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Comment by dx87 | Hacker News Reader

Pretty suprised at a lot of the comments here. The top comment is saying bald people should just get over how they feel and accept it, and a lot of people are saying that the scientists developing the cure are wasting resources that could be spent on something else. I doubt comments telling a trans person to "just move on and accept that you don't feel comfortable with your body" would go over well here, so maybe people should think before telling someone with premature balding that their anxiety and self-image issues aren't real problems.

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Same here. The one other person that mentioned trans women was downvoted into oblivion. And in general, all the comments are very male centric.

Women have hair loss too. Cancer or alopecia. Although many can embrace their baldness, to dismiss it as just “get some clippers, hair is socially constructed” is so bizarre to read.

This is a good video about a woman who has hair loss and how even wearing a wig is difficult: https://youtu.be/ujvQMpPDq40

Another issue is that some have trichotillomania, which causes them to nervously pull out their own hair. Lots of causes. But that aside, there are many more men with hair loss then women [0] [1]. Opinions aside, there are objectively significantly more men than women who have the problem. Women also can cover it more due to longer hair. Not reasonable to call comments "male centric" when the majority of people with hair loss are male.

[0] https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/hair-loss...

[1] https://www.creditdonkey.com/hair-loss-statistics.html

>Women also can cover it more due to longer hair.

Spoken like someone whose never had thinning hair. Long hair makes it look worse, not better.

For many women, a hair is her identity. A man is still valued more by his means of providing and status in competence hiearchies than his appearance. This is not the same with female mammals.

> Women have hair loss too.

My wife discovered, during pregnancy, that she has hair loss associated with hypothyroidism. Point being that endocrine disorders can lead to hair loss, as well.

I think there's a strange double-standard where men are painted as weak or vain for worrying about hair loss, while at the same time the media portrays a thick head of hair - which is probably not realistic for a majority of men in their late 20's and beyond - as part of the definition of attractiveness. A huge number of celebrities, who serve as the model for what men "should" look like, either use hairpieces or have undergone hair replacement surgery. I don't think it's any wonder it's a source of stress for many men.

And with the presumed age discrimination in SV might be an issue for guys who are unlucky in the genetic lottery.

Sometimes I get all tin-foil and think the machinery of society is just out to make as many people feel bad about themselves as possible.

All throughout my teens and even twenties, I would regularly have people poking fun at how thick my hair was / the amount of correlated body hair I had. People weren't being super mean, but it was a low key constant; just enough to get under my skin. I did my best to play it cool, but it really affected me and shaped my body image in ways I'm still working through.

Now that I'm in my mid thirties and things have thinned to more "normal" levels, the rolls are flipped. People almost _expect_ me to make fun of balding men. When I balk at those sorts of comments as being unacceptable, I get some really bewildered responses.

I just can't get over the flashbacks and wondering if said people have never experienced some version that treatment.

I'm inclined to agree; I also think it's bizarre that people think that this research exists only in a vacuum, like the idea of being able to 3D-print stem cells couldn't possibly be used for something life-saving or more-directly pragmatic later.

Like going to the moon, sometimes arguably-useless things work really well as a means to develop technologies. By setting an arbitrary goal, you have clear "success" and "failure" metrics. I've reimplemented Conway's Game of Life about 13 times, not because the world needs another implementation of CGOL (let alone 13), but because it's a clearly defined goal that I can easily test, and gives me something to work for when learning a new programming language.

Thanks for your insightful comment.

As I stated in a comment below, balding can result in disadvantages to ones career and partnership options that are all but real.

A number of studies suggest that there is a not insignificant number of men (and of course women) that have psychological issues like anxiety and depression stemming from going bald and I don't think anyone is in a position to easily dismiss that.[1]

1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1261195/

I think one valuable takeaway from that study and from discussions about altering one's appearance is that some people literally aren't fine just the way they are. Looks are not merely superficial attributes.

Your appearance (actually, society's response to your appearance) heavily affects your mental health, happiness, career development, and relationship prospects. Appearance is quite literally life-altering.

What you said should be blindingly obvious to everybody, and yet some people feel the need to prove how enlightened they are by saying things like "the baldness doesn't define you". Sure, it does not define you, but it can definitely be a huge kick in the groin for your self-esteem.

And all the people saying that those resources could have been used somewhere else are technically right, but likely hypocritical or, at the very least, cognitively dissonant. A large portion of the people on HN are working in IT, and a lot of them are working on either CRUD apps or, maybe worse, on figuring out ways to squeeze more revenue from private user data via ads because, like it or not, that's where the big money is. To other industries, we are also resources being wasted because we could all use our brains to computationally tackle medicine, climate change etc., but we go for the well paid hedge fund 0-sum game.

Balding guy here. I never considered it to be a big deal. I don't think women tend to care very much. They care a lot more if I'm in shape and have a good career, not so much if my hair is receding.

All of the previous methods for dealing with male baldness also focus on inhibiting testosterone, and as such the typical side effects can include "lowered sex drive & breast growth." I'd much rather just be bald.

Ditto here, but I can understand that some men might not be so blase about it.

Ditto. I've come to terms with it but it seems that many people around me haven't.

Then there's TV and Movies. Body shaming is still considered funny when it comes to baldness apparently.

I don’t think this comment is anymore helpful than the “just get over it” comments. And I don’t imagine it’s anything like a gender crisis. I imagine that’s much worse. Closer to a women with really small breasts imo.

So, “just get over it” and “join my pity party” aren’t helpful. As a 27 year old man who is completely bald (horseshoe bald). I’ll share with you what has helped me.

I keep myself fit. I hate gyms and I can’t afford the commute time so I bought some adjustable dumbbells that I store in my closet. I’ve found about 20-30 minutes a day 3 days a week is enough. I do a combination of “old man burst training” (focusing on getting my heart rate up and running out of breath), weight training and yoga work best for me. I’m barrel chested so I focus on broadening my shoulders and back for symmetry. This was a “just do it” kind of thing after I got tired of making excuses. It’s not something I dread anymore. I’m the type of person who needs a kick in the ass. Acknowledging that and working to kick my own ass has been my greatest gift to myself.

I’ve worked hard on my posture. I’ve always slouched. Mentally, this has required the most effort.

Go to the dentist! (White teeth are the goal don’t get crazy and end up with that creepy blue look).

If you’re white, get some sun!

Learn to appreciate clothes and style. This was the hardest to learn for me. I’m naturally conservative but I’ve found a way to be conservative (comfortable) and stylish. You don’t have to be rich, I’ve found some great stuff on the cheap at Ross and the like. Being in shape also makes everything fit better. If you can afford it find a good tailor.

It takes work but if you tick all the boxes above you’ll find your romantic life will improve and possibly your career too. I was never a great athlete but our office park has a basketball court and I do just fine. I’ve made some good business contacts on the court too. And you don’t need to be bald to take any of this advice.

Female baldness on the other hand… I don’t know what to say other than my heart goes out to you.

> Female baldness on the other hand… I don’t know what to say other than my heart goes out to you.

Women have the option of buying a wig. It's frowned upon or ridiculed when men do.

As far as wasted scientific research goes it is a bit silly to think that there can't exist other applications in the future for their discoveries. Which may already not be limited to solving baldness.

Exactly: a 3d-printed matrix for stem-cells sounds like it could have a ton of exciting applications!

I generally agree, but: how early in one's life must hair loss occur for it be considered "premature" balding? More importantly, why can't we accept that a man at any age may suffer from anxiety, depression, and/or loss of confidence due to androgenic alopecia?

Also, I think people forget that science is not self-contained: advances in hair loss reversal could lead to discoveries in unrelated fields. Now that we're experimenting with stem cells and the like, the mind reels at the possibilities.

I suspect that bald(ing) individuals wouldn't have nearly such a problem if it wasn't used to judge them, yet I hear more criticism of bald(ing) people for worrying about it than I hear of the people who criticize and judge over hair loss.

Why are these people wasting their time on cutting-edge medical research instead of doing something important, like figuring out better ways to sell advertising?

It's actually kind of interesting how people who possess empathy can be very dismissive of those with "image" issues. I don't find it that hard to understand people who have body image problems, but then again, I've had all sorts of body issues all my life so I can relate. Still, I would hope that people could use reason to place themselves in the shoes of others, but apparently that's really difficult for them.

I don't think people understand how much one's image affects how others treat them until they've experienced something like baldness, obesity, vitiligo, acne, eczema, psoriasis, asymmetry, etc. While I've never been treated poorly by virtue of being bald, there's a world of difference between having hair and being bald. People are more amenable to me in my baldness and beardness, but strangers were also more friendly to me when I had hair on the top of my head. I used to be overweight and constantly got disrespected, and once I lost all that weight, I was really shocked at how much more friendliness and respect I got merely for being thin.

Everyone is visually driven and judges the character of others based on their innate appearances, and that's just the way things are. We tell each other the noble lie that you can compensate for ugliness by having good character, and maybe you can to some extent, but the odds really aren't in your favor. I encourage everyone to question whether they unfairly judge others based on things that say nothing about a person's character or competence. In my experience, the average person really isn't aware of just how much their vision guides their judgment of others.

For those who haven't experienced baldness, becoming bald can actually be disorienting. I lost a lot of my hair in a few short years, and it took me a very long time to look in the mirror and fully recognize myself. Hair is actually a major way in which we are able to identify other people, which there's a good chance that you can look at the following image and know who the hair belongs to:

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fboligcious.d...

I did get used to my bald self after a while, but it can be very depressing to no longer see "yourself" because your body is deteriorating. And because strangers treat bald people differently, the problem can seem even worse than it actually is.

Although I'm fine being totally bald, I can completely understand why people would want their hair back. I would want more hair just so I could have a mohawk at least one time in my life, just for fun. ;)

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