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There's a difference - you have to ask to be taught for Buddhism. The trick is to go somewhere foreign, radiate peacefulness and light, and when people ask you what's up, you hit 'em with the dharma. There's a bit where the Buddha tells the bhikkus to go forths and live gloriously, but I...

POD: early 60's. Instead of banning ibogaine as 'likely to cause addiction or endanger human health' an honest study reveals it's anti-addictive properties. After a series of pilot studies on heroin addicts, Switzerland creates public ibogaine clinics to treat addicts. This leads to studies on...

My idea: We absolutely do not have anything close to the tech to colonize other planets. Visit, but not colonize. That would require deconstructing and shipping our entire technological base. Pathetically, we also can't build a closed environment that will sustain human life indefinitely...

The colonization might follow on the 1890 rinderpest epidemic, which depopulated most of the pastoralist areas. Some believe that the Serengeti was densely populated before the epidemic. Couple this with something really bad happening in Europe, like a tsunami, maybe.

I have always fully supported the plan that the US declare war on Canada then surrender unconditionally. Let Ottawa deal with it. :p

Capybaras are semiaquatic, which complicates things, though people do keep them as pets. I believe they also have territorial issues. If you have horses, you can farm semi-domestic rheas, just like the Texas ranches were based on wild cattle.

There is some evidence of contact, in the form of funky looking South American chickens that lay blue eggs - and are native to Polynesia. See Araucana.

Possibly a giant ground sloth or some form of mastodon, only because no one knows anything about their behavior to rule them out. There are sheep and goats, but so far as I know, they are about as tameable as deer.....bring up the Muisca people in South America, who semi-domesticated deer by...

Versus unelected monarchs that spread virulent fundamentalism and have dissidents tortured and murdered. How are the rest of our 'allies' in the region in comparison? For one thing, women seem much better off in Iran. And Iran lives in the 21st century, not some medieval Islamic fantasy. he US...

I like to see the result of this - a thriving Iran where prosperity calms zealotry. Theme music for this. I asked an Iranian professor for the meaning, he replied "It's Sufi nonsense about beauty and love and God"

Hmm - a maroon group that speaks Taino and has held on to a few cemis. If you're interested in this kind of thing in an ASB alternate world kind of way, see my Voudu Nation vs Latter Day Incan Empire thread on the GURPS forum, which is about an alternate Caribbean and SA where minority cultures...

If it helps you any to know, 'mugabe' means 'king' in the Ankole language. I always wondered if it just went to his head....

While talking about Iran on another forum, it occurred to me that Iran would make a much better ally for the US than the Saudis in that Iran is democratic Islamic republic with a potentially strong economy and technological sector. I'm assuming he have to start well before the Revolution, which...

Not trying to derail the story, just a joke: How do we know that Communism is not a real science? If it were a real science, they would have tested it on dogs first.

Aside- I've often wondered if the failure of the centrally planned economy was due to lack of information technology. It seems reasonable that we should be able to model economies soon, with a least a degree of prediction. When you think of it, what the communists tried was nuts - how could they...

Well, bananas made it to Africa, and that was HUGE. Africa really has a fair amount of grains, and banana agriculture involves the same kind of group work as rice - in any case, the Chagga people were doing terraced irrigation. Africans had pretty good canoes, even boats. There were two hundred...