There's a thing about the Red Pill that's been bothering me for a while, which is that even assuming their premises are correct, their conclusions are incorrect. By the nature of my job I work very closely with what could be called alphas, let's say the "CEO class" and I've also recently read a book called The Social Animal by biotruther David Brooks and in both cases the form of "alpha" that the Red Pill pushes are not alpha at all. Beware: loads of pretentious waffle below.

First let's look at the premises I'm going to assume are true:

1. Women are innately hypergamous and have a desire to mate with people who are successful
2. Women identify successful men through their demonstrated social value
3. Male society is divided into the betas who supplicate to women in an attempt to mate and the alphas who can simply demand
4. Women are naturally followers while men are naturally leaders

If these are true, what kind of signifiers could a man use to show greater social status than he actually has in order to attract higher quality mates? The Red Pill recommends "dark triad" traits, weight lifting and emotional distance. Unfortunately for them, none of these show higher social status.

Quite the opposite, people with dark triad traits tend to have unsuccessful lives as they have poor impulse control and strive against their own group. In The Social Animal, David Brooks shows this extensively with a large amount of research that impulse control is one of the biggest single predictors for life success. Even worse for the Red Pillers, cold logic is even worse. Decisions made in a "Mr Spock" frame are overall worse than "from the gut" decisions. Real success is found from those who seek to increase the relative worth of their group rather than themselves individually. People who discard their group while trying to increase their value end up shunned or dropped by their group. Success is found by enabling the groups we join to achieve greater success, not by trying to be "lone geniuses".

We also use physical build as a signifier of social class (in much the same way as tanning has gone in and out of fashion depending on if the lowest class of physical labourers work inside or outside). Fitness has become a universally admired quality, but the type of fitness says a lot. Upper body strength signifies lower rather than higher social class as its needed to be an effective labourer. CEO class men tend to have very fit lower bodies but don't lift. Instead they run, cycle and golf. CEO class women do lift but mainly to avoid the dreaded "sagging arm syndrome". So for that social class a weight lifting man is either lower social value if he's very bulky or effeminate if he's toned.

For emotional distance I need to go straight to anecdote. The most successful executives I've worked with share a deep interest in the people around them. They are universally excellent at remembering things like birthdays or number and names of children even from people they've only met briefly. It makes sense if you think that people tend to get promoted by people who like them and learn to trust them over a long period of time, they also find it easier to lead those around them since they have built up a network of trust.

So the ideal "alpha" would be fit but not muscular in the upper body, have good impulse control and be engaged in the lives and interests of those around them. Pretty much the exact opposite of the Red Pill.

It's like they've looked at an army and assumed the sergeant as the leader and done everything they can to emulate him, while ignoring the general.