To me the topics of PUA, marketing and self-help feel interrelated. Not just because it’s all applied rationality, but because it’s all about goal-directed tweaking of human wetware. Which is precisely the icky problem.
As a kid I invented and devoutly followed a strict moral injunction against any form of self-manipulation—what’s today called self-help—and against lying. As an adult I have relaxed both those requirements, but instead explicitly invented and have followed for years an equally strict injunction against manipulating other people (like in Games People Play). The only PUA techniques I ever adopted were about loss of fear and increase of self-esteem; I shied away from anything that smelled even vaguely manipulative. (I have grossly neglected the skillz over the last two years and will soon start practicing from scratch again, under the same restrictions.)
The morality of hacking minds is still unclear to me, but it feels worse if it’s done consciously. Not every means of reaching the goal is okay… even if it does no visible harm. According to my life experience, explicit mind-hacking harms the hacker.
This… merits a response.
To me the topics of PUA, marketing and self-help feel interrelated. Not just because it’s all applied rationality, but because it’s all about goal-directed tweaking of human wetware. Which is precisely the icky problem.
As a kid I invented and devoutly followed a strict moral injunction against any form of self-manipulation—what’s today called self-help—and against lying. As an adult I have relaxed both those requirements, but instead explicitly invented and have followed for years an equally strict injunction against manipulating other people (like in Games People Play). The only PUA techniques I ever adopted were about loss of fear and increase of self-esteem; I shied away from anything that smelled even vaguely manipulative. (I have grossly neglected the skillz over the last two years and will soon start practicing from scratch again, under the same restrictions.)
The morality of hacking minds is still unclear to me, but it feels worse if it’s done consciously. Not every means of reaching the goal is okay… even if it does no visible harm. According to my life experience, explicit mind-hacking harms the hacker.