It is a controversial topic, already considered taboo here by many people, and would offend a lot of people.
But I would like very much to read it. And I am offended by people who try to prevent people from saying things that offend them. So you have to offend somebody!
I don’t care if people are turned away by it. We’ve gotta have one place that is pure, where people can speak truth and be as politically incorrect and offensive as they dare, and not make reason bend over backwards in the name of popularity. And this is that place.
I will say, though, that I’ve read/heard/watched/tried a lot of material over the past 4 years by DeAngelo, Style, Mystery, Lance Mason, etc.; and none of it has ever helped me one bit. I think that most of it works for a certain personality-type of guy, which I am not, on a certain personality-type of woman, who don’t like guys like me. The branches of the PUA industry descended from Copeland, DeAngelo, and Mystery (we need a phylogenetic tree here) are focused on picking up the type of shallow, party-girl, bitchy woman that is not interested in intellectuals. I bore them, and they bore me. IMHO “cocky comedy” backfires on a large percentage of women, and on a larger percentage of interesting women.
Techniques and pickup lines fade into insignificance compared to a man’s basic emotional makeup. Women are attracted by the personality that a man conveys; but I’ve seen no evidence that this “inner game” can be taught. I’ve seen some men who powerfully project the “confidence” that women find so sexy. Some of them acquired this confidence by becoming rich and successful. Most are just non-introspective/shallow/high-energy/arrogant/cheerful/sociopathic (pick at least two). But none of them were taught.
It would have helped me a great deal to have read this material when I was in college. It would have destroyed the dysfunctional things I had been taught (e.g., “Dating leads to sin; banter is rude; sex is dirty; women don’t want sex; love is spiritual, not physical; just be yourself; just wait, and the right woman for you will be attracted to you”), and I probably would have been able to connect with at least some of the women who threw themselves at me when I was in college.
It has helped me get a lot of phone numbers and emails from women—not using specific techniques, which I’m lousy at, but just knowing that nothing awful will happen if I walk up to a strange woman and talk to her and ask for her number. But those phone #s and emails that I got using PUA techniques, don’t usually convert! And I’ve lost at least one woman by using those techniques, so I’m maybe breaking even.
Bodybuilding was a more effective way of pickup up women. For me, spending an hour a day in the gym, and fifteen minutes talking to women, is more effective than spending an hour and fifteen minutes in a bar. For many guys that is probably not the case. I am a bar-environment-defective personality. Being the quiet type is appealing if you are muscular, possibly because women know it’s by choice and not out of fear, and definitely because some women are intrigued by the contrast. Women like the strong and silent type, not the silent type.
Bodybuilding was a more effective way of pickup up women. For me, spending an hour a day in the gym, and fifteen minutes talking to women, is more effective than spending an hour and fifteen minutes in a bar. For many guys that is probably not the case. I am a bar-environment-defective personality. Being the quiet type is appealing if you are muscular, possibly because women know it’s by choice and not out of fear, and definitely because some women are intrigued by the contrast. Women like the strong and silent type, not the silent type.
My experience exactly. The gym makes an enormous difference to attractiveness. The trifecta of physical appeal, self confidence and hormone adjustment.
I don’t care if people are turned away by it. We’ve gotta have one place that is pure, where people can speak truth and be as politically incorrect and offensive as they dare, and not make reason bend over backwards in the name of popularity. And this is that place.
No, it isn’t. There’s already a pretty strong taboo against discussing politics, even though there’s a lot of important ways politics interacts with rationality. And that’s because even though it is theoretically possible to talk about politics safely, rationally, in practice it simply doesn’t last, and has an overall negative effect on the community as people descend into tribalism.
I think there is plenty of good stuff to talk about regarding PUA. But it is going to have consequences. Women will be turned off unless it is discussed extremely carefully. Sooner or later someone will slip up and say something NOT careful, which comes across as sexist. The first few slip ups will be accidental and forgiveable, but unless there is a constant pushback from women and female-advocates, it’s going to gradually get worse, and most of the males won’t even notice. If there IS constant pushback and reminders whenever people inadvertently point out sexist thinking, many people will not say “oh, my bad,” they will say “come on stop overreacting” which a) often ends up being sexist all by itself and b) creates a dichotomy which leads to tribalism. So for most intents and purposes, PUA counts as politics.
In this case, the slip up was in the very first line of the post: Lukeprog started with the words “Attraction and Seduction for Heterosexual Male Rationalists.” This already suggests to women perusing the site that this is a site for heterosexual males, and the word “seduction” already is implicitly objectifying women. It’s possible for someone to have done it tastefully and carefully, but this post wasn’t it and the people reacting negatively to it are perfectly justified.
I would agree with your call for rationalist debate on the matter and agree that branding such debate “wrong” is well wrong. But I must disagree with the venue, because of signalling reasons. I would also to a limited extent endorse your criticism of the effectiveness of PUA for some (our?) kinds of people.
The main value I got out of PUA is its excellent predictive value, not any particular benefit via applying said knowledge.
The main tangible practical benefit I got from PUA can be summed up in the following four points:
Preform many many light-hearted social experiments, you need data.
Most of everyday casual communication is status signalling
The meaning of a communication is the response it elicits.
“Natural game” is practised by millions who don’t think about what they are doing at all. They are not punished, resented or reviled for it at all in fact they are admired and appreciated. What you are doing is developing a substitute for the black box in their brain that you seem to be missing. The behaviour itself is attractive, its not used as a shorthand for some other qualities (which is not to say that some other qualities can’t be attractive in their own right). The behaviour itself is all that is attractive, the machinery that is behind it doesn’t matter one bit unless it fails to emulate the output or if it demonstrates other undesirable traits. But the set of appropriate behavioured in themselves are still attractive. If undesirables traits overcome the positive effect upon objective analysis this is not a call against reverse engineering, it is a call to use a different design for emulation.
But I would like very much to read it. And I am offended by people who try to prevent people from saying things that offend them. So you have to offend somebody!
I know what you mean!
The branches of the PUA industry descended from Copeland, DeAngelo, and Mystery (we need a phylogenetic tree here) are focused on picking up the type of shallow, party-girl, bitchy woman that is not interested in intellectuals.
In the case of DeAngelo I have to disagree. He is basically just a ‘intellectual’ himself and his best work is targeted to similar audience as himself. It is well suited to non-bitch-party-girl girls and for most part is just stuff that is overwhelmingly obvious if you have lived in the world for a while or have read psychology books. Especially the parts where he literally just stands there and reads said psychology books.
As for Mystery and co, however, you have the caricature down pat. He even says pretty much the same thing himself. His method is aimed at ‘particularly beautiful women’, where his appreciation of beauty explicitly includes being ‘dolled up’ in such a way that most women of the class that you mention would be excluded.
Perhaps I’m not familiar with the aspects of his teaching that you, but typical David DeAngelo Cocky&Funny is optimized for party girls. But it’s not too difficult to adapt it to intelligent/intellectual women once you understand the principles. Think Oscar Wilde, for instance.
I do see a bunch of overlap between the target audience of Mystery, and David DeAngelo. Pickup 101 has some overlap with both, but its direct daygame has significant differences. Juggler Method is quite different from any of these methods, and I consider it the premiere method for seduction between intelligent people. Also, Mystery Method is optimized for night game, while Juggler method is optimized for the day.
Perhaps I’m not familiar with the aspects of his teaching that you
And likewise I may well be less familiar with the aspects which you consider typical. His earliest work, the ebook and the first audio program I have barely looked at for example and I believe he has matured an awful lot since then. The products of his that I have recommended people look at for personal development purposes include:
On Being A Man (That Naturally Attracts Women)
Mastery With Women and Dating
Deep Inner Game
Body Language
Most of David DeAngelo’s work doesn’t even fit the label PUA particularly well. We just don’t have a suitable label for “life skills training for men with an emphasis on social skills and dating”. Mind you “Meeting Women In Bars” probably fits that label rather a lot better than, say “Meeting Women Online”. Surprisingly enough I have never bothered reading the former. There is an entirely natural selection effect in place. :)
but typical David DeAngelo Cocky&Funny is optimized for party girls.
To be honest I have yet to meet a girl I was interested in with whom Cocky & Funny didn’t work. Largely because it is the state I naturally enter when I am feeling confident, relaxed and social. I personally find people who do not appreciate cocky humour extremely grating and unpleasant to be around for long periods. The personality traits involved also carry over into other areas of personal relations so in this case the effect is also screening.
My dating habits (if not flirting habits)definitely don’t include an audience of party girls but here your next point becomes relevant:
But it’s not too difficult to adapt it to intelligent/intellectual women once you understand the principles. Think Oscar Wilde, for instance.
Juggler Method is quite different from any of these methods, and I consider it the premiere method for seduction between intelligent people.
I have only glanced at Juggler’s stuff. On your recommendation I’ll take another look. Your past recommendations have been good. I’m not particularly working to optimise the dating part of my life right now but I am always curious to learn. :)
Also, Mystery Method is optimized for night game
Not to mention optimised for being a stage performer by training. :)
I don’t care if people are turned away by it. We’ve gotta have one place that is pure, where people can speak truth and be as politically incorrect and offensive as they dare, and not make reason bend over backwards in the name of popularity. And this is that place.
But what about those who are turned away by the post? Don’t they need such a place too? Do they not count in “we”, or do we need more than one place?
But they also don’t have a place that has most of the positive features of LW + politeness/welcoming (to the degree they are compatible). LW could either become the sort of place they want, the sort of place you want or some sort of compromise. How did you determine that LW becoming your sort of place is best?
EDIT: I am not advocating banning PUA as a topic. Personally I don’t even completely understand why it’s offensive to anyone in the first place. But since I don’t understand I also suspend judgement on whether it should offend anyone.
Yes, but we are considerably less openly hostile to religion than e. g. Pharyngula and comments that are exclusively hostile to religion without otherwise being productive/rational get heavily downvoted.
So it’s not the case that we are completely ignoring offensiveness to religious people. I’d be open to arguments how weighting it more would be more beneficial overall.
Additionally religion is a matter of choice and at least somewhat indicative of current rationality while sex/sexual attraction is neither, and there are currently some norms against content that would be offensive to people of certain gender/sexual orientation so changing that would be a change from status quo.
Additionally religion is a matter of choice and at least somewhat indicative of current rationality while sex/sexual attraction is neither
Being offended by discussions of PUA and/or other politically incorrect topics, is also a matter of choice that is at least somewhat indicative of current rationality.
and there are currently some norms against content that would be offensive to people of certain gender/sexual orientation so changing that would be a change from status quo.
Aside from status quo bias I fail to see how that’s relevant.
Being offended by discussions of PUA and/or other politically incorrect topics, is also a matter of choice that is at least somewhat indicative of current rationality.
If you separate gender and being offended by things likely to offend a particular gender you should also separate religion and being offended by by things likely to offend people of a particular religiosity status. Either way one more level of choice and rationality correlation applies to the latter.
Aside from status quo bias I fail to see how that’s relevant.
It’s a counter-argument against the applicability of analogy to offending religious people defined as acceptable due to being current status quo. If status quo is irrelevant it is irrelevant both ways, if status quo applies it also applies both ways.
It’s a counter-argument against analogy to offending religious people defined as acceptable due to being current status quo applying. If status quo is irrelevant it is irrelevant both ways, if status quo applies it also applies both ways.
You mentioned the status quo. If you had just asked whether that (the best place for LW to be being in need of determination rather than clear a priori) should equally apply to offending religious people (while taking all relevant differences into account during the analysis) I would have answered: “Yes, of course.”
Yes, but we are considerably less openly hostile to religion than e. g. Pharyngula and comments that are exclusively hostile to religion without otherwise being productive/rational get heavily downvoted. So it’s not the case that we are completely ignoring offensiveness to religious people. I’d be open to arguments how weighting it more would be more beneficial overall.
I don’t know why this is down voted, LW really has gotten much more welcoming to religious people than other Atheist sites. And empty religion bashing with no rationalist content is heavily down voted. Do most people disagree with this assessment?
I think its because people realized over time they didn’t have to signal via religion bashing since there was a consensus. We’ve actually had interesting metacontrarians (ala Theists are wrong, but is theism?)
It is a controversial topic, already considered taboo here by many people, and would offend a lot of people.
But I would like very much to read it. And I am offended by people who try to prevent people from saying things that offend them. So you have to offend somebody!
I don’t care if people are turned away by it. We’ve gotta have one place that is pure, where people can speak truth and be as politically incorrect and offensive as they dare, and not make reason bend over backwards in the name of popularity. And this is that place.
I will say, though, that I’ve read/heard/watched/tried a lot of material over the past 4 years by DeAngelo, Style, Mystery, Lance Mason, etc.; and none of it has ever helped me one bit. I think that most of it works for a certain personality-type of guy, which I am not, on a certain personality-type of woman, who don’t like guys like me. The branches of the PUA industry descended from Copeland, DeAngelo, and Mystery (we need a phylogenetic tree here) are focused on picking up the type of shallow, party-girl, bitchy woman that is not interested in intellectuals. I bore them, and they bore me. IMHO “cocky comedy” backfires on a large percentage of women, and on a larger percentage of interesting women.
Techniques and pickup lines fade into insignificance compared to a man’s basic emotional makeup. Women are attracted by the personality that a man conveys; but I’ve seen no evidence that this “inner game” can be taught. I’ve seen some men who powerfully project the “confidence” that women find so sexy. Some of them acquired this confidence by becoming rich and successful. Most are just non-introspective/shallow/high-energy/arrogant/cheerful/sociopathic (pick at least two). But none of them were taught.
I should be more specific:
It would have helped me a great deal to have read this material when I was in college. It would have destroyed the dysfunctional things I had been taught (e.g., “Dating leads to sin; banter is rude; sex is dirty; women don’t want sex; love is spiritual, not physical; just be yourself; just wait, and the right woman for you will be attracted to you”), and I probably would have been able to connect with at least some of the women who threw themselves at me when I was in college.
It has helped me get a lot of phone numbers and emails from women—not using specific techniques, which I’m lousy at, but just knowing that nothing awful will happen if I walk up to a strange woman and talk to her and ask for her number. But those phone #s and emails that I got using PUA techniques, don’t usually convert! And I’ve lost at least one woman by using those techniques, so I’m maybe breaking even.
Bodybuilding was a more effective way of pickup up women. For me, spending an hour a day in the gym, and fifteen minutes talking to women, is more effective than spending an hour and fifteen minutes in a bar. For many guys that is probably not the case. I am a bar-environment-defective personality. Being the quiet type is appealing if you are muscular, possibly because women know it’s by choice and not out of fear, and definitely because some women are intrigued by the contrast. Women like the strong and silent type, not the silent type.
My experience exactly. The gym makes an enormous difference to attractiveness. The trifecta of physical appeal, self confidence and hormone adjustment.
No, it isn’t. There’s already a pretty strong taboo against discussing politics, even though there’s a lot of important ways politics interacts with rationality. And that’s because even though it is theoretically possible to talk about politics safely, rationally, in practice it simply doesn’t last, and has an overall negative effect on the community as people descend into tribalism.
I think there is plenty of good stuff to talk about regarding PUA. But it is going to have consequences. Women will be turned off unless it is discussed extremely carefully. Sooner or later someone will slip up and say something NOT careful, which comes across as sexist. The first few slip ups will be accidental and forgiveable, but unless there is a constant pushback from women and female-advocates, it’s going to gradually get worse, and most of the males won’t even notice. If there IS constant pushback and reminders whenever people inadvertently point out sexist thinking, many people will not say “oh, my bad,” they will say “come on stop overreacting” which a) often ends up being sexist all by itself and b) creates a dichotomy which leads to tribalism. So for most intents and purposes, PUA counts as politics.
In this case, the slip up was in the very first line of the post: Lukeprog started with the words “Attraction and Seduction for Heterosexual Male Rationalists.” This already suggests to women perusing the site that this is a site for heterosexual males, and the word “seduction” already is implicitly objectifying women. It’s possible for someone to have done it tastefully and carefully, but this post wasn’t it and the people reacting negatively to it are perfectly justified.
I would agree with your call for rationalist debate on the matter and agree that branding such debate “wrong” is well wrong. But I must disagree with the venue, because of signalling reasons. I would also to a limited extent endorse your criticism of the effectiveness of PUA for some (our?) kinds of people.
The main value I got out of PUA is its excellent predictive value, not any particular benefit via applying said knowledge.
The main tangible practical benefit I got from PUA can be summed up in the following four points:
Preform many many light-hearted social experiments, you need data.
Most of everyday casual communication is status signalling
The meaning of a communication is the response it elicits.
“Natural game” is practised by millions who don’t think about what they are doing at all. They are not punished, resented or reviled for it at all in fact they are admired and appreciated. What you are doing is developing a substitute for the black box in their brain that you seem to be missing. The behaviour itself is attractive, its not used as a shorthand for some other qualities (which is not to say that some other qualities can’t be attractive in their own right). The behaviour itself is all that is attractive, the machinery that is behind it doesn’t matter one bit unless it fails to emulate the output or if it demonstrates other undesirable traits. But the set of appropriate behavioured in themselves are still attractive. If undesirables traits overcome the positive effect upon objective analysis this is not a call against reverse engineering, it is a call to use a different design for emulation.
I know what you mean!
In the case of DeAngelo I have to disagree. He is basically just a ‘intellectual’ himself and his best work is targeted to similar audience as himself. It is well suited to non-bitch-party-girl girls and for most part is just stuff that is overwhelmingly obvious if you have lived in the world for a while or have read psychology books. Especially the parts where he literally just stands there and reads said psychology books.
As for Mystery and co, however, you have the caricature down pat. He even says pretty much the same thing himself. His method is aimed at ‘particularly beautiful women’, where his appreciation of beauty explicitly includes being ‘dolled up’ in such a way that most women of the class that you mention would be excluded.
Perhaps I’m not familiar with the aspects of his teaching that you, but typical David DeAngelo Cocky&Funny is optimized for party girls. But it’s not too difficult to adapt it to intelligent/intellectual women once you understand the principles. Think Oscar Wilde, for instance.
I do see a bunch of overlap between the target audience of Mystery, and David DeAngelo. Pickup 101 has some overlap with both, but its direct daygame has significant differences. Juggler Method is quite different from any of these methods, and I consider it the premiere method for seduction between intelligent people. Also, Mystery Method is optimized for night game, while Juggler method is optimized for the day.
And likewise I may well be less familiar with the aspects which you consider typical. His earliest work, the ebook and the first audio program I have barely looked at for example and I believe he has matured an awful lot since then. The products of his that I have recommended people look at for personal development purposes include:
On Being A Man (That Naturally Attracts Women)
Mastery With Women and Dating
Deep Inner Game
Body Language
Most of David DeAngelo’s work doesn’t even fit the label PUA particularly well. We just don’t have a suitable label for “life skills training for men with an emphasis on social skills and dating”. Mind you “Meeting Women In Bars” probably fits that label rather a lot better than, say “Meeting Women Online”. Surprisingly enough I have never bothered reading the former. There is an entirely natural selection effect in place. :)
To be honest I have yet to meet a girl I was interested in with whom Cocky & Funny didn’t work. Largely because it is the state I naturally enter when I am feeling confident, relaxed and social. I personally find people who do not appreciate cocky humour extremely grating and unpleasant to be around for long periods. The personality traits involved also carry over into other areas of personal relations so in this case the effect is also screening.
My dating habits (if not flirting habits)definitely don’t include an audience of party girls but here your next point becomes relevant:
I have only glanced at Juggler’s stuff. On your recommendation I’ll take another look. Your past recommendations have been good. I’m not particularly working to optimise the dating part of my life right now but I am always curious to learn. :)
Not to mention optimised for being a stage performer by training. :)
Signals associated with the dark triade don’t seem to be hard to replicate.
But what about those who are turned away by the post? Don’t they need such a place too? Do they not count in “we”, or do we need more than one place?
No, by definition, since they are those who turn away on encountering such a place.
But they also don’t have a place that has most of the positive features of LW + politeness/welcoming (to the degree they are compatible). LW could either become the sort of place they want, the sort of place you want or some sort of compromise. How did you determine that LW becoming your sort of place is best?
EDIT: I am not advocating banning PUA as a topic. Personally I don’t even completely understand why it’s offensive to anyone in the first place. But since I don’t understand I also suspend judgement on whether it should offend anyone.
Well, LW is already non-welcoming to a lot of groups people are supposedly trying to reach, e.g., religious people, to take an obvious example.
Yes, but we are considerably less openly hostile to religion than e. g. Pharyngula and comments that are exclusively hostile to religion without otherwise being productive/rational get heavily downvoted. So it’s not the case that we are completely ignoring offensiveness to religious people. I’d be open to arguments how weighting it more would be more beneficial overall.
Additionally religion is a matter of choice and at least somewhat indicative of current rationality while sex/sexual attraction is neither, and there are currently some norms against content that would be offensive to people of certain gender/sexual orientation so changing that would be a change from status quo.
Being offended by discussions of PUA and/or other politically incorrect topics, is also a matter of choice that is at least somewhat indicative of current rationality.
Aside from status quo bias I fail to see how that’s relevant.
If you separate gender and being offended by things likely to offend a particular gender you should also separate religion and being offended by by things likely to offend people of a particular religiosity status. Either way one more level of choice and rationality correlation applies to the latter.
It’s a counter-argument against the applicability of analogy to offending religious people defined as acceptable due to being current status quo. If status quo is irrelevant it is irrelevant both ways, if status quo applies it also applies both ways.
I never said status quo applied in either case.
What was the point of writing this then?
My point is that being overly concerned about offending people is not good for rationality in either case.
I don’t see how status quo is relevant.
You mentioned the status quo. If you had just asked whether that (the best place for LW to be being in need of determination rather than clear a priori) should equally apply to offending religious people (while taking all relevant differences into account during the analysis) I would have answered: “Yes, of course.”
I don’t know why this is down voted, LW really has gotten much more welcoming to religious people than other Atheist sites. And empty religion bashing with no rationalist content is heavily down voted. Do most people disagree with this assessment?
I think its because people realized over time they didn’t have to signal via religion bashing since there was a consensus. We’ve actually had interesting metacontrarians (ala Theists are wrong, but is theism?)