The Red Pill is about learning the truth, right?

 

And learning the truth sometimes means doing some difficult self-analysis. Or, even better, considering at least the possibility that some of our beliefs might be imperfect or improvable.

 

I was inspired by this post, called "giving away alpha", where /u/INNASKILLZ2K18 details his personal growth as he moved past the “alpha/beta” definitions.

And I wanted to dig deeper on some more potential areas of weakness where the community might want to further develop.

 

Evolutionary Psychology: Let's Approach An Unfalsifiable Science With Critical Thinking

Evolutionary psychology is wonderful, I love it.

 

It has helped us hugely to better understand people, women and sexual dynamics.

We should be aware of its limitations, though.

Evolutionary psychology is an imperfect science, it’s unfalsifiable, difficult to test and, well, here it comes... Evolutionary psychology lends itself to all kinds of personal, made-up theories that have nothing of scientific (and, not accidentally, it's served as an easy "pseud-science" backing for ethnical cleansing).

 

This thread is a wonderful example of a critical approach to “made up evolutionary psychology”.

The author, /u/adam-l, provides a wonderful analysis of Rollo Tomassi's theory on why women love psychopaths.

Tomassi conveniently anchored his theory (ie.: opinion) in evolutionary psychology: women love psychopaths because in our past those were the men who’d get shit done.
They weren’t afraid of killing others and they could protect women.

 

Kind of sounds credible, right?

 

Except, as Adam well explains, it makes no sense. That's a good example of how making up theories with evo psch works: make it sound credible, fit it in your narrative, and your narrative looks like it's science-backed.

 

I see this pattern very often, where authors more interested in gaining authority than getting to the truth conveniently forget to add "maybe", "it might be that..." and "but we can't be sure", "but these are just conjectures".

 

TL,DR:

as a rule of thumb, always approach “nicely sounding” evolutionary psychology analysis with a critical mindset.
Evolutionary psychology is unfalsifiable, and it’s more complex than some others make it out to be.

 

Alpha / Beta dichotomy: Growing Past Black & White Thinking

We know this:

 

Men vary in terms of success in mating, in resource acquisition and, in general, in life success and fulfillment. Much of that variance depends on his position in the social pecking order.

 

In the Red Pill that position is often simplified as Alpha/Beta.

And sure, many know that this is an over-simplification.

Yet, I often see how the constant labeling of Alpha/Beta is twisting men's ability to effectively understand the world and act effectively in that world.

 

The pecking order is much more complex and varied than Alpha/Beta. Alphas in one environment can be a beta in another. And that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s got any less power.

 

Looking at the world with alpha/beta lenses warps reality and can make us act in ways that are counterproductive.

For example, take the “law of power #1.” from Robert Greene: never outshine the master. That’s also a generalization of course, but it applies in our lives more often than not. That law is nothing but a smart way of playing the “beta male”.

 

Indeed, that law is a good reminder of what “beta” actually means in nature. The “beta” male in nature is actually the second in command. He has lots of power and social status. He gets lots of sex, too, same or almost as much as the alpha (not rarely even more, as the Alpha is more busy with the social side of being an alpha).
And he bears even fewer risks as the alpha male is the one who most often gets mauled during insurrections.

 

TL,DR:

Some men use Alpha/Beta as tools for social climbing. The drive to "be alpha" sometimes leads men to act not powerfully, more but like dickheads. And the labels sometimes can stand in the way of truly understanding a world which is much more complex and varied.

 

AWALT: General Baseline Tendencies Are AWALT, Unique Behaviors Are Not (Always) AWALT

The Red Pill gets an important truth right:

 

Women all have basic tendencies that make (many/most of) women similar to each other.

 

That much is true.

Yet, I see this “AWALT” applied in all the wrong ways.

One guy opened a thread after having visited a hooker. He said “your pretty GF is likely selling her body for money, AWALT”.

More than half of people voted it up, making it a rather popular thread.

 

It's just one example, but I see many men falling for that same "AWALT" mistake. In science this is called "inductive reasoning", and it's how people fall to the wrong conclusions.

 

AWALT applies to general base tendencies, not to specific and unique behaviors. Domes of those base tendencies also apply to men because all humans -and, deeper, all animals- have the same base tendencies.

 

If we go deeper and deeper into “AWALT”, we reach this “ultimate AWALT”:

-Women want to maximize their returns.

 

Which is the same for men. Applying “AWALT” correctly means discerning those general truths that apply to humans in general, and understanding general human weaknesses and strengths.

Only after it means focusing on the peculiarities of the female mind and how it affects sexual dynamics. And, for true Red Pill self-development, it also means focusing and understanding on male own “AMALTs”, our own general weaknesses and strengths, and how we can work on them (think of: ego, social climbing tendencies, possessiveness, etc. etc.).

 

TL,DR:

Truly understanding AWALT means understanding human nature first. Female (and male) nature after. And then understanding the unique differences in each single individual. It should go in that order.

Developing With The Red Pill

There are many more.

 

I don’t want to make this post too heavy, but I really wanted to share this one because moving past some Red Pill dogmas has been incredibly helpful for me.

 

Don't get me wrong: those dogmas will first liberate many men. But to reach a new level of growth, one must then move beyond them.

Or at least, that's how it's been for me. Red Pill truths have been incredibly empowering. But moving beyond some of them, and seeing the exceptions in them, has been the next stage.

 

Sure, for the men who just get here they maybe need to go through some generalizations, some anger and some ranting.

But I think they can move past the bitterness much quicker if the whole community embraces complexity and shades of grey.