This is not mine. Jim Bowery, a commenter over at The Inductivist (a blog I occasionally indulge), tells the parable of the smart birds manipulated by the genius birds. I link to it because it is very good in that way parables are supposed to be good: by illuminating ancient and immutable dynamics in human social relations and hinting at the lessons therein.
Once there were 3 classes of birds of a feather: Dumb birds, Smart birds and Genius birds. There was also a genius bird of a different feather hanging around. All summer the genius bird of a different feather went around to the smart birds of a feather telling them how ridiculous it was to fly south for the winter — that these atavistic instincts were a terrible legacy from “the bad old days” and gave very sophisticated-sounding arguments that the smart birds of a feather couldn’t quite understand but understood quite well that they’d better pretend to understand lest they be accused of being dumb birds.
Fall cometh. The dumb birds fly south to the derision of the smart birds. The genius birds of a feather think, “I’ve heard the arguments about flying south for the winter being only for dumb birds, but where really do these feelings come from? Could they have survival value? Could the genius bird of a different feather have a conflict of interest?” Even before thinking the answers through, the mere doubts raised were sufficient to motivate flying south. The smart birds of a feather, hearing these doubts raised by the genius birds of a feather proceeded to attack them as “dumb birds”. They felt superior to the genius birds of a feather. Some genius birds of a feather were even injured enough to stop them from being able to fly south.
Winter hits. The smart birds of a feather die. The injured genius birds of a feather die. The genius birds of a different feather turn out to have an adaptation to cold weather. Spring comes. An evolutionary dynamic reveals itself…
The smart bird parable has much to tell us about intergroup competition. “Flying south” is a stand-in for the metaphor of your choice — drug use, single parenthood, mass immigration — and the group can be however you define it, by class, race or religion. It isn’t a precise explication of contemporary social patterns, but what it does well is get at the rudimentary compulsion which drives group antagonism, and the expedient alliances that serve group self-interest and buttress group self-identification.
Wake up white man.
So can I keep my drug habit or no? I need clear, simple answers here.
so,
dumb birds = proles,
smart birds = liberal elites
injured genius birds = conservatives
genius birds of a different feather = jews.
more or less?
Bill Gates: Success is a menace. It fools smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)
http://www.heretical.com/pubs/fabledh.html
Intragroup competition?
A little contrived, and aimed pretty clearly at a certain comtemporary sort of anti-elitist sentiment, compared to spare and essential classics like Aesop’s sour grapes. The most effective parables get their power from simplicity and universality.
This can totally be converted into a comfort stage routine in pickup.
Bonus for giving a hint to the right set of girls to not follow feminism.
I’m guessing the genius bird of a different feather was a Jay.
Would you say that most White European descended Gentile(WEDG) people are the smart birds? They don’t seem to defend temselves very well these days in whatever country they’re in at all. Most to one degree or another don’t know what a mess we’re in and that it’s going to get worse, much worse. I’m a WEDG, but I look around and see a lot of senseless critters among my own. Does anyone have any comments or questions to agree or disagree with me?
Kevin MacDonald: Now In Parable Form
My brain overflowed at the part with the 3 groups of birds
There are four groups of birds.
Dumb birds of a feather (db)
Smart birds of a feather (sb)
Genius birds of a feather (gb)
Genius birds of a different feather (gbodf)
Gbodf wipes out sb by convincing them to act against their own best interests. On their way out, sb takes some of the gb with them. db just keep following their instincts.
I read a comment by Greg Cochran once that went something like this:
“it seems as though people of average intelligence believe x, above average believe y and far above average believe x”.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-06/giot-nss061011.php
New study supports Darwin’s hypothesis on competition between species
A new study provides support for Darwin’s hypothesis that the struggle for existence is stronger between more closely related species than those distantly related. While ecologists generally accept the premise, this new study contains the strongest direct experimental evidence yet to support its validity.
“We found that species extinction occurred more frequently and more rapidly between species of microorganisms that were more closely related, providing strong support for Darwin’s theory, which we call the phylogenetic limiting similarity hypothesis,” said Lin Jiang, an assistant professor in the School of Biology at Georgia Tech.
[…]
“We selected bacterivorous ciliated protist microorganisms for this study because they rapidly reproduce, allowing us to examine species co-existence over multiple generations in a closed system during a period of a few weeks, which wouldn’t be possible if we were testing the hypothesis with plants or animals,” said Jiang.
The researchers set up 165 microcosms that contained either an individual protist species or a pairing of two species, along with three types of bacteria for the organisms to eat. They collected weekly samples from each microcosm and examined them under a microscope, recording the presence or absence of species. After 10 weeks, the researchers estimated the density of the protist species in each microcosm.
The study results showed that all species survived until the end of the experiment when alone in a microcosm. However, in more than half of the experiments in which protists were paired together, one of the two species dominated, leading to the extinction of the other species.
The researchers found that the frequency and speed of this extinction process — called competitive exclusion — was significantly greater between species that were more closely related. In addition, in microcosms where both competitors coexisted for the duration of the experiment, the abundance of the inferior competitor was reduced more as the phylogenetic relatedness between the two competitors increased.
Aesop’s fables.
Everyone shoudl read them. Example: the story of the bitch and the kennel, which is a perfect fable and cautionary tale of population-replacement.
The “birds” fable is a nice illustration of what Auster calls the Unprincipled Exception. Leftism screens gullible lefties against the self-preserving ones. Thus, when the message is “be racially open” (sexually, in terms of personal safety, what will you), the dim lefties, maybe proles with uppity ambitions, or uncritical true-believers, take this message at face-value. And perish, or slide down in social standing as a single mother with a mischling. Or forgot to have children until “OOOPS! I’m 45 and barren.” They embraced leftism without applying the self-preserving Unprincipled Exception.
Smart lefties preach, but don’t practice. We call them SWPLs.
Hilariously, immediately after reading this post, I stumble upon:
http://news.yahoo.com/low-iq-conservative-beliefs-linked-prejudice-180403506.html
Bit of a complicated explanation isn’t it?
It’s really much simpler if you remember one principle: nature abhors a vacuum. Where an ecological niche exists, a species will evolve to fill that niche.
Humans are unique in that we have evolved to fill more niches than any species before us. Usually we fill small or temporary niches through cultural adaptation. Where a niche exists for a long period of time, we begin to change genetically in order to exploit it even more effectively.
So there are currently two main male niches in society: use your social skills to get laid a lot, and eventually have a kid either through love or accident. Or, use your intelligence to become wealthy, and let women use your resources in exchange for access to their reproductive facilities (provided they don’t cuckold you).
Game introduces a third option: use you intelligence to become socially skilled, then use that knowledge to get laid. What does this do to the balance of genetic strategies? It’s very hard to say, and really it’s more a subject for computational modeling. It changes the balance, but over large timescales we really have no idea precisely how.
Interesting illustration of group dynamics using birds. Maybe its an all to obvious comparison, but the first group that came to mind for the genius birds of a different feather are the elites in the fields of higher education.
Good post. Keep the political commentary coming.
Yeah, this makes a lot of sense, if I apply it to the guys at my office
James Bowery has written extensively on Jews.
so to decode this parable:
genius = Jews (average IQ 110)
smart = whites (average IQ 100)
dumb = minorities (average IQ 90)
flying south represents the social disorder caused by Jews in a society. In general, Jews advocate undermining the traditions of white Christians.
Wrong.
There are — count them again — four types of bird: genius, smart and dumb of one feather, genius birds “of a different feather”.
Humans of European ancestry, excluding Jews and so on, number about a billion people (rapidly diminishing). Jews are about 13.5 million.
Jews have an average higher IQ, 113-114 are the usual figures. There is a greater spread among Europeans, the mean is around 100, but there is a comparable number of higher IQ Europeans, mostly of Northwest ancestry.
James Bowery is not saying Jews are all of the genius birds, of both feathers, but that the one is misleading the other, and only the genius Gentile birds elect to follow the dumb.
The dumb birds do not symbolize minorities for one reason: kaffirs are too dumb to do anything right themselves, while Hispanics would, certainly, retreat to their nations in the event of “Winter”.
Being smart and having a brain is a curse if it is your brain controlling you and not you controlling your brain. Especially if there is a strong pride in looking to be smart and classy. Being in control of your smart logical (actually hamster) brain and knowing when to follow it and when to discard it is called wisdom.
Like most scientist nerds just can’t help to fallow the inclinations of their mind and develop weapons and technology for the dumber (or in the rare case more wiser) wealthy buisnessman or politican to use and turn against little people like scientists themselves.
Or like most whites in USA can’t help but to sabotage their race to look more classy and in tune with modern “diversity” school of thought.
Parable breaks down because the “genius birds” are actually really fucking stupid. Have you read a krugman column? Good talk on this at jim’s blog:
http://blog.jim.com/culture/not-the-cognitive-elite.html
High-Five to Jim!
Sounds like Kevin MacDonald.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_B._MacDonald
Uhmmm…OK.
Truth it is, but i dont think it is a reversibile, for the USA, even the West, maybe The world.
The parable of the smart birds is Edmund Burke’s thesis: no matter how much you think you’ve got it figured out, smart guy, be humble before institutional wisdom and the ways of tradition because they developed over millennia of trial and error.
Or G.K. Chesterton referring to the “democracy of the dead.” Orthodoxy and conservatism seem dumb on the surface to the analyst. New generations inevitably ask, “Why should we do things the old way? I don’t get it.” Well, the deep sources of wisdom that sustain certain customs cannot be grasped easily, but the their integrity is proved by their longevity. At any rate, if we are going to reevaluate old ways with each generation, if some customs are to be discontinued, at very least we should not be discard them lightly. (Hello, Marx! We’re looking at you.) Give the dead a vote:
Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be [alive]. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils. The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones.
The dumb birds go south because they have experienced enough winters to know it gets cold. The dead went through countless more winters than we have, and they established traditions for reasons only accessible by respecting their wisdom.
The smart birds (like “progressive” academicians, who are monolithically leftist) are just smart enough to reject that wisdom, like snotty kids who look down on their dads. They believe they must be smarter simply because they came after the last generation, and they imagine themselves building upon their knowledge base even though they explicitly reject that hard-won knowledge as retrograde. Whatever you want to call that, it’s not “smart.” Which is why, for all the academic credentials of leftwingers, for all their sneering and dedications to the accoutrements of intellectuals, I have never in my life, ever, met a truly smart man of the left. They became arrogant early, decided all issues settled, and stopped learning in their intellectual adolescence.
So, convinced as you are that nothing can be true if it doesn’t sound sciencey, use the trendy language of biology if you must — “evolutionary dynamic,” “adaptation,” “survival value,” etc. But we’ve been on to this stuff for awhile. Just give over to conservatism and you’ll be all right. Trust me. What good is trial and error on a grand scale when the youthful delusions of independence require him to start over every generation?
Es ist zeit fur reich?
It could also be a parable for marriage.
The dumb birds get married, while the smart birds who listen to the genius birds of a different feather say, “Fuck marriage! It’s a scam!” and end up being weeded out of the gene pool because they don’t get married and pass on their genes.
This is awesome.
Maybe it was all the marijuana I’ve been smoking but I couldn’t work out which fucking bird of what feather or genius was saying what to who about flying and halfway through I gave up. Whats the cliffs notes?
Well, this is why when I write for the masses, I keep certain things in mind. Advising them to live as if they have choices that they don’t and options that they don’t just because I have those choices and options, is convincing them to kill themselves.
The genius bird of a different feather could be an evil genius who wanted to cull the smart or let’s say middle class of birds, or he could just have been too socially inept and self centered to realize that he was so different.
Either way, the result is a bunch of dead birds.
It is interesting how Nature works despite our intentions.
Liberals put up billboard calling all white people racist
Sounds like an analogy to the Jewish Question(TM).
Great story. The takeaway here is that the goal of being more alpha means to falling victim to your own self-doubt or the often selfish and self-serving agendas of others who seek to pull you down because they lack the courage to break free themselves.
I had a recent situation where a girl I know and who I always game and seems to respond…had apparently told the girl I’m going out with not to spend time with me. She also sought to try to actively exclude me from some social-circle event while inviting the girl I’m seeing.
The truth here is misery loves company. The “smart birds” here try to pull down the genius birds by attacking them.
The genius birds who succumb to these attacks lose.
What’s missing in all this, is the fact that the “dumb birds” are actually smart whereas the “smart birds” in this parable are the dumb ones.
One thing I find is that when you demonstrate a kind of magnanimity rather than being something that is welcomed by passive aggressive cunts, it actually turns them against you. But if you turn bitter and play their game you get sucked into a drama of your own creation.
In social circles when you get attacked, look for the true message.
Why were the smart birds trying to sow doubt? Were they genuinely questioning the wisdom of flying south…or were they too lazy to fly and wanted to find others who could validate this lack of resourcefullness and effort?
dumb birds: non-federal income tax paying, net-loss-to-the-economy underclass.
smart birds: guilty white liberals and other assorted Democrat voters
genius birds: conservatives, libertarians
injured genius birds: traditionalist, conservative-leaning individuals who vote Democrat bc they succumb to the belief that if they don’t, they must be racist or stupid but don’t really understand why.
genius bird of a different feather: professional liberal politicians, academics, and the occassional big-govt Republican.
winter: societal collapse when the United States no longer has sufficient strength in its currency nor sufficient credit to borrow money from the rest of the world to support the entitlement state (read: the vote-buying state)
death: the extinction of the entitlement state voter as a political animal
spring: anything from the fracturing of the country into two or more separate nations (shall the south rise again?); to civil war; to a brief period of utter lawlessness, to be replaced by a period of martial law while a new totalitarian “republic” is cobbled together under a Putin-esque savior.
Obama 2012!
They don’t seem to defend temselves very well these days in whatever country they’re in at all.
Their advanced creature comforts depend on the same infrastructure as brings and has brought other races into the Anglo-American post-Christian universalist franchise.
To be rid of other races, we would have to revert technologically.
Find a people in all of human history who have done that in toto.
The point is that a valid but adversarial point can disguise its adversarial nature with “sophisticated-sounding” arguments.
It’s probably not a good idea to draw analogies between broad categories of people like “Jews” or “liberals.” The analogy loses its potency because you’re obviously starting out with prejudices. It’s better to start by replacing “flying south” with a specific issue and then identifying the various arguments and groups.