Rounding out the series, I want to go over some hypothetical scenarios to help explore the dynamic of shepherd or charlatan even further, by showing how they can show up anywhere.
Anywhere.
In the past, I've done a couple posts on "how to spot an r-strategist":
Spotting an r-strategist: Gun Edition
Spotting an r-strategist: Conflict Management
A short summary of the two is that folks who are r-strategists, or in this series referred to as charlatans, are going to be focused on status. In order to gain that status they must study and know the subject matters which are important to the social circle they want to gain influence in. The difference between them and a shepherd is what comes afterwards, in that Charlatans only learn as much as is required to gain status, where shepherds will gain understanding required to act.
With guns, for example, a charlatan will understand the specifications, ballistics charts, and slang, but won't treat firearms as a dangerous tool. They'll be the ones boasting about how good they might be, and they might even be good at the range, but then they'll tip their hand by talking about how they hope to get caught in a live-fire scenario so that they can demonstrate their prowess even further.
Most 3-gun competitions are participated in by folks like this, who see a movie like "John Wick" and want to be the badass gunman, but don't talk to hardened veterans, folks who have been shot at, and who have had to shoot and kill others. To see what I mean, reference the interview scene from the movie "Full Metal Jacket".
Full Metal Jacket - The Interviews
Some of the soldiers project an air of confidence, where others appear weak. Without the context of the rest of the film, the soldiers who were cynical or doubtful about their circumstances may come across as unpatriotic, as sissies, as men who should get out of the way of the "real" soldiers who are ready to get the job done. While the movie is fictional, the scenario isn't so much so, and I have an uncle who still struggles with nightmares and the horror of having served in Vietnam. He was not detached from reality, he wasn't there for status or to show off how great he was with a rifle, he was supposed to be there as a shepherd for people who couldn't protect their own values, their own interests. He was supposed to be there as a shepherd, and now he bears both the physical and psychological scars for his trouble.
Charlatans don't ever get that involved. They are always at a distance, always ready to jump at a moments notice, when things look like they will no longer benefit them specifically.
Locally, this was seen in the past years when a local businesswoman kept getting her apartment complex projects denied by the city. Then she got elected to the council, scared the shit out of anyone who would try to go against her, got the projects approved, and then did not seek re-election because ground had already been broken.
I started attending Mars Hill church in late 2010, and yes, that Mars Hill with Mark Driscoll. I don't know the man personally, but to give an idea of how close we were to its implosion, the man at the Everett campus who wouldn't sign the non-compete clause? He did my marriage counseling. The pastor at the Everett church who signed the letter of support for Driscoll? He had presided over my wedding. To shorten the example, Mars Hill failed to fulfill 1 Timothy 5:20, and many are still unrepentant of how they tried to protect a charlatan instead of upholding the very scriptures they claimed they adhered to.
The gun example is yet another anecdote, in talking with a co-worker who was former army but did not serve in an actual combat zone. When news of shootings popped up, his response was that he wished someone would do that when he was in a store, because then "he could play". This was also a man who would boast of his marksmanship and collection of firearms, yet also had trouble with going up stairs, smoked heavily, and was sufficiently disabled that he had an ADA parking spot. He imagined himself as some sort of heroic figure, just waiting for his opportunity, yet it was all in his head, given that he could barely walk across the factory without being in significant pain, let alone run to deal with an active shooter.
Even the church I am trying to help start now, is focused on "being international". This makes sense given, as I've talked briefly about before, Jesus Christ stated that even families would be torn apart because of following him. Family is the smallest unit of community, of a nation, and if even that is not "safe" from strife due to faith in Jesus Christ, how can anyone claim that Christianity has any sort of respect for any earthly culture or nationality? All of them are, at best, secondary in importance to Jesus Christ. If folks are truly doing this, placing no gods of heritage or blood or tradition before Jesus Christ, then the Church is naturally going to be unified through the spirit in ways which are impossible through the flesh. But if everyone is simply looking to jerk off to "look how not racist I am", because they're just paying lip service to truth, to Jesus Christ, then it will fall apart, because there are much better ways for folks to try and gain status.
The final example I'll use is with child safety seats. In 2005, a study was done which determined that children over 2 years of age saw no significant benefit to injury or survival rates because they were sitting in a car seat. So they changed the rules and said that now, in order to be "safe", they should remain rear-facing as long as possible. The most immediate impact is that the interiors of cars now needs to be gigantic even for a small family to be able to ferry their children about. Older cars that were affordable were now off-limits, everyone has to buy new cars. Oh, and the plastics that we are told in one circumstance will take thousands of years to degrade? Well the plastics they use in child safety seats degrades in five years so even if you've never been in an accident, you need to buy a new one. It's a scam from top to bottom, but it preys on the ability to "pace and lead" gullible women into spending money they don't need to, buying newer cars they don't need to, and ultimately having fewer children than they are supposed to, when their husbands cannot just keep spending spending spending to make them feel safer.
The dynamics of the shepherd and charlatan show up everywhere. In every context, in every walk of life, in every circumstance where there is someone who leads and someone who follows, there is opportunity for such leaders to be concerned with themselves or with the flock. Whether it's church, a book club, your workplace, or the political stage in front of the whole country, none are immune or inoculated to the possibility of being exploited.
We must remain vigilant. Extremists are not always our allies, even if it looks like they may share the same values. Shepherds aren't going to be a source of or seen reacting to hype. People are constantly looking at how to exploit a community, to be an opportunist, to take as much as they can while giving away as little as possible, and hoping to be far far away once the nature of the scam has fully come to light.
This whole dynamic is made even easier because of associations through the internet. People can say whatever they want, present whatever fiction they want, and it will be impossible for someone else to verify or trust that such things are true. Pictures can be faked. Videos doctored. Actors hired. Lies told. In such an environment, charlatans are more successful than ever and can reach even bigger crowds than ever.
The really good ones have also figured out how to get people's pride tied into their arbitrary online relationships. They've synthesized the feeling of "belonging", and so even when such charlatans are exposed, folks will defend them if only to sustain what they don't believe they could otherwise achieve on their own.
Yet the internet only magnifies that dynamic, it doesn't create it, because for every Vox Day or Jordan Peterson, there's a Mark Driscoll or Jim Jones to show that even in person, the same old tricks can be played, the same cons are no less effective on people, and that no area of your life is ever going to be free of people who see their own priorities as superior to yours, and will feel no shame or guilt in manipulating you so that they can achieve what they desire.
Instead, look for those around you, in meatspace, who are already taking action, who are already doing what needs to be done, who already represent the values you already hold, and then get behind and support them. Build a relationship and observe them, figure out how to help them, and see if they are protecting or sacrificing themselves. The best liars can keep it up for a while, but none can keep it up forever, especially under the pressure of performance where results are expected of them.
It's not paranoia, it's not distrust, it's simply the only honest way that someone can make their way through a world that is imperfect and filled with imperfect people.
Showing posts with label r-selection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label r-selection. Show all posts
8.9.19
Shepherd or Charlatan Part 1 - Social Dynamic Foundations
Human social dynamics are complex, but are fundamentally shaped by the material world that we live in. We are finite beings that rely on consuming material resources in order to persist, and so our survival ultimately relies on our ability to procure and consume those resources.
Human reliance on resources traces back to Genesis, when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden by God due to their disobedience.
The reason this dynamic is important to understand is seen later on in Genesis, at the Tower of Babel.
Humanity can grow and learn to master aspects of its circumstances. We get good at producing food, providing clean water, and even learning how to treat and cure ailments that afflict our bodies. We get so good at addressing problems that face us that we keep growing the scope and severity of the problems we try to resolve, confident that we can conquer the next as easily as the previous.
It starts with food and water, eventually graduates to elections, power distribution, and waste management systems, and eventually we reach to resolve to the ultimate problem we face: the bonds of our physical finitude.
Our natural desire is to be like God, and sin is, more often than not, when we try to do so on our own terms instead of God's, relying on our own power and perceptions and reasons instead of trusting in God's direction for our lives, even if the things we'd desire are things God would desire for us as well, like family and health, or fortune and comfort.
Reaching for godhood on our own terms was right in the first temptation.
In advancing our power and capability, we are able to automate and obfuscate our basic needs, so much so that when civilization is advanced like it is now, individuals part of that civilization are rarely struggling just to survive.
This creates a problem, because material survival is an external constraint, and it shapes how we behave regardless of what we think about it, and in turn this also defines for us how we relate to others in the same set of circumstances. Relationships and interdependencies form, individuals specialize in skills and abilities, and together their efforts ensure the survival of all.
Nobody really has time to be ___ist, or to entertain being accused of being ___ist, when everyone might starve and die from lack of action in a matter of days or weeks.
Now, when that process has gotten so effective that resources are no longer scarce, and individuals are free to pursue other activities, the circumstantial pressures move from external to internal. If there is no need to struggle to survive, the individual must choose for themselves how to exert their efforts. If the constraints on their behavior are no longer driven externally, they choose internally to replace the lack of those constraints.
This contrast, of internal versus external struggle, creates the two motivations behind all human social dynamics: survival or status.
In survival, where resources are scarce, interactions are driven by necessity.
In status, where resources are abundant, interactions are driven by novelty.
Shepherds are concerned with the survival of the flock.
Charlatans are concerned with their status in the flock.
One example of how this could play out is from a parent's perspective, in how children frequently do not understand why they cannot or should not do something. The parent may need to constrain or direct the behavior of their child against the stated desires of the child. In such a case, the parent is concerned with the survival of the child, and not with their social status within the family, or with how other parents might judge their choice in parenting.
"I hate you!" or "But I want to!" or "You're just being mean!" and other childish objections to the firm direction of the parent indicate how their social status has suffered in the eyes of the child or their peers, but that is not the primary concern of a parent, or at least, it shouldn't be.
Many have interacted with parents who try to be the best friend of their child above all else, and are reluctant to "say no" or provide discipline or guidance to their children, and they are almost never shy about telling other parents about how much better a parent they are then others who must resort to more barbaric means. These parents are placing their social status as a higher priority than the survival of their children. They want to be seen in a good light by others, whether their children or their peers, even if they are sacrificing the future well being of their children to do so.
When the Bible states "no man can serve two masters" in Matthew 6:24, we in an advanced civilization have to choose whether survival or status will be what motivates us. It is not difficult to see how those motivated by status are so dangerous, because the ones most effective at manipulating the emotional states of others that rise to prominence, and to get good at such manipulation requires a narcissistic solipsism that ignores any consequences outside the impact to status.
In contrast, those who prioritize survival may not be the most popular or likable folks to interact with, but there is an inherent trust and reliability that exists because their motivations are not inherently selfish in nature. We see these types of characters in fictional media all the time, the gruff and brutish man who decisively solves problems, even for people who may have mocked or maligned him as a means of gaining social leverage.
So, again, the foundation for social interaction is a binary, driven by whether we exist in resource abundance or scarcity. Our interactions are either framed for us by external constraints, because we are finite beings that require resources, or by internal constraints when there are no external constraints asserting themselves because all that we rely on is readily available. It is on this binary dynamic that leaders end up being either shepherds or charlatans, and before we get into how each of their behavior may vary in a modern context, join me in part 2 to look at Jesus Christ and see if whether scripture paints him as a shepherd or a charlatan, and gives hints on how we might differentiate the two.
In part 3, I'll look at how modern shepherds and charlatans deal with conflict that threatens the group, including a look at the difference between "policing the flock" and "pacing and leading the flock". Finishing up in part 4 will be some examples of how anything in the material realm can be abstracted and used for social leverage, as there is no social circle where this choice about motivation has to be made, even inside the church.
Right now though, it's breakfast time, and I also promised to trim, paint, and mount the body of an R/C car for my oldest.
Thank you for your time and I hope you find this topic worthy of your consideration.
Human reliance on resources traces back to Genesis, when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden by God due to their disobedience.
Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:
“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.” - Genesis 3:17-19 (NKJV)
The reason this dynamic is important to understand is seen later on in Genesis, at the Tower of Babel.
And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. - Genesis 11:4-6 (NKJV)
Humanity can grow and learn to master aspects of its circumstances. We get good at producing food, providing clean water, and even learning how to treat and cure ailments that afflict our bodies. We get so good at addressing problems that face us that we keep growing the scope and severity of the problems we try to resolve, confident that we can conquer the next as easily as the previous.
It starts with food and water, eventually graduates to elections, power distribution, and waste management systems, and eventually we reach to resolve to the ultimate problem we face: the bonds of our physical finitude.
Our natural desire is to be like God, and sin is, more often than not, when we try to do so on our own terms instead of God's, relying on our own power and perceptions and reasons instead of trusting in God's direction for our lives, even if the things we'd desire are things God would desire for us as well, like family and health, or fortune and comfort.
Reaching for godhood on our own terms was right in the first temptation.
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. - Genesis 3:4-6 (NKJV)
In advancing our power and capability, we are able to automate and obfuscate our basic needs, so much so that when civilization is advanced like it is now, individuals part of that civilization are rarely struggling just to survive.
This creates a problem, because material survival is an external constraint, and it shapes how we behave regardless of what we think about it, and in turn this also defines for us how we relate to others in the same set of circumstances. Relationships and interdependencies form, individuals specialize in skills and abilities, and together their efforts ensure the survival of all.
Nobody really has time to be ___ist, or to entertain being accused of being ___ist, when everyone might starve and die from lack of action in a matter of days or weeks.
Now, when that process has gotten so effective that resources are no longer scarce, and individuals are free to pursue other activities, the circumstantial pressures move from external to internal. If there is no need to struggle to survive, the individual must choose for themselves how to exert their efforts. If the constraints on their behavior are no longer driven externally, they choose internally to replace the lack of those constraints.
This contrast, of internal versus external struggle, creates the two motivations behind all human social dynamics: survival or status.
In survival, where resources are scarce, interactions are driven by necessity.
In status, where resources are abundant, interactions are driven by novelty.
Shepherds are concerned with the survival of the flock.
Charlatans are concerned with their status in the flock.
One example of how this could play out is from a parent's perspective, in how children frequently do not understand why they cannot or should not do something. The parent may need to constrain or direct the behavior of their child against the stated desires of the child. In such a case, the parent is concerned with the survival of the child, and not with their social status within the family, or with how other parents might judge their choice in parenting.
"I hate you!" or "But I want to!" or "You're just being mean!" and other childish objections to the firm direction of the parent indicate how their social status has suffered in the eyes of the child or their peers, but that is not the primary concern of a parent, or at least, it shouldn't be.
Many have interacted with parents who try to be the best friend of their child above all else, and are reluctant to "say no" or provide discipline or guidance to their children, and they are almost never shy about telling other parents about how much better a parent they are then others who must resort to more barbaric means. These parents are placing their social status as a higher priority than the survival of their children. They want to be seen in a good light by others, whether their children or their peers, even if they are sacrificing the future well being of their children to do so.
When the Bible states "no man can serve two masters" in Matthew 6:24, we in an advanced civilization have to choose whether survival or status will be what motivates us. It is not difficult to see how those motivated by status are so dangerous, because the ones most effective at manipulating the emotional states of others that rise to prominence, and to get good at such manipulation requires a narcissistic solipsism that ignores any consequences outside the impact to status.
In contrast, those who prioritize survival may not be the most popular or likable folks to interact with, but there is an inherent trust and reliability that exists because their motivations are not inherently selfish in nature. We see these types of characters in fictional media all the time, the gruff and brutish man who decisively solves problems, even for people who may have mocked or maligned him as a means of gaining social leverage.
So, again, the foundation for social interaction is a binary, driven by whether we exist in resource abundance or scarcity. Our interactions are either framed for us by external constraints, because we are finite beings that require resources, or by internal constraints when there are no external constraints asserting themselves because all that we rely on is readily available. It is on this binary dynamic that leaders end up being either shepherds or charlatans, and before we get into how each of their behavior may vary in a modern context, join me in part 2 to look at Jesus Christ and see if whether scripture paints him as a shepherd or a charlatan, and gives hints on how we might differentiate the two.
In part 3, I'll look at how modern shepherds and charlatans deal with conflict that threatens the group, including a look at the difference between "policing the flock" and "pacing and leading the flock". Finishing up in part 4 will be some examples of how anything in the material realm can be abstracted and used for social leverage, as there is no social circle where this choice about motivation has to be made, even inside the church.
Right now though, it's breakfast time, and I also promised to trim, paint, and mount the body of an R/C car for my oldest.
Thank you for your time and I hope you find this topic worthy of your consideration.
13.5.19
You will know them by their fruits
Just want a quick reminder that unintentional exaggeration is a reliable tell for those who lean more towards r than K.
The guy who boasts about the amount of ammunition and guns he's hoarding?
The gal who boasts about how few men she's slept with?
The guy who boasts about the power the engine in his vehicle produces?
Bragging is one thing, but when the brag goes beyond what is contextually feasible, that's the tell, because the r folks will be intimately familiar with the lexicon, but not how to use it properly. They'll know what mannerisms to adopt, the tone of speech and how to tailor their physical appearance, but there is a genuine disconnect between them and the topic which would only be bridged by experience that they've never had, and so without that practical grounding their claims lose a sense of scope.
The unfortunate reality is that the most obvious examples of this phenomenon are the most infrequent, and represent the least skilled mimics plying their trade. The more skilled ones do pick up the nuance of a topic more easily, and will not show their hand quite so easily.
If folks are constantly trying to make things sound better, or worse, than can possibly be true, that alone isn't evidence, but is a prompt to look a little closer to see what you can find.
The guy who boasts about the amount of ammunition and guns he's hoarding?
The gal who boasts about how few men she's slept with?
The guy who boasts about the power the engine in his vehicle produces?
Bragging is one thing, but when the brag goes beyond what is contextually feasible, that's the tell, because the r folks will be intimately familiar with the lexicon, but not how to use it properly. They'll know what mannerisms to adopt, the tone of speech and how to tailor their physical appearance, but there is a genuine disconnect between them and the topic which would only be bridged by experience that they've never had, and so without that practical grounding their claims lose a sense of scope.
The unfortunate reality is that the most obvious examples of this phenomenon are the most infrequent, and represent the least skilled mimics plying their trade. The more skilled ones do pick up the nuance of a topic more easily, and will not show their hand quite so easily.
If folks are constantly trying to make things sound better, or worse, than can possibly be true, that alone isn't evidence, but is a prompt to look a little closer to see what you can find.
7.1.19
Spotting an r-strategist: conflict management
On my walks into work, there is a patch of the property which is landscaped, and I will frequently see wild rabbits nibbling away on the manicured grass. These cute little creatures have no natural predators inside the fencing of the property, and so they have free run of the place.
Now, despite not having any natural predators inside the fence, they are still quite skittish, and often won't let anyone get within 10-15 feet of them. Back when I had rabbits, I could often get within 4-5 feet before they'd start to run away, and unlike our current dog, they had no sense at all for our mood when trying to interact with them.
This type of conflict avoidance is the most easy to understand when it comes to r-selected creatures. They live in an environment of abundance, and so because they are never required to develop skills to procure or protect resources, their efforts are instead geared towards consuming resources and reproducing faster than their rivals, and the ones who do this the best are the ones who shape the local genetic future for their species.
Rabbits don't guard territory, it'd be a waste of time and effort when they could easily just find another patch of grass.
In contrast, K-selected creatures must demonstrate skills just to procure sufficient resources to survive at all, so their skills are geared towards procurement and protection of resources, and the ones who do that the best are the ones who shape the local genetic future for their species.
Now, while the skittish rabbit might seem to be the only possible manifestation, this ignores what's really happening, the fundamental dynamics at play. It's easy to think that, because of the different selective pressures on r-strategists, they're just unskilled blobs without any skills or abilities at all, but this is not true.
The rabbits I see on the way into work are quite quick, they can accelerate fast and have great agility. They are a great example of how, despite being r-strategists, they are not bereft of any traits or competencies, it's just that those traits and competencies are different, and their superiority only needs to be relative, not absolute.
Among r-selected species, there tends to be a much bigger difference in the physiology between males and females. The peacock is an example of this, in that the males, who do not stay with the eggs, are brightly colored and put on vibrant displays for females in order to demonstrate their genetic superiority, their mating fitness. The peacocks with the most impressive plumage are also easier for predators to spot, but since they're parental flakes that abandon their mates soon after mating, it's not that big a deal. The females are much more plain and easily camouflaged, lacking the bright and exotic coloration of the males, which makes sense in that since the females are staying with the eggs, they are more vulnerable to predators, so staying as low-key as possible is critical to preventing themselves, or their offspring, from becoming an easy meal.
The emphasis I am trying to make is that both r-strategists and K-strategists have skills and competencies that allow differentiation within their respective strategies. An "alpha male" exists in both r-selection and K-selection, but the specific traits and behaviors that such a male would posses will be very different. There is always a gradient, some way to sort between superior and inferior specimens.
When it comes to conflict management, then, how an r-strategist and K-strategist react won't be polar opposites. An r-strategist isn't just going to avoid any conflict, but is going to be opportunistic in nature. In a "conflict" where their success appears guaranteed, where their opponent is prevented or unable to strike back, an r-strategist will take action. In addition, they'll readily engage in subterfuge and manipulation, indirect conflicts, where they do not actually eliminate or destroy a rival, but trick their rivals into wasting their time and energy.
In r-selection, it's not just conflict avoidance all the time, but avoidance of conflict which the individual is not able to be successful. The rabbits I walk past avoid having any possibility of interaction with me at all, because at no point in their genetic history has a creature my size ever had a symbiotic relationship with the creatures.
Likewise, the demonstrations of peacocks are not done in a vacuum. They are competing with other males, just indirectly. They are still competing, engaging in conflict, but it's not life-threatening in nature. They can engage in such mating rituals and passionately compete because they still need some way to differentiate between individuals, the terms just aren't as plain and tangible as with K-selection.
In humans, then, we aren't going to see r-strategists running away all of the time either. While the nature of conflict will still be more abstract than what will be found among K-strategists, there will still be fierce competition. As an example, among r-selected men, physique and general wellness is just as important as it is for the K-selected. While they're not using physical fitness to procure and protect resources, it is still used to demonstrate mating fitness as part of the mating dances. Like the glorious plumage of the peacock, the r-selected human male invests time and effort into their displays of mating fitness.
Naturally then, displays of dominance will be present among the r-selected, even though it does not play a tangible role in defining a social order. In r-selection, such dominance is to serve the purpose of mating rituals, the males are determining who is dominant among them, not who is dominant over the entire species. The dominance hierarchy simply does not shape the creature's society as a whole the way that it does for K-selection.
In K-selection, the dominance displays create a literal sorting order that the entire group will abide by even outside the specific context of the display of dominance during a mating ritual. The "alpha" isn't just the one who gets laid, but is also the best at procuring and protecting resources, enforcing discipline and training the young, and generally bearing the responsibility for the future of their "pack".
Christianity, at least to the degree that it abides by scripture, recognizes this in how husbands are not just the leader for the family in name alone, but they are also tasked with the responsibility to develop and discipline their families, including their own wives. Where in r-selection, the most dominant just gets the most opportunities for sex, in K-selection, the most dominant are also burdened with the most responsibility.
So, given all of this, how do we reliably tell the two apart then?
The degree to which a "winner" in any conflict will, or is expected to, shoulder further responsibilities as a consequence of how they deal with conflicts.
While an r-strategist will engage in conflict to mate, they'll never be taking on responsibility for their mates, let alone anyone else.
If you won a philosophical debate, then you win mating access, and that's pretty much it, everyone just moves on with no real change in responsibilities.
While a K-strategist will engage in conflict to mate, they'll also be taking on responsibility for their mates, and anyone else in their "pack".
If you won a philosophical debate, then you not only win mating access, but gain a position of honor and leadership over the others in your group.
Use this to help you understand whether, in a particular circumstance, an individual you are interacting with is reflecting r or K-selected traits when dealing with conflict management. It won't be based in how they run away, but in what changes after they've "won".
Conflict without consequence is the path of the r-selected, and so if you are a K-strategist, be wary of elevating anyone that can effectively compete but ultimately desires only the affluence and power of leadership, without the responsibilities that also come with such authority.
Now, despite not having any natural predators inside the fence, they are still quite skittish, and often won't let anyone get within 10-15 feet of them. Back when I had rabbits, I could often get within 4-5 feet before they'd start to run away, and unlike our current dog, they had no sense at all for our mood when trying to interact with them.
This type of conflict avoidance is the most easy to understand when it comes to r-selected creatures. They live in an environment of abundance, and so because they are never required to develop skills to procure or protect resources, their efforts are instead geared towards consuming resources and reproducing faster than their rivals, and the ones who do this the best are the ones who shape the local genetic future for their species.
Rabbits don't guard territory, it'd be a waste of time and effort when they could easily just find another patch of grass.
In contrast, K-selected creatures must demonstrate skills just to procure sufficient resources to survive at all, so their skills are geared towards procurement and protection of resources, and the ones who do that the best are the ones who shape the local genetic future for their species.
Now, while the skittish rabbit might seem to be the only possible manifestation, this ignores what's really happening, the fundamental dynamics at play. It's easy to think that, because of the different selective pressures on r-strategists, they're just unskilled blobs without any skills or abilities at all, but this is not true.
The rabbits I see on the way into work are quite quick, they can accelerate fast and have great agility. They are a great example of how, despite being r-strategists, they are not bereft of any traits or competencies, it's just that those traits and competencies are different, and their superiority only needs to be relative, not absolute.
Among r-selected species, there tends to be a much bigger difference in the physiology between males and females. The peacock is an example of this, in that the males, who do not stay with the eggs, are brightly colored and put on vibrant displays for females in order to demonstrate their genetic superiority, their mating fitness. The peacocks with the most impressive plumage are also easier for predators to spot, but since they're parental flakes that abandon their mates soon after mating, it's not that big a deal. The females are much more plain and easily camouflaged, lacking the bright and exotic coloration of the males, which makes sense in that since the females are staying with the eggs, they are more vulnerable to predators, so staying as low-key as possible is critical to preventing themselves, or their offspring, from becoming an easy meal.
The emphasis I am trying to make is that both r-strategists and K-strategists have skills and competencies that allow differentiation within their respective strategies. An "alpha male" exists in both r-selection and K-selection, but the specific traits and behaviors that such a male would posses will be very different. There is always a gradient, some way to sort between superior and inferior specimens.
When it comes to conflict management, then, how an r-strategist and K-strategist react won't be polar opposites. An r-strategist isn't just going to avoid any conflict, but is going to be opportunistic in nature. In a "conflict" where their success appears guaranteed, where their opponent is prevented or unable to strike back, an r-strategist will take action. In addition, they'll readily engage in subterfuge and manipulation, indirect conflicts, where they do not actually eliminate or destroy a rival, but trick their rivals into wasting their time and energy.
In r-selection, it's not just conflict avoidance all the time, but avoidance of conflict which the individual is not able to be successful. The rabbits I walk past avoid having any possibility of interaction with me at all, because at no point in their genetic history has a creature my size ever had a symbiotic relationship with the creatures.
Likewise, the demonstrations of peacocks are not done in a vacuum. They are competing with other males, just indirectly. They are still competing, engaging in conflict, but it's not life-threatening in nature. They can engage in such mating rituals and passionately compete because they still need some way to differentiate between individuals, the terms just aren't as plain and tangible as with K-selection.
In humans, then, we aren't going to see r-strategists running away all of the time either. While the nature of conflict will still be more abstract than what will be found among K-strategists, there will still be fierce competition. As an example, among r-selected men, physique and general wellness is just as important as it is for the K-selected. While they're not using physical fitness to procure and protect resources, it is still used to demonstrate mating fitness as part of the mating dances. Like the glorious plumage of the peacock, the r-selected human male invests time and effort into their displays of mating fitness.
Naturally then, displays of dominance will be present among the r-selected, even though it does not play a tangible role in defining a social order. In r-selection, such dominance is to serve the purpose of mating rituals, the males are determining who is dominant among them, not who is dominant over the entire species. The dominance hierarchy simply does not shape the creature's society as a whole the way that it does for K-selection.
In K-selection, the dominance displays create a literal sorting order that the entire group will abide by even outside the specific context of the display of dominance during a mating ritual. The "alpha" isn't just the one who gets laid, but is also the best at procuring and protecting resources, enforcing discipline and training the young, and generally bearing the responsibility for the future of their "pack".
Christianity, at least to the degree that it abides by scripture, recognizes this in how husbands are not just the leader for the family in name alone, but they are also tasked with the responsibility to develop and discipline their families, including their own wives. Where in r-selection, the most dominant just gets the most opportunities for sex, in K-selection, the most dominant are also burdened with the most responsibility.
So, given all of this, how do we reliably tell the two apart then?
The degree to which a "winner" in any conflict will, or is expected to, shoulder further responsibilities as a consequence of how they deal with conflicts.
While an r-strategist will engage in conflict to mate, they'll never be taking on responsibility for their mates, let alone anyone else.
If you won a philosophical debate, then you win mating access, and that's pretty much it, everyone just moves on with no real change in responsibilities.
While a K-strategist will engage in conflict to mate, they'll also be taking on responsibility for their mates, and anyone else in their "pack".
If you won a philosophical debate, then you not only win mating access, but gain a position of honor and leadership over the others in your group.
Use this to help you understand whether, in a particular circumstance, an individual you are interacting with is reflecting r or K-selected traits when dealing with conflict management. It won't be based in how they run away, but in what changes after they've "won".
Conflict without consequence is the path of the r-selected, and so if you are a K-strategist, be wary of elevating anyone that can effectively compete but ultimately desires only the affluence and power of leadership, without the responsibilities that also come with such authority.
1.11.18
Pokémon is an idyllic K-selected fictional world
In the world of Pokémon, 11 year olds set out on their own, without significant parental supervision, with monsters stored on their hip that have great powers. They capture more monsters, the monsters they have grow even stronger in the power they have, and the ideal is that they'll have the most powerful monsters of anyone they face.
Said 11 year olds interact with complete strangers, both adults and children, who pit the monsters under their control against the monsters under the control of the 11 year old protagonist, and if they lose, they give the protagonist money. If the protagonist loses the fight they give up money, black out, and are whisked to a facility which revives their monsters so they can go out and fight again.
At the "end" of a particular protagonist's journey, they just get on with their life. They do not attain any position of real political power, they do not ensconce themselves in a place of social influence either, beyond encouraging others to try and grow their own strength to challenge them, to encourage others to participate in seeing who is the best at capturing and training monsters that are kept on their hip at all times.
If at any time you see a correlation between the dynamics of Pokémon and guns, it's not an accident, even if not intentional, although obviously gun duels are considerably more lethal than Pokémon battles. Perhaps think of it like target practice or hunting which isn't directly confrontational, but is so via a proxy.
There was a time in the United States where children, even as young as 11, could go off on adventures of their own and parents were not largely worried about them in the same way that parents are today. Circumstances certainly weren't quite as idyllic as portrayed in the Pokémon world in every aspect, kids weren't necessarily running around with loaded guns, but many of the big prerequisites for what makes the Pokémon world "work" also existed in this country as well at one time.
One prerequisite that is easy to describe but somewhat harder to identify in practice are whether a society is low-trust or high-trust. Simplest put, low-trust societies operate where individuals cannot trust one another at all, and high-trust societies operate where individuals can trust one another implicitly. They are a proverbial extreme limit for which human societies tend to fall somewhere between. Nobody ever truly trusts everyone else completely, and nobody ever distrusts everyone else completely, but tends to have a mix of the two.
In the Pokémon world, they exist at the extreme of high-trust. The way that power is wielded against strangers, and its portrayal as being normal, appears rather disturbing from the perspective of the current culture in the United States which is avowedly anti-competitive. One of the big ideals in my parent's generation was the idea that conflict and competition hindered growth, and so efforts were made to eliminate competition, even by proxy.
Now, the reason that the contrast is harder to identify is that, in the public view, the values and desires of the society may not be any different between a high- and low-trust society. In socialism, what is claimed is noble and lofty, the values held are, absent the context on how they are obtained or sustained, worthwhile. People supporting each other? Caring for one another's needs? What's wrong with that?
Well, that's where the actions taken in private, away from public view, come into play. In a low-trust society, you will openly claim that you support an ideal, and then in private work in contradiction to that ideal, hoping that others "bought" your deception and are now going to trend in a particular direction with regard to patterns of behavior while you are going the opposite and reaping the rewards because of the lack of competition.
To understand a low-trust society you need a certain amount of pragmatism, if not downright cynicism, to properly identify the public/private hypocrisy.
For example, when a famous person declares evil of global warming caused by greenhouse gases at an event they arrived at via private jet.
Or when a "male feminist" who speaks out against misogyny is discovered to be a sexual predator.
Or when a "fire and brimstone" preacher abandons his wife and kids to marry an otherwise secret boyfriend.
We're familiar with what these types of circumstances, but can't always draw a connection to what the pattern is, but when you account for "trust" in a society, then all of them "make sense". It also explains why we'd long for an alternative, when faced with the reality that we live in a low-trust society.
But how is that "trust" fostered? Interdependence.
When your future relies on the choices someone else makes, and vice versa, the value of knowing who that person is and what kinds of choices they make increases significantly. Who they are matters, and through continued fellowship and success in making good decisions that result in mutual benefit, or that through a chorus of interconnected decisions there is mutual benefit, trust forms because of familiarity and understanding and the ability to accurately predict and make plans based on those predictions.
In an environment where survival requires a host of skills that no one individual can master in a single lifetime, these types of relationships are the default.
In an environment where survival does not require a host of skills, and one individual can be isolated without affecting their survival at all, these types of relationships are almost entirely nonexistent.
Coincidentally, reproductive strategies, as identified by K-selection and r-selection, work off the same resource availability dynamic. What works well under one set of circumstances does not work well under another over the course of time, and so the selection of one method over another is not so much intentional but reactionary. They don't manifest the initial conditions on which they operate, but they may serve to sustain or magnify those dynamics for the population they affect.
Pokémon represents a resource surplus, there aren't really ever any genuinely "poor" or "destitute" people in the series, and yet at the same time relationships of great trust exist between all of those that live in the fictitious world. What Pokémon then represents is what humanity would look like when all of the causes for low-trust have simply been eliminated.
Similar to the Star Trek fictional universe, the only reason it works is because the people involved have no inclination to betray or mislead someone else in order to benefit themselves. People work hard because they can and want to, which is simply not a common trait found in actual humans. History is littered with people falling to even the simplest of temptations to achieve even the slightest benefit to themselves at the cost of someone else, and anecdotally we see these things play out all the time.
My most recent anecdote that sticks out in my memory is in how people merge onto a highway when a lane is going to disappear. Instead of cars spacing themselves appropriately to let someone in, and folks trying to merge also spacing themselves to fit in the gaps created, everybody just ignores each other until someone has to merge to avoid an accident. This, of course, almost causes an accident and results in traffic that builds and builds as more people forget to pay attention to anyone else's fate whilst busy trying to ensure theirs is maximized.
The only way to change that would be to change human nature, and that presumes there is a way to even do that should one desire to undergo such a eugenic project in the first place. If the failure is genetic, that's one thing, but if it's immaterial? If it's spiritual?
God can change humans, and offers this as a byproduct of proper worship and obedience, but what of every effort to achieve it without God?
They fail, every time.
Humans cannot change human nature, merely regulate or influence it, but they're just changing how it manifests, not the actual "programming" that drives it. Similar to how an alcoholic gone teetotaler is still an alcoholic, they just don't drink, so likewise is human nature that is curtailed, the nature is still there it's just curtailed, it hasn't been abolished.
If an alcoholic could drink without excess, then they'd no longer be an alcoholic. If a sinner could stop sinning and make amends for the sins they had committed, then they'd no longer be a sinner. But those things simply don't happen, and we've a lot of human history to affirm just how rare genuine material change is without divine intervention.
Pokémon, being an idyllic K-selected fictional world of high-trust, thus represents a post-actual-human-nature type of existence. Star Trek is similar. Both of them reflect a reality that cannot be wrought by human hands, but through divine intervention and in a permanent change to our nature, such settings and circumstances are no longer impossible.
It is not an accident, either, that we would long for such an arrangement, because that is the ideal that God had in mind when creating humanity in the first place. We were created to bring glory to God, in part by exploring all that God created and appreciating and praising God for the greatness required to accomplish all that we discover.
In the same fashion, God put humanity in dominion over creatures of this earth, and I don't think it accidental that God "hid" morphological and behavioral possibilities inside animals that, once "domesticated", would serve a role in human civilization and human worship of God. I'd even go further and say that there are probably hidden gems in even the human genome which, had we not rebelled against God, could have manifest and further enabled our exploration of that which is created as a way of growing in appreciation for the creator.
Research into human biology has shown that we were designed, in some ways, to not experience the problems that we actually do, that something happened and our bodies represent an "intended use" for which we no longer can satisfy.
We long to return to the place and role in existence which we were intended for, and a large part of the appeal of the Pokémon fictional world is in how it provides a taste of what that would look like, even if incomplete or imperfect. Yet, for how idyllic it may be, getting "lost" in it would be to deny the world that we live in, the choices we actually have to make, and the realities we need to face.
While such fantasies are worthy of contemplating, and understanding what the disparity between what they are and what we have can be useful, we cannot deceive ourselves into believing that we could experience them in their fullness now, or that attempts to do so, even in part, are inherently noble a pursuit.
They can be a source of hope, but nothing more, nothing less. We can have hope in the future that God has promised, one free of the flaws which plague us now, but we should not seek to try and bring it about by our own power, nor should we try to deny how necessary God's work is in such dynamics ever being able to come about.
We can enjoy Pokémon, and other fictions which allude to a "better" existence, but what we should then do is praise God, the reason that such a lofty idyllic fiction could have any hope of existing at all, and seek to align ourselves with God such that when the future promised, better than we can imagine, comes to pass, we'll have already been preparing ourselves for it, instead of stewing in a perpetual disappointed bitterness from it not having yet come.
Said 11 year olds interact with complete strangers, both adults and children, who pit the monsters under their control against the monsters under the control of the 11 year old protagonist, and if they lose, they give the protagonist money. If the protagonist loses the fight they give up money, black out, and are whisked to a facility which revives their monsters so they can go out and fight again.
At the "end" of a particular protagonist's journey, they just get on with their life. They do not attain any position of real political power, they do not ensconce themselves in a place of social influence either, beyond encouraging others to try and grow their own strength to challenge them, to encourage others to participate in seeing who is the best at capturing and training monsters that are kept on their hip at all times.
If at any time you see a correlation between the dynamics of Pokémon and guns, it's not an accident, even if not intentional, although obviously gun duels are considerably more lethal than Pokémon battles. Perhaps think of it like target practice or hunting which isn't directly confrontational, but is so via a proxy.
There was a time in the United States where children, even as young as 11, could go off on adventures of their own and parents were not largely worried about them in the same way that parents are today. Circumstances certainly weren't quite as idyllic as portrayed in the Pokémon world in every aspect, kids weren't necessarily running around with loaded guns, but many of the big prerequisites for what makes the Pokémon world "work" also existed in this country as well at one time.
One prerequisite that is easy to describe but somewhat harder to identify in practice are whether a society is low-trust or high-trust. Simplest put, low-trust societies operate where individuals cannot trust one another at all, and high-trust societies operate where individuals can trust one another implicitly. They are a proverbial extreme limit for which human societies tend to fall somewhere between. Nobody ever truly trusts everyone else completely, and nobody ever distrusts everyone else completely, but tends to have a mix of the two.
In the Pokémon world, they exist at the extreme of high-trust. The way that power is wielded against strangers, and its portrayal as being normal, appears rather disturbing from the perspective of the current culture in the United States which is avowedly anti-competitive. One of the big ideals in my parent's generation was the idea that conflict and competition hindered growth, and so efforts were made to eliminate competition, even by proxy.
Now, the reason that the contrast is harder to identify is that, in the public view, the values and desires of the society may not be any different between a high- and low-trust society. In socialism, what is claimed is noble and lofty, the values held are, absent the context on how they are obtained or sustained, worthwhile. People supporting each other? Caring for one another's needs? What's wrong with that?
Well, that's where the actions taken in private, away from public view, come into play. In a low-trust society, you will openly claim that you support an ideal, and then in private work in contradiction to that ideal, hoping that others "bought" your deception and are now going to trend in a particular direction with regard to patterns of behavior while you are going the opposite and reaping the rewards because of the lack of competition.
To understand a low-trust society you need a certain amount of pragmatism, if not downright cynicism, to properly identify the public/private hypocrisy.
For example, when a famous person declares evil of global warming caused by greenhouse gases at an event they arrived at via private jet.
Or when a "male feminist" who speaks out against misogyny is discovered to be a sexual predator.
Or when a "fire and brimstone" preacher abandons his wife and kids to marry an otherwise secret boyfriend.
We're familiar with what these types of circumstances, but can't always draw a connection to what the pattern is, but when you account for "trust" in a society, then all of them "make sense". It also explains why we'd long for an alternative, when faced with the reality that we live in a low-trust society.
But how is that "trust" fostered? Interdependence.
When your future relies on the choices someone else makes, and vice versa, the value of knowing who that person is and what kinds of choices they make increases significantly. Who they are matters, and through continued fellowship and success in making good decisions that result in mutual benefit, or that through a chorus of interconnected decisions there is mutual benefit, trust forms because of familiarity and understanding and the ability to accurately predict and make plans based on those predictions.
In an environment where survival requires a host of skills that no one individual can master in a single lifetime, these types of relationships are the default.
In an environment where survival does not require a host of skills, and one individual can be isolated without affecting their survival at all, these types of relationships are almost entirely nonexistent.
Coincidentally, reproductive strategies, as identified by K-selection and r-selection, work off the same resource availability dynamic. What works well under one set of circumstances does not work well under another over the course of time, and so the selection of one method over another is not so much intentional but reactionary. They don't manifest the initial conditions on which they operate, but they may serve to sustain or magnify those dynamics for the population they affect.
Pokémon represents a resource surplus, there aren't really ever any genuinely "poor" or "destitute" people in the series, and yet at the same time relationships of great trust exist between all of those that live in the fictitious world. What Pokémon then represents is what humanity would look like when all of the causes for low-trust have simply been eliminated.
Similar to the Star Trek fictional universe, the only reason it works is because the people involved have no inclination to betray or mislead someone else in order to benefit themselves. People work hard because they can and want to, which is simply not a common trait found in actual humans. History is littered with people falling to even the simplest of temptations to achieve even the slightest benefit to themselves at the cost of someone else, and anecdotally we see these things play out all the time.
My most recent anecdote that sticks out in my memory is in how people merge onto a highway when a lane is going to disappear. Instead of cars spacing themselves appropriately to let someone in, and folks trying to merge also spacing themselves to fit in the gaps created, everybody just ignores each other until someone has to merge to avoid an accident. This, of course, almost causes an accident and results in traffic that builds and builds as more people forget to pay attention to anyone else's fate whilst busy trying to ensure theirs is maximized.
The only way to change that would be to change human nature, and that presumes there is a way to even do that should one desire to undergo such a eugenic project in the first place. If the failure is genetic, that's one thing, but if it's immaterial? If it's spiritual?
God can change humans, and offers this as a byproduct of proper worship and obedience, but what of every effort to achieve it without God?
They fail, every time.
Humans cannot change human nature, merely regulate or influence it, but they're just changing how it manifests, not the actual "programming" that drives it. Similar to how an alcoholic gone teetotaler is still an alcoholic, they just don't drink, so likewise is human nature that is curtailed, the nature is still there it's just curtailed, it hasn't been abolished.
If an alcoholic could drink without excess, then they'd no longer be an alcoholic. If a sinner could stop sinning and make amends for the sins they had committed, then they'd no longer be a sinner. But those things simply don't happen, and we've a lot of human history to affirm just how rare genuine material change is without divine intervention.
Pokémon, being an idyllic K-selected fictional world of high-trust, thus represents a post-actual-human-nature type of existence. Star Trek is similar. Both of them reflect a reality that cannot be wrought by human hands, but through divine intervention and in a permanent change to our nature, such settings and circumstances are no longer impossible.
It is not an accident, either, that we would long for such an arrangement, because that is the ideal that God had in mind when creating humanity in the first place. We were created to bring glory to God, in part by exploring all that God created and appreciating and praising God for the greatness required to accomplish all that we discover.
In the same fashion, God put humanity in dominion over creatures of this earth, and I don't think it accidental that God "hid" morphological and behavioral possibilities inside animals that, once "domesticated", would serve a role in human civilization and human worship of God. I'd even go further and say that there are probably hidden gems in even the human genome which, had we not rebelled against God, could have manifest and further enabled our exploration of that which is created as a way of growing in appreciation for the creator.
Research into human biology has shown that we were designed, in some ways, to not experience the problems that we actually do, that something happened and our bodies represent an "intended use" for which we no longer can satisfy.
We long to return to the place and role in existence which we were intended for, and a large part of the appeal of the Pokémon fictional world is in how it provides a taste of what that would look like, even if incomplete or imperfect. Yet, for how idyllic it may be, getting "lost" in it would be to deny the world that we live in, the choices we actually have to make, and the realities we need to face.
While such fantasies are worthy of contemplating, and understanding what the disparity between what they are and what we have can be useful, we cannot deceive ourselves into believing that we could experience them in their fullness now, or that attempts to do so, even in part, are inherently noble a pursuit.
They can be a source of hope, but nothing more, nothing less. We can have hope in the future that God has promised, one free of the flaws which plague us now, but we should not seek to try and bring it about by our own power, nor should we try to deny how necessary God's work is in such dynamics ever being able to come about.
We can enjoy Pokémon, and other fictions which allude to a "better" existence, but what we should then do is praise God, the reason that such a lofty idyllic fiction could have any hope of existing at all, and seek to align ourselves with God such that when the future promised, better than we can imagine, comes to pass, we'll have already been preparing ourselves for it, instead of stewing in a perpetual disappointed bitterness from it not having yet come.
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