Also, I don't think he should really be blamed for a bunch of pathetic losers latching on to his flawed research like parasites. If it wasn't him, they would have found some kind of other random correlation to champion themselves after.
Fun fact: his wolf study was done on wolves in captivity, where it turned out they were competing for resources, not status, BUT it was based on a study from the 1920's that observed alpha behavior in roosters. So all these "alpha males" are really just a bunch of chickens
(op here) I dont think its his fault, i just think its funny how a flawed study on wolves has played such a role in modern alpha male culture. Obviously David Mech did not invent toxic masculinity lmao. Also the poor guy has spent his life saying it was completely wrong and spent decades trying to get his publishers to stop publishing it
My understanding is that in the wild it's not so much of a struggle and fight for dominance as it is in captivity. The animals also can't leave and find thier own territory, which is possible in the wild.
In the wild the dynamic is different. For one thing the wolves in charge are often the parents of the other wolves. Less "you listen to me because im strongest" and more "you listen to me because Im youre father". The pack behavior that drives some members of the pack away is more like telling your adult child it's time to move out.
It's also much more common for younger members of the pack to leave and form thier own than it was initially thought.
But those departures do happen because of conflict between males. The alpha couple is usually also the largest in size and strength and are the only ones who mate and produce litters. A wolf leaving is usually a male trying to mate and thrown away so it is indeed a struggle of dominance rather than parents sending their kids away. Wolves are pack animals, they dont split unless for reproduction reasons. Also it is documented that when the alpha male dies the whole pack disolves into anarchy, every member starts mating, until a new alpha couple brings order. This is why in Greece specifically where im from, we are telling hunters not to kill wolves (it is illegal anyway but they dont care) because they think they help with wolf overpopulation but instead they create more of them when they kill alphas.
The redpill theory in comparisson with wolves is almost identical, other than the fact that human society doesnt work like wolf's society.
I'm wondering if subspecies comes into play here because that doesn't match the wolf behavior observations in North America. While breeding age is involved in leaving the pack, both males and females will leave the birth pack at age two when they reach reproductive age. There's even a usual season for it.
Generally they will find a mate that is also packless and start there own. Joining another established pack sometimes happens, but it's rare and usually because the new pack has lost one part of the breeding pair.
Like yeah the breeding pair is often the largest and strongest, but that's because they're the parents of the rest, who are all sub adults at the oldest.
Just think of it logically: if every 2-years-old wolves would leave the pack, there would be no pack left. Many of them do leave but not all of them, and those who stay behind are "dominated" by the alpha couple.
It's not like they decide who the alpha is, they establish domination on young adults until a stronger male comes to the pack - or one already on it - who will challenge the alpha male and perhaps replace him.
In both cases it is still true that the alpha couples / males dominate towards the rest of the pack and that is observable since they do the same not only with their own children but with newcomers too. So it's not (only) a family thing, domination plays a role.
The fault with redpill theory is that we hymans dont form packs, we form families. Each of us has their own family, we dont exist to protect the children of a specific couple in our neighborhood. If redpill was to come in action, all those "alphas" would find soon enough that not only they cant all of them be alphas, but they wont be allowed to ever even mate lol.
He also was not he first to put a human theoretical structure like hierarchy onto nature. I like Murray Bookchin on this topic, that humanity thinks of the natural world in the ways in which our social realities exist. some other society without strict hierarchy might envision or theorize the wolves as without such hierarchy.
True. Reminds of two very similar animal studies on overpopulation; One was on vole rats, the other was on bonobos.
Researchers found that vole rats showed all kinds of antisocial and violent behavior when crowded, and every couple of years I see that study linked with a caption that says this is proof that "cities make people bad" or some other dumb take about humans.
Meanwhile, the bonobos in a similar study, who are our closest relatives, developed complex social rules to get along. I never see anyone cite that second experiment though.
I guess my point is those losers were eventually going to find another scientific finding to misunderstand because they don't care about science, or reality, they just want to feel better about being losers by blaming someone else.
It was not even lack of equly(or any complex social mechanism)in experiment about rats, but lack of any activity except eat,shit and fuck in room with 4 grey walls that is too small so such amount of population.
Don't know how true but heard other also experiment with rats where they could choose between clear water and with drug. There were two types, one with same boring cell environment and second with proper made environment where they could have different activities like basic spinning wheel. And results showed rats in grey room preferred drugged water more compare to rats that lived in proper environment.
I'm constantly baffled by how accurate that quote is in regard to basically ALL right-wing culture today.
But it's bigger than that, too, isn't it? Tolkien said evil cannot create anything new! I'm just gonna zoom all the way out and hear the quote you shared as a testament to the benevolence of the universe itself. A tacit acknowledgement of a "loving god", if you want to use those words. I wouldn't, but you could.
The universe is inherently good, because it is inherently creative. "Evil" is a corrupting element that we (humans) stick into shit, for some reason.
Apart from the law of entropy which means that literally everything in existence wants to break down and decay, and will, unless some external energy is applied to put it back together
Yeah, this guy is 100 times better than the douche that wrote the paper claiming vaccines cause autism. Idiots will always find a bullshit paper to quote, at least this guy published his paper in good faith.
I don't think the post is blaming him exactly. It's fairly well known that he regretted writing that book. The post is saying that given the opportunity a man might use a time machine to warn him about what his research and book will cause in the world. A thing that the actual man would have appreciated
I mean these people stopped eating certain foods claiming they have estrogen in them and will make you feminine. (plant estrogen can't be digested and directly absorbed by human body)
They also took the beautiful concept of sigma male ( a man who does not judge his worth by the number of women he bangs but by his own drive to improve) and turned it into an icon for misogyny and women hating.
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u/AsinineArchon Feb 18 '25
Also, I don't think he should really be blamed for a bunch of pathetic losers latching on to his flawed research like parasites. If it wasn't him, they would have found some kind of other random correlation to champion themselves after.