NancyLebovitz, yes, almost exactly. My hypothesis of bipolar disorder is that the trade-off of normal-depression-mania is the normal-depression-euphoria of the near death metabolic state when one is running from a bear. I think what the euphoria does is more change the “discount rate” that organisms apply to their actions, immediate gratification vs long term gratification. When you might be dead in a few minutes (because the bear catches you), the time-value of risk-reward has different values. Any risk is worth taking if it might extend your life beyond the certain death of the bear catching you.

I suspect that this is the same physiology behind the stimulant drugs of abuse; it triggers the same near-infinite discount rate, where continued good health a few days from now is worth nothing compared to the next injection from a shared needle which might have HIV in it. I think this is why deterrence has been shown to not work to deter drug abuse. The lives that addicts already live are worse then what you can impose on them as punishment. If the addict lifestyle doesn't deter drug abuse, certainly the relative cake-walk of a stay in prison isn't going to.

The changing of the “discount rate” isn't under conscious control. It can't be because non-conscious human ancestors needed to do the equivalent calculations too (so it it from deep evolutionary time), and there isn't time (or cognitive capacity) to do those calculations consciously.

I think this changing of the discount rate is part of the problem of zero-sum bias. To an addict, an injection of drug from an HIV infected needle is worth dying for. The shifting of the discount rate occurs on a continuum. Lesser amounts of stress shift it less. Trigger an infinite discount via stress-induced bullying, and victims will agree to anything to get the bullying to stop. I think this is a common ploy of some politicians.