Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I wish I was a little bit taller

gq.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 101 posts

Re: I wish I was a little bit taller

#91

Post by sshine »

whatshisface wrote: post #30
onemoresoop wrote: post #22

At 5'9 Im comfortable with my average height. Sure, had I been taller Id probably be perceived differently but these are things that cannot be changed (till now). Since I'm comfortable with my height I rarely think about this but I'm sure shorter guys may have it more on their mind than I do. Im genuinely curious though, with extending the length of the femur, wouldn't that make the body change proportions? Aren't ta…

A lot of those statistics about men being the taller ones in most pairings come from the fact that men are taller than women on average.

This statistic can be true while at the same time, women prefer tall men.

To confirm the latter, it is not enough to look at who is the taller in most pairings.

Re: I wish I was a little bit taller

#92

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #89
whatshisface wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were true, you'd have to explain how they got the self-esteem issues in the first place if there wasn't discrimination. FWIW, I have known a lot of people in sales and it's not confidence that makes you good - that's just a stereotype - but the ability to make the other person feel like you have their interest in mind. Sure you have to be willing to approach someone but without the ability to establish a conn…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: I wish I was a little bit taller

#93

Post by csours »

sshine wrote: post #90
csours wrote: post #10

I did industrial tech support in an automobile assembly plant. I would get calls to fix something, and I would tell them why it was someone else's responsibility, or I would try to explain something. When I went out to plant floor, it was like my perceived IQ went up by 20 points. Suddenly the things I said made sense. I think most of this effect can be attributed to the fact that I cared enough to show up, and that…

> When I went out to plant floor, it was like my perceived IQ went up by 20 points. I thought you were going to conclude that factory workers are dumb, so you appeared relatively smarter. (Before anyone gets upset, I have grandparents who were factory workers; I admire hard work.)

There were some really smart people out there working on the assembly line - accountants and other professionals. A lot of people had a second job or owned another business. The job itself is pretty mind-numbing, but if you're on a good team you can have a good time.

Re: I wish I was a little bit taller

#94

Post by xiphias2 »

whatshisface wrote: post #79
xiphias2 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growth hormone has amazing qualities, but as it stimulates the liver to produce IGF-1, it has to be taken together with drugs that deregulate IGF-1 and under supervision. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.13028

Hopefully nobody would read my comment as a suggestion to start taking it.

Actually I wish more people would be taking it. Currently about 10-20 people are in the experiment, and it's the only drug proven to reverse epigenetic aging in humans. I want to be part of the experiment, but I'm afraid of developing prostate cancer, and I don't live inside the US, that's why I prefer to wait.

Re: I wish I was a little bit taller

#95

Post by actually_a_dog »

csours wrote: post #10

I did industrial tech support in an automobile assembly plant. I would get calls to fix something, and I would tell them why it was someone else's responsibility, or I would try to explain something. When I went out to plant floor, it was like my perceived IQ went up by 20 points. Suddenly the things I said made sense. I think most of this effect can be attributed to the fact that I cared enough to show up, and that…

You're right about the physical presence thing. I had this conversation with a friend of mine who's a short-ish woman in her early 70s. She's always had big, intimidating-looking dogs, and likes to joke that she "only meets nice people" because of it. :) I mentioned (joked, really) that the way I say safe on the streets is through a combination of maintaining situational awareness, and being a 6' tall white guy.

I'm sure there are social effects I don't perceive because I've been tall since I was a teenager. For instance, it's hard to believe that the average Fortune 500 CEO is 6' tall just by coincidence. Height also seems to predict overall financial success in an interesting way: https://news.utexas.edu/2009/12/15/research-shows-height-may...

Re: I wish I was a little bit taller

#96

Post by kmm »

bhedgeoser wrote: post #59
kmm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a 2013 study conducted in the Netherlands found that women were taller than their male partners in just 7.5 percent of cases Isn't that entirely to be expected just because men are on average taller than women? As a very quick 'n dirty numerical check, if you pick pairs of numbers from two normal distributions with means that are 2 standard deviations apart, only in 7.8% of the cases will the number from the distri…

How did you calculate that? (7.8%)

Let's assume male heights are distributed according to a pdf p(x;μ,σ) for a given mean and standard deviation, and assume the female heights are identically distributed with a mean lower by two standard deviations p(x;μ-2σ,σ) (which seems to be reasonably accurate). For a given female height y, the odds a random man is smaller than her are given by the integral of p(x;μ,σ) where x goes from negative infinity to y. You then have to integrate this quantity where y ranges from negative infinity to positive infinity, with the measure p(y;μ-2σ,σ) dy.

It's easy to show this quantity is independent of either the mean or standard deviation, so I just numerically integrated it in Mathematica for a standard normal distribution, which again seems to be reasonably accurate for human heights.

Re: I wish I was a little bit taller

#97

Post by blobbers »

voisin wrote: post #53
whatshisface wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was a surgery that made people look white, I wonder how many people would get it.

I have read that there are many things people do in Japan to lighten their skin as this is perceived as more beautiful.

Can confirm. Used to work on an early version of their "instagram" filters and one of the functions was to whiten skin.

Re: I wish I was a little bit taller

#99

Post by wink »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #3

Tall people die younger, have more joint and back pain, and have trouble finding shirts that fit. See a shirt in a store? On me a L is a belly shirt and an XL is a baggy belly shirt. I’m tall and wish I was average and I’m not even “super tall” just 76”/193cm. I straight up feel sorry for people taller than I. They end up on crutches before dying in their 60s. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1600586/

Yep, no one's ever happy :P. I wish I was a little shorter, plane and bus rides are a literal pain and I don't see any real benefit of being 1.90m when 1.80 - 1.85m would be enough.

That said I'm perfectly ok and wouldn't get surgery even if it was a routine thing, but I don't see any real benefit and only a few annoyances. (Buying clothes or bikes, not all chairs are comfy to sit on, etc).

Re: I wish I was a little bit taller

#100

Post by gadders »

n8cpdx wrote: post #38
whatshisface wrote: post #29

They could give teens growth hormone instead. I guess now that late adolescent gender transitions are becoming accepted, and since they already give growth hormone to little people, that's the next step.

At least according to podcasts, that is done for kids that appear on track to be short. It seems like the people in my SES/field of work trend substantially taller, especially the younger cohort. I’m 1/4” shy of 6’ so it seems strange, but I always assumed it was due to better nutrition. I think a few years less of the pasta-based food pyramid would have made a difference. Or maybe they’re all just getting hormones.…

Worked for Lionel Messi: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1492546-lionel-messi-and...
Post reply on HN