You seem to be suggesting that lies and manipulation in pickup serve to lead the target to a desirable outcome they would not deliberately choose, as in humor. I and many others have repeatedly asserted here that this is not the case.
I assume you mean to include ‘all’ in there. Some pickup practitioners (and pickup strategies) do use lies and manipulation without consideration of whether the outcome is desirable (and the means appropriate.) That is a legitimate concern. It would certainly not be reasonable to assert this is the norm, which you didn’t make clear in your declaration of repeated assertion.
There are pickup techniques that are simply not acceptable—attacking self-esteem
Here it is important not to beware of other optimising. For the average Joe and Jane a courtship protocol that involves attacking each other’s self esteem would just be obnoxious and unpleasant. So I wouldn’t ‘accept’ in that sense self esteem lowering tactics to that kind of target. Yet for particularly high status folks within that kind of social game self-esteem attacks are just how it is played—by both sexes. They attack the heck out of each other with social weapons to assure each other that they have the social prowess to handle each other. And they both love every minute of it. Of course even if you take away 90% of their self esteem they probably still have more that enough left!
The biggest problem with self esteem attacking as a strategy come when clumsy PUAs try to use a tactic that is appropriate for 10s on 6s and 7s (in terms of approximate rank in the dating social hierarchy). That is just unpleasant (not to mention ineffective.) A related problem is confusing gender atypical girl with a gender typical girl (often due to complete ignorance of the possibility of that kind of difference). Again that will be unpleasant for the target in question—instead of exactly what she needs to facilitate a satisfying sexual encounter.
Rather than being ‘simply not acceptable’, pickup techniques that involve attacking self esteem are complexly not acceptable, depending on the context and parties involved.
manufacturing breakups
I am comfortable in labelling individuals who do this as assholes and do anything possible to keep them out of my social circle and generally undermine their status.
You (collectively) need to abandon this soldier.
You collectively? Exactly which collective are you referring to here? It would be reasonable to level the gist of your objection at Vaniver—or at least his specific comment here. But if you mean to level it at the ancestor (by HughRistik) then you are totally missing the mark.
The biggest opportunity to improve discourse on these kind of subjects—and to actually potentially benefit those participating in the dating game—is to abandon judgements on collectives.
I assume you mean to include ‘all’ in there. Some pickup practitioners (and pickup strategies) do use lies and manipulation without consideration of whether the outcome is desirable (and the means appropriate.) That is a legitimate concern. It would certainly not be reasonable to assert this is the norm, which you didn’t make clear in your declaration of repeated assertion.
In context, I was responding to a generalization with a counter based on exceptions to a proposed rule. I agree there is variety within the pickup community. I disagree that it is uniformly a force for good—and thus that opposition to it is based on dislike for science.
Here it is important not to beware of other optimising. For the average Joe and Jane a courtship protocol that involves attacking each other’s self esteem would just be obnoxious and unpleasant. [...]
You’re right. I meant to indicate the case of attacking someone’s self-esteem in order to make them feel bad (and become pliable), rather than to engage them in a duel of wits.
You collectively? Exactly which collective are you referring to here?
The posters on lesswrong who claim that opposition to pickup on lesswrong is due to women being uncomfortable with explicit analysis of social reality, or (relatedly) that pickup is a uniformly altruistic enterprise (wrt sexual partners).
It’s only a judgment on a collective because it’s a judgment on a position, and the collective is people who hold that position.
You’re right. I meant to indicate the case of attacking someone’s self-esteem in order to make them feel bad (and become pliable), rather than to engage them in a duel of wits.
No, I don’t mean duels of wits in that sense. I really do refer to the case of attacking someone’s self esteem to make them become pliable. Not bad per se (that doesn’t help), but less secure and less confident and in general that which is lowering self esteem. The judgement you make of all instances of that behaviour is actually narrowminded in as much as enforcing the judgement would worsen the experiences of life of a whole class of people. And I do not refer to a class denominated by sex.
The posters on lesswrong who claim that opposition to pickup on lesswrong is due to women being uncomfortable with explicit analysis of social reality,
or (relatedly) that pickup is a uniformly altruistic enterprise (wrt sexual partners).
Everyone who does make the claim that pickup is uniformly altruistic is clearly and obviously mistaken. And can look forward to a world of disappointment when they realise their fairytale ideas about romance are absurdly naive. Most people learn the hard way during their teens. (Although nerds tend to take longer on average.)
I assume you mean to include ‘all’ in there. Some pickup practitioners (and pickup strategies) do use lies and manipulation without consideration of whether the outcome is desirable (and the means appropriate.) That is a legitimate concern. It would certainly not be reasonable to assert this is the norm, which you didn’t make clear in your declaration of repeated assertion.
Here it is important not to beware of other optimising. For the average Joe and Jane a courtship protocol that involves attacking each other’s self esteem would just be obnoxious and unpleasant. So I wouldn’t ‘accept’ in that sense self esteem lowering tactics to that kind of target. Yet for particularly high status folks within that kind of social game self-esteem attacks are just how it is played—by both sexes. They attack the heck out of each other with social weapons to assure each other that they have the social prowess to handle each other. And they both love every minute of it. Of course even if you take away 90% of their self esteem they probably still have more that enough left!
The biggest problem with self esteem attacking as a strategy come when clumsy PUAs try to use a tactic that is appropriate for 10s on 6s and 7s (in terms of approximate rank in the dating social hierarchy). That is just unpleasant (not to mention ineffective.) A related problem is confusing gender atypical girl with a gender typical girl (often due to complete ignorance of the possibility of that kind of difference). Again that will be unpleasant for the target in question—instead of exactly what she needs to facilitate a satisfying sexual encounter.
Rather than being ‘simply not acceptable’, pickup techniques that involve attacking self esteem are complexly not acceptable, depending on the context and parties involved.
I am comfortable in labelling individuals who do this as assholes and do anything possible to keep them out of my social circle and generally undermine their status.
You collectively? Exactly which collective are you referring to here? It would be reasonable to level the gist of your objection at Vaniver—or at least his specific comment here. But if you mean to level it at the ancestor (by HughRistik) then you are totally missing the mark.
The biggest opportunity to improve discourse on these kind of subjects—and to actually potentially benefit those participating in the dating game—is to abandon judgements on collectives.
In context, I was responding to a generalization with a counter based on exceptions to a proposed rule. I agree there is variety within the pickup community. I disagree that it is uniformly a force for good—and thus that opposition to it is based on dislike for science.
You’re right. I meant to indicate the case of attacking someone’s self-esteem in order to make them feel bad (and become pliable), rather than to engage them in a duel of wits.
The posters on lesswrong who claim that opposition to pickup on lesswrong is due to women being uncomfortable with explicit analysis of social reality, or (relatedly) that pickup is a uniformly altruistic enterprise (wrt sexual partners).
It’s only a judgment on a collective because it’s a judgment on a position, and the collective is people who hold that position.
No, I don’t mean duels of wits in that sense. I really do refer to the case of attacking someone’s self esteem to make them become pliable. Not bad per se (that doesn’t help), but less secure and less confident and in general that which is lowering self esteem. The judgement you make of all instances of that behaviour is actually narrowminded in as much as enforcing the judgement would worsen the experiences of life of a whole class of people. And I do not refer to a class denominated by sex.
I am expressing myself poorly, I think. I believe I am familiar with the type of interaction you are describing, and agree that it is not ‘bad’.
Everyone who does make the claim that pickup is uniformly altruistic is clearly and obviously mistaken. And can look forward to a world of disappointment when they realise their fairytale ideas about romance are absurdly naive. Most people learn the hard way during their teens. (Although nerds tend to take longer on average.)