Is physical self-defense necessary in civilized society?

Yeah, bury it in his backyard. They'd never figure that one out. Do you know how much acid it would take to dissolve a body? Why are you even obsessing over this stuff, anyway?

You're right. Maybe burying is a bad idea. Using acid, it would take a bathtub of sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid's cheap. Creative options have a little chance of protecting your anonymity and "crime." It is an intellectual curiosity, and I'm writing a crime/detective story novel, lol. These subjects can fascinate people, and do you guys know that in many countries, even if you killed by accident or in a bona-fide self-defense (in legalese, "excessive defense" "imperfect self-defense"), you must still be jailed no less than 3 years and pay lots of money? still manslaughte!

After researching, one advice I give is: Aim to kill. If you're truly in deadly situation, you would be stupid not to kill the bad guy, if you've little chance of escaping or hiding. Kill first, your eternity rests on this.

Edited by Wandering Jew, 21 October 2009 - 09:43 PM.

in straight combat, in life and death situation, bet we can fight them off. If we have weapons like guns, even Bruce Lee may not beat us. If they use traps, poison, or explosives, haha, we may die

Man we have some serious pussy laws.\

What you mean "we", kemosabe?

Edited by fatboy, 22 October 2009 - 06:16 AM.

in straight combat, in life and death situation, bet we can fight them off. If we have weapons like guns, even Bruce Lee may not beat us. If they use traps, poison, or explosives, haha, we may die

Man we have some serious pussy laws.\

What you mean "we", kemosabe?

We the good guys vs. them the bad guys. Some people are evil, immoral, lazy, and thrive on inflicting pain on others. I inflict them back, or get the Law Enforcement to, but I don't want to face consequences in cases of justified defense. You dig my meaning?

in straight combat, in life and death situation, bet we can fight them off. If we have weapons like guns, even Bruce Lee may not beat us. If they use traps, poison, or explosives, haha, we may die

Man we have some serious pussy laws.\

What you mean "we", kemosabe?

We the good guys vs. them the bad guys. Some people are evil, immoral, lazy, and thrive on inflicting pain on others. I inflict them back, or get the Law Enforcement to, but I don't want to face consequences in cases of justified defense. You dig my meaning?

I grok.

It doesn't make any sense that there could still be Alpha males because the environmental and instinctive components which are necessary for these types doesn't exist anymore. Maybe in tribal jungle cultures where it is all one knows their entire lives and for generations of cultural inheritance. But we have been beyond those physical Components in civilized societies for about a thousand years. Any man who calls himself an Alpha male is a product of what he is conditioned and taught. Nothing more. And I say this because of you go to a city like New York for example, you have so many Alpha Male wannabes but soon as you place them in a jungle type setting they are lost and want to return to the convenience of city life lest they die alone and hungry in the wild.

TheFountain, you are thinking of alpha males strictly in the sense of physical dominance. There are absolutely alpha males everywhere in society today. It isn't all about size, but about the personal power they project and their ability to lead people. The natural tendency of people to bend to their will despite the fact that physical confrontation is highly unlikely. As niner said, they are everywhere in corporate America. Working in a large company I have witnessed those who are put into positions of power and I can tell you it has very little to do with their intelligence and everything to do with their dominant personality and natural ability to lead.

The typical "meathead" you are referring to possibly could have been an alpha male tens of thousands of years ago. Today on the other hand there are far more important factors. Charisma, intelligence, drive, looks, money, connections, etc etc.. Every time two people's eyes meet, someone looks away first.

Like in your example though, the alpha male is somewhat situational. Thrown into a new environment a previous alpha male will probably be replaced by someone who is more competent in that environment. However as the former alpha male gains knowledge of the new environment, his leadership qualities and drive will likely propel him to once again gain a position of power.

It doesn't make any sense that there could still be Alpha males because the environmental and instinctive components which are necessary for these types doesn't exist anymore. Maybe in tribal jungle cultures where it is all one knows their entire lives and for generations of cultural inheritance. But we have been beyond those physical Components in civilized societies for about a thousand years. Any man who calls himself an Alpha male is a product of what he is conditioned and taught. Nothing more. And I say this because of you go to a city like New York for example, you have so many Alpha Male wannabes but soon as you place them in a jungle type setting they are lost and want to return to the convenience of city life lest they die alone and hungry in the wild.

TheFountain, you are thinking of alpha males strictly in the sense of physical dominance. There are absolutely alpha males everywhere in society today. It isn't all about size, but about the personal power they project and their ability to lead people. The natural tendency of people to bend to their will despite the fact that physical confrontation is highly unlikely. As niner said, they are everywhere in corporate America. Working in a large company I have witnessed those who are put into positions of power and I can tell you it has very little to do with their intelligence and everything to do with their dominant personality and natural ability to lead.

The typical "meathead" you are referring to possibly could have been an alpha male tens of thousands of years ago. Today on the other hand there are far more important factors. Charisma, intelligence, drive, looks, money, connections, etc etc.. Every time two people's eyes meet, someone looks away first.

Like in your example though, the alpha male is somewhat situational. Thrown into a new environment a previous alpha male will probably be replaced by someone who is more competent in that environment. However as the former alpha male gains knowledge of the new environment, his leadership qualities and drive will likely propel him to once again gain a position of power.

NO NO NO NO NO!

This whole competition thing is obsolete! No one wants to be bossed around by some mentally inferior clown! It is a dead paradigm that has absolutely no use in todays society. And it is a restrictive thing. It restricts communication, congregation and, potentially, survival! Todays survival mechanics do not necessitate these types of personalities, they necessitate cooperation. Those who cooperate will invent tomorrows innovations. Those who don't will be begging for those innovations when they arrive. There is not enough mental space in this world for the whole phony dead paradigm you speak of anymore. Besides I find that the silent, ostensibly passive people in this world seem to dominate their lives more than these morons you speak of. In fact these imbeciles you speak of seem dominated strictly by external factors, which makes them weak minded, easily controlled fools. They are controlled by everything from their jobs, to women, to the whole of society. Subtlety is the way we are evolving. Gross obnoxiousness is dying out and is thus useless and warrantless in todays world of evolving ideals. Philosophy and ideas are the bode of tomorrow. Get on the ship, because yours is sinking into the abyss.

Edited by TheFountain, 29 October 2009 - 06:31 AM.

It reminds me of an episode of a T.V show, I think it was the twilight zone, in which three families are all forced into the same shelter because of a war threat, one family, led by the alpha male father, decides there is not enough capacity to share the shelter with the other families when there is no certainty any of them will survive. The alpha male father does everything in his power to force the other families out. In the end he succeeds in forcing everyone out of his shelter. Yay alpha male wins! Wrong. It was only a war drill! Everyone in the entire town hated him afterwards. He lost all his friends, his job and his purpose. Bye bye alpha male your time is up!

The pure "Alpha Male" in the primitive brutish sense might be obsolete in society today -we can hope that those traits aren't needed very much, next to survival in a variety of circumstances. It takes some brains to eke out a living in a rotten economy or lawlessness. Leadership skills have probably always been more than the strongest winner takes all. Many other things, even in a neolithic setting.
I recall one of the "Fuzzy" stories where other authors took over Piper's "Little Fuzzy" creature, before his own follow-on manuscript was found. The Alpha Male was leading them -from one catastrophe to the other accidental loss, and eventually a group decided he couldn't be with them anymore because of his natural tendency to lead and everybody's natural tendency to listen to him, when it never ever worked out well.
We've all seen the natural leader, some good, some not so much, and we've all seen times where anybody -even the little mousy female- has to take charge because she knows the best responses to a situation.


As to this sort of guy today in other than a leadership context... they say "God made all people equal, Sam Colt made it so they could stay that way."
I recopy this as food for thought.

Why the Gun is Civilization
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

http://munchkinwrang...vilization.html

Can we please just change our language so we stop describing 'man' as a noble beast trapped in a modern setting weeding his poor ole way through the 'concrete jungle' and then coming up with ridiculous analogies for why modern yuppies are 'superior' to other men in their environment? Because that's all people are doing, I.E using a euphemism to describe assholes like they are immersed in some endless national geographic episode. It's dumb and wasteful to speak in these terms.

Fountain, can you clarify whether you are arguing that alpha males and social dominance no longer exist, or that in an ideal society they would not exist? For the most part I would agree with the latter, but if you are implying that alpha males do not get ahead then I have to assume one or more things about you: Either you live in a closed off environment, or you are a socially unaware person.

Your argument seems to state the way you envision an idealistic society. The truth is that alpha males can absolutely get more women, better jobs (leadership roles), and generally do not get taken advantage of in life. Intelligence and alpha dominance traits are not mutually exclusive as you seem to be implying. On the contrary, I would argue that in the professional world most alpha males (or females) tend to be highly gifted, especially in the area of social intelligence. This, coupled with the confidence they carry themselves with, is the exact reason most people would rather not challenge them.

Eventually I can see alpha types and leaders in general no longer being necessary. The general intelligence of society has a very long way to go before I see that happening. Many people still need to be led, and many actually look for leaders so they don't have to take any responsibility or make decisions.

Either you live in a closed off environment, or you are a socially unaware person.

Or maybe you have been brainwashed and fed anthropological bullshit your entire life.

Your argument seems to state

What argument? I am making observations that clearly exceed your awareness level. The fact that you view it as an 'argument' reveals how dimly aware you are of truth.

the way you envision an idealistic society.

No it is the way society is today. Just as humans tend to anthropomorphize animals, they conversely tend to project animal qualities onto themselves. The whole phony 'alpha male' non-sense began when humans found out they had similar genetics to apes. Thus they concluded that 'man is a naked ape, fighting to survive in a modern concrete jungle'. Obvious derived horse shit there which doesn't even meagerly state the facts.

The truth is that alpha males can absolutely get more women, better jobs (leadership roles), and generally do not get taken advantage of in life.

Listen to the way you talk about life. The way you speak of women for example, like they are objects to be gotten. This shows you have absolutely no understanding of the female psyche and that you are a materialist who deduces everything to external factors. Obviously why you believe the 'alpha male' myth.

Intelligence and alpha dominance traits are not mutually exclusive as you seem to be implying.

I am not implying mutual exclusivity, what I am saying is that this bullshit 'alpha male dominance' thing you seem to desire and covet so desperately does not exist and never has. You have been fooled by misunderstood darwinism and modern lies.

On the contrary,

On the contrary there is no contrary.

I would argue

Yes, you would argue, because you wish you were an 'alpha male' but you're not, because no human is or ever was. You know what an alpha male was? Cromagnon! After that alpha males ceased to exist, end of story, finito, no mas!

that in the professional world most alpha males (or females) tend to be highly gifted,

You don't have alpha males in the professional world what you have are weak minded pussywhipped eunichs controled by their environment.

especially in the area of social intelligence.

Social intelligence is another contrived bullshit notion. People don't know what they want, they are confused, childish and shooting in the dark. Bumping into walls and falling into holes.

This, coupled with the confidence they carry themselves with, is the exact reason most people would rather not challenge them.

What the hell are you talking about? I've never seen this anywhere but in movies.

I'm an alpha male.

Its great.

We haven't seen anything like the disappearance of the alpha male. What we've seen in the last 100 years is the emergence of the alpha female.

Humans are apes. Get over it.

I'm an alpha male.

Its great.

We haven't seen anything like the disappearance of the alpha male. What we've seen in the last 100 years is the emergence of the alpha female.

Humans are apes. Get over it.

Then go live in a jungle and see how long you survive tough one.

The author of this website has an interesting take on Alpha Males, similar to TheFountain's. It's worth the read.

The Pros and Cons of Assholes

So what is that cattle prod doing up the asses of all those assholes on the planet? Why do they exist anyway? What fucking makes them like that? And even more importantly, what are you supposed to do about the dilemma they put you in?

The answer to what makes assholes like that is so boring it's barely even worth mentioning. Bad chemicals of course. Some researchers think it's serotonin, the same chemical that makes you all depressed when you don't have it. Assholes have too much of it. In fact, assholes are serotonin sucks - they suck all the serotonin out of everyone else in the room, slather it on their own neurons, and leave everyone else all depressed and serotonin-deprived. Greedy fucking serotonin hogs!
Women who've been abused by assholes for an extended period will often show signs of low serotonin, act all wussy, whiny, and depressed, go on Prozac and bounce right back and then kick the asshole out of their life. Psychiatrists who first noticed this thought 'well that's weird.' But it isn't weird at all, these women had low serotonin because the goddamn fucking assholes in their lives stole all their fucking serotonin! The assholes in your life will steal yours! Guard your serotonin!

It works like this. Assholes are born. Their little itsy-bitsy nervous systems are all hyper-sensitive and easily irritated by the slightest little fucking thing. This makes them fussy and irritable and hateful and nobody likes them not even their mothers because they cry all the time. So their mothers do the best they can but already the little suckers are stealing their mother's serotonin and making them all depressed because nothing they fucking do will stop that goddamn constant fucking irritableness and crying and distress (which as we saw before is the equivalent of torture for their mothers). So their mothers are forced to pretend they love them but really they don't. And this sets up the first reality of an Asshole's existence.

	What it's like to be an Asshole Reality No. 1: Everybody hates you and nobody fucking loves you.

	It may seem kind of unfair that anyone is doomed to be hated by everyone and loved by no one from birth by the cruel realities of a central nervous system in a bad mood. But the truth is, assholes get used to it. I don't know that this is exactly the same as totally loving it but they get used to it. Actually, there are two kinds of assholes. Asshole #1: I Love Being An Asshole! and Asshole #2: I Hate Being An Asshole!

	It's okay to employ the Compassion Response and feel sorry for Asshole #2 who is doomed to a lonely life of asshole misery because his mother didn't love him because he cried all the time and wouldn't shut up. But we are not here to engage in social work at the moment, we're here to waste time. So we are going to skip right past an extended Compassion Response and get on with the story. (The guy is an Asshole after all.) (Sudden sexism note. Assholeness is widely dispersed among all sexes, ages, races, religions, and even hair colors. But by and large we are going to refer to all assholes herein as 'he'. We will do this for 2 reasons. 1) We are lazy. 2) We are sexist. In case you were wondering.)

So his mother doesn't love him and neither does anyone else, but of course he is a kid and so they all kind of have to pretend they do. This sets up the second reality of an Asshole's existence.

	What It's Like to Be An Asshole Reality #2: Everyone lies to you and pretends they love you more than they do, which is not at all, not really.

What people actually do to Assholes is use them. We will explain why in an extremely exciting Chimp Story! later but for right now, we'll just say that assholes may be assholes but they are not necessarily stupid. They figure out that people lie to them and use them and don't really love them. Which is why they are all paranoid and suspicious and controlling all the time. They fucking know you are lying to them. Which is exactly what you are doing if things are going right.

 

Your asshole boss calls a meeting and makes all these big pronouncements about making the numbers for the 2nd quarter and he's disappointed in everyone and they have to work harder and just reams of threats and bullshit and intimidation and not listening to anyone come flying out of his mouth, yada, yada, yada, and inside you are rolling your eyes, and mocking his pomposity. But you know no matter how fucking idiotic his business ideas may be, he'll yell at you if you tell him you can't sell six fucking million widgets in 36 days. So in front of him you act all submissive like you're going to sell 6 million widgets in 36 days, and then you yell at everyone who works for you and you roll your eyes when you talk about him and you basically mock him to shreds behind his back and suck up to his face. He knows you're doing this. He suspects everyone is doing this. Because almost everyone is. That's how people treat assholes. He's not an idiot. He's figured that out. And he's paranoid about it. All your best assholes are paranoid.

Look around at the assholes littered around your life. Look at how fucking paranoid they are really. They control everyone with their anger and they're fucking paranoid. You can hear it in all their reasoning processes. They should be paranoid! Everyone hates them!

Now it's time for the chimp story. Assholes are big chimpanzees! I suppose it would be better and more exciting if assholes were actually blood-sucking slime or something more exotic but actually they are just plain old chimpanzees.

Chimpanzee world is highly social world organized around the Asshole Exploitation Ploy - an evolutionary ploy that has worked decently well for them over the years. In this set-up a small number of so-called Alpha Males (or Asshole Chimpanzees) run around their little chimpanzee clump beating up other non-alpha males (B-Monkeys), forcing themselves on the fertile female chimpanzees, knocking them around, dragging them around by their chimpanzee fur, acting like assholes, clubbing their competitors over the head with whatever they can find, picking fights, and forcing all the other chimpanzees to suck up to them in elaborate shows of terrified submission.

When a competing band of chimpanzees nears, the Asshole Chimpanzee throws rocks at them, tries to kill them, and gets in really vicious bloody fights with his counterpart Asshole Chimpanzees from the competing clump until at least one Asshole Chimpanzee is dead or fleeing for its fucking life, humiiated, terrified, and whipped. Then the winning Asshole Chimpanzee swaggers back to his clump, grabs all the best women for himself, treats them like shit, fucks like a rabbit and nobody says a word about it. All the other chimps act scared and look the other way. Nobody tries to stop his indiscrimnate mating, and all the B-Monkeys back off mating themselves and let the Asshole Chimpanzee push them around.

The Asshole Chimpanzee's entire life is organized around aggression and pushing other chimpanzees around. It's ugly. It's a really ugly-looking little social system and all you primate-loving pussies out there can just pipe down, they're not pretty just because they're endangered animals and Jane Goodall loved them, they're vicious, ugly-looking asshole brutes. Or so it seems. Why do all the chimpanzees put up with this? Why do they let themselves be exploited by a tiny minority of Asshole Chimpanzees who dominate everything, the women, the food, the resources, the status? Why, why do the B-Monkeys and the females let themselves be ruthlessly exploited, dominated, and cowed by some over-endowed pushy monkey?

They don't. The Asshole Chimpanzees don't exploit them, they exploit the Asshole Chimpanzees. The Asshole Chimpanzees don't dominate shit, the B-Monkeys and the females have always dominated and they always will. The same thing goes for humans. The reason assholes exist on this planet is that they were put there for your benefit, you B-Male you. The Assholes of the world don't exploit you, you exploit them.

Here's how it works. A reality of chimpanzee life is that they clump together and occasionally there will be pressure on territory from other competing clumps of chimps. When this happens, there has to be a way to settle the issue as to who's going to get what territory and what resources. That way is fighting it out. Just like humans.

Way back in evolutionary history, some chimpanzee got saddled with an irritable nervous system and when it came time for a fight between chimp clumps he just went fucking bonkers and bashed all the competing chimps over the head with rocks and killed them. He was an absolute fucking maniac. He got himself all bloodied up, and did all that impressive chimp screeching and generally scared the holy fucking shit out of the competing clump, or what was left of it, which went scampering away, muttering to themselves 'psycho! that guy's a fucking psycho!' Which he was. He didn't react normally to the infliction of pain on others and he was completely out of control in reacting to his own. He was a flipping freak.

Now all the B-Monkeys were standing around watching this impressive display of maniacism and a little collective light bulb went off over their heads. Now up to this time, Psycho Chimp had just been a pain in the ass because he couldn't follow the normal social rules. He didn't understand reciprocity and he was all jumpy about everything and just generally a goddamn fucking pain.

But now, wordlessly, all the B-Monkeys realized something. When it comes to a fight, let Alpha-Monkey do it! They suddenly understood the usefulness of this prick. Why the fuck should they risk their precious fur when there's some maniac just dying to bash chimpanzees over the head for them? Let him take the fucking risk. Let him get himself beat to a bloody pulp. Let him die if he doesn't win. Let Mikey do it.

Slow secret smiles spread over their faces and they didn't say a word. They knew that from now on, any time there's danger from other chimpanzees, all they have to do is shove idiot alpha-monkey at it, and let him take care of the problem. He's obviously too stupid to realize that there's no particular percentage gain in roaring out toward a bunch of competing monkeys and picking a gigantic fight.

Well oblivious to the plot against him, Asshole Chimpanzee is all pumped up from his victorious head-smashing endeavors. He's primed, he's horny. He starts grabbing females. The B-Monkeys look at each other, after all there are a bunch of them and only one of him. But in the clever style of political strategists everywhere, they simply say 'oh all yours Asshole Chimp, I mean most esteemed Alpha Male. Wouldn't dream of competing with you for a female. Not at all. You first. Please. With my compliments.' Asshole Chimp grunts, grabs the best female and starts fucking. She, understandably alarmed, looks at the B-males who used to be her friends with an extreme 'What the fuck?' expression on her face. So behind A-Monkey's back, they all whisper, 'just go along with it. i'll explain in a minute.'

Asshole Chimp, not being all that good at sensitivity to other chimps, fucks and leaves for another one, and the female, somewhat the worse for wear, hisses at the b-males 'what the fuck was that about! he nearly fucking killed me!' Then the B-monkeys fill her in on the plan.

She is extremely dubious at first. It certainly doesn't sound like a good deal to her. But they lay it out. 'Listen, just go along with him. Pretend like 'oh he's the big conquering god, blah, blah, blah.' he's an idiot. he doesn't know shit. But he scored territory for us and the bananas are rolling in like crazy. We're all going to be rich. Just play cool and we'll all make out.' She's still not convinced. 'I don't want to have that creep's baby chimpanzees!' 'Who says you have to,' counter the B-Monkeys. 'Fuck anyone you want to. Shit, girl, there's a whole fucking defeated clump of cute male chimpanzees 600 yards down the road. He'll never know. Listen, some of those defeated chimps were hunks. Good genes, great fur, and I know they'd go for a looker like you.'

The female chimp thinks it over. Like sex brains everywhere, hers does have a thing for genetic diversity. And it would make things less complicated than sustaining a lot of social relationships within the clump. The B-Males press home the point. 'Listen, macho guy over there is going to be bringing home the bananas, right? Well if you play along those bananas are going to go to your baby chimpanzees. He won't have any fucking idea those baby chimps aren't his.' Well this seals the deal. It's worth the risk. It's worth putting up with Thinks He's So Fucking Great Asshole Chimp, and sneaking around behind his back to fuck better-looking, nicer, non-asshole B-Monkeys from some other tribe if it means your kids are going to get good genes and plenty of food, courtesy of the Asshole Who Doesn't Know What's Going On.

And this is exactly what female chimps do. They act all submissive when Mr. Alpha-chimp is around, and as soon as he turns his back, they scoot 600 yards down the jungle and start doing the wild thing with someone they really like. Yeah, sure, they have an occasional Alpha-chimp offspring. But not nearly as many as he thinks. Meanwhile, sure enough, all the other monkeys cover for the cheating female (oh you know, she's uh...over at her mother's. Yeah, that's the ticket, she's at her mother's). It's been observed, how they cover for philandering females. It's a chimp clump-wide conspiracy.

Meanwhile, the B-Males loll around doing as little as possible. 'Oh you're the boss, Asshole, I mean Alpha, you're definitely the boss. Anything you say sir, yes sir, not touching your females, no sir,' etc. Then as soon as the guy's back is turned, they scamper off, fuck their brains out, scamper back, 'just doing a little grooming, sir, nothing special, nothing at all', wait til his back his turned, high-five each other, and snicker wildly. Meanwhile, Alpha-Chimp is securing the territory that will get them the best bananas, taking the risks, making the decisions, getting beat up, prowling restlessly, and being tolerated for the benefits he brings.

This is a relatively low cost strategy for the supposedly dominated males and females. In truth, they are not dominated at all. They have more offspring year in and year out and there are always more of them then there are of the Asshole Chimps. As long as the deception holds, they put up with some brutality, some getting shoved around, some real pain in the ass encounters with the Chimp Who Has No Manners, and they have to act submissive while he's around. But that's jack as far as costs go when you consider not getting killed by other monkeys, scooping up the benefits of those luscious resource rich territories the guy's always defending and having adorable baby chimpanzees that carry your superior non-Asshole genes. It's a complete fucking scam!

Meanwhile, it's a relatively high-cost strategy for the Asshole Chimp but a livable one. In return for taking the risks, doing the beating up, and getting beat up, he has first access to the best mates, the best food, and the best services of everyone else in the clump when he needs something. In reality, odds are, he's going to live a comparatively short brutal life. He'll get old and not physically able to defend his territory. He'll get clubbed over the head by some other Alpha Chimp, maybe even his own son. He'll get beat up, he'll die, and chances are no one will fight that hard to save him. There's always some other Asshole Chimp ready to take his place. It's not like the chimp clump has any loyalty to him personally. They just need someone to fill his role. They'll let him die. But while he's alive, he'll be sure to reproduce. In fact, the clump wants him to because they want someone to fill that niche. They're not about to start putting their own asses on the line at this point. So he'll live hard and die hard. He'll fuck, he'll eat, he'll swagger, he'll fight, he'll go at it with everything's he got. He has to. It's his only choice. It's too late now. The clump won't tolerate him under any other conditions. His entire life will be spent defending himself against every other single chimp he ever encounters. Everyone is against him. And everyone uses him. And if that's the way it's going to be, he's sure as fuck going to live high while the going is good.

Some humans, lucky or not, were just simply fucking born to be chimps. It may be a primitive phenomenon, but it works. Assholes run the corporations that make everyone else rich. Assholes take the risks that no one else wants to take. Assholes make the decisions that no one else wants to bother with. Assholes run nations, when running a nation is a good way to get nothing but plotted against, overthrown, booted out of power, exiled, and assassinated. But in the meantime, they'll build the fucking roads and industries and whatever it fucking takes to make them seem like a big deal asshole to themselves, and they'll keep a lid on all those otherwise annoying junior freelance assholes who otherwise run around any society. Assholes bring home the bananas.

They make more money than you because they're supposed to. That's the bargain. They build the fucking railroads, the fiber optic networks, the toilet supplies businesses - they run Microsoft, and Apple, and America Online, they invent the lightbulb, they win the wars, they build Disneyland, and they create Nazi Germany. They're versatile, assholes are, and we hate them. But we made a bargain with them a long fucking time ago. And as long as we all keep whining and moaning and bitching about them and pretending we're scared of them....they'll keep bringing home the bananas.

Edited by forever freedom, 31 October 2009 - 07:38 PM.

I'm an alpha male.

Its great.

We haven't seen anything like the disappearance of the alpha male. What we've seen in the last 100 years is the emergence of the alpha female.

Humans are apes. Get over it.

Then go live in a jungle and see how long you survive tough one.

Ignoring the fact that I actually have literally spent time in an actual jungle. Why on earth would I do that? I'd rather use my intelligence and skill to cure aging and direct others to do the same. Which is exactly what I'm doing. I'm sorry if you got beat up in high school or whatever else happened to make you feel the need for continuous tantrums against what you describe as alpha males, but to dismiss not only that leaders serve a function but that they exist at all is lunacy.

Fountain, I didn't mean to come off as combative, if you perceived my post that way.

I used to feel exactly the way you do about "game-life" and competition. I refused to participate, and viewed myself as being "evolved" and above all of that. However, as I have aged I have come to accept that society is the way that it is. Sadly, after spending enough time in the real world of social networking and corporate America, I have come to accept things as they are, rather than how I would like them to be. Society functions under a set of rules. You can live isolated from society, criticize the norms, and speak of a better way. You cannot, however, fully participate in society with your hands over your ears and your eyes closed pretending that the things you seem to hate do not exist.

The inability to cope with and accept social norms is what leads people to breakdowns and lashing out against other human beings, bringing guns to school and the like.. Where have I seen this thought pattern in this thread... I digress..

Commence breaking my post down into out-of-context fragments so you can better deal with it.

I'm an alpha male.

Its great.

We haven't seen anything like the disappearance of the alpha male. What we've seen in the last 100 years is the emergence of the alpha female.

Humans are apes. Get over it.

Then go live in a jungle and see how long you survive tough one.

Ignoring the fact that I actually have literally spent time in an actual jungle. Why on earth would I do that? I'd rather use my intelligence and skill to cure aging and direct others to do the same. Which is exactly what I'm doing. I'm sorry if you got beat up in high school or whatever else happened to make you feel the need for continuous tantrums against what you describe as alpha males, but to dismiss not only that leaders serve a function but that they exist at all is lunacy.

You are implying that which I never stated. I never stated 'leaders don't exist'. I stated Alpha males don't exist. There is a big fat difference here. And it seems peoples definition of 'alpha male' is dependent upon successes. So was hitler not an alpha male? Is charles manson not an alpha male? Or are they Omega males? Is any male athlete who loses a game not an alpha male? It's really just a pathetic plug for an easy way to dismiss responsibility. I vote we toss the entire wording away. And no, I was quite a desired person in highschool. Does that make me an 'alpha male' as well? *VOMITS*

Edited by TheFountain, 01 November 2009 - 12:57 PM.

Fountain, I didn't mean to come off as combative, if you perceived my post that way.

I used to feel exactly the way you do about "game-life" and competition. I refused to participate, and viewed myself as being "evolved" and above all of that. However, as I have aged I have come to accept that society is the way that it is. Sadly, after spending enough time in the real world of social networking and corporate America, I have come to accept things as they are, rather than how I would like them to be. Society functions under a set of rules. You can live isolated from society, criticize the norms, and speak of a better way. You cannot, however, fully participate in society with your hands over your ears and your eyes closed pretending that the things you seem to hate do not exist.

The inability to cope with and accept social norms is what leads people to breakdowns and lashing out against other human beings, bringing guns to school and the like.. Where have I seen this thought pattern in this thread... I digress..

Commence breaking my post down into out-of-context fragments so you can better deal with it.

Stop trying to make yourself sound as if you've been where I have and are now over the hubris of thinking outside the box or whatever. It doesn't work that way. The way the mind evolves is pretty much in a straight line, you don't regress. Once you've learned something you cannot 'unlearn' it as yoda suggests. You can simply learn from it and apply it in whatever fashion necessary. To do otherwise is pretending and ignoring cultural evolution. You can't survive that way. If you try then you are living in a vacuum which is losing air exponentially.

Edited by TheFountain, 01 November 2009 - 12:56 PM.

Stop trying to make yourself sound as if you've been where I have and are now over the hubris of thinking outside the box or whatever. It doesn't work that way. The way the mind evolves is pretty much in a straight line, you don't regress. Once you've learned something you cannot 'unlearn' it as yoda suggests. You can simply learn from it and apply it in whatever fashion necessary. To do otherwise is pretending and ignoring cultural evolution. You can't survive that way. If you try then you are living in a vacuum which is losing air exponentially.

My sentiment towards the current social norms has not changed. The way I deal with it has. I agree with most of what you are saying, however in the society of today, the majority of people are not ready for, nor do they want full autonomy (responsibility).

You're right, people don't regress. Most people as they age come to accept the world the way it is, and rather than striking against it they learn to participate. Where do all of the protesters go when they get out of their 20's? Aside from the token few die-hards, they get jobs with the rest of us. I don't have an explanation as to why this happens, but it does. Maybe someone more versed in the psychology of aging and entering adulthood can explain why youthful idealism tends to disappear in favor of practicality.

Stop trying to make yourself sound as if you've been where I have and are now over the hubris of thinking outside the box or whatever. It doesn't work that way. The way the mind evolves is pretty much in a straight line, you don't regress. Once you've learned something you cannot 'unlearn' it as yoda suggests. You can simply learn from it and apply it in whatever fashion necessary. To do otherwise is pretending and ignoring cultural evolution. You can't survive that way. If you try then you are living in a vacuum which is losing air exponentially.

My sentiment towards the current social norms has not changed. The way I deal with it has. I agree with most of what you are saying, however in the society of today, the majority of people are not ready for, nor do they want full autonomy (responsibility).

You're right, people don't regress. Most people as they age come to accept the world the way it is, and rather than striking against it they learn to participate. Where do all of the protesters go when they get out of their 20's? Aside from the token few die-hards, they get jobs with the rest of us. I don't have an explanation as to why this happens, but it does. Maybe someone more versed in the psychology of aging and entering adulthood can explain why youthful idealism tends to disappear in favor of practicality.

It's not about aging, it's about evolving mentally. You proceed from the pathetic assumption that people in 'their 20s' hello? I am in my 20s! So are several guys I know who do not act like over-protective monkeys. The key is environment. All the people I know who act like idiots are invariably coming from an environment in which they were conditioned to the traits mentioned. It is either an inauguration period or some other arbitrary causation (such as having abusive parents) behind it. In effect you can have 25 year olds (such as myself) who are much more mentally evolved than guys 10, 15 or 20 years their senior. 'Age' has nothing to do with it. Or perhaps there is a difference between mental age and physical age. I don't know how old you are but it sounds like you come from the group of people who actually think that age invariably determines psychology. I don't subscribe to that notion, if that were the case then how could some of histories greatest artists have created their most endearing works in their late teens/early 20s? musicians? Philosophers? etc

Edited by TheFountain, 02 November 2009 - 05:33 AM.

hello? I am in my 20s!

This is clear.

I don't know how old you are but it sounds like you come from the group of people who actually think that age invariably determines psychology. I don't subscribe to that notion, if that were the case then how could some of histories greatest artists have created their most endearing works in their late teens/early 20s? musicians? Philosophers? etc

Age doesn't determine psychology. It does correlate rather well with life experience, and with that usually comes a degree of emotional maturity. A lot of people do their best work when they are young. That doesn't mean they aren't neurotic at the same time.

I don't think humans have the same kind of "alpha males" that other apes do. We are more complex, both biologically and socially. We are no longer living in small groups of hunter-gatherers where alpha and beta-ness evolved. If there are alpha males, they are the ones who tend be emotionally vapid, focus on suppressing dissent or "lock horns" with others. It is obviously a mixture of genetics and conditioning. Most people just go along with it.

Some males are on the fringe. The ones on the fringe are generally not alpha males. For example I doubt Nietzsche was an alpha male. He was just a highly intelligent person. Same with Alan Turing. Obama does not seem like an alpha, although he knows how to walk and talk like one through training I suspect.

Because we are no longer living in groups of hunter-gatherers, the normal ape hierarchy does not apply. Some people think depression is a result of modern life continuously giving us signals of "low rank", as we are working 40 hours per week rather than hunting and gathering 15 hours per week. We have anti-depressants to deal with it.

We are smart enough to think past our genes. Anyone with abilities can be a leader. Some of the traits we associate with leaders are just BS. People trust males with the brain chemistry to be dominating and presentable, but often end up with sociopathic leaders. Better to trust people with abilities, and we can because we are able to reflect back on the way society functions. Our ape ancestry does not tell the story of our present or our future.

Edited by exapted, 02 November 2009 - 11:05 AM.

Stop trying to make yourself sound as if you've been where I have and are now over the hubris of thinking outside the box or whatever. It doesn't work that way. The way the mind evolves is pretty much in a straight line, you don't regress. Once you've learned something you cannot 'unlearn' it as yoda suggests. You can simply learn from it and apply it in whatever fashion necessary. To do otherwise is pretending and ignoring cultural evolution. You can't survive that way. If you try then you are living in a vacuum which is losing air exponentially.

My sentiment towards the current social norms has not changed. The way I deal with it has. I agree with most of what you are saying, however in the society of today, the majority of people are not ready for, nor do they want full autonomy (responsibility).

You're right, people don't regress. Most people as they age come to accept the world the way it is, and rather than striking against it they learn to participate. Where do all of the protesters go when they get out of their 20's? Aside from the token few die-hards, they get jobs with the rest of us. I don't have an explanation as to why this happens, but it does. Maybe someone more versed in the psychology of aging and entering adulthood can explain why youthful idealism tends to disappear in favor of practicality.

I think I have an idea: Sex, marriage and financial bondage.

hello? I am in my 20s!

This is clear.

I don't know how old you are but it sounds like you come from the group of people who actually think that age invariably determines psychology. I don't subscribe to that notion, if that were the case then how could some of histories greatest artists have created their most endearing works in their late teens/early 20s? musicians? Philosophers? etc

Age doesn't determine psychology. It does correlate rather well with life experience, and with that usually comes a degree of emotional maturity. A lot of people do their best work when they are young. That doesn't mean they aren't neurotic at the same time.

I think the notion that age determines emotional maturity levels is just a devised notion forged by older generations to make themselves believe they have something on younger generations. There is always some attempt by the older to seem more wise, more experienced, more whatever than the younger generations. This results from people feeling increasingly obsolete as they get older and are conditioned by society into believing such. I have several friends who are far more mature than their parents are with regard to many different aspects of their lives. Conversely there are countless 30 something, 40 something and 50 something year olds whose lives are still dominated by adolescent mental trappings. I see it every day. So there is no particular lineal definition of maturity. It is not determined by age. Nor is experience. This is another dumb ass notion we need to chuck into the trash.

Edited by TheFountain, 02 November 2009 - 02:50 PM.

Obama does not seem like an alpha, although he knows how to walk and talk like one through training I suspect.

Where have you seen him walking and talking like an out of control idiot? He is very well composed, relaxed and in control of himself. Unlike Bush. And most who believe in the alpha male myth would argue that W was more of one than Obama. I don't know who came up with the notion that typical 'alpha male' behavior is some cool, intellectualized amazing kind of person but that is not the historical definition of alpha male. I think those who are trying to associate intellectualism with the alpha male problem are those who are in love with paleo-anthropology and think that their lives need revolve around anything but the dietary aspect of it. So they foolishly romanticize the epoch and try to place themselves in a modern version of it, not realizing they can never attain what never was to begin with.

Because we are no longer living in groups of hunter-gatherers, the normal ape hierarchy does not apply. Some people think depression is a result of modern life continuously giving us signals of "low rank", as we are working 40 hours per week rather than hunting and gathering 15 hours per week. We have anti-depressants to deal with it.

I think the knowledge that your output in life is not exceeding the gains is probably responsible for this. In truth most middle to lower class americans work closer to 60 hours a week and barely still make enough to survive on. This has nothing to do with alpha/omega depressive disorder and everything to do with a derived economical construct that isn't working out too well.

We are smart enough to think past our genes.

This statement is an oxymoron. If we are 'smart enough to think past our genes' obviously this is our genes to begin with. Why do people think there is mutual exclusivity between genetics and intelligence?

Anyone with abilities can be a leader. Some of the traits we associate with leaders are just BS. People trust males with the brain chemistry to be dominating and presentable, but often end up with sociopathic leaders.

Again Bush is a perfect example of a failed attempt at alpha male domination. The whole thing collapsed down upon itself like an avalanch.

Better to trust people with abilities, and we can because we are able to reflect back on the way society functions. Our ape ancestry does not tell the story of our present or our future.

Most people argue genetic similarity to apes. I say similarity is not exactness and that even a 0.01% difference in genetics is enough to make a species completely different than another. Of course our genetic difference with apes is much more pronounced than this exaggerated example, so I need not even argue the point further.

We are smart enough to think past our genes.

This statement is an oxymoron. If we are 'smart enough to think past our genes' obviously this is our genes to begin with. Why do people think there is mutual exclusivity between genetics and intelligence?

Well maybe behavior is like cancer or depression. There are genetic factors working against our goals that we can think past. I know what you're saying, if you're serious about evolution by natural selection then it is possible to take everything into account in terms of genetics.

And regarding Obama - Ok maybe you're right, but Obama does the stare down and the talking without using his hands, etc. I think Obama knows how to play the game, that's all I'm saying. He doesn't need to embrace all of the qualities we associate with "alpha". And again, I think humans are quite a bit more complex than the other apes, we don't have such clear social rank.

Anyone with abilities can be a leader. Some of the traits we associate with leaders are just BS. People trust males with the brain chemistry to be dominating and presentable, but often end up with sociopathic leaders.

Again Bush is a perfect example of a failed attempt at alpha male domination. The whole thing collapsed down upon itself like an avalanch.

I have no respect for Bush. But he was good at playing the obtuse country boy, he knew what he was doing, and he dodged a lot of bullets (and a couple of shoes?). But his intellectual abilities were not even there. I guess his performance in debates was that of the classical "alpha male" (although I thought he looked like a dork). And Dick Cheney was another one. Obama is cool and collected, but he still needs to be able to do stare-downs and maintain the right posture at the right moments. I guess that's not alpha but playing the game and being socially aware.

Edited by exapted, 02 November 2009 - 03:38 PM.

I'm not alpha-male, so I'm a bit afraid of the physical aggresion of Alphas. Then again, physical attacks I can handle, and in today's society, again physical attacks are unlikely to occur. Police are there to dissolve physical altercations. Intellectual manipulation and psychological "warfare" is more troublesome. our world's evolving to the age of Intellectual giants and Psych alpha, and not "caveman" alphas.

I know that this may upset some of the libertarians on the forums, but one of the points that Pinker brings up in this video seems correct. The institution of 'the state' is largely responsible for producing civilized society (not perfectly civilized, of course) because it eliminates the dynamic where interpersonal preemptive violence is seen as a necessary form of self defense.

Thanks for posting this. I'm a student of political science and I agree with Thomas Hobbes that the state of nature are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Julian Savulescu recently had a speech about what he defines as Enlightenment 2.0. He thinks that future generations of humans will be more responsible due to use of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) as embryo screening, germ-line engineering and others. I'm fascinated after watching his speech because I think he touch on a topic in our society that is very much a taboo. I also agree with him taht males are more violently do to biology. Personally I've never trusted a male.

The speech can be found here: http://www.humanityp...ace-extinction/

There is civilized company, but there is no civilized world.
It is pretty barbaric still.