Are Geeks The New Alpha Male?
techvibes.com
techvibes.com
It's a weak correlation; there are plenty of poor geniuses. Displays of wealth probably work better than displays of smarts.
And displays of social status are better than both.
Also, girls don't really rationally think about attraction, which is why a lot of them date better looking guys who later dump them while nicer guys get left by the side of the roads.
From my own experience, getting a master degree in Comp Sci has not helped me in getting a girl. However, working out 2-3 times a week and being more physically attractive has.
First, not after high school, no. Second, being the alpha male has more to do with how other men think of you than about how women seek mates. Third, women have always found intelligence inherently attractive, and smart people who have a hard time with the ladies have always avoided acknowledging that because it would mean acknowledging they have other defects that hold them back.
Being a good athlete may make other kids look instinctively to you, but that's just an opportunity to learn leadership skills. Other kids have different opportunities, and after high school, those opportunities multiply and diversify. Prowess doesn't guarantee that you'll develop alpha male skills, and even in high school, there are star players who don't have much influence over their peers. Likewise, on any high school football team, you'll find one or two starters who aren't the best performers at their position but provide valuable leadership for the other players.
People really need to sort out two distinct concepts: social rank and masculinity. Geeks talk a lot about "alpha males," but they're also jealous of the beefy guy down the street who washes his Corvette shirtless and always has a girl hanging around. It doesn't matter whether that guy gets ordered around by a short bald guy and would have been in the Paleolithic, too. The dude is masculine. And he gets chicks (which I suspect is the common factor that creates geeky interest in both social rank and masculinity.)
While social rank and masculinity are not entirely unrelated, geeks conflate them way too much, and I think this article is a prime example. Rough, tough, strong, assertive guys can end up as leaders or followers, socially climbing or falling relative to their origins, and that's been true in every complex society, meaning the phenomenon has been around for thousands of years. Geeks are interested in both social rank and masculinity and would benefit from treating them as distinct ideas, but they prefer to lump them both under the label of "alpha male" because it sounds more intellectual (and probably less homoerotic, to boot.)
[Sorry for the huuuuuge edit after I was already modded up once....]
Since the invention of television and the dawn of universal suffrage, politicians have gotten taller, fitter, and more attractive. There's a reason.
"Helpful assets" is one way to put it. But I'm advocating a stronger hypothesis: when lots of people can vote, and they can watch candidates on TV, we will not have an ugly President. We'll have very charismatic average-looking presidents, or really stupid great-looking presidents. But we won't have ugly, brilliant ones.
I don't disagree with the gist of your point, but I just wanted to observe that male pattern baldness is generally correlated with increased testosterone levels. So in a way it's masculine by definition.
Of course, "earning potential" actually doesn't matter much either, in a wealthy society where death from poverty is rare. Instead, look at the people who are having lots of kids vs. few or none. Don't underestimate the power of vertical memetic transmission, either--breeding rapidly is more viable today than ever before as a means of promoting ideas.
Genetic engineering will probably throw everything out the window long before selection pressures could do much anyhow.
I've read a stat somewhere that claimed at least 10% of fathers are not raising their actual sons (and they are unaware of it). Unfortunately I can't find the study.
Related side note: the researcher that coined the term alpha male recently redefined it.
According to him, the alpha male that typically comes to mind is a misconception as alpha wolves aren't alpha wolves through some violent usurpation. Rather, they become alpha males in much the same way that a human Dad does. As the oldest and provider for the familiy, he is the natural leader.
So if you're a male geek looking for love, whether your IQ is 130 or 160 (the pool of women doesn't increase much from one to the other), you need to work on your social skills. Actually you boys in the 160+ range need to work a bit harder as you spend so much time thinking about esoterica your 'game' is probably quite weak.
Young women (18-24) seem to be trending towards males with influence of some sort & a sense of humor - so if you're "well connected" but not well off, "chicks can dig that" or if you're "well known" (where people stop you on the street) & of course, if you're rich or appear to be rich.
I suppose all of them could require brains, but not all of them do.
Attractiveness is so much more important when dating as the only real advantage of a dating partner over a friend is the sex. So you tend to date based on attraction. Where as when you are thinking long term, you look for a larger set of attributes, such as earning power, emotional stability, communication, etc. (Of course some people date with the intent of find a partner. But the point is easier to make if you think of it in terms of the extremes of dating for fun versus dating to find 'the one')
Either way, there are guys who are both highly intelligent and athletic. They are going mop the floor of either extreme overall anyway. So in the end, yes brains matter more now, but good luck competing with taller more attractive and nearly intellectually equivalent guys.
The idea is that if you're a core developer on a project, you will gain alpha-male status from it. It doesn't really matter what kind of project it is. So this is a way in which hackers can become irrestibly attractive to the other sex.
The essay is at http://catb.org/~esr/writings/sextips/sexy.html
Add in some gym time and some pop culture into your daily RSS feeds and you're all set.
When you find a girl you like, slowly introduce your geek side. She'll think it's cute. Plus, nowadays everyone uses computers in one way or another so any geek tendencies are not going to be that big of a stretch to understand.
Really, it's not that hard.
"Jocks only think about sports, nerds only think about sex. "
All I can offer is shalmanese is an old account with much karma and EliRivers is a new account with none. Also the higher scoring one was posted 4-5 minutes earlier.
Of course one could just flag the post but that isn't as visible.