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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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Today I went to BJJ, there were four of us at the 6am open mat, and we rolled for 45 minutes straight of 5 minutes. I rolled with a guy from the local SWAT team, he's 165, and he dog walked me despite my having 30 lbs on him. So clearly size and strength doesn't matter for jiu jitsu! Or maybe it was that he was a college wrestler, and has been training BJJ twice as long as I have, or maybe I'm just not that athletic or coordinated. There's a ton of factors that go into it, so just being big isn't going to tell the story, but ceteris paribus the bigger guy will normally win.

The advantage to height, about 1% lifetime earnings per inch, is one of the best studied theories in economics. The advantage to height in romance is well known and obvious, even if you assume there's no return to attractiveness it's inarguable that the vast majority of women prefer a man taller than they are, so it's pure increased pool of prospects for every inch up to 6'3" or so.

I can't know whether you have a good life or a bad life, a hard life or an easy life, but we can say that your life has likely been easier as a result of being taller than it would have been had you been shorter. No one is saying that everyone over 6' is on easy street, but it's clearly an advantage.

So how you do you figure you haven't had any advantage? No woman has ever admired your height? People don't physically look up to you? You aren't any good at basketball or volleyball?

Among the hardest truths to accept as a human being is that I am both extraordinarily lucky to be who I am, and that I'm nothing really special.