The Alpha Myth: How captive wolves led us astray

https://anthonydavidadams.substack.com/p/the-alpha-myth-how-captive-wolves

by ada1981 • 1 year ago

403 257 1 year ago

anthonydavidadams.substack.com

Terr_• 1 year ago

I often like to sum it up as: "Thinking gangs observed in prison represent human households."

This goes along with an imagined mockumentary, narrated by a David Attenborough figure, ex: "In the living room, a confrontation is brewing. The Big Boss has informed the bottom-tier Henchmen Homies that it is time for lights-out, but they are not ready to leave the television and they resent the privileges of the older Made Man, who is permitted to remain. This is a problem for the Big Boss, since directly punishing them might undermine his claim to control the group as a whole. Fortunately for him, his Enforcer is arriving from the kitchen, attracted by the noise..."

HPsquared2• 1 year ago

Maybe not all households, but some. And schools bear more than a passing resemblance to prisons.

bestouff• 1 year ago

Depends on the country.

eleveriven5• 1 year ago

Yet it interesting how much of what we consider "human nature" is just us reacting to the cages we put ourselves in?

ninalanyon2• 1 year ago

schools bear more than a passing resemblance to prisons.

The qualifier some needs to be applied to that too. None of the schools I have any personal knowledge of in the UK or Norway bear (or bore in the case of my own childhood) the slightest resemblance to a prison. Well, there was one. I accompanied a colleague in the US when he picked up his daughter at the end of the school day, I was astonished to find that he had to present himself at a reception desk that was guarding locked doors that were the only way in and out.

RobotToaster• 1 year ago

And schools bear more than a passing resemblance to prisons.

and some workplaces.

Arguably many cities more resemble "captivity" than a natural environment.

b3lvedere• 1 year ago

Everywhere where you are unhappy and/or uncomfortable is a prison for yourself. It could be a football stadion where some weird guy has made you the mocking target.

ada19816• 1 year ago

Genius concept.

jojobas4• 1 year ago

Gangs in prison represent gangs out of prison though.

skyyler2• 1 year ago

I don't think that's true, actually.

Do you have any evidence that suggests prison gangs are similar to street gangs?

Gibbon1• 1 year ago

I remember as a kid listening to adults talk about gender relations and thinking, you guys are talking about cattle and dogs.

fhe• 1 year ago

another analogy would be: aliens abducting a bunch of humans and recreating the Stanford Prison Experiment and write up on human society based on that, which ends-up reshaping alien culture.

d0mine• 1 year ago

The results are likely to be different (aliens won't try to bias the same way original researchers did).

zdw• 1 year ago

I would buy this sci-fi book.

reasonableout2• 1 year ago

When I was younger I made a switch from IT to teaching at elementary. One of the teachers that guided me, hinted to watch series about a dog trainer to see how he takes the lead, what happens between those. Although I respect that man, that really didn't resonate with me, realizing that I wouldn't want to learn that way; so I don't want to teach that way.

This article explains a lot better how I feel about this than I was able to 15 years ago.

pmontra• 1 year ago

If I may ask, how did you teach back then and how are you teaching now (maybe in the same way)?

curiousllama• 1 year ago

If it makes you feel better, I’ve heard similar advice to manage executives

micromacrofoot3• 1 year ago

It's stunning how so much of our own behavior, or at least explanations of it, reference what turns out to be almost entirely false conclusions. It could take 100 years to undo.

deepsquirrelnet2• 1 year ago

A more cynical take could be that maybe it fits because we’ve constructed our own captivity or ‘prison conditions’ where this tends to emerge.

zitsarethecure• 1 year ago

Out of curiosity, what conditions would you describe as prison-like that would drive someone to adopt an "alpha male" lifestyle in the US?

readthenotes1• 1 year ago

Before we start dishing on sociology as junk science, I'd like to point out that a lot of what we consider science as junk science.

For instance, take the myth of RICE to treat injuries. The myth lived for over 30 years before being debunked, but even a decade after it was soundly routed, we still find the advice in the wild.

https://thesportjournal.org/article/the-r-i-c-e-protocol-is-...

mmooss5• 1 year ago

Before we start dishing on sociology as junk science

How is sociology involved in this subthread or the OP? In the OP, the researchers have straightened out the issue and the general public ias confused.

micromacrofoot3• 1 year ago

oh yeah not about to do that, in these instances one hand washes the other — lots of junk sociology is based on junk science

liuxiansheng• 1 year ago

It won't be undone because people want it to be true regardless of evidence. The cat (dog?) is out of the bag.

HPsquared2• 1 year ago

Ideology doesn't have to be 100% true to be effective. Goes all the way back to Plato's idea of the "noble lie".

micromacrofoot3• 1 year ago

Sometimes doesn't have to be 1% true!

bulatb• 1 year ago

People didn't get their worldview from the myth. They like the myth because it fits their worldview.

Fricken• 1 year ago

In their natural habitat, wolf packs operated nothing like the prison-yard dynamics he'd observed in the zoo.

Human's aren't in their natural habit most of the time either. "Prison-yard dynamics" is how the public education system functions. This is where our children are socialized.

mettamage2• 1 year ago

High school is more complex as there is a life outside it where other dynamics can be observed. At least that's what I noticed and it made me realize that the popularity contest in high school was a farce.

ada19816• 1 year ago

I don't disagree of course. And this is less a critique of the individual men vs our current social structure. A good deal of my work is in helping people free themselves, however, this wouldn't be necessary had it not been a life long project of incarceration.

amanaplanacanal• 1 year ago

I suspect this is part of the reason unschooling is become more popular.

hinkley2• 1 year ago

See also depressed rats in stressful conditions becoming drug addicts.

mettamage2• 1 year ago

I've pondered alpha male theory for a 5 years before having a solid conclusion before or against it. I rejected it. But yea, I really was that socially clueless, it took me 5 years as a late teen of observing and thinking about it to understand that life is more complicated than that and that the idea of alpha males is ridiculous, especially since I saw strong evidence on the contrary (i.e. "beta behaviors" and still having an amazing dating life, etc.).

altairprime• 1 year ago

I appreciated a point I saw a few months ago about how the wolf-derived alpha/beta/etc stuff is a safe way for cis men to experiment with gender identity without risking being labeled queer by other men and having to confront harassment.

BriggyDwiggs422• 1 year ago

Lmfao that’s a great observation. Probably at least a big part of it.

bandrami• 1 year ago

Wasn't there a guy who did the "rats prefer cocaine to food" study but without having the rats isolated in individual cages, and it turns out that no, they don't actually prefer cocaine to food when they aren't (essentially) in solitary?

hinkley2• 1 year ago

Yep.

Hopelessness keeps you on the drugs as much as biochemistry.

Kicking any bad habit is easier if you have something to replace it with.

UniverseHacker6• 1 year ago

You’re talking about the Rat Park study. That one is also controversial and hasn’t successfully replicated. Personally I think the general idea of a connection between emotional trauma and addiction is pretty obvious, but also a but more complex than the Rat Park study implies or assumes.

mandmandam• 1 year ago

hasn’t successfully replicated

To be clear, lots of studies have shown that animals in richer environments do less drugs; though the effect doesn't seem to be as strong as Alexander claimed.

uqual• 1 year ago

We have many real life human "experiments" that can be looked to in determining if the "alpha" concept is a "more successful" model in business. This is particularly true in areas where demand for highly qualified employees outstrips supply - such as many flavors of software development.

If the 'alpha' model is universally detrimental to success in business, it would quickly die out.

However it has not and most modern (and premodern) successful companies (by metrics of growth, profit, income, revenue, PE etc) have been founded and grown by "alpha" leaders and staff.

There are of course exceptions but we would expect the "alpha" model to instead be the exception if it was a less successful way of running a business.

In practice, both can co-exist and as a company matures it may, over time, switch between models.

Some people like the driven competitive environment and seek it out and will tend to end up at enterprises that favor the "alpha" model. Others who dislike such environments will seek out enterprises that utilize alternative models. An individual will likely be more productive in the environment best suited for them and an individual will rarely switch from a strong preference for one of these environments to a strong preference for an alternative environment.

If there is substantial dissatisfaction on the part of workers with the "alpha" model and an alternative model would be more productive and successful, startups would blossom that use alternative models and hire away the cream of the crop of the "alpha" companies' employees.

stackghost• 1 year ago

However it has not and most modern (and premodern) successful companies (by metrics of growth, profit, income, revenue, PE etc) have been founded and grown by "alpha" leaders and staff.

Citation needed. By my estimation, the overwhelming majority of CEOs are doughy, effete city slickers who are the exact opposite of the prototypical "alpha male" image.

Zuckerberg, with his MMA training, might be the only one I can think of that fits the stereotype.

Don't confuse the putative "alpha male" with simply being a douchebag, because I can think of quite a large number of CEOs that fit that latter description, but it's not the same thing.

dsr_2• 1 year ago

And by definition, Zuckerberg didn't start out as an "alpha", but decided to emulate one after he was already super-wealthy.

lmm5• 1 year ago

Don't confuse the putative "alpha male" with simply being a douchebag, because I can think of quite a large number of CEOs that fit that latter description, but it's not the same thing.

Can you clarify the distinction? Most people criticising the "alpha" model seem to equate the two.

withinboredom2• 1 year ago

grown by "alpha" leaders and staff.

Umm... isn't the whole point of an "alpha" to be the top-man... so how would there be more than one? That doesn't make any internally logical sense.

An individual will likely be more productive in the environment best suited for them

Good premise, but you don't need the "alpha" theory to argue it.

in determining if the "alpha" concept is a "more successful" model in business.

You do a really poor job of explaining what this even means, but it sounds bogus from your description. No offense intended.

lmm5• 1 year ago

isn't the whole point of an "alpha" to be the top-man... so how would there be more than one?

The point is they're top of their pack, not top of the whole world.

gnatman• 1 year ago

This is writing of someone steeped in "alpha male" youtube & podcast ideology.

intalentive• 1 year ago

What he calls the “alpha” model might also be termed a “leader-follower” model where a single authority drives a team to accomplish his singular vision, like the captain of a ship drives and disciplines his crew.

It’s hierarchical and masculine, no doubt, and describes Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs as well as Walt Disney and Thomas Edison or even General Patton.

This leadership model might not be everyone’s cup of tea but it can definitely be successful, and it’s definitely a real thing, not just some redpill / PUA fantasy.

LudwigNagasena2• 1 year ago

The abuse of the captive wolves research factoid is officially run into the ground. We now blame it for the whole organisation of humanity. I thought bashing online communities for using “alpha” was inadequate, but that takes the cake.

ada19816• 1 year ago

I don't intend to put the blame on the wolf study. I think it's more that we are in captivity, and exhibit deeply unhealthy relationship patterns with pretty much our entire environment from food, to women, to time itself.

goatlover2• 1 year ago

This assumes hunter gatherers were better off than we are today. That's a controversial claim. You still have to survive in nature with finding food and making shelter, fending off predators, negotiating rival groups, dealing with disease and injury. It wasn't some utopian existence.

LudwigNagasena2• 1 year ago

The title says that captive wolves led us astray and the first paragraph asserts that the studies spawned decades of misunderstanding about power, leadership, and masculinity. The causal link is very dubious to say the least.

robocat3• 1 year ago

The fact the wolf alpha male theory was wrong doesn't imply we don't have alpha dominance for men.

Do we use alpha male gorillas to explain the concept?

(Edit) Or Chimpanzees: https://news.janegoodall.org/2018/07/10/top-bottom-chimpanze...

  The highest-ranking chimpanzee in a group is the alpha-male. These males climb their way to the top of the chimpanzee hierarchy, and the ways they choose to do so can differ with the personality of the individual leader. Take two of the alpha males observed in Gombe, Frodo and Freud, for instance. Though they were brothers, each chimp had a very different leadership style. While Freud maintained control through fostering strong alliances and grooming those he wanted to keep under his command, Frodo relied heavily on aggression and brute strength.

dsr_2• 1 year ago

The fact that the evidence doesn't exist doesn't imply the phenomenon doesn't exist?

Remind me, why gorillas and not chimps? Why chimps and not bonobos? Why assume that two related species with completely different environmental niches must share a social structure?

goatlover2• 1 year ago

Gorillas, Chimpanzees and Baboons are similar in their social structures with the dominant alpha males. Bonobos are different with it being matriarchal and conflict resolution being less violent.

lmm5• 1 year ago

The fact that the evidence doesn't exist doesn't imply the phenomenon doesn't exist?

Wolves were never meant to be evidence. They were a model, a metaphor.

I wonder how many people who complain about "believing the myth of alpha wolves" are the same people who defend astrology as a "useful way of thinking, whether it's true or not".

itishappy2• 1 year ago

It just means analogies are dangerous. Would be nice if we could determine if the effect actually applies to humans before introducing yet another.

cyberax• 1 year ago

It actually works with chimps. They _are_ very hierarchical and somewhat neurotic even in the wild.

It's no wonder that they are our closest cousin.

Gorillas, in comparison, are much more laid-back.

tsimionescu• 1 year ago

Our closest cousins are actually bonobos (or at least they are as close to us as chimpanzees are), which don't have this type of hierarchy. Regardless, group social hierarchies don't necessarily translate even between closely related species, such as chimps and bonobos, so there is no reason whatsoever to extend them from some ape to humans.

crazygringo• 1 year ago

Exactly. The concept didn't come from wolves alone. We also call it a pecking order based on chickens.

The concept of a dominance hierarchy is widely established:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy?wprov=sfti...

And the gorillas and chimpanzees studied are not in captivity.

Obviously not every species exhibits this, and the ones that do don't exhibit it all the time. But the article acts like the concept has been discredited when that is not the case at all.

error_logic• 1 year ago

The discrediting is of the inevitability of its all-encompassing effects. It can be present without needing to be defended or prevent the Alpha from caring for its young.

cbsmith3• 1 year ago

As well established as dominance hierarchies are, they aren't the only social structure, and just as this article explains, it's rather ironic that in the case for wolves, that isn't the prevailing social structure in their natural setting. That wolves have become the prevailing reference point for the concept, is metaphorical on a lot of levels.

renewiltord• 1 year ago

Indeed, once we fall in love with a model we can usually find some evidence for the model.

latexr• 1 year ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ti86veZBjU

croes• 1 year ago

I don‘t think those alpha men like it if they behave like apes. Wolves are way cooler.

stonesthrowaway2• 1 year ago

The fact the wolf alpha male theory was wrong doesn't imply we don't have alpha dominance for men.

It isn't wrong. The headline is intentionally misleading and the article is just woke nonsense. Read it for yourself.

What the article is really saying that the alpha in a zoo wolfpack is different than an alpha in a wild wolfpack because a zoo wolfpack is between non-related wolves whilest in the wild, wolfpacks are composed of family members ( alpha father/alpha mother and children ).

There are alpha in wolf packs ( zoos and wild ). Just like in a human family the father/mother are alphas while in a gang, the alpha is usually a non-related individual.

The "myth" isn't that the alpha doesn't exist. The "myth" is about the relation of the alpha to the rest of the pack.

YeGoblynQueenne2• 1 year ago

Humans don't want to be chimps though, they want to be wolves. Or lions. Or eagles. That sort of thing. So a narrative about strong wolves dominating weaker wolves is gonna catch on like wildfire and you can bet your house on that.

tbrownaw• 1 year ago

Is this like how middle management reportedly wouldn't be caught dead dressing like the janitor, but super rich people supposedly dress like the janitor in order to not look like middle management?

cbsmith3• 1 year ago

...or, it's just a solid case of confirmation bias.

tptacek• 1 year ago

I would much rather be a chimpanzee than a wolf or a lion.

JumpCrisscross5• 1 year ago

Do we use alpha male gorillas to explain the concept?

We should use chimpanzees. The popular definition evolved pretty much indepdenently of the science, unfortunately [1].

Management texts have tried toning this down, particularly in the gender-equality years. At its nonsensical limit one wound up with alpha = leader, which is tautologically useless as a tool for explaining leadership.

The term probably belongs in a bin. There are deep social lessons we can learn from observing chimpanzees. (Or even wolves.) But they're not going to condense into a single term, certainly not one that's been through the 4chan and partisan ringers. Even among chimpanzees, we see a variety of tactics used to achieve dominance, including groups of chimps banding together to topple a leader.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_and_beta_male

kryogen1c• 1 year ago

4chan and partisan

I love the dialectical equivalency here, Feels exactly accurate. At least 4chan plays you laugh you lose, federal politics seems to omit the first half.

dominance, including groups of chimps

Indeed one of the most fascinating lessons. "Alpha" by force is almost tautologically impossible; leadership is built on inspiration and willfullness.

Anotheroneagain• 1 year ago

We should use chimpanzees

Why should we use anything at all? Aren't we people ourselves, who, you know, behave like people, without being taught how?

xbar• 1 year ago

Are there management texts from some era where this was actually promoted as a model?

enragedcacti3• 1 year ago

Even within apes the variance is wide enough that I question the value in drawing any conclusions about human nature, especially for laypeople. Why chimpanzees and not bonobos who are equally close relatives to humans but whose social structure is matriarchal, non-territorial, and considerably less violent?

There is such myriad behavior in the animal kingdom that drawing insight into human social structure from it seems like it is more often a Rorschach test than it is a scientific exercise.

gilbetron• 1 year ago

Why are we trying to make human societies mimic animal ones? We're the insanely successful species, not wolves or chimps or gorillas or lobsters!

vunderba• 1 year ago

From the article:

Instead of ruling from above, he built a flat structure where decisions emerge from collaboration.

I've also seen the flip-side of this - where due to the fact that there is no established hierarchy, you spend inordinate amounts of time welding entirely disparate architectures together since every team was cowboy coding and doing their own thing.

Also anecdotally, I've never once experienced this Type-A prima donna alpha engineer but I've had absolutely zero interest in working for a FAANG. Every engineer I've ever worked with was pretty easy-going.

FrustratedMonky• 1 year ago

" Type-A prima donna alpha engineer "

Most are bluster.

Talk loud and fast and be rude, arrogant, and lot of people will think you must really know what you are doing.

tayo42• 1 year ago

Every engineer I've ever worked with was pretty easy-going.

Every one seems easy going until you disagree with them.

rramadass2• 1 year ago

Ha, Ha; True. For some reason people don't want to face reality but want to believe in fancies/stories which they have picked up from surrounding society.

Related, the Norwegian documentary series "Hjernevask" (i.e. Brainwash) is interesting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask

robwwilliams• 1 year ago

Dubious article. The role of aggression in establishing and maintaining social hierarchies was not mis-diagnosed in 1974. The behaviors of alpha males (wolves) and alpha females (hyenas) are complex but threat and pain is part of the pattern. Highly variable by species, environment, and demographics.

Go over the hills from Silicon Valley to Ano Nuevo Marine Conservation Area and watch the behavior of male elephant seals like Bernie LeBoef has done for 30 years.

How does any of this apply to Silicon Valley other than as a cute and wrong metaphor? Are we really taking leads from dogs?

mmooss5• 1 year ago

The popular trend in U.S. big business is 'animal spirits'. I read an article about how at Davos (iirc), people were bullish on the U.S. and bearish on Europe because the U.S. embraced "animal spirits".

Animal brains too.

nico• 1 year ago

Something similar happened with models for addiction in rats (which were extrapolated to humans)

It turned out that rats that live in a nice environment, with plenty of activities and social spaces (not an ugly, mostly empty cage), don’t become addicted

Ref: Rat Park experiment

Analemma_• 1 year ago

The Internet loves the Rat Park experiment, but it never replicated and should be considered just as bogus as all the other stuff in social psych which hasn't survived the replication crisis.

It's fitting for this thread though, because it survives for the exact reason the alpha wolf stuff survives: people love the story so they hang on to it irrespective of the science.

nradov• 1 year ago

Right, and we've seen plenty of people who lead the "Rat Park" equivalent of human lives and yet still get addicted to opioids. There's clearly no single cause.

sunjieming• 1 year ago

I think 90% of my HS psych class didn't replicate

throwaway20372• 1 year ago

    > never replicated

Not exactly.

Wiki says:

    Studies that followed up on the contribution of environmental enrichment to addiction produced mixed results.

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park#Further_experiments

mmooss5• 1 year ago

it never replicated and should be considered just as bogus

Did someone try to replicate it? What were the results? What were their conclusions about its credibility?

all the other stuff in social psych which hasn't survived the replication crisis.

Replication isn't black and white: Most of the experiments - at least in the early widely reported phase - did replicate but with less statistically strong results.

kristopolous2• 1 year ago

Regardless of the accuracy, analogizing to humans is absurd.

Some spiders eat their partner after mating, should we do that?

Some animals defecate to mark territory, should we do that?

Many abandon their children after birth or even eat their babies.

Maybe we should use artificial ovipositors and proboscises.

People want to ordain their ideology with the notion of natural order to claim it as scientific law. The accuracy of the underlying animal claim is irrelevant because the logic connecting some random animal to humans is nonsense.

ada19816• 1 year ago

> Some spiders eat their partner after mating, should we do that?

Have you spent time with many married couples? ;)

itishappy2• 1 year ago

I think causation is reversed. The goal of studies like these is not to dictate how we should behave, but to inform us how we might.

Should we use our feces to mark territory? Probably not, but when the concept of marking territory is as pervasive as it is then maybe it's worth considering how we would like to handle it to avoid falling back to feces.

kristopolous2• 1 year ago

Again, pervasiveness does not magically make it valid.

Many animals eat feces, that's extremely pervasive. It's an intrinsic part of the ecosystem. It's really hard to overstate how important poop from other animals is. Doesn't mean I should be cooking it for dinner.

Applying any behavior as having any meaning at all to humans, whether it be wolves or lobsters, other than that we should respect it, is complete nonsense.

There are no lessons to learn about how we should structure our workspace or allocate tax dollars by watching how jellyfish or seasnails live, any claim otherwise is merely ideological projection and creative license.

korse• 1 year ago

Did anyone consider that our society IS artificial conditions? Not sure about you all, but western society feels much more akin to a zoo than the wilderness.

jmye• 1 year ago

I don’t understand what you mean.

That you can certainly opt in to artificial nonsense, as wholeheartedly and completely as you want, doesn’t mean society is artificial. It just means that’s the part you’ve decided to live your life in.

tolerance• 1 year ago

C’mon now, you know what he means. Or you’ve got a decent idea of what he might mean.

People are beginning to consider that the most pervasive aspects of society—parts that you don’t have a choice whether you’re a part of it or confronted by it—are social constructs, and that humans are constrained in what they’re allowed to believe in and how to come to terms with those beliefs amongst one another.

TheOtherHobbes2• 1 year ago

You're far more likely to be eaten alive by something in the wilderness than in a corporate office.

If we've achieved nothing else, at least we've added a layer of political and economic indirection to our cannibalism.

ssnistfajen• 1 year ago

This is what I've been leaning towards after initially renouncing the experiment for its arbitrary nature. "Alpha" behaviour emerge in zero-sum/artificial scarcity situations, yet contemporary society is full of zero-sum situations and artificial scarcity due to market inefficiency and gatekeeping. It's not just Western society either. If anything, Western-aligned industrialized societies experience far less scarcity. So the behavioural pattern shouldn't be entirely dismissed as pseudoscience, but worthy of critical inspection and reference.

indoordin0saur6• 1 year ago

Alpha" behavior emerge in zero-sum/artificial scarcity situations

Zero-sum, yes, but why only artificial scarcity? It seems like this would arise in a natural situation as well... Even if you lived on abundantly producing land that is not (yet) heavily populated there is still going to be mate competition.

eleveriven5• 1 year ago

Soo maybe the "alpha" behaviors we see are a natural response to unnatural conditions and it's more about how we behave when we're stuck in systems

jarjoura• 1 year ago

Seems like it's fair to assume, both canines and humans are highly adaptable, and we behave the way we need to in the environment we're in. My dog has never shown me anything except love and compassion, and that gets him the best living conditions, back scratches and the tastiest food.

lmm5• 1 year ago

Seems like it's fair to assume, both canines and humans are highly adaptable, and we behave the way we need to in the environment we're in.

If that were as true as you seem to be suggesting, there would be no difference between dogs and wolves when the latter are kept as pets, which is clearly false.

barrettondricka2• 1 year ago

Author: Applying behavior of wolves in captivity to humans was a mistake.

Also Auther: Applies behavior of wolves in free environment to a very specific and complex part of human society.

And of course, zero link or citations on anything.

ninetyninenine2• 1 year ago

Alphas aren't only observed in captive wolves. They are observed in MANY MANY animal groups.

I think the full picture isn't some liberal idea where everyone lives in harmony and can work together for the common good without the weakest link ever getting left behind.

The truth is it's a bit of both. We live in a world where it's dog eat dog but also companionship and working together are BOTH effective strategies for survival. Most humans are programmed to be able to handle both modes of survival . Depending on circumstance one strategy often becomes critical for survival. For example: if you're in captivity or aka a setting with very very limited resources the alpha strategy works best.

Of course no citations for me either. But I think it's quite clear the author is biased.

nis0s• 1 year ago

You’re right. Antarctic penguins and walruses are good examples of this. Penguin females go hunting, while the males hatch eggs and rear the young till the females return. Walrus males, OTOH, absolutely dominate other walrus males, and keep a harem of females.

But who cares? Humans are more closely related to primates than other animals, who exhibit all kinds of different behaviors across species. I am not sure why we’re trying to model human behaviors from wolves at all.

In fact, human advanced cognitive development is unique amongst the entirety of the animal kingdom, so it’s okay if humans have behaviors which are unique just to us, and are unobserved in other animals.

svnt• 1 year ago

Easier to tear down than it is to build well.

barrettondricka2• 1 year ago

I admit to being rude and to being a very bad builder myself.

But the article is bad. Just about every piece of evidence has some sort of issue. Correlation-causation, or not enough data, or just assumptions. The wolf stuff (seems to be) based on only 2 observations. The author cites big tech in CA, but then describes a single clothing company that has a high random metric that is supposedly an accurate indicator of all of the above.

And the connections between arguments are not even that good. Skimming over it, I wasn't sure what the article's point was.

As for the conclusion, the vague words on what could be done are the kind of stuff everyone is trying anyway for other reasons, and it isn't (?) working.

charles_f• 1 year ago

No. Author: deducting that behavior observed in captive environments was also true in liberty was a mistake.

Author: silicon valley is somewhat of a captive environment so lessons from captivity are not entirely wrong.

llm_nerd• 1 year ago

The original researcher did correct the record about what entails the alpha wolf in a natural setting, noting that pack leadership was usually based upon familial group dynamics, instead of the cliche biggest and strongest that beat down opponents, but in pop science this correction went too far, basically discounting the idea of an alpha wolf altogether. In virtually every discussion about this myth people will regurgitate the notion that there is no alpha.

But...there is. He never claimed there wasn't an alpha. Just that the selection among a group of wolves forced together differs from a group of wolves in a natural setting.

So Tony Soprano was the alpha of the crime family even though many other characters were likely stronger, crazier, etc. He had the backing of so many people that they knew that his bark had bite, even if it wasn't from him directly.

indoordin0saur6• 1 year ago

noting that pack leadership was usually based upon familial group dynamics, instead of the cliche biggest and strongest that beat down opponents

So, sounds like if the author read the study more closely and continued with his idea of basing human society around dog society we should structure society as a hereditary monarchy rather than rule by warrior kings.

justonenote4• 1 year ago

And what about chimpanzees? Our closest relative genetically. Is anyone disputing that they exhibit a brutally dominant social hierarchy? Our second closest relative is (afaik, or close enough) Bonobos, who lump around all day jacking each other off.

While the alpha terminology may have come from dog packs, it's not exactly unobservable in other species, and even on these forums and in VC funding rounds you can observe people both jacking each other off with a healthy amount of social and institutional pandering and financial support, and other people not posting as much but taking dominant positions to "secure the bag" and whatever is downstream from that.

People don't like these conversations but it doesn't change the reality.

BriggyDwiggs422• 1 year ago

You can’t draw more than rudimentary conclusions from the comparison because we could have evolved different behaviors, or we could share them, or we could work that way on the savannah but not in a city, etc. These conversations can be and are used to say whatever the speaker wants to say, since they can just select a trait that’s been observed in a monkey case study and apply it lazily to humans. “Wow humans sure like to jerk off, must be because we’re like bonobos!”

PaulDavisThe1st2• 1 year ago

Maybe a thing to note here is that the behavior of many different kinds of social animals changes dependent on the living situation.

Given that, it is not unreasonable to wonder (hope?) that there might be human living conditions that reduce "brutally dominant social heirarchy".

The best part is: we even appear to have archeological evidence that this is true, for humans!

mmooss5• 1 year ago

We have tons of current evidence that its true. I've never experienced a 'brutally dominant social heirarchy' personally; it's pretty uncommon. I don't live like Lord of the Flies.

IME the theory is a reactionary (i.e., anti-liberal, anti-humanitarian, anti-human rights) myth to justify the rule and worship of power.

dylan6042• 1 year ago

reduce "brutally dominant social heirarchy".

if you mean literal brutality, but how the uber wealthy treating those of lower wealth could be considered brutal as well--in modern parlance of course.

mmooss5• 1 year ago

Is anyone disputing that they exhibit a brutally dominant social hierarchy?

Could you share the basis for saying they do, for those who are not primatologists?

even on these forums and in VC funding rounds you can observe ...

How is that 'alpha wolf' behavior?

People don't like these conversations

Has someone objected?

justonenote4• 1 year ago

Could you share the basis for saying they do, for those who are not primatologists?

You can look it up yourself, plenty of published research. I'm not a primatologist either but still managed to educate myself.

Has someone objected?

You seem to be, in the most snide and backhanded way possible.

More generally yes people have been preaching (since the 60s majorly but obviously before that) that being kind, and that peace and love is and mutual reciprocity is not only one way to go about in life, but _it's the only way_ that you should pursue. And this very much the mainstream opinion. Meanwhile central banks have been printing money at zero interest to give to their friends, Saudis have been selling oil, states have been buying up weapons, bribing the US, etc.

And guess what? All of those people have lot more power and influence on the world today, than a guy living in the desert preaching how humans should be perfectly balanced at one with each and nature.

How is that 'alpha wolf' behavior?

Zuckerberg retaining complete voting shares wasn't a power play? Altman returning to oust the board and be CEO of OpenAI wasn't a power play? Investors leveraging the outsized gains from an early success to bet on further outsized gains isn't a power play?

ninetyninenine2• 1 year ago

People don't like these conversations but it doesn't change the reality.

I mean you have to be an idiot not to see it. You literally just observe all human societies. You have some leader at the top, the president, a king etc. etc. Then you have CEOs, VPs, Managers, team leads etc etc.

Human society is structured around alphas. Clearly. No I take that back. Humans are more similar to bonobos. At least that's how it is when I go to work we just jack each other off all day, no team leads or CEO where I work.

matwood• 1 year ago

I think people run into definitional biases. I used alpha/beta as short hand in a comment last week and was downvoted just for using the terms.

In short, alpha does not imply male or violence. It’s someone for whatever reasons is at the top (eq, iq, physical attributes, confidence, etc). It also depends on the group, think big fish/small pond.

enragedcacti3• 1 year ago

Our second closest relative is (afaik, or close enough) Bonobos

They are equally close (tree-wise, percent-wise idk), and they exhibit a radically different and mostly nonviolent matriarchal social hierarchy. Not sure what the takeaway from that should be other than that maybe there shouldn't be a takeaway if our two closest relatives (and each others closest relatives) behave so differently from one another.

justonenote4• 1 year ago

To me it's pretty obvious that we are somewhere in-between the two in temperament, but probably tending quite a bit more toward the chimps. I don't have a peer-reviewed study or empirical proof etc but some things are just staring you in the face. (see: all of history, boxing and MMA and other less violent but still highly competitive sports being popular worldwide)

I mean the interesting question is whether it is necessary, if we were maximally Bonobo would we have built the civilizations and technology we have? Possibly, but it's not beyond the realms of thought that the drive to amass power, to be the alpha or top dog, has driven action and risk taking, low probability paths to outsized gains.

There is a second question about whether we should be more Bonobo like now, but we are what we are and there is 7 billion people on the planet.

kazinator• 1 year ago

If the animals are spread over a wide area, where they don't have to compete for territory or resources with each other, of course the dominant behaviors won't rear themselves.

You need the right conditions to repro the behavior.

E.g. for starters, you cannot study one wolf in isolation from other wolves, right? You need at least two for one to dominate the other, and they can't be miles apart such that they never meet.

motohagiography• 1 year ago

in any competence where you've taken instruction, you need to be practicing at a certain level to be able to receive meaningful direction or guidance. the same is true for leadership. the model in the article seems like a bit of a straw man that plays to a sense of resentfulness about cartoons of "alpha" figures, and it may ultimately be misleading by creating misguided critics.

just lift, read the stoics, and master something. you'll get there.

teruakohatu• 1 year ago

If the Alpha Wolf is a myth, it is also a myth that the concept was bought to popular imagination by Rudolf Schenkel and L. David Mech between the 1940 and 1970s.

Jack London's gold rush books explore this concept in detail, the first of which, Call of the Wild, was published in 1903. These were very popular books, then and still today.

The alpha wolf concept was in public psyche at least in the early 1900s, but probably earlier too. I don't think it is likely that London invented this myth himself and it existed earlier.

rramadass2• 1 year ago

Right. The myth actually originates from Social Darwinism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism which was what influenced Jack London's thinking (see "The Call of the Wild", "White Fang" etc.) but at the same time he was also a Socialist (see "The Iron Heel", "The People of the Abyss" etc.) See his "views" section here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London#Views

samth• 1 year ago

Just to be clear, the word "alpha" does not appear in the text of "Call of the Wild".

steve_taylor• 1 year ago

When a Canadian psychologist mentioned lobsters and hierarchies, the dogma to which members of a political group subscribe was updated to include the denial of alphas as a natural phenomenon, making it instead an artificial construct invented by their imaginary oppressors to hold onto imaginary power.

WesternWind• 1 year ago

blaming the wolves is an interesting choice.

niemandhier• 1 year ago

I might not be the best possible version of myself but I am at least a release candidate, and therefore have transceded the concepts of „alpha male“ and „beta male“.

BLKNSLVR• 1 year ago

I'm an alphalfa male. I sometimes eat vegetables.

mnsc• 1 year ago

Some cowboy developer pushed me to prod despite a glaring beta tag and a plethora of known critical bugs. Yet here I am, 45 minors later with the beta tag still there, delivering measurable value to all my users.

sakoht• 1 year ago

Reads like a Disney lens on nature. Whether or not wolves have a single alpha in a pack, nature is built around selfishness and violence with certainty, cooperation selectively. Animals watch each other suffer and die without a flinch all the time. And nearly everything dies from being eaten. Any lens on nature that sugar-coats this is projecting human values.

otabdeveloper4• 1 year ago

selfishness and violence

Are human emotions, please don't anthropomorphise.

lIl-IIIl• 1 year ago

Neither of those are emotions.

Selfishness is the default setting, and is easy to explain in evolutionary terms. Unselfishness is what usually surprises us when we see it in animals.

JumpCrisscross5• 1 year ago

Reads like a Disney lens on nature

The author isn't saying nature isn't cruel. They're saying wolf packs don't work the way we imagine them to in popular culture.

You don't have males duking it out to be the alpha. (That's closer to gorillas and chimpanzees, though even among them it's rare.) You have a breeding pair and their pups. Wolf packs aren't monarchies, they're emergent clusters of wolves around a breeding pair that goes away when the breeding pair perishes. A younger wolf "challenging" an older wolf for dominance isn't the natural state; it's the space-constrained state that emerges in captivity. (Even that might be giving it too much credit.)

eleveriven5• 1 year ago

Elephants live in complex, matriarchal family groups and demonstrate extraordinary empathy

froh• 1 year ago

and animals support and comfort each other without hesitation all the time too.

and "nearly everything dies from being eaten", yes, because nearly everything is in the human meat eating food chain, I kid you not.

no. the lens that depicts the world at constant war is projecting a mix of maybe personal experience and certainly group think onto an otherwise surprisingly cooperative and supportive nature.

https://scholar.google.de/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=coope...

snickerer• 1 year ago

Nature is not 'build around selfishness and violence'. Any lens on nature that says this is projecting human values.

Nature is build around what works best for the survival of the individual's genetics in the current environment. That is called evolution.

You can't even project the human concept of selfishness on this. A worker ant supports its genetical survival best by sacrificing its life for the community.

To understand evolutionary developed strategies a wonderful tool is the calculation of probability. Science knows something about how to choose good strategies, and that may help us to understand 'why' evolution optimized for this and that.

In the case of groups of hunters (or many other groups), we know that cooperation is often superior to constant internal fighting. And choosing the best strategic thinker as the leader instead of the biggest bully is obviously a good idea in many scenarios. It is very reasonable that the wolves' leader selection process has optimised itself in such a direction.

eleveriven5• 1 year ago

The performative dominance described here feels eerily familiar

WuxiFingerHold• 1 year ago

Extremely interesting topic, unfortunately shallow article. Still I'm happy for the input.

I'd like to learn more about how abundance of food, lack of threats and other comforts of civilization distort the formerly vital instincts into all kind of dysfunctional and harming behavior. And more importantly, how to manage those.

reasonableout2• 1 year ago

sharkbird2• 1 year ago

I feel like the term "alpha" is deeply problematic since different people use it to mean completely different things.

Many people associate it with the toxic traits of dominating others through aggression. While other's use it to reference a healthy, good, strong, well developed and balanced individual who helps others.

I think we need new terms for these things so we can start differentiate them.

roland35• 1 year ago

The problem is that people who use the toxic definition of alpha really like it! There is no motivation to change sadly.

getnormality• 1 year ago

No matter what new terms are invented, people will reinterpret them to align with their own perspectives.

If "alpha" means good in some social context, people will load it up with all the contradictory qualities that different people consider good.

DavidPiper2• 1 year ago

Surprised not to see David Graeber's "The Dawn of Everything" recommended yet in a thread like this.

It details how "pre-modern" societies functioned based on the available archaeological and anthropological evidence we have, and one of its key findings is just how much human history conflicts with narratives like "the alpha myth". It also goes into detail about how we ended up with so many social narratives like it that just don't have any justifiable precedent.

1oooqooq2• 1 year ago

this is way above the audience. this conversation is unfortunately like talking about garbage collector algorithms in different architectures, to social science grads.

but in the rare case a social scientist want to lear about memory borrowing, i would also suggest somethig more recent (and less anachist to this crowd) https://ia804705.us.archive.org/13/items/byung-chul-han-the-...

mattgreenrocks5• 1 year ago

I've had that (The Burnout Society) on my to-read list for awhile, do you recommend it?

I think the core thesis is spot on from what I've seen of discussions, and am looking to decide which aspects of ambition are my own, and which have I have accepted unconsciously.

dang• 1 year ago

"Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's reliably a marker of bad comments and worse threads.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's great to post relevant and informative links, but please do it without putting down others. If you're participating here, you're as much the community as anyone else is.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

danlugo92• 1 year ago

1. There's still other species where an "alpha" exists.

2. Even if there's no other species where an "alpha" exists, what forbids us from it being a human thing? No that I want to look up to a mere mortal "alpha" e.g. dictators. Only real alpha is Christ.

3. There's always an alpha in friend groups, I've seen it, should I pluck out my eyes as they're lying to me? Heck no. Doesn't mean the women in the friend group took turns doing you know what to his you know what. An alpha is simple a leader, online manosphere groups took it to the extreme of being "the guy that gets most girls" but in truth being known helps with that whole thing.

4. Even my previous 3 points didn't resonate with you, it's just an allegory, I don't know why this particular alpha thing has hit a nerve with some many people, that even whole ass articles have been written up against it, what is the problem with men aspiring to be better? An alpha shares his spoils anyways, in Lions in Hyenas in Coyotes, etc.

fedeb95• 1 year ago

I find your lack of sources... disturbing.

flanked-evergl• 1 year ago

I think the path forward requires rejecting appeals to nature.

"Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it cannot be used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals. On the evolutionary basis you may be inhumane, or you may be absurdly humane; but you cannot be human. That you and a tiger are one may be a reason for being tender to a tiger. Or it may be a reason for being as cruel as the tiger. It is one way to train the tiger to imitate you, it is a shorter way to imitate the tiger. But in neither case does evolution tell you how to treat a tiger reasonably, that is, to admire his stripes while avoiding his claws.

If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to the garden of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continued to recur: only the supernatural has taken a sane view of Nature. The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved." ~ Chesterton

indoordin0saur6• 1 year ago

Yup. This whole article is just a glaring case of the naturalistic fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy)

You don't need to argue that "alpha males" don't exist amongst wild animals to make that case that it's bad for human civilization.

mattgreenrocks5• 1 year ago

I find it fascinating that some users here seem to be attached to the concept of an alpha male, reality be damned. It’s clear that this meets some emotional/psychological need for them.

I regard it as a dangerous mind virus. It is hard to rid yourself of it even if you see it is bullshit and harming you because it requires a substantial change in how you see your life. I think that’s because it is some hard truths (“people like powerful people”) mixed in with some cognitive distortions (“dominance is the primary mediator of all interactions”). The lack of a true definition means there is no objective measure of what it is, which makes it impossible to feel secure in. Thus, the endless arguing about whether behavior is really “alpha” or “beta.”

There are good bits there, such as not letting yourself be pushed around. But that doesn’t make it all good or true. I really think the whole artifice is a cop-out for actually doing the work of individuation and self-development because you outsource all the hard work of deciding what you want to be and the temporary, self-imposed emotional exile it takes to actually discern that to following guidelines ultimately given to you by other people.

You’re still not crafting your own life, you’re just changing who you get your life script from.

It exploits psychological vulnerabilities in people and traps them: if you worry about your alpha/beta status, then you’ll be the type of person who wants to fix it, but there isn’t a fix because your perspective is the issue.

Hope that was helpful for someone.

otikik• 1 year ago

This was very well put. Thanks.

stonesthrowaway2• 1 year ago

[flagged]

dspillett• 1 year ago

I think in part it is that the flawed study might actually be relevant to them because of the flaw. It studied captive wolves in an unnaturally constrained (and therefore competitive) environment, and that is how some people feel a lot of the time.

Trying to be the alpha in such a situation, so they can look down at the others and feel better, instead of doing anything to try actually improve the world, is an unhealthy reaction, but one I can at least understand.

Trying to be an “alpha” irrespective and create that sort of situation for others, on the other hand, is rather despicable.

Another factor in the longevity of alpha/beta/other designations is that they don't only come from that study (and those that followed it, or it referenced). The terms were used elsewhere both in science and fiction (and, specifically, in well known science fiction such as Huxley's “Brave New World” which pre-dates the publication of Schenkel's infamous wolf study by a decade and a half).

crawfordcomeaux• 1 year ago

[flagged]

UniverseHacker6• 1 year ago

A lot of men are terrified of the idea of not seeming masculine enough- and what it would mean for them romantically, socially, and professionally- which is why this is appealing as an idea.

Supposed “alpha behaviors” are seemingly identical to toddler behaviors to me. I think it’s ironically non-masculine to be so terrified of how you appear that you play act as basically a belligerent child incapable of compromise, teamwork, or navigating disagreements with dignity instead of being yourself.

The ancient stoics had a much healthier, and more useful idea of masculinity IMO- that still lets you be strong and not pushed around by others inappropriately.

InsideOutSanta• 1 year ago

Yes. It always struck me as incredibly insecure to make thinking of how one appears to others one's whole identity.

mattgreenrocks5• 1 year ago

Needing to always be dominant is just another weakness that opens you to being manipulated.

Agree on the stoicism point. Inner strength is just as important as external strength.

api2• 1 year ago

I find it fascinating that some users here seem to be attached to the concept of an alpha male, reality be damned. It’s clear that this meets some emotional/psychological need for them.

Grifters and people selling right-wing politics have figured out how to market to male insecurity. They're selling politicians of course but also quack supplements, self-help nonsense, masculinity gurus, hilarious "boot camps" where you spend tens of thousands to have some dumbass yell at you, etc. All that stuff will leave you still insecure, and with less money.

Andrew Tate is probably the undisputed master of the alpha male grift. He's known as an abuser of women, and he is, but really men are his main marks. In a way part of his grift is to make his marks utterly repulsive to most women, keeping them alone and insecure and customers.

sfink2• 1 year ago

Sure, but don't lose sight of the fact that female insecurity has been leveraged and marketed to as well, for pretty much forever. Fashion, makeup, beauty standards -- flip through a magazine and look at the ads, and think about what the ads are suggesting the reader needs or would benefit from, and further think about whether the reader will be more or less insecure afterwards.

(And male insecurity has always been a target. Don't let that bully kick sand at you at the beach! But I agree that the targeting has recently been vastly more tuned and optimized and the most egregious forms have become socially acceptable.)

ineptech3• 1 year ago

Well put, but the countermeme ("Hey did you hear that the alpha wolf thing was bullshit?") seems to be as popular or moreso than what it's displacing. I did some light googling yesterday to see if I could find any references of "alpha wolf" before the 40s, and all I could find was page after page of articles exactly like TFA.

I think the same reasoning applies - it is vague and easy to apply and people want it to be true - just for different people.

indoordin0saur6• 1 year ago

This is my thought. I have no attachment to the idea, I've been comfortably and happily married for years. But dismissing the idea of "an alpha" among animals seems stupid based on one study. Isn't this the case among gorillas, lions, etc? And it apparently is the truth even among wolves in certain circumstances as the study points out. The OP should apply the same logic to interrogate his own motivated reasoning.

neves• 1 year ago

May be, but I never heard about it till I read this article in HN. Sincerely, I didn't even know that alpha-male was related to wolves :-)

zosima• 1 year ago

The simple fact is that alpha males are a fact of nature. In wolves and in lions and maybe especially in primates like baboons and gorillas.

It's hilarious that something so obvious is considered worth denying, but I guess it's an example of how intellectualization can be used to exploit psychological weakness.

cogman10• 1 year ago

The simple fact is that alpha males are a fact of nature. In wolves and in lions

Dude, you are literally responding to someone arguing that alphas are real with an article that completely disproves your thesis.

This isn't even a new revelation. Biologists have long known that the whole "wolf alpha" thing was BS.

But further, we aren't wolves, we aren't lions. Male lions taking over a pride will murder all the cubs, should we? Female Cynomolgus monkeys will have sex with every male in the troupe so as to confuse who that father is of the offspring, should we?

No species of animal is the same and there are no "norms" in the animal kingdom.

Nothing more beta than confidently spouting BS without taking the time to research your own positions.

jachee• 1 year ago

Did you even read the article?

anal_reactor• 1 year ago

I find it fascinating that some users here seem to be attached to the concept of an alpha male, reality be damned.

What sometimes happens is that people use flawed reasoning to arrive to correct conclusions. Has it ever happened to you that you made a mistake but then you made another mistake and these two cancelled each other out? My take is, wolves might or might not have an alpha male, that is completely irrelevant, but if so many people subscribe to the idea, then there must be something true about it. In particular, most human societies are highly hierarchical. Heck, "the land of free" elects a new alpha male every four years, many other countries don't even bother holding elections.

The lack of a true definition means there is no objective measure of what it is, which makes it impossible to feel secure in.

Just because a concept cannot be easily defined it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Example: tell me what is consciousnesses.

It exploits psychological vulnerabilities in people and traps them: if you worry about your alpha/beta status, then you’ll be the type of person who wants to fix it, but there isn’t a fix because your perspective is the issue.

This way of thinking is extremely common. When people face a concept they don't like, they just deny it. Otherwise their belief system would turn out to be incomplete.

reverendsteveii2• 1 year ago

This myth has several things that well-designed misinformation needs in order to supplant good information:

1) it fits into existing worldviews - the myth of the alpha validates people continuing to do what they want to do and what they've always done. it's a lot easier to accept information that tells you that you and the systems with which you're already familiar and comfortable are correct

2) it's intuitive to understand - "the big guy kicks the crap out of the little guys and takes all their stuff" is not something that has any sharp edges to snag unwary intellects. We've all seen this system at work. Also the popular understanding of evolution at the time was that competition happened at the level of the organism, which dovetails nicely with this theory of competition and dominance where our more current understanding of competition at the level of the gene complex introduces the possibility of cooperation and even self-sacrifice as valid survival strategies.

3) it trended in the same direction as society at the time - the book came out in 1970, about the same time that we started trending toward neoliberalism which is a hyperindividualistic, hypercompetitive worldview. If you like neoliberalism then this is why you like it, and if you don't this is why you don't. This means that as this idea was becoming more and more well-known there was a lot of room for it in the emerging zeitgeist. It's the political and sociological equivalent to 1, but with significance added by people who were already dedicated to engineering our culture in that direction in the first place latching onto this idea because it indicates that they're so correct that the whole world is already designed around principles of individualism and competition.

boppo1• 1 year ago

1970... trending toward neoliberalism

What were we doing before 1970? Not being adversarial here, asking from curiosity.

BurningFrog• 1 year ago

This essay is decent workplace leadership advice.

The connection to wolf pack social dynamics is very thin.

P_I_Staker• 1 year ago

I'm in disagree. They wolves tent to have a "big bad wolf". Now most wolves would never enter a house and eat bear soup, but some ofthe are quit psychopathic and can bring food back for the pack.

What this article doesn't mention is the eating of puppies. The big bad wolf is not a gentle wolf.

midhunsezhi• 1 year ago

Great article but is missing sources with citations so I ran the content against GPTZero's source finder - https://app.gptzero.me/documents/124f8c4d-9fd4-43c4-93f9-713...

karaterobot• 1 year ago

Forget the captivity part, the fact that people aren't wolves is what always bothered me about this dumb idea.

muzani• 1 year ago

I feel that rather than disproving the alpha myth, this emphasizes that it works well in cages.

What makes a cage? I'd say something where sustainability is a factor - there are limited leads, limited work, limited territory. People slow down otherwise they become too productive, deplete the work available, and get laid off. Hierarchies evolve around controlling these limited resources. All the danger is internal. There's constant resources coming in from god knows where, so budgeting takes priority over hunting.

indoordin0saur6• 1 year ago

Yes. It seems almost like a tautology that alphas arise in environments with scarcity and competition.

indoordin0saur6• 1 year ago

The author obviously wants to critique the machismo culture built into capitalism (which is totally fine!) but he seems to inherently subscribe to the naturalistic fallacy without being aware of it. Thus he feels the need to dismiss the idea of "alpha male" hierarchies in nature as non-existent as a way to dismiss them within our own society. You really don't need to do this and IMO, the flimsy premise of the start of his argument undermines his conclusion for society (which I actually agree with). Just because a certain type of sociological system exists within nature doesn't mean it's one we, as humans, should want for ourselves.

spandrew• 1 year ago

Consider how these dynamics manifest in Silicon Valley, where Facebook's infamous "move fast and break things" mantra shaped a generation of tech culture. This emphasis on speed and disruption at any cost has created work environments that mirror the artificial pressures of captivity, where displaying dominance often takes precedence over fostering sustainable innovation. –

Yeaa..... this is a huge stretch. I'm not a hustle culture proponent by any means (Patagonia's 'let them go surfing' seems great to me!), but "Move fast and break things" is a pragmatic mantra that speaks to the nature of enterprises in highly competitive markets.

Laypeople will balk at the idea of "breaking things". But that's hubris. It takes humility to admit that the breaking things part of discovery and invention isn't isn't optional. Fast or slow, you will break things pursuing an idea unknown space. The mantra speaks to the need to adjust risk tolerances in futuristic-leaning businesses.

There are other ways, of course. Bio-med breaks things in controlled trials, for example. But it's also slow as molasses. Rife with in-fighting.

But to equate alpha-male captivity with futuristic pragmatism is a huge reach.

nubianwarrior• 1 year ago

This thread is a hiring manager's dream; imagine identifying a candidate's emotional intelligence through their HN comments. Woof, indeed.

boh• 1 year ago

The Alpha thing was always cringy. Reminded me of the way people used to take Buzzfeed quizzes that would define who they are. "It says I'm a Gryffindor because I'm brave!". Identity is a bottomless pit of manipulation and self-delusion.

int_19h2• 1 year ago

Does it even matter?

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the "alpha myth" is actually true as it pertains to humans, and the most aggressive and dominating ones rise to the top.

Now look around you. Who are those people at the top of your society who unironically refer to themselves as "alphas" and embrace all the rhetoric around that, and what kind of world do they create around them?

ashoeafoot• 1 year ago

Postmodernism says there is no truth, only power and discussion airsuperiority derived from that. Thus alpha is a thing, reality be dammed .

The Alpha Myth: How captive wolves led us astray

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