I’ve actually been discussing pickup on LessWrong for a while. I’ve been attempting to de-jargonize it, and translate the language into terms that are less likely to offend people. The result is a lot of dry and verbose comments in dark corners of other threads. Here is a haphazardly-organized index of my comments that either discuss pickup, or discuss related issues about ethics or personal development:
Thanks so much for this. I’ve been following your comments on PUA since first stumbling upon one of them buried deep on an obscure thread of this forum a few months ago, and it’s extremely useful to have them all listed and organized in one place.
EDIT: Also, it would be great if you could keep this comment updated.
Here’s someone else who’s getting value out of it. You’re also my go to example of an ethical PUA although I’m sure there are professionals who deliberately fill that market niche.
This collection of links not just merits but definitely needs to be a Discussion post at least! Just copy it as a standalone post, your work is excellent and deserves to be in the spotlight.
I’ve actually been discussing pickup on LessWrong for a while. I’ve been attempting to de-jargonize it, and translate the language into terms that are less likely to offend people. The result is a lot of dry and verbose comments in dark corners of other threads. Here is a haphazardly-organized index of my comments that either discuss pickup, or discuss related issues about ethics or personal development:
Pickup and rationality: naive realism and the availability heuristic in pickup, rationalist practices in pickup communities
Female preferences, and PUA models thereof: priors when approaching women the need for impersonal initial heuristics and stereotypes in social and sexual interaction, PUA vs. feminist views of women’s preferences, flaws in the standard PUA model of women, how PUAs observe gender-typical women, and how they fail to model gender-atypical women, while gender-atypical women fail to understand gender-typical women that PUAs are modeling, greater female selectivity about behavior, creating models of human interaction from anecdotal data
Sexual ethics: manipulation, questions to ask about whether sexual influence is ethical, buyer’s remorse, “duping” women, deception, hiding romantic interest, compliance (and here, and here), entitlement and consent, hacking people’s brains (and why that’s a silly notion)
What PUAs actually do: thoughts on the language of PUAs, beneficial life skills from studying pickup, relationship attitudes of PUAs, relationship screening skills, and results of people I’ve known
Self, authenticity, and social development: the haves and have-nots of social skills, social problems and developmental delays of romantically challenged men, experimenting on people, epistemic rationality vs. social perception, the ethics and nature of self-enhancement / impression management, fake it ’til you make it, self-narratives and identity, and honesty
On my gender politics blog, you can also find:
an explanation of some pickup techniques that may appeal to feminists, and further ethical discussion of them
a collection of posts about research women’s preferences in men, whether women “know what they want”, and research on men’s and women’s sexual fantasies
Thanks so much for this. I’ve been following your comments on PUA since first stumbling upon one of them buried deep on an obscure thread of this forum a few months ago, and it’s extremely useful to have them all listed and organized in one place.
EDIT: Also, it would be great if you could keep this comment updated.
Thanks… glad to know that someone is getting something out of those walls of text.
Here’s someone else who’s getting value out of it. You’re also my go to example of an ethical PUA although I’m sure there are professionals who deliberately fill that market niche.
Most excellent.
Thanks for this post, bookmarked.
This collection of links not just merits but definitely needs to be a Discussion post at least! Just copy it as a standalone post, your work is excellent and deserves to be in the spotlight.