<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
		>
<channel>
	<title>Comments on: Who Cares About Unsexy Men?</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html</link>
	<description>Overcoming Bias is economist Robin Hanson’s blog, on honesty, signaling, disagreement, forecasting, and the far future.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:07:16 -0500</lastBuildDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5</generator>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
		<item>
		<title>By: who cares</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430301</link>
		<dc:creator>who cares</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:01:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430301</guid>
		<description>i just read a little bit of this and thot &#039;who cares about this?&#039; the writing is bad. i think you are trying to sound clever or intellectual or something. just say what you have to say plainly</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>i just read a little bit of this and thot &#8216;who cares about this?&#8217; the writing is bad. i think you are trying to sound clever or intellectual or something. just say what you have to say plainly</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Anonymous</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430246</link>
		<dc:creator>Anonymous</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:11:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430246</guid>
		<description>To Robert and Doug S.
&quot;Not thinking of yourself as a loser&quot; is a mental feedback loop, just like pleasure from ejaculation, only decoupled from your peripheral hardware. Its purpose is the same though, that is, to motivate you to get a mate and ensure reproduction, so I don&#039;t see why with a bit of introspection you couldn&#039;t short-circuit it too, if you don&#039;t care about its goal and it&#039;s cheaper than &quot;the obvious default way out the evolution intended&quot; in the long run.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>To Robert and Doug S.<br />
&#8220;Not thinking of yourself as a loser&#8221; is a mental feedback loop, just like pleasure from ejaculation, only decoupled from your peripheral hardware. Its purpose is the same though, that is, to motivate you to get a mate and ensure reproduction, so I don&#8217;t see why with a bit of introspection you couldn&#8217;t short-circuit it too, if you don&#8217;t care about its goal and it&#8217;s cheaper than &#8220;the obvious default way out the evolution intended&#8221; in the long run.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Paavo Ojala</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430127</link>
		<dc:creator>Paavo Ojala</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:10:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430127</guid>
		<description>I think it&#039;s quite simple. Sexual desire is about reproduction, and because of differing parental investments the male strategy is quantity and female strategy is quality. 

So high quality males will have a high quantity of sex, and high quantity of women will have high quality sex. There&#039;s the simple imbalance. 

I don&#039;t see how the imbalance doesn&#039;t exist now. It exists with the clients of prostitutes and it exists with the users of pornography. 

&quot;unless it’s being implied that women in committed relationships have more sex than they would otherwise for the sake of their mates? &quot;

well prostitutes have more sex than they would otherwise for the sake of money. And probably even women in relationships have sex for the sake of their mates, eventhough men want more sex and especially with varied partners.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I think it&#8217;s quite simple. Sexual desire is about reproduction, and because of differing parental investments the male strategy is quantity and female strategy is quality. </p>
<p>So high quality males will have a high quantity of sex, and high quantity of women will have high quality sex. There&#8217;s the simple imbalance. </p>
<p>I don&#8217;t see how the imbalance doesn&#8217;t exist now. It exists with the clients of prostitutes and it exists with the users of pornography. </p>
<p>&#8220;unless it’s being implied that women in committed relationships have more sex than they would otherwise for the sake of their mates? &#8221;</p>
<p>well prostitutes have more sex than they would otherwise for the sake of money. And probably even women in relationships have sex for the sake of their mates, eventhough men want more sex and especially with varied partners.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Solutions For Unsexy Men - ErosBlog: The Sex Blog</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430119</link>
		<dc:creator>Solutions For Unsexy Men - ErosBlog: The Sex Blog</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:41:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430119</guid>
		<description>[...] perhaps best of all was the very first comment on &#8220;Unsexy Men&#8221;, in which the commenter came up with a one-word answer to the problems [...]</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[...] perhaps best of all was the very first comment on &#8220;Unsexy Men&#8221;, in which the commenter came up with a one-word answer to the problems [...]</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Grant</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430106</link>
		<dc:creator>Grant</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:06:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430106</guid>
		<description>I&#039;d always thought the higher male mortality was balanced out by a high rate of death during childbirth?

Whether I&#039;m right or wrong, I&#039;d still like to see a lot more data and citations which discussing topics like these.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;d always thought the higher male mortality was balanced out by a high rate of death during childbirth?</p>
<p>Whether I&#8217;m right or wrong, I&#8217;d still like to see a lot more data and citations which discussing topics like these.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: MichaelBishop</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430103</link>
		<dc:creator>MichaelBishop</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:24:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430103</guid>
		<description>agreed</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>agreed</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Vilhelm S</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430093</link>
		<dc:creator>Vilhelm S</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:05:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430093</guid>
		<description>&lt;blockquote&gt;Solution: Unsexy men pool resources to pay sexy men to be monogamous and monitored. A good source of income for untalented actors.&lt;/blockquote&gt;

I don&#039;t think this can work at all.

Suppose that men are willing to have sex with 10 times as many partners as women, so women will only sleep with the most attractive 10% of then men. So the other 90% of the men get together and pay the alpha males  to be monogamous, effectively removing them from the dating pool along with the 10% most attractive women. 

Now the remaining 90% of women will STILL only sleep with the top 10% of the remaining men! So every man below the 81st percentile is being a chump, paying an pretty-boy actor without getting any benefit out of it.

What this example shows is that there is no hope of collective action: every man on the margin of desirability has to pay the full price of removing a rival. Which is no improvement over simply bribing the good-looking guy in the singles-bar to leave.

&lt;blockquote&gt;My sense is that both men and women prefer partners of approximately equal or greater sexiness.&lt;/blockquote&gt;

And there are even hard numbers on it! See figure 1A of
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=950782  :)</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>Solution: Unsexy men pool resources to pay sexy men to be monogamous and monitored. A good source of income for untalented actors.</p></blockquote>
<p>I don&#8217;t think this can work at all.</p>
<p>Suppose that men are willing to have sex with 10 times as many partners as women, so women will only sleep with the most attractive 10% of then men. So the other 90% of the men get together and pay the alpha males  to be monogamous, effectively removing them from the dating pool along with the 10% most attractive women. </p>
<p>Now the remaining 90% of women will STILL only sleep with the top 10% of the remaining men! So every man below the 81st percentile is being a chump, paying an pretty-boy actor without getting any benefit out of it.</p>
<p>What this example shows is that there is no hope of collective action: every man on the margin of desirability has to pay the full price of removing a rival. Which is no improvement over simply bribing the good-looking guy in the singles-bar to leave.</p>
<blockquote><p>My sense is that both men and women prefer partners of approximately equal or greater sexiness.</p></blockquote>
<p>And there are even hard numbers on it! See figure 1A of<br />
<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=950782" rel="nofollow">http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=950782</a>  <img src='http://www.overcomingbias.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: bonara</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430088</link>
		<dc:creator>bonara</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:13:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430088</guid>
		<description>Does anyone know of a good study/survey on why do people (men and women) divorce? 

It could help us start understanding the theme of this thread.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Does anyone know of a good study/survey on why do people (men and women) divorce? </p>
<p>It could help us start understanding the theme of this thread.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Interessantes woanders (2009.07.11) › Immersion I/O</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430081</link>
		<dc:creator>Interessantes woanders (2009.07.11) › Immersion I/O</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Jul 2009 09:06:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430081</guid>
		<description>[...] Who Cares About Unsexy Men? [...]</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[...] Who Cares About Unsexy Men? [...]</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: tndal</title>
		<link>http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/07/who-cares-about-unsexy-men.html#comment-430069</link>
		<dc:creator>tndal</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:36:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.overcomingbias.com/?p=18991#comment-430069</guid>
		<description>Roissy tries, but fails, to frame discussions of &quot;alpha male&quot; behavior in the context of singles bar and the poseurs one finds there. But alpha males don&#039;t frequent singles bars. Instead they are busy building their career in business and politics. And the likelihood of finding fertile, healthy women suitable for reproduction is lower  in singles bars than in other venues (not to mention the high risk of contracting a disease that may terminate your genetic line).

Some, but not all, behaviors found in singles bars are shared by other primates. Put 20 alpha male gorillas in a room with 20 female gorillas and see what happens.  Humans aren&#039;t the same species: we have some unique behaviors.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Roissy tries, but fails, to frame discussions of &#8220;alpha male&#8221; behavior in the context of singles bar and the poseurs one finds there. But alpha males don&#8217;t frequent singles bars. Instead they are busy building their career in business and politics. And the likelihood of finding fertile, healthy women suitable for reproduction is lower  in singles bars than in other venues (not to mention the high risk of contracting a disease that may terminate your genetic line).</p>
<p>Some, but not all, behaviors found in singles bars are shared by other primates. Put 20 alpha male gorillas in a room with 20 female gorillas and see what happens.  Humans aren&#8217;t the same species: we have some unique behaviors.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
</channel>
</rss>
