Imagine this life is over, and you're about to be reincarnated.

Set your personal beliefs aside for a moment and just say that God or a God or just a higher power

is giving you your exit slash entry interview for round two on Earth.

He, she, it, they, whatever, has already decided you're going to be a mammal.

You were mediocre at being one the first time, and you're getting a second chance.

And while the exact species remains undecided, God is letting you choose whether you want to be a male or a female.

Now you might be thinking, who cares? Right? Throw me in there, give me

another run. Whatever you think is best, God. But if you care about how well you do, this is actually

a hard, strategic choice. There are a few tradeoffs to consider, but as a general rule,

if you choose the female respawn, you're just

more likely to reproduce, right? You're comparatively unlikely to be a complete failure on the mating

market. But your ceiling is limited. Your maximum reproductive rate is going to be pretty

slow, and the amount of times you can even reproduce at all are going to be somewhat few, at least compared to the males in your same species, most likely.

If you choose the male root, that ceiling breaks. If you rise to alpha status as a male gorilla or happen to be a ram with a particular gift for headbutting,

you could sire more offspring than you could keep track of with a normal mammalian brain.

But on the other side of things, the floor drops out. There's a high chance, in some species

like elephant seals, a very high chance, that you will

never reproduce. Many male mammals get completely out-competed by their rivals and routinely

rejected by females. In fact, this is arguably the normal condition for male mammals.

Today, we're going to talk about those males in our species.

I really don't think this topic is appropriate for children,

and I think, frankly, it's going to be a little too dark to be enjoyed for most adults,

...