h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If...and this is a hypothetical if...a very hypothetical if!

If KB shaved all his hair off, from top to bottom, would it make anyone better off?

What on earth would you want to do that for? Winter's coming, you'll be colder, for a start.

I didn't say I wanted to do it, I was just asking a question.

I'm curious as to why you think it might. Or at least, what prompted the question.

There are charities that accept hair to be made into wigs for patients of various diseases. The most widely known in the US is an organization called "Locks for Love". Most people believe they give the wigs to children with cancer but they actually focus on children with alopecia. Most people also assume that the bulk of the hair they receive is given away to such children when in actuality they have been known to give away as few as a dozen wigs in a year selling the "remainders".

What I'm saying is, hypothetically, if you felt the need to chop of your hair and wanted to improve someone's life by donating it to charity, be sure to research the charity well before the snipping.

I did think about that at first, but KB said "from top to bottom", not just off his bonce, and I was wondering how eyebrows and arm hair and leg hair and chest hair and... other hair, might benefit others, or is it going to mean he somehow gives off less greenhouse gases by being entirely hairless

Perhaps the arm and leg hair will line the nests of the little robin rebdreasts and the Jenny wrens and the

Ah... I missed that nuance when I read the original post...




Other than through some aero/aqua-dynamic advantage, I can't see any benefit to full body defoliating. Plus, when it grows back there are definitely some discomforts to consider.

Yes, there are

I guess we'll just have to wait, -like, for KB to return with an explanation.

if only you could perminently stop hair from growing back...

although I imagine that would be abused by drunken pranksters...

no-one would have eyebrows...

I remember a documentary series from some years ago - it had to be 1970s - about someone undergoing a sex change, male to female. One of the procedures they had to go through was the removal of facial hair, which was done with an electrical charge applied to every beard hair with what looked like a pair of tweezers attached by a wire to a transformer, like the one that comes with a model railway.

I remember two things about - firstly, it was very painful and there were many, many hairs to get rid of, and secondly, it killed the follicle and removed the hair permanently.

Disclaimer: That's what I remember about it. It might not be an accurate recollection, or a factually correct procedure.

Electrolysis: http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/beauty/hair-removal/electrolysis-hair-removal.htm

lots of models use that method

What prompted the question was the realisation that we have actually lost sight of what creates "wealth" or "value", and we have lost sight of "exchange".

1. Poor people!
2. We pour buckets of water on our heads!
3. Poor people are richer!