6 ms·

Society sees the success of outlier men and concludes that men overall have the better of the lives. The truth is that the majority of males in nature and in s

Society sees the success of outlier men and concludes that men overall have the better of the lives. The truth is that the majority of males in nature and in society, on average, has a worse lives because the dynamic of being a male causes a feast for a few and a famine for most. Genetics gambles more with males than females because males can produce, rarely, a very large genetic return that females can't. This is easily explained by the rate limit of children for females but not for males. This shows up in intelligence, strength, genetic disorders, etc. Male genetics are just more varied. The average of mens lives, by rule, will therefore be worse for most and great for a few. I know this is a sensitive subject but it would be nice to have a real conversation about it. There's a lot of evidence that males are, on average, the more miserable of the sexes but their misery is ugly and ignored. They die sooner by suicide and drug overdose. They have less friends, and are more depressed. There's a lot of reasons for this but I believe genetics is at the core. Society could help here by recognizing this and trying to push against it - promoting a more social man, for example. But the predisposition is here to stay. Individually, I'd say being more compassionate and outgoing to those creepy/ugly/weird males is something we all should think to do. Society seems to give us a pass at being not nice to these guys. I certainly don't think it's right though I admit guilt at times here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis

nickff 5y ago
The clearest statistics which (may) demonstrate this point are that 8% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and only 6.8% of incarcerated people are women. There are far more men in prison than leading successful companies.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  It occurs to me that "men are socialized to be aggressive (and are rewarded for aggression, unlike women), and aggressive social traits translate well to both criminal and business enterprises" has equal explanatory power but is significantly more parsimonious than the variability hypothesis.
  - pgcj_poster 5y ago
    This is obviously correct, at least with respect to prisoners. It also does not require that male aggression be socialized—it holds equally well if it's innate.
    - belorn 5y ago
      Aggression as a word is socially context dependent. People can be competing aggressively at a donation drive about who can donate the highest amount of money to charity. The distinction between innate vs socialized becomes a bit muddy when dealing with humans.
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      Sure. But again, parsimony: we have lots of evidence for aggressive male socialization (including decreasing aggressive socialization as society becomes more egalitarian), and relatively little reproducible evidence for innate male aggression.
      - wskinner 5y ago
        Decreasing aggressive socialization as society becomes more egalitarian would seem to be evidence for the _opposite_ of "aggressive male socialization". And that points to the baseline level of male aggression being higher than it is in egalitarian societies.
        woodruffw 5y ago
        > Decreasing aggressive socialization as society becomes more egalitarian would seem to be evidence for the _opposite_ of "aggressive male socialization". It's evidence for an opposite social trend, not evidence of the total absence of aggressive socialization either presently or historically.
woodruffw 5y ago
Your own link shows that meta-analyses consistently fail to reveal the various hypotheses presented under the "variability hypothesis" umbrella[1]. I say "umbrella" because the various researchers who advocate for the hypothesis tend to play fast and loose with which traits, exactly, are under consideration. Research shows that technical traits don't vary between natal genders? Move on to the next! [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6156605/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6156605/
- throwaway13337 5y ago
  That is one piece of research that does dispute the claim among many that confirm it. About that particular piece of research, the wiki article states (I don't know where to confirm it) "However, in the analysis the datasets from universities were discarded as they were considered possibly biased and insufficient. Instead only data from schools was used for the analysis." This unfortunately is quite a political topic and, as such, research here can be politically motivated (for and against) so it is tough to break through the noise.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    > That is one piece of research that does dispute the claim among many that confirm it. That is precisely what a meta-analysis does: it takes all of the individual datapoints, and attempts to find a consistent causative relationship. The absence of one is a strong indicator that the individual pieces of research are varyingly flawed. Science, in its majesty, is never fully settled. But meta-analysis consistently show that each of the individual variability hypothesis are bunk.
- Jensson 5y ago
  That is for high school students, at that point the ceiling is too low to notice any talents. Getting good grades in high school has more to do with consistency than anything else. They talked about university students, but excluded them from the study for a variety of reasons, so it is just for high school students and subjects.
62951413 5y ago
Eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap (C) heartiste Society cannot see anything, it's just an abstraction. Let's not confuse government propaganda with reality. The only people who might are 20 yo virgins with a major in STEM. Who should do themselves a favor and internalize all heartiste had to say before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29236676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29236676 catches up with them.
belorn 5y ago
> There's a lot of reasons for this but I believe genetics is at the core. We could blame estrogen and other sex hormones for making women prioritizing social behavior over other things, but my bet would be on culture. When genetics and environment meet, it is generally differences in environment that create large changes in behavior. Looking back at the cultural outcome of world war 1 and world war 2, boys were molded to exist in their family until the age of 18. Then they were drafted into the service of the state, and if several years later they survived, form their own family and social life. Girls in contrast could keep their connection with their family, and thus was also expected to do that. This is the historical base for which our current culture is formed from, and while most military drafts are gone the culture has remained to some degree. Boys are still expected to "leave the nest" at early age, and girls are still expected to keep the social connections. If culture expects women to be social and men to earn money and be independent, it doesn't seem strange that on average women will also be more social and men be more focused on earning money and be independent.
pgcj_poster 5y ago
> Male genetics are just more varied. The average of mens lives, by rule, will therefore be worse for most and great for a few. I don't understand how this follows. If we accept for the sake of argument that men are more varied, then shouldn't that result in more men doing exceptionally badly or exceptionally well, but men and women doing the same on average? If the idea is that life is a winner-take-all game and everyone but the most intelligent/conscientious/charismatic loses, then that would mean that even more women than men would lose out, because they're supposedly more likely to be average than exceptional. It could be that men are playing a winner-take-all game and women aren't, but I don't understand how that corresponds with our present reality. It's true that men are capable of impregnating a lot of women at once, and that might have affected the evolutionary development of male psychology -- but in Western societies today most relationships are monogamous. So when we're talking about the happiness of present-day males, I don't understand how it would be the outcome of a winner-take-all game.
armchairhacker 5y ago
I don't believe men's genetics are more "varied" than women's. In fact I think that's the result of men being promoted more than women and in more disciplines whereas women are expected to be lovers, child-bearers, and live casual lives. I do believe that it's much worse to be a below-average man than it is to be a below-average women, simply because people are usually more supportive of women. If you're a woman who isn't particularly smart, attractive, or talented, you still have the support of other women (who are usually more friendly) and men (who want to be your boyfriend/husband and take care of you). If you're a below-average man, nobody supports you - women just aren't interested (and you would be expected to take care of them anyways), and other men aren't interested because men are usually less friendly. I don't think any of the above is very controversial either. In fact most people realize there's an issue with many many miserable men. The main controversy is how to fix this issue. Some lonely / ugly / socially-awkward men are really aggressive and dangerous towards women, and it's hard to tell which ones. I absolutely agree with you that it would really help if men are less cold around other strange men and try to talk / learn about them. In fact there's not much reason not to be friendly towards other men, or to be scared of them. Unlike with women, a strange man can't necessarily overpower you, and he's unlikely to be creepy towards you, his interest is more likely to be genuine. The main issue IMO is that lots of men just don't care much about talking with strangers, and can't really tell when someone needs human interaction.
- verve_rat 5y ago
  >I don't believe men's genetics are more "varied" than women's. That's cool, that's cool. You believe what you want. Question to anyone reading this: What (if there is any) does the research say?
  - WithinReason 5y ago
    Research agrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis#Modern_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis#Modern_...
    - Sammi 5y ago
gilbetron 5y ago
The variability hypothesis hasn't found much support, and some results show the opposite, that females may have more variability. Overall, it seems that variability is basically equal between males and females. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050323124659.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050323124659.h... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/anything-boys-can-do/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/anything-boys-can... It seems that variability does vary amongst some phenotypes (height, for instance), but there is an equal amount of variability that shows females having it higher in other phenotypes.

nickff 5y ago

The clearest statistics which (may) demonstrate this point are that 8% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and only 6.8% of incarcerated people are women. There are far more men in prison than leading successful companies.

woodruffw 5y ago
It occurs to me that "men are socialized to be aggressive (and are rewarded for aggression, unlike women), and aggressive social traits translate well to both criminal and business enterprises" has equal explanatory power but is significantly more parsimonious than the variability hypothesis.
- pgcj_poster 5y ago
  This is obviously correct, at least with respect to prisoners. It also does not require that male aggression be socialized—it holds equally well if it's innate.
  - belorn 5y ago
    Aggression as a word is socially context dependent. People can be competing aggressively at a donation drive about who can donate the highest amount of money to charity. The distinction between innate vs socialized becomes a bit muddy when dealing with humans.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    Sure. But again, parsimony: we have lots of evidence for aggressive male socialization (including decreasing aggressive socialization as society becomes more egalitarian), and relatively little reproducible evidence for innate male aggression.
    - wskinner 5y ago
      Decreasing aggressive socialization as society becomes more egalitarian would seem to be evidence for the _opposite_ of "aggressive male socialization". And that points to the baseline level of male aggression being higher than it is in egalitarian societies.
      - woodruffw 5y ago
        > Decreasing aggressive socialization as society becomes more egalitarian would seem to be evidence for the _opposite_ of "aggressive male socialization". It's evidence for an opposite social trend, not evidence of the total absence of aggressive socialization either presently or historically.

woodruffw 5y ago

Your own link shows that meta-analyses consistently fail to reveal the various hypotheses presented under the "variability hypothesis" umbrella[1]. I say "umbrella" because the various researchers who advocate for the hypothesis tend to play fast and loose with which traits, exactly, are under consideration. Research shows that technical traits don't vary between natal genders? Move on to the next! [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6156605/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6156605/

throwaway13337 5y ago
That is one piece of research that does dispute the claim among many that confirm it. About that particular piece of research, the wiki article states (I don't know where to confirm it) "However, in the analysis the datasets from universities were discarded as they were considered possibly biased and insufficient. Instead only data from schools was used for the analysis." This unfortunately is quite a political topic and, as such, research here can be politically motivated (for and against) so it is tough to break through the noise.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  > That is one piece of research that does dispute the claim among many that confirm it. That is precisely what a meta-analysis does: it takes all of the individual datapoints, and attempts to find a consistent causative relationship. The absence of one is a strong indicator that the individual pieces of research are varyingly flawed. Science, in its majesty, is never fully settled. But meta-analysis consistently show that each of the individual variability hypothesis are bunk.
Jensson 5y ago
That is for high school students, at that point the ceiling is too low to notice any talents. Getting good grades in high school has more to do with consistency than anything else. They talked about university students, but excluded them from the study for a variety of reasons, so it is just for high school students and subjects.

62951413 5y ago

Eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap (C) heartiste Society cannot see anything, it's just an abstraction. Let's not confuse government propaganda with reality. The only people who might are 20 yo virgins with a major in STEM. Who should do themselves a favor and internalize all heartiste had to say before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29236676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29236676 catches up with them.

belorn 5y ago

> There's a lot of reasons for this but I believe genetics is at the core. We could blame estrogen and other sex hormones for making women prioritizing social behavior over other things, but my bet would be on culture. When genetics and environment meet, it is generally differences in environment that create large changes in behavior. Looking back at the cultural outcome of world war 1 and world war 2, boys were molded to exist in their family until the age of 18. Then they were drafted into the service of the state, and if several years later they survived, form their own family and social life. Girls in contrast could keep their connection with their family, and thus was also expected to do that. This is the historical base for which our current culture is formed from, and while most military drafts are gone the culture has remained to some degree. Boys are still expected to "leave the nest" at early age, and girls are still expected to keep the social connections. If culture expects women to be social and men to earn money and be independent, it doesn't seem strange that on average women will also be more social and men be more focused on earning money and be independent.

pgcj_poster 5y ago

> Male genetics are just more varied. The average of mens lives, by rule, will therefore be worse for most and great for a few. I don't understand how this follows. If we accept for the sake of argument that men are more varied, then shouldn't that result in more men doing exceptionally badly or exceptionally well, but men and women doing the same on average? If the idea is that life is a winner-take-all game and everyone but the most intelligent/conscientious/charismatic loses, then that would mean that even more women than men would lose out, because they're supposedly more likely to be average than exceptional. It could be that men are playing a winner-take-all game and women aren't, but I don't understand how that corresponds with our present reality. It's true that men are capable of impregnating a lot of women at once, and that might have affected the evolutionary development of male psychology -- but in Western societies today most relationships are monogamous. So when we're talking about the happiness of present-day males, I don't understand how it would be the outcome of a winner-take-all game.

armchairhacker 5y ago

I don't believe men's genetics are more "varied" than women's. In fact I think that's the result of men being promoted more than women and in more disciplines whereas women are expected to be lovers, child-bearers, and live casual lives. I do believe that it's much worse to be a below-average man than it is to be a below-average women, simply because people are usually more supportive of women. If you're a woman who isn't particularly smart, attractive, or talented, you still have the support of other women (who are usually more friendly) and men (who want to be your boyfriend/husband and take care of you). If you're a below-average man, nobody supports you - women just aren't interested (and you would be expected to take care of them anyways), and other men aren't interested because men are usually less friendly. I don't think any of the above is very controversial either. In fact most people realize there's an issue with many many miserable men. The main controversy is how to fix this issue. Some lonely / ugly / socially-awkward men are really aggressive and dangerous towards women, and it's hard to tell which ones. I absolutely agree with you that it would really help if men are less cold around other strange men and try to talk / learn about them. In fact there's not much reason not to be friendly towards other men, or to be scared of them. Unlike with women, a strange man can't necessarily overpower you, and he's unlikely to be creepy towards you, his interest is more likely to be genuine. The main issue IMO is that lots of men just don't care much about talking with strangers, and can't really tell when someone needs human interaction.

verve_rat 5y ago
>I don't believe men's genetics are more "varied" than women's. That's cool, that's cool. You believe what you want. Question to anyone reading this: What (if there is any) does the research say?
- WithinReason 5y ago
  Research agrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis#Modern_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variability_hypothesis#Modern_...
  - Sammi 5y ago

gilbetron 5y ago

The variability hypothesis hasn't found much support, and some results show the opposite, that females may have more variability. Overall, it seems that variability is basically equal between males and females. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050323124659.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050323124659.h... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/anything-boys-can-do/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/anything-boys-can... It seems that variability does vary amongst some phenotypes (height, for instance), but there is an equal amount of variability that shows females having it higher in other phenotypes.