Male Patterned Baldness as a Form of Self Destruction

 

 

The show Seinfield has an episode where George is excited about a possible cure for baldness from China. Jerry writes it off as a scam that can’t possibly work.

George: What do the Chinese have to gain by faking a cure for baldness?
Jerry: If it was real, they would never let it out of the country. No baldness, it'd be like a nation of Supermen.

Perhaps this episode can give us some incite to the reason so many men go bald?

To Maximize Returns or Minimize Risk?

When I was young, my Taekwondo teacher once gave a table-jumping lesson, where everyone in the class was forced to jump over tables. The irony being that if you thought you couldn’t make it over the table, you wouldn’t. Your doubts would prevent you from running at full speed, because you’d want to minimize the damage taken if you didn’t clear the table. Everyone in their first jump proceeded at partial speed, pivoting up and over part of the table, only to skin the table with a leg or an arm, or an elbow, because they didn’t have the momentum to make it all the way over.

I had doubts and was too scared to run at full speed, and so skinned part of my leg on my first jump. After the first jump I saw that it was indeed possible to clear the table, and committed to full speed the next jump and cleared the table. Given the speed I was running it would have hurt more had I crashed into the table, but everyone who ran at full speed managed to clear the table.

Baldness as a Form of Non-Verbal Communication

Most communication is non-verbal, and we’ve developed reflexes to express information to others. Laughing is a reflex to others that something is funny. Smiling is a reflex that you’re happy. Crying is a reflex that something is wrong. Babies and children have a heightened tendency to cry to let a caregiver know something is wrong.

We assume that we’ve developed these reflexes because it’s aided our survival in the long term. When it comes to male patterned baldness and confidence, the issue becomes more tricky.
If you’ve read the Evolution of Breast Theory, you know that we’ve developed ways to show others that we’re indeed in good health. Sports, music, paintings, dancing, things that are difficult to do are impressive to others because they are difficult to fake by those in bad health. These are called “Fitness Indicators.”

If men evolved to go bald, then why is it in a mans best interest to go bald? It’s certainly not difficult to grow hair, as bald men typically have plenty of hair on their face, chest, etc, just not on their head. Women across all cultures tend to find bald men less attractive, as it’s a sign of old age. Most signs of old age however, do not occur on purpose, but are simply a natural result of the body breaking down due to old age.

The most logical conclusion, is that at one time, balding as a signal of old age did aid survival. Perhaps because older men had more resources to take care of a family. I would argue however, that baldness was never in a man’s interest for survival, and that it is indeed, a form of self-destruction.

Self Destruction and the Nature of Confidence

The issue of confidence is a tricky issue similar to balding. I took a speech class last year, and almost everyone during their initial speech, showed their nervousness in some form or another. A crackly voice, fidgeting with their fingers, shaky legs, stuttering, etc, and had they not been in front of such a large audience, they probably wouldn’t have done these things. When the speaker did not show signs of nervousness the speech was more impressive.

Why do we display signs of nervousness? It’s a non-verbal signal to others, just as smiling is to happiness, laugher is to humor, and crying is to pain. But why would we want to sabotage our speech in front of others to our detriment? Is it in our best interest to do this or is it a form of self-destruction?

It could be argued, that displaying nervousness aids us either by helping us avoid risky behavior or by getting others to help us in distress like crying. For example, at the California State Fair they have bungee jumping and every year I used to watch this while eating corn dogs. Most jumpers would go, but occasionally you’d get the one who’d end up too scared to jump after getting to the top. You’re still out the $100, I’d remark with laugher.

Our body perceives a danger, it instills nervousness as a way of encouraging us not to take the risk, just as it prevented the bungee jumper from proceeding. Could we not have been designed with this ability, without displaying the signs of nervousness?

Self-Destruction as A Benefit?

Example: You want to ask a cute girl out, but you know you’ll probably stutter or display signs of nerviness, and because your going to self-destruct you don’t even bother trying to ask her out in the first place. Thus, while your return has not been maximized, your risk has been minimized, and a possible benefit from this self-destructive tendency has occurred?

I don’t buy this explanation. If our systems were designed properly, they would allow us to minimize risk while maximizing our performance when we do take the risk. Thus, our speech students when forced to give a presentation in front of the whole class, should not self sabotage their speeches with displays of nervousness but instead give better speeches because the occasion is all the more important.

What you have to ask yourself regarding low confidence and male patterned baldness is….who does it benefit? It doesn’t benefit the person going bald. It doesn’t benefit the nerd asking the girl out. It benefits everyone else!

Thanks for Letting Me Know Your Old!

Male balding benefits women because it’s easier for them to tell who’s old. It’s not a perfect system, because some males don’t bald as they get older. Studies have shown that women’s faces wrinkle faster than men’s. It is likewise possible, that this is a form of self-destruction for women so that men can tell younger women apart from older women. Acne is also suspect I believe, because…..when you think about it…..out of all the places on your body to get acne, why is it the most common place just happens to be on the face where it’s most visible for everyone else to see? Is this just coincidence or is something else at work?

Nervous speech givers likewise allow us to tell who’s message we should take more seriously. Nervous men approaching women, likewise, help women know which men to avoid.

Fitness Indictors and Unfitness Indicators

The Evolution of Breast Theory talks about fitness indicators. I believe that we’ve also developed “Unfitness Indicators.” Standard evolution theory suggests that individuals compete to survive and I recall reading somewhere, that group evolution theory had been discredited.

However, it’s not in the individual’s interest to develop unfitness indicators. It’s in the group’s interest. Homosexuality is another example, impossible to explain with conventional wisdom on evolution, but perhaps, there is group evolution or some other force at work besides individual evolution that would allow for an explanation.

Why is ugliness so prevalent? Shouldn’t selection eliminate ugliness from the population? What if this issue also has connections to the issue of self-destruction?

Prenuptial Agreements and Marriage

Like male patterned baldness and confidence, prenuptial agreements are another tricky issue. It’s not a romantic conversation to have with your new fiancée and if you read the tabloids, you hear stories of the multi-millionaire celebrities engaged to people with much lower wealth and yet, refusing to have a prenuptial agreement.

“Roseanne Barr didn't make Tom Arnold sign a prenub--and reportedly fired her lawyer, manager, and PR team for even suggesting it. Divorcing four years later, Arnold won half the $25 million in assets--and half her earnings from the period they were wed.”

~http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1608/is_10_20/ai_n6333030

We know from statistics that half of marriages end in divorce. We know from the tabloids that celebrity marriages have an even higher rate of divorce. Yet even with these statistics, when you do get married there is a “spiraling effect” that causes people to remove even the slightest possibilities of doubt that such a thing as divorce could ever occur. Thus, talking about a prenuptial agreement can be the equivalent of blasphemy because it sheds doubt on the marriage and this unwinds the “spiraling effect.”

What is the “spiraling effect?” It is the absence of doubt, sometimes against reality, that causes the elimination of any self-destructive “disorientating effects.” (such as displaying nerviness while giving a speech.) Thus, while having doubts during the table jumping caused me to run at low speed and minimized my damage from not clearing the table, we can see that having complete confidence without doubt has the potential to maximize damage as it did to Roseanne’s fortune. Yet, how do we have doubt in order to avoid risk, like a prenuptial agreement, without showing signs of nerviness while delivering our speeches?

The Disorientating Effects of The Nothing

Is it possible that self-destructive tendencies are involved in more areas than we realize? What if this hypothetical self destructive “disorientating effect” can alter many areas of life….relationships, work, family, friends, school, marriage, etc, and that it ties into religion also?

When I describe a person’s “systems,” I’m referring to a person’s body and their subconscious. Hypothetically speaking, in any given task, your systems can either be in alignment with the cause or not in alignment. An example would be studying for a calculus test. Perhaps I want to study and pass calculus, but on the other hand….I’d rather be hanging out at the mall than actually studying calculus. A person who genuinely wants to be studying for calculus instead of hanging out at the mall, might be in proper alignment for the task and might perform better just as a person who knows they can deliver a speech without showing any signs of nerviness.

Maybe one of the purposes of religion is to align one’s systems and remove self-destructive “disorientating effects” from one’s life? That this self-destruction is a force of The Nothing as described in Why School Sucks and You Should Drop Out and that the removal of doubt is similar to becoming Psychologically Balanced. You may notice that Christians often refer to non-Christians as “the lost.” Perhaps they’re referring to these “disorientating effects?”

The Phoenix and the Forces of The Nothing

In the movie X-Men 3, Gene Gray has an alter ego called the Phoenix. Her alter ego is the most powerful mutant on Earth, a class 5, and can move or destroy any object simply with her thoughts. The Phoenix is so powerful that, she is in fact mentally unstable. Professor X put barriers in Gene’s mind that reduced her power, and with it giving her mental stability.

(If you haven't seen this, I apoligize for not having the youtube clip.)

In a way, that is how I viewed religious fundamentalists vs. reformed religion. It’s quite obvious that the institution of religion is a powerful way to mold behavior. The stronger the belief, the greater the power to mold behavior, and with it the potential for it to become unstable and take on a mind of it’s own, yielding uncontrollable and undesirable results (the backwardness of Arabic countries and causation to Islamic Fundamentalism is one example.) Reformed religion, while not as fanatical in belief and thus not as powerful, could be applied with greater control and thus more accurately.

This analogy runs parallel to our model on confidence, such that reformed religion would be equivalent to a low risk model like running towards the table at low speeds while fundamentalism would equate to a high risk model like Roseanne getting married without a prenub. Ideally though, one should desire the power of the Phoenix with the mental stability of Gene Gray.

How do we achieve this? In order to effectively remove self-destructive “disorientating effects” from ones life, you must believe in the faith (religion) or the cause (marriage) or the task (asking out the cute girl) without doubt. When doubt is cast it simply leads to disorientation and it’s better to maintain a “spiraling effect.” If you do have doubts, have them with absolute confidence in a way that doesn’t leave you disorientated and minimizes risk (prenub.) Otherwise, like male patterned baldness, it simply leads towards a path of self-destruction……..and self destruction through doubt is a force of The Nothing.

 

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