Rat King Parasite appreciation day

Ever heard of rat kings (Rattenkönig)? It is a real, rare, and disturbing occurrence.

A rat king is a collection of rats whose tails are intertwined and bound together by one of several possible mechanisms, such as entangling material like hair or sticky substances like sap or gum or getting tied together. Historically, this alleged phenomenon is particularly associated with Germany. There are several specimens preserved in museums but very few instances of rat kings have been observed in modern times.

Source

Such  "rosette" ("little rose") shapes of rats are called "rat kings", because the king of rats would sit on top of the knot in the center, being carried around on its throne like a king.

This phenomenon has been reported extensively, so I will not do it. Read this article if you are interested.

The placenta wars

The border zone or transition zone or “ Umlagerungszone” marks the division between the fetal and maternal tissues. As might be expected it is not a sharp line, for it is in truth the fighting line where the conflict between the maternal cells and the invading trophoderm takes place, and it is strewn with such of the dead on both sides as have not already been carried off the field or otherwise disposed of. In the earlier stages there is even more evidence of the deadly nature of the conflict than in the later stages.

Johnstone, R. W. (1914). Contribution to the Study of the Early Human Ovum, page 258.

The placenta appears to be a ruthless parasitic organ existing solely for the maintenance and protection of the fetus, perhaps too often to the disregard of the maternal organism. 

Ernest W. Page. (1939). The relation between hydatid moles, relative ischemia of the gravid uterus, and the placental origin of eclampsia

The placenta is simply a neuroendocrine parasite.

P. J. Lowry (2008). 

Today we take a long, hard look at the human placenta, find out how it is similar to a parasite, a tumor, and a battlefield between the mother and the fetus, and how this makes pregnancy much more risky than it could have been.

To start our journey, think about this question: why is pregnancy so dangerous? The reason is that, in a pregnancy, there are two bodies, instead of one, and they have different interests. They cooperate, but they also fight each other.

The fetus is selfish: it wants itself to be strong. The mother is also selfish: it would rather not devote too much energy to the fetus, because if it does, it would not have enough energy to make another fetus. This is the secret war, taking place on the placenta.

Unless otherwise noted, I'm generally referring to Haig, David, ‘Genetic Conflicts in Human Pregnancy’, (1993).

The ignored placenta  

The placenta... the place where the embryo meets the mother, where the embryo receives the nutrients and the mother receives the waste products. It is a vital organ, but rarely given a thought at all. Think about all the vital organs: brain, heart, lung, stomach, guts, liver, skin, muscles, bones, hand, arm, feet, leg, ovary... each having its own rich implications in culture.

• "Screaming at the top of the lungs"
• "Brain of the team"
• "Right to bear arms"
• "Got guts"
• "Don't drink too much or your liver would complain"
• ...

But what about the ignored organs? The pancreas is all but forgotten, and we can't really blame that. It's small, and has been dismissed as merely a meaty cushion until about 19th century. Even now, its only claim to fame is that it makes insulin, which keeps us from becoming diabetic.

Genitalia, sperm, sex: evolutionary divergence.

Sometimes a good idea just keeps getting rediscovered. The eye has evolved many times independently, and parasitism has evolved for no less than 60 times. This is called convergent evolution. And of course, it has its evil twin... divergent evolution.

Consider this picture below, of the complex shapes of closely related species of Bombus (bumblebees). These species are so similar that the main way to distinguish them is by looking at their penises...

Source: The Evolution of Primary Sexual Characters in Animals, Figure 4.1

Let's read: Parasite of the Day, Part 3

https://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2020/04/armillifer-armillatus.html
For a multistage parasite, it usually treats its final host well, but the intermediate host unwell. Here, a cheetah ate a snake and got infested by parasites that mistook it for an intermediate host. This resulted in severe infestation.

A male leopard at Kruger National Park, South Africa, which became heavily infected with tongue worm Armillifer armillatus. Researchers found hundreds of A. armillatus larvae throughout the leopard's body cavity, encysted or crawling through the liver, spleen, intestine, and lungs. 

the leopard might have eaten snakes which were infected with female tongue worms that were full of fertilised eggs. After the eggs were liberated from the adult tongue worm's body, they hatched and enter into the next stage of development - the nymphs.

Let's read: Parasite of the Day, Part 2

https://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2016/12/leucochloridium-paradoxum-revisited.html

Hyperparasites, illustrated by gambling

Consider a gamble house. The ones running the gamble house are parasites upon the gamble addicts.

The moderate gamblers, those who gamble for a little fun, arguably derive more pleasure from the gambling experience than pain of losing money, so the gambling house and the moderate gamblers are mutualistic.

The professional gamblers, the card counters, those who can earn money from the gamble house, are the hyperparasites on the gambling house.

Then there are those hired by the gambling house to catch the card counters. Those are the hyperhyperparasites.

Thus we obtain an ecosystem with:

• Gamble addicts: the hosts.
• Gamble houses: the parasites
• Moderate gamblers: creatures that are mutualistic with the parasites.
• Professional gamblers: the hyperparasites.
• People hired to catch the professional gamblers: the hyperhyperparasites.

Hairworms are awesome

Today's post is ALL about hairworms. I never knew how awesome they are until now!

By default, diagrams are from Thorp and Covich’s Freshwater Invertebrates, Chapter 15 Phylum Nematomorpha.

The lifecycle of hairworms

For hairworms raised in the lab, the entire life cycle takes 4–8 weeks, depending on the species. 

A graphical summary of a typical hairworm lifecycle:

Figure 15.6

1. In water, an egg hatches into a hairworm larva.
2. The larva eats tiny food debris, swimming freely in water.
3. The larva gets eaten by a cricket larva. 
4. The hairworm larva leeches off the cricket and grows up.
5. The cricket is all grown up, and so is the hairworm. The hairworm hears the calling of the water.
6. The hairworm mind controls the cricket to jump into the water. Then in 30-60 seconds, the hairworm emerges and swims away. The cricket might survive this ordeal, feeling a deep emptiness inside.
7. The hairworms mate in water and lays eggs.

They can mind control crickets

This is their source of fame. They do it to make sure they won't dry out after they escape the cricket.

You can think about this in another way: the cricket is actually an intermediate host, and the water is the final host. The hairworm controls the cricket to get willingly eaten by the water, then the hairworms emerge and mate in the body of the water.

The water is an apex predator: it can eat all kinds of species, even humans, by suffocation.

Let's read: Parasite of the Day, Part 1

Parasite of the Day is a blog all about parasites! It's amazing, but also really really long. This post is my digest of that blog.

https://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2020/07/neofoleyellides-boerewors.html

Eyescream

https://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2017/01/ophiocordyceps-pseudolloydii.html

The zombie fungus ants often go out to die at a fixed place. This place would be full of ants, and called "ant graveyard".

Graveyards on the Move: The Spatio-Temporal Distribution of Dead Ophiocordyceps-Infected Ants. PLOS ONE 4, e4835 (2009).

I'm a parasite! Who are you? Wait, am I?

I'm a Parasite! Who are you?

Are you – Parasite – too?

Then there's a pair of us!

I don't know how to continue this poem.

-- not really Emily Dickinson

While I'm studying about parasitism, I recognized that humans have parasitic castrators too. There are many belief systems (memeplexes) that can castrate humans: it stops people from reproducing somehow. Perhaps the most famous example is Theravada Buddhism, and to a lesser extent, Mahayana Buddhism. 

Theravada Buddhism is a parasitic castrator

In Theravada Buddhism, the main way to escape this painful world is to give up attachment to this world, become a monk, and perform various mental exercises like studying and meditation. Mahayana Buddhism is less strict, and gives more hope for non-monks to also escape, but the monks must still remain celibate.

In biology, parasitic castrators are parasites that stop the hosts' reproduction, completely or in part, to its own benefit. 

Now match that to Theravada Buddhism:

• Theravada Buddhism (TB) stops the host from reproducing, by directing the host into a monastic lifestyle.
• The celibacy of the host directly benefits the reproduction of TB, since a celibate host has more time to devote to the duties, such as copying the sutras (part of the memetic code of TB), perform Buddhist rituals like chanting (increasing the social influence of TB), teaching Buddhism to the next generation (TB reproduction), etc.

We see that it is a memetic parasitic castrator, hosted on Homo sapiens, regarded as a genetic creature.

Let's Read: Parasite Rex

Let's read through Parasite Rex (2001), chapter by chapter.

Prologue

Parasites are much more prevalent and important than people give credit for. A majority of species of multicelluar life are parasites.

The biodiversity of parasites is astonishing and there is so much to learn, especially since biologists have long considered parasites as a freakish side-show to the spectacle of life.

Chap 1. Early history of parasitology.

Caduceus is probably based on the primitive therapy for guinea worm.

Renaissance doctors think that parasites are internally generated tissues/spontaneously generated organisms, symptoms, not causes, of diseases.

Spontaneous generation is falling out of favor in the 18th century thanks to experiments on rotten meat (disproving spontaneous generation of maggots) and meat soup experiment of Pasteur (disproving spontaneous generation of microorganisms).

Parasites posed theological problems:

1. If parasites are truly spontaneously generated, then it'd be accrediting bodies with the power to create life, which is playing God.

2. Theodicy. Darwin's quote about parasitoid is relevant:

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars...

The familiar animals (fish, cats, humans...) have their young looking very similar to their adults. This is not so for parasites. Most of them have complex life-histories, with vastly different body shapes. Japetus Steenstrup was the first to propose that they travelled from host to host, changing their body shapes as they do.

Friedrich Küchenmeister proposed that bladder worms (little worm hiding in cysts in animal muscles) would develop into tapeworms in the digestive tract after being swallowed (usually when the host is eaten).

In 1854, then 1859, he proved his theory by feeding death row inmates with bladder worms (hidden in food), then dissecting the corpses and finding developed tapeworms.

What does it feel like to be a parasite?

Today's post is based on Sukhdeo, Michael, ‘Earth’s Third Environment: The Worm’s Eye View’, BioScience, 47.3 (1997), 141–49 <https://doi.org/10/c8m7zv>

You know liver flukes? Those leaf-shaped worms that can infect your liver if you drink bad water or eat undercooked freshwater fish?

Source: Wikipedia

Source: CDC

Those creatures have a pretty complex lifecycle to exploit two kinds of hosts, as shown above. 

1. Eggs hatch in water into "miracidia". Miracidia are little swimmers.
2. Miracidia find a snail and somehow get into the snail. The two popular methods are being eaten, and tunneling through the skin of snail.
3. Miracidia develops into sporocysts. Sporocysts are basically egg bags.
4. Little eggs in sporocysts develop into rediae. Rediae are basically hungry hungry little worms. They not only eat food from the snail's body, but eat other parasites too, to reduce the competition.
5. Rediae give birth to cercariae, which look like tadpoles. They get out of the snail somehow (by pooping or by tunneling through), and swim to the shore.
6. Cercariae climbs onto a plant and builds a hard, waterproof shell called a metacercariae. It hibernates there until it's eaten, usually by a cow or sheep.
7. The metacercariae bursts out of the shell, tunnels through the digestive tract, and somehow finds the liver. At this stage, they are called "flukes", and they can cause all kinds of nasty diseases.
8. The flukes grow up and have sex in the bile duct, then the female flukes lay eggs in the river of bile. The eggs would be washed into the intestine, then pooped out, starting the cycle again.

Parasites are everywhere, EVERYWHERE

Let's start with a handy graphic showing you how absolutely infested a typical fish is with parasites.

A guide to parasites on a typical fish

your average fish is, to parasites, a diverse palette of microhabitats, all of which are ripe for the exploiting for the cost of a few specialized adaptations.  If you look hard enough, you’ll find something living in most of these microhabitats, in most species of fishes. -- Alistar Dove

And the thing is, in typical, healthy, functional ecologies, parasites are EVERYWHERE. Such infestation is not usually a sign of ecological poor health.

Extremely biased sex ratios: the case of sibling-incestuous parasitoid wasps

In 1930, Fisher argued that, in a species that must reproduce sexually, has exactly two sexes, and with perfectly random mating (every female-male pair chosen randomly, until no more female-male pair can be made, and each chosen pair mates, producing offsprings), the optimal sex ratio is 1:1 for the selfish genes.

The argument is very simple: Suppose that, right now, the sex ratio is 

female:male = A:B

and A > B. Then by random mating, every male would be paired off and have offsprings, but some females would be unlucky and have no offsprings. Then, every gene has a selfish interest in avoiding falling into a female offspring, which might end up a genetic dead-end. As such, genes that nudge the offspring sex-ratio to make more males would be adaptive and spread through the population, decreasing the female:male ratio.

Similarly if there are more males than females. Thus, the equilibrium sex ratio is 1:1.

This argument can be made rigorous with more algebra, but the gist is there.

However, this result can be grossly wrong when mating is very much not random, which is the case in many species with extensive sib-mating (blood sibling incest). This was pointed out by Extraordinary sex ratios, (Hamilton, 1967). 

The argument is pretty simple. Consider parasitoid wasps. Those are basically the real life equivalent of Alien xenomorphs: the mother wasps lay eggs inside a living caterpillar, and the young wasp larvas eat the caterpillar as they grow up. 

In many parasitoid wasps, the caterpillar is usually their only meal in life. The male wasps would crawl out and immediately mate with the females and then die. The female wasps would fly out and search for new victims.

Since each caterpillar is usually victimized by just one or a few mother wasps, once the caterpillar dies and the wasps crawl out to mate, a lot of the matings would be sib-matings. This breaks the random mating assumption, and causes a sex-ratio biased to have a lot of females.

The reason goes like this: Consider the extreme case of only one wasp parasitizing a caterpillar. All the offsprings would then be from one mother. In such cases, sex isn't useful, since all the benefits of sexual reproduction (genetic recombination giving innovations) are gone. In such cases, the mother might as well clone itself and have an all-female brood. 

This extreme case is tempered to only a very high female-to-male ratio in the case of a few mothers parasitizing a single caterpillar.

Some Zhuangzi stories

Who is Zhuangzi?

莊子 Zhuangzi ("Master Zhang") is a Chinese philosopher of Taoism in 4th century BC. The main source about him and his students is the book Zhuangzi. His original name is 莊周 Zhuang Zhao, but as traditional for great Chinese thinkers, he was called "Master Zhang". Due to romanization issues, you might see his name written as Chuang Tzu, Chuang-tzu, Chuang Chou, etc. Same as why Mao Zedong is also referred to as "Mao Tse-tung".

Taoism, if talked about at all in Western countries, is usually by quoting something witty from the 道德經 Tao Te Ching, a terse philosophical poem by 老子 Laozi, the legendary founder of Taoism. This is unfortunate, since Zhuangzi, the second classic of Taoism, is far more fun and approachable than Tao Te Ching.

The Book of Zhuangzi is one of the most entertaining as well as one of the profoundest books in the world. 

— Arthur Waley, English orientalist and sinologist

Well, not anymore. I'll compile fun stories from Zhuangzi in this post!

The Chinese Hitler: Yellow Tiger Zhang Xianzhong

Today we talk about Zhang Xianzhong, who called himself many names: the Yellow Tiger, the Great King of the West, and Laozi ("old master"). People remember him as "the butcher of Sichuan".

Heaven and Earth are not kind.
They regard all things as straw dogs.
The sage is not kind.
He regards people as straw dogs.

-- Laozi, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 5

A quick YouTube search shows the usual genocides (here, I include massive man-made death-events) being covered: Hitler's genocide, Khmer Rouge genocide, Armenian genocide, Rwandan genocide, the Soviet famines, the Great Leap Forward famines... but nobody, I repeat, nobody has done a video on Zhang Xianzhong, the genocidal dictator of Sichuan in the 1640s. Indeed, the English information on Zhang Xianzhong is extremely scanty.

Well, not anymore. I will make a video all about Zhang Xianzhong. This post is my scrape-book as I do the research.

The chaos of Ming-Qing transition

The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.

---- First line of the Chinese epic, Romance of the Three Kingdoms 

A lot of the Western conceptions of the "old and sickly China", with mandarins, long braids, opium-smoking, and ling-chi, those are from the Qing dynasty (1644 -- 1911). Before that, there was the Ming dynasty (1368 -- 1644).

China was extremely powerful during the Ming dynasty, and the seven massive voyages of Zheng He took place from 1405 to 1433, asserting dominance for the Chinese emperor all over the coast of Indian Ocean.

Source: Wikipedia

Widespread brother-sister incest in Roman Egypt and Zoroastrianism

The incest taboo is strong among humans, but in two cases, it has been overcome, or so it seems. The first case is in Roman Egypt, where for over 250 years, there was a tradition of full brother-sister marriages. The second case is in Zoroastrianism, where brother-sister (and other close-relative) marriages are considered a sacred duty called Xwedodah.

Roman Egypt needs no introduction, though Zoroastrianism might need some, so here's my summary:

1. There are two cosmic principles: good and evil, light and dark. They are equally powerful.
2. Ahura Mazda is the one true God that is all good. There are smaller gods, some working for Mazda and some against him.
3. Originally, the world was all good, as Mazda intended. But then evil appeared and since then has been a battle of good and evil.
4. Ahuras are good gods, and Daevas are evil gods.
5. Humans should choose to side with the good and reject the evil.
6. The Avesta are the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism.
7. Eventually evil will be eliminated and the world will be as good as Ahura Mazda intended. Evil creatures will either be destroyed or be purified (depending on who you ask).

Menstruation taboo in Rome, Judaism, and China

Ancient Rome

Menstruation taboo is popularly held throughout history. Here's a selection of quotes.

Pliny the Elder, the most famous naturalist of ancient Rome, stated that:

Contact with [menstrual blood] turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seed in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees fall off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison.

-- Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 7, Chapter 13

Basically, menstruation blood causes rabies in dogs. Not to worry though, later in Book 28, Chapter 28, Pliny stated that a strip of cloth dipped in menstrual blood can cure rabies in humans... because homeopathy! In the same chapter, he also quoted (without agreeing) other magical beliefs about menstruation:

hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightning even, will be scared away by a woman uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon her. The same, too, with all other kinds of tempestuous weather; and out at sea, a storm may be lulled by a woman uncovering her body merely, even though not menstruating at the time... If the menstrual discharge coincides with an eclipse of the moon or sun, the evils resulting from it are irremediable... if a woman strips herself naked while she is menstruating, and walks round a field of wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin, will fall from off the ears of corn... this is not done at sun-rise, for if so, the crop will wither and dry up. Young vines, too, it is said, are injured irremediably by the touch of a woman in this state; and both rue and ivy, plants possessed of highly medicinal virtues, will die instantly upon being touched by her.

Genocide in Xinjiang, old and new

What is Xinjiang, and what is Dzungaria?

Xinjiang, a border province of China, is in the news since 2005, as the Chinese government enforces stricter control over its Muslim Uyghur population. This has been heavily reported and I won't repeat. However these reports miss a historical precedent: the 18th century genocide of Dzungaria by the Qing dynasty.

Map of China with Xinjiang. Source: Wikipedia

That's Xinjiang today. Before that, Xinjiang was controlled by Qing dynasty as its west-most province. And before that, it was an independent Mongol khanate, called the Dzungar Khanate.

"Dzungar" is the name of a group of Mongols that ruled the land called Dzungaria. Dzungaria still exists as the name of a geographical area within Xinjiang, but the Dzungars are gone, thanks to the Dzungar genocide.

Map of Dzungaria around 1700s. Source: Wikipedia

To say that Dzungaria is obscure is an understatement. Even I have not given this place a second thought despite living in China for many years, and reading about the Uyghur situation in Xinjiang. I hope that this post will make their history more known, and give better context for the current Uyghur situation.

The imperialistic conquests of Qing

Before Qing dynasty got imperialism-ed by the West, Qing was busy imperialism-ing the west, and north, and even south. Comparing the map of Ming and Qing and you'd notice several big additions: Taiwan, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet. Imperialism!

Ming and its neighbors, 1409. Source: Wikipedia

Qing map, circa 1820. Source: Wikipedia

(I am not saying that Qing got what's coming for them, since there is no justice in history: the British Empire never got imperialism-ed.)

Buddhism and all its major versions

The core version

Souls exist (but if you look deeper, not really), and they reincarnate repeatedly into many different forms of creatures, such as gods, humans, non-human animals, plants (maybe), hungry ghosts, and hell-beings. This cycle of rebirth is the samsara.

The world is extremely big, time is cyclic, and there are many universes. (These ideas are taken from Hinduism.)

Reincarnation is determined by a balance of karma. Karma is added by good actions and suffering bad events, and vice versa. This is why living in comfort loses karma, and having a bad life (such as those in hell) gains karma.

Life (except the gods') is full of suffering. There are four great life events, and every one creates great suffering: birth, old age, sickness, and death. Further, the suffering doesn't stop at just one life, because souls are reincarnated endlessly. Even the gods are not immune because gods eventually die too and they can get reincarnated to a suffering life.

The Wuxuan cannibalism frenzy, China 1966

In 1968, during the cultural revolution in Wuxuan of Guangxi, a case of widespread cultured cannibalism occurred. This is a quick post compiling the best quotes from Consuming Counterrevolution: The Ritual and Culture of Cannibalism in Wuxuan, Guangxi, China, May to July 1968 (1995). This paper is itself heavily based on the book Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China (1993).

Wuxuan in 1966 was a fairly remote county reporting a population of 221,786.

From May to July, struggles were held in all or the great majority of the 114 brigades (villages and streets [jie]), and no fewer than 90 had one or more struggle meetings that terminated with on-the-spot execution. Of a total of 524 executed, 64 (later amended to 75 or 76) were eaten throughout the county's municipality and nine communes, according to the official investigation (Zheng 1993:58, 96). 

His second chapter is closely based on the official report of what happened, dated May 1987, and a separate list of 64 victims, dated July 4, 1983. Fifty-six had their heart and liver cut out; 18 were completely consumed (down to the soles of their feet), 13 had their genitals eaten, one was decapitated after being eaten, and 7 were actually cut up while they were still alive (Zheng 1993:96).

Only 15 were punished by jail sentences, for only up to 14 years.

Children's hell, according to Japanese Buddhism

While Christians might condemn dead babies to limbo, hell, or paradise, and atheists like me condemn everyone to utter nothing, there is a children-only hell in Japanese Buddhism, invented around the eleventh century.

This post is based on chapter 8 of Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins (1997).

Japanese Buddhism has included the idea of an underworld where all dead people go to after they die. This underworld is usually temporary, as people would simply go through a bureaucratic process which assigns them to a suitable rebirth. However, some people can be stuck in the underworld.

On the edge of the underworld is 三途川, Sanzu no kawa, meaning "the river with three passes". In order to reach the other side of Sanzu, a dead person must walk through one of the three passes. The eviler the person is, the harder the pass is.

Dark side of Buddhism

Overview of Buddhism

Let's analyze Buddhism, in the style of Stephen Prothero in his God is not One (2011)! According to Prothero, every religion has a problem, a solution, a list of techniques for solution, and a list of role models.

1. Problem: life is full of suffering (dukkha). There are four great life events, and every one creates great suffering: birth, old age, sickness, and death. Further, the suffering doesn't stop at just one life, because souls are reincarnated endlessly.
2. Solution: achieve nirvana, which is freedom from life, time, and the cycle of rebirth, by becoming absolutely nonexistent. The word "nirvana" literally means "blown out", and a person achieving nirvana is like an oil lamp blown out. They aren't gone to a heaven, but completely nonexistent. No thought, no nature, no self, absolutely nothing.
3. Techniques: varied, but the most famous ones are in the The Noble Eightfold Path, a list of eight practices that allows one to see through the illusion of existence, realize that everything is fundamentally empty, and achieve nirvana.
4. Role models: all the famous Buddhists and their stories. One example is, of course, Gautama Buddha himself. Another is a certain god called the Medicine King, which would be a role model for many Buddhist self-immolators, as discussed later.

If Buddhism is a video game, there would be many, many levels. Every time you die, you are respawn at a certain location with a certain level. Where and how you get respawn depends on your karma-meter, and you gain or lose karma depending on your actions and experiences. You gain karma by doing moral things or suffering. You lose karma by doing immoral things or enjoying nice things.

You can play six kinds of character, each having a different play-area.

1. Gods: the world of gods is full of pleasures and powers.
2. Humans: the world we know, full of pleasures and pain.
3. Titans: titans are kind of like gods, but they are angrier and often fight with gods. They are too occupied with war-making to think about nirvana. This level is controversial and many Buddhists think they don't exist.
4. Animals: the world we know, but as a non-human animal!
5. Hungry ghosts: they live in our world, but we can't see them. They are constantly hungry and thirsty.
6. Hell-beings: hell, basically. There are many sub-levels of hell, too [click for a post all about them]! From painful to extremely painful.

Forcing the hand of God(s)

There are many ways to deal with God(s). You can pray to Them, make friends with them, ignore them, or perhaps... threaten them. It can get quite brutal, really.

Make it rain

Humans, ever since they started farming, became terribly dependent on rain. Whereas hunter-gatherers could follow the rain, and generally have a wide selection of backup foods to eat during extended droughts. Farmers cannot follow the rain, and farming communities are so populous as to make it impossible to have backup foods for everyone.

As such, ever since farming started, rainmaking rituals also started.

Let's start by a curious article from Weather Making, Ancient and Modern (MW Harrington, 1894), published in April 25, 1894, volume VI, page 42 of National Geographics:

I present a clipping from the New York Tribune to which my attention was called by Dr T. C. Mendenhall. Se non e vero e hen trovato [Even if it's not true, it's a good story.]. The extract runs as follows:

In the department of Castañas there had been no rain for nearly a year, and the people were brought to such a pass that they were actually dying of thirst, to say nothing of the total destruction of all crops and other agricultural industries. 

"El Pueblo Católico [The Catholic People]," of New San Salvador, prints a number of resolutions promulgated by the principal alcalde of the town and department of Castañas. They are as follows:

"Considering that the Supreme Creator has not behaved well in this province, as in the whole of last year only one shower of rain fell ; that in this summer, notwithstanding all the processions, prayers and praises, it has not rained at all, and consequently the crops of Castañas, on which depend the prosperity of the whole department, are entirely ruined, it is decreed:

"Article 1. If within the peremptory period of eight days from the date of this decree rain does not fall abundantly, no one will go to mass or say prayers.

"Article 2. If the drought continues eight days more, the churches and chapels shall be burned, and missals, rosaries, and other objects of devotion will be destroyed.

"Article 3. If, finally, in a third period of eight days it shall not rain, all the priests, friars, nuns, and saints, male and female, will be beheaded. And for the present permission is given for the commission of all sorts of sin, in order that the Supreme Creator may understand with whom he has to deal."

The most remarkable feature of this affair is the fact that four days after these resolutions were passed the heaviest rainfall known for years was precipitated on the burning community.

Side note: blowing up a tornado

I just noticed this funny tidbit in the same article. Turns out that nuking a tornado isn't a new idea. Back in 1887, someone applied for a patent for it!

I will consider the first, that of Mr J. B. Atwater, of Chicago (number 370,845, 1887). A strong box with a double bottom is firmly supported on a pole erected at a suitable point, probably a mile or so southwest of the village to be protected. The upper bottom is fixed and the space above it is filled with an explosive and firmly closed. In holes in the upper bottom are inserted fulminating caps and these project below its lower surface. The lower bottom slides up and down. Then, if a high wind drives the lower bottom against the upper with such force as to flash the caps, the explosion follows, and the tornado (if present) suffers the effects which a tornado will suffer when a powerful explosion occurs in its immediate vicinity.

Would it work?

Perhaps it will be effective ; we can be more positive when it has been tried.  

Well, modern science concludes that it will not work.

What should work, though, is setting fire to a grassfield when the day is already humid. This imitates the natural rainmaking process.

Rainmaking in China

There are many rituals for rainmaking in China, from the tamest to the most violent. This section is sourced on two papers:

• Cohen, Alvin P., ‘Coercing the Rain Deities in Ancient China’, History of Religions, 17.3/4 (1978), 244–65 <https://doi.org/10/bstb39>
• Schafer, Edward H., ‘Ritual Exposure in Ancient China’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 14.1/2 (1951), 130–184 <https://doi.org/10/b573kw>

Method one: put someone out there in the sun, optionally naked, as a symbol of all people that suffers in the drought. If the rain gods are sympathetic, they would bring rain.

Method two: put someone that the rain gods would care about. Perhaps find someone that is a child of raingod, perhaps some witch who is familiar with the rain gods, or perhaps an earthen model of the rain gods (often in the shape of a dragon), and make them suffer great heat. They might stay in the sun, or be put into rings of fire and dance to make them sweat profusely.

Method three: if all else fails, someone can be burnt on a pyre. This someone could be a witch, an official, a Buddhist, or an earthen model of the rain gods. Less harshly,, the model of the rain gods could be whipped, or seriously criticize for their abandonment of duty.

The ritual abuse of the rain gods is basically threatening the gods, which is what this post is about.

One interesting illustration is this oracle script for "暴" ("to expose")

It depicts a person lying under the sun, with two more person looking over a pyre. An explicit depiction of a rainmaking ritual.

Some brutal children's stories I read in China

Some children's stories I read back then in 2000s China were surprisingly brutal.

Fox court

In a forest where humans lived with animals, a farmer lost a chicken, so a fox organized a court and interrogated in suspects and testifiers. The true criminal was of course a wolf, but the fox was allied with the wolf, so he wanted to declare a herbivore guilty instead.

An unlucky sheep was ordered forward as a suspect.

• "Where were you at the night of the disappearance?
• "I was at my home sleeping, sir. My eyes can't see in the dark anyway."
• "Do you believe Mr Cow did this?"
• "I am 100% sure he didn't."
• "But you just said you can't see in the dark, and yet the crime happened in the dark. Have you just contradicted yourself?"

Then the fox immediately declared the sheep guilty and had her executed. The farmer was given the skin and wool of the sheep, while the fox got all the meat and bones and had a nice feast.

Four mice and one cat

A sad story by Zheng Yuanjie. Originally published as 四只老鼠和一只猫的故事.

There were four little mice, living in constant fear and loathing of a cat named Lina. Lina was very fierce towards them and often bullied them to a corner.

One day, the little mice came upon a puppet dog from the puppet theater company, and they decided to disguise themselves as a dog to frighten Lina. They had seen Lina being scared of dogs.

They got into the body of the puppet dog like lion dancers. Two rode on the necks of the other two, and the pair at the back grabbed the tails of the pair at the front. Just like that, the puppet dog stood up.

Working up to the syntax-semantics Duality

Today we reach the sacred heights of the syntax-semantics duality by repeatedly defining the monoids.

Level 1

Definition (first course in algebra): a monoid is a set $M$ equipped with a special element $e$ and a multiplication $m$, such that $e$ is the multiplicative identity, and the multiplication is associative.

The natural numbers, with $+$ and $0$, makes a monoid.

Another example is the string monoid: $M$ is all possible English strings made from the 26 letters, $e$ is the empty string, and $m$ is just putting two strings together.