John's blog

1. DNA's power to predict illness is limited
2. A newborn has same odds of living to 100 as a current 96.5 year-old
3. Stop the killing of beneficial bacteria
4. Obesity rate may be worse than we think

I like to find moments in life that allow me to see things from a new perspective.  And during my two weeks as a smoker, one of the things that I noticed is how many people wanted to bum a cigarette from me.  This was a reversal for me, since in the past, I've usually been the one to bum a cigarette.  And the mentalities are totally different.

If you're bumming a cigarette, it seems like such a small and reasonable ask.  No big deal.  Come on, don't be stingy.

Now flip the script.  Cigarettes in NYC cost something just shy of $15, probably the highest in the country.  So one cigarette costs about 75 cents.  Now, that's not a lot of money on its own, but it adds up if you're a regular smoker.  And damn, it sure gets annoying when all kinds of random strangers on the street feel entitled to one of my cigarettes.  If it just happened a few times, it's no big deal.  The problem is -- it's not just a few times.  It never stops.  And eventually, you have to throw up some defenses and start telling people 'no'.

And so I'm pretty sure that's what it's like being wealthy.  People always want stuff from you: gifts, donations, taxes, investments, whatever.  I could see how it gets a little annoying with each new ask, even if the ask isn't for very much money -- in fact, especially if the ask isn't for very much money.  Because the person asking you expects you to give it and views you as stingy if you don't.

So if you are a non-wealthy person angry at stingy wealthy people, just buy a pack of cigarettes and stand somewhere with a lot of foot traffic.  Do that for long enough, and everyone becomes a miser.

There are many tragic aspects to the whole Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman fiasco.  And I don't want to wade through this whole awful mess.  However, I would like to point out one aspect of the situation that relates specifically to men: if either one of them were a woman, the entire thing probably never would have happened, no matter what their races were.  Women rarely engage in violence towards people they don't know.

This is admittedly speculative, but I'd be willing to bet that if George Zimmerman saw a black woman walking down the street, it wouldn't have turned out the way it did.  I'm also pretty sure that if a female hispanic neighborhood watch captain saw Trayvon Martin, she most likely would have stayed in her car after calling 911.  Again, total speculation -- but not that far-fetched.

I don't know what happened that day.  None of us do.  But whichever version of events you think happened, no one can dispute that it was a confrontation between two young males that went very badly wrong.  And based on unbiased descriptions of each person, they both sound like confrontational males.  I have been in confrontations and physical fights with other men, and it really doesn't take much for men with confrontational dispositions to tick each other off and for things to escalate very rapidly.  So here's how I see it: even if there was racism, there didn't need to be very much.

It sounds completely plausible to me that it went down something like this (YCM = Young Confrontational Male):

• YCM #1 disrespects YCM #2 
• YCM #2 feels disrespected by YCM #1
• Verbal escalation
• Physical escalation
• YCM #1 kills YCM #2

That pattern could describe a huge number of violent altercations between men.  So if you want to reduce violence, that's where you start.

Caballo Blanco has passed away.  He went for a 12-mile run and never came back.  Many ultra-marathoners converged to search for him.  I'm sure Chris McDougall, Barefoot Ted, and others will share memories in the coming weeks.

Caballo Blanco, long may you run.

Men objectify women for their looks.  It happens all the time.  And it's important for men to learn how to not objectify women for their physical beauty and to treat them as human beings.  But here's the thing: when a man learns how to do this, it is one of those happy situations where it's possible to do good AND do well.

First of all, it's the right thing to do.  Nobody likes to be objectified, whether it's a woman and her looks or a man and his wallet.  Or vice versa.  Human beings don't like be reduced to objects.  Period.

But that's not the only good reason to do it...

Second, not paying attention to looks will help you attract good-looking women.  Attractive women have a lot of male suitors, so unsurprisingly, they often have their defenses up.  A generic compliment -- nice eyes -- is likely to fall flat.  But when a man comes along who acts nonplussed about her looks, it's a signal of high status.  This guy must hang around a lot of attractive women to not care about it anymore.

Third, as a man, it's really quite liberating. You have no idea how much brain-energy most men devote to thinking about attractive women.  It's not fun to be objectified on the basis of looks, but nor is fun to feel enslaved by desire for an object that you can't have.

So don't get fixated on looks.  Easy to say, hard to do -- I love a woman with a 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio as much as the next guy.  So here are a few concrete things men can do to learn how to not objectify women:

1) Interact with attractive women

For a lot of men, it can be hard to speak with an attractive woman without fawning and drooling.  The solution is to speak with enough attractive women -- ideally date them -- but of course, if that were easy, then it wouldn't be a problem, now would it?  So you've got to find opportunities to speak with attractive women where you don't feel any pressure to pick them up.

Here are three possibilities:

1. Live with them.  Not everyone has this opportunity, but it's a great life experience.  When you live with someone -- male or female -- you get the good, the bad, and the ugly.  As it turns out, attractive women have the same bodily functions as the rest of us, including burping, farting, and throwing up.  Be sure to lay down an ironclad rule that there is no hooking up between roommates and stick with it.  This is prudent for a number of reasons, but it also takes the pressure off, and allows you to deal with them just as people.

2. Visit high-end clothing stores, which are usually staffed with attractive women.  If a male staff-member asks if you need help, say you're just browsing.  If a female staff-member asks, take her up on it.  Have her help you pick out a few things to try on.  Tell her to give you her opinion.  Take her opinion into account, but don't necessarily agree with her out of some misguided attempt to ingratiate yourself to her.  Go in there knowing that you aren't going to ask for her number, which will take the pressure off.  Remember, she's working and might be on commission, so if you know you're not going to buy anything, go in when it's not busy so you don't waste her time.

3. Go to a gentlemen's club, but don't buy any dances and just have a beer at the bar. Maybe watch whatever sporting event they have on TV. Dancers will approach you and start a conversation. Remember, they're on the job and are there to make money, so if you're not going to buy a dance -- which I suggest you don't -- don't string them along.  Be respectful and straightforward, and just tell them that you're not buying a dance at the moment, but if they'd like to chat for a bit, they're welcome to.  If they move on, it's no big deal.  If they stay and talk, then you've just taken the pressure off.  Don't say anything that a 46-year old, overweight douchebag might say, which includes pretty much any question about dancing.  Once the pressure is off, and if you're enjoying the conversation, then buy her a drink.  But don't buy her a drink as a way to ingratiate yourself -- that's not the point and it won't work.  Just buy her a drink as a nice thing to do.  It's sucks to buy a drink for a girl when you expect something in return and she feels entitled to the drink.  It's much more enjoyable to spend money on someone when neither of you expect anything in return.  It allows you to be generous and her to be appreciative.  Also, don't go during peak hours. 

2) Interacting with unattractive women

• Don't ignore them.  It doesn't matter where you are or in what situation.  Part of not caring about looks is also learning to care about other qualities in people.

Note that these points can apply equally to women in relation to men, though the emphasis may not be on physical attractiveness.  If it sounds awful to say that men ignore unattractive women, please consider that women also reject low status men.  And when men ignore women, at least there's no active rejection because women rarely approach men.  Women often have to reject men to their face.  The average man has been rejected, to his face, lots and lots and lots of times.  That ain't a pleasant feeling.  So perhaps we can agree that it isn't very much fun to be ignored or rejected.

----

Of course, I'm still aware of a woman's attractiveness and value it.  And there are two ways in which I unabashedly objectify a woman -- even to her face.

First, when I consider a woman's health and beauty, I pay special attention to things that are under her control and reflect the choices and decisions she makes.  Does she respect her body?  Does she exercise?  Is she a little too self-absorbed with her own beauty?  These may manifest themselves as superficial qualities, but they aren't superficial at all -- they reflect her character and values.  That said, it's hard to get a read on these things when people are still young, because health comes so effortlessly to young people.  I didn't start getting healthy until a couple years after college, so who am I to talk.

Second, if we've screened each other for deeper qualities and respect each other as human beings, that's when it's the most fun to start treating her as a sex object.  And vice versa.  Read the plot of any romance novel -- women want to feel sexually irresistible to the man she covets.  She WANTS to be the OBJECT of his sexual desire.  She wants him to objectify her.  If I hear one consistent complaint from women about men they're dating or married to, it's that once they're in bed, men don't objectify women ENOUGH.

So men, here's the bottom line: don't objectify all women as sex objects-- just the one you care about.  And then objectify the hell out of her.

It's always been a bit of an evolutionary mystery why humans lives so long after peak fertility -- specifically, why women living so long after menopause.  The standard explanation is called the grandmother hypothesis, or the idea that a grandmother can devote resources to bringing up her grandchildren.  This always sounded a little too politically correct to be true, a little too in line with modern morals.

Here's a new paper that essentially argues that humanity, and especially post-menopausal women, owe their increased longevity to powerful, lecherous old men who mated with fertile, young women.  (And remember, the attraction goes both ways.)

Here's the abstract (my bolding):

Evolutionary theory predicts that senescence, a decline in survival rates with age, is the consequence of stronger selection on alleles that affect fertility or mortality earlier rather than later in life. Hamilton quantified this argument by showing that a rare mutation reducing survival is opposed by a selective force that declines with age over reproductive life. He used a female-only demographic model, predicting that female menopause at age ca. 50 yrs should be followed by a sharp increase in mortality, a “wall of death.” Human lives obviously do not display such a wall. Explanations of the evolution of lifespan beyond the age of female menopause have proven difficult to describe as explicit genetic models. Here we argue that the inclusion of males and mating patterns extends Hamilton's theory and predicts the pattern of human senescence. We analyze a general two-sex model to show that selection favors survival for as long as men reproduce. Male fertility can only result from matings with fertile females, and we present a range of data showing that males much older than 50 yrs have substantial realized fertility through matings with younger females, a pattern that was likely typical among early humans. Thus old-age male fertility provides a selective force against autosomal deleterious mutations at ages far past female menopause with no sharp upper age limit, eliminating the wall of death. Our findings illustrate the evolutionary importance of males and mating preferences, and show that one-sex demographic models are insufficient to describe the forces that shape human senescence.

Female hypergamy is such that once men could maintain social dominance over other men beyond the decline of their physical prowess -- through coalitions, culture, and technology -- it created a huge evolutionary/reproductive reward for men with extended reproductive lives.  Women inherited the resulting gains in longevity, though not the extension in fertility.

Why not?

Well, I assume it's because the passage of time plays to the strengths of high status men (not all men, mind you) -- since powerful men can accrue more power over time. But the passage of time cuts against the strengths of women -- older women consistently get undercut by younger ones.  Powerful men were swimming with the tide, while women were swimming against it.  (Low status men drowned.)

Anyhow, I have dubbed this "The Lecherous Grandfather Hypothesis".

"Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made."

Here's the full paper.

Here are my remaining cigarettes, just shy of a full pack, floating in a bowl of water.  (That's nearly $15 in NYC.)  My buddy Zander called me up and wouldn't get off the phone until I destroyed them.

Here's one commenter:

"People start smoking.  Some people carry on, some get hooked.  But NONE of them thought they would get addicted when they started."

In college, I would smoke socially, when I drank.  But I rarely bought my own pack of cigarettes.  The few times I did, it was usually during exams or some other stressful period.  And I would end up smoking too many, and get a sinus infection.  So that was always a limiting factor to getting hooked.  Kinda of like how celiacs, who are sensitive to gluten, have to avoid gluten grains -- to their ultimate benefit.  Sometimes a weakness is a strength.

So what's the paleo alternative?  Chewing coca leaves?

As I've been writing this book, I've developed methods to encourage thinking as well as methods to clear my head.

Here's where I do my best thinking, many of which you've heard about before:

• In the shower.  I typically don't take crazy long showers, but sometimes I'll just go stand in the shower for 20 minutes.
• Smoking.  Sorry, folks -- that's the reality.  I don't encourage others to do it, and I'm going to drop it soon.  But it's a nice few minutes of walking around and doing a repetitive, mindless motion.  And get a mild stimulant.
• Running.  Running is good for thinking.  But I usually don't do anything challenging that requires focus, like rocky trails.  CrossFit is too intense to help me think while it's actually going on.
• Napping.  I take 15 minute naps and I let my mind wander as I drift in and out of sleep.  A very useful method.

But then I also need time to completely clear my head and not think about writing at all.  I've learned I can only "lose myself" while doing physical things.

• Working out.  So I'll drop into CrossFit, or work out on my rooftop.
• Russian baths.  Never fails to put me in a good mood.  It's a staple.
• Attractive women.

Now if I can just figure out a way to combine all three.

Other ideas?  Put them in the comments.