The Whippet #183: If you are a stranger, act like one

Well, well, well, here we are again.

The Oracle at Delphi: there were way more maxims than 'know thyself'

You might know that, at the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi, it reads "know thyself".

There were actually two more maxims prominently displayed at the entrance – "Nothing in excess" (thought to be more about being swept away by extreme emotions than about appetites) and "Give a pledge and trouble is at hand" (most often interpreted to mean something about acting as a guarantor on a loan).

And 147 others around the general temple area.

Sadly, they're mostly pretty boring, very 10 commandmentsy.

• #3 Worship the gods
• #4 Respect your parents
• #117 Acquire wealth justly

You'd think they couldn't go on like that for 147 maxims, but they manage it, including the suspiciously self-serving #123 Admire oracles.

You can read all of them on Wikipedia.

I think some of them have been translated too directly, though. #12 If you are a stranger act like one is translated from Xénos on ísthi. Xenia was this really important Greek principle of hospitality and the guest/host relationship, so even though xenos does mean 'stranger', I reckon #12 is more like "If you are a guest in someone's home, act like it".

It's kind of funny, right? Having a sacred temple inscribed with things like "You're under my roof, you'll abide by my rules". #87 Accuse one who is present is literally just "say it to my face".

What did the Ancient Greeks mean by "know thyself"?

People have been debating this since Ancient Greek times, but we don't really know what the original intent was. Popular angles include:

• the common modern interpretation, about self-awareness (Socrates said this, but also Freud)
• know your limits, don't go up against things that are too big for you (Socrates also said this)
• a memento mori, remember that you will die
• something more like "know your place". As you walk into the Oracle at Delphi, remember that you're just some guy, be humble

Wikipedia page on various interpretations

I'm not sure it makes sense to ask about its 'true' meaning – we have always reinterpreted old quotations to make them relevant to our current concerns.

Bird limbs

By KA92 on bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/ka92.bsky.social/post/3kkrzrwbri62m

I'm going in on Bluesky by the way; it's getting a lot of the good accounts that used to be on twitter (eg museum accounts that post pictures of artefacts), it has good moderation practices, and most importantly, it doesn't suppress external links.

That means it is the only major social media platform where creators can link to their stuff without that post being buried by the algorithm. You may have noticed I never asked people to share The Whippet to social media if they like it: it's because it's literally worthless to share the link anywhere except bluesky, although I did appreciate the gesture. If you want to support someone's work on any other platform, don't link to their work, just describe search terms a person could google). Follow me if you like! McKinley on Bluesky

Some babies that haven't learned to be afraid of snakes

(And some snakes that have been trained not to be afraid of babies.)

This is fun, in that it's stressful and transgressive but also completely harmless. The snakes are non-venomous, trained to tolerate being grabbed, and their handlers are like 2 feet away.

But also, it's A Lot. At one point a baby bites a snake.

The point is that we learn what to fear by looking at our caregivers' faces to see if we should be worried. The only fears that seem to be innate to human babies (not learned) are heights (once they develop depth perception) and loud noises.

Llama note

Whereas llamas, for example, are innately furious at dog-shaped animals from birth, and can be set to guard sheep from dingoes, coyotes etc without training.
(I've thought about this and it's very cute. Llamas are social and like to be in a herd, but they are also constantly jostling for dominance, which is stressful. A llama with a flock of sheep has a herd, so its happy, but it's a herd of what are basically really short llamas, so it's completely secure about its place in the pecking order.)

How to tell the difference between a llama and an alpaca

It's actually super-easy, once I tell you this, you'll never be able to stop identifying llamas. I go around saying, "that's an alpaca, actually" all day now. Does that make me more fun to hang around with? Who's to say! (It's not that I'm seeing living llamas all the time around Melbourne, sadly, but they come up as a graphic design element surprisingly often.)

Llamas have longer, banana-shaped ears; alpacas have shorter, straight ears.

Llamas have longer, more camel-ish faces. Alpacas have shorter faces with a bulgy, fluffy forehead.

How fluffy their face is depends on how recently they were sheared, but if you see that fluffy front-of-face tuft, it's an alpaca.

Also, llamas are much taller (and stronger, and braver) than alpacas, but you can't see that in out-of-context photos usually.

Here is Serge, who was abducted from a circus by French teenagers and was pretty chill about it. Is he a llama or an alpaca? This is a very low-quality photo, so if you know the answer, you're a certified camelid-recogniser now. (Llamas, alpacas, and camels are all camelids, I should have said that earlier, they're all cousins.)

Matthieu, one of the teens, said Serge seemed happy to follow the group – "like a dog on a leash" – and had no problem taking the night tram. "He hopped on without a problem. We followed suit and took a ride with him. There were other passengers."

However, the animal fell foul of a ticket inspector alerted by the tram driver. "Serge moved along the tram and we couldn't hold on to him. The inspector made him get off and tied him to a lamppost," Matthieu added. The [REDACTED]-nappers fled, and were picked up later by police.
The Guardian

Serge is a llama! His ears don't look so curved in the first photo, but they're long. Also, he is being noble and good, which is another way you can tell he's a llama.

Llamas have a reputation for spitting, but it's slander – they only spit at other llamas. With a kitten or puppy, it's important to get them used to humans from a young age, but with llamas, it's the opposite. If the llama babies get handled too much by humans, they start treating humans like other llamas, and that's when they spit.

The reason there's no sources in this section, is that 'llamas' was a contestant's expert topic on Hard Quiz, so I've already researched it intensely and it's been verified by fact-checkers etc. (The episode has already been recorded and the contestant has already won or lost; the vast majority of my llama facts will be revealed next year when the episode goes to air. "Is this is a llama or an alpaca?" wasn't one of the questions, that's a personal fixation.)

I got to this part of the newsletter and felt, as I often do, that it was 'lacking something'. Not very visual, except for all the llamas? So I optimistically googled "cool pictures" and the top result was this AI-generated cross between a leopard and a Porsche, who would really like to be on a can of teenage boy's body spray.

If you have any cool pictures to share, please do:

(I don't think it'll actually let you post an image in the comments, it'll have to be a link, with maybe a little sentence so people know what they're clicking through to)

How to tell the difference between intuition and just anxiety

ie, between scary thoughts that you should listen to, and scary thoughts you should ignore

My original belief was that you can only look at the content of the thought, and be aware of your own anxiety biases. If you are always scared of flying, then if you a concern arises about the plane crashing, you cannot trust it, because it's a typical intrusive thought for you.

But actually I think you CAN tell the difference, by feel – not perfectly, not everyone, but you could check in and see if this is true for you.

Anxiety tends to feel one or more of: rushed, urgent, and in the form of questions rather than facts ("did I lock the door??" not "I forgot to lock the door")

It often skips between objects to worry about ("is there someone behind that car? or in the alley up ahead? or behind me? what was that sound?" – that's free-floating anxiety looking for something to attach to).

Intuition tends to come as a calm, settled certainty – calm even about objectively terrifying things – and focused on a single, specific piece of information.

It's not a cycling list of all the potential risks, it's one thought, about one risk, and while it might require urgent action, the subjective experience is not that urgent, rushy, restless feeling.

For example, I get nervous about being followed reasonably often, but the one time I'm sure someone definitely was, it didn't come like anxiously looking behind me and listening out and worrying, it came through simple, clear and calm: "Oh. That person is planning to hurt me." I just knew it.
[I went back to a main street and asked some random couple to walk me home, it was fine.]

I think it's possible to get false positives on this (I've had the knowledge "X is dead" come like a simple certainty when they weren't) but not false negatives in my experience – the urgent, rushing, questioning worry is never reality-connected*

(* except in the broken clock way - if you ALWAYS worry anyone not currently within eyesight is dead, you'll be right a few times over a long enough timescale)