@First-light

either kicking against it

Back on Roosh's PUA forum around 2000-2002, I fought tooth and nail against the use of "alpha" and "beta" like that.

It was like trying to stop a tsunami with my hands.

I never got the idea of the Sigma, surely there are just lots of different sorts of Alpha

That's been pretty much the response of anyone with a brain. The only people latching onto "sigma" are asocial dorks who try to reframe their status as outcasts into being "too cool for school".

And in fairness to Vox Day, he did predict that in his writeup of this crap back when he first came up with it.

depending on... situation...

To what extent are these rankings situational as opposed to general? We can all think of a leader at a club who is really quite low ranking in life but is a revered expert in his field, often rather irritatingly using his temporary status to grab all the female attention he can.

Roissy/Heartiste called that "the Situational Alpha".

I recall one particular example was this nerdy-ass teacher who ended up fucking one of his (underage, if memory serves) students. Dude was a total Melvin everywhere else in his life, but in his classroom, he was viewed as a king (at least by the student he fucked).

The only use I've seen for this Greek letter silliness is what was originally proposed by Athol Kay and since then adopted by MRP: alpha and beta as behaviors and traits that all men possess to varying degrees, and can learn to tailor them to certain goals.