I am trying to create a list of the World’s 100 most influential living people, ranked in order of influence from 1 to 100.

Time magazine already has a similar list, but their list is not ranked, and is so absurdly politically correct, incoherent and celebrity focused that I feel they need competition. Forbes publishes a list of the most powerful people in the World, but as Condi Rice once said, power means nothing unless you can turn it into influence. So I am trying to create a list of people who have actually had a real impact; people without whom the World would be a very different place. It could be a good impact or a bad impact.

The list I’m trying to create is inspired by Michael Hart’s list The 100, except his was the most influential people of all time. This list is going to be The Living 100: The 100 most influential LIVING people of all time. But I have to hurry up, because a lot of the people on my list are quite old and could die any day now.

Below is a list of over 160 nominees I am considering, but I need to narrow it down to just 100.  Please share your thoughts in the comment section, on who belongs on this list and who doesn’t.  You can also suggest nominees I didn’t think of.  They can be from any country, work in any field, be famous or obscure, good or evil; the only criteria is that they’ve had a huge influence on history and that they’re still alive.

THE NOMINEES

Tim Berners-Lee: created the world wide web, the most transformative invention of our time.

Mikhail Gorbachev: played a key role in the fall of the Soviet Union

James Watson: co-discovered the structure of DNA

George W. Bush: President of the United States during 9/11 and the start of the Iraq war

Vladimir Putin: According to commenter Tenn “has changed the world’s geopolitical landscape more in the last five years than has any other individual.”

The neocons: Considered the brains, drive and visionaries behind the incredibly transformational foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr: ran America’s most powerful media outlet during a period of incredible political change

James Alexander Thomson: derived the first human embryonic stem cell (SC) line

Abe Karem: invented the predator drone, transforming the nature of warfare

Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer: Created the first genetically engineered organism

 

Hu Jintao: presided over the rise of China

George Soros: Instrumental in advancing leftist policies in America and Europe

Anthony Kennedy: According to commenter Tenn, “US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who, as the swing vote on the court has, for many years now, had more power over US law than any other person, including sitting presidents.

An example? Citizens United. Those on the left often deride this case as the one that ascribed personhood to corporations and allowed them unlimited amounts of political spending. Kennedy’s was the vote that swung the decision to the right.

Another example? Obergefell vs Hodges, the decision that legalized same-sex marriage in every US state. Again, Kennedy was the deciding vote; though this time he sided with the left.

Time and again, it’s been his vote that’s chosen the court’s outcome. The rest of the justices tend to vote along ideological lines. Kennedy’s less predictable.”

Paul Berg: contributed to basic research involving nucleic acids

Walter Gilbert: did pioneering work in devising methods for determining the sequence of nucleotides in a nucleic acid.

Alain Aspect: According to thebestschools.org, Aspect settled a 70-year-old dispute between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein over the basic understanding of quantum physics by demonstrating the fascinating phenomenon of entanglement (non-local instantaneous interactions between particles, which Einstein rejected for propagating physical influences faster than the speed of light). Aspect’s work is foundational to the field of quantum computing.

Oprah: Created confession culture & new a more intimate form of media communication, paving the way for social media and reality TV. Broke the taboo over discussing sexual abuse, leading millions of victims to recovery. Even back in the 1980s, popularized a genre of talk show that’s been credited with mainstreaming LGBT people. Played the decisive role in electing the first black president and first lady of the United States, who brought health care to millions of Americans. Her televised book club has been credited with making literature accessible to millions.

Barack Obama: First black in recorded history to ever be the most powerful human on the planet. Brought dignity and status to over a billion blacks. Brought healthcare to millions of working Americans. Saved the world from war with Iran.

Stephen Spielberg: His movies captured the imagination of the World and his film Schlindler’s List had a profound impact on how global elites view the ethical burden left by WWII

Alan Greenspan: influenced the economy of the World’s powerful country and the peak of its power

Tu Youyou: found a treatment for Malaria that saved millions of lives

Donald Trump: the man who ended political correctness

Bill Gates & Paul Allen: played a key role in launching the computer revolution

Ted Turner: launched the 24 hour cable news revolution

George Lucas: According to Trevor Butterwoth of Forbes.com: “Lucas founded Industrial Light and Magic in 1975 to bring his vision of Star Wars to life. ILM went on to revolutionize special effects in the movies, pioneering motion control camera techniques and spearheading the computer-generated imaging revolution in the 1980s. Perhaps more important, Lucas’ original trilogy of movies redefined the economics of the movie industry.”

Ben Bernanke: Chairman of the Federal Reserves during the 2007-2008 financial crisis

Xi Jinping: presiding over the rise of China

Yao Ming: brought status and confidence to millions of males in one of most powerful regions of the World by defying stereotypes about East Asian men

isamu akasaki hiroshi amano and shuji nakamura: invented efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.

Bernard Munyagishari: Accused of playing a prominent role in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide

Alec John Jeffreys: Considered the inventor of forensic DNA profiling

Margaret Heafield Hamilton: Played a key role in putting humans on the moon

Colin Powell Played a decisive role in shifting American public opinion in support of the Iraq war

Gloria Steinem: The mother of feminism

Ian Wilmut: first person to clone an animal

Angela Merkel: played a major role in changing the demographics of Europe

Bashar Hafez al-Assad: in power during the Syrian refugee crisis

Phil Gramm: According to Time magazine, “He played a leading role in writing and pushing through Congress the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banks from Wall Street. He also inserted a key provision into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that exempted over-the-counter derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Credit-default swaps took down AIG, which has cost the U.S. $150 billion thus far.”

Richard Severin Fuld, Jr.: was CEO of Lehman Brothers around the time the financial crisis emerged.

chad hurley steve chen and jawed karim: created youtube which revolutionized media

Henry Kissinger: According to Wikipedia, “Kissinger played a prominent role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People’s Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War.”

Howard Kohr: executive director of the AIPAC during a critical period of U.S. foreign policy

Steven J Rosen: One of the top officials at AIPAC during a critical period of U.S. foreign policy

Bradford Parkinson: The father of the Global Positioning System, which revolutionized how we navigate

Steve Wozniak: A major pioneer in the personal computer revolution

Khalid Sheikh (Shaikh) Mohammed: considered a mastermind of the September 11th attacks which dramatically changed the World

The dancing Israelis: Their behavior on September 11th 2001 inspired countless conspiracy theories.

Deng Xiaoping: the man behind China’s economic development and the creator of the one child policy

Jimmy Wales: Changed the way the World shares knowledge

Sheldon Adelson: helped make the U.S. Republican party incredibly pro-Israel

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: brought down a U.S. president and inspired a generation of journalists

George Romero: created Night of the Living Dead in 1968 and the culture has been obsessed with zombies ever since

Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Christopher “Biz” Stone, Noah Glass: the founders of twitter

DJ Clive “Kool Herc” Campbell: the father of hip hop

Eminem: did for rap music what Elvis did for rock; brought it to a mass white audience.

Madonna: paved the way for an entire generation of provocative female performers such as Lady Gaga and helped make sluttiness culturally acceptable.

Paul McCartney: the leading living member of the most influential rock band of all time

Phil Donahue: pioneered the provocative daytime talk show, the most important counter-culture movement of the late 20th century

Yang Lan: Considered the Oprah of China

Howard Stern: revolutionized American radio and helped make American culture more vulgar and sexual

Nigel Farage: played a key role in the British exit from the European Union.

Manmohan Singh: presided over the rise of India

The Dalai Lama: shaped the spirituality of millions

Ricki Lake: helped mainstream gays by hosting one of the more edgy Oprah style talk shows in the 1990s

Aishwarya Rai: The woman who put Bollywood on the map

Rain: as one of the most worshipped people of all time, he’s inspired millions of young people in the influential region of East Asia

Steve Sailer: iconic blogger who explored taboos and launched a revolution against political correctness

 

Mark Zuckerberg: created the most influential social networking forum

Queen Elizabeth: brought dignity to England for decades

Rupert Murdoch: his global right-wing media empire has changed the World

Jimmy Carter: negotiated a peace between Israel and Egypt

Larry Page and Sergey Brin: dominated the way we search for information in the 21st century

Bill Clinton: President of the World’s most influential country at the peak of its influence

Dick Cheney powerful Vice President during the transformative Bush administration

Barbara Walters: trail blazer and iconic role model for women in media; helped make news more celebrity focused

Mark Burnett: the father of reality TV

James Flynn: Did more to challenge the science of psychometrics and racial differences in IQ than anyone on the planet

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt: Their 2007 book The Israel lobby is credited with influencing the Obama’s administration policy towards Iran

David Plouffe: played a key role in electing Barack Obama president

Diana Ross: helped pave the way for blacks in popular culture. Inspired a young Oprah and Michael Jackson to dream bigger.

Leon Panetta: director of the CIA during the rise of cyber warfare

Noam Chomsky: influenced the field of linguistics and shaped the left’s view of U.S. foreign policy

Karl Rove: played a key role in electing George W. Bush president

David Axelrod: played a key role in electing Barack Obama

Efraim Halevy: served as director of Mossad during a period of great change

George H.W. Bush: President of the United States during the peak of its power, presided over a war, Vice President to the transformative Ronald Reagan and father to the transformative George W. Bush

Gregor Gysi: Wanted for more ethnic diversity in Europe, and with the refugee crisis, he got it.

 

Gerald Levin: consolidated mass media in America

Norman Pearlstine: influential media editor

Michael Eisner: influential media mogul

 

abu bakr al-Baghdadi: the leader of Isis

Richard Dawkins: revolutionized the way we think of evolution and helped cause the decline of religion

 

Edward Witten: influential physicist

 

satoshi ōmura:  discovery and development of various pharmaceuticals originally occurring in microorganisms

Tsai Ing-wen:  Taiwanese politician currently serving as the President of the Republic of China, commonly referred to as Taiwan

 

Jin Liqun:  President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald:   prove the existence of neutrino oscillation and that neutrinos have mass

Guo Pei:  best known for designing dresses for Chinese celebrities, and in America for Rihanna’s trailing yellow gown at the 2015 Met Ball

Sonia Gandhi: presided over the rise of India

 

Malala Yousafzai:  Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate

Kailash Satyarthi:  According to Wikipedia “Indian children’s rights and education advocate and an activist against child labour. He founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolan in 1980 and has acted to protect the rights of more than 83,000 children from 144 countries.”

Amitabh Bachchan: helped put Bollywood on the map

Abhishek Bachchan: helped put Bollywood on the map

Larry King: influenced the media for decades

William Dean Singleton:  American newspaper executive. Founder and executive board chairman of MediaNews Group

Paul Krugman:  influential economist and pundit

Gregory Mankiw:  best known in academia for his work on New Keynesian economics.

Tom Glocer:  former CEO of Thomson Reuters and Reuters

 

Harvey Levin: creator of TMZ

Katie Couric:  The woman who destroyed Sarah Palin’s political ambitions

 

Ehud Barak:  PM of Israel during a critical time

Billy Graham: helped shape the U.S. evangelical movement

 

Bob Dylan:  Inspired the World’s most influential generation with his counter-culture music

Tony Blair:  Dragged Britain into war with Iraq & brought Clinton style third way politics to the UK

Jean Chretien:  By opposing the Iraq war, he made Canada the moral authority of the World

Ellen DeGeneres:  First openly gay mass talk show host

Jerry Springer:  Made America more vulgar and sexual

Bill Maher: broke taboos and promoted atheism

Bill Cosby: helped make blacks mainstream & culturally acceptable

Rush Limbaugh: leader of right-wing talk radio

Al Gore: popularized Global warming

 

Clarence Thomas: spent decades on the Supreme Court of the World’s most influential country

ruth bader Ginsburg: spent decades on the Supreme Court of the World’s most influential country

Hillary Clinton: played a key role in American policy for two decades, first as a politically active First Lady, then as an influential U.S. Senator, then as a Secretary of State, and also inspired countless girls with her historic run for President.

 Judith Miller: Helped convince America Saddam Hussein was a threat

John Carpenter: His 1978 classic Halloween created the modern day slasher film

Dieudonné: Blurring the line between humour and hate in France

 

Milo Yiannopoulos rose to the top of the alt-right universe thanks to his incredibly high verbal IQ, flamboyant gay enthusiasm and the fact that he is fanatically pro-Trump enough to appeal to the masses yet pro-Neocon enough to appeal to the elites who manipulate those masses.

However his career appears to have imploded after the media learned he made the following comments that appeared to some to be defending pederasty:

In the homosexual world, particularly, some of those relationships between younger boys and older men — the sort of ‘coming of age’ relationships — the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable sort of rock

This was an incredibly stupid comment on two levels:  First, there’s a huge difference between young people needing adult role models and mentors who understand what they’re going through, and those adult role models having sex with them.  When you’re young your sexuality is still developing and any kind of deviant or traumatic experience can permanently affect it.

Secondly, if he’s going to have a theory that disgusting, he should at least be smart enough to keep it to himself.

Verbal IQ allowed Milo to rise to the top, but a lack of Theory of Mind IQ appears to have caused him to come crashing down.

I’m reminded of a great quote from the late great J.P. Rushton who told me:

All of us have successes.  All of us make mistakes.  But high IQ people tend to get further ahead in life, partly because they make fewer mistakes.

One of the reasons the correlation between IQ and MEASURABLE cumulative life-time earnings might be as high as 0.5 is that free market punishes dumb mistakes.  Milo just lost an incredibley lucrative book deal and he’s lost his massive platform at the well funded Breitbart.

My first clue that Milo’s Theory of Mind IQ was not that high was when he described Trump as one of the smartest people in the country; “he’s so, so clever” Milo gushed.

“You know when you talk about intelligence, there are so many different parts to it, ” a wise mentor once told me. “It’s memorization, it’s pattern recognition, it’s…”

The speed of the brain?

“That’s only one part of it!” my mentor said:  “If you want a single umbrella to cover ALL of intelligence….” he said, slowly, carefully, spreading out his arms as far as they would reach to convey the utter vastness of the entity he was describing, “then it’s the ability to adapt; to take whatever situation you’re in, and turn it around to your advantage.  That’s really what intelligence is”

Here we see Milo used one part of intelligence to get to the top (verbal IQ), but his lack of another part of intelligence (Theory of Mind IQ) derailed his success.  In order to get to the absolute top of America, you can’t just be a one-trick pony.  You must be able to adapt.

When I was a young child (I’m now in my 30s), I was VERY conservative, which is odd because I grew up in a liberal household.  Usually the children are more liberal than the parents but in my home it was just the opposite,  and it created a lot of conflict from a young age.

Because the Ontario media was so obsessed with J.P. Rushton I ended up believing in HBD, but because my family was so liberal, I was very uncomfortable about HBD views, and I wanted to know that there were at least some blacks who didn’t fit the racialist stereotypes.

But sadly, everywhere I looked, the oppressive racialist stereotypes were being fulfilled.  From my distorted immature perspective, a lot of black celebrities seemed to fulfill the stereotype that blacks were good at music, dance and sports, rather than more substantive pursuits.  Even witty black celebrities like Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy fulfilled the stereotype of blacks just being clowns there to amuse whites.  And gangsta rap was the embodiment of the most violent and sexual of black stereotypes.

And then I started watching Oprah and for the first time in my life, here was a black person who just exuded intelligence and dignity.  And while she could be incredibly entertaining, much of the time she discussed serious issues in an articulate way. Despite being fat, she was so dignified in how she carried herself, crossing one obese panty hosed leg over the other with lady-like precision; putting her finger on her chin pensively as she listened to her guests.  Despite her chronic overeating, when it came to hair and makeup, she was meticulous.  “Word in the ghetto is Oprah got the best hair,” joked Eddie Murphy.

November 1988 Ms. magazine observed:

 in a society where fat is taboo, she made it in a medium that worships thin and celebrates a bland, white-bread prettiness of body and personality…But Winfrey made fat sexy, elegant — damned near gorgeous – with her drop-dead wardrobe, easy body language, and cheerful sensuality.

But while  my feminine side was admiring Oprah, my masculine side had joined the cadets and this made me extremely homophobic because in the cadets at the time (I’m sure it’s different today), it was taboo for a guy to even touch another guy in any way (not even tapping him on the shoulder) and they were constantly calling one another “fags” and “queers”, and wanting to fit in, I subconsciously internalized this homophobia and became very hostile towards gays.

One afternoon while watching Oprah, the audience was full of male body builders as well as women with very short hair died white.  Another show about gays I thought with a sigh.

And Oprah was no longer the fat best friend America had fallen in love with, but a svelte, more militant Oprah.

There was a nerdy conservative intellectual who was very much opposed to gay marriage, arguing that we can’t let gays marry because the definition of marriage is a man and a woman, so if it would be like, the definition of water is H2O, so if we start calling vinegar water, that changes the definition.

“Are you implying that heterosexual is to water and gay is to vinegar?” asked Oprah.

“No of course not,” he huffed condescendingly “that’s just an analogy”.

But the climax of the show was when some redneck woman wearing a cowboy hat stood up in the audience and said “gays are constantly flaunting their gayness and I’m tired of it!”

There was a quiet smattering of applause from the few anti-gay people in the studio audience that day.

And then, in one of the most powerful moments in TV history, Oprah walked right up to her and said “you know what I’m tired of?  HETEROSEXUAL MALES RAPING AND SODOMIZING YOUNG GIRLS. THAT’S WHAT I’M TIRED OF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

By the time Oprah had finished her sentence, almost the entire audience of gay body builders and bleach white haired lesbians were standing up screaming and applauding hysterically.  It was total pandemonium, and one of the most electric things I had ever seen.

Part of the reason the reaction was so enthusiastic was that Oprah seldom gave political opinions in those days, so to hear the World’s most influential woman give one that was so succinct, loud, powerful and graphic, and on behalf of an oppressed minority other than her own, just brought the house down.  In that moment, my homophobia was cured.

Later in the show, a black woman stood up and said “I just want to say homosexuality is wrong because God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”

Emboldened by the pro-gay audience, Oprah cut her off dismissively: “Okay I hear what you’re saying, but I have to move on.”

Unfortunately the nerdy homophobic conservative was not happy with the direction the show had taken and wanted to knock Oprah off her high horse, and sensed his opportunity:

“Oprah who among us, who have been raised by a mother and a father, woud trade that for being raised by two men?”

“But isn’t a child better off there than in a home where there’s abuse?” Oprah replied.

“Oprah, you can’t compare a worst case scenario.  Isn’t a child better off there than in a burning building?  You could come up with a hundred scenarios. Oprah don’t be absurd!”

Rather than trying to defend an awkward argument, Oprah had the cognitive adaptability to shift gears completely, by saying “I wasn’t trying to absurd, sir”

The tone in her voice made it clear that he had crossed the line, and the nerd walked it back by saying “well, that’s just the way it seemed to me”

Big brained Oprah then cleverly used her power which he did not have, by cutting to commercial break.  Intelligence is the cognitive ability to adapt any situation you’re in to your advantage, but part of adapting to a situation is having the lateral quick thinking and executive brain functioning to change the situation into a more favorable one, rather than perseverating on the one you’re in.

The notion that autism is the opposite of schizophrenia can probably be traced to scholars Bernard Crespi and Christopher Badcock, who marshalled quite a bit of support for their incredibly elegant model in 2008:

Autistcs are often non-verbal while schizophrenics talk constantly.

Autistics tend to have a spatial IQ > verbal IQ profile, and a fluid IQ > crystalized IQ  profile, while schizophrenics tend to have a verbal IQ > spatial IQ profile and a crystalized IQ > fluid IQ profile.

Autistics tend to have good local brain processing and lots of short range brain connections, while schizophrenics tend to have good global brain processing and lots of long range connections.

Autistics tend to be hyperlexic while schizophrenics tend to be dyslexic.

Autistics tend to have hyper-glutamatergic neurotransmission with high rates of epilepsy, while schizophrenics tend to have hypo-glutamatergic neurotransmission

Autistics tend to pay less attention to gaze while schizophrenics have so much gaze sensitivity, they get paranoid everyone is looking at them

Autistics have reduced shared attention, while schizophrenics have delusions of conspiracy

Autistics tend to have reduced personal agency while schizophrenics have megalomania, delusions of reference

Autistics tend to have hypo-activation of BA8,44,46 in functional imaging studies, while these tend to be hyper-activated in schizophrenia

Autistics tend to have reduced activation of resting brain network while the schizophrenic resting brain network is increased

Autistics tend to have larger brains (at least in childhood), while schizophrenics have smaller brains

Autistics tend to preserve grey matter as they age, while schizophrenics show rapid grey matter loss.

Autistics have a larger more reactive amygdala while schizophrenics have a smaller amygdala

Autistics have relative right-hemisphere dysfunction while schizophrenics have relative left-hemisphere dysfunction

Autistics seem to have increased structural brain asymmetry while schizophrenics seem to have decreased structural functional asymmetry

Autistics suffer from literalness, inability to deceive, while schizophrenics suffer from delusional mentality, magical ideation

Autistics have reduced imagination and less symbolic play as kids while schizophrenics have complex social delusions and enhanced imagination in psychotic savants.

Autistics suffer from repetitive behavior, resistance to change, and focus on one or few aspects of the environment.  By contrast schizophrenics suffer from reduced filtering of stimulus relevance, loose associations and enhanced creativity.

Autistics tend to have relatives that major in the technical sciences while schizophrenics tend to have relatives that major in the humanities and social sciences.

If this model turns out to be scientifically correct, instead of just based on selective interpretation of the literature, then I think these two gentlemen deserve the Nobel Prize, which would be especially great since Crespi is a Canadian.

Their theory has certainly inspired a lot of the ideas on this blog, including controversial ideas Crespi and Badcock would probably be horrified by.

For more on their BRILLIANT research, I suggest you watch this great lecture by Crespi:

Most of the most prolific commenters are in moderation anyway so I’ve decided to just return to full moderation.

 

[Update Feb 6, 2017: I just did an internet search of others who had posted on similar topics to this in the past and iconic blogger Steve Sailer deserves enormous credit for many of the ideas in this post]

There are at least four major types of masculinity.  Two of them mental and two of them physical.

1. Cognitive masculinity

This is characterized by having a spatial IQ > verbal IQ, and a math IQ > Theory of Mind IQ.  If you have extreme cognitive masculinity you become autistic.  One of the great mysteries is why some autistics are billionaire computer Geniuses and Nobel prize winners and so many others are severely mentally retarded.  Perhaps it’s because if your verbal IQ is too much lower than your spatial IQ, then you can’t learn language and if you can’t learn language, you can’t function at all in human society, but a little autism appears to be a good thing.

By contrast if you have very little cognitive masculinity, you will rely on intuition instead of logic which is good up to a point, but if you travel too far down that road you become a delusional schizophrenic.

2. Emotional masculinity

This is where I’m lacking.  People are always complaining that I am too nice and too moral for my own good and at work I have so much trouble firing people because like a woman, I worry so much about what will happen to them and have way too much compassion for others, including animals and even plants (which makes no sense since plants can’t feel pain).  Ideally a leader needs to be tough and devious and not let people take advantage of him, but you don’t want to be too emotionally masculine because you’ll be a psychopath.

One reason women like “bad boys” is because they’re emotionally masculine.  I was watching a documentary about my favorite horror franchise Halloween, and while most of the hard-core fans were guys, a few were blond blue eyed very sexual women who were such huge fans of the series that they flashed their breasts to the camera asking “see anything you like?” (a reference to a nude scene in the original Halloween).  When asked why they loved the films’ iconic serial killer Michael Myers so much, one woman gushed “there’s something so masculine about him.”

Nobody cared about actor Michael C. Hall when he played David in Six Feet Under but once he played Dexter the serial killer, he suddenly became a sex symbol, even though the former was a much better show.

3. Vertical masculinity

This is simply how tall you are.

4. Horizontal masculinity

This is simply how muscular and robust you are

Masculinity and evolution

As humans evolved from the apes, we became less masculine emotionally and horizontally, but more masculine vertically.  This is probably because it’s a more efficient design because being tall and thin consumes fewer calories than being short and robust yet gives you more speed and reach, though less strength.

Masculinity and social class

There are also social class differences in masculinity with the upper class being more vertically masculine and the lower classes being more horizontally masculine.  This may help explain the negative correlation between IQ and weight/height ratio.

I noticed this when I went to the gym with an extremely wealthy co-worker.  While most guys there were trying to lift the heaviest weights possible, he would only lift pathetically light weights with lots of repetition because he felt that at a height of 5’8″, he would look disproportionate if he gained muscle.

While the lower classes believe the more muscle the better for all men, the upper classes only approve of muscle on men of a certain height and perhaps only up to a point.  Some in the upper class consider it worse to be short and muscular than it is to be short and scrawny or even short morbidly fat.  I find this very weird but perhaps it’s because the upper class having higher IQs, have a greater sensitivity to abstract concepts like irony or perhaps it’s just class genetic interests discriminating against physiques that reflect blue collar gene pools.

Many guys in the HBD-o-sphere worship Alpha males and are totally ashamed of their own nerdiness.  I find this annoying because back when I was in high school (I’m now in my 30s) I was somewhat popular with the “cool” kids because they loved my impersonations of the teachers, but I always wanted to hang out with the nerds.  To me nerdiness represented intelligence.  I viewed nerds as more highly evolved and genetically superior.  The problem was I don’t look like a nerd, and nerds were interested in talking about HARD sciences and science fiction, and I was interested in the social sciences and horror films.

But it’s not surprising that nerds feel inferior to “alphas” because according to J.P. Rushton’s theory, as humans became more evolved, they developed a K reproduction strategy (lower birth rates but higher survival rates) and with that came lower self-esteem, because if you only mate with one woman, you don’t need the ego to pursue numerous partners.  Further, as humans migrated North, there was more need for technological intelligence to build shelter, tools and clothing and less need for the social IQ to pickup women, so the social part of the brain began to shrink, to make room for more technical processing.

The low self-esteem combined with scrawniness, glasses and social obtuseness makes nerds feel they can’t score with women  but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Economist Peter Orzag is an example of a guy who is a complete stereotypical nerd, yet always has a gorgeous woman on his arm, and is ranked by the media as one of the sexiest guys in Washington.

The SFGate gushed:

Any dude who can snag ABC newscaster Bianna Golodryga while banging wealthy shipping heiress Claire Milonas, and running the country’s budget is a man.

This must infuriate the dumb jocks who probably shoved him in his locker in high school.

One reason women like him is that he’s extremely self-confident, and women don’t expect that from a nerd so they’re pleasantly surprised.  If you’re a nerd, a little bit of alpha goes a long way.

I’m friends with a guy who despite being tall and athletic, never had much success with women.  One Halloween he was desperate for a costume so he dressed up like a nerd with exaggerated glasses and a pocket protector.  To my utter astonishment, women at the very upscale bar we were at could not stop hitting on him.  It occurred to me that women grade guys on a curve.  When he was a jock he was only average in height and athleticism for a jock so women ignored him, but when he became a nerd he was in the top 10%.