Hence the idea that if you are going to rape people then PUA is of no use to you is trivially false.
Yes, PUA skills are generalizable to a certain extent. Rather than use them to seduce people you could use them to rape people, kidnap them and harvest their organs to sell on the black market or to try to convince them to buy some steak knives. But again, as you quoted: If the subject was “How to stick your dick in people” then rape would come into it. But it isn’t.
Also it should go without saying that an agent whose goal is to maximise the amount of sex they get disregarding all ethical concerns is an agent that will date-rape under some circumstances
Yes, and conventional rape without the pesky hassle of pick up too—and I’m honestly not sure which kind of rape comes with the greatest risk of getting caught. But nobody has ever suggested that we discuss how to maximise sex. That is the whole point being made here—that equivocation in the great-grandparent just isn’t acceptable.
I think what this actually illustrates is the mind-killing power of the PUA topic. Obviously fallacious arguments are getting voted up heavily because they defend PUA and attack ethics, which is extremely concerning.
I have a similar concern—at least in as much as it troubles me that sloppy thinking tends to be accepted based on the fact that it is talking about a moral/ethical/social-political position. I have made rather different observations about how the trend seems to flow.
I am moving towards the opinion that this is not a fixable problem and that it’s indeed the utility-maximising move from the larger LW perspective to sweep the PUA community and their views back under a rug and taboo them from emerging.
It is one thing to suggest tabooing a subject—and with the caveat that it must be relationship and dating advice that is tabooed (so as not to allow a distorted reality to remain) a lot of people agree. But it is an entirely different thing to try to declare just the opposing view (or your stereotype thereof) to be unacceptable.
Now I’m curious. The account PhilosophyTutor is a new account which has more or less contributed only via PUA-ethical debate. Yet I’m getting the impression here that you are coming from, well, a “larger LW perspective”. Is PhilosophyTutor a dummy account for more generally active member so that you can get involved in the subject without it looking bad for your primary identity or are you actually a new user who thus far has mostly been interested in dating-ethics?
This subtopic, unless I’ve gotten confused, relates specifically to one proposed method for trying to make discussion of the broader relationship topic more productive, that being the proposition that we hold a discussion of effective PUA methodology while holding off on any ethical discussion about the topic whatsoever. The argument against this proposition was that there are serious ethical issues which trying to figure out the maximally effective ways of getting sex without any regard for ethics.
Your response seems to be (and I am open to correction if I have misunderstood) that PUA methods, if indeed they worked, could be abused but that we do not need to discuss this because anything could be abused and hence discussing the potential abuse of this particular thing is a waste of time.
It seems likely that what’s going on is that you have as an implicit premise in your argument that PUAs are all “good guys” or close enough to all that it doesn’t matter, and that PUA skills will mostly only ever be used “for good”. Whether that is a definition of “good” that includes manipulating women into acts they will predictably regret and which they would not have chosen to engage in were they fully informed and rational is an interesting discussion that, if the original proposal were followed, we would not be able to engage in. However if one held such an implicit premise I could see why you saw no value in discussing the relevant ethical issues, since the relevant ethical issues are all dissolved by the assumption that PUAs are good guys.
However another possibility is that you have in mind a definition of “PUA methods” which excludes archetypal rape and most other acts which meet the legal and moral definition of rape but are not archetypal, and hence you think that a discussion of “PUA methods”, even if it taboos all ethical discourse, will thus by definition not involve anything meeting the legal and moral definition of rape. If so you need to make this definition explicit, I think, and then resolve the issue of whether obtaining sex while concealing information which you know is highly relevant and important to the other party’s decision to consent meets the legal or moral definition of rape. If needed I can cite cases where people have been imprisoned for obtaining sex by withholding information which they knew would have been highly relevant, so this is not an entirely academic concern.
At this time I can neither confirm nor deny that I am a dummy account belonging to a member with vast karma, super powers, a sports car and a girlfriend who is an underwear model.
It seems likely that what’s going on is that you have as an implicit premise in your argument that PUAs are all “good guys” or close enough to all that it doesn’t matter, and that PUA skills will mostly only ever be used “for good”.
However if one held such an implicit premise I could see why you saw no value in discussing the relevant ethical issues, since the relevant ethical issues are all dissolved by the assumption that PUAs are good guys.
Have I said I have no interest in discussing ethical issues? That doesn’t sound like something I would say. In fact.
Have I said I have no interest in discussing ethical issues? That doesn’t sound like something I would say.
What you said was:
Which illustrates the problem with having the majority of any discussion dominated by ‘ethics’. It is roughly speaking an excuse for people who are completely ill informed to throw opinions around that are based on an almost entirely fictional reality.
Now I can’t see this discussion from your perspective, but from my perspective it looks like you are performing a manoeuvre where you cheer for ethical discussion in theory but in practice you dismiss all ethical criticism that comes from outside the PUA tent with a No True Scotsman argument.
If you think that some ethical criticisms of PUA are off the mark because they target a form of PUA which doesn’t actually exist that is of course a fair point to make. However that doesn’t move the argument forward unless you point us to the set of PUA practices and beliefs that you personally consider canonical so that we can discuss those from an ethical perspective. If your goal is an intelligent discussion we shouldn’t have to play a game with you where we try to discover by a process of elimination the subset of PUA practises and methods that you are willing to accept as PUA.
At this time I can neither confirm nor deny that I am a dummy account belonging to a member with vast karma, super powers, a sports car and a girlfriend who is an underwear model.
Yes, PUA skills are generalizable to a certain extent. Rather than use them to seduce people you could use them to rape people, kidnap them and harvest their organs to sell on the black market or to try to convince them to buy some steak knives. But again, as you quoted: If the subject was “How to stick your dick in people” then rape would come into it. But it isn’t.
Yes, and conventional rape without the pesky hassle of pick up too—and I’m honestly not sure which kind of rape comes with the greatest risk of getting caught. But nobody has ever suggested that we discuss how to maximise sex. That is the whole point being made here—that equivocation in the great-grandparent just isn’t acceptable.
I have a similar concern—at least in as much as it troubles me that sloppy thinking tends to be accepted based on the fact that it is talking about a moral/ethical/social-political position. I have made rather different observations about how the trend seems to flow.
It is one thing to suggest tabooing a subject—and with the caveat that it must be relationship and dating advice that is tabooed (so as not to allow a distorted reality to remain) a lot of people agree. But it is an entirely different thing to try to declare just the opposing view (or your stereotype thereof) to be unacceptable.
Now I’m curious. The account PhilosophyTutor is a new account which has more or less contributed only via PUA-ethical debate. Yet I’m getting the impression here that you are coming from, well, a “larger LW perspective”. Is PhilosophyTutor a dummy account for more generally active member so that you can get involved in the subject without it looking bad for your primary identity or are you actually a new user who thus far has mostly been interested in dating-ethics?
This subtopic, unless I’ve gotten confused, relates specifically to one proposed method for trying to make discussion of the broader relationship topic more productive, that being the proposition that we hold a discussion of effective PUA methodology while holding off on any ethical discussion about the topic whatsoever. The argument against this proposition was that there are serious ethical issues which trying to figure out the maximally effective ways of getting sex without any regard for ethics.
Your response seems to be (and I am open to correction if I have misunderstood) that PUA methods, if indeed they worked, could be abused but that we do not need to discuss this because anything could be abused and hence discussing the potential abuse of this particular thing is a waste of time.
It seems likely that what’s going on is that you have as an implicit premise in your argument that PUAs are all “good guys” or close enough to all that it doesn’t matter, and that PUA skills will mostly only ever be used “for good”. Whether that is a definition of “good” that includes manipulating women into acts they will predictably regret and which they would not have chosen to engage in were they fully informed and rational is an interesting discussion that, if the original proposal were followed, we would not be able to engage in. However if one held such an implicit premise I could see why you saw no value in discussing the relevant ethical issues, since the relevant ethical issues are all dissolved by the assumption that PUAs are good guys.
However another possibility is that you have in mind a definition of “PUA methods” which excludes archetypal rape and most other acts which meet the legal and moral definition of rape but are not archetypal, and hence you think that a discussion of “PUA methods”, even if it taboos all ethical discourse, will thus by definition not involve anything meeting the legal and moral definition of rape. If so you need to make this definition explicit, I think, and then resolve the issue of whether obtaining sex while concealing information which you know is highly relevant and important to the other party’s decision to consent meets the legal or moral definition of rape. If needed I can cite cases where people have been imprisoned for obtaining sex by withholding information which they knew would have been highly relevant, so this is not an entirely academic concern.
At this time I can neither confirm nor deny that I am a dummy account belonging to a member with vast karma, super powers, a sports car and a girlfriend who is an underwear model.
Not even remotely. That position would be the opposite of stupidity.
Have I said I have no interest in discussing ethical issues? That doesn’t sound like something I would say. In fact.
What you said was:
Now I can’t see this discussion from your perspective, but from my perspective it looks like you are performing a manoeuvre where you cheer for ethical discussion in theory but in practice you dismiss all ethical criticism that comes from outside the PUA tent with a No True Scotsman argument.
If you think that some ethical criticisms of PUA are off the mark because they target a form of PUA which doesn’t actually exist that is of course a fair point to make. However that doesn’t move the argument forward unless you point us to the set of PUA practices and beliefs that you personally consider canonical so that we can discuss those from an ethical perspective. If your goal is an intelligent discussion we shouldn’t have to play a game with you where we try to discover by a process of elimination the subset of PUA practises and methods that you are willing to accept as PUA.
Eliezer Yudkowsky drives a sports car?!?!?? ;)