[HN Gopher] The Alpha Myth: How captive wolves led us astray
___________________________________________________________________
The Alpha Myth: How captive wolves led us astray
Author : ada1981
Score : 374 points
Date : 2025-01-27 19:21 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (anthonydavidadams.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (anthonydavidadams.substack.com)
| Terr_ wrote:
| I often like to sum it up as: "Thinking gangs observed in prison
| represent human households."
|
| This goes along with an imagined mockumentary, narrated by a
| David Attenborough figure, ex: "In the living room, a
| confrontation is brewing. The Big Boss has informed the bottom-
| tier Henchmen Homies that it is time for lights-out, but they are
| not ready to leave the television and they resent the privileges
| of the older Made Man, who is permitted to remain. This is a
| problem for the Big Boss, since directly punishing them might
| undermine his claim to control the group as a whole. Fortunately
| for him, his Enforcer is arriving from the kitchen, attracted by
| the noise..."
| HPsquared wrote:
| Maybe not all households, but some. And schools bear more than
| a passing resemblance to prisons.
| bestouff wrote:
| Depends on the country.
| bigiain wrote:
| Yeah.
|
| Most countries manage to keep automatic weapons out of
| prisons.
| worik wrote:
| ...and schools
| bigiain wrote:
| (that was the joke...)
| eleveriven wrote:
| Yet it interesting how much of what we consider "human
| nature" is just us reacting to the cages we put ourselves in?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _interesting how much of what we consider "human nature"
| is just us reacting to the cages we put ourselves in?_
|
| Or that we aren't dogs. Chimpanzees _do_ have an alpha male
| who commonly achieves his role through violence.
| eleveriven wrote:
| But their (Chimpanzees') social dynamics aren't solely
| based on violence
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _their (Chimpanzees ') social dynamics aren't solely
| based on violence_
|
| Correct. A book on Chimpanzees was connected to human
| nature by a reviewer in the _Chicago Tribune_ , a 1999
| _Time_ article and the obviously totally-scientific pick-
| up book _The Game_ [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_and_beta_male
| psychoslave wrote:
| Humans can also exhibit behaviors closer to those of
| Bonobos.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11128
| ninalanyon wrote:
| > schools bear more than a passing resemblance to prisons.
|
| The qualifier _some_ needs to be applied to that too. None of
| the schools I have any personal knowledge of in the UK or
| Norway bear (or bore in the case of my own childhood) the
| slightest resemblance to a prison. Well, there was one. I
| accompanied a colleague in the US when he picked up his
| daughter at the end of the school day, I was astonished to
| find that he had to present himself at a reception desk that
| was guarding locked doors that were the only way in and out.
| graemep wrote:
| I think you are taking it too literally.
|
| It is not about having bars and armed guards, it is about
| having a strong fixed hierarchy, fixed routines, rules far
| stricter than society outside, punishments such as being
| put in isolation etc.
|
| A lot of this applies to some other highly disciplined
| environments such as the military too, but it is not the
| norm for most of us (and the military volunteer to be
| there).
|
| The physical and security aspects of a school in the UK are
| not like a prison, but the social and discipline aspects
| are. More so at some schools than others and I think people
| who have only had contact with better schools do not
| realise how bad the bad ones can be.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| > I think people who have only had contact with better
| schools do not realise how bad the bad ones can be
|
| I grew up in a poor rural area and my wife an upper class
| coastal community, both in the USA. It's amazing to
| compare and contrast our public school experiences. I was
| just trying to survive a situation that was both
| psychologically and physically abusive, with public
| humiliation rituals, solitary confinement, and gangs of
| bullies that cornered and robbed people and violently
| punished social non conformity- I still feel terror
| remembering it decades later. Even the lessons were
| nonsense propaganda- science classes literally focused on
| creationism, history class on "states rights," etc. She
| was in a playful relaxing environment that included
| regular upper class leisure activities like sailing,
| skiing, and horseback riding, and had well equipped
| science labs with teachers that were passionate about
| science.
| cladopa wrote:
| It is probably more about the difference between women
| and men experience growing up. Women usually do not face
| violence directly. They face other problems though.
|
| Don't believe for a second that growing up in an upper
| class environment does not have social dynamics. I grew
| up in one in Europe. In an upper class school there are
| bullies as bad as you could find in a lower class one,
| probably worse, because they have resources and
| connections to create harm. And sometimes their parents
| are worse than them.
|
| Do not idealise what you have not live. You could go
| skiing and they can choke with the ski poles. This
| happened to one of my friends because he criticised one
| guy.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| You are not understanding the extent of violence and
| abuse I am talking about, and how it was systematically
| led and encouraged by the teachers and staff. I'm not
| talking about just bullies being at the school- or normal
| boys dominance and fighting - of course that can happen
| anywhere.
|
| Despite going to a poor school, my family was well off,
| and I had personal experience with other environments
| including Boy Scouts, summer camps, etc. that still
| included normal social dynamics between boys with plenty
| of fighting, etc. but that is absolutely nothing like
| what I am describing above.
| pixl97 wrote:
| While I didn't go to more wealthy schools as a child, I
| grew up in a 'middle class to poorish' rural area in the
| midwest and moved to a poorish area in the south.
|
| I'll use your own words to describe the change in the
| experience
|
| >I was just trying to survive a situation that was both
| psychologically and physically abusive, with public
| humiliation rituals, solitary confinement, and gangs of
| bullies that cornered and robbed people and violently
| punished social non conformity-
|
| I got the full 'the science teacher is the bully coach
| and believes the world was created 6000 years ago, and if
| you were one of the kids they liked you could commit
| crimes, and you were not liked then crimes could be
| committed against you' experience.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| That word for word describes what I experienced- we could
| have been in the same class
| graemep wrote:
| At least in the UK creationism is a rarity. The huge
| difference between good and bad schools exists though.
|
| My kids were home educated up to 16 and then went to a
| sixth form college (school for 16 to 18 year olds) that
| is pretty good and well funded with some really good
| teachers (the physics teachers are outstanding - one that
| taught by older daughter now works for CERN, the head of
| department has a PhD, and they are all passionate about
| the subject). its not immune from league table pressure,
| the curse of education in the UK.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| > it is about having a strong fixed hierarchy, fixed
| routines, rules far stricter than society outside,
| punishments such as being put in isolation etc.
|
| What do you make of the recent claim that something like
| 20-30% of people are fundamentally authoritarian in
| nature and want these fixed hierarchies and routines?
| RobotToaster wrote:
| > And schools bear more than a passing resemblance to
| prisons.
|
| and some workplaces.
|
| Arguably many cities more resemble "captivity" than a natural
| environment.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Everywhere where you are unhappy and/or uncomfortable is a
| prison for yourself. It could be a football stadion where
| some weird guy has made you the mocking target.
| ada1981 wrote:
| Genius concept.
| jojobas wrote:
| Gangs in prison represent gangs out of prison though.
| skyyler wrote:
| I don't think that's true, actually.
|
| Do you have any evidence that suggests prison gangs are
| similar to street gangs?
| pineaux wrote:
| I think they are, but causality is the other way around. A
| lot of gang originate from prison. Its really logical too,
| you put all the crime-graduates in a place together and you
| think they wont become friends and partners in crime?
| master-lincoln wrote:
| > Its really logical too, you put all the crime-graduates
| in a place together and you think they wont become
| friends and partners in crime?
|
| Maybe, but the question was a different one: are group
| dynamics in a gang in a prison the same as in a gang
| outside the prison?
| aetherson wrote:
| Street gangs are really fascinating, and aren't, like,
| "well-oiled crime machines" in general.
|
| Economically, you have to understand some of the function
| of a street gang as we currently understand them: it is
| to be able to provide retail drug sales without either
| elaborate vetting of clients (which many potential
| clients will be unable to comply with), and without
| having the police be able to trivially shut it down.
|
| The thing that makes this work is the use of juveniles to
| take the money/hand off the drugs. The police can easily
| find and arrest them, but they don't suffer prison
| sentences or unsealed criminal records as a result.
| Adults monitor the process but do not handle the drugs or
| money out in the open, so it is non-trivial to arrest
| them.
|
| As a result, gangs have to be attractive to juveniles
| (almost exclusively boys), and function in a lot of ways
| as a social group and/or a somewhat violent community
| sports team (the sport in question being "having
| fistfights with other gangs"). Adult criminals who lead
| the gang push towards more serious violence with economic
| goals (eg: seizing the most valuable territory) and less
| social activities, the teenagers who are in the gang push
| towards more recreational violence and more social
| activities. Depending on what the size of the economic
| opportunity is in the area, you get more or less
| professional-seeming gangs.
|
| So for example you see all this kind of D&D-like creation
| of iconography and myths in street gangs, strange coded
| symbols that they use in graffiti and superstitious
| beliefs (Bloods avoiding the use of the letter "c" in
| their words because it evokes their rivals the Crips),
| that I, at least, felt an undeniable resonance with in
| terms of my own adolescence. This doesn't serve an
| economic rationale and I think that adult gang leaders
| mostly are annoyed with it as a distraction, but reflects
| the interests and proclivities of the rank-and-file
| members.
|
| You also need most of the teenagers to age out of the
| gang and leave (the gang can't absorb lots of adult
| members), which means being somewhat relaxed about entry
| and exit to the gang.
|
| Absent an economic rationale for the gang, like prior to
| the rise of organized drug sales, my understanding is
| that teenage-dominated gangs were in general just social
| circles for malcontent teenage males, who largely did,
| like, vandalism and antisocial pranks, not Real Big
| Serious Crime.
|
| Prison gangs, lacking the juvenile component, seem to me
| to be seriously different, though I've never read much
| about them.
| int_19h wrote:
| It's fairly common historically for gangs to arise out of
| organized communal self-defense that itself happens in
| response to some threat. Once the threat is gone, the
| structure remains in place and members keep looking for
| ways to apply their newly acquired skills, with
| protection racket being a popular choice.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Why wouldn't it be?
|
| You go to prison and have your rights stripped away and you
| pretty much have nothing. As much as gangs use violence
| they also provide protection and friendship.
|
| Now you get out of prison and you have that big old
| criminal stain on your record. You're having trouble
| surviving and making enough, but you remember your new gang
| friends tell you to find a guy when you're out and he can
| help you. Congratulations, the circle is complete.
| skyyler wrote:
| So you feel like it's true, and have constructed a model
| in your mind to explain why. Very interesting! Thank you
| for sharing.
| llbeansandrice wrote:
| "Why not?" Isn't evidence and there's a burden of proof
| that goes with the above claim.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I remember as a kid listening to adults talk about gender
| relations and thinking, you guys are talking about cattle and
| dogs.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| The flaw with the OP's article is that Alphas are not only
| observed in captive wolves. They are observed in MANY wild
| animal groups and even observed among humans.
|
| I mean the first thing that comes to mind is lions and
| gorillas. Also CEOs in human societies. I mean are they not
| alphas? Don't we structure our teams according to leaders?
| Alphas litter human society and organizations. I feel the
| author is blind not to be able to see the highly pyramidal
| structure of alphas that encompasses every facet of human
| culture.
| wavefunction wrote:
| bunch of submissive in the sheets CEOs? as long as we're
| operating on feelings and emotions here the whole thing is
| dimwitted bullshit psychological theory
| astahlx wrote:
| Lions? Females rule the groups there. See
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBiology/s/M1VsH34t5Y
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| That articles says females do the hunting and getting food
| for the male while males only handle territory.
|
| That's equivalent to the male on the couch watching TV with
| a shotgun on his lap defending his territory and the
| females going hunting (aka kitchen) to make the husband a
| sandwich.
|
| Joking aside the males are the leaders. How do I know? They
| kill the kids on arrival and the females can't do fuck
| shit.
| nosianu wrote:
| > _That articles says females do the hunting and getting
| food for the male while males only handle territory._
| That articles says females do the hunting and getting
| food for the male while males only handle territory.*
|
| That's a myth.
|
| Male lions _do_ hunt. When hunting alone and not as
| "heavy support" for the females, they use different
| strategies than the females, and do it in a different
| environment. I read an article from a researcher about
| that in particular, can't remember any context to find it
| quickly though.
|
| There are many (scientific and casual) articles like that
| though:
|
| - https://singita.com/archive/wildlife/wildlife-
| mythbusters-ta...
|
| - https://medium.com/@shelldonwells/do-male-lions-
| hunt-e9f5ea5...
| ada1981 wrote:
| Ahoy. I agree that humans aren't wolves.
|
| For a good primer on hierarchy dynamics in human systems, I
| recommend Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan.
|
| In what Logan calls stage 3 leadership, organizations cluster
| around individual "rockstar" people - and this is the vast
| majority of human organizations.. they estimate 80%.
|
| In Stage 4, it's all rockstar people organized around values
| vs. a person.
|
| You certainly still have people who have authority through
| competency, but people aren't granted authority based purely
| on "position".
|
| Stage 4 culture are the best in the world, and learning how
| to build them is a worthwhile skill.
| Avshalom wrote:
| Lions, gorillas don't recapitulate "alpha"s and CEOs are a
| legal not natural construct.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| The legal document is a natural construct born out of the
| moral and behavioral instincts humans have.
| fsckboy wrote:
| CEOs are not a legal construct, that's the "President" of a
| corp, or the "Chairman of the Board". CEO is a popular
| sobriquet because it sounds cooler.
| Avshalom wrote:
| Incorporations are legal constructs. Any position in one
| is even more so.
| fsckboy wrote:
| Corporations are required by law to have Presidents and
| Chairmen. That is the legal construct.
|
| They are not required to have CEOs who therefore sit on
| shakier legal ground.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Corporations are required by law to have Presidents
| and Chairmen_
|
| Varies by jurisdiction. Common ones are a president,
| secretary and treasurer. (They can be the same person.)
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| Don't CEOs spend a lot of their time groveling to investors
| for money?
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| We live in a hierarchical pyramid where there are alphas
| managing sub alphas and this happens at multiple
| resolutions within our society.
|
| The ceos are groveling to investors, aka billionaires. I
| guess those guys are the true alphas.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| For some public companies retail share holders also have
| to be groveled to.
|
| I don't have an overall point here other than that power
| isn't as simple as some people want it to be. You command
| a ship until there's a mutiny. There are hierarchies, but
| that's only one way of slicing things. It's more about a
| set of several feedback loops that nobody explicitly
| understands.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Of course it's not simple. But alphas and betas are
| intrinsic to society and that's my point.
|
| You will see that society converges towards alphas. There
| have been attempts to make everything egalitarian but it
| doesn't last and alphas pop up everywhere. Heck you can't
| even make a purely voting society where society votes on
| everything. Instead everyone votes for an alpha. Aka
| trump.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| Citations, please. This may be a US-centric site, but
| that does not mean all societies on this planet behave
| like Americans.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Capital by Thomas Picketty. He's French.
|
| I don't like your tone. When you say not everyone behaves
| like Americans you sound like you're implying superiority
| as if Americans don't behave well and I have to conform
| to your version of good behavior. Change your tone or I
| won't continue with you.
| yndoendo wrote:
| You just redefined alpha as a person with money.
|
| I would argue that the wealthy which hold loans based on
| stock collateral are holding debt and not credit. US
| banking laws are just hiding the fact. So a number of
| rich people you define as alpha are not really alpha
| because of debt vs credit imbalance.
|
| This means the person spending money while going through
| Disney World are alpha.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Bro I define an alpha as someone who leads and controls
| others. Someone people follow whether by will or by force
| or because they are paid a salary.
|
| You're just being pedantic. I don't need to explain to
| you why people intrinsically know Elon musk is an alpha
| and the person going to Disney world is a beta.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| It is hilarious to see people use bro pseudo-science to
| reconstruct dialectical materialism.
| darkerside wrote:
| This is a very not HN comment
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Sure HNers hate Elon for various reasons. But overall
| some random dude who goes to disney world versus A
| billionaire who caught a rocket and makes stupid tweets
| online.... Let's be real here about what "society"
| defines as alpha, not some HNers backwater opinion.
|
| ANd even that HNer knows his contrary opinion is
| backwater. Trump and Elon get a lot of hate, but they are
| leaders on the apex of the human status hierarchy.
| blackqueeriroh wrote:
| > Trump and Elon get a lot of hate, but they are leaders
| on the apex of the human status hierarchy.
|
| Trump can't spell "Colombia" and Elon is, at best, an
| idiot savant.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| When I think of "leaders of the human status hierarchy",
| I do not think of a man who spends his entire day online
| trolling people, regardless of whether he is worth
| billions or not. Similarly, I don't picture a guy that
| wears lifts because he is ashamed of his height, or who
| paints his face orange, to be that "apex" either.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| I'm really confused as to how trips to Disney are
| entering the conversation here. What does that have to do
| with any of this discussion?
| vpribish wrote:
| look, HN, stop feeding the troll. he's tweaking you -
| just shun him
| yndoendo wrote:
| To me the Alpha Mentality is just stupidity in another
| Yes-Man form.
|
| Seems you hold the alpha mentality deeply and respect
| those you seem as alpha. By your own logic, cult leaders
| are alpha and should be respected.
|
| Respect can only be earned, continuously reinforced, and
| lost in a single moment. Respect cannot be demanded or
| forcefully requested.
|
| Watch the first episode of "Band of Brothers". Who would
| you want as a leader, the alpha, one with power, Captain
| Herbert Sobel or 2nd Lutenaint Richard Winters, the one
| without power?
| error_logic wrote:
| The thing is that when someone has to work hard to seem Alpha
| they are instead revealing their insecurity--the need to
| compensate to hide vulnerability.
|
| Some people play into that game, others see through it.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Alphas are just leaders. Whether they have vulnerabilities
| is orthogonal to the fact that they control and lead the
| pack. Whether it's through force or pay.
|
| Do you have a good boss that you like who's a good person?
| He's an alpha. You're a beta if you're under him. Do you
| have a boss who's an ass hole who got pegged and raped by
| his uncle when he was a kid and now he's taking all that
| pent up humiliation on you? Yeah he has a big
| vulnerability. But. He. Is. Still. An. Alpha.
|
| It's not a game. Games are for friend groups and kids. I'm
| talking about the economic engine that builds civilization
| itself. That engine is made up of a hierarchy of alphas and
| betas.
| jonnybgood wrote:
| That's not how the word alpha is used colloquially. I
| believe error_logic is referring to its colloquial usage.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| The colloquial usage is leaders. Not people with
| insecurities.
| defrost wrote:
| _A_ colloquial usage is leaders.
|
| Another common colloquial usage is total self obsessed
| wanker.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The only colloquial usage I've seen is that it is someone
| who has the ability to demand that others perform a
| public display of obedience to them. Like every time I've
| seen somebody unironically refer to themself as an
| "alpha," it's always had that underlying connotation of
| "Respect Me!" And every time I've seen someone mocking
| somebody else for being an "alpha," it's because, well,
| that respect was clearly undeserved.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Right but the term here is used to categorize
| human/animal hierarchies/behavior in an objective
| context. No one is here projecting their alphaness onto
| others. Clearly.
| earnestinger wrote:
| > Like every time I've seen somebody unironically refer
| to themself as an "your leader," it's always had that
| underlying connotation of "Respect Me!" And every time
| I've seen someone mocking somebody else for being an "my
| leader," it's because, well, that respect was clearly
| undeserved.
|
| I think same sentiment persists when alpha->"your leader"
| replacement is made.
| fenomas wrote:
| > Alphas are just leaders
|
| If you redefine alpha to just mean "leader", then the
| claim that CEOs are alphas is obviously true, but also
| meaningless.
|
| But the theory TFA is about was not just that wolf packs
| had a leader. It made a bunch of other claims, as TFA
| describes, and those other parts (that you're excluding)
| are what's considered debunked.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| There's no redefinition here. When we refer to animals in
| every context, alphas are leaders. There's no
| "redefinition" going on here at all. What's going on is
| you're not able to see how alphas apply to human society.
| You're not able to jump the intellectual gap to identify,
| "hey if packs of animals have alphas, what's the human
| equivalent?"
|
| I attempted to jump that gap for you, but you're not able
| to see it.
|
| >But the theory TFA is about was not just that wolf packs
| had a leader. It made a bunch of other claims, as TFA
| describes, and those other parts (that you're excluding)
| are what's considered debunked.
|
| And he applies that to humans without considering alphas
| in other animal hierarchies. He implies that the entire
| theoretical concept of alphas comes ONLY from wolves and
| once he debunks wolves (with no citations) he debunks the
| entire concept of what an alpha is. Riiggght.
| cbsmith wrote:
| > There's no redefinition here. When we refer to animals
| in every context, alphas are leaders.
|
| Yes, there is a redefinition. The context of Alpha Wolf
| was based on the notion of a dominance hierarchy, which
| does occur when unrelated wolves are put together in a
| confined space. In the wild though, they function more
| like a family, with no acts of dominance. The breeding
| pair still lead the pack, but not through dominance.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20051214072331/http://www.npw
| rc....
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42848939
| cbsmith wrote:
| That'd be relevant if it pointed to a problem with the
| etymology of the term Alpha Wolf.
| earnestinger wrote:
| Dominance != aggression
|
| (South park had interesting episode on that)
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Which episode are you thinking of?
| cycomanic wrote:
| Have you actually read the article? He does give a
| citation to the same author who initially coined the term
| alpha wolf.
|
| And redefining alpha to just mean leader is a
| redefinition, as written in the article the term
| originates from the alpha wolf who achieved dominance
| through overtly aggressive behaviour (which does not
| match with how wolves behave in the wild).
|
| It's ironic that you bring up CEOs etc as proof that
| there's alphas, when the whole premise of the article is
| that recent structuring of human society is based on an
| this wrong view that the aggressive dominance is
| "natural" and what is required for leaders
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| >Have you actually read the article? He does give a
| citation to the same author who initially coined the term
| alpha wolf.
|
| I meant link to source. Like point me to the place where
| he defined it that way. Instead he just made a claim
| without a citation.
|
| For example:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42848939
|
| These are citations proving my point.
| fenomas wrote:
| > What's going on is you're not able to see how alphas
| apply to human society. You're not able to jump the
| intellectual gap to identify, "hey if packs of animals
| have alphas, what's the human equivalent?"
|
| I literally just pointed out that if you are defining
| alpha to mean "leader" then it's meaningless to then
| claim that leaders are alphas. That was the comment.
| earnestinger wrote:
| > if you are defining alpha to mean "leader"
|
| Could you elaborate what is the meaning of "alpha"? (I
| sense there is definition, that is being kept secret from
| me)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Could you elaborate what is the meaning of "alpha"?_
|
| There isn't a fixed definition [1]. Most definitions
| reference dominance, _e.g._ Merriam-Webster [2].
| (Annoyingly, dominance also has different meanings in
| anthropology, animal ethology, sociology and common use.)
|
| But due to the term being relatively new, adopted from
| animal ethology, co-tiopted by the memeverse and now
| being politically charged, you're basically walking into
| semantic ground zero by using the term.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_and_beta_male
|
| [2] https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/alpha#word-histor...
| bbwbsb wrote:
| (Dominance-related) insecurity is being pathologically
| averse to being seen as weak, which leads to preferring
| dominance as form over dominance as function. If the meek
| hippie gets everything he wants from his wife, his
| neighbors, his peers, etc., and the physically impressive
| traditional man is ignored and rejected, then the hippie
| is more dominant (i.e., leading and getting what he
| wants) than the traditional man (even if he is abusing
| his wife the whole time she laughs at him).
|
| The actually effective strategies are available to the
| insecure but shunned and rejected because they cannot be
| tolerated, creating a self-imposed impotence.
|
| The word alpha, in almost every context I've observed, is
| used exclusively to refer to such dominance as form,
| especially in substitution for dominance as function.
| i.e., it is applied almost exclusively to people who are
| definitionally _not_ dominant.
|
| The only exception I have encountered is women-focused
| kink literature which, being fantasy, maintains that
| dominance as form is dominance as function so as to make
| sexual fantasies seem more real.
|
| In short: you are describing a kink, not real life.
| Though I consider that you might be joking too; I really
| can't tell.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| >In short: you are describing a kink, not real life.
| Though I consider that you might be joking too; I really
| can't tell.
|
| The fact that you said this means you're out of touch
| with reality. Let me provide evidence about how wrong you
| are: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42848939
|
| Literally you can go to the dictionary yourself and look
| up the definition to see how baseless your argument is.
|
| I don't know why you people are just pulling this bs out
| of thin air. It can't be just BS is several people are
| coming from your angle despite extraordinary evidence to
| the contrary. Maybe it's just shared victimhood. Were you
| bullied by these types of people before?
| hackable_sand wrote:
| They are right though. You are describing a kink.
| gilleain wrote:
| > I don't know why you people are just pulling this bs
| out of thin air.
|
| "Am I so out of touch? No. It's the children who are
| wrong." - Principal Skinner
| bbwbsb wrote:
| I call it a kink because I attract women with the kink.
|
| I'm referring to pragmatics not semantics; the use of
| dictionary definitions is a category error.
|
| No, I was not bullied. People like I describe would
| posture, I would raise my eyebrow and wait, and then they
| would treat me nice and pretend it didn't happen.
| Dominance as form outside the bedroom is remarkably
| ineffective. That's why I call it dominance as form.
|
| "When a diplomat says yes, he means 'perhaps'; When he
| says perhaps, he means 'no'; When he says no, he is not a
| diplomat. --Voltaire (Quoted, in Spanish, in Escandell
| 1993.)
|
| These lines -- also attributed to H. L. Mencken and Carl
| Jung -- may or may not be fair to diplomats, but are
| surely correct in reminding us that more is involved in
| what one communicates than what one literally says; more
| is involved in what one means than the standard,
| conventional meaning of the words one uses. The words
| 'yes,' 'perhaps,' and 'no' each has a perfectly
| identifiable meaning, known by every speaker of English
| (including not very competent ones). However, as those
| lines illustrate, it is possible for different speakers
| in different circumstances to mean different things using
| those words. How is this possible? What's the
| relationship among the meaning of words, what speakers
| mean when uttering those words, the particular
| circumstances of their utterance, their intentions, their
| actions, and what they manage to communicate? These are
| some of the questions that pragmatics tries to answer;
| the sort of questions that, roughly speaking, serve to
| characterize the field of pragmatics."[1]
|
| --
|
| 1: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatics/
| watwut wrote:
| > Alphas are just leaders.
|
| No they are not. There are plenty of leaders who are not
| alphas and they lead organizations that achieve good
| things.
|
| Alphas are generally just assholes who want to be
| leaders. They usually lead self selected friends who
| crave their validation and people with healthy boundaries
| just nope out of those systems.
| jrmg wrote:
| It seems clear in all your replies here that you see 'alpha'
| as a synonym for 'leader', and as a somewhat relative term
| (like, my boss is an alpha to me, and a beta to their boss).
| Given your definition, of course it's obvious that it apples
| to many facets of human society. Leaders and followers are
| all around us.
|
| But in popular discourse there's also a sense of 'alphas'
| getting into their position by violence or assholery that I
| think your definition is missing.
|
| Even in scientific discourse, there is the idea that 'alphas'
| must gain their position by dominance - not by other methods
| (prestige, age, etc).
|
| People use words in different ways, so in a way your
| definition is as good as any other, but (as with anything
| language related) you can't really insist on it if others
| think it means something different and you want to have
| reasonable conversations with them (ironically, insisting on
| your definition seems like an attempt to assert dominance).
|
| Edit: removed some snark, sorry. But I'll also add: the
| article uses the scientific usage I mentioned above: wild
| real wolf pack 'leaders' aren't 'alphas' because they don't
| maintain their position by dominating the other wolves.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| The claim that "alpha" is defined as requiring violence or
| assholery is incorrect, and this is backed by scientific
| studies, dictionary definitions, and leadership psychology
| research. Here's why:
|
| 1. Official Dictionary Definitions Oxford English
| Dictionary (OED): Alpha (in social contexts):
| "A person who assumes a dominant role in a particular
| group, especially one who is respected or influential."
|
| Oxford English Dictionary - Alpha Definition
|
| Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Alpha (as in 'Alpha
| Male/Female'): "The most dominant,
| powerful, or assertive person in a particular group."
|
| Merriam-Webster - Alpha Definition
|
| Nowhere in these definitions does it state that an alpha
| must use violence or aggression to gain dominance.
|
| 2. Scientific Studies on Leadership & Alpha Behavior Study:
| Dominance Hierarchies in Social Animals Dugatkin, L. A.
| (1997). "Winner and Loser Effects and the Structure of
| Dominance Hierarchies." Behavioral Ecology, 8(5), 583-587.
| "Dominance hierarchies in animal and human groups are often
| established through social signaling, resource control, and
| cooperation rather than brute force."
|
| Dugatkin, 1997
|
| Study: Leadership Without Aggression in the Animal Kingdom
| Smith, J. E. et al. (2016). "Obligate Sociality Without
| Cooperation: Insights From Other Taxa." Behavioral Ecology,
| 27(1), 1-14. "Alphas are often those who
| exhibit superior social intelligence, cooperation, and
| decision-making ability rather than reliance on aggressive
| behaviors."
|
| Smith et al., 2016
|
| These studies explicitly state that alphas do NOT require
| violence to gain or maintain their status.
|
| 3. Leadership Psychology: Alphas Lead Without Coercion
| Goleman, D. (1995). "Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can
| Matter More Than IQ." Bantam Books. "True
| leaders, or 'alphas' in human social dynamics, are those
| who possess high emotional intelligence, resilience, and
| ability to influence without coercion."
|
| Goleman, 1995
|
| Bass, B. M. (1990). "From Transactional to Transformational
| Leadership: Learning to Share the Vision." Organizational
| Dynamics, 18(3), 19-31. "Successful
| leadership is based on vision, respect, and strategy.
| Coercion and force are indicative of weak leadership rather
| than true dominance."
|
| Bass, 1990
|
| These sources define "alpha" as a leader who influences
| others positively, not through aggression.
|
| 4. Debunking the Claim That "Alpha" = Violence L. David
| Mech (1999). "Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of
| Labor in Wolf Packs." "The term 'alpha' is often
| misunderstood. In both animals and humans, successful
| leadership is based on intelligence, decision-making
| ability, and social bonding--not brute force."
|
| Mech, 1999
|
| This refutes the claim that alpha = inherently violent.
|
| Final Conclusion: The Definition of "Alpha" Does NOT
| Require Violence Dictionaries define "alpha" as dominance
| through leadership, not necessarily aggression. Scientific
| studies show that dominance in social animals is often
| achieved through cooperation and intelligence. Leadership
| psychology research confirms that true human "alphas" lead
| through respect and influence, not assholery. The idea that
| "alpha" = "violent dictator" is a pop culture myth, not
| backed by science or formal definitions.
| oguz-ismail wrote:
| Except all living things are inherently violent and
| knowing when to apply what amount of violence is part of
| being socially intelligent.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Violence is an effective strategy. One of many. It's not
| stable but it has been used successfully in human
| history. The thing is you can't have a society that's
| constantly violent all the time forever and ever. Those
| tend to self select via natural selection.
|
| You can have societies be temporarily violent like how
| Americans slaughtered and killed Native Americans and
| took over the continent. The formation of the USA comes
| from this type of effective violence. Who would be the
| alphas in this case? the native americans? Or the ones
| that invaded? I know I'm a bit on the nose here, but this
| is just reality.
| oezi wrote:
| Citation needed. Such a vast generalization seems
| obviously false.
|
| I don't even think the concept of violence makes sense
| when the being causing it has sufficient cognition.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Strange take.
|
| Violence is like a key on a piano. You were born with it.
| You can choose not to play that note, but it is always
| there, it is never not there.
|
| You can choose to play great melodies without the
| violence note. You can choose to play melodies with the
| violence note. You can be forced in a corner and have no
| option but to hammer the violence key until the strings
| scream.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Official Dictionary Definitions Oxford English
| Dictionary (OED): Alpha (in social contexts): "A person
| who assumes a dominant role in a particular group,
| especially one who is respected or influential."_
|
| Do you have a link for this definition? I'm unable to
| find it or the one you attribute to Merriam-Webster on
| their websites.
|
| (Their websites are shit. I'm curious about the dates
| around those definitions.)
| ellen364 wrote:
| Dugatkin, "Winner and Loser Effects and the Structure of
| Dominance Hierarchies" was an interesting read this
| morning. Thanks for the reference.
|
| The main thing I take away from the paper is that (in
| computer simulations) bigger winner effects and bigger
| loser effects lead to strongly defined hierarchies. Fewer
| subjects have ambiguous positions.
|
| I'm not sure the paper speaks much to which strategies
| (e.g. violence vs cooperation) are more common or
| effective.
| glenstein wrote:
| Right, it seems to entirely abstract away the nature of
| the interactions themselves, and is modeling how changes
| to position in hierarchy unfold over time with repeated
| wins or losses. It's not speaking to the nature of the
| interaction itself, and so not really taking sides on
| whether it does or doesn't involve such things as force,
| toughness, etc.
| cutemonster wrote:
| > These sources define "alpha" as a leader who influences
| others positively, not through aggression.
|
| No? Look:
|
| Your Merriam-Webster quote (although I can't find it
| online)
|
| "the most dominant, powerful, or assertive person"
|
| That's not becoming a leader by being helpful and getting
| people's trust.
|
| It's instead dominance and assertiveness, that's
| something else.
|
| I think you mistakenly what to have the word "alpha" mean
| the same thing as "leader". But I think that's not how
| people in general look at these words.
| glenstein wrote:
| I just checked your #2 Dugatkin. I am only able to access
| the abstract [0] (though interested in the full article
| as you appear to be quoting from part of it which is not
| publicly available).
|
| It does not at all represent itself as even taking a
| specific side on the meaning of "alpha" let alone testify
| to an academic consensus of any decisive proof one way or
| the other. It doesn't even have anything to do with the
| study itself at all.
|
| The line you quoted seems more like an aside. The study
| was apparently about a simulated game theoretic model,
| and even refers to the units in the simulation as
| "combatants". It is an attempt to model and simulate
| "winner effects" and "loser effects" in tandem over time.
| It's mostly interested in contrasting this approach with
| models that only deal with "winner effects" or "loser
| effects" but not their simultaneous dynamics.
|
| It ends with a modest expression of hope to spur future
| similar studies and is not even pretending to venture
| anything like a final definition of "alpha", let alone
| represent the full weight of academic consensus on that
| question. Citing it for that purpose feels like drive-by
| quote mining.
|
| 0. https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article-
| abstract/8/6/583/208...
| glenstein wrote:
| >you see 'alpha' as a synonym for 'leader'
|
| I mean that's all true enough, but their point, at least
| narrowly read as a general observation about animals,
| stands. There are ample examples in nature of dominance
| hierarchies, even if wolves aren't one of them.
|
| Of course, as you note, looking to these examples as a
| basis for a personal ethos for tough guy psychology is
| error riddled in so many ways you could write a book
| unpacking it all. (E.g. why choose other animals remote
| from the lineage of apes to which we belong, why for that
| matter not just study humans in the first place, why hitch
| _any_ ethos to what happens in nature, why not look at what
| it says about people who seem to need to indulge in this
| search, etc.)
|
| It's good to show that this argument fails on its own terms
| with its own chosen example, but getting into that kind of
| back and forth risks implicitly agreeing that it _would_ be
| right to think that way, should such an example be found in
| nature. And those examples _do_ exist in nature even if not
| necessarily with wolves.
|
| But as you noted that doesn't have anything to do with
| better or worse, right or wrong, and is completely lacking
| in self-awareness about the _actual_ psychological dynamics
| that causes people to need these kinds of narratives.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _first thing that comes to mind is lions and gorillas_
|
| Better ones are chickens and horses. (Females, I believe, in
| both cases.)
|
| Gorillas have a variety of social structures, only one which
| involves the Silverback fighting for dominance [1]. With
| lions, meanwhile, the females eat first [2].
|
| > _are they not alphas? Don 't we structure our teams
| according to leaders?_
|
| Leaders, yes. Hotheads, no. The "alpha" hypothesis states
| that the most aggressive rises to the top.
|
| [1] https://gorillas-world.com/gorilla-social-structure/
|
| [2] https://www.felineworlds.com/lion-social-structure/
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| nah I've seen hotheads as leaders. It's not
| straightforward.
|
| See here on what an alpha is:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42848939
|
| Also for chickens, I've raised chickens. Trust me the
| rooster is the leader and that thing is a male.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I 've seen hotheads as leaders_
|
| Of course. Nobody argued aggression isn't effective. The
| argument is it isn't _the_ effective strategy, just one
| among many.
|
| > _See here on what an alpha is_
|
| You're taking a definition that arose from animal
| observations and then filtered through anthropological
| and management academia. Colloquial, academic and
| industry definitions have diverged on this term; it's
| probably being redefined in American English right now.
|
| > _Also for chickens, I 've raised chickens_
|
| Chickens are the correct analogy. If you're leading a
| team of people who remind you of chickens, leading with
| aggression works. (Not exaggerating. Some situations
| respond well to _e.g._ raising one's voice or acting out
| frustration.)
|
| As your sources show, that isn't necessary for
| leadership.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| >You're taking a definition that arose from animal
| observations and then filtered through anthropological
| and management academia. Colloquial, academic and
| industry definitions have diverged on this term; it's
| probably being redefined in American English right now.
|
| I cited two dictionaries as well.
|
| >Chickens are the correct analogy. If you're leading a
| team of people who remind you of chickens, leading with
| aggression works. (Not exaggerating. Some situations
| respond well to e.g. raising one's voice or acting out
| frustration.)
|
| Analogies were never part of the equation. You know they
| weren't. You were talking about animals explicitly not
| animals as an analogy. I feel you're trolling.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I cited two dictionaries as well_
|
| Those are point-in-time snapshots. The Wikipedia article
| expands on the term's etymology [1].
|
| (If you can provide links to those definitions I'll help
| look up when they were adopted. I couldn't find the
| definition you quoted on Webster's website [2], for
| example.)
|
| > _Analogies were never part of the equation_
|
| The term _is_ an analogy. That 's the point. There was a
| term in animal ethology that was popularised to the point
| it entered mainstream use. Synonymising alpha to
| leadership, moreover, is even _more_ recent and mostly
| occuring in American English (and now, with partisan
| flair).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_and_beta_male
|
| [2] https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/alpha#word-histor...
| Rury wrote:
| The article isn't wrong about captivity/freedom, although
| alphas are certainly thing.
|
| Hierarchies are naturally born out of confrontations and how
| they're settled, and captivity (ie scarcity) breeds
| confrontations. If two separate entities have opposing wants
| which cannot be satisfied simultaneously (ie are mutually
| exclusive), how do you determine who get's what they want?
| Well, naturally some kind of fight happens. Which either
| involves displays of intimidation, threats, arguments, or
| acts of violence (ie aggression).
|
| Naturally, living organisms value life and consider risks
| which threaten their livelihood, and so, these situations are
| always an assessment of wants, such as "is my want for the
| last piece of food, greater than my want to avoid fighting my
| opponent?" Or, "Am I willing to risk dying for this? Do I
| need this food, do I need to fight this opponent or can I get
| food elsewhere before dying of starvation?".
|
| As so, animals typically use violence as a last resort for
| settling disputes, unless the risks are so low as to be play
| (ie you're certain to win). It should therefore not be
| surprising that captive animals (or animals backed into a
| corner) feel obligated to fight, as they have few
| alternatives to avoid confrontation. Whereas, non-captive
| animals, by being more free, are better able to avoid a
| direct confrontation, and therefore exhibit less acts of
| aggression.
|
| An alpha, just happens to be those who win disputes
| repeatedly, and opponents or potential opponents have learned
| to be intimidated by them, and so cede disputes to them when
| they arise without fighting. A hierarchy is thus naturally
| formed from repeated disputes.
| ada1981 wrote:
| Thanks for this.
|
| There has been some research that shows primates are more
| likely to cooperate in scarcity and compete during
| abundance.
|
| Not universal and other factors are at play, but chimps
| generally prefer to cooperate vs compete.
|
| I argue that the 2 greatest factors for human survival have
| been our creativity and cooperation.
|
| We run an AI Research Lab every week where this is a
| central theme, helping folks navigate uncertainty through a
| focus on creativity and cooperation.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| If CEOs are the alphas, then why are some of them so
| submissive recently to a certain someone? The alpha male
| mythos tells me that these men have huge amounts of agency
| and power and yet...they make a big show of turning
| themselves into lapdogs? The Internet says thats not alpha
| behavior!
|
| It's almost as if reality is more nuanced than what 4Chan
| taught us: CEOs have people they need to answer to, people
| they're scared of, and that's part of what it means to be a
| human.
| fhe wrote:
| another analogy would be: aliens abducting a bunch of humans
| and recreating the Stanford Prison Experiment and write up on
| human society based on that, which ends-up reshaping alien
| culture.
| d0mine wrote:
| The results are likely to be different (aliens won't try to
| bias the same way original researchers did).
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Why not? Evolutionary pressure is likely to be the same
| elsewhere, why should we think that it will have different
| consequences?
| pineaux wrote:
| Dont you love Assembly-theory? Evolution is everywhere
| zdw wrote:
| I would buy this sci-fi book.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey is surprisingly close
| in concept. It's Book 1 of a trilogy by the authors of The
| Expanse.
| reasonableout wrote:
| When I was younger I made a switch from IT to teaching at
| elementary. One of the teachers that guided me, hinted to watch
| series about a dog trainer to see how he takes the lead, what
| happens between those. Although I respect that man, that really
| didn't resonate with me, realizing that I wouldn't want to
| learn that way; so I don't want to teach that way.
|
| This article explains a lot better how I feel about this than I
| was able to 15 years ago.
| pmontra wrote:
| If I may ask, how did you teach back then and how are you
| teaching now (maybe in the same way)?
| ANewFormation wrote:
| I'm also curious. When I first taught some younger kids I
| went in thinking they were like little people... that did
| not work well.
|
| When I instead started to treat them as glorified chimps,
| everything went better for them and for me.
|
| In the meantime I'm still somehow expecting that _my_
| children will behave like little people... Haha, humans
| really suck at learning, even from our own experiences.
| bombcar wrote:
| The key is to realize that they _act and react_ like
| little chimps, but they are _growing_ into people.
|
| It's a really hard balancing act but with the chimp
| framework in place, the human development can flourish.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| I have no idea how to treat chimps, let alone _glorified_
| chimps. What does this mean in practical terms?
| iteria wrote:
| I have a child and I'll be honest it was only when she
| was like 5 that I'd say that she was more complex than a
| dog. Small children cannot be reasoned with, only bribed
| and given sufficient motivation or demotivation via a
| carefully balanced set of prizes and punishments.
|
| After that she could be reasoned with, but had reduced
| ability to keep to her intention long term due to lack of
| experience and inability to imagine outcomes, so a lot of
| teaching an early elementary schooler involves setting up
| experiments to demonstrate the wisdom or lack of wisdom
| in particular actions. At least in my parenting. I
| imagine this is what is meant.
| sfink wrote:
| Interesting. In my dealings with younger (and older)
| kids, thinking of them as little people seems to work
| well. Little, fully complete people, with many parts
| dramatically simpler (and more straightforward) than
| adults.
|
| But then, I also think of adults as glorified chimps.
| Many parts are somewhat more complex -- though if you
| look closely enough, you'll see that much of the
| complexity is more of a veneer than anything deep.
|
| Basic human nature shows through more with kids. Much of
| human nature is animal nature. Growing up seems to be
| mostly about setting those impulses against each other
| and delaying, suppressing, and avoiding the
| manifestations. In the process, we convince ourselves
| that we've had earth-shaking fundamental realizations
| about Truth and Beauty and Morality that lesser beings
| like children could never comprehend, as we go about our
| day with a sippy cup of caffeine in one hand, capturing
| the value that others have created as we lie and deceive
| to advance our supposedly noble goals, shoulder to
| shoulder with the rest of the herd.
| curiousllama wrote:
| If it makes you feel better, I've heard similar advice to
| manage executives
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It's stunning how so much of our own behavior, or at least
| explanations of it, reference what turns out to be almost
| entirely false conclusions. It could take 100 years to undo.
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| A more cynical take could be that maybe it fits because we've
| constructed our own captivity or 'prison conditions' where this
| tends to emerge.
| zitsarethecure wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what conditions would you describe as
| prison-like that would drive someone to adopt an "alpha male"
| lifestyle in the US?
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| > Consider how this plays out in Silicon Valley, where the
| "move fast and break things" mentality has created a
| leadership culture that celebrates disruption over
| sustainability, dominance over collaboration.
|
| That's how the article phrased it. I'm not certain if I
| agree or not, but I'm not ready to either accept or dismiss
| it.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Before we start dishing on sociology as junk science, I'd like
| to point out that a lot of what we consider science as junk
| science.
|
| For instance, take the myth of RICE to treat injuries. The myth
| lived for over 30 years before being debunked, but even a
| decade after it was soundly routed, we still find the advice in
| the wild.
|
| https://thesportjournal.org/article/the-r-i-c-e-protocol-is-...
| mmooss wrote:
| > Before we start dishing on sociology as junk science
|
| How is sociology involved in this subthread or the OP? In the
| OP, the researchers have straightened out the issue and the
| general public ias confused.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| oh yeah not about to do that, in these instances one hand
| washes the other -- lots of junk sociology is based on junk
| science
| liuxiansheng wrote:
| It won't be undone because people want it to be true regardless
| of evidence. The cat (dog?) is out of the bag.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Ideology doesn't have to be 100% true to be effective. Goes all
| the way back to Plato's idea of the "noble lie".
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Sometimes doesn't have to be 1% true!
| bulatb wrote:
| People didn't get their worldview from the myth. They like the
| myth because it fits their worldview.
| Fricken wrote:
| >In their natural habitat, wolf packs operated nothing like the
| prison-yard dynamics he'd observed in the zoo.
|
| Human's aren't in their natural habit most of the time either.
| "Prison-yard dynamics" is how the public education system
| functions. This is where our children are socialized.
| mettamage wrote:
| High school is more complex as there is a life outside it
| where other dynamics can be observed. At least that's what I
| noticed and it made me realize that the popularity contest in
| high school was a farce.
| vkou wrote:
| > it made me realize that the popularity contest in high
| school was a farce.
|
| Observing outside life has led me to conclude that the high
| school popularity contest, is, in fact, the most authentic,
| freest form of human social behavior.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I agree 100%. I could only see it in the last year or
| two: Instagram allows people to maintain high school
| popularity in adult life. Before Insta, those people
| faded into oblivion because there was no global platform
| to amplify their good looks or likeable personality.
| (There were still popular, but in much smaller social
| circles.) After Insta, "high school popular" people can
| maintain it indefinitely.
| blackqueeriroh wrote:
| Lmao "I'm mad some people look nicer than me and know how
| to be kind to people. They suck and are only popular
| because of Instagram."
|
| My guy, comb your hair, take a shower, put on deodorant
| and a clean shirt. You're fine.
| ada1981 wrote:
| I don't disagree of course. And this is less a critique of
| the individual men vs our current social structure. A good
| deal of my work is in helping people free themselves,
| however, this wouldn't be necessary had it not been a life
| long project of incarceration.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I suspect this is part of the reason unschooling is become
| more popular.
| jojobas wrote:
| 15% of the 5% homeschooled is not very popular.
| protocolture wrote:
| Up from 0% before the process was developed.
| dylan604 wrote:
| are we equating homeschooling to unschooled now? while
| there are definitely people claiming homeschool while
| just as a cover for not being in school, that doesn't
| mean that all homeschool is not educating the kids.
| erikerikson wrote:
| GP commented on slope, not value, not to mention
| proportion.
| jojobas wrote:
| Unschooling has been around for some 50 years. 0.02%/year
| is one hell of a slope. It's a fad that will pass just as
| many other fads pass.
| erikerikson wrote:
| Thanks for some data, do you have a source for that?
|
| Curious prediction.
| jojobas wrote:
| Googled in 5 minutes.
| hinkley wrote:
| See also depressed rats in stressful conditions becoming drug
| addicts.
| mettamage wrote:
| I've pondered alpha male theory for a 5 years before having a
| solid conclusion before or against it. I rejected it. But yea,
| I really was that socially clueless, it took me 5 years as a
| late teen of observing and thinking about it to understand that
| life is more complicated than that and that the idea of alpha
| males is ridiculous, especially since I saw strong evidence on
| the contrary (i.e. "beta behaviors" and still having an amazing
| dating life, etc.).
| altairprime wrote:
| I appreciated a point I saw a few months ago about how the
| wolf-derived alpha/beta/etc stuff is a safe way for cis men to
| experiment with gender identity without risking being labeled
| queer by other men and having to confront harassment.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| Lmfao that's a great observation. Probably at least a big
| part of it.
| bandrami wrote:
| Wasn't there a guy who did the "rats prefer cocaine to food"
| study but without having the rats isolated in individual cages,
| and it turns out that no, they don't actually prefer cocaine to
| food when they aren't (essentially) in solitary?
| hinkley wrote:
| Yep.
|
| Hopelessness keeps you on the drugs as much as biochemistry.
|
| Kicking any bad habit is easier if you have something to
| replace it with.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| You're talking about the Rat Park study. That one is also
| controversial and hasn't successfully replicated. Personally I
| think the general idea of a connection between emotional trauma
| and addiction is pretty obvious, but also a but more complex
| than the Rat Park study implies or assumes.
| mandmandam wrote:
| > hasn't successfully replicated
|
| To be clear, lots of studies have shown that animals in
| richer environments do less drugs; though the effect doesn't
| seem to be as strong as Alexander claimed.
| uqual wrote:
| We have many real life human "experiments" that can be looked to
| in determining if the "alpha" concept is a "more successful"
| model in business. This is particularly true in areas where
| demand for highly qualified employees outstrips supply - such as
| many flavors of software development.
|
| If the 'alpha' model is universally detrimental to success in
| business, it would quickly die out.
|
| However it has not and most modern (and premodern) successful
| companies (by metrics of growth, profit, income, revenue, PE etc)
| have been founded and grown by "alpha" leaders and staff.
|
| There are of course exceptions but we would expect the "alpha"
| model to instead be the exception if it was a less successful way
| of running a business.
|
| In practice, both can co-exist and as a company matures it may,
| over time, switch between models.
|
| Some people like the driven competitive environment and seek it
| out and will tend to end up at enterprises that favor the "alpha"
| model. Others who dislike such environments will seek out
| enterprises that utilize alternative models. An individual will
| likely be more productive in the environment best suited for them
| and an individual will rarely switch from a strong preference for
| one of these environments to a strong preference for an
| alternative environment.
|
| If there is substantial dissatisfaction on the part of workers
| with the "alpha" model and an alternative model would be more
| productive and successful, startups would blossom that use
| alternative models and hire away the cream of the crop of the
| "alpha" companies' employees.
| stackghost wrote:
| >However it has not and most modern (and premodern) successful
| companies (by metrics of growth, profit, income, revenue, PE
| etc) have been founded and grown by "alpha" leaders and staff.
|
| Citation needed. By my estimation, the overwhelming majority of
| CEOs are doughy, effete city slickers who are the exact
| opposite of the prototypical "alpha male" image.
|
| Zuckerberg, with his MMA training, might be the only one I can
| think of that fits the stereotype.
|
| Don't confuse the putative "alpha male" with simply being a
| douchebag, because I can think of quite a large number of CEOs
| that fit that latter description, but it's not the same thing.
| dsr_ wrote:
| And by definition, Zuckerberg didn't start out as an "alpha",
| but decided to emulate one after he was already super-
| wealthy.
| ada1981 wrote:
| Bezos too. And Elon.
| lmm wrote:
| > Don't confuse the putative "alpha male" with simply being a
| douchebag, because I can think of quite a large number of
| CEOs that fit that latter description, but it's not the same
| thing.
|
| Can you clarify the distinction? Most people criticising the
| "alpha" model seem to equate the two.
| withinboredom wrote:
| > grown by "alpha" leaders and staff.
|
| Umm... isn't the whole point of an "alpha" to be the top-man...
| so how would there be more than one? That doesn't make any
| internally logical sense.
|
| > An individual will likely be more productive in the
| environment best suited for them
|
| Good premise, but you don't need the "alpha" theory to argue
| it.
|
| > in determining if the "alpha" concept is a "more successful"
| model in business.
|
| You do a really poor job of explaining what this even means,
| but it sounds bogus from your description. No offense intended.
| lmm wrote:
| > isn't the whole point of an "alpha" to be the top-man... so
| how would there be more than one?
|
| The point is they're top of their pack, not top of the whole
| world.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Right. And my point is that a "pack" of "alphas" is
| nonsensical.
| gnatman wrote:
| This is writing of someone steeped in "alpha male" youtube &
| podcast ideology.
| intalentive wrote:
| What he calls the "alpha" model might also be termed a
| "leader-follower" model where a single authority drives a
| team to accomplish his singular vision, like the captain of a
| ship drives and disciplines his crew.
|
| It's hierarchical and masculine, no doubt, and describes
| Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs as well as Walt Disney and
| Thomas Edison or even General Patton.
|
| This leadership model might not be everyone's cup of tea but
| it can definitely be successful, and it's definitely a real
| thing, not just some redpill / PUA fantasy.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| The abuse of the captive wolves research factoid is officially
| run into the ground. We now blame it for the whole organisation
| of humanity. I thought bashing online communities for using
| "alpha" was inadequate, but that takes the cake.
| ada1981 wrote:
| I don't intend to put the blame on the wolf study. I think it's
| more that we are in captivity, and exhibit deeply unhealthy
| relationship patterns with pretty much our entire environment
| from food, to women, to time itself.
| goatlover wrote:
| This assumes hunter gatherers were better off than we are
| today. That's a controversial claim. You still have to
| survive in nature with finding food and making shelter,
| fending off predators, negotiating rival groups, dealing with
| disease and injury. It wasn't some utopian existence.
| ada1981 wrote:
| I think there are good arguments that Hunter gathers ate
| healthier more diverse foods; spent less time working; and
| likely were in flow more often than we are today.
|
| I think Sapiens talks about this.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| The title says that captive wolves led us astray and the
| first paragraph asserts that the studies spawned decades of
| misunderstanding about power, leadership, and masculinity.
| The causal link is very dubious to say the least.
| robocat wrote:
| The fact the wolf alpha male theory was wrong doesn't imply we
| don't have alpha dominance for men.
|
| Do we use alpha male gorillas to explain the concept?
|
| (Edit) Or Chimpanzees:
| https://news.janegoodall.org/2018/07/10/top-bottom-chimpanze...
| The highest-ranking chimpanzee in a group is the alpha-male.
| These males climb their way to the top of the chimpanzee
| hierarchy, and the ways they choose to do so can differ with the
| personality of the individual leader. Take two of the alpha males
| observed in Gombe, Frodo and Freud, for instance. Though they
| were brothers, each chimp had a very different leadership style.
| While Freud maintained control through fostering strong alliances
| and grooming those he wanted to keep under his command, Frodo
| relied heavily on aggression and brute strength.
| dsr_ wrote:
| The fact that the evidence doesn't exist doesn't imply the
| phenomenon doesn't exist?
|
| Remind me, why gorillas and not chimps? Why chimps and not
| bonobos? Why assume that two related species with completely
| different environmental niches must share a social structure?
| goatlover wrote:
| Gorillas, Chimpanzees and Baboons are similar in their social
| structures with the dominant alpha males. Bonobos are
| different with it being matriarchal and conflict resolution
| being less violent.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Sadly not that simple.
|
| https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/animals/bonobos-arent-
| as-p...
| lmm wrote:
| > The fact that the evidence doesn't exist doesn't imply the
| phenomenon doesn't exist?
|
| Wolves were never meant to be evidence. They were a model, a
| metaphor.
|
| I wonder how many people who complain about "believing the
| myth of alpha wolves" are the same people who defend
| astrology as a "useful way of thinking, whether it's true or
| not".
| crooked-v wrote:
| Until it was debunked, people thought that the
| alpha/beta/omega nonsense was the actual natural social
| order of wolves. Some people then borrowed that as a
| metaphor.
| lmm wrote:
| > Until it was debunked, people thought that the
| alpha/beta/omega nonsense was the actual natural social
| order of wolves.
|
| Some wolf biologists thought that, sure. But that
| obviously wasn't and isn't any kind of evidence about
| human sociology (and conversely nor is the fact that it
| isn't).
| djur wrote:
| Right, "alpha" means a lot of things in ethology, but the
| "alpha/beta/gamma" categorization that took hold in
| reactionary circles was specifically derived from the
| wolf studies. "Some individuals tend to be more socially
| dominant" is not controversial.
| culi wrote:
| > defend astrology as a "useful way of thinking, whether
| it's true or not".
|
| I wonder how many people defend mind palaces as a "useful
| way of thinking, whether it's true or not".
|
| Historically speaking, that's all astrology was. Research
| has indeed shown that people who practice astrology are
| better at remembering details about people in their lives.
| Astrology is just a mind palace that allows them to more
| easily memorize and organize useful facts about the people
| in their social networks
| itishappy wrote:
| It just means analogies are dangerous. Would be nice if we
| could determine if the effect actually applies to humans before
| introducing yet another.
| cyberax wrote:
| It actually works with chimps. They _are_ very hierarchical and
| somewhat neurotic even in the wild.
|
| It's no wonder that they are our closest cousin.
|
| Gorillas, in comparison, are much more laid-back.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Our closest cousins are actually bonobos (or at least they
| are as close to us as chimpanzees are), which don't have this
| type of hierarchy. Regardless, group social hierarchies don't
| necessarily translate even between closely related species,
| such as chimps and bonobos, so there is no reason whatsoever
| to extend them from some ape to humans.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Exactly. The concept didn't come from wolves alone. We also
| call it a pecking order based on chickens.
|
| The concept of a dominance hierarchy is widely established:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy?wprov=sfti...
|
| And the gorillas and chimpanzees studied are not in captivity.
|
| Obviously not every species exhibits this, and the ones that do
| don't exhibit it all the time. But the article acts like the
| concept has been discredited when that is not the case at all.
| error_logic wrote:
| The discrediting is of the inevitability of its all-
| encompassing effects. It can be present without needing to be
| defended or prevent the Alpha from caring for its young.
| cbsmith wrote:
| As well established as dominance hierarchies are, they aren't
| the only social structure, and just as this article explains,
| it's rather ironic that in the case for wolves, that isn't
| the prevailing social structure in their natural setting.
| That wolves have become the prevailing reference point for
| the concept, is metaphorical on a lot of levels.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Indeed, once we fall in love with a model we can usually find
| some evidence for the model.
| latexr wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ti86veZBjU
| croes wrote:
| I don't think those alpha men like it if they behave like apes.
| Wolves are way cooler.
| stonesthrowaway wrote:
| > The fact the wolf alpha male theory was wrong doesn't imply
| we don't have alpha dominance for men.
|
| It isn't wrong. The headline is intentionally misleading and
| the article is just woke nonsense. Read it for yourself.
|
| What the article is really saying that the alpha in a zoo
| wolfpack is different than an alpha in a wild wolfpack because
| a zoo wolfpack is between non-related wolves whilest in the
| wild, wolfpacks are composed of family members ( alpha
| father/alpha mother and children ).
|
| There are alpha in wolf packs ( zoos and wild ). Just like in a
| human family the father/mother are alphas while in a gang, the
| alpha is usually a non-related individual.
|
| The "myth" isn't that the alpha doesn't exist. The "myth" is
| about the relation of the alpha to the rest of the pack.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Humans don't want to be chimps though, they want to be wolves.
| Or lions. Or eagles. That sort of thing. So a narrative about
| strong wolves dominating weaker wolves is gonna catch on like
| wildfire and you can bet your house on that.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Is this like how middle management reportedly wouldn't be
| caught dead dressing like the janitor, but super rich people
| supposedly dress like the janitor in order to not look like
| middle management?
| ineptech wrote:
| This sounds like Scott Alexander's "Fashion explained with
| cellular automata" article, which was neat but probably not
| what OP was referring to and certainly not related to TFA
| in any way I can see. Still a good read tho.
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-
| left/
| robocat wrote:
| The term for that is countersignalling.
| https://www.marketingsociety.com/the-library/counter-
| signall...
| cbsmith wrote:
| ...or, it's just a solid case of confirmation bias.
| tptacek wrote:
| I would much rather be a chimpanzee than a wolf or a lion.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Well then, good news for you.
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/bonobos-join-
| chimps-...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Do we use alpha male gorillas to explain the concept?_
|
| We _should_ use chimpanzees. The popular definition evolved
| pretty much indepdenently of the science, unfortunately [1].
|
| Management texts have tried toning this down, particularly in
| the gender-equality years. At its nonsensical limit one wound
| up with alpha = leader, which is tautologically useless as a
| tool for explaining leadership.
|
| The term probably belongs in a bin. There are deep social
| lessons we can learn from observing chimpanzees. (Or even
| wolves.) But they're not going to condense into a single term,
| certainly not one that's been through the 4chan and partisan
| ringers. Even among chimpanzees, we see a variety of tactics
| used to achieve dominance, including groups of chimps banding
| together to topple a leader.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_and_beta_male
| kryogen1c wrote:
| > 4chan and partisan
|
| I love the dialectical equivalency here, Feels exactly
| accurate. At least 4chan plays you laugh you lose, federal
| politics seems to omit the first half.
|
| > dominance, including groups of chimps
|
| Indeed one of the most fascinating lessons. "Alpha" by force
| is almost tautologically impossible; leadership is built on
| inspiration and willfullness.
| Anotheroneagain wrote:
| >We should use chimpanzees
|
| Why should we use _anything at all_? Aren 't we people
| ourselves, who, you know, behave like people, without being
| taught how?
| pixl97 wrote:
| >behave like people, without being taught how
|
| Ok, what does this mean when pretty much all people are
| taught to be people by the generations before them?
|
| We throw out a number of feral children and see how they
| grow up in the wilds? Doesn't sound very ethical.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why should we use anything at all?_
|
| Same reason we play with models: it's easier to understand
| through analogy, with the familiar cast unfamiliarly.
| xbar wrote:
| Are there management texts from some era where this was
| actually promoted as a model?
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Even within apes the variance is wide enough that I question
| the value in drawing any conclusions about human nature,
| especially for laypeople. Why chimpanzees and not bonobos who
| are equally close relatives to humans but whose social
| structure is matriarchal, non-territorial, and considerably
| less violent?
|
| There is such myriad behavior in the animal kingdom that
| drawing insight into human social structure from it seems
| like it is more often a Rorschach test than it is a
| scientific exercise.
| gilbetron wrote:
| Why are we trying to make human societies mimic animal ones?
| We're the insanely successful species, not wolves or chimps or
| gorillas or lobsters!
| vunderba wrote:
| From the article:
|
| _> Instead of ruling from above, he built a flat structure where
| decisions emerge from collaboration._
|
| I've also seen the flip-side of this - where due to the fact that
| there is no established hierarchy, you spend inordinate amounts
| of time welding entirely disparate architectures together since
| every team was cowboy coding and doing their own thing.
|
| Also anecdotally, I've never once experienced this Type-A prima
| donna alpha engineer but I've had absolutely zero interest in
| working for a FAANG. Every engineer I've ever worked with was
| pretty easy-going.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| " Type-A prima donna alpha engineer "
|
| Most are bluster.
|
| Talk loud and fast and be rude, arrogant, and lot of people
| will think you must really know what you are doing.
| tayo42 wrote:
| > Every engineer I've ever worked with was pretty easy-going.
|
| Every one seems easy going until you disagree with them.
| rramadass wrote:
| Ha, Ha; True. For some reason people don't want to face
| reality but want to believe in fancies/stories which they
| have picked up from surrounding society.
|
| Related, the Norwegian documentary series "Hjernevask" (i.e.
| Brainwash) is interesting -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Dubious article. The role of aggression in establishing and
| maintaining social hierarchies was not mis-diagnosed in 1974. The
| behaviors of alpha males (wolves) and alpha females (hyenas) are
| complex but threat and pain is part of the pattern. Highly
| variable by species, environment, and demographics.
|
| Go over the hills from Silicon Valley to Ano Nuevo Marine
| Conservation Area and watch the behavior of male elephant seals
| like Bernie LeBoef has done for 30 years.
|
| How does any of this apply to Silicon Valley other than as a cute
| and wrong metaphor? Are we really taking leads from dogs?
| mmooss wrote:
| The popular trend in U.S. big business is 'animal spirits'. I
| read an article about how at Davos (iirc), people were bullish
| on the U.S. and bearish on Europe because the U.S. embraced
| "animal spirits".
|
| Animal brains too.
| nico wrote:
| Something similar happened with models for addiction in rats
| (which were extrapolated to humans)
|
| It turned out that rats that live in a nice environment, with
| plenty of activities and social spaces (not an ugly, mostly empty
| cage), don't become addicted
|
| Ref: Rat Park experiment
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The Internet loves the Rat Park experiment, but it never
| replicated and should be considered just as bogus as all the
| other stuff in social psych which hasn't survived the
| replication crisis.
|
| It's fitting for this thread though, because it survives for
| the exact reason the alpha wolf stuff survives: people love the
| story so they hang on to it irrespective of the science.
| nradov wrote:
| Right, and we've seen plenty of people who lead the "Rat
| Park" equivalent of human lives and yet still get addicted to
| opioids. There's clearly no single cause.
| sunjieming wrote:
| I think 90% of my HS psych class didn't replicate
| layman51 wrote:
| Can you elaborate more on this? I did not take psychology
| in high school, but I would imagine that such a course
| would focus on fundamental concepts where "replicating"
| wouldn't even be an issue. There might be teachers who
| might bring up the pop-sci topics, but wouldn't the meat of
| the class just be learning about theories or frameworks?
| throwup238 wrote:
| Not the OP and I didn't take psych but here's an example
| syllabus for AP Psychology from the College Board:
| https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/ap-
| psychology-s...
|
| The first two units on neurology and cognition seem
| sensible, but I can see how it'll quickly go off the
| rails after that.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| This seems entirely fine, after a brief review of the
| contents. Where do you think it goes off the rails?
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > never replicated
|
| Not exactly.
|
| Wiki says: Studies that followed up on the
| contribution of environmental enrichment to addiction
| produced mixed results.
|
| Ref:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park#Further_experiments
| mmooss wrote:
| > it never replicated and should be considered just as bogus
|
| Did someone try to replicate it? What were the results? What
| were their conclusions about its credibility?
|
| > all the other stuff in social psych which hasn't survived
| the replication crisis.
|
| Replication isn't black and white: Most of the experiments -
| at least in the early widely reported phase - did replicate
| but with less statistically strong results.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Regardless of the accuracy, analogizing to humans is absurd.
|
| Some spiders eat their partner after mating, should we do that?
|
| Some animals defecate to mark territory, should we do that?
|
| Many abandon their children after birth or even eat their babies.
|
| Maybe we should use artificial ovipositors and proboscises.
|
| People want to ordain their ideology with the notion of natural
| order to claim it as scientific law. The accuracy of the
| underlying animal claim is irrelevant because the logic
| connecting some random animal to humans is nonsense.
| ada1981 wrote:
| >> Some spiders eat their partner after mating, should we do
| that?
|
| Have you spent time with many married couples? ;)
| itishappy wrote:
| I think causation is reversed. The goal of studies like these
| is not to dictate how we should behave, but to inform us how we
| might.
|
| Should we use our feces to mark territory? Probably not, but
| when the concept of marking territory is as pervasive as it is
| then maybe it's worth considering how we would like to handle
| it to avoid falling back to feces.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Again, pervasiveness does not magically make it valid.
|
| Many animals eat feces, that's extremely pervasive. It's an
| intrinsic part of the ecosystem. It's really hard to
| overstate how important poop from other animals is. Doesn't
| mean I should be cooking it for dinner.
|
| Applying any behavior as having any meaning at all to humans,
| whether it be wolves or lobsters, other than that we should
| respect it, is complete nonsense.
|
| There are no lessons to learn about how we should structure
| our workspace or allocate tax dollars by watching how
| jellyfish or seasnails live, any claim otherwise is merely
| ideological projection and creative license.
| korse wrote:
| Did anyone consider that our society IS artificial conditions?
| Not sure about you all, but western society feels much more akin
| to a zoo than the wilderness.
| jmye wrote:
| I don't understand what you mean.
|
| That you can certainly opt in to artificial nonsense, as
| wholeheartedly and completely as you want, doesn't mean
| _society_ is artificial. It just means that's the part you've
| decided to live your life in.
| tolerance wrote:
| C'mon now, you know what he means. Or you've got a decent
| idea of what he might mean.
|
| People are beginning to consider that the most pervasive
| aspects of society--parts that you don't have a choice
| whether you're a part of it or confronted by it--are social
| constructs, and that humans are constrained in what they're
| allowed to believe in and how to come to terms with those
| beliefs amongst one another.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| You're far more likely to be eaten alive by something in the
| wilderness than in a corporate office.
|
| If we've achieved nothing else, at least we've added a layer of
| political and economic indirection to our cannibalism.
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| This is what I've been leaning towards after initially
| renouncing the experiment for its arbitrary nature. "Alpha"
| behaviour emerge in zero-sum/artificial scarcity situations,
| yet contemporary society is full of zero-sum situations and
| artificial scarcity due to market inefficiency and gatekeeping.
| It's not just Western society either. If anything, Western-
| aligned industrialized societies experience far less scarcity.
| So the behavioural pattern shouldn't be entirely dismissed as
| pseudoscience, but worthy of critical inspection and reference.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| > Alpha" behavior emerge in zero-sum/artificial scarcity
| situations
|
| Zero-sum, yes, but why only artificial scarcity? It seems
| like this would arise in a natural situation as well... Even
| if you lived on abundantly producing land that is not (yet)
| heavily populated there is still going to be mate
| competition.
| eleveriven wrote:
| Soo maybe the "alpha" behaviors we see are a natural response
| to unnatural conditions and it's more about how we behave when
| we're stuck in systems
| jarjoura wrote:
| Seems like it's fair to assume, both canines and humans are
| highly adaptable, and we behave the way we need to in the
| environment we're in. My dog has never shown me anything except
| love and compassion, and that gets him the best living
| conditions, back scratches and the tastiest food.
| lmm wrote:
| > Seems like it's fair to assume, both canines and humans are
| highly adaptable, and we behave the way we need to in the
| environment we're in.
|
| If that were as true as you seem to be suggesting, there would
| be no difference between dogs and wolves when the latter are
| kept as pets, which is clearly false.
| barrettondricka wrote:
| Author: Applying behavior of wolves in captivity to humans was a
| mistake.
|
| Also Auther: Applies behavior of wolves in free environment to a
| very specific and complex part of human society.
|
| And of course, zero link or citations on anything.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Alphas aren't only observed in captive wolves. They are
| observed in MANY MANY animal groups.
|
| I think the full picture isn't some liberal idea where everyone
| lives in harmony and can work together for the common good
| without the weakest link ever getting left behind.
|
| The truth is it's a bit of both. We live in a world where it's
| dog eat dog but also companionship and working together are
| BOTH effective strategies for survival. Most humans are
| programmed to be able to handle both modes of survival .
| Depending on circumstance one strategy often becomes critical
| for survival. For example: if you're in captivity or aka a
| setting with very very limited resources the alpha strategy
| works best.
|
| Of course no citations for me either. But I think it's quite
| clear the author is biased.
| nis0s wrote:
| You're right. Antarctic penguins and walruses are good
| examples of this. Penguin females go hunting, while the males
| hatch eggs and rear the young till the females return. Walrus
| males, OTOH, absolutely dominate other walrus males, and keep
| a harem of females.
|
| But who cares? Humans are more closely related to primates
| than other animals, who exhibit all kinds of different
| behaviors across species. I am not sure why we're trying to
| model human behaviors from wolves at all.
|
| In fact, human advanced cognitive development is unique
| amongst the entirety of the animal kingdom, so it's okay if
| humans have behaviors which are unique just to us, and are
| unobserved in other animals.
| roughly wrote:
| There's a recent book, "Bitch: On the Female of the
| Species" by Lucy Cooke, which specifically targets the
| traditional "strong males weak females is the natural
| order" trope. It's brilliantly written, comprehensive in
| its dismantling of the concept, and a very fun read (side
| note: I have a habit of reading in bars, and this one got a
| lot of looks)
|
| https://bookshop.org/p/books/bitch-on-the-female-of-the-
| spec...
| svnt wrote:
| Easier to tear down than it is to build well.
| barrettondricka wrote:
| I admit to being rude and to being a very bad builder myself.
|
| But the article is bad. Just about every piece of evidence
| has some sort of issue. Correlation-causation, or not enough
| data, or just assumptions. The wolf stuff (seems to be) based
| on only 2 observations. The author cites big tech in CA, but
| then describes a single clothing company that has a high
| random metric that is supposedly an accurate indicator of all
| of the above.
|
| And the connections between arguments are not even that good.
| Skimming over it, I wasn't sure what the article's point was.
|
| As for the conclusion, the vague words on what could be done
| are the kind of stuff everyone is trying anyway for other
| reasons, and it isn't (?) working.
| charles_f wrote:
| No. Author: deducting that behavior observed in captive
| environments was also true in liberty was a mistake.
|
| Author: silicon valley is somewhat of a captive environment so
| lessons from captivity are not entirely wrong.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| The original researcher did correct the record about what entails
| the alpha wolf in a natural setting, noting that pack leadership
| was usually based upon familial group dynamics, instead of the
| cliche biggest and strongest that beat down opponents, but in pop
| science this correction went too far, basically discounting the
| idea of an alpha wolf altogether. In virtually every discussion
| about this myth people will regurgitate the notion that there is
| no alpha.
|
| But...there is. He never claimed there wasn't an alpha. Just that
| the selection among a group of wolves forced together differs
| from a group of wolves in a natural setting.
|
| So Tony Soprano was the alpha of the crime family even though
| many other characters were likely stronger, crazier, etc. He had
| the backing of so many people that they knew that his bark had
| bite, even if it wasn't from him directly.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| > noting that pack leadership was usually based upon familial
| group dynamics, instead of the cliche biggest and strongest
| that beat down opponents
|
| So, sounds like if the author read the study more closely and
| continued with his idea of basing human society around dog
| society we should structure society as a hereditary monarchy
| rather than rule by warrior kings.
| justonenote wrote:
| And what about chimpanzees? Our closest relative genetically. Is
| anyone disputing that they exhibit a brutally dominant social
| hierarchy? Our second closest relative is (afaik, or close
| enough) Bonobos, who lump around all day jacking each other off.
|
| While the alpha terminology may have come from dog packs, it's
| not exactly unobservable in other species, and even on these
| forums and in VC funding rounds you can observe people both
| jacking each other off with a healthy amount of social and
| institutional pandering and financial support, and other people
| not posting as much but taking dominant positions to "secure the
| bag" and whatever is downstream from that.
|
| People don't like these conversations but it doesn't change the
| reality.
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| You can't draw more than rudimentary conclusions from the
| comparison because we could have evolved different behaviors,
| or we could share them, or we could work that way on the
| savannah but not in a city, etc. These conversations can be and
| are used to say whatever the speaker wants to say, since they
| can just select a trait that's been observed in a monkey case
| study and apply it lazily to humans. "Wow humans sure like to
| jerk off, must be because we're like bonobos!"
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Maybe a thing to note here is that the behavior of many
| different kinds of social animals changes dependent on the
| living situation.
|
| Given that, it is not unreasonable to wonder (hope?) that there
| might be human living conditions that reduce "brutally dominant
| social heirarchy".
|
| The best part is: we even appear to have archeological evidence
| that this is true, for humans!
| mmooss wrote:
| We have tons of current evidence that its true. I've never
| experienced a 'brutally dominant social heirarchy'
| personally; it's pretty uncommon. I don't live like _Lord of
| the Flies_.
|
| IME the theory is a reactionary (i.e., anti-liberal, anti-
| humanitarian, anti-human rights) myth to justify the rule and
| worship of power.
| justonenote wrote:
| It's not at all uncommon, either in history or modern day.
| The stats on wealth inequality in the west demonstrate this
| out pretty clearly.
|
| It's probably more viscerally visible in poorer parts of
| the world, though trying to compare which is worse, is not
| very clear. You could argue in the western countries it's
| easier for someone to become entrenched and cement a
| position of "top dog" while if you are in a tribe in Africa
| the position is more fluid and volatile.
|
| I think using the term 'brutally dominant' I invoked images
| of violence, and maybe something like 'cut-throat' is
| (ironically) more apt. While you yourself may be in a good
| and comfortable position, it doesn't negate the reality
| that people vie for positions of power all over the world
| every day and have for the entirety of history. We are not
| just Bonobos living in a forest.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > reduce "brutally dominant social heirarchy".
|
| if you mean literal brutality, but how the uber wealthy
| treating those of lower wealth could be considered brutal as
| well--in modern parlance of course.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I was quoting the comment I was replying to.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Is anyone disputing that they exhibit a brutally dominant
| social hierarchy?
|
| Could you share the basis for saying they do, for those who are
| not primatologists?
|
| > even on these forums and in VC funding rounds you can observe
| ...
|
| How is that 'alpha wolf' behavior?
|
| > People don't like these conversations
|
| Has someone objected?
| justonenote wrote:
| > Could you share the basis for saying they do, for those who
| are not primatologists?
|
| You can look it up yourself, plenty of published research.
| I'm not a primatologist either but still managed to educate
| myself.
|
| > Has someone objected?
|
| You seem to be, in the most snide and backhanded way
| possible.
|
| More generally yes people have been preaching (since the 60s
| majorly but obviously before that) that being kind, and that
| peace and love is and mutual reciprocity is not only one way
| to go about in life, but _it's the only way_ that you should
| pursue. And this very much the mainstream opinion. Meanwhile
| central banks have been printing money at zero interest to
| give to their friends, Saudis have been selling oil, states
| have been buying up weapons, bribing the US, etc.
|
| And guess what? All of those people have lot more power and
| influence on the world today, than a guy living in the desert
| preaching how humans should be perfectly balanced at one with
| each and nature.
|
| > How is that 'alpha wolf' behavior?
|
| Zuckerberg retaining complete voting shares wasn't a power
| play? Altman returning to oust the board and be CEO of OpenAI
| wasn't a power play? Investors leveraging the outsized gains
| from an early success to bet on further outsized gains isn't
| a power play?
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| >People don't like these conversations but it doesn't change
| the reality.
|
| I mean you have to be an idiot not to see it. You literally
| just observe all human societies. You have some leader at the
| top, the president, a king etc. etc. Then you have CEOs, VPs,
| Managers, team leads etc etc.
|
| Human society is structured around alphas. Clearly. No I take
| that back. Humans are more similar to bonobos. At least that's
| how it is when I go to work we just jack each other off all
| day, no team leads or CEO where I work.
| matwood wrote:
| I think people run into definitional biases. I used
| alpha/beta as short hand in a comment last week and was
| downvoted just for using the terms.
|
| In short, alpha does not imply male or violence. It's someone
| for whatever reasons is at the top (eq, iq, physical
| attributes, confidence, etc). It also depends on the group,
| think big fish/small pond.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > Our second closest relative is (afaik, or close enough)
| Bonobos
|
| They are equally close (tree-wise, percent-wise idk), and they
| exhibit a radically different and mostly nonviolent matriarchal
| social hierarchy. Not sure what the takeaway from that should
| be other than that maybe there shouldn't be a takeaway if our
| two closest relatives (and each others closest relatives)
| behave so differently from one another.
| justonenote wrote:
| To me it's pretty obvious that we are somewhere in-between
| the two in temperament, but probably tending quite a bit more
| toward the chimps. I don't have a peer-reviewed study or
| empirical proof etc but some things are just staring you in
| the face. (see: all of history, boxing and MMA and other less
| violent but still highly competitive sports being popular
| worldwide)
|
| I mean the interesting question is whether it is necessary,
| if we were maximally Bonobo would we have built the
| civilizations and technology we have? Possibly, but it's not
| beyond the realms of thought that the drive to amass power,
| to be the alpha or top dog, has driven action and risk
| taking, low probability paths to outsized gains.
|
| There is a second question about whether we should be more
| Bonobo like now, but we are what we are and there is 7
| billion people on the planet.
| kazinator wrote:
| If the animals are spread over a wide area, where they don't have
| to compete for territory or resources with each other, of course
| the dominant behaviors won't rear themselves.
|
| You need the right conditions to repro the behavior.
|
| E.g. for starters, you cannot study one wolf in isolation from
| other wolves, right? You need at least two for one to dominate
| the other, and they can't be miles apart such that they never
| meet.
| motohagiography wrote:
| in any competence where you've taken instruction, you need to be
| practicing at a certain level to be able to receive meaningful
| direction or guidance. the same is true for leadership. the model
| in the article seems like a bit of a straw man that plays to a
| sense of resentfulness about cartoons of "alpha" figures, and it
| may ultimately be misleading by creating misguided critics.
|
| just lift, read the stoics, and master something. you'll get
| there.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| If the Alpha Wolf is a myth, it is also a myth that the concept
| was bought to popular imagination by Rudolf Schenkel and L. David
| Mech between the 1940 and 1970s.
|
| Jack London's gold rush books explore this concept in detail, the
| first of which, Call of the Wild, was published in 1903. These
| were very popular books, then and still today.
|
| The alpha wolf concept was in public psyche at least in the early
| 1900s, but probably earlier too. I don't think it is likely that
| London invented this myth himself and it existed earlier.
| rramadass wrote:
| Right. The myth actually originates from _Social Darwinism_ -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism which was what
| influenced Jack London's thinking (see "The Call of the Wild",
| "White Fang" etc.) but at the same time he was also a Socialist
| (see "The Iron Heel", "The People of the Abyss" etc.) See his
| "views" section here -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London#Views
| samth wrote:
| Just to be clear, the word "alpha" does not appear in the text
| of "Call of the Wild".
| steve_taylor wrote:
| When a Canadian psychologist mentioned lobsters and hierarchies,
| the dogma to which members of a political group subscribe was
| updated to include the denial of alphas as a natural phenomenon,
| making it instead an artificial construct invented by their
| imaginary oppressors to hold onto imaginary power.
| WesternWind wrote:
| blaming the wolves is an interesting choice.
| niemandhier wrote:
| I might not be the best possible version of myself but I am at
| least a release candidate, and therefore have transceded the
| concepts of ,,alpha male" and ,,beta male".
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I'm an alphalfa male. I sometimes eat vegetables.
| mnsc wrote:
| Some cowboy developer pushed me to prod despite a glaring beta
| tag and a plethora of known critical bugs. Yet here I am, 45
| minors later with the beta tag still there, delivering
| measurable value to all my users.
| sakoht wrote:
| Reads like a Disney lens on nature. Whether or not wolves have a
| single alpha in a pack, nature is built around selfishness and
| violence with certainty, cooperation selectively. Animals watch
| each other suffer and die without a flinch all the time. And
| nearly everything dies from being eaten. Any lens on nature that
| sugar-coats this is projecting human values.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > selfishness and violence
|
| Are human emotions, please don't anthropomorphise.
| lIl-IIIl wrote:
| Neither of those are emotions.
|
| Selfishness is the default setting, and is easy to explain in
| evolutionary terms. Unselfishness is what usually surprises
| us when we see it in animals.
| culi wrote:
| Surprises you perhaps. Over 90% of plants rely on
| cooperation with mycorrhizal fungal networks. The evolution
| of lichen, a partnership between fungi and lichen, has
| happened independently tens of thousands of times. Our very
| cells rely on a once-alien cell with its own DNA that is
| now called the "mitochondria" for our very survival. Even
| still, the majority of cells in the human body are usually
| non-human. We literally couldn't eat a single thing without
| the complex multi-species microbes we rely on.
|
| Cooperation is at the basis of all of nature. The
| difference between "competition" and "cooperation" is
| usually a matter of perspective and human bias. They are
| two sides of the same coin. We fit details about nature
| into one of those two frameworks to uphold a specific
| worldview we find useful for organizing information.
| Historically we've favored the competition framework, but
| take a look at the Annual Reviews journals for a field like
| Ecology, Mycology, Biology, etc and I think you'll see this
| is quickly changing
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Reads like a Disney lens on nature_
|
| The author isn't saying nature isn't cruel. They're saying wolf
| packs don't work the way we imagine them to in popular culture.
|
| You don't have males duking it out to be the alpha. (That's
| closer to gorillas and chimpanzees, though even among them it's
| rare.) You have a breeding pair and their pups. Wolf packs
| aren't monarchies, they're emergent clusters of wolves around a
| breeding pair that goes away when the breeding pair perishes. A
| younger wolf "challenging" an older wolf for dominance isn't
| the natural state; it's the space-constrained state that
| emerges in captivity. (Even that might be giving it too much
| credit.)
| eleveriven wrote:
| Elephants live in complex, matriarchal family groups and
| demonstrate extraordinary empathy
| froh wrote:
| and animals support and comfort each other without hesitation
| all the time too.
|
| and "nearly everything dies from being eaten", yes, because
| nearly everything is in the human meat eating food chain, I kid
| you not.
|
| no. the lens that depicts the world at constant war is
| projecting a mix of maybe personal experience and certainly
| group think onto an otherwise surprisingly cooperative and
| supportive nature.
|
| https://scholar.google.de/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=coope...
| snickerer wrote:
| Nature is not 'build around selfishness and violence'. Any lens
| on nature that says this is projecting human values.
|
| Nature is build around what works best for the survival of the
| individual's genetics in the current environment. That is
| called evolution.
|
| You can't even project the human concept of selfishness on
| this. A worker ant supports its genetical survival best by
| sacrificing its life for the community.
|
| To understand evolutionary developed strategies a wonderful
| tool is the calculation of probability. Science knows something
| about how to choose good strategies, and that may help us to
| understand 'why' evolution optimized for this and that.
|
| In the case of groups of hunters (or many other groups), we
| know that cooperation is often superior to constant internal
| fighting. And choosing the best strategic thinker as the leader
| instead of the biggest bully is obviously a good idea in many
| scenarios. It is very reasonable that the wolves' leader
| selection process has optimised itself in such a direction.
| eleveriven wrote:
| The performative dominance described here feels eerily familiar
| WuxiFingerHold wrote:
| Extremely interesting topic, unfortunately shallow article. Still
| I'm happy for the input.
|
| I'd like to learn more about how abundance of food, lack of
| threats and other comforts of civilization distort the formerly
| vital instincts into all kind of dysfunctional and harming
| behavior. And more importantly, how to manage those.
| reasonableout wrote:
| wd
| sharkbird2 wrote:
| I feel like the term "alpha" is deeply problematic since
| different people use it to mean completely different things.
|
| Many people associate it with the toxic traits of dominating
| others through aggression. While other's use it to reference a
| healthy, good, strong, well developed and balanced individual who
| helps others.
|
| I think we need new terms for these things so we can start
| differentiate them.
| roland35 wrote:
| The problem is that people who use the toxic definition of
| alpha really like it! There is no motivation to change sadly.
| getnormality wrote:
| No matter what new terms are invented, people will reinterpret
| them to align with their own perspectives.
|
| If "alpha" means good in some social context, people will load
| it up with all the contradictory qualities that different
| people consider good.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Surprised not to see David Graeber's "The Dawn of Everything"
| recommended yet in a thread like this.
|
| It details how "pre-modern" societies functioned based on the
| available archaeological and anthropological evidence we have,
| and one of its key findings is just how much human history
| conflicts with narratives like "the alpha myth". It also goes
| into detail about how we ended up with so many social narratives
| like it that just don't have any justifiable precedent.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| this is way above the audience. this conversation is
| unfortunately like talking about garbage collector algorithms
| in different architectures, to social science grads.
|
| but in the rare case a social scientist want to lear about
| memory borrowing, i would also suggest somethig more recent
| (and less anachist to this crowd)
| https://ia804705.us.archive.org/13/items/byung-chul-han-the-...
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I've had that (The Burnout Society) on my to-read list for
| awhile, do you recommend it?
|
| I think the core thesis is spot on from what I've seen of
| discussions, and am looking to decide which aspects of
| ambition are my own, and which have I have accepted
| unconsciously.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't sneer, including at the rest of the
| community._" It's reliably a marker of bad comments and worse
| threads.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| It's great to post relevant and informative links, but please
| do it without putting down others. If you're participating
| here, you're as much the community as anyone else is.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.
| ..
| danlugo92 wrote:
| 1. There's still other species where an "alpha" exists.
|
| 2. Even if there's no other species where an "alpha" exists, what
| forbids us from it being a human thing? No that I want to look up
| to a mere mortal "alpha" e.g. dictators. Only real alpha is
| Christ.
|
| 3. There's always an alpha in friend groups, I've seen it, should
| I pluck out my eyes as they're lying to me? Heck no. Doesn't mean
| the women in the friend group took turns doing you know what to
| his you know what. An alpha is simple a leader, online manosphere
| groups took it to the extreme of being "the guy that gets most
| girls" but in truth being known helps with that whole thing.
|
| 4. Even my previous 3 points didn't resonate with you, it's just
| an allegory, I don't know why this particular alpha thing has hit
| a nerve with some many people, that even whole ass articles have
| been written up against it, what is the problem with men aspiring
| to be better? An alpha shares his spoils anyways, in Lions in
| Hyenas in Coyotes, etc.
| fedeb95 wrote:
| I find your lack of sources... disturbing.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| I think the path forward requires rejecting appeals to nature.
|
| "Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it
| cannot be used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and
| competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for
| being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental; but not for a
| healthy love of animals. On the evolutionary basis you may be
| inhumane, or you may be absurdly humane; but you cannot be human.
| That you and a tiger are one may be a reason for being tender to
| a tiger. Or it may be a reason for being as cruel as the tiger.
| It is one way to train the tiger to imitate you, it is a shorter
| way to imitate the tiger. But in neither case does evolution tell
| you how to treat a tiger reasonably, that is, to admire his
| stripes while avoiding his claws.
|
| If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to the
| garden of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to recur:
| only the supernatural has taken a sane view of Nature. The
| essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic
| religion is really in this proposition: that Nature is our
| mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you
| discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of
| Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is
| our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same
| father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but
| not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in
| this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity.
| Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele.
| Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But
| Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert.
| To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a
| little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved." ~
| Chesterton
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| Yup. This whole article is just a glaring case of the
| naturalistic fallacy
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy)
|
| You don't need to argue that "alpha males" don't exist amongst
| wild animals to make that case that it's bad for human
| civilization.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I find it fascinating that some users here seem to be attached to
| the concept of an alpha male, reality be damned. It's clear that
| this meets some emotional/psychological need for them.
|
| I regard it as a dangerous mind virus. It is hard to rid yourself
| of it even if you see it is bullshit and harming you because it
| requires a substantial change in how you see your life. I think
| that's because it is some hard truths ("people like powerful
| people") mixed in with some cognitive distortions ("dominance is
| the primary mediator of all interactions"). The lack of a true
| definition means there is no objective measure of what it is,
| which makes it impossible to feel secure in. Thus, the endless
| arguing about whether behavior is really "alpha" or "beta."
|
| There are good bits there, such as not letting yourself be pushed
| around. But that doesn't make it all good or true. I really think
| the whole artifice is a cop-out for actually doing the work of
| individuation and self-development because you outsource all the
| hard work of deciding what you want to be and the temporary,
| self-imposed emotional exile it takes to actually discern that to
| following guidelines ultimately given to you by other people.
|
| You're still not crafting your own life, you're just changing who
| you get your life script from.
|
| It exploits psychological vulnerabilities in people and traps
| them: if you worry about your alpha/beta status, then you'll be
| the type of person who wants to fix it, but there isn't a fix
| because your perspective is the issue.
|
| Hope that was helpful for someone.
| otikik wrote:
| This was very well put. Thanks.
| stonesthrowaway wrote:
| > I find it fascinating that some users here seem to be
| attached to the concept of an alpha male, reality be damned.
|
| But the reality is that wolf packs have alpha males. Both in
| the wild and in zoos. The article itself clearly states so. The
| only difference is that in the wild, the alpha male is the
| biological father of his offsprings that make up the wolf pack.
| While in the zoo, the alpha male is generally unrelated to the
| other wolves.
|
| We know alpha males and alpha females exists. The article
| doesn't deny that fact. It just sneakily twists the difference
| of alpha males in zoos and nature as an "alpha male myth".
|
| > It's clear that this meets some emotional/psychological need
| for them.
|
| It doesn't. I could give a rats ass whether a wolf pack has a
| male and female alpha ( aka father and mother ). The only ones
| emotionally upset about alpha males are people like you who for
| some odd reason want to deny it's existence, reality be damned.
|
| It's ridiculous that those denying reality are the one's
| accusing others of denying reality.
| dspillett wrote:
| I think in part it is that the flawed study might actually be
| relevant to them because of the flaw. It studied captive wolves
| in an unnaturally constrained (and therefore competitive)
| environment, and that is how some people feel a lot of the
| time.
|
| Trying to be the alpha in such a situation, so they can look
| down at the others and feel better, instead of doing anything
| to try actually improve the world, is an unhealthy reaction,
| but one I can at least understand.
|
| Trying to be an "alpha" irrespective and create that sort of
| situation for others, on the other hand, is rather despicable.
|
| Another factor in the longevity of alpha/beta/other
| designations is that they don't only come from that study (and
| those that followed it, or it referenced). The terms were used
| elsewhere both in science and fiction (and, specifically, in
| well known science fiction such as Huxley's "Brave New World"
| which pre-dates the publication of Schenkel's infamous wolf
| study by a decade and a half).
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| Yes! We're all captive in capitalist, imperial, colonial
| patriarchal systems that have wrapped the globe.
| snowfarthing wrote:
| On the contrary, the so-called "capitalism" that emerges
| when we respect individual rights is the one way we can
| escape this.
|
| Too much emphasis is placed on government regulation and
| corporate environments to "make things right" when, in the
| end, they are all just rigid bureaucratic structures that
| trap people and force them into heirarchies.
|
| For my entire life, I have mostly tried to conform to this
| -- albeit mostly focusing on startups because they are more
| likely to value individuals, and less likely to have rigid
| structure and tradition -- but I'm only just now realizing
| that my autistic and ADHD tendencies being pigeon-holed
| even this much is a recipe for the burnout I've experienced
| for most of my adult life. I need to try something
| different!
|
| And if I lived in a more rigid society (all non-capitalist
| countries are far more rigid than capitalist ones -- pretty
| much by definition) my options for fleeing rigidity would
| be vanishingly small.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| This is an unfathomably based take, and you have improved
| my day significantly. Thanks.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| A lot of men are terrified of the idea of not seeming masculine
| enough- and what it would mean for them romantically, socially,
| and professionally- which is why this is appealing as an idea.
|
| Supposed "alpha behaviors" are seemingly identical to toddler
| behaviors to me. I think it's ironically non-masculine to be so
| terrified of how you appear that you play act as basically a
| belligerent child incapable of compromise, teamwork, or
| navigating disagreements with dignity instead of being
| yourself.
|
| The ancient stoics had a much healthier, and more useful idea
| of masculinity IMO- that still lets you be strong and not
| pushed around by others inappropriately.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| Yes. It always struck me as incredibly insecure to make
| thinking of how one appears to others one's whole identity.
| adamanonymous wrote:
| It's like up-badging a car. Most people won't care about
| it. Those who are knowledgeable about it will see through
| it. And those who actually do care about superficial things
| like that are probably not the kind of people whose respect
| should matter to you
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| It is narcissistic at its core. If you had a healthy sense
| of self, you wouldn't need to constantly be monitoring how
| others perceive you, and trying to manage that.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Yes, that is absolutely the case, and while Narcissism
| appears strong and confident from the outside, it's
| really driven by massive amounts of anxiety and terror
| over not appearing good enough. Narcissism is really an
| awful disability caused by trauma that leads to a lot of
| suffering, not something impressive and powerful.
|
| This is why I suggested stoicism (and modern therapy
| methods based on it like ACT and CBT) as a practical
| alternative that fulfills the same emotional need in a
| mentally healthier, and more responsible way.
|
| It essentially flips this around entirely, and says the
| only thing that really matters is how you perceive
| yourself, e.g. knowing you are acting according to your
| own goals and values. You can only control how you act
| and perceive things, not what others think about you, and
| there is no value or point in worrying about things
| outside your control.
|
| Instead of trying to "look strong" you can actually just
| be strong- and stand by your convictions and values.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Needing to always be dominant is just another weakness that
| opens you to being manipulated.
|
| Agree on the stoicism point. Inner strength is just as
| important as external strength.
| api wrote:
| > I find it fascinating that some users here seem to be
| attached to the concept of an alpha male, reality be damned.
| It's clear that this meets some emotional/psychological need
| for them.
|
| Grifters and people selling right-wing politics have figured
| out how to market to male insecurity. They're selling
| politicians of course but also quack supplements, self-help
| nonsense, masculinity gurus, hilarious "boot camps" where you
| spend tens of thousands to have some dumbass yell at you, etc.
| All that stuff will leave you still insecure, and with less
| money.
|
| Andrew Tate is probably the undisputed master of the alpha male
| grift. He's known as an abuser of women, and he is, but really
| men are his main marks. In a way part of his grift is to make
| his marks utterly repulsive to most women, keeping them alone
| and insecure and customers.
| sfink wrote:
| Sure, but don't lose sight of the fact that female insecurity
| has been leveraged and marketed to as well, for pretty much
| forever. Fashion, makeup, beauty standards -- flip through a
| magazine and look at the ads, and think about what the ads
| are suggesting the reader needs or would benefit from, and
| further think about whether the reader will be more or less
| insecure afterwards.
|
| (And male insecurity has always been a target. Don't let that
| bully kick sand at you at the beach! But I agree that the
| targeting has recently been vastly more tuned and optimized
| and the most egregious forms have become socially
| acceptable.)
| api wrote:
| That's what I was getting at -- historically female
| insecurity has been more aggressively targeted, but that's
| been changing. I now see all kinds of marketing and
| propaganda tilted toward male insecurity, a lot more than I
| remember.
| ineptech wrote:
| Well put, but the countermeme ("Hey did you hear that the alpha
| wolf thing was bullshit?") seems to be as popular or moreso
| than what it's displacing. I did some light googling yesterday
| to see if I could find any references of "alpha wolf" before
| the 40s, and all I could find was page after page of articles
| exactly like TFA.
|
| I think the same reasoning applies - it is vague and easy to
| apply and people want it to be true - just for different
| people.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| This is my thought. I have no attachment to the idea, I've
| been comfortably and happily married for years. But
| dismissing the idea of "an alpha" among animals seems stupid
| based on one study. Isn't this the case among gorillas,
| lions, etc? And it apparently is the truth even among wolves
| in certain circumstances as the study points out. The OP
| should apply the same logic to interrogate his own motivated
| reasoning.
| ineptech wrote:
| I think the truth is in the middle: people took what they
| wanted from the study in the 40s, and people are taking
| what they want from the updated study as well. Worse, the
| topic seems to be popular enough that it's being used as
| seo spam now. At this point, if someone with a deep
| understanding of both wolf behavior and human behavior were
| to review all available data, think deeply on the subject,
| draw meaningful and valuable insights, and write a popular
| essay conveying them, I don't know how I'd find it among
| all the dross.
|
| I guess it has a life of its own now. Seems like a good
| example of the semiotics concept of the signifier becoming
| disconnected from the signified: a heated debate over the
| finer points of wolf pack social dynamics being carried out
| by people with no particular knowledge of or interest in
| wolves.
| neves wrote:
| May be, but I never heard about it till I read this article
| in HN. Sincerely, I didn't even know that alpha-male was
| related to wolves :-)
| zosima wrote:
| The simple fact is that alpha males are a fact of nature. In
| wolves and in lions and maybe especially in primates like
| baboons and gorillas.
|
| It's hilarious that something so obvious is considered worth
| denying, but I guess it's an example of how intellectualization
| can be used to exploit psychological weakness.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > The simple fact is that alpha males are a fact of nature.
| In wolves and in lions
|
| Dude, you are literally responding to someone arguing that
| alphas are real with an article that completely disproves
| your thesis.
|
| This isn't even a new revelation. Biologists have long known
| that the whole "wolf alpha" thing was BS.
|
| But further, we aren't wolves, we aren't lions. Male lions
| taking over a pride will murder all the cubs, should we?
| Female Cynomolgus monkeys will have sex with every male in
| the troupe so as to confuse who that father is of the
| offspring, should we?
|
| No species of animal is the same and there are no "norms" in
| the animal kingdom.
|
| Nothing more beta than confidently spouting BS without taking
| the time to research your own positions.
| jachee wrote:
| Did you even _read_ the article?
| tstrimple wrote:
| Reading articles that challenge your world view isn't a
| very "alpha" behavior unfortunately.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| This essay is decent workplace leadership advice.
|
| The connection to wolf pack social dynamics is very thin.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| I'm in disagree. They wolves tent to have a "big bad wolf". Now
| most wolves would never enter a house and eat bear soup, but some
| ofthe are quit psychopathic and can bring food back for the pack.
|
| What this article doesn't mention is the eating of puppies. The
| big bad wolf is not a gentle wolf.
| midhunsezhi wrote:
| Great article but is missing sources with citations so I ran the
| content against GPTZero's source finder -
| https://app.gptzero.me/documents/124f8c4d-9fd4-43c4-93f9-713...
| karaterobot wrote:
| Forget the captivity part, the fact that _people aren 't wolves_
| is what always bothered me about this dumb idea.
| muzani wrote:
| I feel that rather than disproving the alpha myth, this
| emphasizes that it works well in cages.
|
| What makes a cage? I'd say something where sustainability is a
| factor - there are limited leads, limited work, limited
| territory. People slow down otherwise they become too productive,
| deplete the work available, and get laid off. Hierarchies evolve
| around controlling these limited resources. All the danger is
| internal. There's constant resources coming in from god knows
| where, so budgeting takes priority over hunting.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| Yes. It seems almost like a tautology that alphas arise in
| environments with scarcity and competition.
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| The author obviously wants to critique the machismo culture built
| into capitalism (which is totally fine!) but he seems to
| inherently subscribe to the naturalistic fallacy without being
| aware of it. Thus he feels the need to dismiss the idea of "alpha
| male" hierarchies in nature as non-existent as a way to dismiss
| them within our own society. You really don't need to do this and
| IMO, the flimsy premise of the start of his argument undermines
| his conclusion for society (which I actually agree with). Just
| because a certain type of sociological system exists within
| nature doesn't mean it's one we, as humans, should want for
| ourselves.
| spandrew wrote:
| > Consider how these dynamics manifest in Silicon Valley, where
| Facebook's infamous "move fast and break things" mantra shaped a
| generation of tech culture. This emphasis on speed and disruption
| at any cost has created work environments that mirror the
| artificial pressures of captivity, where displaying dominance
| often takes precedence over fostering sustainable innovation. -
|
| Yeaa..... this is a huge stretch. I'm not a hustle culture
| proponent by any means (Patagonia's 'let them go surfing' seems
| great to me!), but "Move fast and break things" is a pragmatic
| mantra that speaks to the nature of enterprises in highly
| competitive markets.
|
| Laypeople will balk at the idea of "breaking things". But that's
| hubris. It takes humility to admit that the breaking things part
| of discovery and invention isn't _isn 't optional_. Fast or slow,
| you will break things pursuing an idea unknown space. The mantra
| speaks to the need to adjust risk tolerances in futuristic-
| leaning businesses.
|
| There are other ways, of course. Bio-med breaks things in
| controlled trials, for example. But it's also slow as molasses.
| Rife with in-fighting.
|
| But to equate alpha-male captivity with futuristic pragmatism is
| a huge reach.
| nubianwarrior wrote:
| This thread is a hiring manager's dream; imagine identifying a
| candidate's emotional intelligence through their HN comments.
| Woof, indeed.
| boh wrote:
| The Alpha thing was always cringy. Reminded me of the way people
| used to take Buzzfeed quizzes that would define who they are. "It
| says I'm a Gryffindor because I'm brave!". Identity is a
| bottomless pit of manipulation and self-delusion.
| int_19h wrote:
| Does it even matter?
|
| Let's assume for the sake of argument that the "alpha myth" is
| actually true as it pertains to humans, and the most aggressive
| and dominating ones rise to the top.
|
| Now look around you. Who are those people at the top of your
| society who unironically refer to themselves as "alphas" and
| embrace all the rhetoric around that, and what kind of world do
| they create around them?
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