downer86

Ha ha! Oh wow! I just ran a google image search to see what you were talking about...

Knowing what a cloaca is beforehand, and then searching for it anyway on Google produces some truly curious results. I was trying to mentally prepare myself for what I may be about to see, because I couldn't imagine what might be on the other side, that would prompt your reaction. The only thing I could think of was some bizarre new form of bestiality that lurks in the shadows of taboo obscurity.

It turns out that most of the images are of obvious medical or scientific origin. I don't even know why pictures of humans show up in the search. I saw lots of pictures of various reptile junk which was totally expected, and none of it was being unceremoniously violated by unscrupulous human beings, so thank god for that!

Apparently there's a medical condition, "Persistent Cloaca Perineum", which is frequently misdiagnosed as "Imperforate Anus with Rectovaginal Fistula." The pictures that depict the condition are mostly de-identified newborn infants, and they originate from edu domains, but in a google search without proper context, they're kind of unexpected. I guess you learn something new every day...

Well, in addition to nuclear being an area-of-effect spell, not unlike Cone of Cold, nuclear gets +10 to hit on range attacks like magic missile, and a percentile roll for critical damage.

The percentile table is:

  0-9%   - Immediate radiation sickness dealing additional 15HP of damage, and a lifetime of random, scattered benign tumors & cysts
  10-49% - Coin flip for damaged infertile gonads or ruined thyroid, damaged thyroid inflicts 5HP per day
  50-59% - Blindness
  60-69% - Leukemia, with a coin flip for six month or decade-long survivability
  70-79% - Other chronic malignant cancers with three year suvivability
  80-89% - Other acute malignant cancers with six month survivability
  90-99% - Instant death

It's pretty funny to see one person claim dominion and authority over another person's inner state. We have as much proof that his memories are false as he might that they are true. The only position one can rightfully claim in this situation is agnostic skepticism. There is no certainty that his memories are false.

After all, the primary form of evidence for any given memory is the verbal recounting of detailed information. Without language, there aren't many ways to externalize a memory. Whether one is describing the experience of a memory, or reciting a coached, scripted tale ...if all the facts are correct what hope is there of disproving a dyed-in-the-wool memory?

Case in point: The drunkest I ever got was during a drinking game in college. I was black-out drunk. My memories are truncated about halfway through act one, and the next thing I honestly remember is waking up to the stench of my own vomit covered bed in my dorm room, but such an adventure it was for my roommates, and such a bardic tale it was for them to recount, over and over again, ad nauseum, that now, I too, can recite the tale, moment by moment from when I blacked out until I woke up. But, to the outsider, my recall seems accurate, and is vigorously affirmed by my roommates, and based on my ability to tell the story, a listener has no honest means of determining whether I was too drunk to remember or not.

So, while I buy into the mechanisms for how OP's claims to memories could be false in that he is perhaps only remembering the plot of the story, and not the experience itself, I'm still open to believing OP's claim to certain vivid memories.

I don't think childhood amnesia is a bottomless black pit from which nothing ever returns. Very obviously, certain aspects of learning must survive, and I think the keystones of our emotional development are indelible. Early traumatic experiences stay with people for very long periods of time. Being bullied, humiliation, loss of a pet. Those are foundational learning experiences. The detail of the bulk of our day-to-day experiences may get lost, but set pieces, scenes that perfectly encapsulate a profound learning experience are different from the tangential recall of banal routine. I think animals are wired to retain certain types of experiences, even from very young ages.

The phenomenon of memory is not necessarily constrained by hard statistical numbers. At least that is my opinion.

I'd offer up similar evidence of my own experiences, although I'm sure they'd be readily dismissed as subjective and unsubstantiated.

But no one has asked the real question.

The real question is:

  Why the fuck does the UAE even need spy satellites?