Is your gene set more K-oriented or more r-oriented ???

In your opinion, is your gene set more K or r alike (watch the video first)

  • much more K-oriented

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • 2/3 K-oriented 1/3 r-oriented

    Votes: 1 20.0%
  • not strongly oriented, 50/50 K/r

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2/3 r-oreinted 1/3 K-oriented

    Votes: 1 20.0%
  • much more r-oriented

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    5

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Before voting in the poll, please watch this video which explains what do these terms mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V06JBpW6O7I


All K centered traits except for age at sexual maturity.

However, I doubt this is all hard wired. (Age at sexual maturity is the exception because that's mostly genetic/hormonal.) Human beings are not rabbits. Sexual morality isn't just innate; it can be taught, usually through fear-fear of pregnancy, fear of your father, fear of social ostracism. That's why sexual behavior among women has changed so drastically in the last couple of decades. I'll grant you that some women, at least, do have some degree of innate "skeeve" or gross out factor at the thought of unbridled promiscuity. I've never met a man who did.

The same goes for parenting. When people all lived on farms, the more children the better; it was unpaid labor. Now that parents will be supporting their children forever if those children don't get an education, you have helicopter parents who are overly involved with their children's lives, to the extent of even doing their homework.

As for "loyalty" to one's group in terms of "mating", I think that can be taught or inculcated too, sometimes in pretty subtle ways. Getting thrown into a very multi-ethnic world when pretty young might result in a predilection for "one's own" in terms of physical attraction or "mating" as part of a subconscious attempt to hold onto one's identity.

Anyway, bottom line, I think there's a big role here, maybe the biggest role, for environmental and societal factors.

Ed. Sorry, "skeeve" is Italian/American slang for disgusting, or repugnant. People of a lot of different ethnicities now use it. It probably comes from the Italian word schifo ( pronounced skeefo, with the accent on the first syllable), as in "che schifo" or "fa schifo".
 
He lost my attention with inadequate analogies, and cherry picking examples. Carnivorous wolfs versus vegetarian rabbit.

But if you take deer, another popular vegetarian, things are not that simple and understandable.
Grass eating deer has actually fewer offspring than meat eating wolf. Maturity of offspring takes about same time of couple of years for both. Their life span is similar too.

And since when rabbits are bad parents? They take care for offspring till maturity, like wolfs or lions.

Sexual cycles, maturity or lifespan correlates better with body size, small animals live fast and short, large live slower but longer, than with diet.

The rest is pretty much a socially conservative mambo jumbo portraying responsible mothers as wolves and irresponsible like rabbit, with sighting immigration policy implication preferring other races "rabbits" from European responsible wolfs, the K type.

Presentation is so incoherent that I couldn't watch it, just skimmed quickly, and only because of novelty factor.
 
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...The rest is pretty much a socially conservative mambo jumbo portraying responsible mothers as wolves and irresponsible like rabbit, with sighting immigration policy implication preferring other races "rabbits" from European responsible wolfs, the K type.

Presentation is so incoherent that I couldn't watch it, just skimmed quickly, and only because of novelty factor.

To be fair, he did mention a few minor flaws in the K geneset. Overall, the parallels between the two types and the two main political parties of the USA are extremely obvious and make me wonder how much of what he is saying is political screed masquerading as research.
 
... I'll grant you that some women, at least, do have some degree of innate "skeeve" or gross out factor at the thought of unbridled promiscuity. I've never met a man who did....

I'm like that, although I wouldn't usually say out loud as it seems non-macho.

I've read accounts written by British soldiers in WWI where the common view seemed to be that the men who dived into the nearest brothel at the first opportunity were also the least reliable in a fight. That's the basis of my view also. I assume they'll run when things go bad.

Personally I'd say I was 2/3 K and 1/3 r with the the two in constant conflict. If there is a genetic element to it then that conflict makes me think the two sets of traits maybe developed at different times - r traits first with K traits gradually becoming dominant in environments where pair-bonding and monogamy were most necessary.

Another thought is given the "eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap" thing it might always be the case that females in any population are more K than the males e.g.
- K females and 2/3 K males
- 2/3 K females and 1/3 K males
- 1/3 K females and r males
 
I'm like that, although I wouldn't usually say out loud as it seems non-macho.

I've read accounts written by British soldiers in WWI where the common view seemed to be that the men who dived into the nearest brothel at the first opportunity were also the least reliable in a fight. That's the basis of my view also. I assume they'll run when things go bad.

Don't you think natural inclination is one thing, while behavior is another and can run contrary to instinct and inclination because of moral or religious training? We're human beings after all, not animals, and can be taught to control ourselves.

So, perhaps your example isn't precisely on point? Especially in times when prostitutes carried terrible venereal diseases, and there were no antibiotics or readily available condoms, a man who would go rushing into one probably had some problems with impulse control.

That isn't quite what I mean about promiscuity. My original comment was perhaps a bit hyperbolic. :) However, I do think that more men than women don't find the idea of having sex with multiple women over the course of a week or a month disgusting to contemplate. While such men may be a minority, in situations involving group sex, sado-masochistic sex, forcible sex etc, the law enforcement data is clear that it is almost inevitably men who initiate it and who often coerce their female partners to participate. I really do think there are some differences in this regard between men and women which are probably genetic, although social and environmental factors obviously have a huge role to play.

Of course, we can't go into people's minds and figure out what they really feel, and even in terms of behavior you can find a study supporting almost every claim that could be made. One also has to consider that men might lie and report more sexual activity than they actually have had, and women might report less. With those caveats, there is some data on some of these things.

"A 1994 study in the United States, which looked at the number of sexual partners in a lifetime, found 20% of heterosexual men had only one partner, 55% had two to 20 partners, and 25% had more than 20 partners.[20] More recent studies have reported similar numbers.[21] "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuity

I couldn't find much data on female promiscuity from actual sociological studies. The few that I could find are behind pay walls. So, I'm left with this:

Men tend to have higher sociosexuality scores and be more unrestricted than women across a variety of cultures.[5][6] However, there is more variability in scores within each gender than between men and women, indicating that although the average man is less restricted than the average woman, individuals may vary in sociosexual orientation regardless of gender.[7]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_promiscuity#cite_note-Atwood-69

As to how much of any of this is genetic versus social conditioning you can find studies to support either side of the debate.

Although the investment in offspring theory is very popular, I think this is a sensible approach:

"are naturally restricted (Hazan & Diamond 2000), with sex roles in certain cultures causing large sex differences by
promoting unrestricted sociosexuality in men – perhaps us-ing male promiscuity as a means of patriarchal oppression? Are women designed to be more promiscuous than men (Sherfey 1966), with sex roles in certain cultures somehow reversing our naturally polyandrous mating system? Are men naturally more promiscuous than women (Symons1979), with sex roles in certain cultures minimizing sex differences by accentuating unrestricted sociosexuality in women? Or is it the case both men and women are naturally unrestricted (Barash & Lipton 2001), with sex roles in certain cultures causing large sex differences by suppress-ing women’s innate tendency toward sexual promiscuity?To address these questions, additional theorizing is needed."
http://psy.swan.ac.uk/staff/stewart-williams/publications/Schmitt_2005.pdfc

There are some "fun" studies on the matter of "infidelity" in general or lifetime number of partners, but needless to say they're all to be taken with a large grain of salt.

This study purports to list most promiscuous countries. I don't know how they define promiscuity.
http://naughtynomadforum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1116
Promiscuity-by-Country.png


I'd love to see a breakout by gender; some will be heavily influenced by male stats whereas in some areas women's scores are almost as high as those of men.

Average number of partners worldwide:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/...ual-partners-in-selected-countries-worldwide/
Some surprises there, such as Turkey coming in at number 1 with 14, Australia and New Zealand with 13. Again, I think there are wide disparities between men and women for some groups.

This is an interesting study published by the Wall Street Journal about American singles:
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PJ-CB478A_BONDS_9U_20150504145411.jpg
PJ-CB478A_BONDS_9U_20150504145411.jpg


This one is bizarre. The statistics are only for women, and have to do with cheating:
Nigeria 62%
Thailand 59%
Malaysia 39%
Russia 33%
Singapore 19%
France 16.3%
U.S. 14%
http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/lover-beware-the-8-countries-that-cheat-the-most-335926/2/

Yet another study however found that New Zealand had the highest frequency of "promiscuous" women. Nothing else to do? :)

"For example, a survey for More Magazine stated that 21-year-old British women have more sex partners than their male equivalents (9 versus 7);[70] nonetheless, in a non-scientific study conducted by the condom-making company Durex, British women reported fewer partners than British men, while the only country where women reported more sex partners than men did was New Zealand (20.4 versus 16.8), which was also the country where women reported more sex partners than did women from all other countries surveyed.[71]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_promiscuity#cite_note-72


From Britain also comes this statistic: Relate’s 2014 The Way We Are Now report found that 31% of men and 21% of women had slept with more than ten people in their lifetime.

Not a big difference there, so perhaps there really isn't that big a difference and as the culture changes the gap narrows. I honestly don't know whether I believe my own statement anymore. :)

I do know that according to the studies I ran across, none of this correlates with the amount of sex people have or their satisfaction levels.

It should also be obvious that some very wealthy countries have very high levels of promiscuity, which partially goes to the point of the original post.
 
@Angela

There's definitely a problem collecting accurate data and a second one isolating nature from social conformity at a particular time or place.

The way I see it is the r/K theory makes sense logically i.e. there's probably an optimal strategy depending on environment and so *if* there is a genetic component then over time evolution would find a way to reinforce the optimal strategy for that environment just through random mutations effecting behavior.

However even if there wasn't a genetic component cultural evolution might also drift one way or the other depending on environment, for example a welfare state might influence cultural attitudes towards r - possibly evening out any male/female gap that existed in earlier times.

Hard to say - interesting theory though.
 
Another thought on how things can change with environment particualrly relating to recent stats - contraception allows people to do both: r for sex, K for reproduction.
 
What strikes me in the r vs K strategy in humans is that the divide is mostly a socio-economic one. Poorer and less educated people tend to adopt an r strategy in regard to the number of children and the low level of investment in their offspring's education. This is what differentiate the most lower/lower middle from upper-middle/upper class people. Actually it could be argued that the adoption of the r strategy by parents invariably leads toward a lower socio-economic status. The higher the social class and the more children are worshipped.

In Europe the extreme for the r strategy is seen in African immigrants (sub-Saharan Africans and even more so Maghrebis). These immigrants have lots of kids with low investment in their education. Children are left to play by themselves with very little supervision from a very young age (2 or 3 years old, from what I have seen in Belgium), which leads to teenagers hanging together in gangs (especially for Maghrebis). They tend to have high group loyalty within their community, but very low group loyalty in regard to their host countries (lack of integration, social security abuse, and in some cases even terrorist attacks against their host country). Parental preferences far outstrip the children's preferences. In fact those immigrant kids have hardly anything to say because of the overbearing presence of religion, traditions and sexism.

In poor, undeveloped countries where children often die of diseases or starvation, it makes sense for the parents to adopt the r strategy. People need to have lots of children to ensure that at least some of them will make it to adulthood. The reason animals like mice and rabbits adopt this strategy is not because food is abundant, but because they are some of the favourite targets of birds of prey, foxes, cats, and so on. They also need to have lots of offspring to ensure that some of them make it to the reproductive age. Obviously when people (or animals) know that most of their offspring will die young, it does not encourage them to invest in their upbringing.

What doesn't make sense is that immigrants maintain the strategy of their country of origin several generations after settling in developed countries where children do not normally die of starvation or diseases. This is one of the main reasons why these immigrants can't integrate into Western society. As long as they won't value education, they will remain lower class and looked down by other people. There is in fact overwhelming evidence that immigrants who do try and educate themselves get much better integrated and even manage to reach prominent positions in government (including several ministers of African origins in France).


Stefan Molyneux misclassified pro-abortion under the r strategy. It's obvious that the pro-abortion are those who adopt the K strategy and want less kids with a higher quality of life. Anti-abortion people are typically religious, traditional, lower class, and want to have as many children as possible. They disregard the children's well-being by allowing kids to be born out of rape, teenage pregnancies from single mothers, and other undesirable situations that lead to low quality education and well being for the child.


In the USA, the strong influence of religion, particularly fundamentalist Christians (Baptists, Evangelists) in the Deep South, has led many Christians to adopt the r strategy (anti-abortion, rejection of science and education), which has led over the past decades to a increase in the number of poor single-parent families and as a result an increase in the number of lower class people.
 
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Stefan Molyneux misclassified pro-abortion under the r strategy. It's obvious that the pro-abortion are those who adopt the K strategy and want less kids with a higher quality of life. Anti-abortion people are typically religious, traditional, lower class, and want to have as many children as possible. They disregard the children's well-being by allowing kids to be born out of rape, teenage pregnancies from single mothers, and other undesirable situations that lead to low quality education and well being for the child.
I'm always afraid of this scenario. It can lower IQ of the nation, and drag country down economically.
 
While I agree in general with some of these last comments, I would be wary of too easy and broad generalizations. History, economic conditions, and culture all affect how people interpret their religion.

In northern Italy, in one generation people went from having very large families to having one child, and at the very most, two. That has since spread to other areas of Italy. When a first cousin in Italy announced she was pregnant with her third child my aunt was absolutely livid for months. My mother was shocked to see how many children the Irish Catholic families here in America routinely had. She was a woman who, when able, went to Mass every day, and yet when I asked her what she thought of the church proscription on birth control she told me that if the priests wanted everybody to have lots of children perhaps they should provide for their food, clothing and education.

I think part of this also has to do with economic conditions. Europe has had to learn to manage within certain parameters for thousands of years. This wasn't the case in the New World. Given the low numbers of "native" inhabitants in temperate areas of North America, there were millions and millions of acres of virtually empty, very fertile land. "Excess" children could just take off for the frontier and build their own homesteads. This fact has affected American culture in many ways, including this one. That's why there was the exponentially huge increase in population after the initial founding, and before the "new" immigration that began in the mid 19th century. Europe hasn't had that luxury in a very long time. In isolated areas with poor land, such as the mountainous region where my father's family lived, it was the rare family where all the children married and had large families of their own. Often, only the eldest few married and had children. The rest remained single and continued to live and provide labor on the family farm. Needs must. If you couldn't provide for a family you didn't marry.

To some extent it's still possible to support relatively large families here, although it usually necessitates that both partners work outside the home, and it's still admired, even among the professional class. I don't know a single family that has only one child, which is in stark contrast to the situation in Italy. It's considered bad for the children. In fact, I would say anecdotally that the average is three in my area, and I assure you that these are middle and upper middle class people. (They're also proportionally more Irish and Catholic than anything else.) Or, look at the Mormons. For whatever reason, they're a very entrepreneurial bunch, are usually quite comfortably off, and have very large families, in which five or six children is quite the norm.

(It's more the issue that the underclass has children whom they can't support adequately which is the problem from my experience, and that's largely because of the acceptance of single motherhood in such communities, an acceptance which is spreading into other communities as well.)

There's also the example of the Jews as well, among the most highly educated people in the world. While secular Jews follow the normal pattern of perhaps two or three children per family, Orthodox Jews have extremely high birthrates. A neurosurgeon of my acquaintance who is "moderately" Orthodox, i.e. not Hasidic, has seven children, a business associate has five.
 
...In the USA, the strong influence of religion, particularly fundamentalist Christians (Baptists, Evangelists) in the Deep South, has led many Christians to adopt the r strategy (anti-abortion, rejection of science and education), which has led over the past decades to a increase in the number of poor single-parent families and as a result an increase in the number of lower class people.

This has also occurred among the (strongly religious) Amish population of the Mid-Atlantic states. This has resulted in a population explosion and the establishment of communities in far-flung locations, essentially anywhere that still has cheap farmland.
 
A single look at my own family tells me that the r/K divide is not genetic in origin in any significant & useful way, but rather epigenetic at best, or is mostly developmental as the more probable explanation. Humans have always been very adaptable, it makes sense they can express either sets of behaviors when different environmental conditions occur.
 

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