Handicap principle. Publicly burning off excess health is a better use of it from your genes perspective than just sitting on what is ultimately a depreciating asset.
This just boils down to “showing off” though. But this makes little sense considering:
a) both genders engage in bad practices. As in, I’d expect to see a lot of men doing cross fit, but it doesn’t make sense when you consider there’s a pretty even gender split. “Showing off health” in a way that’s harmful to health is not evolutionary adaptive for women (where it arguably pays off to live for a long time, evolutionarily speaking). This is backed up by other high-risk behaviors being mainly a men’s thing
b) sports are a very bad way to show off, especially the sports that come with high risk of injury and permanent degradation when practiced in their current extreme (e.g. weight lifting, climbing, gymnastics, rugby, hokey). The highest pay-off sports I can think of (in terms of social signaling) are football, american football, basketball and baseball… since they are popular and thus the competition is both intense and achieving high rank is rewarding. Other than american football they are all pretty physically safe as far as sports go… when there are risks, they come from other players (e.g. getting a ball to the head) not from over-training or over-performing.
So basically, if it’s genetic miss-firing then I’d expect to see it misfire almost only in men, and this is untrue.
If it’s “rational” behavior (as in, rational from the perspective of our primate ancestor) then I’d expect to see the more dangerous forms of showing off bring the most social gains rather than vice-versa.
Granted, I do think handicap principle can be partially to blame for “starting” the thing, but I think it continues because of higher level memes that have little to do with social signaling or genetics.
Handicap principle. Publicly burning off excess health is a better use of it from your genes perspective than just sitting on what is ultimately a depreciating asset.
This just boils down to “showing off” though. But this makes little sense considering:
a) both genders engage in bad practices. As in, I’d expect to see a lot of men doing cross fit, but it doesn’t make sense when you consider there’s a pretty even gender split. “Showing off health” in a way that’s harmful to health is not evolutionary adaptive for women (where it arguably pays off to live for a long time, evolutionarily speaking). This is backed up by other high-risk behaviors being mainly a men’s thing
b) sports are a very bad way to show off, especially the sports that come with high risk of injury and permanent degradation when practiced in their current extreme (e.g. weight lifting, climbing, gymnastics, rugby, hokey). The highest pay-off sports I can think of (in terms of social signaling) are football, american football, basketball and baseball… since they are popular and thus the competition is both intense and achieving high rank is rewarding. Other than american football they are all pretty physically safe as far as sports go… when there are risks, they come from other players (e.g. getting a ball to the head) not from over-training or over-performing.
So basically, if it’s genetic miss-firing then I’d expect to see it misfire almost only in men, and this is untrue.
If it’s “rational” behavior (as in, rational from the perspective of our primate ancestor) then I’d expect to see the more dangerous forms of showing off bring the most social gains rather than vice-versa.
Granted, I do think handicap principle can be partially to blame for “starting” the thing, but I think it continues because of higher level memes that have little to do with social signaling or genetics.