Re:Ask HN: What's your "it's not stupid if it works" story?
by philwelch on Saturday December 23, 2023 @01:51AM
(#38742220)
There’s a theory that cats mostly domesticated themselves; human settlements and their large grain stores proved to be a reliable source of rodents for them to hunt, and the humans tolerated the cats because they kept the rodent problem in check, but these cats would have lived a semi-domesticated lifestyle around human settlements without initially being kept as household pets. Maybe the feral cats of Istanbul are the closest modern approximation to this.
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Re:Ask HN: What's your "it's not stupid if it works" story?
by jschrf on Saturday December 23, 2023 @02:35AM
(#38742394)
Definitely in line with the axiom of sits where fits
Re:Ask HN: What's your "it's not stupid if it works" story?
by hutzlibu on Saturday December 23, 2023 @04:40AM
(#38742917)
When I was a kid, that still used to be the norm on farms. There were farm cats and house cats. The farm cats were there to kill rodents and otherwise minded their own buisness. You could not just take them up, they would have bitten you. I think this has gotten out of style, as I have not seen the division nowdays and all cats seem to be gotten tame.
Re:Ask HN: What's your "it's not stupid if it works" story?
by philwelch on Saturday December 23, 2023 @10:24AM
(#38744836)
Barn cats are still a thing, but they are typically still owned and kept whereas I was talking more about free roaming cats that live around human settlements. The early free roaming cats would have been about as tame as barn cats; my impression is that the cats of Istanbul are more friendly.