Replies

Liberalism has been linked to a specific allele of the D4 dopamine receptor gene. The gene is also tied to competitiveness, drive for reward, sexual drive, promiscuity, infidelity, and rearing styles, so it intimately involved in regulating all of the r/K traits together. A genetic correlate to political ideology is also correlated to all of the r/K traits. Check the paper for all the cites.

From a structural standpoint, it would appear Liberalism is likely a result of failed amygdala development, likely related to the altered dopamine function produced by the DRD4 variations. Liberals have smaller amygdalae, and pathologically diminished amygdala function is associated with docility, elevated sexual drive, poor parental investment, and an inability to perceive malice in those who mean them harm, or judge them unapproachable. One researcher even described monkeys with damaged amygdalae as “retarded in their ability to foresee and avoid dangerous confrontations.” In other words, this is a mechanism by which to imbue a strategy of conflict avoidance through friendly approach of threats.

That said, we have evolved an adaptive ability, as the paper discusses. But is has been laid over the underlying r/K mechanisms. If all of this is correct (and I firmly believe it is) it takes a level of amygdala development to adopt Conservatism. Since we are not born with fully functional amygdalae, we will begin our lives with undeveloped amygdalae, and tend Liberal, only to become more Conservative as we age, and our amygdalae develop.

So there will be a tendency for the young to be r-type Anticompetitive. This is good, as an r-type strategy is the best strategy for an inferior, less fit individual to employ to survive in a competitive environment. If I am a child who weighs 50 lbs, and a 280 lb mixed Martial Artist takes my lollipop, it would be bad for me to get angry and stab him in the eye with a pencil. I would probably get killed. So when I’m young and less able, my less developed amygdala will protect me from the dangers of competition by making me docile, and I will, as a result have a psychology predisposing me to Liberalism. He takes my lollipop, and I then try to make friends. As I mature, my amygdala will either develop with the rest of my brain, perhaps in part due to a specific allele of the DRD4 gene producing the tendency to develop, and I will become more competitive, and Conservative, or my amygdala will not develop, and I will go through life as an r-strategist, averse to confrontation/competition, prone to seek the friendship of threats, and prone to be Liberal.

Notice the amygdala is associated with threat perception. Face a robber (or bad economic times), and your amygdala will flag the threat, and apply aversive stimuli until you resolve a solution to it, such as getting a gun and getting trained up. This mulling over the threat until a solution is reached will exercise the amygdala, and develop a pathway to a solution. Unless, of course, you develop an alternative means by which to neurologically shut off the amygdala, like telling yourself the robber is not a threat, and you will never be robbed, so you don’t need to be able to protect yourself.

Thus a mild Liberal with the capacity for intellectual analysis, who is mugged, may become a Conservative, though there are some boot-licking cowards who will never come around.

If you check the paper you will see the Hippie example, which further supports r/K and Liberal/Conservative predispositions as having a genetic underpinning.

Finally, as I have said, ideology is like the natural world. Zoom in to the quantum level, and our world operates by the laws of Quantum Mechanics. Everything is hazy, undefined,, and impossible to fully characterize. This is much like examining an individual’s ideological predispositions. But zoom out, and the world is neat and orderly, operating according to the simple laws of Newtonian Physics. Likewise, zoom out to the level of our nation, and you find two ideologies, each based upon psychological drives which are exactly identical to the drives which motivate the r and K-selected psychologies in nature. Four traits, (Competitiveness/aversion to competitions, monogamy/promiscuity, abstinence in children/early sexual exposure, and high-investment two-parent parenting (family values), or low-investment single parenting (Murphy Brown)), and each correlates exactly to it’s ideological out-growth. To think that the underlying psychological forces which produce r and K-type psychologies would not affect the way an intelligent organism would structure a government, is actually far less likely than the idea that such defining motivators of behavior would produce actual philosophies devoted to expressing how the world should be.

“Also, the American left does not fit the r-Selected paradigm in at least one way: while they are advocates for promiscuity, they are not advocates for fecundity. It is conservatives who make babies in this country.”

If there were no birth control, r-type and Liberal behaviors would produce more babies. One aspect of the r-type psychology is low-investment parenting. This means r-type males have no urge to be associated with child-rearing, and r-type females want to get the last kids out the door, so as to make room for the new one on the way. That means less emotional attachment to children, and less desire to rear them. Combine a reduced desire to rear children, with a new-fangled technology that allows one to avoid having a kid by following a simple regimen, like taking a pill, and you have a sub population driven to promiscuous sex, but prone to avoid actually having children. K-types love children, as that facilitates monogamous couples rearing them for long periods. This makes children something most K-types actively want, once they are in committed relationships.

I believe the r-type cohort as a whole is still adapting to this new birth-control selection pressure, though. As time goes on, those who have promiscuous sex, but responsibly avoid pregnancy will cull themselves. What will become the defacto form of the r-type population will be a less responsible female who has promiscuous sex, but doesn’t consider the consequences. Think welfare moms, with twelve kids, and no dad in sight. It’s a Brave New World. Of course, that is going to be dealt with by Darwin with a vengeance, when the time comes.

“My prediction is that following the collapse something that can be described as neo-feudalism will emerge. People will be forced to work at what they are good at to survive. The k-selecteds will either learn to work or they won’t survive. I think, most will learn to work.”

Correct. Our government will collapse, as the r-types who fail to produce will continue to multiply until it does. Producers will no longer have to provide for the sloths, and people will either be removed from the gene pool through prison, leave for more socialist environs, or find themselves afflicted with medical problems they will not be able to get treated properly. It will be ugly, but it will remove a lot of the dead weight on our economy and our nation. The K-types who best succeed will also be well functioning in groups, as they will need the protection. A lone K-type, good at what he does but tightly allied with no one, will eventually confront violence, with savages trying to take what he has earned by force. Those who are part of a community which can help ward off the savages will have enough of an advantage over the lone wolves, that eventually group functionality will be important again to our natures. Pro-sociality will return. It’s so funny that all the traits which are good within us, require such a nasty anvil be applied to our population, but I guess that’s how nature has always worked.

Thank you for the questions. I am in the process of beginning the promotional campaign for this among Conservatives, and every honest challenge I am presented with prepares me to face the questions which are coming with speed and accuracy.

BTW, the pdf is not a trick, or a marketing gimmick designed to catch your attention but tell you nothing, in order to rope you into some further purchase. It is genuinely the most concise, substantiated form of this research I could produce. It is designed to give everyone who reads it a full understanding of the research, and what it indicates. I do have a book for sale, but it is just a more technical version, designed to confront any challenges over group selection and address the finer points of r/K Theory. I expect a lot of push-back from the Libs in Polysci and Evo-psych, and that book is designed to cut that off. The pdf is all anyone of moderate scientific inclination needs to grasp the work fully, and to be able to use it as an argumentative tool against Liberals.