What is a co-alpha male?

The idea of a CoAlpha Brotherhood is based on my idea of the co-alpha male.  Traditionally, biologists have categorized males into a hierarchy with an alpha male at the top, beta males just under the alpha as his allies, and omega males at the bottom.  Chimpanzee males are well described by this structure.  The alpha male has mating rights with any female he chooses, whether she approves or not.  Betas have similar rights as long the alpha and other betas don't object.  Omegas have no mating rights at all.  So how do they reproduce?  They are forced to use the miserable procedure of having to seduce females to get sex.  Unlike alphas and betas, omegas must be skilled at the art of seduction.  Females will only mate with omegas when they prove their seductive skills.  I believe that human males developed a third mating strategy, namely for a group of men to cooperate to prevent one dominant alpha male from monopolizing the females, and to protect females from lower ranking males.  A reasonable name for this third category of males is "co-alpha males" because they dominate females as a cooperative group.  This third mating strategy is the basis of civilization.

I reached these conclusions after reading Jane Goodall's books "In the Shadow of Man" and "Through a Window" where she describes her experiences observing Chimpanzees.  Chimpanzees are promiscuous, like bonobos, the difference being that the males are dominant.  Chimpanzees have a clear hierarchy with the alpha male on top.  Access to females is determined by rank.  Male chimps form alliances for power, so a beta male in the right alliance can rise and get decent access to females.  Those males of low rank get little access to females.

Inside the group, females are shared by males of high rank.  But sometime pairs leave the group to mate in seclusion for significant periods of time.  This is an alternate strategy where a male basically drags a female away from the group and keeps her for himself while she is in heat in order to have exclusive access to her.  This is clearly a first step towards monogamy.

The way lower ranking omega males usually get access to females is by sneaking copulations.  Basically, they need to copulate while higher ranking males aren't looking.  If the lower ranking male is caught, he will get a beating.  If a lower ranking males tries to drag a female off for exclusive access, the female will likely scream and a higher ranking male will come and put an end to it.

This description clearly fits the scientific alpha/beta/omega male concept.  Humans don't fit into this scheme so well.  But I can see a clear transition path from chimps to humans.  As the social skills of humans grew and the groups got larger, the male alliances probably got larger and more complicated.  These groups could more effectively guard females from omegas, putting omegas at a disadvantage.  Old style alphas who gained power merely by bullying lost to more sophisticated alliances of males.  As these alliances grew, the key to male success was cooperation.  But cooperation depended on keeping all of the males in the alliance satisfied.  The simple group sharing of females was less likely to satisfy the lower males in the alliance since they would get less.  So the pairing strategy probably gained among successful alliances, allowing all members of the alliance reasonable access to females.  This eventually evolved into monogamy.

This human male mating strategy is co-alpha, because men in the alliance effectively form a cooperative, collective alpha-male that dominates and guards the females.  This mating strategy explains the basis for our relatively egalitarian civilizations.  Obviously, this is currently falling apart.

What about the female mating strategy?  Females want to mate with males who are successful with other females, so that their sons will spread the mother's genes.  Females do not care about what mating strategy males choose, females only care that the males are successful.  So when co-alpha males cooperate and enforce monogamy, they are respected by women because of their success.  But when co-alpha males fail to cooperate to enforce monogamy, they/we are genetic losers and women will not respect us.

Feminism is rebellion against co-alpha enforced monogamy.  It benefits omegas most at the expense of co-alphas.  And so it destroys civilization.  The CoAlpha Brotherhood is a small attempt to reverse this.


Below are some comments others have made on the co-alpha male idea:


By Type 5
http://www.the-niceguy.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=40055&view=findpost&p=453283
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fschmidt has given us an interesting take on the whole alpha male/beta male thing. From my vast knowledge (watching documentaries on the PBS and the Discovery Channel whistling.gif ) I think the fundamental point of the alpha strategy is not that he bullies and dominates the females, but that he bullies and dominates the other males into staying away from the females, leaving the alpha male as the females' only mating option. The essence of the alpha mating strategy is the limitation of females' options. The beta male strategy is to surreptitiously bang one of the harem when the alpha is not looking. This requires the active, willing cooperation of the female. The essence of the beta strategy is to attract and tempt the female. An alpha male invented chastity belts, beta males hate them.

In these terms, there are no alpha males (at least legally) in our society. Limiting a woman's access to other men will land you in jail one way on another. All of our mating strategies are beta strategies, dependent on continually attracting a woman. PUA's may have identified alpha-like traits which women respond to, but in the end their strategy is just dressed-up beta.

It's at this point that fschmidt's co-alphas come in. The alpha/beta dynamic and a beta-only dynamic, keeps men in perpetual competition with one another over females. I think it fairly safe to say that the co-alpha strategy is mutual cooperation in limiting any given female's mating options to a certain man. It is only once men agree to mutually limit women's mating options can they end their competition and engage in significant cooperative activity. The removal of social and legal limitations on women's sexual activities has had the direct effect of throwing men once more into the primitive alpha/beta state of competition, dividing us on a fundamental level and making cooperation damned near impossible. Look to the state of the men's movement for proof.
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By Tyrael
http://www.the-niceguy.com/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=40055&view=findpost&p=453425
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Yes I think this is the crux of how civilizations emerged out of basic tribal life. This is the fundamental difference between natural life and co-alpha males that have the ability to work together to disrupt the basic alpha, beta struggle which doesn't make any significant achievements. When each good man gets a woman and vice-versa the needs are met and the primordial conflicts for love and sex among men becomes insignificant. This opens possibilities to higher levels of cooperation among men which creates sufficient favoring factors to rise and evolve as a group and achieve amazing things by working together in harmony. This brotherhood among men is essential to make advanced civilizations. Without co-alpha male cooperation there can never be advanced civilizations.
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By Tyrael
http://antimisandry.com/feminist-misandry/what-modern-women-want-beta-male-men-surrendering-sex-war-17884-3.html#post126330
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The Co-Alpha males are most important. They are productive, successful, respectable males who work together and with a deeper bond of brotherhood have been able to overthrow the alpha males (who are fewer in numbers).
The co-alpha males created decent norms and values of respect and that each person has one partner (e.g. marriage) this created more productivity and prosperity for all and put an end to the more primitive and barbaric ways of the alpha male.

The "alpha male" is more of a legendary man who is flawless and outperforms most other males and females.

There is not really one model of Alpha male. Alpha males are in reality not perfect, they have flaws too. In the animal kingdom the alpha male uses brute strength for dominance and the beta males use sneaky tactics.

In primal societies the "alphas" are at the top of the food chain because of that, but that doesn't result in much advancement.
However in great civilizations they don't lay down the law as the co-alphas used co-operation to outdo them.
The co-alpha males overthrew the alphas by the bond of brotherhood, working together get rid of the big bullying alpha that wants to control the rest through force.

This is a fundamental difference between animals and human, because with this brotherhood that arose among men they were able to rise above the constant internal conflicts and brutishness of nature to become constructive, way more productive and more peaceful. This gave way to advanced civilizations, these are man-made artificial constructs and ironically, patriarchies have proven to be the most successful and longest lasting forms. Without this key improvement among the co-alpha men, all this would've never been possible.
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By novaseeker
http://antimisandry.com/feminist-misandry/what-modern-women-want-beta-male-men-surrendering-sex-war-17884-3.html#post126361
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Indeed. The basis for this, in my mind, was instituting monogamy. When the co-alphas took over, it was at the expense of ... the few alphas at the top, and many women in the harem -- in terms of genetics, at least. The institution of monogamy allowed more men to participate in breeding, and direct their energies toward building civilization instead of fighting with each other to become the next alpha. Genetically, many women lost access to the top alpha genes, but in exchange for that gained access to their own "private" man who had an investment in her well-being because of his children. Overall I think monogamy was one of the main levers for civilizational progress -- and now that it's virtually gone I'm not so sanguine about the future of the civilization, really.
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Great read fschmidt.  In modern society men must compete against each other constantly to gain the attention of females - because of the nature of the modern gynocentric society.  This promotes a feeling of distrust and anxiety towards other men - an atmosphere which is basically the basis for modern thug/pop/trash culture.  In a society built on CoAlpha - as you say - brotherhood and trust, men can trust and support each other and brotherhoods develop naturally.  

Hi!
Great idea with a Co-Alpha Brotherhood!

The Co-A's is something I agree very much upon, even think that 'real' men are Co-A's, it's certainly not Manginas or Thugs.
Co-A's are the ones who build great civilisations and created families, so count me in. :)

I have to wonder if the Co-Alpha strategy carries the seeds for its own destruction.

For example, by limiting each male to one women, the best males can never increase their traits as a percentage of the population. In fact, if the now un P.C eugenics movements are at all right (they are)- there is a decline in said traits as the best tend to have less kids than the more brutish.

Of course, objections arise - women didn't choose the men best at creating civilization under the old alpha/beta model either.


Somewhat Off Topic thoughts (that I only hold part of the time and are schizophrenic to the above)...

1)
The current model sucks even more. The status hierarchy is completely upside down. I remember when I was in college...there was a quite attractive intelligent girl with a good personality (strange in the west, I know) who was quite interested in me. But I couldn't get with her. What would getting with one girl mean, status-wise, when there were guys who were easily with 6 different girls in a month?

Of course, if I met someone like her today, Id consider marrying her (doubtful though, maybe in other times). Im older now, and more in control of my environment. But its a wee bit late in the game.

Society thus has to control the meaning and access to status better. If society allows absolute freedom and some men get multiple mates, *even if* magically, this didn't mean less mates for other men - those other men will still be reluctant to form a bond with a single mate - its low status. And if its going to be low status, especially (in my mind anyway) for people who deserve high status by virtue of their contribution potential - they may decide to drop out of the game completely. Therefore, society must enforce monogamy.

2)
Marriage to one mate is a bad trade off for men. Create everything and get what in return? An aging companion who is no longer attractive while mens attractiveness stays stable till at least the mid 40s?
Maybe thats another reason prostitution should be legal - so men do not see it as complete commitment. I think men are not really averse to working and providing for one family unit, as long as it didn't mean complete sexual suffocation. For women though, (as in wives, not prostitutes) strict monogamy is a must - otherwise men would not make the trade off to provide for the family unit.

Men and women are different. And aren't meant to be treated the same.

Ardia wrote

I have to wonder if the Co-Alpha strategy carries the seeds for its own destruction.

For example, by limiting each male to one women, the best males can never increase their traits as a percentage of the population.

As a percentage of which population, the population within the monogamous society or the total population (of mankind)?  Clearly monogamous societies can grow faster other societies.  The Hasidic Jews are monogamous and are growing faster most other groups by having many children.

In truth, it is economic success that eventually carries the seeds for its own destruction.  The two evolutionary factors are survival and reproduction.  When survival becomes assured, then only reproductive skills matter.  In this case, survival traits will decline until the society as a whole is incapable of surviving and collapses.  But as long as survival is not guaranteed, then monogamous societies will improve genetically because monogamy forces men to compete based on providing for their children instead of based on chasing women.  In the book "A Farewell to Alms" Gregory Clark argues that England enjoyed a long period of positive evolution prior to the industrial revolution that made the industrial revolution possible.  During this period, there was relative stability in England and it was relatively monogamous.  The main evolutionary factor was child mortality, and in this, men who were good providers had a distinct advantage.  Clark argues that this is how England came to be dominated by reliable and industrious men who then caused the industrial revolution.  I am not sure if I agree, but the argument is plausible.

The current model sucks even more. [...] society must enforce monogamy.

Of course I agree.

Marriage to one mate is a bad trade off for men. Create everything and get what in return? An aging companion who is no longer attractive while mens attractiveness stays stable till at least the mid 40s?
Maybe thats another reason prostitution should be legal - so men do not see it as complete commitment. I think men are not really averse to working and providing for one family unit, as long as it didn't mean complete sexual suffocation. For women though, (as in wives, not prostitutes) strict monogamy is a must - otherwise men would not make the trade off to provide for the family unit.

Men and women are different. And aren't meant to be treated the same.

I agree with this too.  It is no accident that those countries with the highest divorce rate are those that ban prostitution.


So Ardia, what do you think of the CoAlpha brotherhood idea?  Is it a practical way to deal with these issues?

To be honest,
Im not clear on what a Co-Alpha Brotherhood is. (And from the reading of a few posts, it seems no one is)

Thing is MRAs are a diverse bunch, though they look similar on the outside. They all thing society is in decay and feminism is the problem. But, if, things started turning around, they wont be cohesive at all

A majority of them would want a return to the 1970s I think. (Which is unsustainable in the least, because that was just a transition period where previous programming was wearing off) A few before the 60s, and a few all the way back to ... Ancient Athens?

Another thing is Game. I havent tried it, but Im not against it, and probably will try it sometime. Some are totally against it (as you are), and yes, it is toxic - but that doesnt affect any one person.

As an aside, there are many types of game, just like MRA, they look superficially similar but are different beasts underneath (though probably not as much as MRAs and there are no comprehensive experts on Game anyway).

So, as I see it currently, Co-Alpha is a group of MRAs forming a club, a virtual one at that. That sounds a lot like... an internet forum just with no women allowed? And with members committed to helping other members out in whatever comes up?

If that is the case, as I suspect real brotherhoods are. Then we all have to have the same code (see above for problems) and Im sure being in close proximity is essential to the process? How does that work for the Hasidic Jews?  

All in all, tbh, I do not see the whole thing working out. (P.S Sorry for the late late reply - I was very busy).

Thanks for the questions.  I hope my answers to your specific points help clarify the whole picture, but if not, please let me know.

MRAs are diverse and any group of people will have different opinions.  Cohesiveness is accomplished by recognizing that whatever is lost by compromising is more than made up for by being a member of a dedicated group that, even after compromise, is still far closer to your ideal than mainstream culture is.  I personally would like to go back to Ancient Athens, but I would be willing to settle for the 1970s.

As for Game, I don't like it, but that's just my opinion.  Others are welcome to have other opinions.  I don't think Game should be used to chase the wives and daughters of CoAlpha members, but sluts from mainstream culture are fair game.

The difference between a brotherhood and a forum is commitment.  And as you point out, this requires a code.  We have a very minimalistic code here:

http://coalpha.wikispaces.com/code

This is really just a template that hopefully will grow into something substantial.

The Hasidic Jews have their own code in the Torah and Talmud.  They are divided into groups and each group is led by a (male) rabbi.  This seems to have worked well for them.  I highly recommend watching the movie "A Life Apart: Hasidism in America".  The most interesting part for me was to see how a few Hasidic rabbis who arrived to America after WW2 managed to get Hasidic Judaism off the ground in America starting from practically nothing.  This gives me hope that something like the CoAlpha Brotherhood could actually work.  I agree that it is a long shot, but I don't see why you would consider it impossible.

Off Topic somewhat...

Hmmm... yes of course. Even if I was a "Game-Master" I wouldnt even consider using it on women in a Co-Alpha Brotherhood.

Having said that though, Im sure some of it gets internalized. As I said there are many types of "Game". In fact the idea of sticking any single word to it stereotypes it. A lot of Game "Gurus" are exactly what you have in mind. Get in their pants. Crass. Period.

But some other stuff in it is deeper psychological stuff. To take a very quick underutilized example - Implication.

If you tell a woman "I like your style", its perceived as coming from an outside source for the woman.

"A guy who is talking to me likes my style - what does he want from me?" is the thought-pattern.

Instead if one said "I admire women with a sense of style". The only way it can be processed is by the woman in question reaching into herself and using her *OWN* definition of style. Even if she wanted to reject it, she has to process it first - and she gets a psychological lift from momentarily meeting her own definition of style - something people, almost by definition, never do. (You don't ever meet your own definitions of any emotionally charged words, because if you did, they wouldn't be that interesting anymore).

So, my point was, when you look at a certain subset of game, its rather understanding human psyche rather than 'pick up artist' as 95% of Game is. Some people can use it, for instance, to enhance an existing relationship or get a medium to long term mate. Analogy: Its like money - what you do with it is what makes it good or evil.

Kind of like saying "all military men are grunts who think about sex all the time". It would be true for much of the infantry - but there's still the small core of, say, Nuclear Physicists that is the exception that proves the rule. Of course, you can probably intuit, most people who would want to get into "Game" gravitate to their own level and end up with the crass stuff.

Procedural question for you, would I be correct in thinking that what is on the private forum stays on the private forum?

Aka we can share in more indepth life experiences without much concern of it being reposted? (Call me paranoid, or just very privacy conscious).

I think you are responding to a post I made on the MGTOW forum.  I would rather not debate the virtues of Game here since it doesn't seem relevant to CoAlpha.  What I will say is that psychology (understand people) has always been a useful skill for convincing people to do what you want.  It was particularly useful for salesmen who had to convince people to buy things.  What is sad is when a man is forced to become a salesman just to get a girlfriend or wife.  And what causes this is when all women are up for grabs and men compete for them using Game.  So it is like an arms race among men to get women.  The way to end this arms race is to force women to be chaste and therefore have nothing to offer men using Game.  Of course this only applies inside the CoAlpha group, which is why women on the outside, who aren't chaste, are fair game.

Ardia wrote

Procedural question for you, would I be correct in thinking that what is on the private forum stays on the private forum?

Aka we can share in more indepth life experiences without much concern of it being reposted? (Call me paranoid, or just very privacy conscious).

Yes, that is what I intended but I forgot to put it in the Code.  I will propose making it explicit in the Code now.  There are currently 2 other men in the private forum.  One is Ragnar, who I met and I think he is trustworthy.  The other is DukeNukem who I haven't met but I will meet him at the MGTOW conference in October.  I would like to try to meet all members to get a sense for what they are like.  I can't guarantee that a member won't violate the privacy of the private forum by copying something and publishing it, but at least for now with the very small group that we have, I think this is unlikely to happen.

Well,
I guess Id like to join. I dont know where it will go from there or anything. But I will abide by the rules of course. And I wont be a vindictive mangina if I leave.

Great.  I have proposed you in the private forum and you should get in in a week.

Well sounds good where do I sign up!

Good stuff dudes. Bingo. You got it!

http://seanmaccloud.blogspot.com/

I try to grapple with this stuff at my blog which is really just a place where I'm organizing my ideas, written in the last 15 years on the interwebs.

Go to the sept-oct page for this "alpha beta gamma" dynamic that led to civilization and then feminism too stuff.

Eventually I will post attempted solutions to all this from my notes.

Brilliant.  

Your solution of fixing society with a co-Alpha brotherhood is both fair-minded, logical, and honorable.  It seems like the "civilized" thing to do.  I fear that PUA's may mock a movement like this, as it goes against their philosophy of adapting to the environment, where as co-Alpha is about adapting our environment to us, something "civilizations" have been doing since agriculture.  The farmer is superior to the hunter, as he controls his environment, where as the hunter must constantly struggle to thrive in his.

This is a really good Idea.  So, can I check out the private forum or what?  

Nice going fschmidt

Sure, but we usually wait one week in case anyone has questions for you before letting you in.  Since CoAlpha hasn't been active lately, I doubt there will be any questions, so I think this just means waiting a week.