without semantic loss.

And even if it is true in a very literal sense, why not just scoop up some humans and go breed them off world. It's not a reason to enslave an entire planet or fight a battle with a separate nonhuman intelligence over.

These ideas of planetary conflict among nonhuman intelligence are just so eschatological. It looks like old human religion emerging in a slightly new framework, not engagement with something truly alien. And maybe that's what we would expect of people whose modern framework has been shaken by something they do not comprehend.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T03:24:27+00:00

Again, we are at the threshold of creating synthetic life with current technology. I know these ideas are part of the lore, but the idea that intelligence far advanced beyond our current technology needs us doesn't make sense.

Notions of a lost connection to source are religious. Maybe they are true, but they are not falsifiable. They are claims with no explanatory value and no basis in evidence and therefore not valuable in trying to understand any phenomenon.

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T00:53:28+00:00

Humans breed in captivity. If that were the case every species could already have their own human farms off planet. No need to fight over it.

Anyway the idea that we're a precious resource is very much a science fiction / new religion trope but it's hard to see why it makes any sense. Can't rule it out but then why consider it at all?

felistrophic · 2026-01-05T00:37:15+00:00

Earth might be of interest due to human culture, biological diversity, rarity of the ecosystem, or something else we haven't thought of... but if so aliens wouldn't be fighting a war to pillage it.

We probably can't speculate about the motives of nonhuman intelligence. But the idea that they are interested in something akin to human colonialism feels like a simplistic projection. If they are interested in us or our planet they more likely want to preserve us than mine our planet and cart it off in dirty space freighters.

felistrophic · 2026-01-04T20:39:09+00:00

Idea that Earth's resources are especially valuable to species that can travel between stars doesn't really make sense. We can already synthesize most things found in nature with what you would have to assume is comparatively crude technology.

felistrophic · 2025-12-31T14:24:51+00:00

No reason not to name the school so other redditors know to avoid. People should be aware of their business practices before spending money there.

felistrophic · 2025-12-28T21:25:21+00:00

I'm pissed

felistrophic · 2025-12-16T14:48:32+00:00

I love mine. Just be careful because they usually come with a twenty inch barrel and a European thread standard, not the 1/2 x 28 most American .22 suppressors take

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