[photon_lines]

I don't feel like there needs to be a discussion on 'why' they take more risks. Females expand way more energy in having and raising kids than males do (within the human species). In other species (like sea-horses) - the females actually compete for males since males are the ones that expand way more energy in raising / producing children... (i.e. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seahorse.html).

[pfannkuchen]

> like sea-horses

I don’t think it’s fair to represent an edge case, “noteworthy for being different” type species as being just one example out of many. As far as I’m aware the behavior exhibited by sea horses is extremely rare, and I recall it being highlighted as such in, at least, The Selfish Gene. Can you think of other examples?

[Shorel]

I would not paint it that way. For fish, it is often the case the male takes care of the eggs, and the females are free of any responsibility.

There are other behaviours in the sea, and they are in general so different to mammals that we can consider them as alien.

I would even say mammals are the edge case, just by virtue of having a fewer number of species than fish, arthropods, insects, and almost any other clad.

You are simply more used to mammals, to the point it seems the only natural behaviour.

[pfannkuchen]

Yes, I suppose you’re right that I am only considering “species who raise their young after birth”.

I don’t see egg laying species behavior as being very representative of the game theoretic patterns in childcare species behavior, though.

Ditching after birth vs raising the young is clearly such a massively important game theoretic dimension that it likely substantially determines the workable ranges for most other dimensions. How can we make conclusions across such separate subspaces of organism game space?

[sjducb]

Can you cite some sources?

[Shorel]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2973910/

[sjducb]

If you don’t think there needs to be a discussion then don’t engage.

In my first year at college we were all set an essay about why human females invest lots of resources preening and enhancing their appearance, while across nature females normally put almost no effort into their appearance, and males are the ones with the bright colours.

This is an enormous area of study with thousands of papers published. Sexual selection is incredibly important. Especially as modern human evolution is driven almost entirely by sexual selection.

It’s worth understanding how sexual selection works.

[photon_lines]

The same to you. If you feel like you're best contribution to tell someone to 'not engage' - then you should look at not engaging at all yourself :)

My comment tries to give the PCA to what contributes to males taking more risks than females within the human species. This isn't a hypothesis - there have been a lot of studies which have shown human males to engage in risk-related behaviors when other females are present. It's also supported by other male-dominated species as well - the males have one single 'alpha' male which females choose to mate with -- but that 'alpha' male will need to take more 'risks' and be more aggressive in order for him to be in such a position in the first place. I'm not sure what you're expecting me to also list out in a hacker news discussion, but this is the best I can do. If you feel like you have counter-arguments -- feel free to post them and I'll be happy to take a look at them and reconsider my position OR post studies which show that you're wrong. Cheers.

[lelanthran]

> I don't feel like there needs to be a discussion on 'why' they take more risks.

Why not? Do you think that this:

> Females expand way more energy in having and raising kids than males do (within the human species)

Is the only answer applicable to "Why to males take more risk than females?"

[photon_lines]

Yes, because they have more to gain from taking the risk. Think about it for a moment.

[Shish2k]

If you’re only thinking about it for long enough to come up with a single hypothesis, and then confidently declaring that you have the correct answer, I’d suggest maybe thinking about it for longer than a moment :)

[photon_lines]

It's not a single hypothesis. If you want me to write an essay on hacker news on all the behavioral differences between males and females - it's tough luck :) If you have counter-arguments - post them so I can refute them. Cheers.

[dekhn]

Surely you must realize that your comments here and above are ... simply not convincing? You say "we don't need to think about it", then give your own simplified explanation (which is mostly likely not a sufficient one) and then refuse to explain further, just doubling down on "my idea is right".

[photon_lines]

I edited my comment thanks to you. If you have refutations or other arguments - feel free to write about them in LONG detail and I'll do my best to get back to you. Otherwise the explanation I provided above is the best I could do given the circumstances.

[bumby]

The article's main thrust is a focus on risks that have negligible gain. So in that context your argument reads, "they have more to gain from a risk that has negligible gain."

[naasking]

Negligible gain can still be enough to distinguish oneself. What gain do colourful feathers on birds really have except to draw attention.

Also, evolution is likely not precise enough to have evolved accurate intuitions about the fitness value of all possible risks. We should expect some reasonably broad degree of randomness around the value of risk taking.

[bumby]

I disagree. It's a self-contradictory point. I was being charitable to call it "negligible" considering the article also refers to the gain as "non-existent."

>"What gain do colourful feathers on birds really have except to draw attention"

When drawing attention gives you a disproportionate advantage to attracting a mate vs. attracting a predator, it's a very important (and non-neglible) gain.

>We should expect some reasonably broad degree of randomness around the value of risk taking.

I don't think this negates the point. Just because the there is a distribution in the value doesn't mean there isn't a statistically significant directionality of that distribution. I can say there's a distribution of individual player height in the NBA, but that doesn't mean we can't draw conclusions about height having generalized value at the population level regarding the chances of making it to professional basketball.

[naasking]

> When drawing attention gives you a disproportionate advantage to attracting a mate vs. attracting a predator, it's a very important (and non-neglible) gain.

Humans have no natural predators, so one side of the equation is zero, and the other non-zero.

> Just because the there is a distribution in the value doesn't mean there isn't a statistically significant directionality of that distribution.

Yes, and there is directionality in risk-taking as well. Discoveries, fortunes and high-value mates all require risk taking.

Even risks that appear to have negligible or even zero fitness value, like extreme sports, have netted many people valuable sponsorships or YouTube fame and fortune.

Evolution is not precise and simply cannot capture the full nuance of a concept like "status" in human culture, therefore it has permitted a broad distribution of risk taking.

[oh_sigh]

Except that a lot of risky male behavior doesn't impress most women. Maybe it impresses other risky-behaving men though, and the respect those risky-behaving men show the risk taker translates into more desirability from women.

[photon_lines]

It may not impress women, but there are lots of studies which show that men expand a lot more energy in engaging risk-related behavior when other females are around. Whether this is biologically adaptable or not may be a question which needs to be probed further, but risk-related behavior and competition have been closely linked in humans...

[Shorel]

Seems to me a bit like the adversarial networks used to train AI.

Of course, you want an adversarial network that's difficult to trick, otherwise the training will produce suboptimal results.

[lupusreal]

It only has to impress a few women to pay off.