I’ll comment on this post from Geoffrey Miller’s perspective (which I still believe is the closest map to the territory for heterosexual men)
1. Examining your goals is really valuable. I agree you should start by exploring your goals and your ethics.
take the simplistic belief “women prefer rich men”. Assuming that you believe that, and therefore you want to become rich;
This is good advice. To clarify neither I nor Miller believe that women prefer rich men. Financial success is probably correlated with extrovertion, intelligence, conscientiousness, social skills, the ability to provide, an effective degree of assertiveness, which are all attributes women have evolved to be attracted to.
But AB testing out the preferred attributes yourself would take a lifetime. The evopsych approach is to get a prior for which traits are attractive from evolutionary thought experiments, then test the beliefs with psych methods. I decided to get my priors from Miller because his epistemology seems sound in interviews and writing. Then I a/b tested his theories by posing hypotheticals to female friends and trying to guess which behavior they would label more attractive. I found Miller’s theories generalize pretty well, much better than my own mind projection. So I went with it. So beliefs about what women prefer are empirical, use you scholarship and low-cost tests.
Generally, if you believe that X helps at dating, focus on X, and stop talking about dating.
I agree with this too. My strategy is hyperfocusing on dating theory for a month, then writing up what you learned for comprehension. Now I can stop talking about dating moving forward, which is awesome!
The wrong kind of debate (about dating, politics, etc.) is when people already come with their ideologies fully formed, and try to get the majority of the audience on their side.
This is usually true. For my part, my orginal ideology a month ago said that women do not prefer high-status men. I realized I was in conflict with the data and my incorrect belief was hurting me. So I changed it. Unfortunately, new readers may assume my original ideology was “women are gold diggers”. Se la vie!
I mentioned “gold digging” as an ideological label, not to imply that being attracted to high-status suitors is the same as gold-digging. Personally, what turns you on cannot be unethical. I wouldn’t judge a woman who has more crushes on captains than skippers or a man who has more crushes on large-breasted women. So if “gold-digging” implies marrying someone for money, in the absence of attraction, that is a different issue. No comment on if gold-digging is ethical, but its a separate question.
This distinction between preferences and behaviors helps escape the ideological traps of discussing romance.
I’ll comment on this post from Geoffrey Miller’s perspective (which I still believe is the closest map to the territory for heterosexual men)
1. Examining your goals is really valuable. I agree you should start by exploring your goals and your ethics.
This is good advice. To clarify neither I nor Miller believe that women prefer rich men. Financial success is probably correlated with extrovertion, intelligence, conscientiousness, social skills, the ability to provide, an effective degree of assertiveness, which are all attributes women have evolved to be attracted to.
But AB testing out the preferred attributes yourself would take a lifetime. The evopsych approach is to get a prior for which traits are attractive from evolutionary thought experiments, then test the beliefs with psych methods. I decided to get my priors from Miller because his epistemology seems sound in interviews and writing. Then I a/b tested his theories by posing hypotheticals to female friends and trying to guess which behavior they would label more attractive. I found Miller’s theories generalize pretty well, much better than my own mind projection. So I went with it. So beliefs about what women prefer are empirical, use you scholarship and low-cost tests.
I agree with this too. My strategy is hyperfocusing on dating theory for a month, then writing up what you learned for comprehension. Now I can stop talking about dating moving forward, which is awesome!
This is usually true. For my part, my orginal ideology a month ago said that women do not prefer high-status men. I realized I was in conflict with the data and my incorrect belief was hurting me. So I changed it. Unfortunately, new readers may assume my original ideology was “women are gold diggers”. Se la vie!
I mentioned “gold digging” as an ideological label, not to imply that being attracted to high-status suitors is the same as gold-digging. Personally, what turns you on cannot be unethical. I wouldn’t judge a woman who has more crushes on captains than skippers or a man who has more crushes on large-breasted women. So if “gold-digging” implies marrying someone for money, in the absence of attraction, that is a different issue. No comment on if gold-digging is ethical, but its a separate question.
This distinction between preferences and behaviors helps escape the ideological traps of discussing romance.