who would have understood the dangers immediately and acted quite ruthlessly. laces are sh#tholes not becasue of the Big Men, but because the general intellectual development is low. Perhaps the big men and their r-strategy are connected to low level of intellectual development in those countries. Big men of third-world type hog so many of the resources that outsiders are doomed from the start by the poverty and malnutrition that the big men leave in their wake. I understand that you are employing the term differently, and I don't entirely disagree with you. But your choice of term for your preferred type of patriotic leader rankled. I think what I am trying to say is that in order for societies to thrive demographically, men need to be men. In low-IQ countries, Big Men tend to behave as you describe, but in high-IQ societies, they are liable to be constrained more, including by their own self-control. It is, therefore, possible for "Big Men" to behave in an acceptable way, providing the society around them is sophisticated. But sophistication itself will not compensate for the lack of masculine behavior to ensure continuity in society. We have traded away masculinity for "equality" of the sexes, and we are going to pay a huge price - looming extinction.