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Comment by graderjs | Hacker News Reader

All specific anxieties about baldness aside, it would be cool if human beings were able to so radically re-engineer their appearance in such a striking way with a single chemical target / treatment that we could go from a species where the males get a chrome dome in their mid-life, as it has been for hundreds of thousands of years (presumably), to a species where males (and females) have thick locks long into their twilight years.

All those funny portraits of history with balding VIPs would become anachronisms, divided from the hirsute future by a follicle singularity.

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> All those funny portraits of history with balding VIPs would become anachronisms,

This is already the case in movies and television. Before 2000, extremely common to see a bald/balding character appear on TV. Today though, they are rare.

Hmm. Wonder what that's about?

I don't buy it. Dwayne Johnson one the highest-grossing and highest-paid actors of the 10s is bald. Along him you have a host of action actors that are bald. Top tv shows like Lost and Breaking Bad featured bald main characters. Just to name a few.

Yeah. The biggest difference I've noticed between our era and those in the recent past is that balding men now just shave their head instead of living with a bald spot. Big improvement IMO.

Or, more accurately, those with mild balding go ahead and get it fixed. Leaving those with the power donut the choice between Jason Alexander or Patrick Stewart.

Dwayne Johnson was bald by the time he started acting, probably due to steroid use.

Fixing it and shaving it have both exploded in popularity at the expense of the power donut, the combover, and the toupee.

I wonder how Jeff Bezos is doing these days.

Or that in the current era we have elevated appearance way above where it should be, instead of judging people by what they say and do.

Radio, television, and finally internet and smartphones made things progressively worse in this regard.

People have always judged based on appearance. This is apparent when reading classic literature. Long-winded descriptions of individuals and various assumptions one could draw from these observations are very common.

Like the joke goes, acting in Fast&Furious will make you bald...

No, the poster has a point. Think of Robert Duvall. Very different profile.

It's not the baldness that's raking in the money--obviously, it's the physique. So much so that it even nullifies the lack of hair.

Is there any male protagonist without crazy abs nowadays? Now compare that with the bodies they show in older/classical movies. I wouldn't be surprised if, after the not-so-recent colorizing craze, they would also start a "retrofitting fitness" craze.

> divided from the hirsute future by a follicle singularity

I love the sound of that! Pretty awesome prose :)

Thank you! :) ;p xx ;p

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