There is this interesting piece of science that has often popped up here in TRP. It seems that in the past only 1 man reproduced for every 17 women. This has been hailed as a confirmation of "Red Pill Theory": "See? Alpha male got all the women, betas got none."

Thing is, Red Pill is not a "theory". It is a "praxeology".

Truth be told, TRP is not so much about the truth, as about what works. And focusing on Alpha traits is what works today, irrespective of how things were in (pre)history. For instance, having your woman be submissive works for having an enjoyable relationship for both. Why is that so? Well, the "why", the premise, is of lesser importance than the actual conclusion and its practical implications.

Now, there is a problem with the premises when you try to build a proper theory. The need for women to be submissive (which a conclusion - and a truth) could be e.g. "because Jesus said so" (a premise). Problem is, Jesus also said that you have a moral obligation to be faithful. Which is, of course, false.


As it turns out, the 17-to-1 meme is (in a way) wrong. Invoking it in TRP leads to these two wrong theories:

1. About only 5% (1 in 17) of men is genetically "Alpha", the rest are "Betas".

This is of course blatantly wrong, and it is not difficult to see why. If only "genetic Alphas" reproduced, almost all of the male population would be "genetic Alphas". Sexual selection converges lightning-fast compared to natural selection. It doesn't even need tens of thousands of years, let alone the hundred of thousands that is the human evolutionary history. It would take only a few generations for these "genetic Alpha genes" to be ubiquitous in the male population.

2. (this is the interesting wrong theory:) It was always the case that some men dominated over others so they got all the women.

This is the gist of the matter. I needn't delve deeply into the relationship of dominance and sexual success, I think we all understand how close that is. So, a 1-in-17 men ratio of reproduction would mean that in the past there was quite a big power gap, among men. Which is a fact. But, how far back in the past was that?

The 1-in-17 ratio refers to societies about 8-10.0000 years ago. These were the agricultural societies, where social stratification was extreme. However, the most interesting fact, is that further back, in the primal hunter-gatherer societies, the ratio of reproduction was only 1-to-2! This points to a much more egalitarian society. Nowadays, a society where 50% of mthe en are "alphas", would be unimaginable. But it seems that something like that was the fact in the evolutionary era that defined the human genetic makeup.


What this all comes down to is that the almost absolute sexual power that females nowadays have is a socially enforced situation, that came about when class society emerged, around the Agricultural revolution. Modern feminism is the culmination of a process that started about 10 millennia ago, and that gave power to few men and all women. No modern theory about the human nature can be correctly calibrated, if it doesn't take into account that fact.

TRP has often been accused of harbouring a "bogus" Evolutionary Psychology theory, thus having schematic "alpha" and "beta" categories. This is unfair. Evolutionary Psychology itself, as a science, is bogus up to a large part. Its parent from the '70s, Sociobiology, suffered from this schematic view, namely that social class was always a fact in human societies.

Luckily, things are beginning to clear up - although a lot of smoke is still thrown over the truth. A telling example is a brilliant scientist, Laura Betzig. In her dissertation, "Despotism, Social Evolution and Differential Reproduction", which you may have glimpsed at if you read The Red Queen, she took the view that there was a more or less linear progression of societies from more primitive to more advanced class societies. There was no "tipping point", no "revolution" taking place in human history. Nowadays though, she does acknowledges that there was a cutting point in social evolution - which is precisely the 1-in-2 to 1-in-17 transition.


Equipped with this, more correct, theory, we can have a more precise view of the sexual landscape. Let me briefly give you two concrete examples:

Example 1:

Women are ungrateful. Nothing you can do will ever satisfy them, not marriage not anything, and they'll always demand more from you. Why? According to the new perspective, it is because they never had the security of marriage and the 18 years of child support in prehistory. They got a few years of a man's investment, and evolved so at to milk whatever resources out of their current man, until they get to the next one. Greedy, short-term algorithm, hardwired.

Example 2:

Most men are Betas. This means, they try to get sex by providing. The TRP view is that there is a beta-ization social process going on, which is partly true. Another part of the truth, and a big one, is that providing actually worked in prehistory! It was about a goat leg per fuck. (Interestingly, the cost of a goat leg at the butcher's is about as much as it costs to get paid sex, in many countries.)


References: (google them)

  1. 8,000 years ago, 17 women reproduced for every one man - Pacific Standard

  2. XO in XY: History unfolds in our genes - Laura Betzig

For a deeper discussion of these issues, grab my book,

The Empress Is Naked: From Female Privilege to Gender Equality and Social Liberation