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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1396 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 21, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Which is not the way, as a tall guy. There‘s no advantage to greater height on a societal scale. We have to nip this red queen gigantism in the womb before we grow to monstrous heights like the dinosaurs, and collapse under our own weight like their broiler chicken sons. The easy and practical solution would be to sterilize the women who come to the fertility clinic and select tall embryos. That way, by selecting for preferences, selection squared so to speak, we can multiply our effect on the genome.

I wouldn‘t do that, of course. But I find the battle lines drawn around eugenicism funny. The ‚ethical‘ crowd, as well as the religious, oppose eugenicism for ‚artificial‘ ‚messing with nature/god‘s plan‘. The eugenicists claimed nature‘s plan was being messed with by ‚unnatural‘ welfare, and so wanted to ‚help evolution along‘, the way it was before modernity and medicine fucked up nature‘s plan. In other words, they‘re in a naturalistic fallacy competition. I don‘t care about nature‘s plan, it‘s blind and indifferent to human flourishing.

As a tall guy (though not that tall, 6 foot 1.5 inches), why is there no advantage to greater height? Being tall is pretty cool.

Individually, yes. By comparison to other humans. Not for society. We'd all be better off if humans were half as tall.

Why, though? Tall people have more potential to build more muscle mass. This helps them load equipment or fight off wildlife.

We have machines for that. Breeding ourselves into a giant troll that can beat up a gorilla is not an efficient use of our resources. We need to get to the stars. Carrying around all that muscle consumes far too many precious calories here on earth, so imagine trying to lift that deadweight out of earth's gravity. Plus it's unhealthy, mass causes cancer.

I think that shorter women are cute, so your plan has its ups and downs.

While there might be some sexual selection for male height going on, I doubt it’s gonna be strong enough to wind up with health problems.

Also height is pretty easy to lie about.

Also height is pretty easy to lie about.

My conspiracy theory as to why there are more men in the trades than women is that women constantly hear a bunch of false measurements, so aren't able to eyeball it (after all, if you always hear that 2.5" is actually 6", and 5'8" is actually 6', then how are you going to place nails every 8")?

More men are in the trades due to the same work-life balance and temperament issues that dictate gender ratios everywhere, with a side of upper body strength. Most men can't easily tell the difference between 5'10 and 6' either. You see plenty of women working parts houses supplying the trades- less lucrative, but more predictable hours and much more predictable, pleasant work environments.

There's a joke in the trades- a little boy has school cancelled, so his mom tells him to go watch the construction site across the street. He comes home for lunch and his mom asks him, 'so, did you learn anything?' He says, yes, I learnt how to hang a door. She says, 'how do you do that?', and he says 'well, you shove that bitch in their, and if it don't fit you shave two cunt hairs off and shove it back in...' and horrified, she tells him to go to his room. When dad gets home, she tells him to go upstairs and ask his son what he learned that day. 'So, son, what did you learn today?' 'Well, I learnt how to hang a door' 'Oh really, how do you hang a door' 'well you shove that bitch in their, and if it don't fit you shave two cunt hairs off and try again' and dad says, 'Go get me a switch' to which he says 'Fuck you, that's the electrician's job'.

Doing that for sixty hours a week is how you get started in the trades. Few women make it past this filter.

Most men can't easily tell the difference between 5'10 and 6' either.

To be fair, most people can put height in about 5 bins -- way taller, a little taller, same height, a little shorter, and really short -- compared to themselves.

Just that to the average woman, "way taller" covers a lot of ground. (and "a little bit taller" from what I hear is mostly fine)

To be fair, mine was supposed to be a joke about how many men exaggerate their - let's call it "physical attributes" - upwards.

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