Contents:
1) Males, Greater Variance in Genotype
        1A) Intelligence
        1B) Neurological Structure, Autism and Psychopathy
2) Males, More Risk Aggressive
3) Compassion, Hierarchy of Love
4) Professional Choices
         4A) Geniuses Needed? Most Are Men
         4B) Risk Taking Required? Most Volunteers Are Men
5) Relevant Reading
Preamble:
Males are the reproductively expendable sex, females are the reproductively critical sex.
A tribe with 100 women and only 50 men can create babies without any difficulty, but a tribe with 50 women and 100 men will be limited in how many babies it can produce. The number of females who are alive and healthy is the limiting factor in a species’ ability to reproduce.
We have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors; in our evolutionary past, 80% of women reproduced while only 40% of men reproduced.
Fewer men than women reproduced partly because males were more likely to die off at a very young age (natural selection pressure was harsher on males than females), and because women are more picky about their sexual partners than men are (sexual selection pressure was harsher on males than females).
It was more likely for a man to be in the situation that no woman was willing to sleep with him, than it was for a woman to be in the situation of no man being willing to sleep with her.
The aim of this essay is to explore the modern day consequences of men being the expendable gender.
1) Males, Greater Variance in Genotype:
“Men are the experiment (higher genetic variability, may not reproduce). Women are the control group (lower genetic variability, likelier to reproduce). Nature appears to test more extreme gene combinations in males (more +3 SD men than women, more male psychopaths than female etc).” -Illimitable Man
Nature rolls the genetic dice more with males than it does with females; male genotypes are more variable than female genotypes. There is more variability in the content of a Y-chromosome than there is in the content of an X chromosome.
High variance in the genotypes and phenotypes of males won’t put a species at risk of being wiped out because males are reproductively expendable; if some males end up with phenotypes that are poorly suited for survival in the immediate environment and they get killed off at a young age, it won’t prevent the species from reproducing effectively.
Male phenotypes being more variable than female phenotypes can be seen with both intelligence (IQ), and psychiatric disorders (Autism, Psychopathy).
1A) Intelligence:
Male IQ is more variable than female IQ. Most geniuses are men, and most idiots are men.
At an IQ of 130+ most of the people are men, and at an IQ of 70- most of the people are men.
Not coincidentally, most people who end up with degrees in engineering are men, and most people who are highschool dropouts are men.
1B) Neurological Structure, Autism and Psychopathy:
It is the case that most men and most women are neurotypical. However, the percentage of men who are not neurotypical is higher than the percentage of women who are not neurotypical.
Most autists are men, and it seems to be the case that all psychopaths are men.
2) Males, More Risk Aggressive:
“As a man, win or lose you have to take risks; being complacent and passive is a female privilege â men have the burden of performance. Taking risks is core to the personality of masculinity, when nature gave you XY chromosomes, this was ordained. Meek and lazy men get nothing.” -Illimitable Man
Men are more risk aggressive than women. Put more simply, women are on average more risk averse than men.
Part of the reason males evolved to be more risk aggressive is that they are reproductively expendable; if some males take risks and end up getting themselves killed, the species won’t lose its ability to reproduce effectively. The same would not be true if females were to take risks and some of them were to end up getting themselves killed.
Beyond expendability, a major reason men evolved to be more risk aggressive is that males have the ability to reproduce even after death; a man can take risks tomorrow and get himself killed, but still successfully reproduce so long as he sleeps with a woman tonight.
Females do not have this ability; successfully reproducing as a female requires staying alive, at minimum for the duration of pregnancy and hopefully also for the duration of breastfeeding. As such, women evolved to tend towards risk aversion; for the sake of successfully reproducing, they can’t afford to risk getting killed off early.
3) Compassion, Hierarchy of Love:
Children > Women > Men
âMen must become powerful to be loved; women and children need only existâ¦Men remember being boys. Man has a lucid perspective in comparing the diminished affection of his adulthood to the greater bounty of his childhood. Women do not experience such a significant loss of affection. As such, man is forced to realise he will never again be loved so profusely, for the boy gets his fill, but man loves the most to be loved the least.â âIllimitable Man
Women have an instinct to protect children. Men have an instinct to protect women and children. Nobody has an instinct to protect men.
Humans instinctively value the lives of children more than the lives of adults, and the lives of women more than the lives of men.
We evolved to be this way because so far as the continuation of the species is concerned, children are sacred, women are reproductively critical, and men are reproductively expendable.
When a ship is sinking or a building is burning, saving the lives of children is prioritized over saving the lives of women, and saving the lives of women is prioritized over saving the lives of men.
Crimes committed by children are punished less harshly than crimes committed by women, and crimes committed by women are punished less harshly than crimes committed by men.
If you are a woman or a child and you are suffering, people will care.
If you are a man who is suffering, nobody will care whether you live or die; indeed it would be wise to conceal your suffering since if people find out that you are doing badly they will assume it is because you are weak and incompetent.
4) Professional Choices:
Male IQ being more variable than female IQ, and men being more risk aggressive than women, profoundly affects the professional lives of both men and women.
4A) Geniuses Needed? Most Are Men:
In any profession where an extremely high IQ is needed most people who excel within the profession will be men, because at the extreme high end of IQ (130+) most people are male.
Most of the people who excel in science and engineering (STEM) are men, because most of the people who have the genius level IQ (130+) needed to excel in such fields are men.
4B) Risk Taking Required? Most Volunteers Are Men:
In any profession where risk taking is required, most of the people who voluntarily enter and stay in the profession will be men; there are more men who have a high risk tolerance than there are women who have a high risk tolerance.
Finance, Sales, and Entrepreneurship would be examples of such professions.
5) Relevant Reading:
Illimitable Man:
The Hierarchy of Love (Illimitable Man)
Fifty Shades of Red (Illimitable Man)
Fifty More Shades of Red (Illimitable Man)
