Packs vs Herds and r/K Selection Theory

A reader emailed this link, and this quote:

Humans live in groups. We’re social animals. When we see ourselves as pack animals we know that becoming more powerful as individuals makes the pack stronger. It’s better for everyone. When we see ourselves as herd animals, we want all the other members to be weak because it increases our chances. If everyone is weak, the wolf will get someone else.

This is what Bill Whittle cited, when he pointed out that if you are an antelope, you don’t have to out-run the lion, you just have to outrun Dave, and if Dave has a gammy leg, it is even better for you. You see it most pronounced in narcissists, who will spend so much time trying to screw over everyone around them, and push down everyone they meet, that they never accomplish anything themselves.

r vs K reproductive strategies has been much of the battle in our species. Who is about their pack, and loves their fellow man, and who wants to outcompete the herd, and see their own herd fail all around them. It bleeds into a person’s very attitude toward everyone they meet. Is a person you happen across a good person you want to help, or do you assume they are a selfish person you need to control and thwart?

Even when wars erupt in modern times, it is never just K-strategists fighting over limited resources. It is r-strategists starting fights between K’s to pare back the population and save themselves from the risk of K-selection. It is fed by a smoldering hatred for their fellow man that is so innate to the rabbit’s nature they don’t even notice it, and can’t see it if you point it out.

Even as we’ve observed this complex strategy by the rabbits to divide and foment unrest, even as we’ve gazed upon a crowd of unique people with differing views and opinions, we’ve recognized a primal similarity between these two types of humans and their counterparts in nature – one undoubtedly pack like, protective, loyal, daring, and aggressive, the other herd-like, passive, disloyal, cowardly, and self-absorbed. We see rabbits and wolves, deer and lions, or schooling minnows vs dolphins.

r/K is the key to many doors, as Vault-co opined once. As it spreads, and the dichotomy becomes apparent to all, not taking sides will not be an option. Every decision will become a delineator – are you a rabbit, or a wolf? Do you love your pack and want it to succeed, or do you view everyone else as in need of oppression?

If that realization hits on a broad scale, right as resource restriction closes in, watch out.

Apocalypse cometh™