How Horses Shaped History & The Surprising Upside of Laziness – SYSK Choice
Something You Should Know
This episode explores the surprising impact of horses on human history, the benefits of strategic laziness, and how air conditioning may con
Key takeaways
- Horses shaped human civilization more than any other animal over 5,000 years.
- Pants were invented specifically for horseback riding.
Main topics
- Horses in human history
- The benefits of strategic laziness
Notable quotes
Horses are the 'Swiss army knife of animals.'
'Probably' is not a financial plan.
Conclusion
Horses profoundly influenced human development, strategic laziness enhances
Transcript preview
Speaker 3 (0:00) There is one word I think gets people in trouble with money. It's probably. I'm probably spending about this much every month. I'm probably saving enough. I'm probably on track for retirement. Probably is not a financial plan. I've been using Monarch. It's a personal finance app that puts your whole financial picture in one place. And it replaces probably with actual numbers. For example, Monarch showed me that our spending last month jumped about 30 % from the month before. 30%. We had some home repairs, but none of the bills seemed like a big hit at the time. But put them all together, and wow. But I didn't realize how much our spending had jumped until Monarch showed me. And I think that's how money can get away from you. It's not necessarily one giant expense that sets off alarm bells. It's all the things that add up that you don't really notice. That's what I like about Monarch. You can see your spending, accounts, investments, and savings goals all in one place and see what's really going on with your money. If you're operating on probably, maybe it's time to find out. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code SYSK at Monarch.com. to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50 % off your first year at Monarch.com with code S-Y-S-K. Speaker 3 (1:35) Today on Something You Should Know, you're probably handling a lot less cash today than you used to, and that is such a good thing. Then you're about to hear all the amazing ways horses have changed your Speaker 1 (1:49) life. We didn't wear pants until we started riding horses because they're not comfortable, so pants were invented specifically for horseback riding. Horses produced the serum for the first vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus. There's so many interesting stories connected to the horse. Also, the Speaker 3 (2:07) connection between air conditioning and being overweight. And, you'll like this, the many benefits of being lazy. Speaker 4 (2:15) It's about, really about achieving more in your life by actually doing less. So it's strategic laziness. We have to eliminate something so that we can be very good at one specific thing. All this today on Something You Should Know. Speaker 3 (2:34) A big thank you to today's sponsor, Vinted. I think most of us have what I call someday clothes. I'll wear that someday. That'll fit better someday. Someday I'll have a place to wear that. Meanwhile, it's been hanging in the closet for three years. Vinted offers another possibility. Sell it. Every day people can sell clothes they're no longer wearing and make some extra money. And they've made the process pretty painless. Take what you don't wear, list it on Vinted. Listing is quick and simple. And when an item sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. And importantly, there are no seller fees on Vinted. So when you sell something, you keep everything you earn. I like this whole idea because instead of clothes just taking up space, Somebody else gets to wear them and you get some money out of the deal. Your closet looks better too. I mean, everybody wins, even the closet. So maybe it's time to stop waiting for someday. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing with no seller fees so you keep everything you earn. Speaker 2 (3:51) Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Speaker 3 (4:04) Hi, and thank you for spending time with me and Something You Should Know today. And we're going to start today talking about money. No doubt you've noticed over the last few years that... More and more we're going cashless. There are fewer cash transactions than before, and some retailers, some places, you can't even use cash anymore. And that may be a good thing, because money, as you've probably heard, is very dirty. But how dirty? Well, a study found that some strains of the flu can survive on paper money for up to three days. And, get this, up to 17 days. If there's mucus involved. On top of that, one researcher cultured 68 $1 bills and discovered that all but four of them had colonies of dangerous bacteria that could cause staph infections and pneumonia. When they tested coins, they tested a little better. They have lower levels of germs, most likely because they've got trace metals that inhibit the growth of microbes. The best way to reduce your exposure to all this yuck is to use credit and debit cards instead of paper currency as much as possible. But when you do have to use money, it's probably a good idea to reach for the hand sanitizer. And that is something you should know. Speaker 3 (5:30) You are about to hear something amazing. Well, actually, a lot of amazing things. All about horses. And look, I am no horse guy. But horses have changed your life and the entire course of human history in ways you never knew. Just for instance, horses are the reason we wear pants. Yeah. You'll hear that story coming up and so much more. This is going to be fun. So meet my guest, Timothy Weingart. He's been on before talking about mosquitoes, the most deadly animal on the planet. And I highly recommend that episode. It's episode 732. Timothy has a new book out called The Horse, A Galloping History of Humanity. Hey, Timothy, welcome back to Something You Should Know. Thank you for having me. So what is a horse and where do they come Speaker 1 (6:25) from? So it's the result of 60 million years of evolution that actually takes place in North America. The epicenter of equine evolution is Wyoming, Colorado, Montana area. And over 60 million years, it evolves from a 10-pound, roughly the size of a fox with multiple toes on each feet, to the magnificent creature that we have today. Speaker 3 (6:50) And was that natural evolution or was it engineered somehow Speaker 1 (6:54) or what? No, it's natural evolution over 60 million years, largely driven by climate change. So we see lush kind of more forest give way to grasslands in this animal through survival pressures and natural selection evolves to a larger animal to eat. graze on grass instead of browsing on leaves and shrubbery. Its toes morph into essentially a single hoof on the hard grasslands and steppe of both the American prairies and also Eurasia, where it's first domesticated roughly 3500 BCE. So they started here, but they were domesticated there. Well, they die out really all over the world, except for a small pocket on the Pontic-Caspian steppe. north of the Black and Caspian Seas in Ukraine, southern Russia, Kazakhstan. So, for example, they go extinct in the Americas roughly 9,000 years ago. And really by 4,000 BCE, they're extinct all over the planet, save for this small pocket on the larger Eurasian steppe known as the Pontic-Caspian steppe. And they're really reigned in from extinction by human domestication. And so how did that happen? How did the domestication of horses get started? Like every other literal livestock, the horse is a later domesticate to our barnyard animals. Most other animals are kind of domesticated between 10 and 8,000 years ago, and the horse is roughly 5,500 years ago, and that's simply because it wasn't very prevalent anywhere except for this small secluded area on the Pontic-Caspian steppe. So it's originally domesticated for... its milk, its meat, and its secondary products from its hides, its hooves, its sinews, its bones. And then quickly, the first people to domesticate the horse realize its utilitarian purpose and very quickly start to selectively breed the horse for a calmer temperament and a flatter back, which aids the ability to ride. So it very quickly turns into this. pinnacle of biotechnology, if you will, and a living machine. Are horses Speaker 3 (9:09) everywhere, or are there some places, some climates, where they just don't adapt Speaker 1 (9:14) well? No, they are everywhere. Actually, some of the most sophisticated horses are the ones that turn into the thoroughbred, such as the Turkmen horse, which is largely from the deserts of Turkmenistan, or the Arabian horse becomes some of the premier horses in the world. because of their speed. So the horse is a unique creature in that it possesses this unique combination of size, speed, strength, and stamina that's very unique to the animal kingdom, which we harness for our own utilitarian purposes. And it quickly becomes, in a sense, the Swiss army knife of animals and our premier sidekick in forging and making human history alongside ourselves. It's really a centurion pact that these two animals human beings and horses really dominate the landscape of human history for 5,500 years. You Speaker 3 (10:12) say that the horses are the Swiss army knife of animals, which, you know, I like that description because when you think about all the things horses do and can do and how Speaker 1 (10:22) adaptable they are, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, I mean, we use the horse for everything, for farming, for travel, for trade, for migration, certainly for war. And what the horse did was make the world, influentially, inevitably, a smaller place. Our global village became interconnected, and that included the rapid exchange of ideas, of people, of pathogens, of spirituality, of invention. And it made the world truly a very small global village by enhancing the ability to essentially get the word out. And it's an equine revolution in really in all of human history. Are horses very smart? I know some of your listeners might not like this answer, but no, they're not as smart as we wish they were. I think that's a very politically correct answer. They're not as smart as we imagine them to be or think they are. But they possess certain adaptable traits and social conventions that are... Speaker 1 (11:27) lend themselves to be domesticated. So very few animals, when we think of the animal kingdom, have the right package of traits and behavioral social patterns to allow themselves to be. domesticated it's kind of like a barnyard stockholm syndrome where you know both creatures need to get what they want so for horses they got uh reproduction they got fed