I'm a fan of JD Johannes and his Outside the Wire blog. He's done lots of great first-hand reporting from war zones. Recently, he turned his attention to Helen Smith's book, Men on Strike. He does a good job reviewing the book and has read and lived the topic enough to add some original thoughts. In his piece, however, is this bit of illogical reasoning.
What I personally found most interesting about Men on Strike is that among all the men quoted I found only one rough approximate representative of myself. The only other time I saw myself was a demographic group in a non-scientific survey conducted by the blogger and theorist of The Game, Vox Day. Demographically I fit the profile of the High Alpha player who Vox says, “should probably be assumed to be a ruthless player intrinsically unfit for a long-term relationship.”To my way of thinking, neither JD nor Vox are Alphas. In a strictly secular, Darwinist sense, the whole point of being an Alpha is continuing your genetic lineage by siring children and making sure they make it to prominence in adulthood* so they can, in turn, become Alphas or mate with Alphas. 100 years from now, a true Alpha will have left his mark on the world in the form of whole platoons of successful progeny. JD and Vox will leave behind ... what? A bunch of blog posts?
 |
| As the Alpha male of the pride, this lion not only gets to eat first at every kill, but he also gets Instapundit links on his blog posts! |
Men are not lions. Alpha primates differ from Alpha cats.
ReplyDeleteKT, have you seen Idiocracy yet?
ReplyDeleteyes, or we all end up like Weena
ReplyDeleteI think KT is right, here. The whole concept of it being desirable to be the "alpha" is based on having better breeding possibilities, like Genghis Khan potentially being the direct ancestor of up to 0.5% of the entire world's population. And if all these guys are doing is going out and getting laid with women who have no intention of having children (and the ability to decide not to, even while still having sex), then they aren't really "alphas". They are just jerks that are adept at manipulating a certain type of woman, and who will eventually die alone, unmourned, and with no descendants. And good riddance to them.
ReplyDeleteKelly, I'm no alpha myself, but primates or cats, the idea is the same. With Vox and JD, they are confusing quantity with quality.
ReplyDeleteIvyan, I've not seen it, but I've seen the trailer and get the premise.
Indeed.
ReplyDeleteThat ridiculous and pathetic "game" bullshit is about *not* siring and rearing children.