I thought it was a funny joke. You have to remember he's a psychologist. When it comes to children they think very simply in terms of reward and punishment to "train" children to learn to behave. You should've seen that from everything else he said about his interactions with children. I don't know how you can also come away with that psychoanalysis of him, I'd say you're reading into it too much. In reality, we are human and small things tend to irritate the majority of us from time to time. I'd also add that aggression is a tool that has certain uses throughout life, you can't always live life on the defensive. Young adults of any gender should be told that this is a tool at your disposal and completely okay to use at certain times.

For the lobster thing, I read it as neutral information. I took it as he was bringing up a similarity he has observed between the lobster behavior and popular plots in entertainment that seem to be popular with certain types of women. He's just presenting a connection for readers to make up their own minds about rather than stating some fact. However I also think most young men who read that will tend to agree with him quite easily, it definitely feels like it could partially be true (bad boy stereotype is a thing isn't it?). Also would you consider yourself in general to be a 'usual' female compared to the general population say personality wise or any other metric even? Just being on HN tells me you're already unusual, wouldn't you say?

> in reality, a grown man getting so furious at an infant that he fantasises about throwing it is just odd

You are getting that backwards. In reality, people think that way. They get angry with kids. They may even think violent thoughts. Tragically, they may actually be violent.

Any time you make a statement about what's weird about interactions between adults (especially parents) and kids, you should clarify that you do or do not have kids. So, I'll ask, do you have kids? I ask because we can be rational in an HN discussion. Dealing with kids tests that rationality.

> Is this good advice or information for men or women?

Men who are "alpha male" types get more selection. This may or may not be true. The "should" (rational decisions) is a different argument. JP is trying to explain how things ARE (and he could be wrong on that.) That's different from advice and the information is neither good or bad.

The sexual-marketplace is not good advice on how to behave, but there is aspects of truth to acknowledge that humans are somewhat similar to tournament species where a smaller percentage of men have children compared to women. The semi-accurate 20/80 means that social status has a very direct impact on the probability that a man has children, and a sad aspect of human culture is the tendency for men to be rewarded with social status for cultural correct aggression.

But we are also somewhat similar to pair bonding species. I would not describe it as an outlier or unusual, but rather two different biological strategies that is expressed through genes and culture. Researchers has even found some specific genes that is linked to predicting it, and women and men who has more of the pair-bonding associated genes have longer and happier relationships.

Being aware of both strategies and knowing there is a biological aspect to it is useful information, but strictly following one is foolish. We are human with human brains so individuals will behave uniquely even if there is a bias when averaged over a population.

> This is the lobster equivalent of Fifty Shades of Grey, the fastest-selling paperback of all time,

There is something strange about that book being so popular.

I think one can argue that women have been socialized to want aggressive men so that becomes a common fantasy vs it's a biologically based phenomenon. I wonder if there is a way to compare how popular the book is in relation to how strongly stereotypical the education and culture is.