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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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Granted I have some bias on this issue because I train with guys approaching 70, so the availability heuristic has me thinking of the most robust members of that age cohort.

But it is hard to understate just how advantaged, pound for pound, a male is over any given female. I stipulate same weight class and the average male weight for an over-60 is about 190 pounds. I want you to try and imagine what a 190 pound woman looks like. Especially if we assume she's NOT freakishly tall (another factor impacted by testosterone).

In my mind, the theoretical fight really comes down to whether the woman can avoid the guy long enough until he's mostly gassed, and then execute a successful submission. Similarly, if the guy manages to grab hold of her and keep her from getting away, dropping her with a strike to the head or slamming her hard to the ground are likely finishes. I'll stipulate that a lightly trained male is almost certainly not choking out a heavily trained female.

I want you to try and imagine what a 190 pound woman looks like.

I assure you that the average 190 pound male looks like a sack of dog shit.

And if a 190 pound male manages to lie on top of a 190 female, she's going to have a hard, nearly impossible time getting unpinned regardless of how he looks.

We're talking about a heavily trained woman and almost untrained man. That scenario seems unlikely.

Yes, that's why its fun to consider, since we really have almost no real-world examples to prove up one side or the other definitively.

On the other hand, I watch a lot of videos of street fights, and virtually none of them depict a female KO-ing a man in any context.

Here's a Mixed MMA fight from about two months ago between TWO females and one large dude:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=lQllTuPzOXU?si=H90MBAshtGUD2IL4

The women were allowed headgear and he wasn't. Notice him turning all his attention to one and not even reacting as the other woman hits him from behind at about the 2:00 mark. Skill is not really the determinant factor here.

I cannot overstate how huge the physical advantage is for the male, even if that guy gets gassed its still not safe for a female to approach lest he grab her and just SIT on her.

I watch a lot of videos of street fights, and virtually none of them depict a female KO-ing a man in any context.

How many street fights involve seventy year old men, let alone a seventy year old man and a young woman?

How many street fights involve seventy year old men

Virtually zero! But not quite zero.

So my priors are not well informed on this but I still have priors.

So the speculation is fun! I have to consider a number of disparate data points and project outcomes into a realm of uncertainty and argue my case based on inductive logic and reasoning from whatever similar situations exist.

Virtually zero! But not quite zero.

The robber is not exactly "highly trained". It's pretty obvious that a highly trained woman would mug that guy no problem.

Look, I don't disagree that men have a big physical advantage vs women. But for the most part your supporting evidence equivocates between the actual scenario (barely trained 70 year old vs highly trained 25 year old) and various unrelated scenarios (70 year old prizefighter, 30 year old man, etc etc). Again, most 70 year olds are extremely fragile and have no chance against someone who knows what they are doing.

It's pretty obvious that a highly trained woman would mug that guy no problem.

Yeah, but he's also 77, and not 70. This is what I'm saying its almost impossible to find the perfectly analogous situation.

I wouldn't cede that 'most' 70 year olds are "extremely fragile." I feel like people tend to collapse most ages over 65 into "old as fuck" but I think there's ample evidence that real mental and physical frailty can be delayed into the later years.

Outside of a specific medical issue , that is.

Hah, I forgot one of the more famous incidents of a senior citizen involved in a beatdown: Epic Beard Guy, who was 67 during that incident (as far as I can tell) and left his male opponent with a broken nose.

Even if he's not a representative sample its more towards that point that they're not necessarily fragile at that age.