The Secret Reason Horses Let Us Ride Them
CGP Grey3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2018–2023
explainer · general · evergreen · 2018–2023 on HN
CGP Grey explains why horses could be ridden and why other animals like zebras and bears were never domesticated for war or riding. It is a follow-up on the topic of animal domestication.
HN recommends it as a classic on why some animals are suited to farming and domestication and others are not.
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4 comments from Hacker News
CGP Grey has a great video [0] that goes into why some animals are better to farm/breed/eat than others. The top selection criteria are animals that are: 1. Friendly 2. Feedable 3. "Fecund" 4. Family-friendly [0] ▶ this video
A classic: ▶ this video "Ten pounds of grass make a pound of steak. And ten pounds of steak make a pound of tiger. But these have the same number of calories - so you might as well just eat the cow and save yourself a lot of work."
CGP grey has a great video based on that book: link , there is also a follow up on the related subject of animal domestication ▶ this video
One way in which horses shaped the world is precisely that they only existed in certain places: ▶ this video Absence vs. presence is an effect too!