11 ms·

The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

49 points by mcenedella 8y ago

throwaway487549 8y ago
Oh, applying a poorly understood abstract concepts to poorly understood vastly complex and still intractable stochastic process, which is what real genetics is. (daily reminder - each gamete is unique perturbation of host's DNA) If it is not an astrology then what is it?
starbeast 8y ago
I bet it can. It can also tell you how much you are likely to inherit and what network of people you are linked to as well.
- hirundo 8y ago
  > It can also tell you how much you are likely to inherit and what network of people you are linked to as well. Only to the extent that your parents have the same DNA. The point is that economic success is strongly correlated to genetics independently of social position and nurturing. Of course this will be controversial; it's the same kind of conclusion that spurred the Soviet Union to promote Lysenkoism and suppress Darwinism.
  - shubb 8y ago
    Here in the UK, about 1000 years ago, the French invaded and took over, siezing control of the (basically German) population by replacing the top level of society. Suddely, the lords were French and the serfs were German. 1000 years later, you can predict someones socio-economic level by surname. French surnames do better than German ones. Surnames linked by blood to royalty do better than both. 1000 years. Lack of social mobility overrides genetics? [I'm sure you can do better than this link but its what I found: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8424904/People-with-Norman-names-wealthier-than-other-Britons.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/842...]
    - orbifold 8y ago
      I would say that a successful male has more choice in women to reproduce with. Presumably whoever is chosen has above average genetic material as well. So it’s not so surprising that one can still see an effect of this. Moreover success in high society requires a different set of skills than success as a peasant.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      Like many things here though there's a chicken and egg type scenario. Society mostly started with increasingly isolated tribal groups. Over time, and lots of killing, the most successful groups started to form into larger and larger groups. And the most successful individuals among these most successful groups were in turn on top of the top. At some point leadership implied what was an extremely high probability of a genetic advantage. And that advantage can persist through the centuries. It can also deteriorate. A great example of this is the House of Habsburg. [1] They were one of the most powerful families in history completely dominating Europe politics with lineages of kings and emperors throughout the entire continent for some 5 centuries, including holding the throne of the Holy Roman Empire for more than 300 years. But the reason they're an interesting example is because they're also the namesake of the Habsburg Jaw - a genetic deformity that was greatly exaggerated in the family through the years due to excessive inbreeding. If you've seen a cartoon depiction of royalty they often are drawn with the extreme protruding chin, which is a reference to this deformity and family in particular. That family was almost certainly extremely genetically fit at one point. But through excessive inbreeding they destroyed their own genetic lineage. In Spain this was especially pronounced with Charles II. [2] He was described as "short, lame, epileptic, senile, and bald before 35." He learned to talk at age 4, walk at 8. His Habsburg Jaw was so extreme he could not chew his own food. He, unsurprisingly, died childless at the age of 35 - ending 200 years of Habsburg rule in Spain. And to emphasize -- this is just one example. This family did not just rule Spain. They had lasting dynasties in Germany, Hungary, Croatia, England, Boehmia, Ireland, Portugal, and many other nations. Today, the entire house of Habsburg is extinct. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Habsburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Habsburg [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain
  - starbeast 8y ago
    Economic success is also very strongly correlated to height. Now, height is only about 70% genetic, 30% is diet and other environmental factors, but if you were looking at DNA and financial outcomes without any nod to culture, you might conclude tall people are naturally good at business. Invader Zim satirised the culture of this pretty well with the aliens being led by 'The Tallest'.
- laretluval 8y ago
  There are documented and robust genetic contributions to success (measured, for example, as income) even for adopted children.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
smallscientist 8y ago
If they were smart economists, they would have pushed the words together to say “genoconomists”
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  In the same way as 'econophysics' which is a fascinating field in itself.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  And if they really wanted to economize, it would be Genomists.
SubiculumCode 8y ago
Things are too conflated in society to really get around gene vs societal/circumstantial-pressures on success. However, I can see animal models with random assignment uncovering genes that help animals solve tasks. Comparing identified genes from animal models with frequencies in human populations would seem a fruitful path (even if we may not like some of the answers), that I am sure is being done already.
nyrulez 8y ago
Unless we have a complete picture of "success", which means: - How much of our behavior, habits, intelligence and success comes from the environment ? - How much of stuff like education levels, income levels come from birth, social and environmental factors? - How epigenetics shapes our life in a dynamic fashion? This field is pretty new, and we have just begin to understand it. - What is intelligence or success in the first place ? How do you measure it that is all encompassing and diverse ? I have never seen a solid definition of that. Should we care about their definition of success? Can there ever be one definition of success for all groups? My own personal definition has changed over the years. - Is Gene state correlated state or unchangeable predictors (which I extremely doubt in light of above points) - Has there been a complete study of exceptions? all of this is extremely reductionist at best and trying to push a malicious self serving agenda at the worst which can cause havoc in hands of any stupid policy makers. From what I understand, we are very far off from getting a full picture of these questions. At least decades away if not more.
- kiliantics 8y ago
  > all of this is extremely reductionist at best and trying to push a malicious self serving agenda at the worst which can cause havoc in hands of any stupid policy makers. First thing that came to mind for me was eugenics. This kind of pseudoscience is very dangerous.
- asianthrowaway 8y ago
  Points 1 2 and 4 are pretty well studied in academia concerning intelligence. Intelligence is defined as "g", and it's 60 to 80% heritable depending on the study (leaning towards 80%). More info for the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    "heritability" is a mix of genetics and environment.
    - 8y ago
osazuwa 8y ago
Boy I can't wait for Eugenics 2.0! I'm sure it will be better the second time around.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- natalyarostova 8y ago
  I suspect it will be. We are already detecting genetic illnesses, and most of the scientists working on these problems with the goal of bettering human existence. I won't make any assumptions about you, but I've suffered due to the poorly constructed features of the human genetic structure failing. My life would be much better if those could be fixed.
  - you_owe_me 8y ago
    Same here. I was born ugly, so bring on genetic enhancement
    - pault 8y ago
      I'm not sure if you're joking or not (it did make me chuckle), but as dystopian as it sounds, I would prefer to live in a world where everyone is beautiful, since it would eliminate barriers for less attractive folks, and eliminate advantages for the more attractive ones. Of course, if we do ever learn how to change our physical appearance with genetics, the fashion industry will just change the definition of "beautiful" every five years anyway.
      - nwsm 8y ago
        Haven't you seen The Fairly OddParents S1E12 "The Same Game"?
      - you_owe_me 8y ago
        I was half-joking, but you do have a point. Nothing guarantees the standards of beauty will remain the same.
jvanderbot 8y ago
It seems clear to me that the role of genetics is to prepare you to survive/thrive in your parents' (and grandparents') environment. I would assume that as the environment changes over time, that the genetic makeup of their children would change (over generations), due to varying demands and "marrying up." Maybe environmental changes are limited to epigenetic changes, and "marrying up" produces the real genome variation, but still, the story is more complicated. A short-sighted focus on "keeping people where their genes fit" ignores our tendency to improve our communities by conscious effort, up to and (by collaboration) beyond our innate capabilities. I really dislike the focus on the individual and the "sorting problem", as distinct from the focus on community.
hirundo 8y ago
> All men are created equal. - U.S. Declaration of Independence The above statement is false. That's more clear than ever and geno-economics contributes to that clarity. If you live your life by this assumption you will get many important things wrong. Yet this clearly wrong statement, as applied to the operation of the rule of law, is also one of the most brilliant, important and useful concepts invented by civilization. As a proposition for how to engineer law to support a flourishing society, it is true and right. I think that's the right way to deal with this controversy. Acknowledge that people have significant and important differences that are beyond their control, while also acknowledging that such difference can be overwhelmed by the effects of their nurturing and other controllable differences, such that it's better to judge them holistically and personally when that data is available.
- Iamhisalt 8y ago
  “All men are created equal” - “before God.” The last two words are how the founders interpreted that statement when written. They were all male, wealthy and white. People allowed to participate in government were the same.
- jvanderbot 8y ago
  There's a huge distinction between right in fact and right in policy.
- vtange 8y ago
  That line is taken out of context a lot - the Declaration of Independence does not try to assert that all humans are equal in ability, its main focus was to state that all humans have equal rights to their life, liberty and freedom to pursue happiness. That means that even if a human is weaker, or even disabled, he or she still has equal rights to a human who is in good health.
  - crimsonalucard 8y ago
    Also, originally it only referred to men as in human of the male sex.
  - 8y ago
olliej 8y ago
To an extent that’s true - genetics can detect your race and gender, both of which have a very strong correlation (although definitely not causation) with success. That said ever since we have been able to run genetic tests people have tried to use them to demonstrate that group A is “worse” than everyone else, or the group B is superior. Before that they tried to use phrenology. In every case they successfully came up with a measurement that demonstrated that some group was inferior. Weirdly the measurements confirmed stereotypes of the time, it’s almost like there was some kind of external bias effecting their results...
- robotrout 8y ago
  Those studied in this article were all white.
  - olliej 8y ago
    You’re aware that race doesn’t mean “white” vs “black” right? While obviously these systems were used to justify treating non-white races as being fundamentally inferior, it was also used against other groups (“proving” that the Irish and scots were predisposed to drunkenness, etc). The idea of racism being purely a skin color concept is relatively recent. Look at the historic treatment of the Irish, welsh, and Scottish in Britain over the last few millennia - or Italians up until the the mid to early 1900s. The treatment of people from Eastern Europe, the polish, today. All of these races can be distinguished genetically - or even through external features. Similar discrimination occurs other countries among people with the same skin colour- I’m sure countries like China and Japan could point to “objective” measures like genetics that can be not related to negative aspects of groups they discriminate against.
nonbel 8y ago
Combining GWAS data with social science... sounds like a recipe for generating incorrect conclusions from noise to me. >"before the Human Genome Project had fully sequenced human DNA" The human genome is still not complete by any normal definition, they just redefined "complete" to mean "we did our best". It is like if someone turns in homework with only half the questions answered and argues they should get 100% since they "completed" it.
- searine 8y ago
  >The human genome is still not complete by any normal definition Well considering that the human genome is a moving target, it can never be "complete". However, it can be 99.9% complete, which is all but complete for all scientific intents and purposes. The rest is just semantics.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Avshalom 8y ago
    https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/our-human-reference-genome-is-missing-a-lot-of-material/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/our-human-reference-...
- biophysboy 8y ago
  I mean, for genetics in the early 2000’s, I would say that mapping 99% of the genome is a good definition of complete. Its not as fun for Bill Clinton to say “the genome is mostly complete, barring a small bunch of gaps comprised of repeating elements”. And the gaps are actively being studied with stuff like nanopore sequencing. There’s a lot of hype surrounding next-gen sequencing in general.
  - nonbel 8y ago
    It is more like 85-90% complete. In fact no one knows for sure how much is missing.
rbanffy 8y ago
If you have the DNA of a billionaire, you'll probably be successful. If you have the same postal address, that's also likely.
EamonnMR 8y ago
Geno-Economist is an interesting way to spell eugenicist.
clavalle 8y ago
From the paper itself: >it suggests that the GWAS effect-size estimates may be biased upward by correlation between educational attainment and a rearing envi-ronment conducive to educational attainment. A full 60% of the already modest 'effect' of correlated genes can be immediately attributed to environment according to their sibling study.
robotrout 8y ago
When we constantly pound the table and shout that all people are all exactly the same, they often self-identify as oppressed victims, if they look around themselves and see others that are better off than they are. This is a recipe for societal tension, although it is handy in politics. Minorities and non-minorities alike, after having been assured that everybody is exactly the same, often feel that they have been cheated in some way. This is sadly often used by politicians to marshal them against their fellow citizens in the next election or referendum.
comonad-colaboy 8y ago
Time to rewatch Gattaca I suppose
turtlecloud 8y ago
Isn’t this obvious? I mean height is one of the largest factors of success for men. If being of smaller stature that is when a Napoleon complex forms. Just extrapolate dating economics for shorter guys and that pretty much sums up society. I would say heightism is one of the largest biases currently still allowable.

49 points by mcenedella 8y ago

Oh, applying a poorly understood abstract concepts to poorly understood vastly complex and still intractable stochastic process, which is what real genetics is. (daily reminder - each gamete is unique perturbation of host's DNA) If it is not an astrology then what is it?

starbeast 8y ago

I bet it can. It can also tell you how much you are likely to inherit and what network of people you are linked to as well.

hirundo 8y ago
> It can also tell you how much you are likely to inherit and what network of people you are linked to as well. Only to the extent that your parents have the same DNA. The point is that economic success is strongly correlated to genetics independently of social position and nurturing. Of course this will be controversial; it's the same kind of conclusion that spurred the Soviet Union to promote Lysenkoism and suppress Darwinism.
- shubb 8y ago
  Here in the UK, about 1000 years ago, the French invaded and took over, siezing control of the (basically German) population by replacing the top level of society. Suddely, the lords were French and the serfs were German. 1000 years later, you can predict someones socio-economic level by surname. French surnames do better than German ones. Surnames linked by blood to royalty do better than both. 1000 years. Lack of social mobility overrides genetics? [I'm sure you can do better than this link but its what I found: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8424904/People-with-Norman-names-wealthier-than-other-Britons.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/842...]
  - orbifold 8y ago
    I would say that a successful male has more choice in women to reproduce with. Presumably whoever is chosen has above average genetic material as well. So it’s not so surprising that one can still see an effect of this. Moreover success in high society requires a different set of skills than success as a peasant.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Like many things here though there's a chicken and egg type scenario. Society mostly started with increasingly isolated tribal groups. Over time, and lots of killing, the most successful groups started to form into larger and larger groups. And the most successful individuals among these most successful groups were in turn on top of the top. At some point leadership implied what was an extremely high probability of a genetic advantage. And that advantage can persist through the centuries. It can also deteriorate. A great example of this is the House of Habsburg. [1] They were one of the most powerful families in history completely dominating Europe politics with lineages of kings and emperors throughout the entire continent for some 5 centuries, including holding the throne of the Holy Roman Empire for more than 300 years. But the reason they're an interesting example is because they're also the namesake of the Habsburg Jaw - a genetic deformity that was greatly exaggerated in the family through the years due to excessive inbreeding. If you've seen a cartoon depiction of royalty they often are drawn with the extreme protruding chin, which is a reference to this deformity and family in particular. That family was almost certainly extremely genetically fit at one point. But through excessive inbreeding they destroyed their own genetic lineage. In Spain this was especially pronounced with Charles II. [2] He was described as "short, lame, epileptic, senile, and bald before 35." He learned to talk at age 4, walk at 8. His Habsburg Jaw was so extreme he could not chew his own food. He, unsurprisingly, died childless at the age of 35 - ending 200 years of Habsburg rule in Spain. And to emphasize -- this is just one example. This family did not just rule Spain. They had lasting dynasties in Germany, Hungary, Croatia, England, Boehmia, Ireland, Portugal, and many other nations. Today, the entire house of Habsburg is extinct. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Habsburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Habsburg [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain
- starbeast 8y ago
  Economic success is also very strongly correlated to height. Now, height is only about 70% genetic, 30% is diet and other environmental factors, but if you were looking at DNA and financial outcomes without any nod to culture, you might conclude tall people are naturally good at business. Invader Zim satirised the culture of this pretty well with the aliens being led by 'The Tallest'.
laretluval 8y ago
There are documented and robust genetic contributions to success (measured, for example, as income) even for adopted children.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

smallscientist 8y ago

If they were smart economists, they would have pushed the words together to say “genoconomists”

claudiawerner 8y ago
In the same way as 'econophysics' which is a fascinating field in itself.
conanbatt 8y ago
And if they really wanted to economize, it would be Genomists.

SubiculumCode 8y ago

Things are too conflated in society to really get around gene vs societal/circumstantial-pressures on success. However, I can see animal models with random assignment uncovering genes that help animals solve tasks. Comparing identified genes from animal models with frequencies in human populations would seem a fruitful path (even if we may not like some of the answers), that I am sure is being done already.

nyrulez 8y ago

Unless we have a complete picture of "success", which means: - How much of our behavior, habits, intelligence and success comes from the environment ? - How much of stuff like education levels, income levels come from birth, social and environmental factors? - How epigenetics shapes our life in a dynamic fashion? This field is pretty new, and we have just begin to understand it. - What is intelligence or success in the first place ? How do you measure it that is all encompassing and diverse ? I have never seen a solid definition of that. Should we care about their definition of success? Can there ever be one definition of success for all groups? My own personal definition has changed over the years. - Is Gene state correlated state or unchangeable predictors (which I extremely doubt in light of above points) - Has there been a complete study of exceptions? all of this is extremely reductionist at best and trying to push a malicious self serving agenda at the worst which can cause havoc in hands of any stupid policy makers. From what I understand, we are very far off from getting a full picture of these questions. At least decades away if not more.

kiliantics 8y ago
> all of this is extremely reductionist at best and trying to push a malicious self serving agenda at the worst which can cause havoc in hands of any stupid policy makers. First thing that came to mind for me was eugenics. This kind of pseudoscience is very dangerous.
asianthrowaway 8y ago
Points 1 2 and 4 are pretty well studied in academia concerning intelligence. Intelligence is defined as "g", and it's 60 to 80% heritable depending on the study (leaning towards 80%). More info for the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  "heritability" is a mix of genetics and environment.
  - 8y ago

osazuwa 8y ago

Boy I can't wait for Eugenics 2.0! I'm sure it will be better the second time around.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
natalyarostova 8y ago
I suspect it will be. We are already detecting genetic illnesses, and most of the scientists working on these problems with the goal of bettering human existence. I won't make any assumptions about you, but I've suffered due to the poorly constructed features of the human genetic structure failing. My life would be much better if those could be fixed.
- you_owe_me 8y ago
  Same here. I was born ugly, so bring on genetic enhancement
  - pault 8y ago
    I'm not sure if you're joking or not (it did make me chuckle), but as dystopian as it sounds, I would prefer to live in a world where everyone is beautiful, since it would eliminate barriers for less attractive folks, and eliminate advantages for the more attractive ones. Of course, if we do ever learn how to change our physical appearance with genetics, the fashion industry will just change the definition of "beautiful" every five years anyway.
    - nwsm 8y ago
      Haven't you seen The Fairly OddParents S1E12 "The Same Game"?
    - you_owe_me 8y ago
      I was half-joking, but you do have a point. Nothing guarantees the standards of beauty will remain the same.

jvanderbot 8y ago

It seems clear to me that the role of genetics is to prepare you to survive/thrive in your parents' (and grandparents') environment. I would assume that as the environment changes over time, that the genetic makeup of their children would change (over generations), due to varying demands and "marrying up." Maybe environmental changes are limited to epigenetic changes, and "marrying up" produces the real genome variation, but still, the story is more complicated. A short-sighted focus on "keeping people where their genes fit" ignores our tendency to improve our communities by conscious effort, up to and (by collaboration) beyond our innate capabilities. I really dislike the focus on the individual and the "sorting problem", as distinct from the focus on community.

hirundo 8y ago

> All men are created equal. - U.S. Declaration of Independence The above statement is false. That's more clear than ever and geno-economics contributes to that clarity. If you live your life by this assumption you will get many important things wrong. Yet this clearly wrong statement, as applied to the operation of the rule of law, is also one of the most brilliant, important and useful concepts invented by civilization. As a proposition for how to engineer law to support a flourishing society, it is true and right. I think that's the right way to deal with this controversy. Acknowledge that people have significant and important differences that are beyond their control, while also acknowledging that such difference can be overwhelmed by the effects of their nurturing and other controllable differences, such that it's better to judge them holistically and personally when that data is available.

Iamhisalt 8y ago
“All men are created equal” - “before God.” The last two words are how the founders interpreted that statement when written. They were all male, wealthy and white. People allowed to participate in government were the same.
jvanderbot 8y ago
There's a huge distinction between right in fact and right in policy.
vtange 8y ago
That line is taken out of context a lot - the Declaration of Independence does not try to assert that all humans are equal in ability, its main focus was to state that all humans have equal rights to their life, liberty and freedom to pursue happiness. That means that even if a human is weaker, or even disabled, he or she still has equal rights to a human who is in good health.
- crimsonalucard 8y ago
  Also, originally it only referred to men as in human of the male sex.
- 8y ago

olliej 8y ago

To an extent that’s true - genetics can detect your race and gender, both of which have a very strong correlation (although definitely not causation) with success. That said ever since we have been able to run genetic tests people have tried to use them to demonstrate that group A is “worse” than everyone else, or the group B is superior. Before that they tried to use phrenology. In every case they successfully came up with a measurement that demonstrated that some group was inferior. Weirdly the measurements confirmed stereotypes of the time, it’s almost like there was some kind of external bias effecting their results...

robotrout 8y ago
Those studied in this article were all white.
- olliej 8y ago
  You’re aware that race doesn’t mean “white” vs “black” right? While obviously these systems were used to justify treating non-white races as being fundamentally inferior, it was also used against other groups (“proving” that the Irish and scots were predisposed to drunkenness, etc). The idea of racism being purely a skin color concept is relatively recent. Look at the historic treatment of the Irish, welsh, and Scottish in Britain over the last few millennia - or Italians up until the the mid to early 1900s. The treatment of people from Eastern Europe, the polish, today. All of these races can be distinguished genetically - or even through external features. Similar discrimination occurs other countries among people with the same skin colour- I’m sure countries like China and Japan could point to “objective” measures like genetics that can be not related to negative aspects of groups they discriminate against.

nonbel 8y ago

Combining GWAS data with social science... sounds like a recipe for generating incorrect conclusions from noise to me. >"before the Human Genome Project had fully sequenced human DNA" The human genome is still not complete by any normal definition, they just redefined "complete" to mean "we did our best". It is like if someone turns in homework with only half the questions answered and argues they should get 100% since they "completed" it.

searine 8y ago
>The human genome is still not complete by any normal definition Well considering that the human genome is a moving target, it can never be "complete". However, it can be 99.9% complete, which is all but complete for all scientific intents and purposes. The rest is just semantics.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Avshalom 8y ago
  https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/our-human-reference-genome-is-missing-a-lot-of-material/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/our-human-reference-...
biophysboy 8y ago
I mean, for genetics in the early 2000’s, I would say that mapping 99% of the genome is a good definition of complete. Its not as fun for Bill Clinton to say “the genome is mostly complete, barring a small bunch of gaps comprised of repeating elements”. And the gaps are actively being studied with stuff like nanopore sequencing. There’s a lot of hype surrounding next-gen sequencing in general.
- nonbel 8y ago
  It is more like 85-90% complete. In fact no one knows for sure how much is missing.

rbanffy 8y ago

If you have the DNA of a billionaire, you'll probably be successful. If you have the same postal address, that's also likely.

EamonnMR 8y ago

Geno-Economist is an interesting way to spell eugenicist.

clavalle 8y ago

From the paper itself: >it suggests that the GWAS effect-size estimates may be biased upward by correlation between educational attainment and a rearing envi-ronment conducive to educational attainment. A full 60% of the already modest 'effect' of correlated genes can be immediately attributed to environment according to their sibling study.

robotrout 8y ago

When we constantly pound the table and shout that all people are all exactly the same, they often self-identify as oppressed victims, if they look around themselves and see others that are better off than they are. This is a recipe for societal tension, although it is handy in politics. Minorities and non-minorities alike, after having been assured that everybody is exactly the same, often feel that they have been cheated in some way. This is sadly often used by politicians to marshal them against their fellow citizens in the next election or referendum.

comonad-colaboy 8y ago

Time to rewatch Gattaca I suppose

turtlecloud 8y ago

Isn’t this obvious? I mean height is one of the largest factors of success for men. If being of smaller stature that is when a Napoleon complex forms. Just extrapolate dating economics for shorter guys and that pretty much sums up society. I would say heightism is one of the largest biases currently still allowable.