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Lucio Buffalmano is a sociologist and a world expert on power dynamics, strategies, and men's self-development.
In 2016, Lucio founded ThePowerMoves.com to help good men empower themselves, achieve their goals, and win at life.
Today, it’s the world's most popular website on power and strategies.
https://thepowermoves.com/
Lucio Buffalmano is a sociologist and a world expert on power dynamics, strategies, and men's self-development.
In 2016, Lucio founded ThePowerMoves.com to help good men empower themselves, achieve their goals, and win at life.
Today, it’s the world's most popular website on power and strategies.
https://thepowermoves.com/
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LearningTranscript
00:00Everybody talks about evolutionary psychology these days, but only the top 1% understands
00:06the 7 foundations.
00:09This video will take you to the top 1%.
00:13Let's go.
00:14Hi guys, in this video we are going to review 7 foundational principles of evolutionary
00:19psychology, together with how people most often misunderstand them, so in a way it's
00:24also going to be a video about the myths of evolutionary psychology.
00:29Number one, survival of the fittest, which is often confused with survival of the strongest,
00:38which often also becomes bigger.
00:41That is not the case.
00:43Sometimes life moves towards bigger and stronger, but not always.
00:48In general, if we look at all the life on earth, we will see that what is smaller is
00:54actually far more successful, both in terms of how widespread it is, how resistant it
00:59can be to disruptions, but also if we look at size in terms of weight, the biomass of
01:06bacteria is around 6 times bigger than humans.
01:11To weigh as much as bacteria, we will need trillions of humans.
01:16Even within our body, we have more bacteria than we have human cells, so we see that the
01:22smaller bacteria are very good at using anything in their environment to survive and reproduce,
01:29including using us.
01:31And even if we look more in terms of strength, as in terms of being able to use other species,
01:37yes, we can use bacteria, but bacteria are probably even more effective at using us and
01:43some of those bacteria, microorganisms and viruses can kill humans or even bigger animals.
01:49Another good example is the tardigrade, or how you pronounce it, which is the famous
01:54bug that is almost indestructible and you can barely see with the naked eye.
02:00Even if we focus on humans alone, it's not a given that humans move towards bigger sizes.
02:06It has been the case so far, also because we are now living in an abundance of food and nutrients.
02:12However, when we see that humans are struggling a little bit more with gathering food and
02:20nutrients, then the tendency may be to go towards smaller humans.
02:24A good example could be the hominids in Flores, which is an island in Indonesia.
02:29What happened is that the hominids got stuck there when the sea decreased its level and
02:34they underwent an evolution towards dwarfism, getting smaller and smaller, because the bigger
02:39humans struggled to survive with little food and nutrients, but the smaller one could thrive.
02:45And interestingly enough, this could become more relevant in the future as we go and explore,
02:50hopefully, planets outside of the solar system.
02:54You know, difficult places to survive, maybe being smaller there could be an advantage.
02:59Another example I like is that if you take a lizard today and you put it on its back feet,
03:04you have basically a Tyrannosaurus rex, but the dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago
03:11and lizards are still here and everywhere.
03:13Again, this is not to say the smaller is always and necessarily better.
03:18However, it strictly depends on the environment and how the environment changes.
03:23So no, it's not stronger, it's fittest.
03:27Number two, survival and reproduction.
03:31Often confused as if these two were the same, which sometimes they can overlap,
03:37but they are two different realms of evolution.
03:41The two can move in parallel, but they can also move independently
03:45and sometimes they can also go one against the other.
03:48Typical example is the tail of the peacock or the horns, the antlers, sorry, of the deers.
03:55What happened there is that in the beginning the tail of the peacock,
03:59yes, it was both about survival and reproduction,
04:02because having a more colored tail would mean that he had more nutrients
04:07and he could spend waste more of those nutrients on the tail.
04:12So in that case, when the tail was still small, the peacock was also better at surviving.
04:17But as the peahens started focusing on the tails to pick the males
04:22and the males started competing with more and more elaborate and beautiful tails,
04:27then reproduction started moving against survival.
04:31This is called runaway selection.
04:33And then as it started running away from what is normal and effective,
04:39today the peacocks are weighed down by the tail in all possible ways.
04:45For one, it gets stuck.
04:46Two, it takes away too much nutrients and energy.
04:50And three, it attacks predator way too easily.
04:53Same for the deer's antlers.
04:55They started getting so big that it started weighing down the animals.
05:00It gets stuck everywhere.
05:02And there are even memes that shows us that very clearly.
05:05Number three, the proximity principle.
05:08The misunderstanding here is that many people tend to think of evolution
05:13as this magic wand that improves everything efficiently and smoothly.
05:19Instead, evolution is quite sloppy.
05:22The proximity principle means that evolution is only semi-effective
05:28at selecting what is closest and most impactful to survival and reproduction.
05:36Anything else, evolution cannot be efficient at selecting the most efficient trait.
05:43I'll give you an example to make this clear.
05:45Take nails.
05:47Now imagine there is a mutation that make my nails very pretty.
05:51It's not gonna help me in any way to survive more,
05:54not today and probably not even in our evolutionary past,
05:58but it could help a little bit in reproduction.
06:02Maybe some women who are particularly observant
06:05will be a little bit more attracted because of more attractive nails.
06:09However, it's still not gonna be much helpful
06:13and evolution cannot select for those beautiful nails
06:18because it's too low down the imaginary scale of impactfulness,
06:24such as my face, my intelligence, my physical formidability,
06:29my height, my drive to meet women, my social circle,
06:34whether or not I can meet lots of women, etc, etc, etc.
06:38They all matter so much more than nails.
06:42The nails does not matter.
06:44It will not make a difference.
06:46In general, this means that biological evolution
06:50is semi-effective at selecting a few key traits
06:53that are important for reproduction,
06:56but all the rest ends up being background noise.
07:00This is why, for example, whether or not we have hair on our arms
07:05is not going to be selected for or against
07:07because it just doesn't matter too much.
07:10So here again, we see that evolution is not this magic wand
07:14that makes everything more efficient,
07:16but it's just a few key mutations that are going to be selected for or against
07:22and then a ton of background noise.
07:24Number four, the random shotgun approach.
07:27And here the misunderstanding, similar to before,
07:30is that a lot of people tend to think of evolution
07:34as moving towards maximum efficiency in the most efficient way possible,
07:39while in truth the opposite is true.
07:42Evolution is like a blind, drunk, hard, trying to play darts.
07:46It's stupid and blind and moves in a haphazard, scatterbrained approach.
07:52This is because evolution does not predict
07:55where the target is or it could be.
07:58It just shoots at random.
08:00I'll give you a very good example.
08:02Well, I hope it's a very good example to make you understand this concept.
08:06Imagine you have a sales page and you wanted to make it more effective.
08:10So the good marketer would isolate a few key variables
08:13that he thinks are going to be very impactful.
08:16So for example, he will take the background color or the title
08:20and then what he will do, he changes one of those
08:23with something that he thinks may be more effective
08:26and then he compares the normal version with the updated one
08:29and depicts the winner.
08:30However, evolution cannot do that.
08:34Evolution cannot make predictions about what is going to be most effective
08:39and even more importantly, evolution cannot isolate variables.
08:45So if you take the biological approach to improving the sales page,
08:49you should wait for evolution to change the background color.
08:53The background color will change randomly
08:56while everything else in that sales page will also be changing.
09:01So we see here how evolution cannot even come close to the efficiency
09:07on our human systems that are not depending on random genetic mutation.
09:12Number five, the complexity curse principle.
09:15And the misunderstanding here is that people tend to think that
09:19more complex, such as humans, of course, are better and potentially more effective.
09:25And instead, when it comes to biological evolution, the opposite is true.
09:29Now, please understand, this is a little bit more my speculation,
09:33my understanding and my second level thinking.
09:36However, follow through and maybe it will make sense.
09:38Evolution is on a seesaw trade-off where more complexity equals less efficient.
09:44Let's take again the sales page example from before.
09:47Now, what happens with biological evolution is that
09:50the more elements you add to the sales page,
09:54the more difficult it will be for evolution to make that page
09:58more efficient at every single level.
10:02And now imagine that you don't only have one single sales page,
10:07but you have a big blog such as thepowermoves.com.
10:11So what happens there is that evolution will be more effective
10:14at selecting for or against all those traits that are closest to making the sales,
10:20so to speak, while all the rest doesn't really matter.
10:24So when complexity grows, we have more opportunities
10:29for having several maladaptive traits that develop
10:33as long as they are not in the sales page.
10:37In the blog example, the sales page could get better and better,
10:41but random articles could get worse and worse.
10:44In our nail example from before, the nail could become uglier or less effective.
10:51Because it's such low down the priority scale, it's not going to make a difference.
10:56So in the case of evolution of complex organisms,
10:59we will have a few key traits that, yes, are being selected for what's most effective,
11:04but a number of traits that are just going to change randomly
11:08and are not going to become more effective.
11:11And in some cases, they may even become less effective.
11:14But as long as they are not very impactful, it doesn't matter.
11:18Number 5.2 is the law of the large numbers or handicap principle.
11:24And it's similar to the one before.
11:26But the twist that this adds is that as the complexity grows more and more,
11:31including the social complexity where these traits operate,
11:35and evolution will also struggle with those key traits
11:39that promote survivability and reproduction.
11:42This is because the traits that matter are not just a few,
11:47but become a basket of traits that interact with each other
11:51with even more genes standing behind those traits.
11:55I'll give you an example in dating.
11:56Short stature today is a con when it comes to dating.
12:00But I know a guy who, despite being very short,
12:04is also very driven to meet women.
12:07Some people say he's not too stupid.
12:09He learned how to play the game well.
12:11He's very strategic and Machiavellian.
12:14He knows what to say to women.
12:16He's very driven to meet them.
12:17He puts himself in the right places, etc, etc, etc.
12:21And so despite the very short stature,
12:24that man still met many women who wanted to conceive his children.
12:28So there you see that even when you take one key trait,
12:33just the key trait is difficult to be selected for or against
12:37when there are so many other traits
12:39that are very impactful to survival and reproduction.
12:43Luckily, this is also great news for you
12:45because it means that whatever luck you may have,
12:49you can relatively easily make up for it
12:52as long as you are good with all the other traits,
12:54which is why, by the way,
12:55the Power Moves and Power University
12:57can be so helpful and impactful to the underdogs of this world.
13:02Principle number six is the principle of repetition,
13:06which means mutations need a large sample size
13:11to be selected for or against.
13:14In simpler words, mutations must be useful
13:17many, many times during a lifetime to be selected for.
13:21Let me give you another example to make it clear.
13:24And this will be an example from The Rational Male,
13:27probably the most popular book in the monosphere.
13:30Also a good example that humanity is not selecting for high IQ anymore.
13:35The author of that book say that women fall out of love much faster
13:40and fall in love with new men much more quickly than men
13:44because they had to get used to new captors
13:48invading their tribes and killing the men.
13:50However, this is a best storytelling and very likely BS
13:55because for such an important adaptation to evolve
13:58in our evolutionary history,
14:00it should have happened many, many, many, many times over
14:04during a woman's lifetime
14:06that she experienced a new captor coming in,
14:10which is unlikely.
14:11And indeed, if we look today at the difference
14:13between how men and women fall in love or out of love,
14:16there is not such a big difference.
14:18Of course, you can't expect that level of thinking
14:21and analysis from certain authors.
14:23Number seven, the genetic inheritability principle.
14:28And the misunderstanding here is that people struggle
14:31to differentiate what is inheritable at a genetic level
14:35versus culture and learning.
14:38It's a simple concept, but still so easy to confuse
14:43and so often getting confused.
14:45And in this case, I can understand the confusion
14:49because there is an overlap between genes and behavior.
14:53As an example, take a man smoking.
14:56The child of that man will be more likely to smoke
14:59than if he had a non-smoking father.
15:02So some people may confuse the fact
15:04that because the father smoked so much during his lifetime,
15:08then the habit got passed on.
15:10However, that is not the case.
15:12The only thing that can be passed on
15:14is the propensity to smoke.
15:17For example, the propensity to enjoy smoking,
15:20to try new things or to get hooked to nicotine,
15:23but not the fact that the man smoked a lot
15:26during his lifetime.
15:27And there is one more example here
15:29from a popular dating book.
15:31The author there say that men like to socialize side by side
15:36rather than standing in front of each other
15:39because they used to hunt side by side.
15:41This one is so nonsense that it doesn't need any explanation.
15:45However, the trap here is that because men supposedly
15:49used to spend a lot of time side by side,
15:52then they also evolved to socialize side by side.
15:55However, that is not the case
15:57because just because you repeat a behavior
16:01during your lifetime,
16:03it cannot be genetically passed on to the next generation.
16:07What can be passed on is the propensity
16:11to enjoy side by side socialization
16:15or the dislike for socializing in front of each other,
16:18but not the habit.
16:20Now, I would like to talk a little bit
16:21about understanding the foundations in general.
16:24And not understanding the foundations
16:27is an issue that I found in many different disciplines
16:31and that many people fall for.
16:33The first time I noticed was in high school.
16:36Quick story time here.
16:38The professor was having a verbal quiz at the whiteboard
16:42and the lady there was doing high degree equations
16:46and she was doing them well enough.
16:48And then the professor asked her,
16:51when is it that a fraction equals the whole?
16:54And she couldn't reply.
16:56The professor then turned to the class and asked the class,
17:00when is it that the fraction equals the whole?
17:02And I thought, oh, okay, this is such a great opportunity.
17:06For all those highly ambitious women to show off
17:09that they know it.
17:10And it's also a way of social climbing
17:13on the poor lady that was at the whiteboard.
17:15The quicker you jump on it,
17:16the more you show your intelligence,
17:18but you're also in a way showing that it was her being silly.
17:22I didn't reply because I didn't want to play that game,
17:25but I was surprised that nobody else in the class
17:27jumped on that opportunity.
17:29And then the professor started prodding the class
17:31until he was almost getting angry and yelled,
17:34when is it that the fraction equals the whole?
17:37Hey, he was an Italian professor after all.
17:40And still the class could get it.
17:42That showed to me that sometimes
17:44people can even operate well at the advanced level
17:49while still not understanding or forgetting the basics.
17:52In that case, the fraction is a portion of a whole.
17:55So one third means you divided by three and take one,
17:59two thirds divided by three and take two,
18:02three thirds, you take the whole once again.
18:06So a fraction is equal to whole
18:08when numerator and denominator are the same.
18:11In that case, it's also equal to one and 100%.
18:15And as I grew up,
18:17I've seen this issue more and more
18:18and more and more disciplines.
18:19And the Power Moves could be successful
18:22because it addressed such an issue.
18:25Self-help and social skills courses, books, and authors
18:29were missing on one of the most important foundations
18:33of an effective life, which is power,
18:36including Machiavellianism, manipulations,
18:39and life strategies and related topics.
18:42So in case you are interested
18:43in becoming a more effective man,
18:45that's exactly what Power University can deliver for you.
18:49You will get to understand
18:50one of the most important foundations for an effective life
18:54so that you can become a life winner.
18:56We also leverage evolutionary psychology
18:59to deliver you the best strategies and techniques.
19:02And it's the good evolutionary psychology,
19:05not the blah, blah, blah and BS one.
19:07As a practical takeaway here,
19:09I will say do not listen to random monosphere gurus
19:13or dating authors.
19:15I have never seen a single one of them
19:17who actually understood the basics
19:20of evolutionary psychology.
19:22And if you're an evolutionary psychologist
19:24and listening here,
19:25I would love to hear your criticism.
19:27And I would actually propose you
19:31to write a book about the foundations.
19:35The discipline desperately need that book.
19:38I need it.
19:39I would love to read it.
19:40You will hopefully marry something
19:42that is both a commercial success
19:45and something that is super useful
19:47because it will plug an important hole.
19:50Thank you so much for listening, guys.
19:51Big hug and I'll see you the next time.
19:53Ciao, ciao.