Amazon World

[htgriffin]

ASBs decide to seed the planet with subtle nanotechnology that affects the physical development of the female gender. Among the generation that reaches puberty when this stuff get spead around, female H. Sapiens are on average six inches (~15cm) taller than men and possessed of half again as much muscle mass as a male in similar health.

What are the effects on society/history if the 'seeding' occured around: 2000 BCE
1000 BCE
1
500 CE
1000 CE
1500 CE
1750 CE
1850 CE
1900 CE
1950 CE
1975 CE

HTG

[Melvin Loh]

Man, i know 1 chick from back in Alice Springs who's bout 6'2'' and really massively built (not fat though), so woe betide any guy/s who wanna stuff around with chicks who're now much bigger than fellas...

[Norman]

ASBs decide to seed the planet with subtle nanotechnology that affects the physical development of the female gender. Among the generation that reaches puberty when this stuff get spead around, female H. Sapiens are on average six inches (~15cm) taller than men and possessed of half again as much muscle mass as a male in similar health.

What are the effects on society/history if the 'seeding' occured around: 2000 BCE
1000 BCE
1
500 CE
1000 CE
1500 CE
1750 CE
1850 CE
1900 CE
1950 CE
1975 CE

HTG

Unless you monkey about with what men see as attractive, within a thousand years you will have women who are exactly like the ones we have today.

[Jer8m8]

Man, i know 1 chick from back in Alice Springs who's bout 6'2'' and really massively built (not fat though), so woe betide any guy/s who wanna stuff around with chicks who're now much bigger than fellas...

Does this by any chance relate to the movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert?

(About some transvestites...including Agent Smith/Elrond...who travel to Alice Springs)

[Melvin Loh]

No most definitely not...this chick back home was a very lovely young woman and would probably beat the crap outta anybody who crossed her...

[Landshark]

No most definitely not...this chick back home was a very lovely young woman and would probably beat the crap outta anybody who crossed her...

You wouldn't happen to have any photographs or a phone number would you?

[htgriffin]

ASBs decide to seed the planet with subtle nanotechnology that affects the physical development of the female gender. Among the generation that reaches puberty when this stuff get spead around, female H. Sapiens are on average six inches (~15cm) taller than men and possessed of half again as much muscle mass as a male in similar health.

What are the effects on society/history if the 'seeding' occured around: 2000 BCE
1000 BCE
1
500 CE
1000 CE
1500 CE
1750 CE
1850 CE
1900 CE
1950 CE
1975 CE

HTG
Incidentally, the nanites do remain active in the bloodstreams of humanity, so waiting it out is impossible and breeding things back down would take considerable (10,000 years or better without draconian culling) time.

HTG

[Max Sinister]

It will be all "Hail to our amazon overlords, or else".

[Leej]

Unless you monkey about with what men see as attractive, within a thousand years you will have women who are exactly like the ones we have today.
Traditionally big (preferably fat too) women were the attractive ones.
Its only in pretty modern times we've moved onto the thinner kind we like today.

[Akiyama]

You don't need ASBs to get women taller than men - sexual selection can do the job for you. Just have Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolve a preference for taller women before they leave Africa. This is not implausible. There are men today who like taller women. And many men find long legs attractive in women so maybe longer legs = more attractive. Tallness is a sign of sexual maturity, like larger breasts, so it would be a natural attribute for sexual selection purposes. Having women taller than men would have an evolutionary advantage - due to our large brain size the heads of human babies have trouble fitting through the vagina leading to many women in pre-modern times dying in childbirth - taller women would mean fewer deaths. And in any case, the fact that human women evolved a sexual preference for facial hair on men shows that anything is possible.

Now, according to Jared Diamond in The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee there is a natural selection aspect to male/female height ratio in animals. I'm sure sexual selection would have no problem overriding that - sexual selection can do anything. Anyway, in nature, large males and small females correlates with males having large harems (the males have to fight for the females) while equally sized males and females correlates with either perfect monogamy or complete sexual freedom (everyone mates with everyone else). So having females taller than males would go with a polyandrous society - females rather than males having harems. Presumably the tallest and most attractive females would get all the best males (and the highest status).

Could this still be a patriachal society? I think it's unlikely, for a number of reasons. First, women are taller, and so presumably stronger, than men. Second, if families consist of one wife and many husbands having the husbands in charge seems like a recipe for conflict compared with having the wife in charge. And thirdly, if the women are in competition with one another for mates that implies more aggressive women. Taller, more aggressive women implies greater testosterone, which would have other behavioural effects in women such as a less emotional, more reductive way of thinking. There would be more female scientists and mathematicians in TTL.

Would the lucky women with harems of good-looking men be concerned about adultery? There would be no genetic cost to them of allowing one of their men to impregnate a husbandless female, and if too few women have babies then that culture's population will start to shrink, so maybe not. Perhaps the high status women would loan out husbands to their servants as a favour, or hire them out in exchange for material goods. On the other hand, in OTL women don't think of their relationship with their husbands and boyfriends solely as a method of passing their genes on but are emotionally attached to them and don't want them having sex with other women, so maybe cultures would come up with ways to prevent adultery (for example, maybe men would have to dress modestly so as not exite other women).

If women who are neither tall nor good looking are prevented from having babies then two things will happen over time. Tallness and other beauty traits will tend to go together, and women will become taller and better looking. The "better looking" bit won't be noticable to inhabitants of TTL, since beauty is relative, but if these women were to visit OTL, they would be look different (assuming that apart from tallness only "normal" beauty traits signifying good heath and sexual maturity such as symmetry and round breasts are selected for then they would look incredibly beautiful - but perhaps the humans of TTL have other sexual quirks such as a preference for large ears or noses or female facial or body hair!).

[Nik]

Do males get more social skills to compensate ??

Evolutionary pressure would be significant...

[Akiyama]

In what way would there be evolutionary pressure for males to develop more skills, do you think?

If females have harems, and men are only allowed to mate with their wives, and females prefer to mate with the husbands who have better social skills, then I guess so.

In matriachal harem societies where adultery is forbidden then a smaller proportion of males and females will pass their genes than in OTL on so selection pressures will operate more than in OTL on all "sexual attraction" factors.

Family size would have to be proportionally larger to compensate though - either women would have to have more children or they would have to somehow ensure that their children had better chance of survival. If women have to have more children then that might lead to selection pressure for later menopause, which in turn would lead to people, or at least women, living longer than in OTL.

[Akiyama]

I just thought of something else. Humans have much larger penises than other apes, proportional to their size. According to Jared Diamond this is because male penises in humans are threat/status display aimed mainly at other males. But in an Amazon timeline with matriachal harems there would be very little competition between males - practically every male can get a decent female, and males are not high status anyway - so if Jared Diamond's theory is correct then penis size in TTL would be smaller.

[Akiyama]

Actually, if males are not competing for females in a physical way, I guess they will need less testosterone. Since testosterone has an effect on brain development, then if males have less testosterone and females have more, male and female brain development will be more similar than in OTL. So yes, I think males will have better social skills. And presumably males and females will understand one another better.

I'm sure males will still have more testosterone than females though - it is necessary for male sexual development.

Another thing I thought of - if females are larger, they will need more calories. I'm not sure how much of a problem this is - hunter/gatherer societies in OTL don't spend a huge amount of time hunting and gathering so I'm sure they could just spend more time. Also, perhaps the single females could go hunting along with the males - if they are taller then they might be better hunters - faster and stronger.

Alternatively, males could become smaller and require less calories. Probably they will be smaller anyway if they have less testoterone. That way the total calorie requirement of a tribe will be the same.