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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 23, 2023

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.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why do we expect and encourage the unattractive to have relationships? Yes. Disabled and ugly people deserve a shot at happiness. But there's a hell of a lot of suffering and tragedy that goes on there, and it may well be imprudent to bring children into that. If you're a dude who is 5'4" the least-bad outcome you can reasonably expect is marrying a woman twice your weight and watching her wind up in a nursing home age 44 because she sprained her ankle and couldn't take care of herself after that. And it only gets worse from there: I've known short guys who were with women that were child abusers. Serious shit - as in 'attempted murder' serious. It's no better for unattractive women: there's rapists and abusers and shitbags aplenty. Single motherhood isn't nice either.

I honestly don't get it: if you're unattractive as hell, whether that's partially in your control or not, dating and relationships will suck for you unless you are genuinely exceptional. The only short guy I knew that did OK with dating was a neurosurgery resident with enough charisma for a career in politics. The autistic woman I'm friends with - an emergency-medicine resident in California - wound up enduring a couple relationships with predatory, abusive shitbags before finding a decent guy. Shit fucking sucks, and there's a good chance that the best you're going to get is going to be straight up tragic.

  • -15

Ignoring the strangely binary classification you present, it is true that there are people for whom anything in life will be much harder than for others, through no fault of their own. I don’t think we should lie to them, but is it not the most noble expression of the human spirit to strive to overcome our own limitations?

Is it not better to want to succed as Nick Vujicic has than to be a basement-dwelling NEET? Would it be a better world if no one other than Usain Bolt ran track or no one other than Elon Musk tried to start their own company? Do we not respect people more who earned what they have through the sweat of their brow rather than had everything handed to them on a silver platter?

would it be a better world if no one other than Usain Bolt rain track or no one other than Elon Musk tried to start their own company

Hmm. I mean. Running track is fine, but 99 percent of people aren’t ever going to make a living at it. Most high-school sprinters, even hardworking ones, don’t even get college scholarships out of it. Track’s fine, but don’t hang your hat on it. As for starting companies…some people shouldn’t even try it, it’s risky and a bad idea for them.

There’s a lot of variation in ‘relationship outcomes’ and I think there are a sizable number of people who simply do not make good partners. It’s like…the US Army doesn’t take people in the bottom 15 percent of IQ, because they can’t even make them into good cooks or something. There’s a similar phenomenon for relationships…something like social IQ or something like this.