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The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

#21

Post by photon_lines »

Shish2k wrote: post #16
photon_lines wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because they have more to gain from taking the risk. Think about it for a moment.

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 :)

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.

Re: The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

#22

Post by k__ »

lelanthran wrote: post #12
SkyMarshal wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was at least one hypothesis floating around a while ago that males take more risks because they’re expendable to society, but females are not. If a society is decimated by a famine, disease, war, etc, it can be repopulated with just a few males, but requires many females. Thus males evolved to be more risk-taking and females more risk-averse. At an individual level, the incentive may be social esteem/bragging r…

> There was at least one hypothesis floating around a while ago that males take more risks because they’re expendable to society, but females are not. That's not the hypothesis the way I heard it - men are more expendable to society, but it's really a stretch to conclude that because men are more expendable, they make decisions with this knowledge in mind. I mean, really - there's no logic linking the two.

Evolution doesn't look into the future.

In the past, groups with women that were more risk averse would do better on average when the group was decimated and needed to repopulate.

Groups with women that took too many risks didn't survive.

So, now we have more risk aware women.

Risk taking for men didn't have that of an impact and might even have proven beneficial (e.g., Genghis Kahn, etc.)

Just my assumption...

Re: The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

#23

Post by bumby »

lelanthran wrote: post #12
SkyMarshal wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was at least one hypothesis floating around a while ago that males take more risks because they’re expendable to society, but females are not. If a society is decimated by a famine, disease, war, etc, it can be repopulated with just a few males, but requires many females. Thus males evolved to be more risk-taking and females more risk-averse. At an individual level, the incentive may be social esteem/bragging r…

> There was at least one hypothesis floating around a while ago that males take more risks because they’re expendable to society, but females are not. That's not the hypothesis the way I heard it - men are more expendable to society, but it's really a stretch to conclude that because men are more expendable, they make decisions with this knowledge in mind. I mean, really - there's no logic linking the two.

>they make decisions with this knowledge in mind

I read it as an artifact of natural selection and natural selection does not work "with this knowledge in mind".

Re: The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

#24

Post by huytersd »

sjducb wrote: post #5

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.

Unfortunately?

Re: The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

#27

Post by dekhn »

yedava wrote: post #26

Do Darwin Awards look at all of humanity or only a subset of it? Maybe there is a cultural component to behavior. Maybe there are cultures which don't treat men as idiots. How can anyone assert that men are genetically stupid without controlling for culture?

It's non-scientific. It's kind of a joke paper written by an undergrad.

Re: The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

#28

Post by BobaFloutist »

sjducb wrote: post #5

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.

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.

Re: The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

#29

Post by dekhn »

photon_lines wrote: post #21
Shish2k wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

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.

Surely you must realize that your comments here and above are ... simply not convincing? You say "we don't need to think about it", then give your own simplified explanation (which is mostly likely not a sufficient one) and then refuse to explain further, just doubling down on "my idea is right".

Re: The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

#30

Post by oh_sigh »

yedava wrote: post #26

Do Darwin Awards look at all of humanity or only a subset of it? Maybe there is a cultural component to behavior. Maybe there are cultures which don't treat men as idiots. How can anyone assert that men are genetically stupid without controlling for culture?

What culture treats men as idiots?

Yes, there are memes about clueless men, but there are also memes about clueless women - in fact, we have an entire genre of "blonde jokes" about them - which, note, are 99% about blonde women, not blonde men. The fact that these memes exist doesn't mean that society treats men(or women) as clueless generally.

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