There has never been a better time to be short | Hacker News Reader

There has never been a better time to be short

nytimes.com

33 pointsBrajeshwar94 comments

I don't think women really have the best perspective on the difficulties of being short as there's never been a strong sexual stigma against being short for women. This seems particularly pronounced through the commoditization of human dating interaction through digital apps, something that isn't even touched upon in this article. Also not touched upon but felt by men and women is the general problem of being undersized for the world, which seems to be broadly sized for a 5'10" man (in the US at least).

1.7m is a common height used for Russian optics of military weapons, used to measure distance based on the height of a person in the scope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSO-1#/media/File:Distance_mea...

So it is better to be taller, causing the bullets fired at you to fall short, than be shorter and have the bullets fire over your head? I'd rather them open fire thinking I am further away than I actually am.

They're not going to be able to guess that, or be especially concerned with the range -- if bullets are coming by they're getting down or hauling ass.

You aim for the center of mass -- roughly at the heart. A bullet, thusly aimed, that drops slightly short can still hit someone in the leg or lower abdomen. Or it'll hit the ground and kick up dirt, be more visible.

A fixed height for each tick mark also means you can use the enemy high to roughly calculate distance.

The average height of a woman in Russia is 1.65 so I guess that explains why they choose 1.70.

The dating app business is a problem. On the other hand, my colleague from a former workplace was maybe 5'4", a splendid guy who had no problems with the ladies, but he knew how to box.

> Also not touched upon but felt by men and women is the general problem of being undersized for the world, which seems to be broadly sized for a 5'10" man (in the US at least).

I'm 6' tall and feel oversized for the world. Any time I have to use a counter, table, wash dishes, etc, I have to bend over just enough to jumpstart some back pain, and I imagine that's a contributing factor to chronic back and neck pain.

A friend looked into it once and found resources suggesting the standard kitchen counter is made for people 5'6". It's long been a dream of mine to get a custom made kitchen made for my own height. Well, it's a dream that follows the dream of owning my own place. One problem at a time.

> I'm 6' tall and feel oversized for the world. Any time I have to use a counter, table, wash dishes, etc, I have to bend over just enough to jumpstart some back pain, and I imagine that's a contributing factor to chronic back and neck pain.

I am 6'2" and I really connect with this. I am constantly shocked by washroom vanities set low enough that they feel like a child's toy, shower heads set at nose level, and kitchen counters just a few inches below the lowest level that I could comfortably work.

I am probably a foot taller than my wife, I do more of the cooking but whatever counter top height we go for will be a compromise!

FYI the kitchen company we bought our last kitchen from proposed a mixed height design with some counter tops at the max height for me, and some lower ones for my partner. Especially if you have an island or a separate section it's an easy way out of having to compromise.

With women it's the opposite - smaller are usually more attractive. Maybe nature's way to balance average height, pairing up tall men with smaller women?

I agree that the consequences of height are drilled into us in adolescence when we're mostly dealing with sexual competition, not yet competing for promotions and such. Teenage girls are more likely to be picked on for being tall than short.

In retrospect, I was lucky that I went to a high school where I was only a tiny bit on the short side, good enough that when I was feeling down on myself (i.e., all the time when I was in high school) I could tell myself "at least I'm average height." I didn't realize until I left home that the demographic people judge me by is quite a bit taller than the demographic of my hometown.

One of the weirdest articles I've read in a while in the NYTimes:

* The extra carbon footprint of taller people is meaningless in comparison to what we should be reducing the emissions by.

* The extra amount of food consumed by tall people is meaningless. People don't starve because tall people are hoarding the food. Or if the tall started eating less that food wouldn't be teleported to the tables of hungry people.

* It doesn't matter that some people lived in an island and shrunk. We are not in an island, and food won't be the first resource we'll run out of.

* We shouldn't need to say this but: celebrating being the shortest just screams social awkwardness as much as celebrating being the tallest.

* For better or worse there's a positive correlation with height and intelligence, and with height and salary.

* For better or worse your options are severely limited below a certain threshold in the mating department.

* This focus on how people look is extremely unhealthy. Is the height of a person that important to even care.

From the article: "The short are also inherent conservationists, which is more crucial than ever in this world of eight billion. Thomas Samaras, who has been studying height for 40 years and is known in small circles as the Godfather of Shrink Think, a widely unknown philosophy that considers small superior, calculated that if we kept our proportions the same but were just 10 percent shorter in America alone, we would save 87 million tons of food per year"

Now say this about obese people as well...

Was convinced this was going to talk about short-selling stocks and already head thought up an instinctive counterargument based on the title.

This is absurd.

"He’s even restricted dairy from his sons’ diets and only allows them minimal sugar in an attempt to limit their growth, saving them from the ills of height."

Why the heck did I read this?

Lmao, this article is a bunch of hogwash. Can’t take any of it seriously.

Aha I thought this was going to be about it being the best time to short stocks

Now we're talking..

I mean it technically kinda is, I suppose.

Author is 5, 0.. Her husband 5, 6.

> My husband, who is 5-foot-6, said it would have been easier to be tall than to have had to put effort into developing his wit, but I know we wouldn’t be married if he didn’t make my cheeks hurt from smiling so hard on our first date.

As a shorter guy myself, no amount of good jokes will make up for being shorter than a girl who just "isn't interested in shorter guys".

What he, and many other men do to signal that they're attractive even though they are short, is to "Jestermax" or "goofmax". I believe it deserves it's implied perjorative sound.

I'm 5'6, my wife is 5'8, and the first girl I ever went out on a date with was 5'10.

I won't say "It's all in your head", because it's not.

Attractiveness is a real and very objective thing we can measure. But "how much it bothers you", or "how much it gets in your head" is also a very real and objective thing, too.

Of course, no man/woman is going to want you if you yourself even go "Oh woe is me I'm so short and awful". Most of my friends who are alone and blame it on their height are like this.

Height is just one metric. You might have a stellar face - which is actually the most important metric in todays dating market.

But having a great face and being short, bald, and obese isn’t going to lead you to winning results either.

The standards are high and some people will always be alone due to looks - please stop using the just world fallacy.

I'm sorry, but implying that developing a good personality is compensating is itself a form of bigotry. Just as it would be if I said "what she did to signal that she was intelligent despite being a woman was to 'mathmax' or 'logicmax'".

In the analogy I'd be dismissing a woman's math ability as compensation for women's inferior intelligence, rather than just saying she worked hard at math or is naturally talented at math and that is cool.

In your actual post, you imply that short men can't _just_ be funny. Or _just_ have a good personality, without it being somehow tied to compensating for your own perceived negative qualities of being short.

Society seems to value the appearance of effortlessness whether it be skills, fashion, knowledge, social graces, etc. Grandparent's criticisms are just more specific versions of calling someone a "try hard". Presumably they are punching down on people who appear to be trying a little too hard to be funny.

It's a shame. Being entertaining is a skill that has to be developed and sometimes it's going to look like quite a lot of work and won't be entirely successful. The audience isn't sympathetic, though, and will cry "cringe" and muse about whatever deficiency you must be making up for.

As the saying goes, "Girls don't like guys that make them laugh, guys that they like make them laugh"

Truth and author is also stupid enough to assume tall people can't be funny and they can't put effort into developing their wit and beat everyone at their game - funny short/fat people or good looking tall people.

> author is also stupid enough to assume tall people can't be funny

The author is not stupid, nor did she assume this.

Quite awkward article supported by even more awkward data

- short (people) fewer incidences of cancer ... One theory suggests .. because with fewer cells there is less likelihood that one goes wrong. - “Big people, who need a lot of food, died first,” Mr. Harari wrote.

Let's ask the ladies in the audience.

Not sure where you’re going with this. The author is a woman. It’s sort of missing the point of an article claiming heightism is culturally based to ask products of that culture what they think as though it’s a rebuttal.

The author is a single person. The parent comment implies a large portion of the women would prefer taller mates. The author being woman is not at odds with this claim.

It is a fact that a disproportionate amount of women prefer men to be six feet or taller but only like 15% of men are that height.

All of this is just people unhappy about biology because it creates winners and losers. Losers think they'll have an easier time changing biology than themselves or simply readjusting their expectations.

(Never mind the insanity of this article saying it will help save the planet...wild how the NYT now prints stuff 10x crazier than something like Breitbart ever did, and no one cares)

The author refers to herself in the article as being married.

They meant single as in “count of 1” not “romantically unattached”.

Also, the author has a husband who is half a foot taller than them

Women overwhelmingly do not like men who are shorter than them. At least not in any romantic capacity.

Telling short men this isn't true is gaslighting them hardcore.

But her husband is short! She’s just shorter. Most women are shorter than most men. No one is being gas lit. This article isn’t asking women to find men who are shorter than them. It’s just saying that height offers no real advantages in the present day.

I’ve heard this time and time again. I am 6’1” and have been complimented about my height by a lot of girls with them also saying they won’t date shorter men. This article is a bit comical to read and is more of an opinion piece then facts.

> with them also saying they won’t date shorter men

This is the female equivalent of saying you won't date a woman with small tits. I still think it's crazy so many women say this openly as if it's something to be proud of.

We’ve let the pendulum swing very far as to what women are allowed to say without judgment/condemnation. It will hopefully swing back one day to a more modest position where it’s a more equal ground.

If you can believe it - I get shit on constantly for wanting a woman with a serious career. It’s purely for lifestyle compatibility but everyone thinks it’s “so shallow”.

We live in some pretty bad times to be a single straight man.

> This article is a bit comical to read and is more of an opinion piece then facts.

The article literally says "opinion" at the top, in the HTML title, and in the URL.

Sailor’s Law in full effect.

https://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/07/sailers-law-of-female-jo...

Location is important to keep in mind, I lived in a few European countries and while women were indeed more attracted to taller men, it wasn’t a dealbreaker either. Having a good character really does go a long way.

I'm 6'3" and would love to be shorter. I think the ideal height is "just barely tall enough to reach the top cabinet in the kitchen". 5'10" is probably what I'd choose?

I'm 5'11" and I have to say it's a pretty nice height. Just tall enough to out-reach most people, and just short enough that I don't usually have to worry about hitting my head on things.

I'm 6'1 and it's pretty great. Luckily not too tall. But my back and neck often hurt because I grew almost too quickly. And sitting in front of a computer all day really doesn't help.

6'0 can confirm

I'm 6', and reaching everything is nice, but kitchen countertops are never an appropriate height, and accessible counter tops are even worse. A little shorter might be nice.

I'm 5'10 and countertops are a little low for me too.

>kitchen countertops are never an appropriate height

FTA: https://www.thoughtco.com/optimal-kitchen-counter-top-height...

>Be aware, though, that these design standards are aimed at making things comfortable for average people, who are 5 feet 3 inches to 5 feet 8 inches in height

(women average 5'3" and men 5'8" in the US)

At 5'11", I find that any long prep sessions in the kitchen create a lot of mid back pain and so I have to use multiple thick cutting boards to raise up the counter level. It would be awesome to have a prep table sturdy enough for kitchen use that could be easily raised/lowered like a standing desk.

I have the opposite problem.. I'm 5' 10 1/2" and counter tops are slightly too high for me in the Netherlands.

Considering that the average male height in the Netherlands is 6'1", I am not surprised. I'd be curious to know how high kitchen counters are there.

What is their countertop height? I'm about to remodel a kitchen.

I'm 6'2", size 13 shoe. I remember as a kid all the cool shoes I couldn't get because they stopped at 10 (some went to 11).

I have a friend who is 7', he basically can't fly.

Being tall, or larger, isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

6’1" here. Grew up in the UK and clothes were always too short and wide. Moved to Scandinavia as an adult and for the first time in my life normal clothes from normal shops actually fitted me.

I'm M 196cm (6'6") and I wouldn't want to be shorter. My brothers are taller than me and I don't think they would want to be shorter either.

I think the author is just frustrated with her height. Why else would she write such a long article.

A drawback of being the "average" size, is that all of the stuff in your size runs out first at shops. By the time there's a clearance sale, everything left is either tiny or huge.

I’m 6’10” and I wouldn’t want to be shorter at all.

It’s a question I get quite frequently and sure, sometimes it’s not super handy (think airplane seats or hotel beds) but otherwise this is who I am and I kinda like it.

Other than that, the article seems pretty weird with a lot of assumptions on benefits of being small(er). The calorie intake one especially, I know a lot of smaller folks who consume a lot more food than I do...

As 196cm (6'6" in crazy units) I don't think I would want to be shorter, sure it would be more convenient/cheaper in past when trying to buy shoes and pants and I can't count how many times I hit my head while living in Eastern Asia for years (and even apartment I bought have only 191cm door frame and not gonna cut concrete to make them standard 200cm), but I am still fine with my height, though I would prefer for my kid to be at some higher average, something like 185-190cm would be fine with me. It seems it will work out considering his mother is lower than average 158cm and lower than my mother (I outgrown my father, same as pretty much everyone in extended family).

Btw. travelled a lot, took numerous flights (I remember good times where you could be upgraded to emergency row for free), 30+ hours bus/train journeys (India/China) while travelling and honestly travelling is not an issue, door frames and clothing/shoes are much worse. I remember hitting my head multiple times in narrow apartment hallway this summer vacation where AirBnB owner had great idea to put sticking sharp top side of hanger furniture around 190cm height, even proposed him in review solution to just cut tennis ball and put it on corner of furniture, which will be appreciated by anyone above 190cm in future and it solves issue for less than a euro.

I think about this every time I fly coach, which is 99.9% of the time. It's also great if you are in a submarine or do electrical work in enclosed spaces.

It's important to note that Mara Altman is somewhat of a humorist writer and probably didn't intend this piece to be 100% serious: https://www.mara-altman.com/gross-anatomy

Is anyone aware of any dating app releasing data anymore? OKCupid used to, but that was before they were bought years ago. Some useful data I'm sure these apps all have access to:

- What are women filtering by on apps with height filters? I'd guess 5'9 as the floor if they're utilizing filters.

- The number of matches for men of differing listed heights.

It's hard to deny it's not a good time to be short if your goal is casual dating and flings. Longer term relationships? As a shorter person (5'8), I've never had issues.

The whining about height from some men, particularly online, is deafening though. We get it. It's more challenging. Work on other aspects of your life to be more attractive because nothing is changing in the ...short term.

Most of the OKCupid data is out there on archive.org or similar sites. It's out there if you're willing to do a little searching.

Match tried to squash it cuz it's unflattering and implies that different demographics probably aren't well served by dating apps, or else are hamstrung by the limitations of the platform. Either way it doesn't drive engagement so it got wiped.

The author is a woman.

From a dating perspective, there may be no worse time in history for a male to be short.

Every time I fly, I am grateful to be on the shorter side

In my experience, the real win is having short legs. I'm 6' tall but I have a 30" inseam. I don't have problems hitting my knees on the seat in front of me. The cost is that I sit tall, but usually not so tall that I hit things with my head.

Oh, I thought this will be about finding job and online dating, where everything is done now online (and with dating at least initially), so your disadvantage of being short, which is not appealing to employers paying tall people higher salaries and women being more attracted to taller men and wanted to mention everything is open again, so the best time was probably 2020-21, but then I found that article is actually about what? Not sure exactly, can someone please tell me why is now the best time to be short, because I couldn't find it in article.

> Now I have twins who are among the smallest in their kindergarten class, but instead of preparing to medicate them because of an antiquated societal bias, I’m going to let them be as they are: tiny. Because short is better, and it is the future.

Yeah, good luck to your kids, they will be fucked for life disadvantaged because of your philosophical selfishness instead providing them better starting point of having (relatively) normal life. I have same neighbor, they went to wrong doctor unwilling to prescribe hormonal therapy and instead finding normal doctor it seems they accepted their kid will be short. I tried to reason with them for the sake of the kid, but it seems they don't care about wellbeing of their kid in dating pool/work market decades ahead. It reminds me of people who have curable disease or disability and they decide not to solve it, imagine being blinds refusing getting eyesight or being deaf refusing implants.

But maybe I am wrong and this idiocracy will continue further with healthiest strongest people being looked down and obese people and other crazy ones promoted as new normal we should look up to.

At almost 200cm I am what most of the people would call tall and I want my kids to be preferably average or higher average, because while being short is pretty bad, being tall and hitting your head and having trouble to find clothes/shoes ain't exactly great either, so I'd be fine with my son not outgrowing me and being only 185-190cm.

I don't think a grass roots movement to ask people to date shorter has any real chance of changing the total height of the population, even if it got traction.

You'd need to directly appeal to tall people to stop having kids. But that would make both the ridiculousness and futility of the approach too apparent.

"When you mate with shorter people, you’re potentially saving the planet by shrinking the needs of subsequent generations. Lowering the height minimum for prospective partners on your dating profile is a step toward a greener planet."

What ever floats your boat I guess...

That paragraph is such gobbledygook, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was immediately used in some anti-green-energy content. Which is completely unnecessary.

They're really going out of the way to ignore the obese elephant in the room.

So apparently eugenics is just fine if it is for the environment?

On a more realistic/localized level: my partner and I need fewer groceries and often split an entree at a restaurant because we’re not tall. It may not save the planet but saves us money.

That was good one, as someone almost 200cm tall with BMI 20.0 (I gained weight now after holidays, was under 20) I am astonished to see amounts of food everyone (which means almost everyone shorter than me) around me eats.

Heck my 129cm developing kid eats more than his 158cm mother, so much for savings.

I'd recommend everyone wanting to lose weight to stay for at least few months in Southeast Asia, they are onto something with food portions. You realize how much food your body really needs instead of gigantic double western portions, which are designed to make pretty much everyone obese.

I think if they wanna save the planet there is even more efficient solution what to do about their kids (and own lives as well):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn3oXHSUdKY

Yeah and I'm pretty sure that those people who can't get a short enough mating partner will just abstain from doing so... So much stupidity in this piece that it's hard to address all of them.

Here I stopped reading: “Because short is better, and it is the future.”

Author clearly only writes this article because she’s short herself. Tired of this missionary wokeism. What an idiotic article. Don’t judge people for their genetic data.

I’m a little surprised the article didn’t talk about remote work. Hard to prove of course, but I feel like I’m taken more seriously in a Zoom world where no one knows I’m short.

Manlet cope.

I can only imagine most people upvoting this to the #1 spot on HN haven't actually read the article.

It's filled from top to bottom with all sorts of weird arguments and logic that make little sense.

> The problem is we are still under the illusion, as a general principle, that more always adds value. --- He said the pursuit of height made sense in a capitalistic society. “Everything is big,” he said, “the buildings, the businesses,” and went on to explain that parents reflect the mind-set that bigger is better when envisioning their offspring.

The pursuit of height makes sense in any society, being on the taller end of the spectrum (or at least the middle) has enormous advantages for an individual. However, here's the counter-argument from the article:

> “There are some short people who thrive and do phenomenally well and lead fantastic lives, and there are some tall people who are miserable,”

If I had to paste every sketchy paragraph from the article here I'd literally have copy over almost the entire thing, I'm not being hyperbolic here.

Please read the article.

I think the article is extremely stupid, but upvoted it for discussion here.

Oddest thing out of the NY Times. Slow news week/month, I guess?

Now this is what I call tall-shaming... Just kidding. It's just stupid and probably self-affirmation. Maybe, just maybe, if you want to save on food, especially talking about the US (or the EU), then it would be easier to stop overeating as the US is a pretty obese society. Obesity mostly comes from all the calories people don't need, so could easily not eat. Without shrinking themselves along the vertical axes. BTW, maybe being tall means a shorter lifespan on average, but so does being obese.

And then we haven't talked about all the food that gets discarded.

After all this the usual mumbo-jumbo about tallness being somehow magically a capitalist sin is not that surprising. Though, of course, it has nothing to do with it. Being tall has been seen as favourable/attractive by women for a long-long time. It's evolutionary. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but boobs don't make sense either. Neither does love, for that matter. I mean in our current day and age.

If capitalism favours the tall, that's because people do favour them - to some extent. (Yes, men also associate positive traits with tall people.) Maybe we can try to do away with some of the illogical associations (like tall people being seen as more competent AND more competent people being seen as taller), because these may cause problems. Just like we do with other evolutionary coded prejudices. But coming up with nonsense/non-actionable fantasies about how we could make the population shorter is stupid.

And not helping your children if there is a safe and efficient treatment is evil. I'm 6'3". I know that it doesn't automatically make you attractive. But I also do know that women are mostly attracted to guys who are taller than them and who are taller than the average guy. Now everybody can't be taller than the average but handicapping your children is pretty nasty. (Unless, there is an inherent risk to the treatment, which I don't know, but it seems that the author doesn't care about it either.)

As a short person, this is bullshit and deliberately stunting you kids growth should be illegal, if it isn't already. Rationally scoring some points in favour of shortness doesn't change the reality around us.

In practice whatever the DCS worker says is illegal is. Your child can be taken away because they saw dirty dishes in the sink.

I am not sure dirty dishes would pass judicial scrutiny. DCS workers aren't the final arbiter.

As a short person, height won't fix your problems.

Unless your problems revolve around not being able to reach the top shelves.

This is such a general statement, you could replace height by practically anything.

I'm also very short. I will probably give my children hormones to be taller, but just to be around their age average. I don't think you should deliberately make your children smaller unless it poses a health risk or they are female. For me personally, being short isn't much of an issue. As I get older, the advantages are increasing. I don't have many of the back problems friends in my age have and the injuries from falls are much less severe with every inch fewer.

> I will probably give my children hormones to be taller

Is this a thing? Isn't it determined by genetics, unless limited by malnutrition?

You can win a few inches by supplying HGH during adolescence.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com