
The Case for Making Humans Smaller - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/the-case-for-making-humans-smaller
======
modeless
Being very small would have other fun advantages. You'd have a _much_ higher
strength to weight ratio than today's humans, for both your muscles and bones.
You'd probably be able to jump your own height or even more. Falls would be
much less damaging. Not just everyday falls, but you might be able to survive
falling at terminal velocity, as cats can, thus allowing you to fall from any
height. Even wilder, it might be possible to fly under your own power with an
appropriate wingsuit. Certainly personal helicopters and/or jetpacks would be
possible.

~~~
Someone
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0071209):

In the present study, the effects of pure isometric scaling on vertical
jumping performance were investigated using a biologically realistic model of
the human musculoskeletal system. The input of the model, muscle stimulation
over time, was optimized using jump height as criterion. It was found that
when the human model was miniaturized to the size of a mouse lemur, with a
mass of about one-thousandth that of a human, jump height dropped from 40 cm
to only 6 cm, mainly because of the force-velocity relationship. In reality,
mouse lemurs achieve jump heights of about 33 cm

------
cromulent
The 2% food consumption seems like an overly-simplified calculation from the
mass reduction. My understanding is that the smaller animals are, the larger
their surface area to mass ratio, and so their loss of heat increases.
Metabolic rate is much higher. Shrews need to eat 90% of their bodyweight
everyday or else they die.

~~~
iSnow
And there's the added problem of the well-established correlation between body
size and longevity. If we scaled down to cat size, it is reasonable to expect
we'd die at 50 instead of 80, even taking our outsize longevity factor into
account
([https://musingsofajunglequeen.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/sl...](https://musingsofajunglequeen.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/slide11.jpg)).

~~~
yojo
The correlation you note is cross species. I thought within the same species
it tends to be reversed (e.g. Smaller dog breeds live longer than big ones).
Here's an unscientific article with a footnote that shorter people tend to
live longer:
[http://m.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=49358](http://m.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=49358)

~~~
rtl49
What you say is true, but the proposal is to reduce the height of the human
species as a whole. Thus the cross-species comparison might be applicable here
(i.e. humans at their current height vs. a smaller derived species).

------
Gatsky
Is it logical that when we can't even limit population growth where it matters
or curtail CO2 production, we should abandon these lesser goals and take on a
global pan-cultural genetic engineering project?

Is some academic trying to bolster the social visibility section of their
grant application for research into human height determinants?

------
grondilu
If overpopulation really is a problem, is it not much easier to control
population? It's probably much easier to convince someone to have at most two
children, rather than to convince him/her to let scientists fiddle with their
gametes so that their children are dwarves.

~~~
cronjobber
There seem to be psychological barriers to public discussion of the (many!)
downsides of ever-growing populations. I guess people _feel_ like they're
discussing genocide.

~~~
jusssi
Ironic, the longer we put off that discussion, the more likely we actually end
up with a genocide instead of some controlled solution.

------
walterbell
Is this the initial negotiating position/height of an upcoming transhumanist
movie villain? At least the article called out the role of embryo screening in
neo-eugenics.

------
StefanKarpinski
I can't tell if this is a Swiftian modest proposal or an earnest but
ridiculously impractical idea, but this bit got me:

> Liao has calculated that reducing the average US height by just 8 percent
> (15 cm) would mean a corresponding mass reduction of 23 percent for men and
> 25 percent for women, and a 15-18 percent reduction of metabolic rate. The
> effect of this downscaling “is not linear,” he says. “It’s exponential.”

Face palm.

~~~
rtl49
I think it's tongue-in-cheek or a publicity stunt. Among other problems, this
would only increase the carrying capacity of our planet. It doesn't
miraculously solve the problems of inevitable overpopulation or excessive
consumption.

------
rm445
Why stop at 50 cm? In the long term, if the children of humanity continue to
inhabit physical bodies, there's no need for them to be larger than a
millimetre in size. Plenty of room at the bottom.

The benefits of reduced resource use don't stop on Earth. A 1 kg payload ought
to be sufficient for an interplanetary or interstellar voyage.

~~~
1ris
I highly doubt we can downsize the brain that much without serious drawbacks.

------
1ris
>The most extreme examples are in Japan, where mean height has increased 5.5
inches in the last 50 years,

If you want to stay small, do what the japanese did pre-war, that made them so
small: Sit on your soles.

>“If you were that small,” he says, “you’d be eaten by cats!”

Here is a picture from 1956 of Henry Behrens, the smallest man in the world at
the time, dancing with his cat. He was 75 cm, 50% lager than the envisioned
50cms.

[https://kittybloger.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/26th-
october...](https://kittybloger.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/26th-
october-1956-henry-behrens-the-smallest-man-in-the-world-dances-with-his-pet-
cat-in-the-door.jpg)

~~~
DrScump
Seriously? I assumed it was a nutrition issue, especially sheer number of
calories.

~~~
1ris
It mostly is. But sitting on your soles does change the proportion of your
feet. I (and I think most other people) can't do that because my lower leg is
too long.

~~~
jacalata
Do you have a cite for that? I know plenty of people of various heights who
can sit on the soles of their feet, it just uses muscles that most westerners
don't exercise. I'm also pretty skeptical that it would affect your height in
any way to do it regularly.

~~~
1ris
Well, I might be indeed wrong.

------
paulsutter
Overcrowded? Ridiculous. Open up Google Maps. Switch on satellite view. Scroll
around the planet. It's all empty space. Sure, we need to stop using carbon
fuels. Yes, we need to stop polluting the oceans. But the earth is practically
empty.

Switching power sources is the actual problem. And let's choose one that's
also cheaper and more plentiful. Most of the other problems can be overcome
with more and cheaper energy (like water for example).

But it's ludicrous to say the earth is nearly full.

~~~
DrScump
Land is hardly the most limiting resource; in fact, it's well down the list,
below: \- fresh water \- food \- waste carrying capacity (waterways,
atmosphere) \- physical resources (metals, wood, concrete, oil and other
energy forms)

Heck, there's even a worsening shortage of _sand_ suitable for construction
use, worldwide: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/opinion/why-sand-is-
disapp...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/opinion/why-sand-is-
disappearing.html)

~~~
paulsutter
A better source of energy solves any limitations on water and food. And "waste
carrying capacity" is another term for pollution - as I said there are better
ways to manage pollution.

Yes that takes technology, but the problem is mismanagement of resources, we
aren't running out.

"The situation we’re in isn’t a looming wall that we’re doomed to crash into.
It’s a race – a race between depletion and pollution of natural resources on
one side, and our pace of innovation on the other."

\- [http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-limits-
of...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-limits-of-the-earth-
part-1-problems/)

------
yasky
This is a laughably stupid idea. Trying to stay ahead of geometric growth is
always a losing battle. Instead of turning humans to Smurfs, why don't we try
to control the birth-rate instead.

~~~
jnellis
Better yet, let's form a mega human from all normal sized humans. Things like
terra-forming, deploying satellites, war, choosing what to watch on netflix
would be easily solved. Birth control would be replaced by portion control.

------
EGreg
Napoleon!

------
alphapapa
This is utter insanity:

> Liao would accomplish this height reduction through pre-implantation
> diagnosis, a screening test used to determine whether genetic or chromosomal
> disorders are present in developing embryos before they are inserted into
> mothers through in vitro procedures. While height would be somewhat trickier
> to test than most hereditary diseases—it is controlled by 697 genetic
> variants, in contrast to the single variant of a hereditary disease like
> cystic fibrosis—Liao views this as a mere “technical problem.”

> Once science works out the kinks, he says, parents could screen for tallness
> just like they do now for disease.

He proposes aborting perfectly healthy embryos because they might grow up to
be taller than he thinks people ought to be. I suppose it would implicitly
require that all pregnancies be initiated through IVF, as well. What is this
guy, the inverse of Khan Noonian Singh?

I suggest that Mr. Hendriks, "a 6" 4’ [sic] Dutchman," lead by example.

