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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1880 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 20, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I've done a relatively exhaustive analysis on male pattern baldness (I have a vested interest). I'm extremely relieved to find out that despite the reflection of the OR lights off dad's head being dazzling, I likely have lower than average odds of going bald.

Relevant factors:

  1. 50% of men lose some hair by 50.
  2. Dad's saving a lot of money on haircuts.
  3. Maternal grandpa has a respectable head of hair past 95. If I'm slightly thinning when I'm crossing my 80s, I can live with that.
  4. Only 1/3rd of my paternal uncles are bald, all of them older than my dad.
  5. I'm teetering dangerously close to 30, without losing anything off the top. That pretty much rules out early onset AO.

I can breathe a little easier, without having to worry so much about turning 30 and finding out that I've lost my hair, alongside my well-founded belief that you immediately develop arthritis and an inability to drink liquor like you used to. The jungles of Norwood seem less daunting, and worst comes to worse, it's time for minoxidil or a trip to Turkey. Going bald might even be good for career progression, just look at Scott!

(I was immensely annoyed by the fact that while stats on the probability of your dad being bald if you're balding are well established at around 80%, the odds of becoming bald with a bald dad are much harder to find. And MBP is annoyingly polygenic to boot.)

Edit:

Here's the final post

50% of men lose some hair by 50.

That percentage seems surprisingly low. My hair genetics are probably very good (top 10% of pretty much all people I know), and I have definitely noticed some slight recession in my thirties. Perhaps I'm more neurotic about it than the average interviewee of this study.

I mean, a lot of it hinges on the threshold for what counts as "hair loss". A single strand? Who hasn't lost one of those? It's more to do with what's noticeable to yourself or others.

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