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NancyLebovitz comments on Of Exclusionary Speech and Gender Politics - Less Wrong
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I think you're assuming that the things you like will work across a wide range of people.
Speaking as a woman who posts to LW, I'm not especially interested in PUA being discussed here unless there's some consideration of consent issues. Those consent issues actually have some parallels to FAI problems-- who decides whether someone is better off? By what standards?
I would say that the equally offense-laden parallel for PUA would be methods for getting men to commit. I don't know whether they've been as carefully studied as PUA--- at a minimum, it's a harder subject because the cost of experiments is higher.
There's an optimal level of controversy and offense for individuals (not necessarily the same for interest and for learning), and it probably isn't the maximal level.
Because PUA comes off as dividing women into hackable systems and not worth hacking. If it's too accepted, it can make it seem as though talking to you isn't worth the trouble.
"Talking about women" isn't enough. How they're talked about matters.
This is a really interesting point, actually. What is about PUA that makes it more concerning from a consent standpoint than, say, advertising? Both are manipulative, and I see considerable parallels between the two. (I find it hard to believe that the big advertising firms have put less effort into figuring out how to get people to do things than pickup artists have...) Should advertising to someone require their consent? Is there a significant difference between product placement in entertainment media and PUA techniques that are based on normal conversations, as opposed to PUA techniques based on being in a traditional picking-up-dates scenario, which seem more like standard commercials? What does consent even mean in the context of situations like PUA or advertising where the point of the manipulation is to get you to say yes? Is it even possible to require consent to that kind of thing, without just pushing the problem back a level and having the manipulators focus on getting you to give your consent to be advertised/PUA'd to?
You're considering whether advertising is problematic and/or should be legal without looking at whether people on the receiving end of advertising want it or benefit by it.
If someone wrote in Less Wrong about successful techniques of advertising, and said it must be a good thing because people buy what's advertised, I don't think it would go over entirely well.
Even before I'd read Rain's comment, I was willing to bet that most LWers limit their exposure to advertising-- not so much for political reasons or for fear of it, as just that it's low information repetitive input. I admit I'm generalizing from myself on this one, though it's worth noting that even the general public tends to avoid tv ads if they can.
One thing that's clear from the akrasia and luminosity discussions is that not everything in people's minds can be relied on to make their lives better. It's reasonable to be concerned about inputs from people who are trying to influence your mind and have specific goals which do not include your welfare.
In the case of PUA, saying that some women like that approach (which is true), or that PUAs mean well (which is neither trustworthy [1] nor relevant) substitutes for a general follow-up on how women who've been PUAd perceive the experience later,.
At this stage, advertising may well be less effective than PUA-- for most things, it isn't personally directed. A small story-- I know a person who used to sell stuffed dragons, and she said she sold them by finding the little part of the potential customer which wanted one ot the dragons, and (by implication) getting that part of the person to make the decision. She didn't see any problems with that, but I later met someone who wouldn't go near that woman's table because of being afraid of getting talked into buying a dragon she didn't want all that much.
Even if the sales effort had been more carefully constructed so that anyone who bought a stuffed dragon would not be capable of regretting it, there would be more consent issues, not fewer.
If advertising becomes that effective, I don't know how this should be addressed legally or philosophically. I do think there are problems.
[1] Some PUAs start from a position of resenting women for turning them down.
I don't think this holds true for me. I am somewhat selective about what advertising I attend to but I don't in general limit my exposure to it and I sometimes actively seek it out.
I tend to skip over adverts when viewing TV on my PVR because they are of low average quality, high density and are generally interrupting something I was actually interested in. On the other hand I will sometimes watch adverts that catch my attention when skipping through either because they are visually interesting or because they are providing information about something I am interested in.
There are a variety of adverts that I don't avoid and may actively seek out. These include movie trailers for films I might be interested in watching, adverts that are notable for clever or dramatic visuals and adverts for products I am interested in purchasing. I'm interested in visual media in general and so find both filmed adverts and commercial photography interesting from that standpoint when the quality is high. I have purchased a number of DVD collections that include the advertising works of directors - many of todays most interesting film directors started out in advertising and music videos (which are a form of advertising). I also have photography books that include commercial photography.
In the age of the Internet there is a blurred line between advertising and product information and I'm not uncomfortable reading information in the blurred area, though I prefer clear disclosure of any commercial interests driving the material. I quite happily use a manufacturer's website as one source of product information for products I am considering purchasing though and I also find that third party reviews can be valuable even when it is disclosed that the product was provided free to the reviewer or that there are other reasons to treat the opinions provided as not entirely unbiased.
In general I find advertising less problematic in terms of bias and manipulation than political speech or much journalism (which is very often just lightly disguised political speech).
At the risk of being seen standing up for low-status males, I feel obliged to point out that that's not incompatible with "meaning well".
It's not incompatible with meaning well, but I wouldn't recommend taking their word that they aren't doing harm.
In the case of women using beauty-enhancing techniques (high heels, push-up bras, make-up, hairstyling), saying that some men like that in women (which is true), or that women mean well (which is neither trustworthy [1] nor relevant) substitutes for a general follow-up on how men who've been allured perceive the experience later.
At this stage, advertising may well be less effective than sexy attire on women -- for most things, it isn't personally directed. ...
If advertising becomes that effective, I don't know how this should be addressed legally or philosophically. I do think there are problems.
[1] Some women start from a position of resenting men for not caring more about their personality.
I'm not sure that many would object to this analogy. It strengthens the case that sharing PUA techniques isn't an appropriate use of LW, just as sharing beauty-enhancing techniques isn't.
It seems to me that the situation is pretty simple, for PU artistry as well as for advertising. Most PUA techniques that I've seen amount to efforts to persuade using Dark Side Epistemology. Bottom-lining is rampant. For example, with "negging", the PUA starts with the bottom line "You should feel self-conscious and insecure", and then seeks only evidence that supports this conclusion.
Such PUA techniques should be discussed like any other Dark Side methods: with a view towards minimizing their use and effectiveness.
I think I agree. My opinion is that LW shouldn't be for PUA/beauty tips or how-to's. But it would be appropriate to discuss why these methods work, under what conditions you'd want to resist them, and what countermeasures you can take. (And I suspect some don't even want it to go this far, or want to restrict PUA more than beauty.)
So, IMO it would be appropriate to say, "This beauty/PUA technique exploits the psychological hardware in men/women for the following evolutionary reasons ... "
But it would not be appropriate to say, "Here's a trick you can use to dupe men/women into obeying you/sleeping with you ..."
Have there been actual discussions here about beauty enhancement techniques that we should worry about restricting?
I meant they would have a different standard for discussing the cognitive bias issues related to beauty (despite the parallel in PUA), not that such discussions have been common.
What leads you to make this prediction?
The massive flamewar this board had which was partially over the PUA issue, compared to the tame discussions of evolutionary psychology that touch on judgments of female beauty.
What leads you to find it implausible?
Actually, the function of a neg is not to induce insecurity, but to disarm. Mystery's original goal was to create a method of seducing what he calls "exceptionally beautiful women", who are often surrounded by hordes of supplicant males flattering their beauty.
The function of the neg in this context was to show that Mystery was not applying for membership in the woman's puppy dog pack, and thereby signaling a higher status than those other males, as well as indicating that she would need more than her physical attractiveness in order to interest him.
It also served an additional purpose of preventing both the "target" and her friends (male or female) from being initially aware of his interest in her, to keep them from engaging in whatever stereotyped defensive behaviors they might have for discouraging people from hitting on her.
The actual effect of a neg may include insecurity, but the intended effect is to make the PUA appear "hard to get", and therefore more attractive... even if only as a challenge to the woman's "game". Mystery's "jealousy plots" are a similar class of maneuver.
In any case, outside the context of "exceptionally beautiful woman" (who knows she's desirable) with a pack of friends and/or "orbiters", the use of actual "negs" are counterindicated. David DeAngelo's "cocky funny", or RSD's "self-amusement" concepts are more generally applicable in such cases, and a neg is really just an intensified version of the playful teasing of those other methods, for a specific field of application.
[By the way, this is not an endorsement of any of these methods by me, just an attempt to correct a (common) misunderstanding about negs. If you've watched Mystery's TV show, you might be aware that some aspiring PUAs are also under the impression that a neg is an insult to lower self-esteem... and you may have also seen just how horribly wrong things actually go when you try to use it that way. ;-) ]
My point is only that the neg is an example of bottom-lining. First you decide that you will convince her of something that will have certain effects on her. Then you decide on the evidence that you will highlight to convince her of this.
I'm confused. ISTM that Mystery's primary intention (as stated very frequently by him) is to convey the message, "I am not like other men". Everything about his behavior and appearance is tailored to communicate that message, and as a result, it is true. He is not like other men, in his appearance and behavior, unless they are imitating him.
Also, you said here that:
Mystery's "song" is (accurately) portraying himself as a quirky nonconformist who requires more than beauty to impress him.
The real flaw in Mystery's method is not that the behavior itself is wrong, but that his systematic disassembly and reassembly of large- and small-scale behavior patterns is not a good teaching method for getting people to be attractive, because the act of transmission via breaking down and reassembling inevitably communicates and reinforces various wrong things.
In effect, the breakdown mechanicalizes people and reduces authenticity until someone develops enough confidence of their own -- fake it till you make it, so to speak. The problem is that then some people never get past faking it, and the actual faking may be questionable.
In essence, Mystery asked, "what behaviors do I need to perform to attract women?", and used this same question to inform his training of others.
But the people who are these days rebuilding Mystery's training methods, have been asking a different, and much better question: "how do I become the kind of person who naturally exhibits the kind of behaviors that (the kind of ) women (I'd be interested in) find attractive?"
Modern methods emphasize identifying the mental and physical characteristics of your ideal mate ("your true 10" in DYD-speak, or your "blueprint woman" in RSD-speak), as a prelude to identifying what sort of man to become... which is more analagous to finding out what kind of music someone likes, so you can play it for them.
Mystery's real problem, however, was not that he didn't identify the target audience for his "music", or that he didn't try to play the kind of "music" he observed that audience responding to. It's that he was operating from an assumption that he wasn't good enough in himself, and that therefore he needed to mimic attractive behaviors, rather than simply becoming attractive himself. To resume your music analogy, it's as though he believed he needed to lipsync the music of others, rather than to learn to actually "sing" himself.
The larger PUA community, I think (or at least the thought leaders), have come to the conclusion that, despite Mystery's immense contributions to the analysis and understanding of the social dynamics of meeting and relating to people in nightclubs, this assumption of inferior status and value as a starting point to interaction (because initially, Mystery's situation was one of needing to lift himself from an inferior status), was a serious mistake that drove the community in bad directions and reinforced the insecurity and immaturity of many, rather than helping them to face and overcome those issues.
Your post is consistent with my understanding, also.
Furthermore, Mystery's model of women is biased towards the modal female extravert. Since he based most of his understanding of women on his club interactions, he was vulnerable to the availability heuristic. (Look! We are talking about rationality and pickup!)
It is indeed important to understand the modal/median/average women, but unless you actually want to date the type of woman, you need to understand other types of women, also. Yet the view of women in the community seems a bit over-homogenized towards the types of women that PUAs encounter most often.
Furthermore, I think part of the reason that some PUAs sound cynical or patronizing when they talk about women is that PUAs are not the average male. They are probably higher than average in intelligence and introversion, yet they are comparing female extraverts of average intelligence to themselves and finding them lacking; this is an unfair comparison.
Are the women they're attracted to of average intelligence? I can see arguments pointing in four directions. The 9s and 10s are of average intelligence-- it's the null hypothesis. They're smarter than average-- if appearing maximally attractive takes some skill (and it does), then g should help. They're less intelligent than average-- they've been coasting on their looks. They're of average or above average intelligence, but choose to appear less intelligent so as not to put men off.
Modal?
Oh, I guess you mean "typical", as opposed to atypical. I thought maybe it was a typo for "model", since Mystery's aim was reported to include models, bartenders, strippers, hostesses and other "women hired for their beauty".
Which kind of underscores your point in an odd way -- his observations were NOT based on "average" women at all, but on neurotypical extroverts of above-average appearance.
And then you decide that your precautions against causing harm must be good enough.
I have no desire to minimize the use or effectiveness of techniques women use to enhance their beauty. Or were you not considering that a 'Dark Side' method?
I think the 'Dark Side' sometimes gets an overly bad rap around here. I wish to understand the techniques so I can avoid being manipulated into doing things that are against my broader interests and I would prefer to see less use of dubious techniques for persuasion in discussions that are supposed to be truth-seeking but I wouldn't want to see all 'manipulative' techniques disappear completely. Sometimes I enjoy being emotionally 'manipulated', whether by art (movies, music, paintings, literature) or by deliberate suspension of disbelief in personal interactions. Being a rationalist should not require turning oneself and the world into the 'Spock' stereotype.
Not all PUA techniques are examples of Dark Side Epistemology, nor are all beauty-enhancing techniques. Some, however, are.
Could you elaborate on what you consider the dividing line to be? Is it merely the awareness of the target of the techniques being employed? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that as a dividing line: I enjoy music and the effect it has on my emotions despite not being sufficiently knowledgeable about music to understand the mechanics of how to achieve a particular emotional effect. I am aware such techniques exist but I don't know the details. Similarly with female beauty enhancement. I'm more aware of the techniques film makers use to manipulate emotions because I have spent quite a lot of time learning about them but when enjoying a film in the moment I do not wish to consciously focus on them.
I think that the best heuristic is to look for bottom-lining. Have you decided on what you want to convince her of before you have determined what evidence you will selectively show her to bring her to that conclusion? If so, you might be practicing dark side epistemology.
I don't think that the case with music is the same in general. First, merely convincing you to like something is different from convincing you that something is true. Merely convincing you to think that I'm attractive is one thing. Inducing you to do so by convincing you that there's something strange about how your hair looks is another.
Second, suppose that I want you to buy my songs. if I want to convince you that my music is good, then the honest way to do so is to figure out what you like in music, and then to make music with those qualities. But note that there's no bottom-lining here. When you get the song, you will ideally listen to it first, and then draw the conclusion that it's good.
This is an interesting argument, but I don't think that you can hold the same standards of epistemic rationality to matters of social perception. To a large extent, coolness, social status, and attractiveness are subjective qualities that depend on the perception of others. The Earth will not become flatter because you persuade a lot of people that it is flat, but if you can persuade a lot of people that you are cool, then you probably really are cool (general "you," of course).
There is nothing wrong with deciding in advance what "bottom line" conclusion you want people to hold about you (e.g. that you are cool, high status, or attractive), because if you successfully behave in way that influences people to have that perception, then it often magically becomes true, making your original behavior legitimate. Even if you are a shy person adopting that behavior for the first time. At least, it is true in the context of interaction with those people. And if you fail to give them that perception ("this guy isn't as cool as he thinks he is"), then no harm is done because they see through you.
There is nothing "dark side" about trying to act as cool, high status, or attractive as possible, and trying to push the limits (as long as this behavior isn't based on lying or deception). People will either accept you as having those attributes, or they won't. (The only ethical exception is in cases of actual lying or deception, such as about one's job, age, finances, history, social position, etc... In this case, it does become meaningful to say that someone's social perception of you can be based on false pretenses.)
The "truth" about your "real" status and attractiveness is not something that you yourself can decide in advance; at best, you only have a confidence interval. Since you don't know where your "real" status and attractiveness lie, then you shouldn't worry so much about deceiving people about it. Instead of trying to decide your status in advance and "protect" people from having an inflated perception of it, you should try to figure out your status by interacting with people and seeing what behavior others accept from you and respond well to (in more cynical terms, "see what you can get away with"). Other people are perfectly capable of protecting themselves from you acting too big for your britches.
People will tell you, explicitly or implicitly, how cool and attractive you are; there is no need for you to try to decide for them. I will hypothesize that this is how most normal people conduct social interaction, and there is nothing wrong with nerdy people knowingly replicating the same behavior even if it isn't intuitive to them.
Social perception: the only place in the universe where perception actually is reality (at least, to a large degree).
While that sounds nice in theory, it's not realistic. In all human interaction people try to present their best attributes first. This is normal and generally harmless. In fact, most people would find it quite odd if when someone introduced themselves they instantly revealed their major self-perceived flaws. If you continue to withhold important information that you know is likely to be perceived negatively by another person over a long period then you start to cross a line that most people would consider unreasonable but I think you need to offer a more restrictive definition of what is considered the 'dark side' unless you want to rule out most normal human interaction.
It seems that 'dark side' gets used in two somewhat different ways here. What Eliezer describes in Dark Side Epistemology seems a narrower definition than is sometimes employed by others. I haven't seen a clear definition of this broader meaning but it appears to include techniques that are calculated to produce a particular effect in the audience and incorporates the kinds of 'tricks' that artists use to make their works emotionally resonant and powerful.
I can't say that I've ever seen women make as general claims for benevolence and good general effects for dressing up as I've seen made for PUA.
Afaik, woman either say they have fun doing it, and follow up with what's wrong with that?, or they say they're pushed into it because men want it. They don't say they're making men better off even if men say they don't like it.
Also, (and this may be more interesting than the above), being resentful about women dressing up isn't a mainstream modern point of view. It's common in a number of religions and also showed up in communist China.
So they're better at shielding themselves from awareness of its effect on men's psyches? What difference does that make? A lot of naturals do exactly what PUAs do; it's just that non-naturals don't naturally do it, and have to be explained the reason why it works. A woman who just "feels like" making herself beautiful, as a good in and of itself, is therefore much like a natural male PUA: she instinctively does something that works, without understanding the broader context of why it works. (Level 1 in my hierarchy.)
Being resentful about being in the presence of overpoweringly attractive females that a male does not know how to appeal to is actually quite common. Perhaps it's not widely discussed in these terms, but I guarantee it's present in the legions who seek the advice of PUAs.
There are some PUA techniques, at least, which only work on people who are not aware of them. There's this funny passage in The Game which discusses how one group of guys is preemptively spoling another group's pick-up lines at a party, and later on something along the same lines happens to the protagonist (it would be spoilerish to give any more detail).
By contrast I doubt that advertising agencies would suffer much if their techniques were exposed; the reason Avatar was so successful, I surmise, is simply that they saturated the public's awareness with it, which only required a large cash outlay.
"Techniques which only work against you because you're not aware of them" is one of the reasons for the PUA's bad rap, I suspect. (There are others, such as insincerity, but that'll have to be for another time.)
This sounds intuitively like a good heuristic, but the underlying logic isn't obvious to me. Can you expand?
Assume that when someone finds out about a technique, they judge whether they think it ought to work on them or not, and adjust their behavior accordingly. If a technique doesn't work when the subject is aware of it, that usually means that they would decide, for some reason, that they don't want it to work. So if a technique works only when the subject is unaware of it, then using that technique is going against their preferences.
Pretty much. I like to contrast this with the techniques I use in sales meetings to guide the sale toward closing, which I not only don't mind if my clients find out about them, I'm usually happy to feature them if the occasion arises.
"Sales techniques" is something that seems cringeworthy to many people - I've had more than one person confirm that. One of the happiest find in my careers as a freelance was this set of non-manipulative sales techniques.
Solution selling in particular was a watershed in turning me from an engineer into a (pretty successful) salesman while getting rid of any qualms I might have had about the transition. It helps a lot that what I'm selling is my own services and I happen to know what I'm good at; but that's the point of solution selling.
FWIW, it's the increasing frequency of such events occurring that has forced the evolution of "natural" methods, which aren't vulnerable to such revelations. (Since they attempt mainly to modify the male's personality and expressiveness, rather than teaching him ways to manipulate.)
"My opinion is that LW shouldn't be for PUA/beauty tips or how-to's. But it would be appropriate to discuss why these methods work, under what conditions you'd want to resist them, and what countermeasures you can take. (And I suspect some don't even want it to go this far, or want to restrict PUA more than beauty.)"
To clarify, I was promoting discussing PUA under this context, not FROM THE LENS of a working PUA. Certainly Pickup Artistry should never be actively encouraged on this site - there are way too many sites that handle this better than this one. But to discuss PUA from an observer's lens - discuss its merits and its pitfalls - I don't see why this type of discussion would drive individuals away unless the majority of the discussion turned into nonsense.
I think discussing PUA is going to attract a lot of individuals, and the right kind of individual. As long as the community continues to discuss this highly controversial topic in a rationalist manner, then other would-be rationalists are going to be find that unique and hopefully interesting. It's when controversial topics are viewed in a rationalist light that you truly shine a beacon declaring, "We are mindful. Not mindless."
If the discussion truly devolves then it should be a banned topic.
Well, whether it's been researched or not, it's certainly being sold:
On a side note... I actually was at a conference where the guy who writes the sales material for the above products discussed the psychology of their advertising methods for using women's fears of "dying alone" to drive sales, as an example for how to identify and exploit irrational fears in general.
So yes, advertising is definitely researched at least as much as PUA, especially by PUAs-turned advertisers. ("Christian Carter/Catch Him And Keep Him" is a brand owned by the same company that owns "David DeAngelo/Double Your Dating" -- both are character/stage names, like "Sara Lee" or "Ronald McDonald". And the names are alliterative for reasons that were also discussed at that conference...)