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I feel like the paper lacks a discussion about why males are more likely to take risks. Typically extremely reproductively successful men like Chengis Khan tak

by sjducb 3y ago

I feel like the paper lacks a discussion about why males are more likely to take risks. Typically extremely reproductively successful men like Chengis Khan take enormous risks to get the power and status that leads to high reproductive success. Unfortunately we are all descended from those men.

bell-cot 3y ago
Neither propensity to high-risk behaviors, nor high intelligence, are reliably inherited. (Vs., say, blood types.) Hence there are plenty of males who got the former, but not the latter.
- bumby 3y ago
  Are you sure? A trivial search on Google scholar suggests scientists have identified specific genes that may be responsible for risky behavior. (A very cursory look seems to implicate genes that alter dopamine pathways, which, to a layperson, would make sense since dopamine is heavily involved with motivation.)
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    > Are you sure? No. But from a quick search, it sounds like there are ~~100 different genes believed to be involved in risk tolerance. Vs. the extremely simple A/B/O inheritance of blood types.
    - bumby 3y ago
      I think you're moving the goalposts here. The original claim was that high-risk behavior isn't reliably inherited. You gave blood type as an example of an inheritable factor, but there are many other inheritable factors beyond blood type. The fact that we can identify not just inheritable factors but specific genes related to risky behavior clearly undermines your point. Whether or not the risky behavior is due to single alleles or complex interactions between multiple genes is a different argument than whether risky behavior is inheritable.
photon_lines 3y ago
I don't feel like there needs to be a discussion on 'why' they take more risks. Females expand way more energy in having and raising kids than males do (within the human species). In other species (like sea-horses) - the females actually compete for males since males are the ones that expand way more energy in raising / producing children... (i.e. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seahorse.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seahorse.html).
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > I don't feel like there needs to be a discussion on 'why' they take more risks. Why not? Do you think that this: > Females expand way more energy in having and raising kids than males do (within the human species) Is the only answer applicable to "Why to males take more risk than females?"
  - photon_lines 3y ago
    Yes, because they have more to gain from taking the risk. Think about it for a moment.
    - Shish2k 3y ago
      If you’re only thinking about it for long enough to come up with a single hypothesis, and then confidently declaring that you have the correct answer, I’d suggest maybe thinking about it for longer than a moment :)
      - photon_lines 3y ago
        It's not a single hypothesis. If you want me to write an essay on hacker news on all the behavioral differences between males and females - it's tough luck :) If you have counter-arguments - post them so I can refute them. Cheers.
        dekhn 3y ago
dehrmann 3y ago
My theory is that because of the sperm/egg relationship, survival of men is less critical to the survival of the species, so men are programmed to do more risky things, and the ones that survive are more fit.
- ozim 3y ago
  Little nitpick: ones that reproduce and their offspring survive are more fit. Man is useful to protect the offspring but is not required.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    If you die but protect your brothers offspring that makes your bother more fit. You share a lot of DNA with your brother so even though you (presumably) don't have kids, your death ensured your DNA survived.
- bluGill 3y ago
  There are a few factors here. Men can father more babies than women. Which means that a male who sacrifices himself for the community indirect ensures his siblings survive, via brothers and sisters (cousins...) while a female who sacrifices herself ensures less children for the community - not a big deal now, when when infant mortality was high all women needed to be pregnant or nursing a baby from the teens until menopause or the population would shrink enough to kill the village off. Men can father babies with many women, which means women can select the best male. A man who does something stupid and survives often gets the attention of the women and thus is allowed to pass his genes on. (woman can have more than one partner for their babies, but only one at a time will get her pregnant). Some stupid things are useful for the village as well - if you destroy a different village that is land you can then take for your own village, if you succeed in killing the lion you ensure that lion won't attack the village. Thus for a women encouraging men to try stupid things is a good reproductive strategy by rewarding them with babies is a smart move (as a bonus the man who succeeds may have better genetics that caused the success) There are probably more. And this deserve real study as opposed to people like me on a forum making logical things up. I'm not sure how to do such a study though.
huytersd 3y ago
Unfortunately?
- sjducb 3y ago
  We evolved in the only phylogenetic family to use organised group conflict (war) as a mating strategy. I think we’d have a much more peaceful world if we’d evolved from crocodiles or something peaceful like that.
BobaFloutist 3y ago
I think it's far more likely that thousands of years of human society have encouraged and rewarded risk-taking behavior in men, and discouraged and punished it in women. Remember, in any perspective on the differences of sexes, there's no control; no human being has ever been raised outside of human society and very few have ever been raised outside of male-dominated societies.
- golemotron 3y ago
  We're lucky that we can look at other primates and mammals and see the same patterns.
  - sjducb 3y ago
    Our closest relatives Chimpanzees are patriarchal. Humans are patriarchal. It’s probably genetic. One female can have about 10 babies. Regardless of how powerful she is. One male can father hundreds. The genetic rewards are there for males only. That’s why it’s only males that take crazy risks to get access to hundreds of women.
    - BobaFloutist 3y ago
      Our closest relatives Chimpanzees are not particularly close relatives. Most human societies tend to be patriarchal, but some have not been. And who tends to hold positions of power isn't necessarily 1:1 with who tends to take the most risks, in fact, most of our leaders are usually prone to putting themselves in less danger than those they govern.
      - golemotron 3y ago
        Historically they have always been at risk of losing their position. Often that means death or other severe personal cost. Leadership among primates is very risky.
      - sjducb 3y ago
        I’m curious why you bring up the rare cases of matriarchal societies as a way to disprove the general thrust of the argument. The existence of a few matriarchal societies doesn’t disprove my argument that biology makes us patriarchal. If I said Dutch people are taller than Spanish people you wouldn’t start talking about your one tall Spanish friend as a way of disproving my argument. Something is making you clutch at straws to try to disprove the argument that biology causes patriarchy. On the second point. Leaders take risks to get into the leadership position. That’s why the lower ranks are taking huge risks.
globular-toast 3y ago
Presumably the presence of risk-taking males is advantageous to the species as a whole. If our species was asexual each individual would have to be fairly risk averse as any individual lost is lost breeding capacity. But in a sexual species a lost male is fine and happens all the time. Just losing males is, of course, pointless but presumably the advantages brought by the successful ones outweighs any disadvantages brought by the unsuccessful ones. This seems to be true when you look at unsuccessful males who just tend to sit out on the sidelines or whither away in silence rather than actively leech on society while successful males can be great leaders, innovators, visionaries etc. It's perhaps easier to see why risk-taking behaviour is less common in females, though. In a sexual species each female is required to carry at least two children, on average, to merely replace the current population (it's also beneficial if she survives the final birth). The loss of a single female is therefore quite significant. A population with more risk-taking females would be less successful than one with less.
- sjducb 3y ago
  Natural selection operates at the gene level, not the population level. There has to be a positive expected return for the genes of the individual that takes the risks. If it’s beneficial to not take risks then populations will be full of individuals who play it safe.
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    The existence of gay people is a good example of something that can evolve in a population despite drastically lower chances of being passed on genetically.
maxerickson 3y ago
It'd be interesting to try to identify highly represented individuals that were otherwise not historically notable.
RGamma 3y ago
Your genetic influence will probably dilute over the generations and in response to environmental and cultural factors. Also, with randomness at play it may not make much of a difference after all. Properly assessing this empirically seems like a statistical nightmare.

by sjducb 3y ago

bell-cot 3y ago

Neither propensity to high-risk behaviors, nor high intelligence, are reliably inherited. (Vs., say, blood types.) Hence there are plenty of males who got the former, but not the latter.

bumby 3y ago
Are you sure? A trivial search on Google scholar suggests scientists have identified specific genes that may be responsible for risky behavior. (A very cursory look seems to implicate genes that alter dopamine pathways, which, to a layperson, would make sense since dopamine is heavily involved with motivation.)
- bell-cot 3y ago
  > Are you sure? No. But from a quick search, it sounds like there are ~~100 different genes believed to be involved in risk tolerance. Vs. the extremely simple A/B/O inheritance of blood types.
  - bumby 3y ago
    I think you're moving the goalposts here. The original claim was that high-risk behavior isn't reliably inherited. You gave blood type as an example of an inheritable factor, but there are many other inheritable factors beyond blood type. The fact that we can identify not just inheritable factors but specific genes related to risky behavior clearly undermines your point. Whether or not the risky behavior is due to single alleles or complex interactions between multiple genes is a different argument than whether risky behavior is inheritable.

photon_lines 3y ago

I don't feel like there needs to be a discussion on 'why' they take more risks. Females expand way more energy in having and raising kids than males do (within the human species). In other species (like sea-horses) - the females actually compete for males since males are the ones that expand way more energy in raising / producing children... (i.e. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seahorse.html https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seahorse.html).

lelanthran 3y ago
> I don't feel like there needs to be a discussion on 'why' they take more risks. Why not? Do you think that this: > Females expand way more energy in having and raising kids than males do (within the human species) Is the only answer applicable to "Why to males take more risk than females?"
- photon_lines 3y ago
  Yes, because they have more to gain from taking the risk. Think about it for a moment.
  - Shish2k 3y ago
    If you’re only thinking about it for long enough to come up with a single hypothesis, and then confidently declaring that you have the correct answer, I’d suggest maybe thinking about it for longer than a moment :)
    - photon_lines 3y ago
      It's not a single hypothesis. If you want me to write an essay on hacker news on all the behavioral differences between males and females - it's tough luck :) If you have counter-arguments - post them so I can refute them. Cheers.
      - dekhn 3y ago

dehrmann 3y ago

My theory is that because of the sperm/egg relationship, survival of men is less critical to the survival of the species, so men are programmed to do more risky things, and the ones that survive are more fit.

ozim 3y ago
Little nitpick: ones that reproduce and their offspring survive are more fit. Man is useful to protect the offspring but is not required.
- bluGill 3y ago
  If you die but protect your brothers offspring that makes your bother more fit. You share a lot of DNA with your brother so even though you (presumably) don't have kids, your death ensured your DNA survived.
bluGill 3y ago
There are a few factors here. Men can father more babies than women. Which means that a male who sacrifices himself for the community indirect ensures his siblings survive, via brothers and sisters (cousins...) while a female who sacrifices herself ensures less children for the community - not a big deal now, when when infant mortality was high all women needed to be pregnant or nursing a baby from the teens until menopause or the population would shrink enough to kill the village off. Men can father babies with many women, which means women can select the best male. A man who does something stupid and survives often gets the attention of the women and thus is allowed to pass his genes on. (woman can have more than one partner for their babies, but only one at a time will get her pregnant). Some stupid things are useful for the village as well - if you destroy a different village that is land you can then take for your own village, if you succeed in killing the lion you ensure that lion won't attack the village. Thus for a women encouraging men to try stupid things is a good reproductive strategy by rewarding them with babies is a smart move (as a bonus the man who succeeds may have better genetics that caused the success) There are probably more. And this deserve real study as opposed to people like me on a forum making logical things up. I'm not sure how to do such a study though.

huytersd 3y ago

Unfortunately?

sjducb 3y ago
We evolved in the only phylogenetic family to use organised group conflict (war) as a mating strategy. I think we’d have a much more peaceful world if we’d evolved from crocodiles or something peaceful like that.

BobaFloutist 3y ago

I think it's far more likely that thousands of years of human society have encouraged and rewarded risk-taking behavior in men, and discouraged and punished it in women. Remember, in any perspective on the differences of sexes, there's no control; no human being has ever been raised outside of human society and very few have ever been raised outside of male-dominated societies.

golemotron 3y ago
We're lucky that we can look at other primates and mammals and see the same patterns.
- sjducb 3y ago
  Our closest relatives Chimpanzees are patriarchal. Humans are patriarchal. It’s probably genetic. One female can have about 10 babies. Regardless of how powerful she is. One male can father hundreds. The genetic rewards are there for males only. That’s why it’s only males that take crazy risks to get access to hundreds of women.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    Our closest relatives Chimpanzees are not particularly close relatives. Most human societies tend to be patriarchal, but some have not been. And who tends to hold positions of power isn't necessarily 1:1 with who tends to take the most risks, in fact, most of our leaders are usually prone to putting themselves in less danger than those they govern.
    - golemotron 3y ago
      Historically they have always been at risk of losing their position. Often that means death or other severe personal cost. Leadership among primates is very risky.
    - sjducb 3y ago
      I’m curious why you bring up the rare cases of matriarchal societies as a way to disprove the general thrust of the argument. The existence of a few matriarchal societies doesn’t disprove my argument that biology makes us patriarchal. If I said Dutch people are taller than Spanish people you wouldn’t start talking about your one tall Spanish friend as a way of disproving my argument. Something is making you clutch at straws to try to disprove the argument that biology causes patriarchy. On the second point. Leaders take risks to get into the leadership position. That’s why the lower ranks are taking huge risks.

globular-toast 3y ago

Presumably the presence of risk-taking males is advantageous to the species as a whole. If our species was asexual each individual would have to be fairly risk averse as any individual lost is lost breeding capacity. But in a sexual species a lost male is fine and happens all the time. Just losing males is, of course, pointless but presumably the advantages brought by the successful ones outweighs any disadvantages brought by the unsuccessful ones. This seems to be true when you look at unsuccessful males who just tend to sit out on the sidelines or whither away in silence rather than actively leech on society while successful males can be great leaders, innovators, visionaries etc. It's perhaps easier to see why risk-taking behaviour is less common in females, though. In a sexual species each female is required to carry at least two children, on average, to merely replace the current population (it's also beneficial if she survives the final birth). The loss of a single female is therefore quite significant. A population with more risk-taking females would be less successful than one with less.

sjducb 3y ago
Natural selection operates at the gene level, not the population level. There has to be a positive expected return for the genes of the individual that takes the risks. If it’s beneficial to not take risks then populations will be full of individuals who play it safe.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  The existence of gay people is a good example of something that can evolve in a population despite drastically lower chances of being passed on genetically.

maxerickson 3y ago

It'd be interesting to try to identify highly represented individuals that were otherwise not historically notable.

RGamma 3y ago

Your genetic influence will probably dilute over the generations and in response to environmental and cultural factors. Also, with randomness at play it may not make much of a difference after all. Properly assessing this empirically seems like a statistical nightmare.