An interesting question that comes up periodically showed up on the Facebook r/K Discussion page (which just gets better as more people sign up to it):
I’m sure this question has been raised a thousand times in the r/K selection community.
But how is it that for a man to sleep with lots of women is considered alpha , but it’s r selected behaviour which is in theory beta?
There’s some inconsistencies to people like Mike Cernovich and Gavin McGinnis , making out it’s alpha behaviour and telling young men to sleep around out of one side of their mouths but out the other telling women that sleeping around is detrimental to them selves and civilization.
The alpha/beta paradigm is new, and though it is related to r/K, it does not directly correlate. I also get the impression that not everybody has the same definition of alpha and beta. A martial artist on the mat is going to see Brazillian Ju Jitsu master Renzo Grace as an Alpha, a US Marine is going to see Chesty Puller as Alpha, and a PUA is going to cite Mystery as Alpha – and each man will exude the alpha frame in his environment. If they are all alpha (and I think they are), alpha is a mindset, and the sleeping with lots of girls is just an option open to all of them, due to that mindset. So yes, a guy who sleeps with a lot if girls is alpha, but I see the girls as a perk, not the determinate.
Of course all of it relates to r/K Theory.
When I first read Heartiste, I was aghast. What he wrote went against my every instinct, and even stirred a strange, directionless anger. It was like cheating, or being phony. Guys should have to have real accomplishments, like making money, or valorious military service, or something impressive they’ve accomplished, and then the girls should flock to them.
But then you see Mystery, and realize it doesn’t work that way today, especially in r-areas. You have to shut off that K-strategist violation of expectation, and look at it logically.
I now see alpha/beta as r/K related measures of self-perceived social status, and that self-perceived status just tends to be adopted by others due to a quirk of human nature. That is why I like game and promote it – it makes K-betas in times of r into K-Alphas, even in times of r. How does it do this?
In times of r, Mystery is naturally alpha. He does nothing but make superficial small talk and bang girls, and in times of r, girls are programmed to like that because it means his genes will produce kids who will make superficial small talk and bang a lot of girls. In times of r, that means an ideal strategy for reproducing. Mystery walks into a club, does his game, and r-girls are all over him, trying to shove their tongues down his throat.
In times of r, a Delta Force soldier, sitting in the back of the club cooling his heels with a beer, not saying much, and being kind of shy around girls because he does more killing than sexing, is in fact naturally a beta in that environment. In times of extreme r like the Sixties, (following the boom of the Fifties), that Delta operator would actually be spit on by the r-selected hippies, and the r-selected hippie girls would try to bomb his car and attack him in other ways.
That will affect a K-strategist’s alpha/beta frame, because it violates his expectations and irritates him on a fundamental level, and that frame alteration makes him beta due to the way the masses perceive things. Because times are r, and he has not adapted, he will be viewed by the masses as embittered, and by extension socially subordinate because he did not adapt to that r-environment. So r-selection flips the social status script, making K’s beta, as weird as it seems to K’s who are designed to expect a K-world.
But the flip in status is actually more of a flip in his frame – something under the control of the individual. The Delta soldier will become beta only if he lets the shift to r violate his expectations, irritate him, and leave him embittered and negative in the face of the r-environment. Unfortunately, just as Heartiste initially shocked me, that is what the Delta’s instincts will drive him toward, leaving his natural state in times of r as beta.
Now in times of K, like during WWII, things, left to their natural devices, reverse. That Delta guy comes home and is recognized as a hero. Everywhere he goes, shy girls bat their eyes, and try to get his attention, and he can have his pick of girls just by talking to them. Other men respect and defer to him. That changes his frame, and suddenly he becomes the alpha, at ease, in his element, and not seeing any expectation-violating stimuli. Mystery back then would be characterized as a sleaze, and that societal attitude would turn most girls off to him. If he rolled out game in a bar and tried to AMOG some Medal of Honor winner, it would probably not end well for him. That will change his natural frame, leaving him embittered, and that would turn him into the beta. Different worlds, and different natural tendencies toward alpha and beta.
The key is to notice that alpha and beta are frames, which are just how the person carries themselves relative to the environment. Naturally they tend to sort themselves, but if the K realizes that during r-selection being alpha is bullshit and the whole thing is corrupt, then he can make a conscious decision to hack the system and restore what should be the natural order. All he has to do is grasp the principles of game, imitate the r-strategist’s game, and now he is back on equal footing.
The funny thing is an r in times of K can’t do the same. He can’t AMOG a Marine in a bar, in an age where guys who get pissed off beat the crap out of the people who pissed them off. In times of K, unless the r can do something incredible, he is lost.
That is why I support Game. From his writing, Heartiste is clearly a K who saw the weirdness of the r-world, and used his intellect to change the ground rules, and I think that is the best path forward for the K-strategy. When times turned r, Heartiste intellectually analyzed the r-game, and learned to play it. So foreign was it to his nature, he had to actually take courses, and spend time analyzing his experiences to try and figure out how others were operating. I support that for guys, because when times are r, K-s need to adjust their strategy.
In times of r, lots of r-women who enjoyed riding the cock carousel are looking for a K to marry as their expiration date approaches and they suddenly want to avoid ending up an old spinster with a gaggle of cats. If you are a K looking for a lifelong K-relationship in a time of r, those r-girls can really screw up your plans through family-fracturing and divorce.
If I was a K-strategist looking for a wife today, I would definitely learn game, become a master of it however I had to, and then press for a same night lay from every girl I identified as a marriage prospect, while focusing on the younger, less corrupted girls. Those who gave in could then be weeded out of the selection process, while those who did not could be focused on as marriage prospects.
So to summarize, alpha and beta are more measures of one’s own perception of social standing, and not directly related to r/K, or even banging women, in my opinion. That said, I support K’s embracing that paradigm, learning game, and making themselves alpha under all conditions for a number of reasons. They should do it so they can have first mate choice and land and maintain happy K-selected relationships, become more dominant over any r-selected rabbits in their r-selected environs, and because learning game is a window into just how full of phoniness the world is today.
So add Heartiste and Krauser to your daily reading lists today, and begin honing that alpha frame.
Tell others about r/K Theory, because just by telling others about it, it will make you an alpha
