In Which A Joke Falls Flat And Goes Awry

Is there a way on Facebook to send something to only people who appear on two friends lists? I just thought of a joke that could only ever be appreciated by people I have tagged as "Progressive" and "Scientific", but I can't figure out how to make that happen. I guess the blog is the only option.

So here goes: When a politician is opposed to both Planned Parenthood and public education, the (R) after their name stands for r-strategist!

See, they get it.

We can infer that they prefer catastrophe to stability, aren’t too concerned with extending lifespans with medical care, and want children to sexually mature earlier.

I guess not even they found this part funny.

So as I was writing the joke I started to think this might actually be a real thing. It reminded me of a half-forgotten article by David Brin. I went through a libertarian phase in high school, I’ve half-forgotten a lot of David Brin articles. He was talking about the differences between Americans and Europeans, and speculated that Americans were genetically superior because all the bold entrepreneurs from Europe chose to emigrate.

Yeah, that’s about the usual level of libertarian discourse. Better than usual, even. Good thing I outgrew that before I learned to talk to people, or I’d have a lot to live down.

Anyway, it occurred to me that a big part of any political differences between America and Europe could be due to the r/K selection thing. That certain political policies and ideologies will be favoured in an environment where most of the inhabitants have been exterminated and resources are ripe for plucking.

Around this point it occurred to me that I might not have been the first person to think of this. So I searched for “r k selection politics” and… wait, what’s this? Is everyone getting this wrong except for me? Dozens of articles, all the top results, are saying that liberals are the r-strategists! They all seem to point back to this book, The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics.

I sure hope there’s a compelling explanation for why liberal r-strategists would pursue policies that result in fewer but better children, but the page advertising the book gives no such indications. Instead it’s based on the mistaken idea that investing in offspring means loyalty to a pack, utterly ignoring the myriad examples of animals that have few children and also live solitary lives… Well, there’s no way I’m going to spend one moment of my time reading that book. I mean, just look at that webpage, it’s dreck. It’s almost as bad as my webpage.

I’m not sure how someone could get this so badly wrong. But then, I’m hardly an expert on selection theories. I suppose I ought to learn more. But instead of reading that polemical pamphlet I think I might have to go back and read from the people that invented selection theory. Rumour has it that EO Wilson has a new book out, maybe I should give that a try.

I promise, for the next post I'll either stop trying to be funny or at least try a lot harder.