When you are in a receptive frame of mind, it is of course different, and that is when the PUA-stuff can hack you, so to speak, into accepting the advances of someone you’d otherwise reject.
If someone offers you a tasty dessert when you’re hungry, is that “hacking” your mind, because you otherwise wouldn’t choose to eat it?
If I’m in a bakery, they can hardly be blamed for offering me a cupcake.
If I don’t want the sweets, it is on me to avoid sellers of desserts.
if I’m in a music store and someone offers me a dessert, I’m going to go “WTF” and leave before the weirdo with the candy starts doing something even weirder.
My point is about the “hacking” part, not where the thing is being offered.
Let me rephrase. If a person deliberately sets out to make a tastier dessert, so that it’s more attractive than competing desserts, how is this “hacking” anyone’s mind? If it’s more attractive, then it’s more attractive!
One can argue about whether it might be better from a health or finanical perspective to skip the dessert. One can even say that it’s rude to offer a person some dessert in an inappropriate context. But none of these things have to do with how the dessert tastes, or the quality of ingredients used, or the presentation of the dessert on the plate.
If the baker doesn’t lie about what’s in the dessert, and has gone to extra trouble to procure the finest ingredients, and make the best possible presentation...
And if you choose that dessert because of these things, is that “hacking” your mind? Or just someone offering you a nice dessert?
Your earlier comment implied that someone is “hacking” your mind, when all they’ve actually done is try their best to offer you a nice dessert. Whether you choose to indulge or not is still an essentially free choice, just like we are all free to turn down an actual dessert, no matter how tempting to our palates it may be.
It seems wrong (to me) to imply that using better ingredients or presentation of a dish somehow equals reaching out into someone’s brain and taking control of it. If it were, then we could turn around and argue that men have no control when they see an attractive woman… and I don’t think any of us like where that kind of thinking takes us (e.g. burqas, to say the very least).
(Footnote: is this comment insensitive to Muslims? I’m going to have to guess that religion is the one reasonably-safe whipping boy on LW, at least for the moment.)
Well no, -making- a more attractive dessert is not in any way hacking. PUA techniques that rely on maximising the man’s attractiveness to women are not hacking her brain, they are life-hacks for him. These are not the techniques likely to be objected to, methinks.
I think the improving-the-product aspect is eminently laudable. Self improvement is good.
What does count as hacking is more along the lines of this:
To push the bakery example; I do not like caramel, but let’s say I go to a bakery intending to buy a banana muffin, but the charming presentation of fresh baked caramel ones, along with some tactics by the bakery employees, convince to buy a caramel muffin just this once.
The tactics of presentation and salesmanship have effectively hacked my brain into going for a lower-order preference.
It would take one amazing hack to make me eat a caramel muffin when I’m not hungry and not in a bakery, one that I suspect is not acheivable. I can say no to banana muffins, too.
I don’t mean to say that all PUA technique is fakery and salesmanship; rather I think that the sales-based portions are the ones that horrify women.
Given that I don’t find salesmanship horrifying when buying food or anything else, I’ve stopped finding descriptions of PUA work horrifying.
I don’t mean to say that all PUA technique is fakery and salesmanship; rather I think that the sales-based portions are the ones that horrify women.
In all fairness, the consequences of choosing a bad “dessert” are probably much worse in the singles’ bar than in the bakery, so I can certainly empathize with an intuitive horror of being “sold” something you don’t really want in that context.
Given that I don’t find salesmanship horrifying when buying food or anything else, I’ve stopped finding descriptions of PUA work horrifying.
Thanks for listening and being open-minded. I appreciate it.
All three situations are roughly equivalent, in that someone is offered something that they are currently primed to accept for some reason, but that they would reject normally in a typical mental state.
Many people seem to consider this ethically dubious, especially when the one offering has participated in priming the offeree to be receptive.
Sex, dessert, and cigarettes are “roughly equivalent”? Remind me not to come over to your house for dinner. ;-)
Edit to add: Wow, some people have no sense of humor. Or at least were unable to see past the humor to the actual point. That is, that it stretches the analogy too far to equate “emotionally complicated” and “fattening” with a dependency-forming drug that will then proceed to give you cancer and kill you. Bit of a negative applause light, eh?
If someone offers you a tasty dessert when you’re hungry, is that “hacking” your mind, because you otherwise wouldn’t choose to eat it?
If I’m in a bakery, they can hardly be blamed for offering me a cupcake. If I don’t want the sweets, it is on me to avoid sellers of desserts. if I’m in a music store and someone offers me a dessert, I’m going to go “WTF” and leave before the weirdo with the candy starts doing something even weirder.
My point is about the “hacking” part, not where the thing is being offered.
Let me rephrase. If a person deliberately sets out to make a tastier dessert, so that it’s more attractive than competing desserts, how is this “hacking” anyone’s mind? If it’s more attractive, then it’s more attractive!
One can argue about whether it might be better from a health or finanical perspective to skip the dessert. One can even say that it’s rude to offer a person some dessert in an inappropriate context. But none of these things have to do with how the dessert tastes, or the quality of ingredients used, or the presentation of the dessert on the plate.
If the baker doesn’t lie about what’s in the dessert, and has gone to extra trouble to procure the finest ingredients, and make the best possible presentation...
And if you choose that dessert because of these things, is that “hacking” your mind? Or just someone offering you a nice dessert?
Your earlier comment implied that someone is “hacking” your mind, when all they’ve actually done is try their best to offer you a nice dessert. Whether you choose to indulge or not is still an essentially free choice, just like we are all free to turn down an actual dessert, no matter how tempting to our palates it may be.
It seems wrong (to me) to imply that using better ingredients or presentation of a dish somehow equals reaching out into someone’s brain and taking control of it. If it were, then we could turn around and argue that men have no control when they see an attractive woman… and I don’t think any of us like where that kind of thinking takes us (e.g. burqas, to say the very least).
(Footnote: is this comment insensitive to Muslims? I’m going to have to guess that religion is the one reasonably-safe whipping boy on LW, at least for the moment.)
I see.
Well no, -making- a more attractive dessert is not in any way hacking. PUA techniques that rely on maximising the man’s attractiveness to women are not hacking her brain, they are life-hacks for him. These are not the techniques likely to be objected to, methinks.
I think the improving-the-product aspect is eminently laudable. Self improvement is good.
What does count as hacking is more along the lines of this: To push the bakery example; I do not like caramel, but let’s say I go to a bakery intending to buy a banana muffin, but the charming presentation of fresh baked caramel ones, along with some tactics by the bakery employees, convince to buy a caramel muffin just this once.
The tactics of presentation and salesmanship have effectively hacked my brain into going for a lower-order preference.
It would take one amazing hack to make me eat a caramel muffin when I’m not hungry and not in a bakery, one that I suspect is not acheivable. I can say no to banana muffins, too.
I don’t mean to say that all PUA technique is fakery and salesmanship; rather I think that the sales-based portions are the ones that horrify women.
Given that I don’t find salesmanship horrifying when buying food or anything else, I’ve stopped finding descriptions of PUA work horrifying.
In all fairness, the consequences of choosing a bad “dessert” are probably much worse in the singles’ bar than in the bakery, so I can certainly empathize with an intuitive horror of being “sold” something you don’t really want in that context.
Thanks for listening and being open-minded. I appreciate it.
If someone who is trying to quit smoking complains about a craving, and you offer them a cigarette, are you doing them a favor?
I’m sorry, I don’t understand the connection.
All three situations are roughly equivalent, in that someone is offered something that they are currently primed to accept for some reason, but that they would reject normally in a typical mental state.
Many people seem to consider this ethically dubious, especially when the one offering has participated in priming the offeree to be receptive.
Sex, dessert, and cigarettes are “roughly equivalent”? Remind me not to come over to your house for dinner. ;-)
Edit to add: Wow, some people have no sense of humor. Or at least were unable to see past the humor to the actual point. That is, that it stretches the analogy too far to equate “emotionally complicated” and “fattening” with a dependency-forming drug that will then proceed to give you cancer and kill you. Bit of a negative applause light, eh?