Game Theory, Part 2: The Hierarchy

First, credit for the original research on this goes to Vox Day. What follows is simply a restatement of his hierarchy from a different perspective, a different range of experience and purpose. I have no interest in making anyone a better player. Game is a petty tyrant who bluffs his captive subjects about the limits of his jurisdiction. If we don’t draw an accurate map, you’ll never escape the slavery of the socio-sexual hierarchy.

As with all things regarding behavioral studies, what follows are mere correlations and associations, not precise definitions. They are generally accurate, but never exactly applicable to any single individual. There is a broad overlap in the socio-sexual roles and those of the wider social intercourse. The key to the game model is grasping the male roles. The fundamental element is the masculine sense of self-confidence. This is the controlling factor for everything else. Not in every detail, but in the broad generalities, this is how the game works. In all social situations, the entire race of humanity is hard-wired to test this item first and foremost. The strength of a man’s self-confidence is central to his placement in the game, the key to everything. Physical characteristics are significant, but secondary.

Early in human development, it may be difficult to tell much more than some incipient indicators of a boy’s self-confidence. Not in the details of where he shines, but the overall quality and strength of the thing itself. Those who hold a strong measure of it will differentiate into various roles in the socio-sexual hierarchy. Beyond puberty, the social structure brutally punishes any weakness in self-confidence. By the same token, self-confidence determines how thoroughly one can reject cultural orthodoxy and choose a more independent path.

Again, this is not a question of what is normative. The definition of winning depends entirely upon the social context. One’s status may shift from one social situation to the next, in part because humans tend to adjust their behavior pattern based on any number of internal and external factors. Thus, the hierarchy is both a matter of being and doing, of having an identity and of playing a limited role.

At the top of the hierarchy is the Alpha Male. In every social situation, there is always at least one Alpha Male. Most of the time it’s the same guy across numerous situations. He is thoroughly self-confident, and self-absorbed. However, this must be matched with an equal measure of genuine charisma. It’s not enough to believe you are awesome; everyone else must believe it, or you are not Alpha. The Alpha is always the center of attention, and knows it.

He is competitive in whatever he does, and ignores any endeavor he can’t dominate, because he knows his weaknesses. He’s the Homecoming King, the Captain of the Team, the Class President, the CEO; he is The Man. Naturally, all the women are drawn to him. That’s the way women are wired. They will compete for his attention and his favors, and he will take what amuses him for so long is it amuses him. His entire universe is measured in terms of how he can use it for his own self-gratification. In this, he is reliably the bad boy. His social type may also be the rebel, the troublemaker, the biggest problem for the system. But he gets away with it because the system cannot function without him.

In the company of each other, they are wary but offer grudging acknowledgment as equals.

The Alpha will never stand alone. He has to have a gang composed of Beta Male roles. Alpha and Beta are symbiotic; their relative roles are interdependent. Their charisma differs only in degree. They posses their own good dose of self-confidence and talent, and still do well with the ladies. They are the support system which maintains the Alpha’s identity, his enabler. They they celebrate his dominance, form his posse for adventures.

They have no illusions about women, don’t embrace cultural orthodoxy. They win in the game by catching the disillusioned beauties cast aside by the Alpha, typically marrying such trophies. Every system needs at least one Alpha, but in a very important sense, the Betas are the system.

And every system has to have sufficient human bulk to function. This is where we find the Delta Male — the normal guys, the average, the majority, the herd. No one has to tell them they can’t score with the finest ladies; they noticed that long ago. But they still harbor serious delusions about women, having absorbed some version of the cultural orthodoxy. These are the White Knights who worship women. They further delude themselves about their own weaknesses and insecurities. Their success with women is more often a case of stumbling into it. They are the marrying type, quite faithful and constantly looking over their shoulder if they happen to win a gal above their league. They are clueless about women’s wiring, obsessively catering to point of annoyance, offering little which actually excites. Obsessed with preserving something obscenely precious to them, they take none of the risks which women admire. They never seem to understand why their marriages are weak.

On the lower edges of the social structure we find the Gamma Male. These are invariably more intelligent or talented than Deltas in one way or another, but lack even the Delta measure of self-confidence, holding a jillion self-doubts. Get them together and they create wonders to behold. This is role where archetypal computer geeks live. Quite useful in the broader social landscape, but disconnected entirely from game. Alone, they have a perverse self-obsession, analyzing everything with a sexual nuance down to the minutest flicker of detail. In the rare instances women notice the Gamma at all, it’s to manipulate him into providing some favor, seldom reciprocating in any meaningful way. These guys waver a lot, because their unstable egos twist and turn with the winds of the moment. They tend to be bi-polar, either worshiping or hating women at any given moment.

In their desperation, they easily slip into fantasies of control, where they conquering their sexual fate. Soul mates and suitable female partners are even more rare than such men. Too many of Gammas will capture some unfortunate gal in a bad moment, and this brief taste of satisfaction becomes his religion, in that she can never escape until one of them is dead.

But it could be worse. In every social hierarchy there are the untouchables, the thin layer wackos who don’t need a failed romance to be dangerous. They bounce off society in toto from the outside. The question of self-confidence is simply non-applicable, because there is no social interaction. He is by definition entirely singular — the Omega Male is downright creepy. People of every description look for excuses to avoid him, should they think about him at all. Omega returns the favor, unless he is a misogynist murderer.

There are others outside mainstream socio-sexual hierarchy. Among them is the rare Sigma Male. Society rejects him because in some ways he rejected society first. He plays the broader social system successfully, but holds it in contempt. Game is truly just a game to him, with no real stakes. The system as a whole is nervous about Sigma; Alphas are downright hostile. It’s not that Sigmas are competitive with Alphas, but are the sort of visionaries no Alpha could ever be. Sigma could as easily break the entire system itself, if he cared. He can have whatever he wants from the game, and is in some way still in it, but most women annoy him.

And in every thread of human history, one always finds one other element, the Lambda Male. For whatever reason we might want to imagine, some men reject the entire socio-sexual system in the sense they prefer other males. This alternative system has its own rules and hierarchy, is highly social, excessively dynamic, and impossible to understand very well from the outside. We cannot ignore the basic human fact a great many men throughout history were frankly bisexual or even omni-sexual. The point here is the current Western world possesses a parallel society of gays, a society which is self-defining, and retains the prerogative of accepting or rejecting anyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

Again, it doesn’t matter what you believe you are, because the whole hierarchy is organic and self-organizing; no one person can truly change the game. It’s all a matter of how it reacts to your presence. Concerted effort to understand and practice another role can have some limited effect, but actually being some other kind of man within the hierarchy is quite rare. The most important step is frankly accepting your current reality, because that is the key to how you exit.