Why there are no more alpha males | Richard Wrangham

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Why there are no more alpha males | Richard Wrangham | The goodness paradox

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The Institute of Art and Ideas

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 92

@rogerforsman5064 10 ай бұрын

Wasn't the myth of "Alpha male" debunked by David Mech the researcher that coined it?

@jose.montojah 10 ай бұрын

Calhoun et. al. described it all pretty eloquently in their paper of 1972, "Death Squared". Only enclosed animals do it, 'tis a stress response behaviour in mammals. Cities bring the worst out of us, from time inmemorial. Time to live on a human-scale!

@swaggboymcgee210 10 ай бұрын

you're exactly right

@TropicOfCancer1998 10 ай бұрын

Leader with higher testosterone is not debunked. It's found in many primates as well.

@EarlofSedgewick 10 ай бұрын

Fascinating to see the archaeological and genetic findings like this though!

@rogerforsman5064 10 ай бұрын

@@EarlofSedgewick Well it seems to show that "Alpha males" are redundant!

@JCO2002 10 ай бұрын

Mr Wrangham should visit Jamaica, where I live, if he thinks aggression has been largely bred out of human populations.

@spacefertilizer 10 ай бұрын

He obviously refers to his own experiences which I guess comes from him spending time at the university campus.

@JCO2002 10 ай бұрын

@@spacefertilizer Yep. His studied observations of the bubble he lives in.

@proudatheist2042 16 күн бұрын

He may be comparing past rates of violence compared to today's. Sadly, even if a person such as him stated the truth: that the men of many nations are more violent than others, he would lose his job and good standing in society. Dr. Lynn had severe consequences for showing data that showed this fact.

@richardoldfield6714 10 ай бұрын

The ‘alpha male’ concept was derived originally from studies on wolf-packs which turned out to have reached completely false conclusions. In other words, the concept of alpha human males is hokum.

@TheWorldTeacher 10 ай бұрын

That is rather PRESUMPTUOUS of you, wouldn’t you agree, Slave? Presumption is evil, because when one is PRESUMPTUOUS, one makes a judgement about a matter, despite having insufficient facts to support one’s position.

@gavingeorgecouk8250 10 ай бұрын

That's true, but it's semantics in some regards isn't it? You could consider there is a range of aggressive tendencies in humans, dogs etc I believe psychologists call it the trait agreeableness. then it wouldn't be hard to imagine that less agreeable people with high extroversion are going to be more likely to try to get their way over others.... aka be "alpha". So yes , "alpha" theory was wrong in the sense that when studying wolf packs that had been artificially formed in zoos there would be a battle for dominance which wasn't reflected in the family packs of wild wolves and it was ultimately incorrect to "dominate" your family dogs, I think it's also incorrect to throw every "alpha" comment to the wind. There are definitely people who are more equipped and interested in leadership in our own societies.

@richardoldfield6714 10 ай бұрын

@@gavingeorgecouk8250 Being less agreeable and more extrovert does not make someone better equipped for leadership. Effective leadership requires a range of qualities, including communication and listening skills, being able to think both strategically and tactically ete etc. The problem is that the 'alpha male' concept has elevated certain character features - e.g. being aggressive and domineering - as if they were superior and desirable features, when often they are quite the opposite.

@grantwithers 10 ай бұрын

Yet there's still males that women throw their vaginas at all the time. Wonder what name we should use for those males?

@MessengerRising 10 ай бұрын

@@grantwithers They're called fuckbois.

@raresmircea 10 ай бұрын

My father is a violent man, despised by everyone in the family, there’s not one of his 4 sons who gets along with him. He was aggressive & even physically abusive with his 3 wives. Having such an individual around makes me intuit that this hypothesis is true. As long as the groups are small & they have violent clashes with other groups, then members have no choice but to sit under the shadow of an aggressive individual. But when groups get bigger and tool making comes into the picture, their strength shifts from individual might to collective collaboration. Within these new circumstances, having an aggressive individual in the group isn’t something that needs to be endured or tolerated anymore. I’ve heard researchers mention that judging by the human skeletal remains we can see a significant reduction in testosterone, something happening throughout thousands & thousands of years but still fairly abruptly given evolutionary time, and their explanation was that as the groups of humans got larger they could now easily overpower the aggressive individuals. Given my experience I totally understand why our ancestors would kill any irate tribe members.

@boblangdon5253 10 ай бұрын

With estrogen in the drinking water, this is no surprise.

@DanteLikesRock 10 ай бұрын

^chemicals in the water turning the frogs gay.

@UnknownUser69698 10 ай бұрын

actually that type of behavior is associated with lower testosterone and insecurity.

@squarerootof2 10 ай бұрын

I fear more violent groups of beta males and women overpowering normal, common sense individuals.

@GameFuMaster 8 ай бұрын

funny Now explain authoritarian regimes like North Korea and the Soviet Union

@Thomas...191 10 ай бұрын

Jocko wilink certainly missed this developmental stage of our past.

@theronwolf3296 4 ай бұрын

This is a key factor in evolutionary psychology: Selection (natural or enforced) can bring about differences in physical AND mental characteristics. While the discussion here mentions long time scales (300K), we can see from the fox experiment that these changes can be significantly shorter. One evolutionary pressure on humans apparently came from the process of civilization and culture, which changed the ground rules of the evolutionary game. This steered us away from our other great ape relatives. Under these observations, it would be irrational not to assume that different environments over generations would enhance different survival strategies and skills in different populations. [maybe Nietzsche had a good point]

@rajkashana 10 ай бұрын

Not sure how this is different from phrenology. Not sure why elephant is not considered aggressive.

@TheInstituteOfArtAndIdeas 10 ай бұрын

Did humans self-domesticate? Leave your thoughts in the comments. To watch the full talk, head to iai.tv/video/the-goodness-paradox-richard-wrangham?KZbin&

@infniiteunivers3376 10 ай бұрын

Im french and i am choke by all imprecision of this presentation, it's permissive and biased

@Falas5898 10 ай бұрын

You dont share the whole video? Okay then, I unsubscribed.

@xenspace5764 10 ай бұрын

Can't believe he opened with the fox domestication study - this was discredited years ago. Can't be bothered watching any more when someone starts with a study that's been debunked.

@user_user1337 10 ай бұрын

So, do you think that craniometry has been debunked as well? Because that's the next study he invokes.

@xenspace5764 10 ай бұрын

Thanks for the comment! As I said, I didn't bother watching further, so I don't know what he says next, but to be fair I should watch the whole video before jumping to a conclusion, and also when I said the fox domestication study had been debunked, I'm not sure that was an accurate thing to say. Research into the study should that there was prior domestication to the beginning of the study (the foxes had been breed in captivity for a long time prior), which confounded, rather than debunked, the study. Thanks again.

@stevenverrall4527 10 ай бұрын

@@user_user1337That has been debunked when applied to humans. It is also incredibly racist.

@JordiMuntada 10 ай бұрын

Didn’t know that! Fox research is discredited? Was it fake?

@EarlofSedgewick 10 ай бұрын

@@stevenverrall4527do you think this study had similar racist motivations?

@davidtrindle6473 9 ай бұрын

Alpha males exist in primate communities, and various other species. However, the idea of an alpha male human ignores the fact that humans are much more subtle and complex, then other species.

@gunkwretch3697 7 ай бұрын

chimps also have different cultures, and "alpha" isnt necessarily determined by size or aggression, but actual leadership qualities that can unite the community

@richardharvey1732 10 ай бұрын

Hi T I o A & I, it is now many years since I first heard the expression 'Alpha male', it was clearly in the context of descriptions relating to the strange behaviour of some chimpanzees where characteristics of aggressive domination were observed, further study indicated that this is quite common in the relatively small social groups of these animals and in typical anthropocentric style such behaviour was soon attached to humans. At no time was any proper investigation of the animals conducted to find real biological mechanisms that demonstrate cause and effect in any scientific manner. Instead all sorts of speculations erupted in the public domain and weird random assertion and generalisations sprouted all around. The attempts I have made to identify something of the sort in my own attitudes and behaviour indicate that generally I am not what one would call subservient or compliant, from a very early age I show a great reluctance to simply do as I am told!, but by very much the same token I am not at all keen on issuing orders and expecting obedience!, this means that as far as I can see that alphabetical classification is derelict, just another common cognitive delusion, just a myth, one of so many that abound in our culture because beliefs are so much easier than reason. Cheers, Richard.

@ywtcc 10 ай бұрын

This is a lot to unpack. I'm not sure how maleness, reactive aggression and the concept of an alpha all got mixed together. To me, the important question here is that of leadership. What kind of alpha (leader) is successful? The domestication argument seems to run counter to this. Are people being selected for alpha tendencies, or for their domesticity? It doesn't seem right that we should all be sheep, and there should be no shepherds. Also, most people are an alpha at some point in their lives, in some capacity. We should probably be learning leadership instead of blaming our failure to do so up to evolution. People without alpha tendencies may be good slaves, but they're not good citizens.

@squarerootof2 10 ай бұрын

Good, obedient, compliant sheep is what they want.

@LuciFeric137 10 ай бұрын

This "alpha Male" nonsense has done huge harm. Thank drug addled Jordan Peterson for this.

@onepartyroule 10 ай бұрын

Drug addled? He wasn’t on crack or meth. I’m pretty sure he became addicted to a prescription drug for anxiety. I’m not here to defend Peterson; I’m here to defend people on prescription drugs for depression and anxiety. We are not “drug addled”.

@jose.montojah 10 ай бұрын

@goldwhitedragon 10 ай бұрын

@@onepartyroule Why are so many Americans on depression/anxiety drugs? Capitalism? Consumerism?

@proudatheist2042 10 ай бұрын

@@goldwhitedragonDr. Jordan Peterson is Canadian, not American.

@AnAntidisestablishmentarianist 10 ай бұрын

You are exceptionally misinformed. And you can't provide a shred of evidence to support your ridiculous claims.

@ahartify 10 ай бұрын

I thought every financial services dude in a designer suit and driving an expensive car considered himself an alpha male nowadays!

@dorfmanjones 10 ай бұрын

I thought Bonobos did not fight or express dominance. comments?

@Rick..989 4 ай бұрын

Aggressive behavior is now carried out by em waves.

@proudatheist2042 16 күн бұрын

What?

@boblangdon5253 10 ай бұрын

So as we get less aggressive, our brains get smaller (or vice-versa)? That's a scary thought. Cian we deduce, then, that more aggressive individuals are more intelligent (and/or vice-versa)?

@scientifico 10 ай бұрын

electronic augmentation via computers/cellphones, etc. already hint at a shrinking of capacity for memory and attention. How soon before the physical brain follows suit?

@gavingeorgecouk8250 10 ай бұрын

Seems a bit logical to me. If you are going to use less brain for survival, fighting and tactical thinking ,you need less brain.

@gracemaple1060 10 ай бұрын

No, we deduce that aggressive behavior is controlled by a significant chunk of brain. This could mean that aggressive behavior is highly complex. When aggressive behavior is selected out, this section of the brain that deals with its complicated dynamics is no longer necessary, and it can be removed without removing parts of the brain that deal with the sorts of tasks and behavior that you would associate with intelligence.

@boblangdon5253 10 ай бұрын

@gavingeorgecouk8250 I'd rather keep mine just the same thank you.

@Lastindependentthinker 10 ай бұрын

Humans are my favorite hypergamous species.

@merlepatterson 10 ай бұрын

Strong men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make hard times, hard times make strong men.....

@walterramirezt 10 ай бұрын

Okay Chimp

@EarlofSedgewick 10 ай бұрын

This can be interpreted as supporting alpha-male behaviour. Really, this video is saying agreeable men make for good times, which makes for more agreeable men. Aggressive men make for hard times, so they should be removed from society (and apparently have been throughout our history). This requires an act of aggression though, so you cannot get rid of aggression completely. Thus, judicious application of force is very important. Agreeable leaders make good times. Aggressive people ruin good times. Agreeable leaders must keep an eye out for aggressors.

@merlepatterson 10 ай бұрын

@@EarlofSedgewick It's not my quote.

@collar1967 10 ай бұрын

When you get your education from TikTok.

@merlepatterson 10 ай бұрын

@@collar1967 Never used TikTok, so I guess you're correct.

@goldwhitedragon 10 ай бұрын

We need aggressive alpha males to offset the passive beta males.

@lifelearner3067 7 ай бұрын

In other interviews, Richard Wrangham has stated it would be better to have no males - as in, no more male babies. That's his ultimate answer to solving the problem of human violence and achieving world peace.