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Comment by SnowHill9902 | Hacker News Reader

You are overestimating and being too kind on “modernity”. Even if today short stature is not a disadvantage (and that’s a big if), it can perfectly well be in one month, after a war or pandemic breaks out, or in a generation when your children will be shorter because of current preferences.

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It can, but hasn't. Our prejudice against short people is almost certainly a result of past associations with malnutrition and poverty. I can't speak for other reasons, but this reason for short stature is no longer a main cause in modern Western (or even Eastern) society. Plus what you say about the fickleness of advantage/disadvantage equally applies to tall stature. Maybe Ryanair will start charging tall people extra next month.

Your comment shows your hand on your prejudice, because you're still somewhat commenting from the viewpoint that tallness is still an inherent positive trait. That clearly didn't work out for the dinosaurs. I'm not saying the opposite is true (that shortness is an inherent positive trait), but I do believe we need to dispel our preconceived notions because they are very short-sighted.

And your comments all demonstrate you believe you've found the objective enlightenment that height preference can be dismissed as a "prejudice".

Prejudice is always masked as “preference.” Just because you say you prefer X doesn’t mean you know what you want pt what you are talking about. Many people actually choose self-harming things and this is the essence of inexperience and the learning process.

I can think of another genetic factor that has a much, much greater impact on survival. And it is absolutely taboo to mention the heritability or genetic basis of this trait.

Take solace in the fact that if you find yourself on HN, you're likely at least a few SD above the mean in this trait, so you don't have much to worry about. Furthermore, you can use this trait to understand the fickle nature of sexual attraction, and how to obtain whatever it is you're looking for in an efficient manner.

oof, we don't discuss intelligence == genetics == success here, too bad those three are hardly correlated without addressing other factors, edit too bad as in too good, because without the other factors they aren't related. No straight line for you here

Yes, I’ve noticed you can’t meet a rationalist without them trying to recruit you to scientific racism in the first 10 minutes. Mostly because they don’t know what “heritable” means and think all evidence should be believed just because it’s passed in front of their eyes and someone called it evidence.

But there is no reason to believe that 2SD above the mean in the heritable elements of 'intelligence' amounts to much. For all we know, almost everyone is born about the same and there are a few disabled at one tail and a few playing 10 simultaneous games of blindfolded chess at the other.

Isn't the opposite equally plausible? Tall people kind of stand out in foxholes, and they require more calories that may not be available in desperate times.

Height is not necessarily an end in itself. It’s much easier to be short than to be tall. For someone to be tall many things have to have gone exactly well. So tallness is a proxy for generic success.

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