Reddit reviews Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind

So most explanations in here are... wrong. Yes, it might be advantageous for the ultra wealty to forego marriage, and in some cultures this is the norm. Some societies grant males a certain number of wives depending on their status, where the males highest up have upwards of hundreds of females to themselves. As a whole, though, according to evolutionarly psychology, polygamy is better for females then for males, and polygamy is bad for society as a whole. Let me try to give the explanation I've read in my studies;


Let's say we've got 50 females and 50 males, and they partner up in some way, monogamously. The context here is the "societal structure removed"-context, so everyone acts mathematically optimally, but they are humans, so they have a high parental investment, which is important for the reasoning. Another important bit of context is that the males and females are of "different quality", either you can think that they have some kind of "fitness value" and are ranked according to this value, or you can think of a kind of "general preference" (maybe like females generally liking fit, confident males, and males generally liking fit, petite women). So anyway, they are ranked, the first male is somehow "better quality" then the 50th male.


Ok, so let's forego marriage and accept polygamy. What happens? Well, the 50th female has a choice; she can either stay with her 50th male, or accept into a polygamous relationship with a male higher up in the chain - preferably the number 1 male. So let's say she asks to enter into the relationship with the #1 male - what does he do? He can accept and possibly lose his current girl, or deny and lose an opportunity to mate. But if his girl can only do worse since he is the best male, so the risk of losing her is small, so he accepts. Now, the 50th male has no partner. This can go on for a while, until females no longer feels that the "bubbling up" process is beneficial.

Of course, this is a very crude explanation, ranks are not cardinal like this and people have differing (though very similar) preferences - but it's very real and it does happen in real life where polygamy is accepted.

So, the #1 male get's lots of females, but what about the #50 male? He is now completely alone. So is the #49 male, and the #48, and a few more. With no chance of reproducing, these men might become depressed, alcoholic, and might resort to rape and violence as a last resort effort of reproducing.

And this effect is exactly the one we see in societies where polygamy is accepted; some men are left alone and they turn violent, leaving the society as a whole worse off.


Before you go out to start googling ways that I'm wrong in this reasoning, I know there are a couple of scientific articles about polygamy that portraits an idyllic society of free life and all that, but that article has been proven false; apparently the women in the study went out of their way to lie and deceive the scientists in the study.

This reasoning is mostly from Moral Animal by Robert Wright, but I've also read Evolutionary Psychology: A Beginner's Guide and Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind which also handle the subject but not so in-depth.

The red pill is essentially applied evolutionary psychology. The most prominent red pill book is Rollo Tomassi's The Rational Male. These theories explain a lot of social problems we have, as described in The Misandry Bubble. MGTOW use this information (part 3) to increase the quality of the individual man's life (part 5).

How does Workman compare to Buss? I have only read Buss.

Furthermore, Buss is in the fifth edition now:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Psychology-Science-Fifth-Edition/dp/0205992129/ref=pd_sim_14_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=51BgqsFFOWL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR124%2C160_&refRID=064KHRM92M84AG53PQ6J

If we're talking about resistance from other people, then I can absolutely relate and I have a ton of experience on this front.

I'm currently 32 years old. Like most of us Americans, I was raised in a society and family that reinforced pleasing others—more specifically, that if other people don't approve of your actions, then you're doing something wrong. Up until my mid-20s, I lived by this rule. That meant that, by the time I turned 28 (in other words, after a decade of being an adult), nearly everything I had and everything I was existed because they in some form satisfied the expectations of others. In essence, I was crowdsourcing my life. If my life was a canvas, I was asking everyone else to paint it. And, naturally, I had a long history of dissatisfaction and self-loathing to show for it.

Then I decided I was going to stop caring about what other people thought of me, and I was going to start living how I want. In the process of doing so, I got a lot of negative feedback from family and friends. The odd thing is, you're probably assuming that my idea of living life on my terms was rude, self-centered, or illegal; but actually, my idea of living life on my terms was very positive and altruistic. Before this time I worked for several years as a technical consultant making good money (but ultimately helping nobody but myself), and my life changes were that I wanted to work in a field that helped other people, I wanted to do volunteer work, and I wanted to go to grad school so I could become a licensed counselor. I was told by numerous people these were all "big mistakes" and that they were concerned about my well-being (important side note: since I moved out of my parent's house in May 2008, I've been entirely self-sufficient, have needed $0 from other people, and have not gotten into any trouble with the law aside from a couple speeding tickets). In fact, I haven't even told my grandfather I'm attending grad school for counseling (and currently have a 4.0 through 5 courses) because my family is convinced it'll kill him (he's still resentful that I didn't follow in his footsteps and become an engineer). So you see the pattern: the people who are aware of my preferences have spoken negatively about them and me, and people who should be aware of my preferences are not because they would be offended by them.

To reiterate: My major life changes were that I left technical consulting to work in the helping professions, I started a self-help brand on YouTube, and I became a Big Brother through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program, where I've been a mentor for a local at-risk teen for 3.5 years. I didn't become a coke dealer or a porn star - I actually just became a nicer, happier person. And people still gave me crap!

So my big takeaway was that I have two options: I can live how everyone else wants me to live and end up hating my life because I don't want any of it, or I can live how I want to live and be happy. These are the same options we all have.

Today, my criteria for determining whether or not I do something is the following:

1. Will this thing enrich my life (in other words, will it bring me closer to success and happiness or farther from it)?
   
2. Will this thing cause me to renege on any responsibilities I've previously agreed to take on?
   
3. Will this thing likely cause any tangible harm to anyone else? (For this one, it's important to note that 'tangible harm' does not include someone I know becoming so upset with my decision that they don't know how to handle it)
   
   If the answers are 'Yes,' 'No,' and 'No,' respectively, then I do that thing. If not, I determine whether I can make changes that'll bring those answers in line, or I abandon the idea.
   
   Okay, that's some analysis on the matter. Now I'm going to specifically answer your question.
   
   The reason people try to tell others what to do and try to make it difficult for people to live their lives is because of our evolutionary history. Creatures we can generally consider humans came into existence roughly 2 million years ago (this would be Homo erectus). Our specific species, Homo sapiens, generally evolved from that species roughly 250,000 years ago. From 2,000,000 years ago until roughly 5,000 years ago, human beings lived in small, roving bands of roughly 40-80 individuals. In order for the group to survive, everyone in the group needed to satisfy a certain role and everyone needed to be working toward the same goals. If a nomadic tribe lived in northern Europe 50,000 years ago, for example, when winter was approaching, if half the tribe decided to not plan for the winter and the other half didn't, the entire tribe would perish because they would not have been adequately prepared for the winter. As a result of their deaths, the people who didn't see a need to plan would not pass on their genes to future offspring, and thus, the world would be composed of slightly less people who didn't plan for things. What this means is, the people who survived the last 2 million years generally saw value in making sure everyone in their tribe agreed with them - that nobody stepped out of line or 'went rogue'. As a result, humans who exist today tend to want everyone around them to do what they think is best; to fall in line. To not stand out. After all, standing out 100,000 years ago got you killed. (Note: if evolutionary psychology interests you, consider reading Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind by David Buss).
   
   This answers the first question you pose in the title. As to the second question—when you fail or slip, why is the fall harder than ever?—the reason is because when we already know there are people who think that what we're doing is stupid, they're almost waiting for us to fall. They're waiting for the moment when things go wrong so they can be proven correct. What these people don't realize, however, is that even failure is progress. For example, if I end up graduating from grad school but for some reason I can't pass the licensing test to become a counselor, I still have a master's degree to my name and I still learned tons of skills and knowledge. Some people around me will probably say "You should've stuck to consulting," but that's wrong because it discredits all the value I got through trying a new path.
   
   How do you overcome this? By teaching yourself to not give a f-ck what everyone else thinks. This is literally something you have to teach yourself - and it's something I still struggle with. We're so evolutionarily wired and societally-trained to fall in line and be like everyone else. The entire concept of social media is essentially a method for determining our value based on what other people think. If we post something smart or funny but it doesn't get any likes, then it was stupid and we're losers. On the other hand, if we post a photo of ourself half-naked, we'll get tons of likes (well, maybe not me, but some people will). So this is why I say learning to not care about the opinions of others takes time and effort. It's a skill like playing guitar is a skill.
   
   Perhaps your question was more about why we're met with such internal resistance when we make life changes. If so, then the answer is much more simple: our minds have been conditioned, through months and years of experience, to think or act a certain way, meaning that when we try to change our habits it'll take time.
   
   Hope any of this helps.
   
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   I wrote a memoir that walks through some important life events that occurred during my first decade of adulthood, and it talks about how I learned to listen to myself and follow my vision. If this sounds like something that would interest you, there's a free PDF copy available on my website.

Here's a list of their work. They haven't produced many books. Mostly articles. If you're interested in Evolutionary Psychology, I'd recommend checking out [this](https://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Psychology-New-Science-Mind/dp/0205992129/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1523978075&sr=8-1&keywords=evolutionary+psychology+buss) book. I believe they wrote a few chapters in it

Humans have evolved certain mating strategies due to sexual selection. If you want to know more, read for instance this:
https://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Psychology-New-Science-Mind/dp/0205992129

This thread is ridiculous. Most people have absolutely no clue about human mating, and live in some fantasy world where they - consciously or unconsciously, reject human biology and evolution. Human instincts are far deeper and more influential on our behavior than current cultural trends.

Okay I usually post this when girls ask questions like that. You should get your hands on some of the few good seduction books for women, and besides that, there is some books written for both genders. If you're a nerd and need something more scientific, look into evolutionary psychology which also has a lot of knowledge about mating strategies. If you don't care much for scientifically backed stuff, but want a good communication training, then there's some good nlp books out there.