The sexual dimorphism of the human species means that there are numerous “hacks” of our bodies created when the various signals regarding sex happen during development. Women’s wider pelvises, the way that their hormone system works, all of that is different from the sort of thing that a male goes through during development and growth. Men are optimized for things like hunting and ranging farther afield, and it’s so subtle that there are even sexual differences you can identify in how the two sexes navigate. Men are more “time, distance, direction” oriented, in general, and women are more “landmark and feel”.
So, that there are differences in injury rates for the same sports, most of which started out as male games in the first place…? Yeah, not surprising: Women are trying to operate on a playing field they are simply not adapted to.
If one were honest, you’d see the same thing in the military whenever some gender-weird decides to integrate women into combat arms elements. Women are simply physically unsuited for the way in which our armies fight in direct combat infantry roles, and their prevalence in guerrilla roles and other things fools the general public into thinking that it’s merely male recalcitrance that doesn’t want them on the front lines. Reality is that it’s these little things like greater propensity towards knee injuries and a far less robust frame that militates towards keeping them out of front-line direct combat.
Mentality? I’m not so sure on that one, but I’d be open to persuasion in either direction, were someone to actually do the research. It’s my opinion that the monthly hormone swing leaves a lot of the female population essentially irrational during the swings, and I’m suspicious of the general ability of the broad class of women to cope with direct combat and/or remain in control of themselves. People joke all the time about PMS and combat, but I’m not gonna do that–What are you going to do when your commander loses her bearings in the middle of things, and calls in fire on militarily unjustifiable targets?
Friend of mine related a situation with a female mid-rank leader in an adjacent unit in Afghanistan, who basically razed a village after one of her troops got hit by fire nearby. He wasn’t sure that the choices she was making in that situation were necessarily rational, or that she was on an even keel, emotionally. From having worked with her for some time, his opinion was that had that soldier been wounded on any other day of her cycle, then that village might not have gotten the treatment it did. Which was, in his judgment, more than slightly excessive…
That, from a guy whose attitude towards Afghans and Muslims in general is basically “…can’t kill enough of them to make me happy…” really makes me wonder what the hell happened that he thought it was over-the-top and not really justified…
Bob Sykes: While both Russia and China are authoritarian (but nowhere near Stalinist or Maoist), their Elites are both more representative of their people and work more in their people’s interests than do the US, UK, or EU regimes. The late Senator Graham is a good example of just how hostile to the American people our Epstein Rulers really are.
Jim: As far as I can tell, “robber-baron capitalism” was a rhetorical cudgel used by the power center that established the Federal Reserve System, an hereditary banking oligarchy, against ordinary self-made industrial magnates.
Gaikokumaniakku: The 19th century glorified robber-baron capitalism along with other myths of individual heroes. They forgot that Newton said he was standing on the shoulders of giants — and of course they also forgot that when Newton said that, he was referencing a long string of writers who had used the phrase for hundreds of years, back to Bernard of Chartres: “We are like dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by...
Harper’s Notes: RAND developed the Delphi Method during the early Cold War for estimating thermonuclear warfare casualties among other things. It works well under the right circumstances. Uses anonymity and sequential polling. But the right circumstances are generally difficult and rare. Most recently the Super-forecaster Project (Tetlock) has resulted in several the high-scorers participating in (betting) prediction markets, in which there are both advantages and disadvantages in non-anonymity.
Gaikokumaniakku: I greatly enjoyed both Runaway and Looker in the 1980s. Marginally relevant link: Starring the Computer: Computers in Movies and Television Starring the Computer: Computers in Runaway (1984)
Gaikokumaniakku: This is why crazy paradigm-breakers have so much potential for improvements to the collective system. Sadly, the rewards usually don’t work out. Crazy, dishonest charlatans are often rewarded, and crazy honest autistic crusaders for truth are usually burned at the stake. I think it was Colin Wilson who claimed the crucial distinction between real thinkers and followers was that real thinkers were capable of breaking away from socially acceptable paradigms.
TRX: Crichton was also a novelist — a fairly good one – and wrote almost all of his own screenplays. He should have known the screenplay for Runaway stank. Watching Runaway a few months ago, I had a hard time believing it was a Crichton movie; it’s a mess. I didn’t like all of Crichton’s movies, but they were put together better than that. While on the Critchton subject, I’d like to make a plug for Looker, done about the same time as Runaway, but much better. Crichton had a...
Isegoria: Lower attendance is what we’re going for.
Bob Sykes: The problem facing all colleges and universities is that the number of white 18 year-olds, the primary consumers of college, is declining rapidly both relative to other races and absolutely. Many small liberal arts colleges are decidedly second rate academically, and so are the students they cater to. So, neither the loss of the schools nor the loss of the students is really a big deal. The health of the college system and the meaningfulness of the degrees awarded is actually better off...
Isegoria: Rising Sun came a decade later. I remember reading the novel right around when I read Jurassic Park. The Terminator, on the other hand, came out the same year as Runaways and was a much bigger deal.
Kentucky Headhunter: Huh, I remember Runaway being a fairly frequent Saturday afternoon movie option on cable. Not to the level of Rising Sun, but it was on at least once every three or four months. Now, unlike Rising Sun, I never actually left it on…
TRX: Crichton usually got his computer stuff correct, though. He picked up a degree in “computer graphics” while he was getting his M.D. at Harvard. When he decided he didn’t care for doctoring, he went to Hollywood and made more computer-ish movies than doctor-ish ones. I only discovered “Runaway” earlier this year; I thought I was familiar with all of Crichton’s movies, but apparently not. I don’t remember ever seeing any mention of it anywhere.
Isegoria: Crichton clearly had little interest in the details of weapons. In the movie, a household robot goes rogue and acquires a revolver — which makes a pump-action shotgun racking sound before each shot and leaves a ragged two-inch hole in the drywall. Sigh. So I’m not surprised he gets his warships mixed up.
Lucklucky: “battleship Sheffield” It was a mere destroyer not a battleship…
Buckethead: Adjacent to Atomic Rockets is ToughSF. Well researched and fascinating speculation on space. He posts only every so often, but he did do an interesting series on stealth – and piracy — in space.
Isegoria: Thanks for putting in the work, George. Grok also kept pointing to this blog. Apparently AI struggles with comments repeated across multiple pages.
George: Gemini claims (and I haven’t confirmed) that it’s: …a classic historical description written by the Scottish physician and traveler Dr. John Macculloch in his 1824 book, The Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland.He used this vivid phrase to describe the famous and treacherous pass of Glencroe… After searching all three volumes as PDFs, I’m pretty sure Gemini is hallucinating. And substantial time spent searching keeps leading me back to this blog. Cough up the...
Isegoria: I don’t think you’re alone in your struggle, Handle.
Women are at higher risk of knee injury in sports because of the way they cut and plant. Seems this is especially endemic in women’s soccer.
The sexual dimorphism of the human species means that there are numerous “hacks” of our bodies created when the various signals regarding sex happen during development. Women’s wider pelvises, the way that their hormone system works, all of that is different from the sort of thing that a male goes through during development and growth. Men are optimized for things like hunting and ranging farther afield, and it’s so subtle that there are even sexual differences you can identify in how the two sexes navigate. Men are more “time, distance, direction” oriented, in general, and women are more “landmark and feel”.
So, that there are differences in injury rates for the same sports, most of which started out as male games in the first place…? Yeah, not surprising: Women are trying to operate on a playing field they are simply not adapted to.
If one were honest, you’d see the same thing in the military whenever some gender-weird decides to integrate women into combat arms elements. Women are simply physically unsuited for the way in which our armies fight in direct combat infantry roles, and their prevalence in guerrilla roles and other things fools the general public into thinking that it’s merely male recalcitrance that doesn’t want them on the front lines. Reality is that it’s these little things like greater propensity towards knee injuries and a far less robust frame that militates towards keeping them out of front-line direct combat.
Mentality? I’m not so sure on that one, but I’d be open to persuasion in either direction, were someone to actually do the research. It’s my opinion that the monthly hormone swing leaves a lot of the female population essentially irrational during the swings, and I’m suspicious of the general ability of the broad class of women to cope with direct combat and/or remain in control of themselves. People joke all the time about PMS and combat, but I’m not gonna do that–What are you going to do when your commander loses her bearings in the middle of things, and calls in fire on militarily unjustifiable targets?
Friend of mine related a situation with a female mid-rank leader in an adjacent unit in Afghanistan, who basically razed a village after one of her troops got hit by fire nearby. He wasn’t sure that the choices she was making in that situation were necessarily rational, or that she was on an even keel, emotionally. From having worked with her for some time, his opinion was that had that soldier been wounded on any other day of her cycle, then that village might not have gotten the treatment it did. Which was, in his judgment, more than slightly excessive…
That, from a guy whose attitude towards Afghans and Muslims in general is basically “…can’t kill enough of them to make me happy…” really makes me wonder what the hell happened that he thought it was over-the-top and not really justified…