Beautiful people have it all, Short men have it worst

[Winston]

"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness."

LEO TOLSTOY, The Kreutzer Sonata

[Rock]

Great vids! This guy breaks it down about right IMO.

Some good quotes: "crummy societies need certain people it can treat like garbage", "(women) control breeding and reproduction", and "we are a shallow monkey society". He implies that all the women go for a subset of men, the top 20% I sometimes mention. And they are happy to share these superior guys with other girls rather than have one from the bottom 80% all to themselves.

Height is strongly correlated with promotions and ultimate business success. I read "Blink" too and thought it was a great read. Thus, all else equal, taller men on average are going to be wealthier than shorter men, especially after they've developed in their careers.

We often talk about racial discrimination. But in today's society, I think the most blatant type of discrimination is looks based. Even the Randy Newman song "Short People" way back from the late 70s expresses blatant disdain for very short people.

Basically, your value as a man to contemporary American society at least, is determined by a few basic intrinsic factors:

- height - short puts you in a sort of underclass, average is average, tall gives you automatic status, helps you to be perceived as a leader of men.

- facial attractiveness - being hot or looking like a male model can help compensate for other weaknesses or put you way ahead of other guys. Looking geeky or effeminate puts you way down. Certain types of ugly are a big problem too. Average is average but other factors, esp. being very tall + having decent physique can help put you past the top 20% tipping point.

- physique - best to be built like a surfer or beach dude, slim but well muscled and proportioned, relatively long legs are better, bulky muscles are respected by some subsets as well, fat can work with certain big builds and facial types, most important how it combines with your overall look. Overly skinny giving you a geeky look is real bad as is being obese with a few exceptions.

- age - old makes you sexually invisible, aging makes you appear more desperate, younger is always better.

These in turn influence and feed into important secondary factors:

- wealth and income - you can't buy love but with enough money, you can get some great acting and credible illusions. Also, if you have enough money to make you powerful, that will genuinely turn on some girls. Power is an aphrodisiac.

- personality - confidence, social intelligence, a quick wit, street smarts, and a strong male voice definitely enhance your attractiveness. There are often well developed as a result of being gifted in the primary factors department.

Now here's the million dollar question - how important are these superficial factors in other countries? That would be a long discussion and would need to be addressed by posters with life experience in the country being considered. Just to throw out some hope, I definitely believe many guys who don't cut it in the States can do very well in certain other countries, even without superior wealth and income.

[The_Adventurer]

Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Henry Ford, Robert Kiyosaki or Andrew Carnegie weren't necessary very tall or handsome. Perhaps it could be said that this is a modern trend.

[Winston]

Right, and Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Ross Perot were not very attractive either, at least face-wise. Yet they became billionaires. Ross Perot was a short man too.

How do you explain that?

I think looks matter only in certain occupations though, such as waiters, receptionists, upscale clothing stores, etc. positions which are visible and where image matters. In such positions, you gotta at least be decent looking or clean cut, if not attractive. But if you're a computer programmer, accountant, or auto mechanic, you don't have to be good looking. You just gotta do your job right, be a team player, and have basic hygiene.

But yeah, promotion is another matter, and looks are a factor in that.

[Rock]

Right, and Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Ross Perot were not very attractive either, at least face-wise. Yet they became billionaires. Ross Perot was a short man too.

How do you explain that?

I think looks matter only in certain occupations though, such as waiters, receptionists, upscale clothing stores, etc. positions which are visible and where image matters. In such positions, you gotta at least be decent looking or clean cut, if not attractive. But if you're a computer programmer, accountant, or auto mechanic, you don't have to be good looking. You just gotta do your job right, be a team player, and have basic hygiene.

But yeah, promotion is another matter, and looks are a factor in that.

I only said that there is a strong positive correlation between height and average salary (around 0.6 I believe) and this in turn is correlated to some degree (but more weakly cus its a secondary correlation) with average wealth, especially after career is developed. But these are just averages with bell curve distributions. There are plenty of exceptions at the right tail of these curves. For example, the average young Taiwanese female height is around 5'4" and 4 inches shorter than the average young Taiwanese male who is 5'8". But I've seen plenty of Taiwanese girls who are 5'9" or taller. Just because I see a few 6 foot Taiwanese girls does not disprove the broader tendency - Taiwanese girls are on average shorter than Taiwanese men. These cases fall at the upper end or right tail of the bell curve, 2-3 or more standard deviations above the mean. Exceptions to not disprove averages and tendencies.

Moreover, if you are the right kind of super genius, then you stand a strong chance at making a lot of money with your brain power. If you are clever enough successfully create a new profitable industry, then it doesn't matter if you are 4'5" and have the physique and physical capabilities of Steve Hawking. Bill Gates, Ross Perot, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg are fairly recent examples which all probably fall into this category.

Donald Trump is tall (6'3") and was fairly good looking in his younger days. And he inherited a big construction franchise from his father. Trump actually squandered a lot on bad deals (his casinos and other ventures have filed for bankruptcy) and he was technically bankrupt himself for a few years. But he got lucky when Manhattan real estate boomed during the second half of the 90s and first few years of the 21st century. His real estate holdings appreciated enough during that period to offset all his debt and still leave over a billion in net worth.

Height is very helpful if you want to advance into the upper levels of management in most industries. I saw this personally when I worked in finance. The guys in global senior management were either brilliant in some technical aspect which had made the firm lots of money or they were a lot more average functionally but much taller than average or very handsome and charismatic. Guys in the middle got a second look and more consideration from the top brass if they had the right look (tall and/or especially handsome). The senior guys were on average significantly taller than the middle management grunts. But this is all subjective as I don't have clear figures to back up these personal observations in my own work enironment.

A more objective measure is the average height of US Fortune 500 CEOs. If you analyze that data, you will find they are on average several inches taller than the US male mean height. Ditto for US presidents although perhaps slightly less pronounced.

There are several studies which demonstrate that if you break down the male population into height categories for a given age range (say 40-45), and analyze their average salaries, each extra inch or two is worth several thousand dollars in average annual earnings. Of course, that does not mean a very short man can't make it big or become very rich. It just means the odds are stacked against him.

Extreme brilliance can compensate for most other shortcomings when it comes to making money. However, its probably less useful in directly attracting women. These guys need to make their money first. Then the women will naturally follow.

[Rock]

Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Henry Ford, Robert Kiyosaki or Andrew Carnegie weren't necessary very tall or handsome. Perhaps it could be said that this is a modern trend.

Like I said, people who are brilliant enough (and/or sometimes very lucky) don't need anything else to become very rich. You must understand, guys like these had minds capable of envisioning and creating new industries which would serve a broad need or at least products which would sell exceptionally well. They are all business geniuses. Anyone who can be like them has nothing to worry about money and success wise. But if you are like the other 99+% of men, then being tall and good looking will definitely serve you well personally and could very well help you advance more quickly in your chosen field.

[TRADER1972]

Anyone who opens their eyes and pays attention can see that height discrimination is an epidemic in America. As has been pointed out by Rock and The Logic Junkie, it works both ways.

In the workplace ,tall guys are given everything or at least more for equal performance than a shorter guy. Shorter guys are treated like crap and its very hard to get a job and even harder to get promoted. This is even without considering appearance.

If you throw in appearance, a shorter guy can be good looking and still not be treated anywhere near as well as a tall plain doofus.

[Repatriate]

Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Henry Ford, Robert Kiyosaki or Andrew Carnegie weren't necessary very tall or handsome. Perhaps it could be said that this is a modern trend.

Like I said, people who are brilliant enough (and/or sometimes very lucky) don't need anything else to become very rich. You must understand, guys like these had minds capable of envisioning and creating new industries which would serve a broad need or at least products which would sell exceptionally well. They are all business geniuses. Anyone who can be like them has nothing to worry about money and success wise. But if you are like the other 99+% of men, then being tall and good looking will definitely serve you well personally and could very well help you advance more quickly in your chosen field.

I do wonder if there are some deeper psychological profiles at work here with these people. There are probably just as many tall and handsome geniuses but maybe because society gives them reassurance and relative comfort they don't feel as much of a personal drive to go beyond mere success. This means more tall people will find success easier but fewer truly excel whereas the little or ugly guys have less average success but the smart ones have unbridled ambition and personal drive to go on to create empires. The more I think about it the more I think there's some truth in this. The "napoleon complex" of business if you will.

edit: I forgot to mention Adolf Hitler. He was short and ugly but was a huge supporter of the aryan tall, blonde, blue eyed ideal. Why did people choose to follow him because he was the polar opposite of the ideals he was trumpeting?

I've never seen an honest to goodness handsome self made billionaire. They're usually trolls like Perot or Rupert Murdoch. I guess Mark Cuban fits the handsome profile but he's barely in the top tier of the elite.

[TRADER1972]

Has anyone else noticed extra snootiness in tall young AWs. I see this a lot with the college girls nearby who are 5'11 and up. They carry themselves with an extra arrogance or at least seem to feel like "What could go wrong for me? I am taller and better than you little shrimps."

[Winston]

Here is what TheLogicJunkie wrote back to me:

Yes, but the people who get hand-held up into management and the executive suite are typically the tall, Germanic types. Corporate America is hugely Aryanist.

[TRADER1972]

Yes, corporations fill executive and upper level management with mostly white males, certainly mostly tall. Then to balance that out, they have a disproportionate amount of women and minorities at the lower levels and this is the where average guys, especially short, are screwed because in the lower levels its often "white men need not apply". This is why I can stand white male corporate types, among other reasons as the Logic Junkie says.

Plus, they are a bunch of selfish ego maniacs.

[Winston]

I'd say the exception is probably Silicon Valley. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are so few white people left that non-whites are usually in upper management or executive positions.

[The_Adventurer]

The only point I was trying to make is that all of what you wrote applies only to "working for the man". It has nothing to do creators who go their own way. Genius has nothing to do with it either, or do I need to pull up a list of stupid people who got rich?

[Rock]

The only point I was trying to make is that all of what you wrote applies only to "working for the man". It has nothing to do creators who go their own way. Genius has nothing to do with it either, or do I need to pull up a list of stupid people who got rich?

Actually, that sounds like a very interesting list.

If you throw in these qualifiers:

- wealth was self made (not inherited or received via gifts or donations)

- wealth was not won in a lottery or similar means

- by stupid, let's say someone who we believe has an average or below average IQ (say <100). BTW, Bush junior has been estimated by some to have an IQ of just around 100-110 (based on studies of his academic work and written pieces). But he was born wealthy.

What names can you come-up with under those conditions? I couldn't think of any off-the-cuff. Also, keep in mind that certain public figures who are widely considered stupid might be smarter than we think. If you can get wealthy by appearing dumb to connect with a fairly broad segment of the American population, some fairly intelligent people might actually be willing to appear like a buffoon.

My point is, in spite of the strong advantage looks and height give a person, I believe its still difficult for handsome and tall person to reach the top of a large organization if he has a below average IQ. As for getting rich, it happens to people like these once in a great while if they are exceptionally talented in other, less intellectual areas. But its the exception, not the rule.

Oh, as for working for the man, I hear you. But keep in mind that looks and height will also serve an entrepreneur well in many endeavors. It will help him raise investment capital, win over customers, and even attract the employees he wants. Height and attractiveness are positively correlated with charisma and charm. Also, consider congressmen and the President, all in fantastic positions to become wealthy. Now in theory, you might argue that they too work for the man. But in reality, the majority of them are part of an alliance with banks and corporations which milks the public. In other words, they ARE the man.

[AlexG]

I have been reading some stuff & guys, I think more shallow than some of the most shallow girls I have dated. Yes, I am Asian and when I was younger I was geeky & lacked confidence. At the age of 20 I thought, okay I need to change: nowadays my belief is simple: real Asian men are STRONG! Since then I have dated fashion models, student girls, all kinds of nationalities, mostly tall, slim and blonde. Why is this possible cuz unlike most Asian guys I am not shy! Although I am 1,83m tall, yes taller than average Asians I prefer dating girls who are taller than me

I have also dated quite a lot of Russian girls in Holland where I live, but like all other women, they love confident guys. If u lack this? Work on it!

The point wot I wanna make. Its not all about looks or height, mostly its about being high value yourself!