My point was more that the situations could be confused by people with broken social coprocessors and inappropriate behaviour translated across from one domain to another. Without a lot of explanation of the appropriateness.
Well, yes, but that’s what explanations are for. Once you grasp the underlying principles, it’s not that complicated—and more importantly, you gradually start to make correct judgments instinctively.
I agree about the grumbling, don’t grumble about the weight, grumble about the time taken.
No, if you understand the status dynamic fully, you’ll realize that you shouldn’t grumble at all. Grumbling, of whatever sort, indicates that you assign a significant cost to the act, and in order to come off as high-status, you must make it look like it’s a negligible expense of effort from your lofty high-status position, a casual dispensation of benevolent grace. As soon as you make it seem like you perceive the act as costly in any way, it looks like you’re making the effort to fulfill her wishes, clearly displaying inferior status to hers.
Remember we are talking about nerdy girls, that is not the norm that the PUA deals with. I remember a recent post by someone saying that nerdy girls prefer men who dominate everything but them. I can’t remember who posted it, at the moment.
Getting back to an earlier discussion of whether more women are wanted at LW..… anyone who’s likely to show up here is nerdy. Perhaps it would be a good idea to remember, and keep remembering, and make it clear in your writing, that “women” are not a monolithic block and don’t all want the same thing.
Assuming that there are non-Anglospheric folks here, this is probably an unjustified generalization due to a cultural bias. The idea that smart people interested in the sorts of things discussed here have to conform to the stereotype of “nerdiness” is a historically recent North American cultural phenomenon, which doesn’t necessarily hold in other places. It’s actually a rather curious state of affairs by overall historical standards.
Your observation is probably accurate statistically, though.
People who appear socially low-status can end up in economically high-status knowledge-based professions in an industrial society, which upsets people’s intuitions of how the social hierarchy should work. Put-downs have evolved for making things look right again.
I still find American anti-intellectualism kind of shocking. Do you know if there are other cultures where children reliably punish each other for getting good grades?
I don’t really know how it’s distributed. There seems to be a generally stronger streak of anti-intellectualism in America than in Europe, and kids probably pick that up. A poor primary education system may make the problems worse by making education gaps wider and by leaving children with a poor grasp on how the wider society functions.
I’ve the impressions that things are somewhat more US-like in Britain and that studying science is more appreciated in the former Soviet bloc, but I don’t know how accurate these are. Education seems to be very highly valued in China and India. I’ve no idea about the rest of the world.
Yes, Britain has a similar culture to the US in terms of children punishing those who get good grades. My personal experience was that getting good grades was not in itself a major problem as long as you didn’t appear to be trying too hard or to care about the outcome.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to remember, and keep remembering, and make it clear in your writing, that “women” are not a monolithic block and don’t all want the same thing.
A woman who doesn’t want a generalization applied to them? :)
whpearson:
Well, yes, but that’s what explanations are for. Once you grasp the underlying principles, it’s not that complicated—and more importantly, you gradually start to make correct judgments instinctively.
No, if you understand the status dynamic fully, you’ll realize that you shouldn’t grumble at all. Grumbling, of whatever sort, indicates that you assign a significant cost to the act, and in order to come off as high-status, you must make it look like it’s a negligible expense of effort from your lofty high-status position, a casual dispensation of benevolent grace. As soon as you make it seem like you perceive the act as costly in any way, it looks like you’re making the effort to fulfill her wishes, clearly displaying inferior status to hers.
Remember we are talking about nerdy girls, that is not the norm that the PUA deals with. I remember a recent post by someone saying that nerdy girls prefer men who dominate everything but them. I can’t remember who posted it, at the moment.
Getting back to an earlier discussion of whether more women are wanted at LW..… anyone who’s likely to show up here is nerdy. Perhaps it would be a good idea to remember, and keep remembering, and make it clear in your writing, that “women” are not a monolithic block and don’t all want the same thing.
NancyLebovitz:
Assuming that there are non-Anglospheric folks here, this is probably an unjustified generalization due to a cultural bias. The idea that smart people interested in the sorts of things discussed here have to conform to the stereotype of “nerdiness” is a historically recent North American cultural phenomenon, which doesn’t necessarily hold in other places. It’s actually a rather curious state of affairs by overall historical standards.
Your observation is probably accurate statistically, though.
That’s interesting. Any theories about what’s going on?
People who appear socially low-status can end up in economically high-status knowledge-based professions in an industrial society, which upsets people’s intuitions of how the social hierarchy should work. Put-downs have evolved for making things look right again.
Could be.
I still find American anti-intellectualism kind of shocking. Do you know if there are other cultures where children reliably punish each other for getting good grades?
I don’t really know how it’s distributed. There seems to be a generally stronger streak of anti-intellectualism in America than in Europe, and kids probably pick that up. A poor primary education system may make the problems worse by making education gaps wider and by leaving children with a poor grasp on how the wider society functions.
I’ve the impressions that things are somewhat more US-like in Britain and that studying science is more appreciated in the former Soviet bloc, but I don’t know how accurate these are. Education seems to be very highly valued in China and India. I’ve no idea about the rest of the world.
Yes, Britain has a similar culture to the US in terms of children punishing those who get good grades. My personal experience was that getting good grades was not in itself a major problem as long as you didn’t appear to be trying too hard or to care about the outcome.
A woman who doesn’t want a generalization applied to them? :)