Mailvox: evolutionary ideology
Anonymous Conservative writes of an amusing spin on the "science says conservatives are crazy" theme:
Anyhow, if you happen to find this sort of thing interesting, you can read a related paper on it.
I've done a ton of research into the linkage between r/K Selection Theory in Evolutionary Ecology and political ideology. The short of it is ideology looks like it's just an intellectual expression of the underlying psychologies motivating r/K behaviors. Obviously, this likely speaks to the mechanism by which our ideologies evolved. That ideology and r/K behaviors are both related to the same DRD4 gene, and that the brain structures which govern these behaviors is also the same also raises interesting questions about their evolutionary linkage.Now, I tend to regard all of this evo-psych as a ludicrous joke, especially since I am a confirmed evolutionary skeptic. Because there is so little scientific evidence in support of evolution by natural selection, I conclude it is unlikely to be the mechanism distinguishing the liberal Bunny People from the conservative Wolf People. And, of course, being a libertarian and rejecting both big government ideologies, I have neither a wolf nor a rabbit in that hunt. That being said, this is certainly a potentially useful rhetorical response to the faux-scientific rhetoric so often presented by liberals in a misguided attempt to somehow shame conservatives out of their psychologically inferior ideological perspective. (The very attempt betrays both the intrinsic intellectual flexibility of liberals as well as their inability to understand the other side.) And it certainly explains the way in which liberals are constantly looking to the government as a way to rein in their more successful competitors; because the Bunny People can't do anything to control the Wolf People themselves, they need to appeal to the Hunter... never stopping to think that the Hunter is just as pleased to shoot bunnies as wolves... and may in fact prefer eating rabbit meat.
This material is pure gold, if you've ever wondered why our species has this psychological divide within it. It even answers where exactly Liberals came from, given their obvious reduced ability to function in what we often call “the state of nature” (ie a K-selected, competitive state of nature – they would thrive in an r-selected stated of nature, where competitiveness is disfavored).
I've run this work by liberals, and it devastating to them, on a visceral level. They do not want to be the bunny-rabbit people, embodying a prey species psychology within a highly K-selected, competitive species. I posted for a bit at TED, very benignly on this, just to test my presentation in a hostile, more Liberal environment. I got the feedback and insight I needed (every liberal abandoned any thread this was posted to), and then I left for six months. When I went back every one of my postings referencing this had been quietly deleted, despite the fact I purposely was hyper-civil and cited everything I asserted. I don't think they've ever done that to anyone else. Liberals are horrified by this work, and the implications which naturally arise from it.
Anyhow, if you happen to find this sort of thing interesting, you can read a related paper on it.
53 Comments:
and may in fact prefer eating rabbit meat.
This is hysterical. Look at some of the Greenies. Perhaps it's not actually global warming but their inate fear causing them to condemn the bar-b-que?
This is interesting stuff, but I suspect it is all hokum.
For the most part liberals and conservatives are made, not born. Most of your values are adopted from the environment you grow up in or are thrown into at some later time.
The exception being the obvious differences in the genders.
"because the Bunny People can't do anything control the Wolf People themselves"
I think a word is missing there.
I don't find this research surprising at all. We all know liberals are parasites, perhaps incapable or unwilling to be productive in a manner that which is on the free market. I don't think genetics or evolution as anything to do with liberals as much that it is a just a learned behavior for various sources which one can learn to be a liberal douche. Mr Trust has stumbled upon a true correlation, however has not established any causation.
But as there is racial differences, there are differences within a group. I would subscribe to the bunny/wolve thesis. I read another paper that said like that there is some 20% within a population that have this "get up and go attitude" where they are self-motivating. The rest were content to go along and get along.
This is how aristocracy arose amongst the different races. On the battlefield, individuals stood out that combined, strength, intellectual prowess and charisma. The patriarchical family evolved into royalty, and the superb fighting men that showed the above characteristics became the aristocracy. Nature works like that.
This is why democracy is so wrong. Nature operates on righteousness, i.e. the dictum that all things are constructed to do one thing. The other natural law is "The rule of one is best". Nature ordains these things and only particular individuals are graced with leadership. The vulgar class can NOT rule itself. It never can. This is why Nature breeds an aristocratical class.
Rottweiler -
I'm not saying Liberals are born. I'm saying they are born with a predisposition, which is modified by experience. This is seen, when large numbers play out.
Check the paper, and look at the counterculture example. We shipped all of our Warriors overseas from 1942-1946, during WWII. According to the census, they began reproducing in earnest in late 48 into 49, as the Baby Boom began in earnest.
Look at the offspring, 20 years later. 1962, 20 year old Hippies emerge, 20 years after we began removing our Warriors from the gene pool. Hippies have every facet of the r-type behavior, and are ultra leftist, openly betryaing us to the NVA and VC, promiscuous, supportive of communism and commune like Anticompetitive social structures. They amass, as all of the offspring of the defectives who stayed home in WWII come on the scene, and aggregate. By 1969, according to Bugliosi, just as the WWII vet's kids hit the scene, the youth are turning their back on the hippie lifestyle of free sex, drugs, and irresponsibility. To this day, it is still a bizarre aberration.
Environment does play a large part, though. Evidence indicates that an r-type DRD4 allele will be much more likely to produce r-type behavior in an individual if that individual experiences environmental harshness as a kid. So environment and genes both play a role. Both produce predispositions, producing effects as large numbers build up.
Notice, rabbits have different psychologies from wolves. These were produced by the environments they were confronted with. Notice Liberals have the same psychology relative to Conservatives, even including the promiscuity and support for single parenting.
BTW, women have smaller amygalae, relative to men, just as Liberals have smaller amygdalae relative to Conservatives. Amygdala damage produces docility, inability to judge threat (and approach of threats absent any awareness of anger), and aversion to eye contact (passive, conflict-avoiding behavior), as well as promiscuity and lower-investment parenting
Before you knock this too hard, run it by a Liberal or two yourself, and watch the reaction closely. Liberals sustain themselves on an imaginary false reality, where they are the future incarnation of mankind, and Conservatives are innately inferior. This strips them of that, and really damages their psyche. It's worth the effort.
Thank you Vox, for the post.
Thanks for the clarification, Anonymous Conservative.
Salt-
Liberals obsess over the environment, because to thrive, they need r-selection, or the free availability of resources. So long as resources are free and life is easy, everyone gets resources freely, and the Darwinian race is to see who can produce the most offspring. Hence it favors individuals who eschew the risk and wasted time of competing for plentiful resources, to just seek resources and reproduce as fast as possible. So you end up with a cowardly psychology, averse to conflict/competition, which mates promiscuously as fast and as early as possible, while investing as little in offspring as possible (single parenting, like Murphy Brown).
The moment a population reaches the carrying capacity of the environment, and resources become scarce, that is K-selection, and it is a wholly different environment. Somebody is going to die due to not getting any food, and we know who that is. This will favor a psychology which is aggressive/competitive/brave, and parents will try to make their offspring as fit as possible, to see their genes carry forth. They will do this by carefully selecting as highly fit a mate as possible, monopolizing their mate's high genetic fitness through monogamy, and raising their offspring carefully for extended periods, in a two parent family. Since the environment is dangerously competitive, this will protect the kids, as will an innate aversion to entering the mating competition until fully mature. (Which produces the Social Conservative's drive to support abstinence until monogamy)
If we overpopulate and exhaust enironmental resources, we have K-selection, and Liberals are programmed to know, on a very deep level, that is exactly the opposite of the perpetual resource surplus they want. That is why we even have environmentalists now, seeking to limit immigration, for fear it will overpopulate the US.
Of course all of that will pale in comparison to what will happen if our Chinese debtors suddenly pull the free resources we are getting in the form of debt. Things will get real K-selective, real fast, once free government cheese is no longer flowing freely into the r-selected welfarite's laps.
Liberals are horrified by this work, and the implications which naturally arise from it.
How liberals love science, especially their evolution. Hoisted on their own petard immediately comes to mind here.
Besides being predators, wolves are also noble, intelligent, and complex creatures. Now, bunnies, they have little personality to speak of, and certainly no room for nobility or integrity. Thank God liberals don't take after them in the one thing rabbits are known for, or we'd be infested with the little lettuce munchers.
The analogy breaks down when one considers the liberal's unique human capacity for lying, obfuscating, and playing dirty. Although, considering their lack of competitiveness, these traits would be the only weapons available to the human rabbit pushing for his commie Utopia.
Very interesting work indeed, (Not very)Anonymous Conservative. This also explains my reaction to them. I have nothing but contempt for the sniveling, insipid vermin. I certainly don't see them as my equals, or competitors, in any way. I do see them as enemies, only because democracy has given them power over me.
I may have made an incorrect assumption. Are you the author of the paper that Vox linked to, AC?
Suomynona -
First, Liberals do support promiscuity, which would lead to fecundity in a state of nature. However one facet of the r-type psychology is low-investment parenting. In nature, r-type fathers have little desire to be involved in child-rearing - this facilitates them abandoning the mother to go and impregnate another female. Females have reduced investment as well, usually kicking the child out once it reaches a base level of maturity. Since the child has no need to compete with peers, due to the plethora of resources (created by predation reducing numbers well below the carrying capacity of the environment, thus freeing up resources), there is no disadvantage to putting a child out younger and less fit. And it frees up the mom to begin her next brood sooner, with another promiscuous male, lending advantage there.
The end result is r-types have a reduced desire to invest in child-rearing, so when presented with birth control, they hop on the bandwagon, and end up producing fewer children. I suspect there will be a subset of r-types which lack the responsibility to use birth control, though, and they will eventually become the default form of r-type. Think of welfare moms with ten kids. Idiocracy here we come.
On the rest, you have to understand one thing beyond r/K, and that was the introduction of group competition into the K-selected scene. Once a subset of K-types adapted to group-up with like-minded K-types, this would favor individuals who were designed to self assemble into a functional group. Loyalty, honor, altruism, as well as a need to demand these traits in peers, to secure reciprocity would be favored.
I suspect, as we over populated, and our initial territory became K-type, r-types fled the competition, and they became the migrators (consistent with the fact the DRD4 allele associated with Liberalism is found elevated in migratory populations, as well as the well established Liberal trait of novelty seeking, which would manifest as seeking a new environment). As they migrated into new ecosystems, they again had free resource availability, and r-selected conditions, at least until they multiplied up.
But somewhere in between the two extremes in environment was a gray area, where r and K-types probably mixed and interacted. There, each trait evolved behavioral traits designed to compete with the other. The K-types evolved the desire to punish transgressions, such as the Liberal traits you listed (lying, obfuscating, and playing dirty). Liberals evolved their dirty tricks, and deception, to allow them to infiltrate a group, and enjoy the altruism of others, while selfishly seeking their own advantage. How many Liberals today go out as cops, soldiers,or firefighters, altruistically sacrificing, to save others for a pittance in salary? How many Liberals seek to betray us to our enemies, (almost certainly due to a subconscious urge). Suppose we were in a small primitive group war with these enemies. Would currying favor with them during the conflict, while telling us their “dissent is patriotic,” have yielded any increase in competitive advantage to a less fit specimen in such an ancient time of war, especially if we lost?
This is why even John Jost (himself a Liberal), has had to acknowledge Liberals have less loyalty to in-group, and less desire to follow rules. It is a strategy of selfish exploitation of the altruism of others in an altruistic, group competitive environment. And of course, it makes sense if Liberals were r-types caught in a K-selected group-competitive (not selective) environment. That is the only r-type phenotype which would likely persist, as the groups would have killed any other r-type loners.
They would have to get in a group, and once there, Darwin would favor those r-types who did anything to rise above the low status they would naturally assume in such a K-favoring, fitness favoring, Warrior favoring environment.
As for the end of your post, you and me both, brother.
Suomynona -
Yes I am the author.
You know, I've had similar thoughts regarding Germany and Japan's current pacifism. I believe that during WWII, Germany killed off many of its Warrior-types in Operation Barbarossa, and Japan killed off virtually all of its Warrior-types by expecting them to commit suicide rather than surrender.
However, I can't explain Scandinavia; I don't think they were throwing men into WWII by the busload (Finland had a fight with the USSR, and Sweden was neutral. Only Norway had any real involvement.) Also, the USSR wasn't particularly docile -- it was capable of horrific violence both within and outside its borders.
Any thoughts, Anonymous Conservative?
Also, how does this manifest with respect to non-Western cultures? I doubt that the American political system is representative of human mental processes as a whole.
"Besides being predators, wolves are also noble, intelligent, and complex creatures."
I take it you've never met the Russian variety.
The science is settled. We should punish deniers as if they were Holocaust deniers.
Fascinating.
kh123 May 05, 2012 1:26 PM
I take it you've never met the Russian variety.
If you're referring to the Russian people, my impression is that this variety would appear to have a congenital predisposition to being brutes, of whom the most heinous have no qualms regarding cannibalism. Their propagation is assured. Yet, for all their boarishness, they have managed to create great art and architecture.
I have never known any Russian personally, and from the few interactions I've had with them, I would prefer it stay that way.
CrisisEraDynamo - Part 1
Sorry for the late reply. Had to take care of something.
Sweden had a history as an empire, which might have played a role.
Empires seem to have a tendency to produce r-type psychologies for two reasons. First they tend to require military deployments to manage the occupied territories, and this depletes K-types from the gene pool.
Second, my impression is that free resource availability, and the absence of competitive selection it produces will have the same effect, but slower and less dramatic. This free resource availability can arise from a civilization's productivity, for example. If the society is highly productive, the times of plenty will allow generous welfare, which removes all competitive effects from the populace. That is r-selection, and history would seem to indicate that it will eventually foster such a large increase in the r-type population that the conditions of productivity will decline. As they do, the ever increasing population of unproductive, uncompetitive r-types will seek to bleed ever more out of the smaller proportion of K-types, to keep the r-selection happening. Eventually, you will see a collapse, as the amount of K-type productivity is overtaken by what is required to sustain the r-type populace. Once the collapse occurs, competition and K-selection enter the arena again, and the population is culled as r-types flee to more generous environs, get locked up, or those who can produce maybe learn to produce something of value. The society emerges productive again, and the cycle continues. No nation lasts forever.
In empires, as the K-selection approaches, the seized booty from abroad can allow the r-selection to persist by temporarily forestalling the collapse. Think Rome.
CrisisEraDynamo - Part 2
As for Russian ruthlessness, r-types are docile and anticompetitive, but their governments will tend to not be, after a while. Evidence I cite indicates that r-types probably can't judge threats due to limited amygdala function, and are thus low hanging fruit to the ruthless psychopath. I think this is why Leftist movements will often become led by psychopaths who pile up the bodies. The psychopaths see an opportunity in a movement led by idiots who can't judge threat. Even worse, when confronted with the undeniably ruthless openly, the leftists are averse to competition, so they just instinctively seek to curry favor, as an anticompetitive strategy. Think of Liberals embracing mass murderers (Norman Mailer comes to mind. One guy he got freed, actually went and stabbed a waiter to death for nothing during lunch, and Mailer tried to get the killer back out yet again).
When Stalin came in, he was an animal, but all of the r-type leftist idiots like Lenin thought he was fine. Once they figured out he was a psychopath, they only embraced him further, especially as the bodies piled up. Lenin only put his true thoughts to paper as his end came, and then all Stalin's lackeys buried it. Put a psychopath, supported by layers of reflexive Leftist sycophants, in control of a massive nation like Russia, and you will see some ruthlessness. Over time, there will be selective effects favoring the sycophants everywhere within the machinery, and for a while, given a psychopath like Stalin's inclinations, it will be horrific.
CrisisEraDynamo - Part 3
As for non-western cultures, the American system may be unusual. When America was first settled, the people who did it were at home with the concept of war, and violence. Traveling to a true state of nature, with a potentially hostile indigenous population, implies a true psychological comfort with the K-selected environment. As we continued to develop, this manifested in a Competitive culture, that produced a Competitive environment, which would have attracted more K-type psychologies from abroad. People did not come here for welfare and free cell phones back then, nor did we actively import such individuals. I think of early America as the inverse of the Hippie example. What was created then fostered that competitive psychology for a while, as well as enormous success, but as I said, that has a way of catching up with you. I suspect, when things turn K-type again, our K-types will (due to our history) be an extreme form, and their extreme hostility to r-types will make the cleansing somewhat more complete than places like Britain or Spain, God bless them. But it will still be ugly.
Non-western cultures may even be more complex, being affected by unusual things like in-breeding (possibly prone to enhance rates of nepotism, tribalism, and corruption, as way of supporting the proliferation of related genes). Some evolutionary psychologists speculate that our out-breeding may have made us more open to supporting others (K-types) to whom we are not closely related. In that theory, a Black US Marine will give his life for a Hispanic US Marine, because their altruism evolved to respect others who were not closely related. Whereas in Iraq, one Iraqi will tend to abandon another who is from a different tribe, as he is programmed to only risk his life for his in-bred relatives who will share a lot of his genes. I don't know if I buy it, but it is a theory out there.
So it could be really complex, if you get into these details, and you will be delving heavily into speculation. Plus, this work is just the start of a field which could take the entirety of the evolutionary psychology, history, and political science world decades to begin to explore. Knowing everything at this point is just not in the cards.
In arguing with Liberals, I would keep it simple. Wherever you go, you tend to find two psychologies. One favoring freedom, so men can make their own destinies, by their own hands, and one seeking to have everyone controlled, and provided for uniformly by a government which seizes income to redistribute it. The freedom loving movement will tend to have all of the K-type qualities inherent to it's movement as a whole, while the controlling one will tend to have all r-type qualities. And the K-type one will favor policies which recognize all resources are limited, and should be apportioned according to ability, effort, and determination, while the r-type one's polices are predicated upon the idea that there are more than enough free resources to provision everyone generously, forever.
ROFL, that article is brilliant! Man, it would be funny if there is a study that shows that liberals are more likely to be cat people. That would explain the Toxoplasmosis-Liberal link. It would certainly explain Jerry Coyne's liberalism, the guy probably has Toxoplasmosis due to his love of cats.
Maybe pyrimethamine can cure America of Liberals...
At the outset your arguments appear quite logical, AC. I hope your theory will hold up to the criticism and wailing which they will undoubtedly engender. Although, as you've noted, your experience thus far would indicate that the majority of liberals are more likely to quietly hop away rather than challenge them.
Nevertheless, imagining the cognitive dissonance that must bounce around their tiny bunny brains when confronted with this scientific theory, based on one of the cornerstones upon which their ideology rests, is quite delightful.
Posting to PZ, Dawkins and Harris' blogs as you did to the TED site should prove immensely entertaining.
Suomynona -
In my experience, cognitive dissonance can't do justice to what happens when Liberals are stripped of their little amygdala assuaging thoughts, without the ability to lie their way to safety. I don't expect any of them to acknowledge this openly, unless it comes to dominate the Conservative dialog. Then they may do some perfunctory "Debunking" bullet point list of just enough phoney BS to claim this was debunked, ala John Lott's work More Guns Less Crime.
Thanks for the moral support. I may give a posting to Dawkins a try, just for kicks.
Interestingly, if this is all correct, we may be seeing some of Dawkin's selfish gene action with the K-trait (a K-type DRD4 allele?). Individuals accept defeat honorably in individual competitions, so as to allocate resources to the most fit, and foster the evolutionary emergence of the most fit genetic vessel to carry the K-type trait forward.
Gotta jet for the night. Seeya all tomorrow.
Thanks for the answer, Anonymous Conservative, but where's part 1?
I think it's worth pointing out that Annonymous Conservative's r-K theory still works even if you don't believe in evolution. DNA exists and genetic traits are passed from generation to generation, regardless of whether we came about through mutation and natural selection, or through a willfull act of creation by God. Either way, the mechanism of DNA is real, and some behavioral traits are genetic, and that's all it really takes for AC's theory to work.
"Survival of the fittest" is real enough for any given situation. If the situation and environment never changed, then evolution would have to be true (even if we began as created species) simply becuse the less fit would be weeded out over time. But the situation is always changing, so what genetic makeup is most fit will vary frequently enough to perhaps supress any long-term selection mechanism.
AC's theory might be a perfect example of a fitness mechanism that is self-regulating. A high concentration of K individuals would be a dynamic, growth-oriented society. After a period of growth, society would become prosperous enough to flip over to an r-favored environment. The bunny people out-breed the wolves and society transitions to a bureaucratic commie-herd. Prosperity dissapears, hard times come, and suddenly the K wolves are favored again. Rinse, repeat, write stories about it. The cycle could continue until an outside culture going through a K-dominant phase happened upon the society in the depth of an r-phase and conquered them. (or ate them, in some locals...).
BTW, Wheeler's 20% with "Get up and go" is actually Hypomania, and it's about 15% of the population. Hypomania isn't quite so much "get up and go" as it is a comfort level in taking risks. Hypomaniacs are energized by challenges and thrive on taking calculated risks. It carries risks though, since if two Hypomanics have children, there's a 25% change the child will be at risk of being bi-polar. It's possible the Hypomania gene is related to AC's r-K selection as well, since Hypomanics tend to be more competitive.
Saw a panel discussion on C-SPAN the last time Russia invaded Georgia. It was full of think tank types, including a former military intel guy who had spent his career studying the Soviet/Russians.
He gave the best quote of the whole thing. "Now that I'm out of the military I can speak the truth without fear of repercussion. The Russians are a hoard of drunken barbarians that occasionally vomit up a genius."
CrisisEraDynamo - Part 1
Just checked once more before heading out. How'd I forget that?
Sweden had a history as an empire, which might have played a role.
Empires seem to have a tendency to produce more r-type natures for two reasons. First they tend to require military deployments to manage the occupied territories and conquer other lands, and this depletes K-types from the gene pool for extended periods.
Second, my impression is that free resource availability, and the absence of competitive selection it produces will have the same effect, but slower and less dramatic. This free resource availability can arise from a civilization's productivity, for example. If the society is highly productive, the times of plenty will allow generous welfare, which removes all competitive effects from the populace. That is r-selection, and it will usually produce a collapse at a certian point, due to the K-types no longer supporting the r-types.
In empires, as the K-selection of the r-type produced collapse approaches, the seized booty from abroad can allow the r-selection to persist by temporarily forestalling the collapse, allowing a greater permeation of the r-trait.
If the r-trait gets far enough in to a population, it can become a defining trait, dominating the population. Rabbits were so r-selected with all the predation, that their species is now wholly r-selected. It would take a long time of no predation, and ruthless competition for deforested fields, to get them back to a more k-selected psychology.
Sweden did spend a lot of time as an Empire, some of it at the end propped up by France, and they didn't have a lot of foreign K-type influx after the fall. It could have produced a more r-type nature, in a more lasting form.
I just got curious, and skipped over to Wikipedia (I know), and saw this, about after the Empire,
"There was a significant population increase during the 18th and 19th centuries, which the writer Esaias Tegnér in 1833 attributed to "the peace, the (smallpox) vaccine, and the potatoes". Between 1750 and 1850, the population in Sweden doubled. According to some scholars, mass emigration to America became the only way to prevent famine and rebellion; over 1% of the population emigrated annually during the 1880s. Nevertheless, Sweden remained poor, retaining a nearly entirely agricultural economy even as Denmark and Western European countries began to industrialize."
Predation works as an r-selection pressure when it performs no fitness selection, but is random in nature. People leaving for America's freedom, to compete, might even drain some K-types.
So since the Empire, they at least had a normal r-selection pressure applied to a highly fecund, post-empire population, and it might even have been expressly culling r-types through emmigration.
I'd have expected r-type, anticompetitive, pacifist behavior.
JMH May 05, 2012 5:59 PM
I think it's worth pointing out that Annonymous Conservative's r-K theory still works even if you don't believe in evolution. DNA exists and genetic traits are passed from generation to generation, regardless of whether we came about through mutation and natural selection, or through a willfull act of creation by God. Either way, the mechanism of DNA is real, and some behavioral traits are genetic, and that's all it really takes for AC's theory to work.
As one who is highly skeptical of the theory of evolution, this was precisely the angle from which I was looking at AC's claims. They seem reasonable to me because I believe, and have observed, that most behavioral traits, not just some, are genetically coded.
I doesn't appear that brainwashing alone is sufficient to turn rambunctious and naturally masculine little boys into docile and effeminate r-types. Leftist institutions have had to resort to drugging young boys as soon as they express natural K tendencies. What is being done to them in the name of a twisted ideology is quite evil.
Boogeyman May 05, 2012 5:59 PM
The Russians are a hoard of drunken barbarians that occasionally vomit up a genius.
That is perfect! Here I've spent zero time with Russians, never even think about them, and somehow came to the exact same conclusion as this guy who's an expert on them. Some knowledge must be so plainly evident that it is effortlessly absorbed via some form of cognitive osmosis.
Boogeyman May 05, 2012 5:59 PM
Saw a panel discussion on C-SPAN the last time Russia invaded Georgia. It was full of think tank types, including a former military intel guy who had spent his career studying the Soviet/Russians.
He gave the best quote of the whole thing. "Now that I'm out of the military I can speak the truth without fear of repercussion. The Russians are a hoard of drunken barbarians that occasionally vomit up a genius."
It just occurred to me that such a denunciation would have never been publicly stated about a black or brown group of people, but since Russians are white, it was politically correct. This is the real reason he can now speak the truth without fear of repercussion, not because he is out of the military.
Two questions for Suomyona and Anonymous Conservative:
1) Would, say, a massive robot war against humans make them more K or more r? I would think that having to defend yourself against robots would weed out the meek, but according to your theory, it would make us more like the rabbit (or the Swede!)
2) Does it mean that people cannot change political positions? That it's hard-coded into the brain as a sort of mental firmware? This seems a teensy bit farfetched.
Also, an additional comment: I guess that this is why economic boom times are associated with liberalism and economic contractions with conservatism.
Any theory that can produce the following sentence is worthy of a read: "...a psychology prone to drive males to engage in [mating] competitions and accept outcomes such as being out-flashed..."
So, Spacebunny fell for Vox because he out-flashed the other guys at the club? Plausible, certainly plausible.
On a more serious note, the Toxoplasma gondii section (summary - T. gondii infections in humans can increase envy in men and promiscuity in women) made me wonder - did cat ownership become more common in the 20th century than it can been earlier? Domestic Cats have been around a while (though they are one of the last animals we have domesticated), but I suspect the litterbox is a relatively modern thing. Barn cats in the 19th Century would be expected to do their business in the outdoors and no human would be scooping their literbox and coming into contact with their (potentially T. gondii infected) poop. I know that (explicity) isn't the gist of the paper, but the thought occured to me while reading that section.
And upon reading I see that AC did indeed consider the self-perpetuating cycle I suggested in my 5:59pm post. It's a compelling argument.
I do think that to be complete, the effect of psychopaths attaining leadership positions in a r-selected society needs to be considered. The section that said K-type societies will be more warllike than r-type fails some real-world tests, but when you consider a little further, an r-type society is highly vulnerable to a sociopath manipulating his way into a position of authority, and the sociopath may force the bunnies to go to war, ill-equipped as they may be for it.
All in all, bravo.
Download link is broken.
Also, when I downloaded the paper earlier, it was password protected. What's the password?
K-selective..
Interestingly, France has an insanely high rate of T. gondii, with around 80% of the population infected, due to a practice of eating some raw meats.
I suspect that T. gondii has evolved to purposefully create an r-strategy in it's hosts, as cats eating rats, which are being a good little r-type prey species, and reproducing at a high rate, is good for the parasite.
I have wondered if r-strategists actually benefit, competitively in their battle with K-types, from predation. Here, every rat, which approaches a cat, and lets itself get eaten, will focus the cat on the rats as a food source. This will get the cat eating the rats, which will serve as an r-selective stress, removing the K-type trait from the population over time. If there is a selfish gene thing going on, an approach of threats, to stimulate predation and help an r-type trait gain control of the population, would be an astonishingly cool example. Let yourself get eaten, and your DRD4 7r allele, in others, will come to dominate the population as a new predator species savages it, freeing up resources, and offering reward to the most fecund.
I have wondered if the Liberal's approach of threats evolved from that, and hung around due to the usefulness in group competition. They can't oppress the population all to a uniform, low standard of subsistence themselves, so they get foreign K-types to come in and do it for them. Think of the 60's, set in more primitive times. The Hippies help our neighbors, the Vietcong to defeat us. In return, the Vietcong kill our Warriors, and appoint Hippies to run the government. Suddenly, the maladaptive Hippie, drugged, stoned, fascinated by pretty colors, and wholly retard, is in charge of the country, and all fo the competing K-types have been killed.
Now today, Liberals are subconsciously driven to import radical Muslims and savage third-world-ers, hoping to curry favor with them, and hoping the radical Muslims and other savages will take on their Conservative enemies, and keep them busy or take them down. I think it is a Darwinian strategy of treason, especially given the Hippie example.
CrisisEraDynamo -
The robot war example depends. r-selection occurs if you confront a population with a mortality so overwhelming that the mortality kills anyone who encounters it equally. As a result, there is no advantage to producing fitness in offspring, as all will be killed equally. This will then favor producing as many offspring as possible, regardless of how fit they are. Individual lines which focus efforts on producing a few highly fit offspring will eventually, by chance see all of their few offspring killed together, and the line will end in extinction.
Individuals who produce as many offspring as possible, regardless of how unfit they are, will have the best chance of seeing at least a few offspring make it, and reproduce, and this will eventually become the defacto form of the populace. Less fit, more fecund, and trending that way more every day. In humans, this would produce Liberalism.
If the mortality offers a challenge, but it is not overwhelming, then it will favor fitness, in some form. As a result, the parents who produce fit offspring who can meet and exceed the challenge will become the defacto form. If the fitness required is intelligence and physical ability, the parents whose genes pass forward will be the ones who carefully select fit mates, monopolize the fitness by demanding monogamy, and who spend a lot of time together making their child as fit as possible, to meet the coming challenge.
In short, the nature of the selective force is vital. If it favors fitness, and culls the unfit, it will produce a population which focuses all it's efforts on a few fit offspring.
If the challenge is competition with peers, both individually for status and in groups for resources, you will add competitive to the K-selected model, as well as a raft of pro-social, group competition oriented behavioral drives, such as loyalty to in-group, disregard for hostile out-group, respect for authority in time of war, and altruism in combat. In short, you will have the entire platform of the Conservative ideology.
CrisisEraDynamo -
I forgot the mention above, Sweden is also the birthplace of the Stockholm Syndrome. A bunch of bank robbers take over a bank, and screw up the robbery. They take the bank employees and patrons hostage, beating them brutally. While on a phone call with the Prime Minister, making demands, they actually strangle one hostage unconscious on the phone call just for effect. When the ordeal is over, all the hostages actually say they viewed the police as a dangerous enemy who almost got them killed, and the hostage takers as their friends, who protected them. Some even stay in touch with the hostage-takers for years afterward.
I maintain that Jost's (himself a Liberal) characterization of Liberals as being sympathetic with out-groups, and less loyal to in-groups is a subconscious drive designed to produce an r-type Darwinian strategy of betrayal in group competition (produced without the Liberal even being aware of it).
Here, we see the Hippie example, allying with the Vietcong and NVA, and spitting on our troops. Romans turned their Empire's leadership over to the Barbarians they imported to fight for them as their military virtue declined under the r-selection at the end. Today, Liberals try to get violent murderers released from prison, they seek to get terrorists from Guantanamo released onto the streets of the USA (the Uighurs from Guantanamo, who after fighting with our troops in Afghanistan, almost ended up free in DC, and eventually wound up living in a US-funded, Cliff-side Beach house in Bermuda, with the US paying all their bills. They are probably still there, on our dime.) Find a hostile, violent enemy who means us harm, and a Liberal will tell us that standing up to the enemy is unintellectual, and we are the bad people. They believe that. That is how Darwin motivates a Darwinian strategy of betrayal in group competition, for personal gain, without the individual executing the strategy even being aware of it. Everything about their brain, up to and including their entire perceptual framework of the world, is subtly altered, until betrayal is noble, loyalty is stupid and unintellectual, standing up and risking everything for principle is immoral, and a violent threat is just a nice guy looking for a friend.
I find it so funny that they tried to portray Conservatism as some sort of mental pathology.
Cue liberal - Monty Python "That rabbit is dynamite" references in 3..2..1....
JMH -
Good points. As I noted above, T. gondii is very high in France, around 80%. I've often wondered if Janneane Garofalo got it from her cats – she always seems a little more than just confused to me. They say it is actually very common in raw meats. Supposedly, the cows, pigs, and chickens pick it up from cats on the farm, so it is present in their flesh when you buy it. So eating undercooked meat can infect a person, too. A good reason to make sure your kids' hamburger is well done, and there aren't any cats in their sandbox. See : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12117502
Your right about me needing to add the angle of a sociopath getting control of an r-type population. I'll have to update it on that. When I wrote the paper, my assumption was Liberals would attack it, so I attempted to address every concern they might raise. r-type Liberal societies being prone to violence and murder didn't dawn on me as an argument they would make, despite how obvious it is.
I never stopped to think that Conservatives, honestly in search of truth and a clear perception of reality, would view it just as skeptically as Liberals, trying to honestly fit it to the reality they see around them. There may be other areas I'll have to clarify, if I think about that.
I also find it mildly unsettling that you saw the cycles within minutes of reading Vox's two second excerpt, and before even looking at the paper. Took me a *long* time mulling it over, and a lot of brainpower to come up with that angle. I really wonder how it all will evolve, as so many others, with so much more variation and ability in perceptual and cognitive powers mull it over, test it, and hone it down.
Gonna be fun to watch the fireworks, if it get's out there.
Anonymous Conservative:
please fix the broken link to the paper
Sorry if I'm bombarding you with question after question here, but what's your position on free will?
Koanic-
Uploaded the file again. Kind of weird the file got corrupted. Thanks for the heads up.
CrisisEraDynamo -
I think some have free will, but a few do not. I knew one guy who could not control himself at all, and who destroyed his own life pursuing the most foolish behaviors. You will never convince me he had any choice, as the simplest course would have been to just be decent to those around them. But he couldn't, because he could not touch certain circuits in his head, so he built a false reality, rather than honestly assess reality, and move forward form there. I believe that is the root of pure eil.
What it comes down to is if the brain can perceive something about itself, and change it's own structure in response, then the current structure can consciously modify itself, and an individual can define who they are themselves.
I've ordered your book, by the way.
This little theory of yours seems very interesting, so I got anxious to see it in full detail.
I hope it's as good as you're making it sound. :)
CrisisEraDynamo -
Wow, thank you. I hope you enjoy it. I have to say, I think it is a more cogent hypothesis than anything else out there, and will go a long way to explaining the more confusing aspects of politics. I look at a lot of the other stuff, like Haidt, or Murray, and I see great analysis of what is, but not why it is, which to me is the bigger question.
I'm hopeful this may answer that, and help people see that the left is not the way to freedom and greatness, nor is conciliation and compromise a viable strategy to protect that which we love about humanity.
Anonymous Conservative:
I am still getting an error when clicking the link.
"Directory has no index file.
Browsing this site or directory without an index file is prohibited."
Hmmm....I wonder if this explains the paradox of the Greatest Generation producing the Baby Boomers? How could a group that stared down the Wehrmacht and the Emperor have produced hippy-dippy offspring like the flower children?
We assume that those who survived WWII did so because they were the better soldiers. But what if those who came back survived because they were the better cowards? What if the war wiped out all of the K-selected males in combat and the males that returned were the R-selected types? They came home and bred, along with the defectives that could not go to war, with the “Rosie the Rivetter” liars, resulting in the smaller amygdala, r-selected, cowardly, dishonest and duplicitous liberal Baby Boomers that we have today?
Post-war America did provide a resource-rich, uncompetitive environment, in that America emerged from the war with its industrial infrastructure untouched. This provided a safe environment in which to marinate for roughly 20-25 years. The GG had high promiscuity, little parental investment in children (when raising them), little sense of threat (when giving America to blacks and mexicans), and a taste for novelty and out-group favoritism.
When the GG’s children turned to hippyism, there was nothing the GG could do, given that they were cowards. Besides, what could they tell their kids, when the war and the subsequent prosperity was not the result of their own efforts?
And when the women turned to feminism in disgust over the rabbits they married, how could any of these surviving cowards protest the decision?
Maybe that’s why grandpa cried so much during “Saving Private Ryan.” He remembered all the Smitty’s that died carrying his ass in the war.
Hi Anonymous Conservative,
While I have very much enjoyed your exposition of r/K theory yesterday, one night's sleep has revealed what appears to me to be a significant flaw. The flaw is due to your assumption that genetics is the sole or primary causal mechanism of historical fluctuations.
Please note that I still cannot view your paper, and therefore may not be representing your views fairly. Would you mind emailing me at koanicsoul@gmail.com when your website is working again?
On to the argument. First, let me summarize:
r = competition via fecundity
K = competition via individual merit
Sub Saharan Africa is r-selective. Selection pressures overwhelm individual merit, taking random individuals and swathes. Fecundity rapidly repopulates to carrying capacity. A farmer who attempts to build or save will be attacked by his neighbors because he threatens their long-term r investment.
Glacial Europe was K-selective. The smart survived. The dumb froze or starved. Fecundity focused on stable, slow growth.
You assume that a society can shift its r/K ratio rapidly. I disagree. While it's possible that major events like wars or class-targeted purges can decimate the K population, the r population is essentially ineradicable.
In fact, the only way to move the needle on r is to subject an insular population to several hundred years of intense selection, ala the Ashkenazim.
Why? Because the population ratio is not 50/50. It's 80/20, favoring r. And since K doesn't do fecundity blooms, this means that it's possible to LOSE K quickly, but not possible to GAIN it quickly.
So aside from genocide-level events and the rare accidental evolutionary hothouse, we need a different explanation for the shifts in societal tenor that occur so regularly throughout history.
We can arguably see permanent K-loss in many previously successful empires that seemingly exhaust themselves and sink into oblivion, never reviving, but instead being absorbed by other, more vigorous peoples. However, this explanation only applies to a small percentage of cases.
The major explanation for the "phases of empire" that Sir John Glubb has so astutely expounded, is not changes in genetic r/K ratio, but changes in social promotion. Early rising empires promote K's to power and influence; late decadent ones promote r's.
I would add that r's have one natural superiority over K's - a greater aptitude for navigating large dynamic social groupings. Thus, the more a society leaves environmental K pressure behind, the greater the probability that the r's will take over.
(This suggests that humanity will resume K-driven evolution if it ever begins colonizing space. Space is a lot like glacial Europe - hostile to life.)
Even with the r's in charge, things rarely get bad enough that the K's can't reproduce. R's mostly fight amongst themselves - or prey on each other. Thus the population ratio remains stable.
Thus, the error is an overly reductionist geneticists' view of human action.
@ map
AC addresses that exact topic here.
In short, the flower children by and large weren't the children of returning veterans, but the children of those who stayed behind. When the veterans' kids came onto the scene, hippie behavior died out.
@CrisisEraDynamo -
Thank you for that chapter.
OK, the problem was activex controls or something. I can view the site using freewebproxyasia.com
@ map
You're welcome.
JMH - Just a final note, paper was updated as recommended, to address those concerns.
I have also uploaded three copies to the server in the event one gets corrupted.
The locations are:
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/modern.pdf
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/modern2.pdf
http://www.anonymousconservative.com/modern3.pdf
Thanks to all for all the comments and feedback, and thanks again Vox.
My browser must have been loading form cache, becasue I did nto see all of these additional comments. My apologies on not answering, if any of you are still here.
Koanic,
K may not bloom, but it kills back r, so it's bloom is relative, rather than absolute. It can, in one gneeration take over a popualtion, simply by either killing r or preventing r from acquiring resources.
I generally don't attach this work to race or geopgraphy as I beleive that isn't quite accurate. Any race or place can change r or K quite quickly, so r or K relate more to their environment than their racial/geographical status. Ideology, though will always divide the populace perfectly.
You theory of social promotion is quite interesting, and probably true. That could play a large role, and I would not surprised to see the greater community add it on to this, now that the concept is in the public domain.
One other thing to consider is I didn't include a lot of other information in the work, just to keep it simple, and fully supportable.
For example, some have hypothesized that inbreeding, such as cousin marriage, produces more tribalism, and less ability to be loyal to individuals not related by blood (through kin selection effects). Since relatie share a lot fo the same genes, they will sacrifice themselves more to see those genes go forward in relatives.
As a result, in larger populations this will produce genetic tendencies toward small scale tribalism, corruption, nepotism, etc, as a way of giving advantage to similar packages of genes in others. These would all impair freedom, and be maladaptive to large group competition, such as national competitions.
The thought is that the Church in Europe, by outlawing in-breeding, eliminted this trait, and created a circumstance which favored larger group competitiveness by allowing a form of man to evolve which functioned well in large, cohesive civilizations. This form of man then formed large, cohesive civilizations, spreading their loyalty outward to non-relatives, and thriving.
I don't know if this is true, so I didn't include it, but it might be. I expect a lot of other information like this to come out as time goes on, modifying this work, and perfecting it.
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