Briffault's Law Revisted

techr0nin · 2022-01-07T05:15:54+00:00

Totally just my own random thoughts, so take this as you will. I think humans face selective pressure from both the group end and from the individual end, two forces in opposition to each other which resulted in the complicated mess that is human sexuality.

From the group perspective, we’ve functionally domesticated ourselves generation after generation by selecting for traits like tameness, sociability, and decreased aggression. It’s been well-studied that in domesticated mammals, such a process also results in morphological and behavioral changes such as decreased brain size, teeth size, jaw size, and extended juvenile behavior. These traits enabled us to live in densely packed environments without killing each other, thereby increasing our cooperation, productivity, numbers, and rate of innovation, eventually resulting in the development of civilization. Incidentally these selected traits we tend to associate with femininity.

From the individual perspective, we have a preference for size, strength, dominance, aggressiveness, and intelligence. The advantages of these traits are pretty clear, as they translate directly into a competitive advantage against other human beings, and there are physical and social cues such as strong jaws, increased musculature, wittiness, etc from which we can see on display. Incidentally these are qualities we assiciate with masculinity.

I think these are the forces that makes up the ying and the yang of sexual selection and human evolution, an exchange of femininity and masculinity. You see this interplay throughout history — groups that domesticated themselves prosper and develop sophisticated sedantary cultures, become comfortable and increasingly feminized, gets invaded by groups from masculine competitive cultures, the groups intermix, then the invaders get comfortable and assimilates into the sedentary culture, and the cycle repeats.

So here is my hypothesis: in times of abundance, the culture becomes feminized and leans towards female choice, which means increased competition among men for reproductive rights. In times of resource scarcity, the culture becomes more masculine and leans towards male choice, leading to more female competition for available men. This is why in developing countries or poor demographics, men with resources get their pick of the litter, whereas in developed countries and among wealthy demographics, women barely have to compete and gets to just pick winners.

Slootando · 2022-01-07T03:13:51+00:00

To me, Briffault’s Law is directionally sensible, but is at best trivially true for humans. After all, women are the gate-keepers of sex, but men the gate-keepers of commitment. Presumably, family formation is a blend to varying degrees of sex and commitment.

I doubt humans are the most monogamous species, even within primates. To repurpose a recent comment of mine on sexual dimorphism (where I was actually emphasizing that humans are not as polygynous as gorillas):

For most of evolutionary history, humans were probably moderately polygynous, instead of usually harem-like.

Polygynous animals tend to be highly sexually dimorphic. Male gorillas are significantly bigger than the females, while fairly monogamous gibbons tend to be similarly sized between males and females. The sexual dimorphism between men and women in size is between that of gorillas and gibbons. Men are “only” about 10 percent taller and 15 percent heavier than women, on average.

That being said, men can certainly assemble harems opportunistically, like Genghis Khan at the extreme. A modern, more mild example of this could be Chads rotating through a soft harem of Tinder chicks. Or see top echelon male celebrities who can enjoy a near endless supply of puss.

gimpgirl555 · 2022-01-07T04:46:48+00:00

Also women hit the wall and lose their value. I agree that most people underestimate men's ability to choose.

logiauser · 2022-01-07T03:46:57+00:00

All your exceptions are, by definition, exceptions. For the general population, it is quite correct.

We aren’t as dimorphic because men have built a world in which it isn’t necessary for our features do diverge.

We were only monogamous because we built cultures (mostly by men) to foster stable societies. Do you see is trending more monogamous or less?

This makes no sense. If women have zero interest in a man, what are his options?

Of course it makes sense in a tournament species. The reason for the competition is to compete for female attention.

It feels like you didn’t grasp the concept tbh.

RedPillDetox · 2022-01-07T13:49:23+00:00

Your post is OP as fuck. The fact that it only has 6 upvotes as of right now shows exactly what's wrong with this sub.

I wrote a commet with the original Briffaults law to show it has nothing at all to do with the interpretation TRP gives it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/lwoyb1/what_happens_with_briffaults_law/gpipdwi/

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fools_errand49 · 2022-01-07T04:14:13+00:00

I agree with almost all of this except the idea that humans are predominantly not sexually dimorphic. I don't believe it to be adequately demonstrated. A large amount of this supposition is based on the relative lack of sexual dimorphism of the body. What is much harder to account for is sexual dimorphism of the brain in how men and women think about the world and make choices. Based on circumstantial evidence it wouldn't be unreasonable to hypothesize that the neurological differences between men and women are greater than the physical differences.

StarchRunner · 2022-01-07T06:24:06+00:00

humans are sexually dimorphic but nowhere near as dimorphic as other mammals or many of our primate relatives. We are much closer to non-dimorphic species than dimorphic tournament species.

There are zero female NFL hall of fame players.

Transmigratory · 2022-01-07T13:41:33+00:00

If humans were so easy to understand. In some ways, we are- but in other ways, we aren't.

Perseus_the_Bold · 2022-01-07T15:36:30+00:00

Your entire argument is that "Exceptions exist." Which is not an argument at all. Briffault's Law already accounts for the outliers and what the law is essentially stating is that women determining the conditions of the family is the norm and not the exception. Where women derive no benefit from associating with a man, no such association will take place. This is normal.

And our species is only slightly dimorphic? That slight dimorphism in action. It's also because of the slight dimorphism why men account for nearly 100% of human innovation, and progress as a species and why we are the apex species on the planet.

So do not poo poo on the "little differences" between men and women because a little difference is what makes all the difference between a Hydrogen Explosion and a Hydrogen Bomb.

sarkington · 2022-01-07T16:24:52+00:00

The manosphere’s attempt to reject its interpretation/utilization of Briffaults law, aka, “women oppress me with their freedom” is hilarious. But why, though? They love self pitying social science babble like “hypergamy” and “limerence”?

icefire54 · 2022-01-09T01:50:29+00:00

Good response to various criticisms:

https://odysee.com/@colttaine:d/A-Response-To-Paul-Elam:7

Title	Briffault's Law Revisted
Author	Decent_Foundation_62
Upvotes	11
Comments	36
Date	January 7, 2022 2:44 AM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/rxwgpb/briffaults_law_revisted/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/briffaults-law-revisted.1094222 https://theredarchive.com/post/1094222

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