Rank the following ways to respond to the question "do you know how I can do X?" Include Gyne.
- Why do you want to know?
- Why are you asking me?
- Yes.
- I think you really want to do Y. (Explains how to do Y.)
- Yes, certainly. (Cheerfully explains how to do X.)
- Yeah, of course. (Curtly explains how to do X.)
- I was a baaaad, bad kitty this weekend!
- Gyne. Women have no interest in solutions, they are interested in people. They aren't interested in helping you get it done, they're more interested in understanding why you want to get it done.
- Omega. He's worried that the attention might be a trick.
- Alpha/Sigma. Who knows why the guy wants to know if you know? Who cares?
- Gamma. Overthinks the whole thing and imagines it's all about what he would do in that situation, and answers a different question thereby.
- Beta. They tend to be helpful and they don't mind who knows it.
- Delta. Most men don't want to be bothered, but if a solution is needed, a solution will be provided.
- Lambda. There is no situation in which they do not want to discuss the previous weekend.
60 comments:
Sigma?
I have seen a different behavior for the Gamma. When cornered so, he intentionally provides minimal information. Recently I asked one to provide the URL for a server he had deployed, and he gave me the hostname of a different server and told me to substitute l for d.
Krul: "Sigma?"
"No."
If the answer was "yes" and the next question is "OK, how do I do X?" does the Alpha then cheerfully explain how to do X?
Sigma and Alpha answer the same in this case. If they answer is yes, they tend to help as a Delta would.
' Women have no interest in solutions, they are interested in people.'
Yes...if you are in a jam exhaust every male friend you know before you even consider bringing a woman into it.
Yeah, ranked about where I expected I would.
Takeaway: Sigma/Alpha, Beta, Delta: answer the question asked, each in his own way.
Gamma, Lambda: answer a different question than the one asked.
Gyne, Omega: answer the question with a question, like some sort of bizarro-world Socrates.
Gyne, Omega: answer the question with a question, like some sort of bizarro-world Socrates.
The negative version of this is: don't answer a question with a question. It is feminine and low-status. The questioner is the petitioner, not the King.
I answered "yes". My dad made me watch Pink Panther movies all the time when I was a kid.
Interesting stuff. Really helpful.
Now the way I go about doing things and helping out is with cheerful energy (#5, Beta). But, before reading your answers, I thought this would "make me" a Delta. Isn't cheerfulness some form of (un)conscious eagerness to help/be in the light, which would indicate a lower rank? Sort of an insecure "look at me" complex?
The way delta go about doing things (yeah, of course! (Curtly explains how to do X.)) has more of that raw masculine energy, an attenuated version of alpha if you will, hence in my mind, Beta.
The way delta go about doing things (yeah, of course! (Curtly explains how to do X.)) has more of that raw masculine energy, an attenuated version of alpha if you will, hence in my mind, Beta.
That's because you don't understand how the hierarchy works. Beta's are second bananas, not Alphas in the making. In fact, they are often men who have Alpha characteristics, but lack Alpha force. David Robinson was the perfect Beta. Everyone thought he was going to dominate the NBA, but he never won a title until Tim Duncan showed up.
The fact that you think of cheerfulness as insecurity and eagerness is indicative of your own lingering Gamma traits. Some men derive genuine pleasure from helping people, they don't do it to try to buy affection. And those that have Alpha characteristics can afford to have their cheerfulness and helpfulness misinterpreted without suffering much in terms of social rank.
(Fascinating, this helps with my gamma problem.)
Never ever go to a woman before a bro, bro's first, women always last if never.
This seems to be similar to those binary questions pollsters like to ask.
Context is missing here.
Who is your interlocuter? A friend? A stranger?
There are also non-verbal cues when humans interact: often, given those cues and the context, the answer will vary based upon assumed knowledge.
"Who knows why the guy wants to know if you know? Who cares?"
This answer appears to imply that the interlocuter is a stranger, and you are trying to achieve a dominant and aloof frame (in a non-sexual undertoned encounter, as the scenario does not presuppose otherwise).
If that is the case, then why not state that at the outset.
Unless we are robots, our means of communicating with each other varies according to the social circumstances of an encounter.
Again, for instance, is it obvious (visually in the physical environment in which a conversation takes place) that a person needs assistance in doing 'X'?
Or, is it obvious that this is an educational context or a pub trivia context, etc.
I recall Vox commenting about the limitations of binary thinkers within the past week or two.
So, I'm not sure what this little thought exercise can achieve, with its obvious need for context, and likely variations in response due to the social context in which the question is asked.
I can easily see women reacting in the Gamma manner, as women seem to like proposing alternate solutions to things that naturally wind up making them more complex.
Likewise, I can see Gammas reacting in the Gyne manner, especially if they're trying to be difficult on purpose.
@Rek
I suppose Betas have more joie de vivre than Deltas do.
@ Maple
"do you know how I can do X?" Sounds like a funny type of question to me.
More often I would be asked:
'Can you help me with X?'
'do you know how to get X to work?'
'do you know where X is?'
Context is missing here.
No. It's not. But you did manage to tell us an awful lot about yourself in the process of the would-be critique.
appears to imply
There we go.... Gammas always know what someone else intends better than the someone else himself. Seriously, you need to drop the passive-aggressivity. It only inspires contempt in other men.
I suppose Betas have more joie de vivre than Deltas do.
Read the summary of them. It's probably the best socio-sexual rank. Most of the fun, none of the pressure, and everybody likes you. People think Sigma sounds cool, and I suppose it does, but it's actually a major pain in the ass.
Even when you try to play along, it always turns into an epic disaster. Forget SFWA. In college I once submitted a single poem to the university poetry journal. It was accepted for publication, upon which half the staff quit in protest. That's the sort of thing that happens more often than not to Sigmas.
When people ask me to join organizations, or worse, LEAD them, I've learned to just laugh and tell them they really, really, don't want that.
Sometimes you can accidentally alpha.
By chance I did this once at a new job fresh outta school during my blue pill beta days. Big company, they made all the new hires (about 20 of us) stand up and introduce themselves at a big lunch (100 + people or so). Most newbies gave their full names, colleges, majors(!), and where they were from.
By the time they got to me (I was about 10th), I knew people were bored and weren't listening and it was too much info anyway, so I stood up and all I gave were my first name and my college, just to move things along, and then sat down.
A few of the managers were mildly amused at my curtness, so one interrupted before the next person introduced themselves.
"Don't you have a last name or a hometown, Whorefinder?"
I was embarrassed and puzzled and awkward, so I stood up and confusedly said, "Yes."
And then sat down without further comment.
The room exploded in laughter, especially the managers. I turned red in my seat and put my head down a bit, but since it was a big room, and not a lot of people could see my face.
For the next week, until the girls figured out I was a blue pill beta, I got an awful lot of flirtatious gestures from women in the office whom later would have laughed at the idea of being with me.
If I'd only known.
I'm curt and efficient. I ranked #4 first with the caveat (yup, overthinking) that I would have to be dead certain it would apply.
At work I go back and forth between being cheerfully and reluctantly helpful. But the bottom line is usually: is there a job to be done and can I render effective assistance?
Sex of the helpee doesn't matter. I prefer to be too busy than a typical lazy drone.
Though if I had to guess, I would say women are more prone to shove their work onto someone else if they can.
Accountability and all....
@VD:
"Context is missing here.
No. It's not. But you did manage to tell us an awful lot about yourself in the process of the would-be critique.
appears to imply
There we go.... Gammas always know what someone else intends better than the someone else himself. Seriously, you need to drop the passive-aggressivity. It only inspires contempt in other men."
Well, it's your blog, and far be it from me to get into a pissing match on your blog, but your inability or disinterest in engaging in a dialogue is, how shall I put it, "telling us an awful lot about yourself."
Incidentally, attempting to categorize human personality in neat little boxes without blurred lines or acknowledging that aspects of different "types" are almost always going to exist found in different people is simplistic and not worthy of a decent intellect.
I've read a lot of your blog work, I am a regular reader of both, and I generally respect your insights, but you seem awfully defensive here, for no reason at all, Mr. Sigma.
We'll let the readers decide, shall we?
I can completely back up Vox on the Lambda, unless they are one of straight-seeming gays, in which case the rest of the hierarchy will usually apply. My previous company had a lot of gay men, although the straight-seeming ones were harder to spot. You could actually be friends with them as a straight man, and in some cases they made good wing men.
I find it interesting how my default answer on this has emphatically changed from beta to alpha (I am not sigma) over the last 10 years. And probably all it took was swallowing the red pill.
Incidentally, attempting to categorize human personality in neat little boxes without blurred lines or acknowledging that aspects of different "types" are almost always going to exist found in different people is simplistic and not worthy of a decent intellect.
@Maple Curtain
I don't see why context and body language matters too much in this case. The idea is that someone asks you if you know how to do something, in a neutral, everyday situation. Of course there are situations that call for a different reaction. It's perfectly fine to give the "Gyne answer" if your son suddenly asks you how to make meth, or the "Gamma answer" if your computer-illiterate daughter asks where she can get a good deal on a MacBook Pro. And of course there are people who are mixes of different sociosexual types. The whole idea of the Delta category is to represent the average guy.
What is Gyne? This is the first I've seen it mentioned in a Game article.
"He's worried that the attention might be a trick."
And sometimes it is so you just say "Yes" without further explanation. We really do live in a twisted world.
Scott Walker refused to answer a question about Evolution and all hell broke loose. That's the level of political theater these days.
"When people ask me to join organizations, or worse, LEAD them, I've learned to just laugh and tell them they really, really, don't want that."
Heh. Yep, that's exactly how it is.
Life's been a lot easier since recognizing that. Ironically get asked a lot more now than when I was trying to be the Good Beta.
you seem awfully defensive here, for no reason at all, Mr. Sigma.
And there you go again.
We'll let the readers decide, shall we?
They'll decide whether you deign to permit them or not.
So it seems a lot of people are envious of whatever great talent Sigmas possess. Perhaps it has more to do with what particular sin is handicapping a person and that's what affects their social skills.
Vox, what is a "Gyne"? it doesn't appear on the "Socio-Sexual Hierarchy" blog entry you have. And this current entry is the first time I've ever heard you use the term, and I've been reading this blog for over a year....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyne
Most people I've known who would answer with an overly-literal "yes" to a politely-phrased request for help or information have been omega spergs. They usually follow it up by laughing at their great wit.
There we go.... Gammas always know what someone else intends better than the someone else himself.
See, now I was thinking from Maple Climber's initial response, "Gyne." All this concern with who's asking and what the context is...it's what a woman would want to know. But if MC is male, then gamma makes sense.
@Vox
My intent in responding to your post was conversational, not confrontational.
And, far from being "passive-aggressive," the phrase "seems to imply" is a conversational signal that I am not claiming to be expert, but am, politely, inviting a counter-argument, elaboration, enlightenment by other posters, etc.
That you mistake my style for a challenge is a huge tell, Mr. Beale.
You have a lot of very intelligent readers of your blogs, and your over-the-top response to a harmless opinion posting will not have been missed by those readers.
Any alert student of human nature will have seen that your response was that of a highly insecure, weak-egoed person who needs to be seen as the top dog in any social situation - that's not a strength; that's a weakness.
You seek adulation, not truth.
Human interaction is nuanced and complex, not simplistic as you have portrayed it.
Your need to attack posters who gently question your views is a serious sign of weakness, not that of a top dog (or Alpha/Sigma if you prefer).
It is pathetic, and shows that you have much in common with that non-entity over whom you obsess, Mr. Scalzi.
I've no interest in stealing your thunder, Mr. Beale, so I shall post here no more, and leave you to the adulation of your admirers.
If I am mistaken and you seek dialogue, we can do so over e-mail, where you will not feel so threatened at a loss of stature in the public arena.
Fly away little Gamma.
'All this concern with who's asking and what the context is...it's what a woman would want to know. But if MC is male, then gamma makes sense.'
Have we got so far away from how human interaction works that we call context and the person talking to us 'something a woman would want to know'.
You can learn more about the art to answering questions by how Jesus did it. Then you can assign whatever greek letter you think he was when he handled the situation presented to him.
How does a "No" answer rank?
Have we got so far away from how human interaction works that we call context and the person talking to us 'something a woman would want to know'.
So far away? No. What buzzardist was demonstrating was an understanding of the difference between men and women. For a woman not deceived by feminism's lies, this is comforting and far from insulting. For a Christian woman seeking biblical marriage, this is essential.
In much the same way as the uncanny valley hypothesis works in regards to aesthetics, there is a revulsion within us women when a man's responses resemble a woman's or when we sense his responses are a result of his belief in the lie of equality (even more so when we suspect his belief is actually lip service and not genuine - we then sense this to be manipulation and pandering which ups the revulsion).
There is a distinct comfort women experience when in the company of men who recognize the differences of the sexes; whose interactions are different with men than they are with women. In marriage it allows us to believe that a husband is capable of loving us the way we need to be loved. We're thankful when our husbands love us (teach/guide/show affection) with an understanding of us being women (not men). What has become most messed up in this human interaction is the lie that the teaching/guiding/affection should be done with a soft, effeminate tone or in a manner that isn't direct and assertive.
In the example of how Maple Curtain first commented take a look at just this sentence: So, I'm not sure what this little thought exercise can achieve, with its obvious need for context, and likely variations in response due to the social context in which the question is asked.
The words I've highlighted in bold are sniping words that a man should come to expect from a woman who is being confrontational. To learn that this is a man's comment...uncanny valley.
The mainline differences between men and women are:
Men tend to think about things objectively.
Women tend to think about things subjectively.
If it's a hypothetical then sure you can box objective human interaction into it. If it's reality then context and relationships will come into a subjective element to it. Men many not consciously think this or say it out loud...but it's in there.
It's ok Maple, the world is complex. I must be a gamma! As proven on the Internet by posting random crap.
A better way to demonstrate this would be with actual quotations from real people. The Scott Walker example is a great example. Some alphas are loquacious because they can afford to because their leadership is not in doubt and that is there personal style. Some are terse because that is there style.
Above Vox posits that Robinson is a beta because he needed Duncan. Sure like Jordan, James, and Bird. Thus diluting the concept of alpha and beta into meaningless terms. Robinson will probably be in the hall of fame (is he already?). Isn't his alphaness only known by his team mates and whether he was a good leader?
Yes, Earl, people adjust their speech depending on to whom they are talking.
The problem with Maple's comment and with yours is that this kind of response is essentially the "I think you want to do Y" answer. The question was put forth to categorize these answers to a request for knowledge/help based on socio-sexual status. The point is that most normal people and people high in status answer the question. Men of very low status either try to reframe the question to something else or run away from it entirely.
I tend to think that there is a wider range of female responses than Vox lists here--a young, insecure woman, for example, might give the male beta answer, even if she doesn't know what she's talking about, because she thinks that pleasing people will gain her favor and status. But the focus of the blog is on male status, and the point of the exercise was to consider how the two lowest status rankings (gamma and omega) fail to answer questions.
The gyne response is, really, in a lot of ways like the gamma response. Instead of answering the question, let's consider something else related, but that I get to set the terms for. The gyne response shifts to a discussion about people, relationships, and emotional investment, which the woman feels more comfortable discussing than she does about the content matter of X. The gamma response shifts to Y, which the gamma has convinced himself is something he knows more about. (The gamma is often wrong in thinking he knows anything about Y, but that's another matter.) The point is to observe the tendency in a given situation to avoid direct answers to questions. Maple tried to shift away from the question at hand. No surprise, then, that Maple would get classified as gyne or gamma.
And here you are trying to white knight for Maple. Sorry, but no. This isn't a question about nuances of context and speaker. Speaker A asks Interlocutor B a question. B gives any of the above responses. What does this say about what kind of person B is? Yes, of course there could be other responses. Yes, of course the answers could shift depending on context and who the people involved are. But that's entirely not what this mental exercise is about. "You don't really want to evaluate how different socio-sexual statuses respond to direct questions, do you? No, what you really ought to do is think about context and people." That's deflecting. The point here is that a man desiring social respect should answer the question posed to him, not run away from it, not try to analyze the ulterior motives and nuances of it, not try to shift it into some other question.
As for your charming WWJD interjection, Earl, given how many people got utterly pissed off at Jesus to the point that they killed him, can we assume that Jesus was a sigma?
As for your charming WWJD interjection, Earl, given how many people got utterly pissed off at Jesus to the point that they killed him, can we assume that Jesus was a sigma?
No, Jesus was an Alpha, because he easily collected followers. In this context, He got killed because His interests went directly against a rival power structure's.
"You don't really want to evaluate how different socio-sexual statuses respond to direct questions, do you? No, what you really ought to do is think about context and people." That's deflecting. The point here is that a man desiring social respect should answer the question posed to him, not run away from it, not try to analyze the ulterior motives and nuances of it, not try to shift it into some other question."
In an ideal world, sure. Once it is brought into reality some of those nasty things like context, relationships, and situations will be there too. If a person wants to get real good at it he answers questions directly knowing full well what the environment is saying too.
'As for your charming WWJD interjection, Earl, given how many people got utterly pissed off at Jesus to the point that they killed him, can we assume that Jesus was a sigma?'
No...the Alpha and Omega.
Besides I brought Jesus up because he answered question directly even in a hostile environment. Especially this one before he was sentenced to death.
'Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, "Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?"
@vox:
Sorry, but I've just got to respond to @buzzardist's sycophantic drivel.
The readers of the blog weren't asked to answer the question.
Your reading comprehension is extremely poor.
The readers of the blog were asked to rank a set of hypothetical answers to a hypothetical question.
I had the temerity to question the validity of the methodology.
That's an Alpha response, pal (but not one that a sycophant like you would recognize).
Having been challenged in his perception as the Alpha intellect of the thread, Mr. Beale then overreacted in a thin-skinned way to having had someone else shift the "frame."
All of this lingo should be familiar to regular readers, here.
And, as for @sarahsdaughter, well, there is the typical solipsistic female response to any discussion - trying to re-frame the discussion as being about her.
But, neither Vox nor I is her husband and no one was trying to teach/guide her with affection. The thread has nothing to do with her, yet she tried to re-frame it as my having failed to act as a man in training her.
Her response is the very reason men pay little heed to the ramblings of women.
She was merely trying, as you are, to ingratiate herself with the perceived AMOG.
Nice try, bootlickers.
My intent in responding to your post was conversational, not confrontational.
And, far from being "passive-aggressive," the phrase "seems to imply" is a conversational signal that I am not claiming to be expert, but am, politely, inviting a counter-argument, elaboration, enlightenment by other posters, etc.
That you mistake my style for a challenge is a huge tell, Mr. Beale.
Your behavior is classic passive-aggressive, all the way down. To top it off, the scolding "Mr. Beale" you used makes you come off like an irritated female schoolteacher waving a yardstick.
I had the temerity to question the validity of the methodology.
That's an Alpha response, pal (but not one that a sycophant like you would recognize).
Questioning the validity by reading complications into the gedankenexperiment that most of us here don't care about. You're basically doing the equivalent of quibbling about the rules of a simple, understandable game because they're not complex enough for you.
@corvinius
In your comment from 9:05 p.m. yesterday, you made it clear that you agreed with me, before attempting to suggest that it doesn't matter:
"@Maple Curtain...I don't see why context and body language matters too much in this case."
See those words "too much." You have conceded that it matters.
All that follows is you boot-licking the perceived AMOG...
But if MC is male, then gamma makes sense.
It wouldn't be too far off the mark to define Gamma as "a man who tends to act like a woman." It's not a 100% perfect fit for all situations, but it works for many.
This is quite a lesson in how hard it is to 'maintain frame' in real life.
And, as for @sarahsdaughter, well, there is the typical solipsistic female response to any discussion
That's right, no one here is surprised when I comment #LikeAGirl.
This exchange has all been very interesting. I am no alpha although thanks to the enlightenment and modernity I have high status, a wife (who thinks I'm alpha so nothing else matters), and children because the modern world needs few terse alpha and lots of people who want context. I am sure in evolutionary times I would have had my brain smashed out by the first alpha chief that I questioned about why we should do x when y might be better as a demonstration of his power. But thankfully we live in different times.
As VD said, seems being alpha might be more trouble than it is worth.
" In college I once submitted a single poem to the university poetry journal. It was accepted for publication, upon which half the staff quit in protest. That's the sort of thing that happens more often than not to Sigmas."
I'd LOVE to read that poem!
Speaker:
The rules of Tic-Tac-Toe are simple
Players each get a symbol, X or 0. The first player takes his turn by marking any of the 9 cells of an empty # diagram with an X. Continuing with the 2nd player ('O'), the players take turns marking their symbol any remaining empty cell of the 9 cells of a # diagram. Whoever makes 3 in a vertical, horizontal or diagonal row wins, and is marked with a straight line through the 3 cells. If all 9 cells are marked and neither player has won, then it is ruled a "Cat's game" (i.e. a tie) and is marked with a giant C.
Maple Curtain: What if someone marks an A in the grid?
Speaker: That's not allowed. A player makes his mark -- either X or O.
Maple Curtain: What if a third person draws a giant "?" over the whole grid?
Speaker: That's not allowed. It's a 2-player game.
Maple Curtain: What if one of the players makes their mark outside of the grid?
Speaker: That's not allowed.
Maple Curtain: What if the piece of paper catches on fire?
Everyone in the room... SIT THE HELL DOWN AND SHUT THE HELL UP YOU STUPID JERK.
"In much the same way as the uncanny valley hypothesis works in regards to aesthetics, there is a revulsion within us women when a man's responses resemble a woman's or when we sense his responses are a result of his belief in the lie of equality..."
Thanks for the insight, SarahsDaughter. How ironic that Maple Curtain stupidly accused you of solipsiticaly demanding he train you, while you've actually relayed more knowledge to the readers here in this single sentence than he did with all his blustering words combined.
This made no sense to me when I first read it. It took some time to understand it was the ways different individuals respond to things. Once I realized that, my first thought was tech support, which is a context I have been working in. I would fire most of those people, including the alpha/sigma if they consistently responded as tech support that way.
Kind of ironic that I agree with some of Maple's point, but his assault on SD is idiotic. That can be part of the problem of jumping in without context, especially for long time participants in the comments.
Clearly that was not the intent, but a single sentence giving context would have made this much clearer.
Vox, you have admitted (in the past) that you often fail to note the entire context for all your thoughts. Is that truly impossible here?
Maple,
You need to get a bit more familiar with those replying before you sling the insults.
Once I realized that, my first thought was tech support, which is a context I have been working in. I would fire most of those people, including the alpha/sigma if they consistently responded as tech support that way.
If you're working in tech support, you're being explicitly paid to do the "Beta answer". But if you're not being paid...
Most people I've known who would answer with an overly-literal "yes" to a politely-phrased request for help or information have been omega spergs.
I think you are imagining it said in the wrong tone. The alpha doesn't say it as if expecting a drumroll to follow, but matter-of-factly. He just expects the questioner to then either prodeed to asking the real question to which it was preparation work - how to do it - or to state that he was just making sure.
The lower classes are concerned about the questioner's feelings, namely that he feels awkward about that answer and having to put it explicitly, so they assume it was a stand-in for "please explain this if you can".
Though, on second thought, the question was "how _I_ can". Which is obviously a plea for information. So yes, the answer IS just being an asshole.
Which is not a criticism, mind you. Chicks dig jerks.
The negative version of this is: don't answer a question with a question. It is feminine and low-status... --Vox
African or European? --Arthur, King of the Britons.
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