Testosterone
Archimedes "Give me a lever (long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it), and I shall move the world". (The Greek usually attributed to Archimedes does not include details about length of lever or fulcrum, i.e., δῶς μοι πᾶ στῶ καὶ τὰν γᾶν κινάσω .) That statement has given rise to the phrase "an Archimedean lever" being adopted for use in many instances, not just regarding mechanics, including abstract concepts about the successful effect of a human behavior or action intended to achieve results that could not have occurred without it.[7]
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So- I’m just saying this is an interesting take on the world- to sum up, perhaps unfairly, there are a small group of men (probably with hign levels of T) and they change the world.
We all know the names of this group- maybe 10?-and you may not like them, you may hate them, but surely we can study them and see a) if they contribute to society , and b) if so, do we need more of them.
First, I’m not saying the current system of capitalism with the USA as world leader is great but… am I prepared to fight a violent revolution to overthrow them? Probably not? And it would have to be a global revolution. As Cuba and Albania pretty much proved, (and Orwell told us) you can’t have a socialist revolution in one country, it has to be global.
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So, on to T and un unnamed review in Astral Codex Ten.
compare Mary Lou Jepsen
A strong opening claim
“Because simply put, it is THE single largest quality of life intervention available to most men. To a first approximation, it will make you more muscular, more energetic, let you train and recover better, give you more focus and motivation, AND make you feel happier, hornier, and more engaged with life.
I’m also writing because I think it might have a chance to marginally impact the greatest waste of talent in our generation, which we’ll get into later.”
More
“Testosterone is actually a significant (and under-rated) nootropic (gwern.net), and typically drives higher motivation, higher status seeking, and higher risk-taking, while also improving concentration and focus in many users.
Testosterone, especially for older men, drives greater joie de vivre and often helps them feel younger, more vital, and more engaged with life.
Testosterone increases libido, often significantly.
So it will make you ripped, more energetic, let you train and recover better, give you more focus and motivation, AND make you feel happier, hornier, and more engaged with life? Those are *massive* upsides!
And let me just reiterate what “more motivation and focus” means in practical terms - it means less akrasia, less procrastination, more DOING and accomplishing and less taking the lazy and easy roads, in multiple areas of life.
There’s a reason it’s used by athletes, too - it makes you want to use your body! It makes you want to get in the gym or out in the world and push yourself!”
“Worried about aggression or “roid rage?” TRT levels are physiological, and countless studies have failed to find correlations between physiological T levels and aggression.
A famous study by Book et al. (2001), a meta-analysis of 45 studies with 54 independent effect sizes, found only a weak relationship (.14) between testosterone and aggression, with the strongest effect in the 13-21 age group. Archer et al. (2005) attempted to replicate Book et al., but found an even lower relationship (.09).
It’s probably more likely to make you a better husband and father - Grebe et al. (2019) did another meta-analysis of 79 studies and found testosterone level predicted positive, but small, relationships with pair bonding (.15), mate acquisition behavior (.21) and fatherhood / fathering behaviors (.19).
Now, I’ll say it again, this is an unnamed reviewer- not me!!
“I’ve always been a high energy go-getter with a pretty high risk appetite. I theoretically already start with most of the benefits - and being on TRT is amazing. It bumps all the good stuff up another 10-20%, and essentially has no downsides. Do you know how big a deal that is?”
A New T world - a “brave new world, perhaps?
“Do you think it’s GOOD that the finest minds in our generation are wasted in the “eyeball and synthetic financial derivative” mines? No! It’s the greatest tragedy of our generation!
Average phone screen time has gone from 2 hours in 2014 to 4.5 hours today, and it’s around 6-7 hours for Zennials, largely due to the FAANGS snaffling all the smart people and deploying them towards that end. Is that a good thing?
Finance is intrinsically a zero sum game - sure, liquidity and capital allocation is important - but liquidity and capital allocation is essentially solved. We’re wasting the finest minds of our generation scrabbling for the decimal places in zero sum games!
Consider instead if this generation of talent, if this elite tier of literal genius and capability, had been coordinated in driving scientific research, inventing things, or in founding and growing new companies, instead of coordinating against dumber people to farm them (very successfully) for eyeballs or alpha. Wouldn’t that be a better world on multiple fronts?”
“I ( NOT ME!) personally think EVERY healthy man reading this who is curious should try T, because you can monitor the downsides rigorously, and the potential upsides are so large - but to qualify for medical TRT, you usually need a testosterone level of below 220-400 ng / gl for a T clinic to agree (this varies by state and sometimes by clinic).”
“Who should NOT consider testosterone?
Women - women get strong androgenization and virilization side effects at even very small doses, it’s a bad idea generally”
“If you too are interested in something that can increase focus and motivation, make your career path better and more impactful, your dating or relationship life better, your physical health and strength better, AND make you feel happier, hornier, and more engaged with life, you’ve got a nice reference here now.
If you’ve been looking for that extra push and motivation in life - to get serious about your health or fitness, to try something new, to pick up a difficult but worthwhile task, it’s certainly worth considering, and is undoubtedly the biggest lever that you could pull.”
See also T by Carole Hooven
She is the former co-director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology of Harvard University.[2]
Hooven received a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Antioch College and a PhD in biological anthropology from Harvard University.[3]
In 2021, Hooven participated in a television interview in which she stated that while gender identities should be respected, there are only two biological sexes that are "designated by the kinds of gametes we produce". This led to a backlash against her by faculty and members of the student body. In January 2023, she left her position feeling she had no support from the administration. In the spring of 2023, members of the Harvard faculty formed the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard to promote "free inquiry, intellectual diversity and civil discourse". The group was formed to address concerns about academic freedom, with Hooven's case a catalyst for its formation. It has about 170 members as of February 2024.[4]
In 2021, she authored the book T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us[5][6][7]
In February 2024, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression gave Harvard University its "lifetime censorship award" for the censoring of campus free speech, including its treatment of Hooven.[8]