I can't help but roll my eyes at "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" for two reasons.
First prey species are actually pretty damn paranoid. Horses spook easily for a reason. Even predators who are also preyed upon show pretty heavy signs of anxiety and have been seen freaking out at nothing because it /might/ be a threat. Tiger Oscar Cichlids are marked as an aggressive fish in aquariums and yet will scare themselves into fleeing and hiding from the sounds of their /own splashes/ when eating. They have been a staple for millennia so clearly selective pressure of man and perhaps other fishers has driven them craven. It takes say isolation and no threats like say island gigantism to have that sort of "nothing preys on me" chill attitude. Step one of a creature becoming tame is not fleeing from, hiding from, or threatening humans on detection.
Second ulcers are bacterial in cause (although stress certainly doesn't help) and the selection bias involved. It is like saying the pioneer mothers and children were all healthy - just ignore the dozens of dead wives and children.
I don't doubt that stress can create downward spirals but it would be interesting to see how comparable other aspects were. If people in lower stress environments stress eat less that could give better results even if absorption doesn't play a significant role.
Or the reverse and you sifted through diet examples and found those who say had a personal chef who would prepare healthier better tasting food on demand had similiar or worse rates of diabetes and obesity compared to those those in lower stress environments who ate the same way they did before.
You don't have to be kept in an actual cage to feel trapped. This is one of the themes in Johann Hari's book about the drug war, Chasing the Scream. [0]
The economic predicaments of the underclass would be easy to fix, if the politicians cared to do so. But the political debate is all about taxing and not-taxing. The talking heads ignore other strategies to fix the underclass' actual problems.
Ending the drug war is the most important thing we can do to foster more equitable economic conditions for all.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 13.8 ms ] threadFirst prey species are actually pretty damn paranoid. Horses spook easily for a reason. Even predators who are also preyed upon show pretty heavy signs of anxiety and have been seen freaking out at nothing because it /might/ be a threat. Tiger Oscar Cichlids are marked as an aggressive fish in aquariums and yet will scare themselves into fleeing and hiding from the sounds of their /own splashes/ when eating. They have been a staple for millennia so clearly selective pressure of man and perhaps other fishers has driven them craven. It takes say isolation and no threats like say island gigantism to have that sort of "nothing preys on me" chill attitude. Step one of a creature becoming tame is not fleeing from, hiding from, or threatening humans on detection.
Second ulcers are bacterial in cause (although stress certainly doesn't help) and the selection bias involved. It is like saying the pioneer mothers and children were all healthy - just ignore the dozens of dead wives and children.
I don't doubt that stress can create downward spirals but it would be interesting to see how comparable other aspects were. If people in lower stress environments stress eat less that could give better results even if absorption doesn't play a significant role.
Or the reverse and you sifted through diet examples and found those who say had a personal chef who would prepare healthier better tasting food on demand had similiar or worse rates of diabetes and obesity compared to those those in lower stress environments who ate the same way they did before.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122637
The economic predicaments of the underclass would be easy to fix, if the politicians cared to do so. But the political debate is all about taxing and not-taxing. The talking heads ignore other strategies to fix the underclass' actual problems.
Ending the drug war is the most important thing we can do to foster more equitable economic conditions for all.