Sexual Selection in Dixie

It is pretty much standard fare in the South to see guys driving big pickups around, very loudly, hoping that the girls will be impressed enough to have sex with them, and maybe give them a half dozen kids or so. I know this happens everywhere, but it is particularly common in the South.

I generally have great esteem for women: their capacity for empathy, and often their intelligence, far exceeds that of men. Boys aren’t born inferior, but as they grow up they learn, especially in the South, that empathy and intelligence make them look less manly and might interfere with their chances to impress and impregnate girls.

But sometimes women can make some stupid choices. When a guy drives a big pickup truck around and makes noise and releases a cloud of fumes thick enough that I could run my Prius on them (just the fumes), what does this prove? It only proves that they can push a gas pedal down. It does not prove that they are skillful drivers (I saw one of them get stuck in a ditch, having assumed that his truck was powerful enough to back out of it at a 45-degree slope), nor does it prove that they are rich (the truck might have been bought on credit). Some women actually fall for it. I mean, if it never worked, then guys might stop doing it; natural selection would certainly operate against it. But it works often enough that the dynamo of sexual selection keeps the Dixie stereotype going. The kids pop out and learn to behave like their parents.

Trucks, guns, beer, and sperm: the male characteristics produced by sexual selection in Dixie. The female characteristics? Telling the males how virile they are and having lots of kids. From this list, only the sperm and the kids make any sense from the evolutionary viewpoint. Sexual selection in Dixie certainly does not produce intelligence or skill which might bring wealth or reduce the burden of social problems. This is why Dixie will remain forever poor. In other cultures in America and in other cultures of the world, intelligence and cooperation are sexually desirable traits. The future belongs to those cultures, whether the progressive culture in America, or the prevailing cultures of Europe, China, and Japan.