They didn't. Damascus was just a major trading center. "My sword came from Damascus" became "I have a good Damascus blade".

Concerning Damascus steel, you aren't completely correct. And by "not completely correct" I mean laughably, utterly dead wrong.

Even the most accurate clock is right most of the time

But... but... but...

"Runner! You are terminated!"

I've seen myself go cold turkey off of Adderall. I've seen my niece go turkey off of Ritalin. I've talked to actual psychiatrists who live with the clinical reality, not scare stories, Scientologists, woo and lies.

More and better research is good. It will, in time, lead to better therapies. Until then we have an inexpensive treatment which works well for a huge portion of the affected population. It's not "time to rethink" or decide that it's "impractical in the long term" until there's something better.

Saving the sloth might have meant a mother jaguar didn't have milk for her kittens.

Love many

Get green coffee beans. Roast in your oven or toaster oven until light yellowish.

Eschatology -> "k" sound. So I'm assuming the same for Eschaton. It does sound better.

A population of mice could evolve into something very much like an elephant, I suppose. You'd just need a lot of time, a lot of lucky accidents in mutation and recombination, some odd selection pressures and a metric buttload of mice.

Fair enough. "It would take forever" and "It would never happen" are different enough.

This puts me in mind of the story of the Galil Assault Rifle. After the 1967 War the Israeli Defense Forces decided to ditch the FN FAL for a simple reason. It was unreliable in dusty and sandy conditions. So they developed the Galil rifle and did what they usually do, gave it to a unit to play withtest to failure for…

I can open beer bottles with other people's teeth

The answer is "forever". Individuals do not evolve. Populations evolve.

And it has to be decorated by H. R. Giger.

Then "Sexchaton" it is!

Then "Sexchaton" it is!

I prefer "copulapocalypse" or "the sexchaton"