[ExI] Transhumanism - Six fingers?

[William Flynn Wallace]

 BillW might comment on that.  Fertile females may feel more comfortable in
the presence of an adult male with juvenile characteristics.  spike

Xenophobia in chickens.  If a chick is abnormal in any way the other
chickens will peck it to death.  Humans are similar.  Why attack gays and
lesbians?   They are different - not like us - who knows what other ways
they are abnormal and bent?

I dunno.  I suspect that a lot of people would regard six fingers as
"Ewwww", what else is wrong with them?"  Imagine a mother whose daughter
brings a hexadactylic man home?  "Well, at least he isn't ___ (fill in with
bigoted adjective)".  But inevitably there will be women who find it
attractive.  Percentage?  I dunno.

Neoteny is the word for the appearance of adult characteristics in the
young, and, perversely, for the persistence of youthful characteristics in
the adult.  You might Google that.

Imagine some protypically macho male. Got it?  Now a pretty girl.  Far more
babyish, which is why I suspect that calling women and girls 'baby' is used in
a zillion song lyrics .

Some real data:  around the time of ovulation, women are more attracted to
pictures of very virile males, and presumably actual males of that visage,
than at other times in the cycle.  Sorry Spike.  Although it might be
investigated as to whether timid women are more attracted to less
virile-looking males.  Though you might also make a case that timid women
would want the strongest male she could find to protect her.  Love is
complicated - you can quote me.

I do have to object to the use of 'virile' to describe the athletic look.
Hell, I was a virile as they were and maybe more in some cases, skinny
though I am.  So there!

bill w

On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 12:04 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
> BillK
> Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism - Six fingers?
>
> >>...Extra fingers, often seen as useless, can offer major dexterity
> advantages An extra digit proves useful for texting, typing and eating, a
> case study shows By Laura Sanders, June 12, 2019
>
> <
> https://www.sciencenews.org/article/having-six-fingers-can-offer-major-dexterity-advantages
> >
>
> Quote:
> Burdet says that these participants live in a world designed for people
> with five fingers...
>
> The results may not extend to other people with extra digits, Burdet says.
> In some cases, extra fingers may be less well developed.
> ___________________
>
> Nature paper here:
> <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10306-w>
> ----------------------
>
> Be sure to watch the one minute video!   Creepy???
> I wonder how they would be at playing the piano?
>
> BillK
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> BillK, before you toss the following notion as more spike silliness,
> consider the reproductive advantage in our modern world of some oddball
> characteristic.  A clear prerequisite to (legitimate) reproduction in our
> modern very crowded world is acquaintance.  Someone with a weird but
> harmless oddity like six functional fingers can attract attention, which
> increases the probability of reproduction.
>
> I have a notion that a minor thing like this may have led to speciation
> between protohumans and protobonobos (or protochimps in some lines of
> theory.)  One of the possible oddball characteristics proposed has been
> bulbous heads.  This notion is compelling because the bulbous-head male
> appears baby-like to prospective mates, which cross-wires the whole
> psychology of the mating game.  BillW might comment on that.  Fertile
> females may feel more comfortable in the presence of an adult male with
> juvenile characteristics.
>
> Other oddball characteristics could cause the cascade of adaptations to
> the new equilibrium, such as a knee variation that encouraged upright
> walking, which frees up the hands, makes the biped appear larger and more
> menacing, leading to dominance of a group and so on.
>
> Another possible adaptation is the use of the voice for something other
> than the usual ooo-ooo-ooo lines the females are so tired of hearing.  I
> think of that as the proto-rock-star notion.
>
> OK, fast forward to today.  Now we are a highly evolved highly uniform
> species.  So... any oddball talent or (perhaps especially) a weird or rare
> anatomical variation would lead to one guy standing out, girls coming over
> to his lunch table at high school and oh let me see, etc.
>
> Looks to me like that would be a slight reproductive advantage: girls
> might see it as a status booster to virtue-signal by being accepting and
> friendly to the mutant.  Taken further, they might wish to virtue-signal if
> they took him for a roll in the hay (to see if he had the usual number of
> everything else.)  I suppose it is unclear if that case would still be
> considered "virtue" signaling, but hey, it's just a theory.
>
> Furthermore... for the six-fingered guy: there just HASTA be a way to make
> money with that.
>
> spike
>
>
>
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