Primals And r/K Theory

A commenter linked to this blog post on another site, which looks at primal urges which differentiate ideologues. I will annotate each difference in light of r/K Theory:

Ok. So where do they differ? Republican reality differs from Democratic reality in 9 ways, 4 small, 4 medium, and 1 big. Let’s get the small ones out of the way first.

•On average, Democrats see the world as less competitive. That is, on average, their honest opinion is that collaboration, and not competition, makes the world go round. In turn, this would make sense of why Republicans tend to see Democrats as more naive “kum-by-ya-ists,” and Democrats tend to see Republicans as more merciless cutthroats.

Fairly obvious. When resources are freely available, you avoid competing and conflict, to maximize mating opportunities and minimize unnecessary risk. When resources are short, you have to be driven to compete, or you will die from starvation.

•On average, Republicans see the universe as more atomistic while Democrats tend to see the universe as more of an interconnected whole. Perhaps this helps Clinton’s slogan of “Stronger Together” have traction among those with a worldview in which deep interconnection and cooperation is more of a felt reality. Perhaps this allows the issue of climate change to find more fertile ground among Democrats…

This is herd vs pack. Deer probably see their own species as a big whole. Where two herds meet, they just merge, because they are all part of the whole. Once you begin to see a K-selected species, you will see territoriality, and a more atomistic, “we are different from you” mindset.

•On average, Dems see the world as more funny. Republicans tend to think that funny things are fewer and farther between. I wonder if this partly explains why virtually all comedians and entertainers are Democrats.

This one I found interesting. Humor, especially as practiced by snarky liberal comedians, is a social hierarchy tool for an environment where the violent will not kill you. Jerry Seinfeld poking fun at a Chinese Teaching Assistant in the staff lounge, to make him look socially inferior, will raise Jerry’s stature among rabbits in the r-environment. Jerry poking fun at the 300lb Hell’s Angel, to make him look inferior to Jerry, in a biker bar filled with Hell’s Angels – not so much. Could humor have evolved as a conflict avoidance tool, for use by rabbits to avoid being brained?

•One of the primals I measured is what I call “Characterizable.” Basically, do you think the world has an overall nature or not? On average, Republicans tend to think it has a nature while Democrats do not…

I think a lot of liberal psychology is about dulling perception to reduce action. If you see Islam as an enemy, you will fight, and that is bad in r-selection. Far better you be programmed to see dead bodies laying around, and say, “That Islamic State killer wasn’t a real Muslim.” I find it amazing because seeing a human programmed to be blind to reality would seem a bad idea – but it is adaptive in an r-selected environment, where all you want your specimen to do is eat and mate.

Moving on to the 4 differences that are a bit bigger:

•On average, Republicans see the world as more alive, which means they see the universe as more imbued with intention and that the world is interacting with them personally…

I am not sure about this one. Maybe personalization makes one more emotionally invested, and willing to act? If so, it could just be an outgrowth of an increased personalization of people’s actions, as in “That guy did that to piss me off, so I must kill him.” Compared to, “Yes he raped and murdered my wife, took all my belongings, and stabbed me in the stomach with a short sword, but he didn’t really know the evil he was doing, and he is not a bad person.”

•On average, Republicans see the world as less worth exploring…

Kind of obvious. If you are designed for an r-selected environment, being mobile will give you a good chance for being able to keep the r-selected, free-resource gravy train moving. Migrants are r-strategists.

K-strategists fighting in a K-environment will only make their lives more difficult if they lose the benefits of knowing the lay of their own land.

•On average, Republicans see the world as more just…

Might makes right is the rule of the K-selected world we live in. You either are programmed to think it is right, or you are programmed to think it is unjust, and everyone should be given free resources. This is more a factor of the innately restricted nature of resource availability. Put the liberal in a major resource glut, where everyone has tons of stuff, and I would bet that would change.

•Finally, the second biggest difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans live in a reality marked by decline, and Democrats think the world is getting better.

Living in among the most r-selected environments that mankind has ever seen, K-strategists see a world they barely recognize, filled increasingly with people who they do not like, even despite the dopamine-eliciting effects of free resource availability. Let an Apocalypse reset the world toward K-selected psychologies, or a pandemic kill back the imbeciles and reinvigorate a Renaissance, and you will see that switch.

All this, however, except for decline, is relatively small potatoes. Let’s talk about the biggest difference, because it both makes sense and doesn’t make sense: hierarchical.

What the hell does “hierarchical” mean?..

The “hierarchical” primal concerns the nature of differences. Namely, does difference imply that something is better or worse? For those who believe that reality is hierarchical, if two things are different that usually implies that one is better than the other. Likewise, for those who see reality as nonhierarchical, differences are likely surface and meaningless distinctions and probably distractions…

Trump people, as opposed to old Cruz and Kasich people, as well as independents, are fairly similar on every primal except 4. Trump supporters out-Republican their Republican peers by seeing the world as even more Alive, Just, and Hierarchical. Also, Trump people think the world isn’t changing quite as much.

Again, hierarchical facilitates decisiveness and action – such as is needed in an environment where decisiveness and action are what keep you alive. The opposite facilitates apathy and indecisiveness, such as would benefit in an environment where fighting, or even just preferring one patch of grass over another, would be a survival disadvantage.

Wolves have things which make their tail wag, and things which make them snarl and snap. Deer, not so much. Those emotions, though they may be there somewhat, are just not as sharp outside of graze, flee, and fornicate.

This was an interesting point, because it highlights, in scientific terms, how Establishment Republicans are more toward the r-selected end of the spectrum, and Trump’s people are much more K. It is not surprising. Jonah Goldberg is fine, so long as everyone eats. But let food disappear to the point someone would have to die, and I would bet on any Trump supporter before I would bet on him.

This is a large part of why the Republican Party continually lost – it had become a moderate-left party that pretended to be K-selected. Now there is a K-selected party movement reviled by the rabbit Cuckservatives in the Republican Party, and it is winning big.

Anybody here feel that the Establishment was more K-selected than Trump’s base, or would survive a shortage more effectively?

I generally don’t like work like this analysis, though. It seems so roundabout. I want to know the details of the whole mechanism, not one little observation about some isolated parts.

Why are these ideologies here? Why do they look the way they do? What did they evolve to do in a state of nature? What forces molded them? How is each facet an advantage? Without r/K to contextualize all the material here, and make it all make sense, who would find this interesting enough to remember in a year?

r/K Theory is the answer to the political question. Without it, everyone else is feeling around in the dark, with gloves on.