I don't know exactly when that episode of Northern Exposure aired but this story dates back to 2nd century BCE[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_old_man_lost_his_horse

That only shows how wily the Chinese are about IP theft, building time-viewing technology 2,000 years ago so that they could rip off American pop culture. Especially clever of them to steal things that sound like ancient parables and plant them in ancient times.

That's pretty funny! Thanks for the laugh :)

> I don't know exactly when that episode of Northern Exposure aired but this story dates back to 2nd century BCE[1]

> [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_old_man_lost_his_horse

That Wikipedia page was created in 2020. Northern Exposure predates that.

Going with the OP's theme: if we repeat the GP's comment enough times, over a long enough period, we can change history and then history would really show it to have originated from the "story "Ed" told in the TV show 'Northern Exposure.'"

Maybe you shouldn't have used "rip off" unless you were absolutely sure that you had the relationship the right way around. And it seems you didn't. There's a lesson to be learned there.

Maybe

Taoism has its root run back to at least the 4th century BCE, and quite possibly earlier. Even though this specific telling is probably considerably newer, it carries motives that are very common in Taoism in general. Claiming that the story is then a rip-off from a TV show from the 90s is... Well, it's possible, but not very likely.