NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[Alextwolfe]

Must have been getting exhausting for Pyrr to feel the need to defend himself so frequently. And the YMB back-and-forths between Pyrr and others recently was much worse than here -- in case you missed it, it got quite ugly. In this light, his need to distance himself shouldn't be surprising.

The best book on stress (and social stress) ever written is by Robert Sapolsky out of Stanford, called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. He himself conducted research on the conditions under which primates experience stress according to their position in the social hierarchy. When you're at or near the top, as Pyrr has been, and the group members under you start to question and challenge you, the brain produces very strong stress responses, stronger than if you had average or low status. It is intuitive why and how this would have evolved -- to motivate action to quell the instability and restore order and respect. But we're not all living in the same tree here, and all Pyrr has is his keyboard. He seems to have given it a valiant effort, responding to seemingly every single challenge for a while there on multiple message boards, in thread after thread, nearly all from the same dominant posture, trying to defend his motives and actions as well as his authority on the science. But alas, how he is viewed by many in the online NWBO message-board community has changed, and us primates are affected by that. Sapolsky shows that going from a seemingly stable alpha position to a less stable and uncertain position within the group is terribly stressful, with a downside of unpleasant effects from stress hormones like disrupted sleep and symptoms of anxiety and fatigue.

How's that for a Friday night over-analysis?