The comment by shminux is currently at +9, 76% positive, while the comment by Viliam Búr is at +9, 68% positive. If you are a partisan of this, it is hard not to downvote the opposing team because you feel that they are directly harming people with their counterproductive advice and toxic memes.
I’d like to say that I believe our comments are not contradictory. In my opinion they merely highlight the different aspects of the situation. To simplify it, shminux said that Gunnar’s ex was unhappy in the relationship, so she finally optimized for herself, and maybe because of her choice at the end both will be more happy. I said that Gunnar did some mistakes, and in an alternate reality where he would have and use some “Red Pill” knowledge, the relationship could have been happy for both sides. These statements can both be true in the same universe. The contradiction comes at the level of connotations, whether a passive or active approach is suggested (accepting what happened and hoping for a better opportunity, or strategically learning and changing oneself).
The only thing I object against here is treating “attraction” (of a woman towards a man) as a fixed fact, instead of something the man can (and should, for both partners’ sake) influence by his behavior. But even this is not explicitly recommended here; it just irradiates as a background assumption from some comments. So speaking for myself, I don’t see “counterproductive advice and toxic memes” here.
My “mission” here was to show Gunnar how his situation seems from my perspective; to offer a potentially useful model. Which parts he agrees or disagrees with, that’s his choice which I fully respect. I just want him to act from conscious choice, not from ignorance; but he already was exploring in this direction. Okay, mission accomplished.
(I am kinda surprised about the karma of my top-level comment; I expected it to be close to zero. Even now I think is was not actually caused by the popularity of the presented framework or by my quality of presentation, but mostly by the context of the article: one LW member had a problem, another LW member was trying to help him, so the other members were more likely to upvote and less likely to downvote, even if they didn’t agree completely.)
I’d like to say that I believe our comments are not contradictory. In my opinion they merely highlight the different aspects of the situation. To simplify it, shminux said that Gunnar’s ex was unhappy in the relationship, so she finally optimized for herself, and maybe because of her choice at the end both will be more happy. I said that Gunnar did some mistakes, and in an alternate reality where he would have and use some “Red Pill” knowledge, the relationship could have been happy for both sides. These statements can both be true in the same universe. The contradiction comes at the level of connotations, whether a passive or active approach is suggested (accepting what happened and hoping for a better opportunity, or strategically learning and changing oneself).
The only thing I object against here is treating “attraction” (of a woman towards a man) as a fixed fact, instead of something the man can (and should, for both partners’ sake) influence by his behavior. But even this is not explicitly recommended here; it just irradiates as a background assumption from some comments. So speaking for myself, I don’t see “counterproductive advice and toxic memes” here.
My “mission” here was to show Gunnar how his situation seems from my perspective; to offer a potentially useful model. Which parts he agrees or disagrees with, that’s his choice which I fully respect. I just want him to act from conscious choice, not from ignorance; but he already was exploring in this direction. Okay, mission accomplished.
(I am kinda surprised about the karma of my top-level comment; I expected it to be close to zero. Even now I think is was not actually caused by the popularity of the presented framework or by my quality of presentation, but mostly by the context of the article: one LW member had a problem, another LW member was trying to help him, so the other members were more likely to upvote and less likely to downvote, even if they didn’t agree completely.)