Like all instrumental rationality, it depends on how it aligns with your terminal goals, and how you feel about conscious action which affects others’ unconscious reactions. I’d recommend Cialdini or Carnegie as required reading alongside PUA thinking, so you can understand what parts are general human reactions and what parts are specific to sexualized interactions with a certain type of woman.
I do think that it’s likely a true belief that most humans act and react in fairly hardwired ways, and understanding those reactions is beneficial for a whole lot of terminal desires. I don’t think that Heartiste (or others in the PUA clique) are focusing on the right things for long-term happiness and shared self-reflective growth with a partner.
I don’t think that Heartiste (or others in the PUA clique) are focusing on the right things for long-term happiness and shared self-reflective growth with a partner.
The thing I noticed with Heartiste is that he’s anti-marriage because it’s a two-way street and in his opinion a significant majority of women won’t make good wives. In his view there’s some sort of paradox where women want to attract commitment but don’t put significant effort to make the commitment worthwhile to the man.
I can’t say if he’s right or not but I can’t disagree with some of the things he lists.
It’s not as though men are reliably good partners, either.
If there’s any good advice for identifying people who are likely to be reliable allies over the long haul (if they’re treated decently), I’d like to see it.
Yeah, finding reliably good people is a problem in general.
But there is also this gender-specific part of problem… uhm, remember the OKCupid study about how women rated average men as “below average” on the attractivity scale? (Like an opposite of the Lake Wobegon effect.) So we have all the average women who believe they are looking for a correspondingly average man and can’t find one, while in reality they are merely unwilling to settle in their own league.
Maybe Heartiste means something like this, from the opposite side. A woman who is in the man’s league will believe she is better than him, and therefore will not put much effort into the commitment, because she is still waiting for the true prince to come for her. (It will take some hard lessons in life to learn what she can realistically expect, but those lessons take time, and Heartiste prefers young women.)
I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine, in which he said he didn’t care about looking good for women or catering to them in general. Coupled with the fact that he often complained about not being able to get women, the whole situation seemed rather pathetic. Something about a lost license to complain, methinks.
When I look beyond my own grooming habits, the problem seems widespread. By contrast, and this is essential, there are industries upon industries dedicated to enhancing women’s appearance, to which they are drawn irresistibly, often well past the point of diminishing returns. If this were an arms race of attractiveness, women won before the race even started. If we are to get even a little closer to the ideal of everybody being paired with someone in their “league”, either both genders get preoccupied with enhancing their looks, or neither does. In fact, if we are to factor in the fact that men seem more needy, sexually, they should be the ones trying somewhat harder to look attractive. Remember, in most species ornamentation belongs to the male gender.
Looks matter. Whoever is telling you that the end-all-be-all of male attractiveness is position in a dominance hierarchy is bullshitting you and probably has an appetite for domination higher than is optimal or moral himself.
tl;dr Women’s beauty industry has a distorting effect on average attractiveness for each gender, this might explain part of the discrepancy in standards, and men might need to pay more attention to their looks than the cultural standard if they want to “stay competitive”.
Speaking very generally, a “pretty face” will have an easy time finding a partner. This means that the price of dumping someone will be low for him/her—s/he can always find a replacement. S/he has incentives to extensively shop for the best deal.
No, I’m afraid someone’s attractiveness doesn’t take them out of the set of people whom it is immoral to emotionally abuse. From an outside perspective, you not getting laid is morally neutral. You reaching into your Jedi mind trick toolbox to get laid at the cost of lowering someone’s life quality is very much not morally neutral. Why should she suffer more to get a worse deal? When she could enter a healthy relationship with someone who’s attractive and ethical enough not to resort to dirty tricks to get her to stick around? Because it’s you offering the deal, and I’m supposed to cheer for your side since I’m talking to you? No, I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that.
I was asking Lumifer specifically. But because you seem interested I’ll put some more pixels into it:
Lumifer’s post says that their price of dumping someone is generally lower, and they can easily find a replacement. If you could be easily replaced, then you’ll naturally want a way to stand out. How does one stand out? No crows out there, so no need for straw men, either.
No, I’m afraid someone’s attractiveness doesn’t take them out of the set of people whom it is immoral to emotionally abuse.
Hm.. emotional abuse is a very strong word to use here. If I call that upping my chances, I can say that there are major differences here, but for the sake of our discussion, the most important thing is that one person perceives certain acts to be bad, while the other good. But clearly both of those are binary generalizations. The thing to do in this situation is to sit down and start breaking the machine apart and see which parts are the problem. I absolutely believe we could do that. Let’s put things on a continuum instead of polar opposites.
you not getting laid is morally neutral.
I think there’s plenty of people who would like a relationship but for whatever reason can’t get it. Morally neutral, you got it. The situation could be better? Undeniably. The right way? Pssh.. no crows in the sky.
You reaching into your Jedi mind trick toolbox to get laid at the cost of lowering someone’s life quality is very much not morally neutral.
This is a very common argument, and I’d like to point out that at this point you’re repeating yourself.
But there’s something that really bother me with that argument: that it gives too much power to one party and too little to the other. This type of argument implies that women have no way to defend themselves from such mind attacks. I’d like to know if this is really so. In parallel, I would also like to know how many women do defend themselves from those type of attacks. Does it not sound reasonable to be able to protect against damage, especially if you’re vulnerable?
When she could enter a healthy relationship with someone who’s attractive and ethical enough not to resort to dirty tricks to get her to stick around?
To all the glasses girls here: wanna have some action? Be quick though—there’s a limited supply..
I think it’s a mistake to understand this subject as being primarily about persuasion and trying to apply Cialdini.
Charisma doesn’t come from an attempt to change other people but from doing inner work. If you are too much focused on the other person but not on yourself, you don’t grow as well and won’t be open to them.
I don’t think that Heartiste (or others in the PUA clique) are focusing on the right things for long-term happiness and shared self-reflective growth with a partner.
For long-term happiness and shared growth that would be Athol Kay. Read his older stuff or buy his book; since the book was out he writes less interesting stuff just to keep the traffic.
Because he optimizes for marriage (as opposed to hundreds of one-night stands), and he seems to have a happy marriage, and his wife also contributes to his blog. This should remove most of the objections people have.
Because he optimizes for marriage (as opposed to hundreds of one-night stands), and he seems to have a happy marriage, and his wife also contributes to his blog.
I don’t see how that’s an indication that the advice he gives is good.
Like all instrumental rationality, it depends on how it aligns with your terminal goals, and how you feel about conscious action which affects others’ unconscious reactions. I’d recommend Cialdini or Carnegie as required reading alongside PUA thinking, so you can understand what parts are general human reactions and what parts are specific to sexualized interactions with a certain type of woman.
I do think that it’s likely a true belief that most humans act and react in fairly hardwired ways, and understanding those reactions is beneficial for a whole lot of terminal desires. I don’t think that Heartiste (or others in the PUA clique) are focusing on the right things for long-term happiness and shared self-reflective growth with a partner.
The thing I noticed with Heartiste is that he’s anti-marriage because it’s a two-way street and in his opinion a significant majority of women won’t make good wives. In his view there’s some sort of paradox where women want to attract commitment but don’t put significant effort to make the commitment worthwhile to the man.
I can’t say if he’s right or not but I can’t disagree with some of the things he lists.
It’s not as though men are reliably good partners, either.
If there’s any good advice for identifying people who are likely to be reliable allies over the long haul (if they’re treated decently), I’d like to see it.
Yeah, finding reliably good people is a problem in general.
But there is also this gender-specific part of problem… uhm, remember the OKCupid study about how women rated average men as “below average” on the attractivity scale? (Like an opposite of the Lake Wobegon effect.) So we have all the average women who believe they are looking for a correspondingly average man and can’t find one, while in reality they are merely unwilling to settle in their own league.
Maybe Heartiste means something like this, from the opposite side. A woman who is in the man’s league will believe she is better than him, and therefore will not put much effort into the commitment, because she is still waiting for the true prince to come for her. (It will take some hard lessons in life to learn what she can realistically expect, but those lessons take time, and Heartiste prefers young women.)
I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine, in which he said he didn’t care about looking good for women or catering to them in general. Coupled with the fact that he often complained about not being able to get women, the whole situation seemed rather pathetic. Something about a lost license to complain, methinks.
When I look beyond my own grooming habits, the problem seems widespread. By contrast, and this is essential, there are industries upon industries dedicated to enhancing women’s appearance, to which they are drawn irresistibly, often well past the point of diminishing returns. If this were an arms race of attractiveness, women won before the race even started. If we are to get even a little closer to the ideal of everybody being paired with someone in their “league”, either both genders get preoccupied with enhancing their looks, or neither does. In fact, if we are to factor in the fact that men seem more needy, sexually, they should be the ones trying somewhat harder to look attractive. Remember, in most species ornamentation belongs to the male gender.
Looks matter. Whoever is telling you that the end-all-be-all of male attractiveness is position in a dominance hierarchy is bullshitting you and probably has an appetite for domination higher than is optimal or moral himself.
tl;dr Women’s beauty industry has a distorting effect on average attractiveness for each gender, this might explain part of the discrepancy in standards, and men might need to pay more attention to their looks than the cultural standard if they want to “stay competitive”.
“Reliable allies over the long haul” is pretty much the opposite of looking for a pretty face.
Why? What’s the correlation between pretty face and unreliability?
Speaking very generally, a “pretty face” will have an easy time finding a partner. This means that the price of dumping someone will be low for him/her—s/he can always find a replacement. S/he has incentives to extensively shop for the best deal.
Does that mean that, despite the mixed reaction to my question about Heartiste’s advice, it would not be that bad to use said advice on pretty faces?
You surely are hoping that’s what it means, eh?
No, I’m afraid someone’s attractiveness doesn’t take them out of the set of people whom it is immoral to emotionally abuse. From an outside perspective, you not getting laid is morally neutral. You reaching into your Jedi mind trick toolbox to get laid at the cost of lowering someone’s life quality is very much not morally neutral. Why should she suffer more to get a worse deal? When she could enter a healthy relationship with someone who’s attractive and ethical enough not to resort to dirty tricks to get her to stick around? Because it’s you offering the deal, and I’m supposed to cheer for your side since I’m talking to you? No, I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that.
We are not obliged, in our personal interactions, to refrain from actions which cause other people any amount of harm whatsoever.
This being so, there must be a point where an action is bad if it causes a certain amount of harm, but okay if it causes slightly less harm.
That being so, “less harm because they are more attractive and can find partners more easily” can be one cause of the slightly less harm.
I was asking Lumifer specifically. But because you seem interested I’ll put some more pixels into it:
Lumifer’s post says that their price of dumping someone is generally lower, and they can easily find a replacement. If you could be easily replaced, then you’ll naturally want a way to stand out. How does one stand out? No crows out there, so no need for straw men, either.
Hm.. emotional abuse is a very strong word to use here. If I call that upping my chances, I can say that there are major differences here, but for the sake of our discussion, the most important thing is that one person perceives certain acts to be bad, while the other good. But clearly both of those are binary generalizations. The thing to do in this situation is to sit down and start breaking the machine apart and see which parts are the problem. I absolutely believe we could do that. Let’s put things on a continuum instead of polar opposites.
I think there’s plenty of people who would like a relationship but for whatever reason can’t get it. Morally neutral, you got it. The situation could be better? Undeniably. The right way? Pssh.. no crows in the sky.
This is a very common argument, and I’d like to point out that at this point you’re repeating yourself.
But there’s something that really bother me with that argument: that it gives too much power to one party and too little to the other. This type of argument implies that women have no way to defend themselves from such mind attacks. I’d like to know if this is really so. In parallel, I would also like to know how many women do defend themselves from those type of attacks. Does it not sound reasonable to be able to protect against damage, especially if you’re vulnerable?
To all the glasses girls here: wanna have some action? Be quick though—there’s a limited supply..
I don’t know enough about Heartiste’s advice to have an opinion.
Cool. Thanks for the reply.
You need good judgement.
How do you acquire good judgement? Through lots of experience.
How do you acquire lots of experience? Through bad judgement.
X-)
Offer them something you cannot afford. If they reject your offer, they will probably make good allies.
Like an engagement ring? “Oh, you don’t want to marry me, that makes you the perfect wife!”
Not quite. A good ally is someone interested in your mutual well-being, and won’t accept an offer that costs you more than it benefits them.
There are other ways of testing. That is my preferred approach.
I think it’s a mistake to understand this subject as being primarily about persuasion and trying to apply Cialdini. Charisma doesn’t come from an attempt to change other people but from doing inner work. If you are too much focused on the other person but not on yourself, you don’t grow as well and won’t be open to them.
For long-term happiness and shared growth that would be Athol Kay. Read his older stuff or buy his book; since the book was out he writes less interesting stuff just to keep the traffic.
Why do you recommend him?
Because he optimizes for marriage (as opposed to hundreds of one-night stands), and he seems to have a happy marriage, and his wife also contributes to his blog. This should remove most of the objections people have.
I don’t see how that’s an indication that the advice he gives is good.
Then I have to ask: which one’s more hardwired, the bikini or the hijab?
Whatever works better for seduction :-P