Part 12/16:
Using an underground comic as a metaphor, the speaker describes a whimsical story of lazy hippies and their frightened cat, which detects the threat of a monstrous creature lurking in the forest—the amalgam of all animals that could hurt you. This illustration emphasizes that perceived dangers are often based on simplified mental categories, which are useful but incomplete. Our fear of the unknown is rooted in these categorizations, which can be further differentiated but always serve a functional purpose.