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> “Don’t be so sure of yourself, short man!” The problem is that it's still socially acceptable to see short stature as some objective faux-pas. There's really

> “Don’t be so sure of yourself, short man!” The problem is that it's still socially acceptable to see short stature as some objective faux-pas. There's really no difference between a person proudly declaring they only like "white" people and a person declaring they only like "tall" people. If the guy said "Don't be so sure of yourself, black man" maybe it would have been acceptable in the 1920s, but it surely isn't now, and the fact that we can't see that calling someone "short" derogatorily is the same form of prejudicial discrimination shows that we as a society still don't understand the root of racism and prejudice. It's wrong to deride a person based on skin color not because it hurts their feelings, but because our preconceived notions on their inferiority hold no objective basis in reality except those derived from our flawed social perceptions. Maybe at one time short stature was a decent signal for childhood malnutrition, but in our modern society short stature is mostly a matter of genetics, and there aren't really downsides to short stature in modern life except socially derived ones. It used to be sexy to be fat, but as social perceptions caught up with the reality that calorie dense foods was actually abundant, we shifted our social preferences to fit bodies.

sonicggg 5y ago
You're comparing apples to oranges. Not trying to guess your height, but it seems you got personally attacked by the fact that society in general looks down on short guys. Different from skin colour, there's an evolutionary trait to height preference. Studies have shown that heterosexual women prefer partners taller than them. It's understandable this subconscious bias. And what seems like discrimination, it's just a natural product. Similarly, men have always shown preference to larger breasts and hips, signs of fertility. We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness.
- onion2k 5y ago
  We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness. Of course we should. Relying on reasons that would have been acceptable to a caveman 10,000 years ago is no basis for modern society. We've beaten evolution. Modern science, medicine, and society means evolutionary pressures can be ignored - women with bigger breasts and hips aren't any more likely to have successful offspring now because women without those traits can go to Walmart for baby formula and a GP if their baby gets ill. Evolution has no bearing any more. Why keep using it as a reason?
  - Crabber 5y ago
    >We've beaten evolution No we haven't, and that's a good thing because a society made up of completely dysgenic people who need countless supplements and medical products just to stay alive would not be the utopia you're trying to paint it as.
    - astrange 5y ago
      That’s not dysgenic. If you’re in an environment and supplements are available and you function best with them, that’s just a food source you’re adapted to. I don’t go around calling people poorly adapted for needing oxygen and vitamin C.
      - Crabber 5y ago
        Becoming reliant on additional external resources to survive is objectively backwards evolution. You brought up oxygen reliance as a silly point but you're actually right. Humans relying on oxygen actually isn't that great, we can't go into space or underwater (without external support) and we get out of breath when exercising. A group of humans that evolved to not need oxygen at all would be a great genetic improvement.
        astrange 5y ago
        What anaerobic organisms have you been outcompeted by recently? I believe the main evolutionary advantage of your anaerobic humans is that they're imaginary, so they don't have tradeoffs, which definitely helps if you want to add features. I think I'd prefer to be able to detect low O2 instead of instantly passing out; that'd probably be good enough.
        erosenbe0 5y ago
        But human evolution is basically a story where bigger brains coevolved with increased reliance on more diverse and higher quality food sources. Otherwise, for example, we would have much lower requirements for exogenous Vitamin C, like many other mammals.
  - 5y ago
- throwaway202022 5y ago
  I don't mean to argue that people shouldn't have preferences, but do you know many men who have breast and hip size requirements for a partner and wouldn't consider someone under those measurements? I'm sure there are some, but I can't imagine that's true of the vast majority of men. There's something rather different about a man's height.
  - neither_color 5y ago
    I think it's erroneous to think someone who demands a 6'3 guy won't settle for someone shorter. Those "requirements" as listed on a dating profile are about as strict as "5 years experience with a framework that was released 4 years ago" on a job posting. They're an ideal, There aren't enough men in the world to meet the "6'-6'3" requirement and the majority of would-be partners will have to settle.
- Brybry 5y ago
  "just a natural product" is an argument that has been used for racism as well. White people claimed to be naturally superior to black people which is one way they falsely justified slavery. See "appeal to nature" fallacy. Obviously taller men are naturally superior to shorter men and so it's just natural that they make more money. /sarcasm And saying men have always shown a preference for larger breasts is begging the question. There are plenty of studies out there showing that breast size preference is complicated -- bigger is not always better. Some cultures prefer medium sized breasts (actually, most studies I found this is the preference).[1] Poorer men might prefer larger breasts and richer men might prefer smaller breasts [2][3] Or maybe sexist men prefer larger breasts [4] I don't think we know why women have the breasts they have or if breast size actually is a meaningful signifier of reproductive fitness. Seems like evidence points that women get breast implants because of their own opinions of their body image and not because it's an actual reproductive advantage.[5] [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513816302847 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10905... [2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0057623 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20862533/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20862533/ [4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23412650/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23412650/ [5] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-do-it/202001/just-how-important-is-breast-size-in-attraction https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-do-it/202001/...
  - chrischen 5y ago
    Yes thank you! My whole argument is that we should reconsider the ingrained belief that short == bad and is some natural truth. Also I would like to add that not even all cultures like big asses. Some even find the practice of injecting cement into buttocks (to enlarge them) to be repulsive. Different cultures have different preferences. Heck, different cultures can even be sensitive to different colors in their eyes[1]. Once people open their eyes and broaden their minds they'll see that perceptions are extremely malleable. Height didn't work out for the dinosaurs, and being small works great for the cockroach. There is no objective short == bad in reality. [1] https://gondwana-collection.com/blog/how-do-namibian-himbas-see-colour https://gondwana-collection.com/blog/how-do-namibian-himbas-...
- Teever 5y ago
  > Different from skin colour, there's an evolutionary trait to height preference. Does this difference exist? I recall studies that showed that babies are afraid of people who look very different from them and their family members. As such I was under the impression that there was a genetic basis for discrimination of people based on some outward difference in appearance like skin colour that was due to people having an inherent distrust in the 'other.' If that's the case it's not unreasonable to desire that society progress in a way that mitigate these biases against short people in the same way that we desire that society progresses in a way that mitigate biases against people of colour. > Similarly, men have always shown preference to larger breasts and hips, signs of fertility. We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness. What kinds of things that you feel are due to an instinctual bias to discriminate against short people, and why should we not attempt to shut down this discrimination? If your children were short and they felt like they were discriminated against for being that way, what sort of advice would you give them?
- nasifimtiazohi 5y ago
  Isn't this another discrimination that short men face? They cannot even engage in a conversation without getting an ad hominem attack. Think napoleon complex.
omginternets 5y ago
>There's really no difference between a person proudly declaring they only like "white" people and a person declaring they only like "tall" people. I get where you're coming from -- criticizing people for what they are, rather than for what they do, is exceedingly unfair -- but I can think of at least three important differences, chief among which are: 1. The shortness of men (barring outright dwarfism) has never been the object of widespread theories about their fundamental inferiority, nor have such theories been enshrined into widespread law. 2. Social institutions have never explicitly conspired to marginalize short men. 3. Redlining, lynching, the selling of persons into slavery, ghettos, etc. have no equivalent in the realm of height. And to be frank, it's rather shocking that you would suggest otherwise. I don't doubt that you've been treated unfairly, and you are perfectly entitled to complain about it, but that doesn't require you to twist reality.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  - omginternets 5y ago
    I have, actually. That's the part where I agree with you. The point at which I disagree is when you imply that this is somehow comparable to institutionalized slavery and Jim Crow laws.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      Me?
      - omginternets 5y ago
        You seem to be defending the thesis in the original comment, so yes.
        PretzelPirate 5y ago
        I think you may have misunderstood the OP and didn’t align with the HN rules of assuming the best meaning. They didn’t equate racism and discrimination based on height, they said that there’s no difference in someone discriminating based on that - meaning discriminating based on something that wasn’t a choice and cannot reasonably be changed.
SnowHill9902 5y ago
I agree that it shouldn’t be used in a derogatory manner, but it’s a fact that people have preferences in who they prefer to breed with. In fact that’s the reason why we are what we are in a positive way. You are being disingenuous or have genetic maladaptive screening of partners if you think otherwise and that maladaptation is naturally evolved away.
- chrischen 5y ago
  My point is that preferences are malleable and there is no objective reality or grounding in modern society for short stature being an undesirable trait (at least going forward). My hypothesis is that short stature historically has been attributed to malnutrition, and therefore destitution as well, which has shaped modern day preferences, but perception lags reality. EDIT: Also I should add that people are reading my comments automatically into the context of sexual preference, but I was talking more specifically about the general attitude that it's ok to deride people based on their genetic shortness. That being said, even if OK Cupid (Which is just a proxy for dating preference due to the specific nature of how it operates) showed that black woman were the least likely to get matched on OK Cupid doesn't mean it's ok to now make fun of them based on their skin color / cultural / racial background. Our perceptions about short people, black women, etc, are the results of social conditioning. Conditioned behavior will always lag the current reality. It is my belief that short stature does not hold the negative associations it once had, just as whatever was the reason for our preferences against black woman probably do not hold anymore. We don't go around forcing people to start liking short people or black woman if they have not conditioned themselves to do so yet, but we also shouldn't be accepting adding fuel to the prejudicial fire.
  - xeromal 5y ago
    I would say that past preferences are simpler than malnutrition. The biggest brute wins. People feel safe around bigger people if they're on their team. I met Thor Bjornson a few years ago and meeting him was terrifying. I can see that trait as being desirable just from a protection and safety perspective. Like you said though, that's less necessary in this day and age.
nathias 5y ago
are you confusing sexual preference with chattel slavery?
- chrischen 5y ago
  Sexual preference is largely shaped by societal influences as well. As I stated at the end there's historical pretext to this: fat women used to be preferred by men. Sexual preferences have changed over time. It's just as wrong as assuming that patriarchal society is some universal truth. Assuming that it is some innate quality that women are attracted to people taller than them is also flawed. What about homosexual woman? If they both prefer someone taller how does that work?
  - paulryanrogers 5y ago
    > As I stated at the end there's historical pretext to this: fat women used to be preferred by men. Is there a citation? I've heard only the rich were 'plump' in ancient times, though not that it was ever sexually desirable. > What about homosexual woman? If they both prefer someone taller how does that work? Nature doesn't always fit our intuition or first hypothesis. IIRC, gay men strongly prefer very fit men, yet they cannot procreate. That struck me as counterintuitive, though if the cause is genetic there could be a variety of factors leading to such genes.
    - klipt 5y ago
      According to the "sneaky bisexual" theory, bisexuality is beneficial because of you can seduce the fit dude maybe he'll let you sleep with his mate, and if he's fit he probably has a high quality mate. One hypothesis is that gayness is from an evolutionary point of view "too much bisexuality". Similar to how one sickle cell gene is beneficial, but two is deleterious. According to this theory, evolution favors bisexuals, and sometimes produces gays as a side effect of that.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    Fat women in mediaeval times would be possibly thinner than an average Western woman now? Have you seen the fattest guy in the World from ~1900s picture he's large but he'd probably fit in an airline seat? It's really hard to consider these things as "fatter" probably meant larger dowry (!), better survivability, healthier and by extension better for child-rearing. Whilst fatter in Western society now (anorexia, etc., aside) is almost certainly healthier, fitter for child-rearing and such. Populations were lower and people moved around less, there was far less choice for mates. But then choosing, rather than falling in love seems strange from where I am.
PKop 5y ago
- chrischen 5y ago
  > This reads like pure cope from a short guy. I don't see how one can dictate to others what they should find attractive. That's not how it works. No one is dictating anything about attractiveness, and you really shouldn't be trying to marginalize my arguments on the ground that I might be short. It really has no relevancy here. I wasn't talking about dating and people's dating preferences. I was referring specially to the person receiving a derogatory comment about his stature, that was in the context of normal socializing. Again, it is not socially or morally acceptable to deride someone for their skin color, and my point is that it's equally unacceptable to do so on another genetic trait such as height. Just because that random man did not find the height adjusted man to be attractive or not has no bearing on whether he has the right to express derision about his height in such a nonchalant manner. I mean, it shouldn't be made illegal, but it shouldn't be socially acceptable either assuming all parties are not toxic and want to be part of well-intenioned society. However, if we want to shift the topic to dating/attractiveness, your statement applies to people's "preferences" on race as well. OK Cupid published these preferences against black woman (and also Asian men) on their site. We can use this as an example because it's been more in the spotlight than the topic of stature, and easier to see my point. My opinion on this is that if you are short/Black/Asian and dating then just skip to the next person who can't see past superficial physical qualities. Usually it's a sign of dating inexperience anyways. It's a free market, and the winners will be those that are able to make a decision beyond superficial factors. Many people can't see past the superficial qualities as trivial as a candidate being a woman instead of a man, and the same thing applies here. It's their loss. Societal trends will always lag reality. We can't force people to get up to speed, nor should we (and I never advocated for this). The best thing to do is to simply reward those who are prescient.
  - Crabber 5y ago
    >the winners will be those that are able to make a decision beyond superficial factors You're just inverting reality now. "The winners of dating are those that pick partners with the least desirable physical traits". If there's two men with identical personalities, but one is 6'5 and muscular and the other is 4'2 and 300lbs what exactly would a woman be "winning" by going with the second man?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
aortega 5y ago
>there aren't really downsides to short stature in modern life It even have several health benefits. Except that in dating, women overwhelmingly prefer men over 6', and very small differences like 5'7 vs 5'9 double or triple the matches in online dating sites. If we are talking about 5'6 vs 6'0 the difference is ridiculous, like over 200X more matches. Women even divorce short men at double the rate of tall men. Those sites have years of very precise statistics that support this fact. Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.
- chrischen 5y ago
  Lucky for short people, height is a lot less of a factor in modern society. Wealth is a much bigger factor. And what's the best path to wealth? Software. Even more lucky for them, software and internet doesn't care about height.
  - ummonk 5y ago
    You've got that backwards. Wealth was a far bigger factor in traditional society than in modern society.
  - aortega 5y ago
    - bigfudge 5y ago
      Is that really why humans are getting taller? Most increase in height has happened in the last 70 years and linked to increases in nutrition. Selective pressure seems implausible as an explanation for any measurable increases in height in historical time.
      - Salgat 5y ago
        What if better nutrition has allowed for better selection of taller genes? Back when everyone was more nutrient deficient and had stunted growth, I imagine it would be much harder to select for a suppressed trait.
daenz 5y ago
Yep. Nobody wants to talk about it, but the amount of abuse that is directed from otherwise-socially-conscious women towards short men is pretty disgusting. It's extremely common for groups of women to laugh at and deride short men, both online and publicly in real life. It's eye-opening. (And before you ask, no I am not short, I've just witnessed the abuse first hand).
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  I'm 5'5" and 120 lbs and that hasn't been my experience. My past promiscuity is the butt of jokes far more often than my stature.
  - kodah 5y ago
    Personally, the short men I know still get play. Women have a wide variety of tastes, as do men; and the taste really just needs to be tried once to get a probability for it to stick. That said, women being callous and cruel in groups about height, fitness, etc is more congruent to locker room talk. You probably won't hear it because it's behind your back and usually not by people you know. I say that as having been witness to this kind of private talk before.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
      Yeah. My point about promiscuity is that it hasn't hindered my dating ability. I agree with the locker room talk but I disagree that it's a problem. And it's not just women. If anything I've had my stature shit talked more often by other men.
      - kodah 5y ago
        I was just summarizing why I think you probably wouldn't hear it directly from women. Men definitely do it too, but as you said, probably in a more noticeable/direct fashion. That said, after years of social movements that have made very targeted complaints using identity, I would not cast that kind of stone. Trying to use shitty data and anecdotes to declare, "Men/women are problematic because of x" is really not helpful. Really, at the end of the day, nobody on this planet has any business commenting on someone's features they were born with. It's easy enough to stick to that.
fleddr 5y ago
Yes and no. It's complicated. Mate selection is not and should not be institutionalized which means that you are within your rights to discriminate on...anything. Your criteria may be based on "taste", past experiences or downright prejudice. It is inevitable that as you pick a mate, you discriminate. You can't stop that nor should you. We can however openly discuss criteria that are unhealthy, perverted, make no sense...in an attempt to open people's minds. Not to control whom they can date, rather to open up possibilities. People may be missing out a lot by being needlessly restrictive. As old man I might provide a shortcut. Cliche as it is, character stands the test of time. What is somebody like? Select for that, the rest is a bonus.
- didibus 5y ago
  I don't know if that's the issue people are bringing. I think people are talking about the active derogatory and communicated bias towards shorter men. Not being attracted to short men and not wanting to reproduce with them is a personal thing. But going on record ridiculing them, saying bad things about them, mocking their height, that's not okay, and it's true that if it was done about their race it would be frowned upon, but seems to be acceptable for height. I think that's a fair issue to bring up. It also seems there might be real measurable pay-gaps, and that might need addressing as well.
  - fleddr 5y ago
    "But going on record ridiculing them, saying bad things about them, mocking their height, that's not okay, and it's true that if it was done about their race it would be frowned upon, but seems to be acceptable for height." I fully agree, and you can extend that to men being bald, and many other bodily aspects. I think in particular contexts it's fine to make the occasional joke but that's entirely different from making it a widespread thing.
    - ycombobreaker 5y ago
      There are a LOT of hair restoration ads in a particular commute path near me. Like it's a self-referential trope. I used to thing it was just funny. But then, I thought a bit about how a series of similar ads about breast augmentation would be met with criticism of body shaming. It's just... socially acceptable to handle male pattern baldness this way, I guess. It feels pretty gross when you pick it apart that way.
slibhb 5y ago
Deriding people based on their height is wrong. But preference for tall males is based on a preference for strength, athleticism, and ability to fight. This is true in all human cultures. If you think it's outdated, consider sports. Almost all MLB pitchers are > 6' and that's not even getting into basketball. In terms of fighting, although stature is less relevant than ever, there are plenty of ongoing military conflicts. This is true for lots of things. Being fast is better than being slow. Being smart is better than people simple. Being attractive is better than being ugly. Being fit is better than being fat. This isn't a happy realization but it's true and it's healthy to accept it. The dimension along which all people are equal is a metaphysical or religious dimension, not an empirical one.
cercatrova 5y ago
> There's really no difference between a person proudly declaring they only like "white" people and a person declaring they only like "tall" people. People can like whoever they want to like. Some people may only like those of a certain height, weight, race, class, and any other attribute you may want to think of, but it is not necessarily wrong. It is up to each individual to have the freedom to date whoever they wish. You might be conflating this with the societal denigration of certain races or classes, which is surely bad because there really is no reason to denigrate them, but that is not the same as saying everyone must be attracted to those of any combination of the above such factors.
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  Racism is not just bad when it's phrased in a negative way. I can say I only like living next to white people because that's my "preference". That is still racist, the same way it is racist if you prefer to only date people of a certain skin color. The fact that many people do not see any issues with such statements says a lot about their relation with the idea of human races. Much of society still very much believes in it. In fact, racial thinking is going through a Renaissance currently.
  - Zenbit_UX 5y ago
    > That is still racist, the same way it is racist if you prefer to only date people of a certain skin color. That's not racists at all, that's just a person's personal preference for what they find attractive, and it often can't be helped. We develop our models of what we find attractive early in our development by what we are exposed to. It scares me a little that you don't know this, yet feel confident enough in your knowledge to type out these words. Is it racist if I only like blonds? No, but that does rule out more than a few races of people that can't naturally grow blond hair. You're allowed to have physical preferences for certain traits. What you shouldn't do though is treat people differently because they don't have those traits that you value. What would be racist is if I said I only hire [insert race], or I only let [insert race] people rent my condo.
    - 5y ago
daniel-cussen 5y ago
> we shifted our social preferences to fit bodies. I'm shifting all the way back on that one. Fat is fit. So I was talking to a girl, a model in fact, I was a model too, met a lot of models. I said I am going to want exactly the sort of woman I want, and no other, without any other man's judgment being taken into consideration at all. So it's actually about white fat versus brown fat cells, apparently. Saturated or unsaturated, based on diet, to a lesser extent fat but to a greater extent sugars and especially toxins[1]. So without it women look ripped and bony. All the models I saw like that looked great on TV but terrible in real life, the models who didn't get work had that...that baby fat I guess you could call it. I got her to come around on the subject she was like, "yeah, a thin but not too thin and even layer of fat, it looks good!" [1] Many but not all psychiatric compounds. All of them alter body fat, I think. Fluoride, for lots of reasons. So hard to escape that F'ing F atom. Then what other toxins...pesticides and especially fire-retardant.
Zenbit_UX 5y ago
> It's wrong to deride a person based on skin color not because it hurts their feelings, but because our preconceived notions on their inferiority hold no objective basis in reality except those derived from our flawed social perceptions. No... if that were true then it would be OK to deride someone who was born with a deformed limb, because in that case the "inferiority" would really have an "objective basis in reality". They would be objectively inferior at certain tasks then someone without it. Does that make it ok to insult them? Suggesting racism (or prejudice) is wrong simply because it's not objectively inferior is missing the point. The actual answer, which I think you would have come to eventually, is that deride someone for an attribute they had no control over, is the essence of prejudice. People do not chose to be born in a poor country, in an abusive family, black, French, short or handicap, these are simply the hands they were dealt.
tanbog10 5y ago
Tallish guy here. There are a reasonable number of women on dating sites that like saying pretty horrible things about shorter guys in there profiles. I don't know that it does much but I've always treated it as a bit of a red flag and swiped left. I don't think there's anything wrong with say, being attracted to someone taller than yourself, but I don't understand feeling the need to public ridicule someone about a physical trait you aren't attracted to.
- cjbgkagh 5y ago
  If they were smarter they would know it hurts their ranking in the algorithms. All that, “if you’re not X swipe left” makes you appear less desirable when people do swipe left. I consider it a stupidity filter. You can do niche marketing after the match has taken place, before that you need broad appeal.
nradov 5y ago
Likewise, for some reason it still seems to be socially acceptable among the educated professional and managerial classes to discriminate against the less intelligent and even openly mock them. There seems to be a social consensus now that it's wrong to make fun of people with an IQ below about 70 (intellectually disabled) but apparently those in the roughly 71 - 99 IQ range are fair game. Is that morally right? I don't understand it.
Guthur 5y ago
And if he's tall the comment might be high tower, or orange hair or big nose, big ears, bold, bad breath etc. Stop trying to sanitise the world, that's why no one can live in it.
mthehacker 5y ago
Why can't we just designate as being the height we would like to be and expect/demand? that everybody accept us as being as we designate?
LouisSayers 5y ago
There's a kind of funny thing here that people see being short as a kind of deficiency. I'm about 5"8, and am actually really happy with my height - it's perfect for the types of sports I do, I fit quite nicely on an airplane, and have no problem if I were to drive a smaller car. I imagine for taller people those things could be a hassle, that flying would be a real pain, that they might look silly on a motorbike / skateboard, and coule develop back problems from bending down. When it comes to dating, online dating apps suck in general, but honestly I've never felt like I've missed out. People don't even seem to truly know what they find attractive until they have someone placed in front of them. I've even had this experience myself where I've found a super tall girl attractive when I'd typically go for the shorties. It's sad that people feel the need to do these operations. Honestly, I feel they could achieve a better outcome (feeling confident / adequate) by doing some martial arts and hitting the gym. As others have mentioned it also depends where you live. The only time I truly felt short was in Amsterdam where it felt like the local bars were packed full of giants lol. I Thailand and India I've had the opposite experience.

sonicggg 5y ago

You're comparing apples to oranges. Not trying to guess your height, but it seems you got personally attacked by the fact that society in general looks down on short guys. Different from skin colour, there's an evolutionary trait to height preference. Studies have shown that heterosexual women prefer partners taller than them. It's understandable this subconscious bias. And what seems like discrimination, it's just a natural product. Similarly, men have always shown preference to larger breasts and hips, signs of fertility. We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness.

onion2k 5y ago
We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness. Of course we should. Relying on reasons that would have been acceptable to a caveman 10,000 years ago is no basis for modern society. We've beaten evolution. Modern science, medicine, and society means evolutionary pressures can be ignored - women with bigger breasts and hips aren't any more likely to have successful offspring now because women without those traits can go to Walmart for baby formula and a GP if their baby gets ill. Evolution has no bearing any more. Why keep using it as a reason?
- Crabber 5y ago
  >We've beaten evolution No we haven't, and that's a good thing because a society made up of completely dysgenic people who need countless supplements and medical products just to stay alive would not be the utopia you're trying to paint it as.
  - astrange 5y ago
    That’s not dysgenic. If you’re in an environment and supplements are available and you function best with them, that’s just a food source you’re adapted to. I don’t go around calling people poorly adapted for needing oxygen and vitamin C.
    - Crabber 5y ago
      Becoming reliant on additional external resources to survive is objectively backwards evolution. You brought up oxygen reliance as a silly point but you're actually right. Humans relying on oxygen actually isn't that great, we can't go into space or underwater (without external support) and we get out of breath when exercising. A group of humans that evolved to not need oxygen at all would be a great genetic improvement.
      - astrange 5y ago
        What anaerobic organisms have you been outcompeted by recently? I believe the main evolutionary advantage of your anaerobic humans is that they're imaginary, so they don't have tradeoffs, which definitely helps if you want to add features. I think I'd prefer to be able to detect low O2 instead of instantly passing out; that'd probably be good enough.
      - erosenbe0 5y ago
        But human evolution is basically a story where bigger brains coevolved with increased reliance on more diverse and higher quality food sources. Otherwise, for example, we would have much lower requirements for exogenous Vitamin C, like many other mammals.
- 5y ago
throwaway202022 5y ago
I don't mean to argue that people shouldn't have preferences, but do you know many men who have breast and hip size requirements for a partner and wouldn't consider someone under those measurements? I'm sure there are some, but I can't imagine that's true of the vast majority of men. There's something rather different about a man's height.
- neither_color 5y ago
  I think it's erroneous to think someone who demands a 6'3 guy won't settle for someone shorter. Those "requirements" as listed on a dating profile are about as strict as "5 years experience with a framework that was released 4 years ago" on a job posting. They're an ideal, There aren't enough men in the world to meet the "6'-6'3" requirement and the majority of would-be partners will have to settle.
Brybry 5y ago
"just a natural product" is an argument that has been used for racism as well. White people claimed to be naturally superior to black people which is one way they falsely justified slavery. See "appeal to nature" fallacy. Obviously taller men are naturally superior to shorter men and so it's just natural that they make more money. /sarcasm And saying men have always shown a preference for larger breasts is begging the question. There are plenty of studies out there showing that breast size preference is complicated -- bigger is not always better. Some cultures prefer medium sized breasts (actually, most studies I found this is the preference).[1] Poorer men might prefer larger breasts and richer men might prefer smaller breasts [2][3] Or maybe sexist men prefer larger breasts [4] I don't think we know why women have the breasts they have or if breast size actually is a meaningful signifier of reproductive fitness. Seems like evidence points that women get breast implants because of their own opinions of their body image and not because it's an actual reproductive advantage.[5] [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513816302847 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10905... [2] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0057623 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20862533/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20862533/ [4] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23412650/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23412650/ [5] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-do-it/202001/just-how-important-is-breast-size-in-attraction https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-do-it/202001/...
- chrischen 5y ago
  Yes thank you! My whole argument is that we should reconsider the ingrained belief that short == bad and is some natural truth. Also I would like to add that not even all cultures like big asses. Some even find the practice of injecting cement into buttocks (to enlarge them) to be repulsive. Different cultures have different preferences. Heck, different cultures can even be sensitive to different colors in their eyes[1]. Once people open their eyes and broaden their minds they'll see that perceptions are extremely malleable. Height didn't work out for the dinosaurs, and being small works great for the cockroach. There is no objective short == bad in reality. [1] https://gondwana-collection.com/blog/how-do-namibian-himbas-see-colour https://gondwana-collection.com/blog/how-do-namibian-himbas-...
Teever 5y ago
> Different from skin colour, there's an evolutionary trait to height preference. Does this difference exist? I recall studies that showed that babies are afraid of people who look very different from them and their family members. As such I was under the impression that there was a genetic basis for discrimination of people based on some outward difference in appearance like skin colour that was due to people having an inherent distrust in the 'other.' If that's the case it's not unreasonable to desire that society progress in a way that mitigate these biases against short people in the same way that we desire that society progresses in a way that mitigate biases against people of colour. > Similarly, men have always shown preference to larger breasts and hips, signs of fertility. We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness. What kinds of things that you feel are due to an instinctual bias to discriminate against short people, and why should we not attempt to shut down this discrimination? If your children were short and they felt like they were discriminated against for being that way, what sort of advice would you give them?
nasifimtiazohi 5y ago
Isn't this another discrimination that short men face? They cannot even engage in a conversation without getting an ad hominem attack. Think napoleon complex.

omginternets 5y ago

>There's really no difference between a person proudly declaring they only like "white" people and a person declaring they only like "tall" people. I get where you're coming from -- criticizing people for what they are, rather than for what they do, is exceedingly unfair -- but I can think of at least three important differences, chief among which are: 1. The shortness of men (barring outright dwarfism) has never been the object of widespread theories about their fundamental inferiority, nor have such theories been enshrined into widespread law. 2. Social institutions have never explicitly conspired to marginalize short men. 3. Redlining, lynching, the selling of persons into slavery, ghettos, etc. have no equivalent in the realm of height. And to be frank, it's rather shocking that you would suggest otherwise. I don't doubt that you've been treated unfairly, and you are perfectly entitled to complain about it, but that doesn't require you to twist reality.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
- omginternets 5y ago
  I have, actually. That's the part where I agree with you. The point at which I disagree is when you imply that this is somehow comparable to institutionalized slavery and Jim Crow laws.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Me?
    - omginternets 5y ago
      You seem to be defending the thesis in the original comment, so yes.
      - PretzelPirate 5y ago
        I think you may have misunderstood the OP and didn’t align with the HN rules of assuming the best meaning. They didn’t equate racism and discrimination based on height, they said that there’s no difference in someone discriminating based on that - meaning discriminating based on something that wasn’t a choice and cannot reasonably be changed.

SnowHill9902 5y ago

I agree that it shouldn’t be used in a derogatory manner, but it’s a fact that people have preferences in who they prefer to breed with. In fact that’s the reason why we are what we are in a positive way. You are being disingenuous or have genetic maladaptive screening of partners if you think otherwise and that maladaptation is naturally evolved away.

chrischen 5y ago
My point is that preferences are malleable and there is no objective reality or grounding in modern society for short stature being an undesirable trait (at least going forward). My hypothesis is that short stature historically has been attributed to malnutrition, and therefore destitution as well, which has shaped modern day preferences, but perception lags reality. EDIT: Also I should add that people are reading my comments automatically into the context of sexual preference, but I was talking more specifically about the general attitude that it's ok to deride people based on their genetic shortness. That being said, even if OK Cupid (Which is just a proxy for dating preference due to the specific nature of how it operates) showed that black woman were the least likely to get matched on OK Cupid doesn't mean it's ok to now make fun of them based on their skin color / cultural / racial background. Our perceptions about short people, black women, etc, are the results of social conditioning. Conditioned behavior will always lag the current reality. It is my belief that short stature does not hold the negative associations it once had, just as whatever was the reason for our preferences against black woman probably do not hold anymore. We don't go around forcing people to start liking short people or black woman if they have not conditioned themselves to do so yet, but we also shouldn't be accepting adding fuel to the prejudicial fire.
- xeromal 5y ago
  I would say that past preferences are simpler than malnutrition. The biggest brute wins. People feel safe around bigger people if they're on their team. I met Thor Bjornson a few years ago and meeting him was terrifying. I can see that trait as being desirable just from a protection and safety perspective. Like you said though, that's less necessary in this day and age.

nathias 5y ago

are you confusing sexual preference with chattel slavery?

chrischen 5y ago
Sexual preference is largely shaped by societal influences as well. As I stated at the end there's historical pretext to this: fat women used to be preferred by men. Sexual preferences have changed over time. It's just as wrong as assuming that patriarchal society is some universal truth. Assuming that it is some innate quality that women are attracted to people taller than them is also flawed. What about homosexual woman? If they both prefer someone taller how does that work?
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  > As I stated at the end there's historical pretext to this: fat women used to be preferred by men. Is there a citation? I've heard only the rich were 'plump' in ancient times, though not that it was ever sexually desirable. > What about homosexual woman? If they both prefer someone taller how does that work? Nature doesn't always fit our intuition or first hypothesis. IIRC, gay men strongly prefer very fit men, yet they cannot procreate. That struck me as counterintuitive, though if the cause is genetic there could be a variety of factors leading to such genes.
  - klipt 5y ago
    According to the "sneaky bisexual" theory, bisexuality is beneficial because of you can seduce the fit dude maybe he'll let you sleep with his mate, and if he's fit he probably has a high quality mate. One hypothesis is that gayness is from an evolutionary point of view "too much bisexuality". Similar to how one sickle cell gene is beneficial, but two is deleterious. According to this theory, evolution favors bisexuals, and sometimes produces gays as a side effect of that.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  Fat women in mediaeval times would be possibly thinner than an average Western woman now? Have you seen the fattest guy in the World from ~1900s picture he's large but he'd probably fit in an airline seat? It's really hard to consider these things as "fatter" probably meant larger dowry (!), better survivability, healthier and by extension better for child-rearing. Whilst fatter in Western society now (anorexia, etc., aside) is almost certainly healthier, fitter for child-rearing and such. Populations were lower and people moved around less, there was far less choice for mates. But then choosing, rather than falling in love seems strange from where I am.

PKop 5y ago

chrischen 5y ago
> This reads like pure cope from a short guy. I don't see how one can dictate to others what they should find attractive. That's not how it works. No one is dictating anything about attractiveness, and you really shouldn't be trying to marginalize my arguments on the ground that I might be short. It really has no relevancy here. I wasn't talking about dating and people's dating preferences. I was referring specially to the person receiving a derogatory comment about his stature, that was in the context of normal socializing. Again, it is not socially or morally acceptable to deride someone for their skin color, and my point is that it's equally unacceptable to do so on another genetic trait such as height. Just because that random man did not find the height adjusted man to be attractive or not has no bearing on whether he has the right to express derision about his height in such a nonchalant manner. I mean, it shouldn't be made illegal, but it shouldn't be socially acceptable either assuming all parties are not toxic and want to be part of well-intenioned society. However, if we want to shift the topic to dating/attractiveness, your statement applies to people's "preferences" on race as well. OK Cupid published these preferences against black woman (and also Asian men) on their site. We can use this as an example because it's been more in the spotlight than the topic of stature, and easier to see my point. My opinion on this is that if you are short/Black/Asian and dating then just skip to the next person who can't see past superficial physical qualities. Usually it's a sign of dating inexperience anyways. It's a free market, and the winners will be those that are able to make a decision beyond superficial factors. Many people can't see past the superficial qualities as trivial as a candidate being a woman instead of a man, and the same thing applies here. It's their loss. Societal trends will always lag reality. We can't force people to get up to speed, nor should we (and I never advocated for this). The best thing to do is to simply reward those who are prescient.
- Crabber 5y ago
  >the winners will be those that are able to make a decision beyond superficial factors You're just inverting reality now. "The winners of dating are those that pick partners with the least desirable physical traits". If there's two men with identical personalities, but one is 6'5 and muscular and the other is 4'2 and 300lbs what exactly would a woman be "winning" by going with the second man?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

aortega 5y ago

>there aren't really downsides to short stature in modern life It even have several health benefits. Except that in dating, women overwhelmingly prefer men over 6', and very small differences like 5'7 vs 5'9 double or triple the matches in online dating sites. If we are talking about 5'6 vs 6'0 the difference is ridiculous, like over 200X more matches. Women even divorce short men at double the rate of tall men. Those sites have years of very precise statistics that support this fact. Basically this means that in modern dating, if you are short, you are very likely to die alone and this trend will only get worse in the future.

chrischen 5y ago
Lucky for short people, height is a lot less of a factor in modern society. Wealth is a much bigger factor. And what's the best path to wealth? Software. Even more lucky for them, software and internet doesn't care about height.
- ummonk 5y ago
  You've got that backwards. Wealth was a far bigger factor in traditional society than in modern society.
- aortega 5y ago
  - bigfudge 5y ago
    Is that really why humans are getting taller? Most increase in height has happened in the last 70 years and linked to increases in nutrition. Selective pressure seems implausible as an explanation for any measurable increases in height in historical time.
    - Salgat 5y ago
      What if better nutrition has allowed for better selection of taller genes? Back when everyone was more nutrient deficient and had stunted growth, I imagine it would be much harder to select for a suppressed trait.

daenz 5y ago

Yep. Nobody wants to talk about it, but the amount of abuse that is directed from otherwise-socially-conscious women towards short men is pretty disgusting. It's extremely common for groups of women to laugh at and deride short men, both online and publicly in real life. It's eye-opening. (And before you ask, no I am not short, I've just witnessed the abuse first hand).

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I'm 5'5" and 120 lbs and that hasn't been my experience. My past promiscuity is the butt of jokes far more often than my stature.
- kodah 5y ago
  Personally, the short men I know still get play. Women have a wide variety of tastes, as do men; and the taste really just needs to be tried once to get a probability for it to stick. That said, women being callous and cruel in groups about height, fitness, etc is more congruent to locker room talk. You probably won't hear it because it's behind your back and usually not by people you know. I say that as having been witness to this kind of private talk before.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    Yeah. My point about promiscuity is that it hasn't hindered my dating ability. I agree with the locker room talk but I disagree that it's a problem. And it's not just women. If anything I've had my stature shit talked more often by other men.
    - kodah 5y ago
      I was just summarizing why I think you probably wouldn't hear it directly from women. Men definitely do it too, but as you said, probably in a more noticeable/direct fashion. That said, after years of social movements that have made very targeted complaints using identity, I would not cast that kind of stone. Trying to use shitty data and anecdotes to declare, "Men/women are problematic because of x" is really not helpful. Really, at the end of the day, nobody on this planet has any business commenting on someone's features they were born with. It's easy enough to stick to that.

fleddr 5y ago

Yes and no. It's complicated. Mate selection is not and should not be institutionalized which means that you are within your rights to discriminate on...anything. Your criteria may be based on "taste", past experiences or downright prejudice. It is inevitable that as you pick a mate, you discriminate. You can't stop that nor should you. We can however openly discuss criteria that are unhealthy, perverted, make no sense...in an attempt to open people's minds. Not to control whom they can date, rather to open up possibilities. People may be missing out a lot by being needlessly restrictive. As old man I might provide a shortcut. Cliche as it is, character stands the test of time. What is somebody like? Select for that, the rest is a bonus.

didibus 5y ago
I don't know if that's the issue people are bringing. I think people are talking about the active derogatory and communicated bias towards shorter men. Not being attracted to short men and not wanting to reproduce with them is a personal thing. But going on record ridiculing them, saying bad things about them, mocking their height, that's not okay, and it's true that if it was done about their race it would be frowned upon, but seems to be acceptable for height. I think that's a fair issue to bring up. It also seems there might be real measurable pay-gaps, and that might need addressing as well.
- fleddr 5y ago
  "But going on record ridiculing them, saying bad things about them, mocking their height, that's not okay, and it's true that if it was done about their race it would be frowned upon, but seems to be acceptable for height." I fully agree, and you can extend that to men being bald, and many other bodily aspects. I think in particular contexts it's fine to make the occasional joke but that's entirely different from making it a widespread thing.
  - ycombobreaker 5y ago
    There are a LOT of hair restoration ads in a particular commute path near me. Like it's a self-referential trope. I used to thing it was just funny. But then, I thought a bit about how a series of similar ads about breast augmentation would be met with criticism of body shaming. It's just... socially acceptable to handle male pattern baldness this way, I guess. It feels pretty gross when you pick it apart that way.

slibhb 5y ago

Deriding people based on their height is wrong. But preference for tall males is based on a preference for strength, athleticism, and ability to fight. This is true in all human cultures. If you think it's outdated, consider sports. Almost all MLB pitchers are > 6' and that's not even getting into basketball. In terms of fighting, although stature is less relevant than ever, there are plenty of ongoing military conflicts. This is true for lots of things. Being fast is better than being slow. Being smart is better than people simple. Being attractive is better than being ugly. Being fit is better than being fat. This isn't a happy realization but it's true and it's healthy to accept it. The dimension along which all people are equal is a metaphysical or religious dimension, not an empirical one.

cercatrova 5y ago

> There's really no difference between a person proudly declaring they only like "white" people and a person declaring they only like "tall" people. People can like whoever they want to like. Some people may only like those of a certain height, weight, race, class, and any other attribute you may want to think of, but it is not necessarily wrong. It is up to each individual to have the freedom to date whoever they wish. You might be conflating this with the societal denigration of certain races or classes, which is surely bad because there really is no reason to denigrate them, but that is not the same as saying everyone must be attracted to those of any combination of the above such factors.

trompetenaccoun 5y ago
Racism is not just bad when it's phrased in a negative way. I can say I only like living next to white people because that's my "preference". That is still racist, the same way it is racist if you prefer to only date people of a certain skin color. The fact that many people do not see any issues with such statements says a lot about their relation with the idea of human races. Much of society still very much believes in it. In fact, racial thinking is going through a Renaissance currently.
- Zenbit_UX 5y ago
  > That is still racist, the same way it is racist if you prefer to only date people of a certain skin color. That's not racists at all, that's just a person's personal preference for what they find attractive, and it often can't be helped. We develop our models of what we find attractive early in our development by what we are exposed to. It scares me a little that you don't know this, yet feel confident enough in your knowledge to type out these words. Is it racist if I only like blonds? No, but that does rule out more than a few races of people that can't naturally grow blond hair. You're allowed to have physical preferences for certain traits. What you shouldn't do though is treat people differently because they don't have those traits that you value. What would be racist is if I said I only hire [insert race], or I only let [insert race] people rent my condo.
  - 5y ago

daniel-cussen 5y ago

> we shifted our social preferences to fit bodies. I'm shifting all the way back on that one. Fat is fit. So I was talking to a girl, a model in fact, I was a model too, met a lot of models. I said I am going to want exactly the sort of woman I want, and no other, without any other man's judgment being taken into consideration at all. So it's actually about white fat versus brown fat cells, apparently. Saturated or unsaturated, based on diet, to a lesser extent fat but to a greater extent sugars and especially toxins[1]. So without it women look ripped and bony. All the models I saw like that looked great on TV but terrible in real life, the models who didn't get work had that...that baby fat I guess you could call it. I got her to come around on the subject she was like, "yeah, a thin but not too thin and even layer of fat, it looks good!" [1] Many but not all psychiatric compounds. All of them alter body fat, I think. Fluoride, for lots of reasons. So hard to escape that F'ing F atom. Then what other toxins...pesticides and especially fire-retardant.

Zenbit_UX 5y ago

> It's wrong to deride a person based on skin color not because it hurts their feelings, but because our preconceived notions on their inferiority hold no objective basis in reality except those derived from our flawed social perceptions. No... if that were true then it would be OK to deride someone who was born with a deformed limb, because in that case the "inferiority" would really have an "objective basis in reality". They would be objectively inferior at certain tasks then someone without it. Does that make it ok to insult them? Suggesting racism (or prejudice) is wrong simply because it's not objectively inferior is missing the point. The actual answer, which I think you would have come to eventually, is that deride someone for an attribute they had no control over, is the essence of prejudice. People do not chose to be born in a poor country, in an abusive family, black, French, short or handicap, these are simply the hands they were dealt.

tanbog10 5y ago

Tallish guy here. There are a reasonable number of women on dating sites that like saying pretty horrible things about shorter guys in there profiles. I don't know that it does much but I've always treated it as a bit of a red flag and swiped left. I don't think there's anything wrong with say, being attracted to someone taller than yourself, but I don't understand feeling the need to public ridicule someone about a physical trait you aren't attracted to.

cjbgkagh 5y ago
If they were smarter they would know it hurts their ranking in the algorithms. All that, “if you’re not X swipe left” makes you appear less desirable when people do swipe left. I consider it a stupidity filter. You can do niche marketing after the match has taken place, before that you need broad appeal.

nradov 5y ago

Likewise, for some reason it still seems to be socially acceptable among the educated professional and managerial classes to discriminate against the less intelligent and even openly mock them. There seems to be a social consensus now that it's wrong to make fun of people with an IQ below about 70 (intellectually disabled) but apparently those in the roughly 71 - 99 IQ range are fair game. Is that morally right? I don't understand it.

Guthur 5y ago

And if he's tall the comment might be high tower, or orange hair or big nose, big ears, bold, bad breath etc. Stop trying to sanitise the world, that's why no one can live in it.

mthehacker 5y ago

Why can't we just designate as being the height we would like to be and expect/demand? that everybody accept us as being as we designate?

LouisSayers 5y ago

There's a kind of funny thing here that people see being short as a kind of deficiency. I'm about 5"8, and am actually really happy with my height - it's perfect for the types of sports I do, I fit quite nicely on an airplane, and have no problem if I were to drive a smaller car. I imagine for taller people those things could be a hassle, that flying would be a real pain, that they might look silly on a motorbike / skateboard, and coule develop back problems from bending down. When it comes to dating, online dating apps suck in general, but honestly I've never felt like I've missed out. People don't even seem to truly know what they find attractive until they have someone placed in front of them. I've even had this experience myself where I've found a super tall girl attractive when I'd typically go for the shorties. It's sad that people feel the need to do these operations. Honestly, I feel they could achieve a better outcome (feeling confident / adequate) by doing some martial arts and hitting the gym. As others have mentioned it also depends where you live. The only time I truly felt short was in Amsterdam where it felt like the local bars were packed full of giants lol. I Thailand and India I've had the opposite experience.