[ExI] IQ and beauty

Dan TheBookMan danust2012 at gmail.com
Thu Oct 22 20:51:36 UTC 2015


On Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 10:30 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On
Behalf
> Of rex
> ...
>
> >>...  You just wouldn't be as  likely to choose a boney-ass mate up in
that
> setting.  Ja?
>
> >...It's far from clear to me that your average unschooled human knows
that
> endomorphs tend to be more comfortable in cold weather than ectomorphs
are.
> -rex
> _______________________________________________
>
>
> Ja, it is plausible the average person wouldn't get that connection.  In
> mate selection, the kinds of things humans would notice is the potential
> mate's favorite HVAC setting.
>
> I have some fun firsthand observations for you.  In a visit to Fairbanks
on
> the summer solstice in 1985, I was able to witness firsthand the locals on
> an unusually hot day.  It was about 80F.  The locals appeared to really
> suffer.  I don't even get comfortable until hits the 80s.
>
> Second observation: in 1988, I was living in the California desert region
> where we go a month at a time every year when every day exceeds 110F.  We
> hired a guy from UCLA named George Oh Way who was a full-blooded Inuit but
> was born in LA and grew up there.  George was about 5 ft and I would
> estimate his weight at about 320 lb (do pardon my use of the oddball units
> Europeans and sane people among us (150 cm, perhaps 150 kg.))  George was
a
> delightful colleague, smart as a whip, funny sense of humor, enjoyed
> demonstrating that his belt was as long as he was, etc.
>
> In the same room, he would be sweating while I was shivering.  I am 6 ft
and
> about 125 lbs.   I bundled up a bit, George and I dealt with it.
>
> I wish I could tell you it had a happy ending.  One Monday George didn't
> show up for work.  Called his house, nada.  Reported to security as was
> required (he had a security clearance.)  Next day, no George.  They went
by
> his house, TV on, no answer, car out front.  Called the parameds, broke is
> door, found him dead sitting in a chair, 43 yrs old.  Apparently he had
> something going on with his heart but to this day I have had to wonder if
> the desert heat contributed to his demise.  He just wasn't built for it.

I'm on the thin side, though not as tall as you, but I don't like anything
over 70 degrees usually. I could chalk this up to Norwegian and Celtic
genes, but I think it might have to do with where I was born and have lived.

But you might be drawing too much from this. For instance, with the person
you mention who sadly died, Inuits, from my reading, tend to get obese not
because that's their normal body thingy but because they tend to adopt a
bad diet. The same thing happens to Polynesians. And Polynesia isn't known
for being frigid. So, I wouldn't draw too many conclusions from body shape
and size.

Add to this, skinny people in Africa are often skinny because they have a
calorie poor diet. A friend of mine who lived in Tanzania for two years --
and who is chubby and of British descent -- related that eggs were
considered a treat -- something he tried to eat there everyday. And their
basic diet was some kind of grain and some vegetable, maybe some beans.
This was cheese-heavy, meat-heavy, with lots of sugary treats to go along
with it. And this was the result of poverty -- not self-selection for a low
caloric, low meat, etc. diet. (Granted, the pre-contact diet of Inuit, to
my knowledge, was high meat, though they had no grain and no processed
sugary crap either, right? That's not a diet that's going to make someone
all that fat, no?) So I wonder what would happen if these Tanzanian
villagers were suddenly put on the diet of the average Brit or American --
I mean the diet of the average poor Brit or America. I'd expect their
waistline to grow and grow and grow.

And why is Mississippi, not known for its cold snaps, the third most
overweight state in the US? (Arkansas was number one last year. Arkansas is
also not a land of long, cold winters.) Did all the Inuits move there? I
think California's low obesity rate probably has more to do with the
culture than the genetics. (Ditto for Vermont, another state I've lived in.
Low obesity rates and a September snowstorm is not unheard of there.)

Take a look at this:

http://stateofobesity.org/adult-obesity/

Of course, to be fair, people can move around and indoor climate control is
a big plus. It's kind of strange in Washington State -- number 37 on the
list -- that the climate is generally mild year round (to me), though a
really hot day is really bad here because most places don't have air
conditioning. This wouldn't be a problem farther south or farther east,
where most people do have a/c -- even if they're not cranking it all the
time.

Regards,

Dan
  Sample my Kindle books via:
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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