Via Rob Henderson's newsletter:

Muscularity is the strongest predictor of mating success for men.

A study on males aged 18 to 59 found that muscularity is significantly positively associated with the number of total sexual partners and partners in the last year.

Handgrip strength is correlated with self-assessed happiness, health, social confidence, overall physical attractiveness, and overall number of sexual partners.

Researchers recorded short videos of 157 different men. Next, they had a group of male viewers watch videos of the men and asked, “How likely is it that this man would win a physical fight with another man?” Then the researchers had a group of female viewers watch the same videos and asked, “How sexually attractive is this man?” Eighteen months later, the men in the videos completed a questionnaire asking about their sexual history of the previous 18 months. How tough a guy looked to men was a much stronger predictor of mating success than how attractive he looked to women.

In this study, researchers asked two different groups of women to look at photos of different men and rate how strong the men looked. Results showed that the rated strength of a male body accounts for 70 percent of the variance in attractiveness (this is a massive effect size). From the paper: “None of the women produced a preference for weaker men…in both samples, the strongest men were the most attractive, the weakest men were the least attractive.”

See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10905...

See also https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10905...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10905...

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2017...

So sexual attractiveness as assessed by women is the best predictor of sexual success with women? Who would’ve thought?

No. They said “How tough a guy looked to men was a much stronger predictor of mating success than how attractive he looked to women.”

The problem with that study is that you cannot asses height accurately from pictures.

I would say that past preferences are simpler than malnutrition. The biggest brute wins. People feel safe around bigger people if they're on their team. I met Thor Bjornson a few years ago and meeting him was terrifying. I can see that trait as being desirable just from a protection and safety perspective.

Like you said though, that's less necessary in this day and age.

Even if you add that and other hunter-gatherer positive qualities, those don't apply in modern society as much either. Today the frail rich nerd wins, for the most part (or at least their ability to kill a man wit their bare hands matters a lot, lot less).

I was wondering how far I had to scroll down to find one person (on HN no less) finally stating the obvious.

Thor could be 8ft tall and able to lift to a house. It won't save him from a drone swarm designed by a nerd at Lockheed.

I don't think anyone is arguing who has greater modern power. I think people are just arguing if the preferences are created through upbringing or do they come from something more innate in our biology.

They come from messages broadcast in media culture, and people saying disparaging remarks about height non-chalantly. All these things are malleable.

Why would our ancient ancestors in the middle east and elsewhere use large men as their examples of powerful men who attain women and treasure?

Agreed. I'll also say though that we have these preferences and a lot of them are hardwired. Some come from upbringing but our brains looking for symmetry in a face or perhaps certain features on men or women come from our DNA.

I find women of a certain size and shape attractive. That doesn't mean I can't find other kinds of women attractive, but you're doing the argument a disservice if you don't think at least some of our preferences are innate.

I think many people over attribute to innateness what is likely caused by childhood upbringing and conditioning over time, which can feel like its innate.

See this article about an isolated tribe that has developed an ability to see shades of green other humans cannot: https://gondwana-collection.com/blog/how-do-namibian-himbas-...

Even if part of it is genetics, it shows even that is easily malleable therefore manipulatable for long term goals.

I appreciate this comment and you're probably right at least with me. It's hard to define the lines between genetics and upbringing or maybe a combination of both!

That is a major oversimplification. Many fractures and disc disease are much more common with increasing stature so there are clear limiting factors in play.

You are overestimating and being too kind on “modernity”. Even if today short stature is not a disadvantage (and that’s a big if), it can perfectly well be in one month, after a war or pandemic breaks out, or in a generation when your children will be shorter because of current preferences.

It can, but hasn't. Our prejudice against short people is almost certainly a result of past associations with malnutrition and poverty. I can't speak for other reasons, but this reason for short stature is no longer a main cause in modern Western (or even Eastern) society. Plus what you say about the fickleness of advantage/disadvantage equally applies to tall stature. Maybe Ryanair will start charging tall people extra next month.

Your comment shows your hand on your prejudice, because you're still somewhat commenting from the viewpoint that tallness is still an inherent positive trait. That clearly didn't work out for the dinosaurs. I'm not saying the opposite is true (that shortness is an inherent positive trait), but I do believe we need to dispel our preconceived notions because they are very short-sighted.

And your comments all demonstrate you believe you've found the objective enlightenment that height preference can be dismissed as a "prejudice".

Prejudice is always masked as “preference.” Just because you say you prefer X doesn’t mean you know what you want pt what you are talking about. Many people actually choose self-harming things and this is the essence of inexperience and the learning process.

I can think of another genetic factor that has a much, much greater impact on survival. And it is absolutely taboo to mention the heritability or genetic basis of this trait.

Take solace in the fact that if you find yourself on HN, you're likely at least a few SD above the mean in this trait, so you don't have much to worry about. Furthermore, you can use this trait to understand the fickle nature of sexual attraction, and how to obtain whatever it is you're looking for in an efficient manner.

But there is no reason to believe that 2SD above the mean in the heritable elements of 'intelligence' amounts to much. For all we know, almost everyone is born about the same and there are a few disabled at one tail and a few playing 10 simultaneous games of blindfolded chess at the other.

oof, we don't discuss intelligence == genetics == success here, too bad those three are hardly correlated without addressing other factors, edit too bad as in too good, because without the other factors they aren't related. No straight line for you here

Yes, I’ve noticed you can’t meet a rationalist without them trying to recruit you to scientific racism in the first 10 minutes. Mostly because they don’t know what “heritable” means and think all evidence should be believed just because it’s passed in front of their eyes and someone called it evidence.

Isn't the opposite equally plausible? Tall people kind of stand out in foxholes, and they require more calories that may not be available in desperate times.

Height is not necessarily an end in itself. It’s much easier to be short than to be tall. For someone to be tall many things have to have gone exactly well. So tallness is a proxy for generic success.