Do you think beta-ism is mostly heritable?

[speakeasy]

On another forum, there is a guy who does pretty damn good with girls. He was talking about how his father has natural game as well. I started then thinking about the underlying temperaments that feed into alpha-male personalities and create men that have prolific opportunities to spread their seed far and wide.

- Aggression
- Less fear, and less fear of pain in particular
- Competitive
- Risk taker/Ballsy
- Decisive/Bold
- Confidence

Now take the diametric beta temperaments:

- Passive
- More fearful. More fearful of pain, be it the pain of rejection or pain of bodily injury in getting in a fight
- More cooperative and less competive
- Doesn't like taking risks, plays it safe
- Indecisive/meandering
- Unsure of himself


Now I've read a lot of psychology material over the years, because it's just a personal interest, and the heritability of temperament is an area of particular fascination. Many of these temperamental qualities above do come from our genes. Some men were simply born to be alphas and some were born to be betas. That doesn't necessarily mean they will end up that way. An alpha boy may grow up raised by two lesbian feminists who pound into his head that masculine behavior is undesirable. A natural beta may work hard to fill in his shortcomings and overcoming what are his natural aversions to aggression, risk-taking and competition. I think the alpha-beta dimension is a bell curve like many human qualities with the extreme alphas on the far right, the self-made millionaire playboys like Richard Branson. Those that have the ability to spread their genes far and wide if they so choose. On the far left you have the betas that remain involuntarily celibate or even virgins into their 30s. Heaped up in the middle are the majority of men, some a little more to one direction than the other. They aren't playboys but they've had some moderate success with women and they go on to get married and pass their genes along to the next generation.

While I think things like upbringing and environment play some factor, what I wonder is how MUCH of a factor is it. Why is it that some guys just have this stuff naturally and they've never even heard of studying "game", they were born with it. And why are there guys that are essentially retards in understanding how to attract women. Almost like a tone-deaf man trying to learn violin. Did nature just want some men to be weeded out of the genepool?

I hate to admit it, but I know I was born with beta genes. Because if I stop going out and practicing game. I start relapsing into AFCism. It's almost like that's my default temperament and I have to force myself with great effort to break out of it. If I don't keep myself constantly stretched, my natural inclination wants to recoil to it's natural state like a rubber band being released. The naturals, it would almost take an effort to NOT approach a girl they want, from what I've observed of naturals I know.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Now I've read a lot of psychology material over the years, because it's just a personal interest, and the heritability of temperament is an area of particular fascination. Many of these temperamental qualities above do come from our genes. Some men were simply born to be alphas and some were born to be betas.

It is the generally accepted view of most geneticists that behavior is roughly fifty percent genetic, and fifty percent due to NON - FAMILY experience.

This is not some theory by some arm chair psychologist, this is from many years of scientific research.

If you are beta, or alpha, because of your parents, it's their genes only and has nothing to do with the way they raised you. Decades of research bear this out.

The take away from this is that it is completely and utterly useless to spend any emotional or mental energy at all complaining how you were raised.

You've got your parents genes to start with, and you've got your own, individual, personal experiences to build on them with.

Many people, especially parents, (and those who like to blame how they were raised) don't like to believe this, but decades of research involving twins, twins split at birth, fraternal twins, normal siblings, and adopted siblings raised in the same household show this over and over again.

I refer you to Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, for more information.

 

[Luthor Rex]

It is the generally accepted view of most geneticists that behavior is roughly fifty percent genetic, and fifty percent due to NON - FAMILY experience.

FAIL.

There is no 50/50, the amount depends on the trait in question. For example we can look at the Big 5 Personality Traits and find the following:

An analysis of the available studies found overall heritabilities for the Big Five traits as follows:[40]

Openness: 57%
Extroversion: 54%
Conscientiousness: 49%
Neuroticism: 48%
Agreeableness: 42%

Oh and let's not forget another fun one, the heritability of IQ:

In 2006, The New York Times Magazine listed about three quarters as a figure held by the majority of studies[10], while a 2004 meta-analysis of reports in Current Directions in Psychological Science gave an overall estimate of around .85 for 18-year-olds and older.

With an estimate between 75% and 85%, IQ is even more heritable than the previous traits mentioned.

The truth is humans occupy no special place in nature when it comes to breeding. This means that: yes, we can breed human beings the way we breed dogs.

--------------------------------------

As for the alpha / beta issue. Yes, the core traits of the alpha (such as dominance) are also probably largely heritable rather than largely learned.

 

[Stagger Lee]

The truth is humans occupy no special place in nature when it comes to breeding. This means that: yes, we can breed human beings the way we breed dogs.

And since women now control mating, the dumbest and most aggressive humans are being bred.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

FAIL

Maybe you should re read my post, specifically the part where I mentioned that behavior was roughly 50/50. And not each specific behavior being fifty fifty, but our overall general behavior.

Which you proved for me nicely by pointing out the big 5 personality traits were roughly fifty fifty (42-57%), which comes out to a shocking average of EXACTLY fifty percent.

My point was for BEHAVIOR, fifty percent is genetic, and fifty percent is learned, based on the NON-FAMILY environment.

IQ, which you quoted at around 80 percent, is not behavior, and is obviously more "heritable" than behaviors, much like height or hair color.

 

[Quiksilver]

Think about the length of your ancestry... I'm not talking about grandma and her mom, no, I'm talking about your ancestry in terms of the past 2 billion years.

Your ancestors have gotten laid for 2 billion years, that's all you really need to understand. That almost everyone alive today(there are exceptions of course) is potentially an "alpha", which is determined by upbringing to some extent, and later in life we can consciously become that type of person.

So, sure you might not get as much tail as the next guy, but knowing that your parents parents parents, etc etc etc spanning 2 billion years have gotten laid and passed on those genes to you, so there's no excuse!

 

[PappyS]

Did nature just want some men to be weeded out of the genepool?

You would think that over millions of years of evolution beta characteristics would have been bred out of the population because of sexual selection. After all the alpha males are the ones having children from multiple women while the betas are the 40-year old virgins. The main reason these characteristics persist is that alpha/beta characteristics are irrelevant when it comes to females. Men don't care if a woman is aggressive or passive. They only care about her looks and youth e.g. fecundity (potential to breed). In fact they often prefer to select passive women for long-term relationships. This is why uber-alphas often end up with beta sons. On the flipside a beta male may have alpha sons if he has children with a woman who has alpha characteristics.

 

[speakeasy]

You would think that over millions of years of evolution beta characteristics would have been bred out of the population because of sexual selection. After all the alpha males are the ones having children from multiple women while the betas are the 40-year old virgins. The main reason these characteristics persist is that alpha/beta characteristics are irrelevant when it comes to females. Men don't care if a woman is aggressive or passive. They only care about her looks and youth e.g. fecundity (potential to breed). In fact they often prefer to select passive women for long-term relationships. This is why uber-alphas often end up with beta sons. On the flipside a beta male may have alpha sons if he has children with a woman who has alpha characteristics.

If you read the article in the thread the other day about "the mainstream is starting to get it" you'll get some insight into why betas haven't been bred out. It's civilization. If we still lived in the law of the jungle where there was no religion, no taboos about adultery, having a harem, you'd have more likely have betas bred out because the alphas would be impregnating all the women. Civilization is the best thing ever for the beta, because people are "supposed" to get married and it's only one woman for one man. So the alphas can screw as many women as they want, but in the end, they can only pick one to settle down with. So all these women that want the limited supply of super alphas have no choice but to settle for a beta when she's ready to get serious. That explains all the girls that chase Tucker Max types in college, then end up marrying one of those boring family-oriented guys that they previously rejected. Well, she has no choice, really. So that's why betas haven't been bread out of existence. Now if we are indeed returning to the caveman days like that article implies, betas are going to be screwed while alphas will be having a field day.

When that beta man in Philadelphia shot up that gym full of women out of sexual frustration, some in here were making the point that in a different era, a guy like this would've found a woman. And I think they were right, even though that's no excuse for what he did. But with feminism and women's ever increasing waywardness combined with the dissolution of family and marriage and the return of caveman courtship, the betas are going to be on the losing end of the stick. George Sodoni may be a harbinger of more to come and a brewing beta resentment that may explode into violence. History has shown that men get violent when they are sexually frustrated for too long. There was a lot of violence in the wild west, and there was also very little p*ssy to go around. When a new woman showed up in town, men would fight each other to death for her. Many men have fought to the death over women, yet how often do women fight to the death over men? That's even true with animals. All the violence in prison by men that can't get sexual release, or the violent Islamists who spend their last hours alive at strip clubs seeing what they've been denied seeing in the Arab world. Willing to launch suicide attacks with the hope that they'll be serviced by a harem of virgins in the afterlife. Could you imagine a woman blowing herself up with the hope that she'll be f*cked by 72 men in the hereafter? Men denied sex are very, very angry men.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

you'll get some insight into why betas haven't been bred out. It's civilization. If we still lived in the law of the jungle where there was no religion, no taboos about adultery, having a harem, you'd have more likely have betas bred out because the alphas would be impregnating all the women.

Not quite. Plenty of mammals live with a small portion of males getting all the sex. Male bull seals, for example, 10% of the males father 90% of the kids. Beta's still exist in those societies because they are a kind of "insurance" in case something should happen to the alpha. For the vast majority of time, betas never get any seal tail. One alpha is responsible for fifty kids, of which one or two will be alpha, and so on and so on.


The rest of your argument, however, is valid. Civilization (religion) created the one man - one woman law, and as that becomes less and less effective, natural beta's will have less chance of automatically hooking with a woman (that would rather be with somebody else, anyway).

But as Dawkins pointed out in The Selfish Gene, we don't have to be slaves to our genetics. We don't have to get fat just because we are driven to eat ourselves silly whenever food is present. We don't have to live according to our default settings.

There are plenty of opportunities to be an alpha through self development and the like.

As that oft referenced article also pointed out, there are so very many courses out there on seduction, because they work. Short fat dorky guys can actually learn how to act and talk alpha and get plenty of a$$ even if they aren't naturals.

The only fools who will get the short end of the stick are the beta's that whine about the changing environment without getting up of their a$$ and doing something about it.

Anybody can become an alpha if you make it a priority, and not merely a wish. Ain't easy, but it's certainly possible.

Fortune favors the brave. Don't be a pussy.

 

[Alle_Gory]

Think about the length of your ancestry... I'm not talking about grandma and her mom, no, I'm talking about your ancestry in terms of the past 2 billion years.

Your ancestors have gotten laid for 2 billion years, that's all you really need to understand. That almost everyone alive today(there are exceptions of course) is potentially an "alpha", which is determined by upbringing to some extent, and later in life we can consciously become that type of person.

So, sure you might not get as much tail as the next guy, but knowing that your parents parents parents, etc etc etc spanning 2 billion years have gotten laid and passed on those genes to you, so there's no excuse!

Which means that most of this beta-ism is a form of social conditioning. By your peers, your family, your friends.

Humans are not like dogs. We have more capacity for thought. While we do have animal tendencies, we do have the ability to control them. That's why awe are the dominant species. Because we're damn smart.

... well. Some of us at least.

 

[thedude4242]

And since women now control mating, the dumbest and most aggressive humans are being bred.

man you said that exactly right.

 

[Jitterbug]

Plenty of alpha men in history had loser sons.

###

speakeasy, I don't think there will be much violence other than isolated cases like Sodini. In a large scale, we will see (and are already seeing) men's indifference towards women.

 

[Julius_Seizeher]

I think that beta-ism can be by default when a man is nurtured to be so, but when he becomes cognizant that he is predominantly beta, through his reaction lies the gauge of his alpha potential. Does he seek ways to overcome his shortcomings, or does he "lay down and take it" by building a scheme of rationale that supports his cowardice?

Fundamental rule of life: Anything that is worthwhile is not going to be easy, but everything that is hard is not guaranteed to be worthwhile. A man's willingness to live with this truth, and to eventually thrive because of it, is the yardstick.

 

[PappyS]

Alpha males (aggressive, dominant, etc.) often breed with women who have beta characteristics (passive, retiring). That is why alpha men often have beta sons. It is why beta characteristics can never be bred out of the population. The same personality traits that are detrimental to men do nothing to hurt of woman's chances of procreating.

Betas used to be given wives in many cultures in order to control them and to encourage beta behavior. A society full of alphas or wannabe alphas may not function very well. Who is going to take orders or accept a lower position? When you take away the promise of stable pvssy for beta behavior then men are less likely to comply and follow the rules. A lot of the norms of society are still based around the outdated idea of men getting married and settling down with one woman. Now that the promise of stable pvssy marriages are gone the male population is going to become less compliant.

 

[Luthor Rex]

Maybe you should re read my post, specifically the part where I mentioned that behavior was roughly 50/50. And not each specific behavior being fifty fifty, but our overall general behavior.

At best your point was overgeneralized. Still, it is wrong.

 

[speakeasy]

Alpha males (aggressive, dominant, etc.) often breed with women who have beta characteristics (passive, retiring). That is why alpha men often have beta sons. It is why beta characteristics can never be bred out of the population. The same personality traits that are detrimental to men do nothing to hurt of woman's chances of procreating.

Excellent point. Hasn't thought of that.

 

[OTB]

The only fools who will get the short end of the stick are the beta's that whine about the changing environment without getting up of their a$$ and doing something about it.

True Forced Loneliness anyone?

 

[PappyS]

Maybe you should re read my post, specifically the part where I mentioned that behavior was roughly 50/50. And not each specific behavior being fifty fifty, but our overall general behavior.

Which you proved for me nicely by pointing out the big 5 personality traits were roughly fifty fifty (42-57%), which comes out to a shocking average of EXACTLY fifty percent.

My point was for BEHAVIOR, fifty percent is genetic, and fifty percent is learned, based on the NON-FAMILY environment.

IQ, which you quoted at around 80 percent, is not behavior, and is obviously more "heritable" than behaviors, much like height or hair color.

There is no separation between genes and environment. Genes can't operate without the environment. They are designed to respond to environmental stimuli.

Every person is born with about 30,000 genes but not all of them are doing anything at any given time. Some only have an effect during the embryonic stage and then shut off for the rest of your life. Some only effect specific organs. Some turn on and off. The triggers that turn genes on and off are

With 30,000 genes every single person is going to have a mixture of "alpha" and "beta" genes. It just depends which genes the environment turns on.