What distinguishes zebras from horses is that zebras live in anonymous herds. That is, they like to clump together to ward off predators, but they don’t know or like each other. They are not a uniform group with a leader. Horses on the other hand do have authorities and followers among them. And humans can hijack the role of the leader.
It's not the anonimity that makes people fuckwads. It's the lack of immediate consequences. A fuckwad won't get a punch in the face for what they say on facebook, hence they feel they can say anything and be a fuckwad.
This makes me wonder... How much of what he says is just conjecture?
Do we ACTUALLY know with good certainty that zebras can't be domesticated due to their nature? Or is it just a hypothesis/theory that has reached widespread popularity?
I have heard that zebras (along with other African animals) can't be domesticated because they have evolved to live among humans, when we were still man-apes. But that maybe that's just conjecture too.
Note how he have no sources in his video or description. And his comparison to chickens, cows, sheep and cats don't seem to make much sense. The relation between humans and chickens/cows/sheep is markedly different from that of horses. Do wild fowl really have family structures? Cats don't yet they are still docile among humans.
Edit: even if we really can't do we know the reason why?
I'm not sure why you've been downvoted because you absolutely could domesticate them given sufficient time and consistent selective breeding. You could turn them into crabs if you wanted to. The trouble is that they don't have a very social disposition, so no one is motivated to dedicating their entire bloodline to the project. Most domestication happened kind of on accident as we developed symbiotic or exploitative relationships with various species.
Domesticated animals generally start out already being somewhat agreeable. Like dogs hung around us, and work in a pack mentality, horses same thing, cats same thing. That's why we could domesticate racoons or some rodents if we wanted to.
Basically yea, but it still has a bit of the same where we had what they wanted and they were agreeable enough we worked with them. If anything they domesticated us 😂
Foxes didn't have many domesticatable features, but it just took the Soviets 40 years or so to domesticate them. It really might just be nobody spent 100 years trying.
Depends on the wolf. I know people who have both owned and rehabilitated wolves, some are just big babies.... Babies that will absolutely ruin you if you piss it off 😂
We have a rescue dog from Korea as well as some neighbours ( not a standard breed, but a Korean Village dog, they basically live alongside humans as a breed but developed their own way). They are much different than "normal" dogs. They are more like cats. Their way on their terms. Like other dogs, don't enjoy humans much. So even though they are domesticated, they still show the old lineage of being independent. My dogs idea of a good time is never chasing a stick or ball, but finding the highest vantage point at a park and watching everyone. A carryover from watching the plains from the hillside, or something.
“Motherfucker, do you see the way I look?! Shit ain’t for the insta, that’s for sure. I’m quite visible to you so you have a long enough time to be getting far the fuck away from me.”
A 2014 study found a correlation between striping and overlap with horse and tsetse fly populations and activity. Other studies have found that zebras are rarely targeted by these insect species. Caro and colleagues (2019) studied captive zebras and horses and observed that neither could deter flies from a distance, but zebra stripes kept flies from landing, both on zebras and horses dressed in zebra print coats. […] White or light stripes painted on dark bodies have also been found to reduce fly irritations in both cattle and humans.
So, the question why zebras have stripes have proven very difficult and not without risks – Stephen Cobb has been bitten in the arm and admitted to hospital twice. Despite the extra vigour of recent work, the answer remains inconclusive.
There's some accounts throughout history, but humans generally leave them alone. They're aggressive creatures surrounded by even more aggressive killing machines. So it stands to reason that an animal in that environment would be pretty tough to tame.
I actually figured he must have had a more experienced horse along with the zebras to sort of lead the carriage. I know its done with dog sleighs, but not sure about horses.
Literally everything in Africa has evolved to run away from humans, because when animals hear human speech and don't run away they get eaten or domesticated.
When you look at a map of domesticated animals origins, not a single one comes from Africa. All the animals there know what humans are like no matter how we try fooling them.
No. Zebras don't have a herd hierarchy we can exploit. With horses you pick out the lead horse, tame it and boom, the whole herd follows you.
With zebras you get one zebra, if you're very lucky. More likely you'll get kicked and bitten.
Selective breeding is no different than natural evolution in how drastically it can change an organism given enough time and the right selections for “fitness”.
So you could produce a domesticated, tame zebra – but waiting on and favoring the right mutations would take a very long time and be prohibitively expensive. It’s possible, but not realistically feasible.
IIRC a few African groups have legends of people trying to tame zebras as long term mounts or livestock, and these legends rarely end well for the attempter.
Spoken like someone who knows nothing about zebras. They're not striped because of camouflage; that's their prison uniform, and they are all violent offenders.
I've been tested - don't have it, and I love cats. Part of the cat magic is they're not really cunts and many people can see it. Also, the parasite doesn't need you to love cats, it just needs you to not run away from them and to go get eaten by them. If you have a paper showing the correlation, I'd be really interested though - I have a soft spot for this topic, because I got close to a research group focused on it at the uni.
Honestly I was only being snarky. There is definitely more parasites the more cats there are, but probably are not responsible for me finding then cute
They are extremely useful and adorable. I think it's the violence that makes them so magical, like they are extremely cute cold blooded killing machines.
The usefulness is dubious for most house cats. Most households don't have mouse infestations, and cats who go outside actively endanger wildlife (and yes, that is an issue for humans as well).
I do agree that they're extremely cute, probably very useful on a psychological level, and honestly I don't know any other cute pet animals that are as cleanly with their feces (dogs can relatively easily be trained to not shit on the carpet, but not to shit in a dog toilet).
The usefulness is dubious for most house cats. Most households don't have mouse infestations, and cats who go outside actively endanger wildlife (and yes, that is an issue for humans as well).
I'd say our cats are useful. These are their stats:
Number of birds killed by cats in my household over the last 5 years: 1
Number of birds killed by going full speed, beak first, into a closed window, then tried being passed off as a successful prey: 2
Number of mice killed: +500
Other wildlife known to have been affected: 1 mole
Can other wildlife have been affected? Possibly, but we're confident with regards to birds. And the only other weve seen cats go for are mice. Not even rats, I guess they're too big.
crocs are damn scary. They once ripped off an oar from our boat...freaking scary ass moment. Dad chased it off with the other oar. If Jurassic Park were real, crocs are a glimpse of that.
What distinguishes zebras from horses is that zebras live in anonymous herds. That is, they like to clump together to ward off predators, but they don’t know or like each other. They are not a uniform group with a leader. Horses on the other hand do have authorities and followers among them. And humans can hijack the role of the leader.
CGPGrey: The Real Reason We Don’t Ride Zebras (6:23)
Zebra's don't like anyone, and they're not afraid to show it. Repeatedly.
And donkeys like only one person and will absolutely fuck up anyone or anything that tries to hurt that person or the donkey itself.
says a lot about 4chan, the penny arcade GIFT theory, etc
With how Facebook forces real names, the idea that being anonymous has any influence where or not someone is a fuckwad had been debunked.
It's not the anonimity that makes people fuckwads. It's the lack of immediate consequences. A fuckwad won't get a punch in the face for what they say on facebook, hence they feel they can say anything and be a fuckwad.
"Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it", Mike Tyson
Regardless of how you feel about Tyson, Truth is Truth.
In a large enough group there is still anonymity even if your face and name are on there.
4chan blocks commenting with vpn, and /pol/ is a federal honeypot waiting for the next entraptment.
not so anonymous
yes, but that's not shown to other users.
This makes me wonder... How much of what he says is just conjecture? Do we ACTUALLY know with good certainty that zebras can't be domesticated due to their nature? Or is it just a hypothesis/theory that has reached widespread popularity?
I have heard that zebras (along with other African animals) can't be domesticated because they have evolved to live among humans, when we were still man-apes. But that maybe that's just conjecture too.
Note how he have no sources in his video or description. And his comparison to chickens, cows, sheep and cats don't seem to make much sense. The relation between humans and chickens/cows/sheep is markedly different from that of horses. Do wild fowl really have family structures? Cats don't yet they are still docile among humans.
Edit: even if we really can't do we know the reason why?
Yes, people have tried to domesticate zebras before and they're just too ornery.
But what if we spent longer time doing it? Like centuries, like with most other domesticated animals.
I'm not sure why you've been downvoted because you absolutely could domesticate them given sufficient time and consistent selective breeding. You could turn them into crabs if you wanted to. The trouble is that they don't have a very social disposition, so no one is motivated to dedicating their entire bloodline to the project. Most domestication happened kind of on accident as we developed symbiotic or exploitative relationships with various species.
+1 for carcinization reference
Domesticated animals generally start out already being somewhat agreeable. Like dogs hung around us, and work in a pack mentality, horses same thing, cats same thing. That's why we could domesticate racoons or some rodents if we wanted to.
Zebras are assholes and hate everyone
I think cats are unique in that they domesticated themselves
Basically yea, but it still has a bit of the same where we had what they wanted and they were agreeable enough we worked with them. If anything they domesticated us 😂
Foxes didn't have many domesticatable features, but it just took the Soviets 40 years or so to domesticate them. It really might just be nobody spent 100 years trying.
Foxes can be agreeable creatures to begin with. Look at the amount of videos of people who have adopted foxes.
Ehhh... Can you really call wolves friendly?
They were friendly to the other wolves in their pack. Now we've turned that so dogs see us as their pack
Depends on the wolf. I know people who have both owned and rehabilitated wolves, some are just big babies.... Babies that will absolutely ruin you if you piss it off 😂
Might take more than centuries, but yes.
We have a rescue dog from Korea as well as some neighbours ( not a standard breed, but a Korean Village dog, they basically live alongside humans as a breed but developed their own way). They are much different than "normal" dogs. They are more like cats. Their way on their terms. Like other dogs, don't enjoy humans much. So even though they are domesticated, they still show the old lineage of being independent. My dogs idea of a good time is never chasing a stick or ball, but finding the highest vantage point at a park and watching everyone. A carryover from watching the plains from the hillside, or something.
I saw a historic photo in a magazine once, where some European colonial officers tried to tame and ride zebras
nature's black bloc
Just wait until we have overturn the fascist system, then you'll be first against the wall!
Neigh!
The Cow says: Moo!
The Horse says: Neigh!
The Zebra says: I ain't nobody's bitch!
Jet Li says: You, are mine.
I do not need to know you. You only need to know me!
Is this... a The One reference!? I didn't think anyone else watched or cared about that movie!
Horse-shaped, but definitely not a horse.
Punk horse, running IDK chimpanzee firmware?
“Motherfucker, do you see the way I look?! Shit ain’t for the insta, that’s for sure. I’m quite visible to you so you have a long enough time to be getting far the fuck away from me.”
I thought the stripes were actually camouflage and they’re just monochromatic because the things they’re hiding from have poor color vision.
Latest theory I heard was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra
brb getting a full body tattoo
A study about painting stripes on cattle won an Ig-Nobel Price in 2025: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkjzxrrkd5o (article has a photo of a painted cow)
The truth is we don't actually know because the zebras don't want us to:
There's some accounts throughout history, but humans generally leave them alone. They're aggressive creatures surrounded by even more aggressive killing machines. So it stands to reason that an animal in that environment would be pretty tough to tame.
It has to do with social structures from what I read a while ago.
Horses have a hierarchical structure and zebras don't.
What you don't spot on that picture is the front "zebra" in the back, is a painted horse. Apparently that helped the zebras remain more calm
I actually figured he must have had a more experienced horse along with the zebras to sort of lead the carriage. I know its done with dog sleighs, but not sure about horses.
Literally everything in Africa has evolved to run away from humans, because when animals hear human speech and don't run away they get eaten or domesticated.
When you look at a map of domesticated animals origins, not a single one comes from Africa. All the animals there know what humans are like no matter how we try fooling them.
Oh yah here's the video sourcing that shit I just listened to today https://youtu.be/EqGxxWvDXsM
Okay, but what about the moose?
Moose can't ride zebras either
Brother, a moose can ride whatever it damn well pleases. But I'd rather not get into the personal stuff, if you don't mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_cavalry
Møøse bites kan be pretti nasti
My grandmother knew a guy who raised a couple moose and used them to plow his feilds
Other zebras: good luck with that, bye!
Yeah they survive for a reason. They’re very tough.
In the 1980s, in Tijuana, tourist kids could ride horses painted like zebras.
One of them is killing a freaking alligator.
Crocodile
Thanks for the correcting.
I honestly wonder if we actually COULD domesticate zebras but it would taking centuries or millennia. Just like other domesticated species.
No. Zebras don't have a herd hierarchy we can exploit. With horses you pick out the lead horse, tame it and boom, the whole herd follows you.
With zebras you get one zebra, if you're very lucky. More likely you'll get kicked and bitten.
Like African wild cats! You'd just get some hell monster that doesn't do what it's told and attacks you at random.
Isn't that basically all cats
Yes, but we never needed to tell cats what to do, we just needed them to stick around and do what they do naturally : catch mice
Nature is just going to nature sometimes.
Selective breeding is no different than natural evolution in how drastically it can change an organism given enough time and the right selections for “fitness”.
So you could produce a domesticated, tame zebra – but waiting on and favoring the right mutations would take a very long time and be prohibitively expensive. It’s possible, but not realistically feasible.
They are also not suited to be riding them, even if they were tame.
Horses aren't either, and people still do it.
No, i mean, Zebras have a weaker back and are also smaller.
IIRC a few African groups have legends of people trying to tame zebras as long term mounts or livestock, and these legends rarely end well for the attempter.
Hey, stop it zebra, you have to adhere to the rules of the food chain!
Don't worry, the food chain is well preserved.
steps on a butterfly
Did you ever see the size of a zebra?
looks fake
Spoken like someone who knows nothing about zebras. They're not striped because of camouflage; that's their prison uniform, and they are all violent offenders.
There's not many animals that haven't been domesticated because they're cunts. And zebras are one.
Cats on the other hand are domesticated despite being cunts and we absolutely adore them.
Oh, no. As the scientists of the Smithsonian put it,
"scientists think the house cat is only domestic when it wants to be"
We didn't domesticate cats. They domesticated us.
They kept rats out of our food storage and we viewed it as adequate enough to not kick them out.
We only adore cats because of the parasites controlling our minds.
There is a distinct correlation between cats taking over homes and the spread of that thing
I've been tested - don't have it, and I love cats. Part of the cat magic is they're not really cunts and many people can see it. Also, the parasite doesn't need you to love cats, it just needs you to not run away from them and to go get eaten by them. If you have a paper showing the correlation, I'd be really interested though - I have a soft spot for this topic, because I got close to a research group focused on it at the uni.
Honestly I was only being snarky. There is definitely more parasites the more cats there are, but probably are not responsible for me finding then cute
Humans can have unconditional love for cats, but the opposite is not true
I bet house cats would never have been a thing if they didn't house-train (bury their feces) instinctually.
They are extremely useful and adorable. I think it's the violence that makes them so magical, like they are extremely cute cold blooded killing machines.
The usefulness is dubious for most house cats. Most households don't have mouse infestations, and cats who go outside actively endanger wildlife (and yes, that is an issue for humans as well).
I do agree that they're extremely cute, probably very useful on a psychological level, and honestly I don't know any other cute pet animals that are as cleanly with their feces (dogs can relatively easily be trained to not shit on the carpet, but not to shit in a dog toilet).
Most households where? Even in rich modern nations mice and rodents were a problem very recently. Like in the lifespan of some users on this network.
I'd say our cats are useful. These are their stats:
Number of birds killed by cats in my household over the last 5 years: 1
Number of birds killed by going full speed, beak first, into a closed window, then tried being passed off as a successful prey: 2 Number of mice killed: +500
Other wildlife known to have been affected: 1 mole
Can other wildlife have been affected? Possibly, but we're confident with regards to birds. And the only other weve seen cats go for are mice. Not even rats, I guess they're too big.
Here is the video. The zebra bites around 1:00.
Hm it's not a fake picture apparently but the situation is definitely not as implied.
Thanks for sharing!
Did expect: self defense. Did not expect: eventually the croc wins, also all the other zebras just walking by.
About the walking by, nice example how safety in numbers works. One can cover the others.
thank you for sharing 👏👌
crocs are damn scary. They once ripped off an oar from our boat...freaking scary ass moment. Dad chased it off with the other oar. If Jurassic Park were real, crocs are a glimpse of that.
What's crazy to me is that the zebra seems to display no emotion at all while the crocodile literally rips its leg off.
zebras are known to attack predators, and horses love to bite.