The Darwin Awards: sex differences in idiotic behaviour

Post by bluGill » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 6:01 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #22

lelanthran wrote: post #12

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. 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...

Post by Shorel » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

pfannkuchen wrote: post #42

photon_lines wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ).

> like sea-horses I don’t think it’s fair to represent an edge case, “noteworthy for being different” type species as being just one example out of many. As far as I’m aware the behavior exhibited by sea horses is extremely rare, and I recall it being highlighted as such in, at least, The Selfish Gene. Can you think of other examples?

Post by marcellus23 » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

BobaFloutist wrote: post #28

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.

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #30

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.

Post by lupusreal » Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 7:02 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #32

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.

Except that a lot of risky male behavior doesn't impress most women. Maybe it impresses other risky-behaving men though, and the respect those risky-behaving men show the risk taker translates into more desirability from women.