Such PUA techniques should be discussed like any other Dark Side methods: with a view towards minimizing their use and effectiveness.
I feel compelled here to point out (even though you didn’t explicitly say otherwise, and I don’t mean to imply that you believe otherwise) that rationalists should win, which includes using (or encouraging, teaching, etc.) methods of anti-rational persuasion when doing so wins. I do agree that LW shouldn’t much discuss such things with an eye to using them.
Less importantly:
It seems to me that the situation is pretty simple, for PU artistry as well as for advertising. Most PUA techniques that I’ve seen amount to efforts to persuade using Dark Side Epistemology. bottom-lining is rampant. For example, with “negging”, the PUA starts with the bottom line “You should feel self-conscious and insecure”, and then seeks only evidence that supports this conclusion.
It doesn’t seem to me that PUA techniques are closely analogous to dark-side epistemology or bottom-line arguments; those things aim at influencing verbal beliefs (or beliefs-in-belief), while I would think that pickup largely aims at influencing emotions, aliefs, and cesires — System 1 stuff. (Your example is certainly much more an emotion/alief than a belief.)
Agreed that pickup is largely off-topic, but:
I feel compelled here to point out (even though you didn’t explicitly say otherwise, and I don’t mean to imply that you believe otherwise) that rationalists should win, which includes using (or encouraging, teaching, etc.) methods of anti-rational persuasion when doing so wins. I do agree that LW shouldn’t much discuss such things with an eye to using them.
Less importantly:
It doesn’t seem to me that PUA techniques are closely analogous to dark-side epistemology or bottom-line arguments; those things aim at influencing verbal beliefs (or beliefs-in-belief), while I would think that pickup largely aims at influencing emotions, aliefs, and cesires — System 1 stuff. (Your example is certainly much more an emotion/alief than a belief.)