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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1076 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 8, 2026

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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How did Brigham Young manage to breed big honkers into his flock? Surely polygyny means women should be subject to less sexual selection, not more.

Surely polygyny means women should be subject to less sexual selection, not more.

Attractive women do not just come from attractive mothers; they also come from high value fathers with substantial resources (such as would be needed to support families with multiple wives). Additionally, Utah was disproportionately settled by immigrants from Scandinavia and the British Isles. You can find similar phenotypes in the Midwest, especially Wisconsin and Minnesota. This is probably also an HBD explanation for why Mormons and Midwesterners have such rhyming cultural stereotypes (e.g. passive-aggressive politeness, or Mormon "funeral potatoes" versus Minnesotan "hot dish").

In the midwest we have both funeral potatoes (assuming you mean the tasty dish ones with sour cream and cornflakes on top, yes?) and many casseroles which can be called hot dish (not a single specific recipe). Notable for their flavor cheat inclusion of "cream of" soups. The Pioneer Woman has multiple such casseroles, if anyone is curious.

It’s actually kind of funny how religions practice eugenics in a way. Any system that organizes relationships that imply family formation do this.

All worldviews like this apply a selection template that involves… more or less “breeding” (if you want to call it that) for certain features. Eliezer once made a pretty funny remark in dialogue with Adam Frank that it shouldn’t be a surprise why you might find concentrations of individuals in societies today with full blown religious adaptations because until very recently, non-believers were regularly burnt at the stake.

Wasn't Utah settled from the Midwest?

Either way, English girls are more famous for being fat all over these days, there must be something the Mormons are doing right. I know they love cosmetic surgery almost as much as the Koreans, but I think s_m_h would've noticed that.

Wasn't Utah settled from the Midwest?

Initially, yes. But the earliest Utah settlers were quickly joined by converts from all over the world, albeit mostly England and Scandinavia.

I know they love cosmetic surgery almost as much as the Koreans, but I think s_m_h would've noticed that.

I think this is a "Mormon moms" thing ("staying hot for hubby")--girls out seeking converts will most often be in their early 20s, when cosmetic surgery would in most cases be premature.

I'm told by reliable yet confidential sources, that the trek to Utah provided ample eugenic pressure. Mostly by killing off the women with inadequate fat stores.

Am I just being stupid by not seeing that this is obviously a joke? In any other context I'd be sure it was, yet The Motte is the sort of place where we love to broadly speculate about even wild evo-psych hypotheticals, so I feel like I can't just dismiss an evo-boobs theory out of hand!

Famously some early emigrants to Utah walked there, pulling handcarts, which does seem like the sort of thing fat stores were made for. But that was only around 5% of even the earliest emigrants, and only around 7% of those died of exposure or starvation. Cutting out 0.4% of the gene pool wouldn't make much of a difference to anything, and in any case the strongest selection effect among that 5% would have been on whatever genes correlated with "go with one of the 8 handcart companies who planned semi-competently, not the 2 who didn't".

only around 7% of those died of exposure or starvation

I be fair to the evo-hypotheticals. You don't have to literately die for there to be evolutionary pressure on selecting for adequate fat stores. Starvation suppresses fertility.

I'm also not sure that @orthoxerox is right that "polygyny means women should be subject to less sexual selection, not more." If you assume some limited capacity to feed children and support pregnant women per group, maybe the ones with big honkers were more likely to be selected from within a cule.

It is a joke. But I do appreciate the accidental nerd-snipe, that's an interesting tit-bit tidbit!

I have no idea if these ladies came from OG Mormon stock, or if they were made in a lab in Scotland. Presumably plenty of Utah Mormons came from here in the first place, and there's no shortage of (fake) blondes in these parts.

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