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Perplexed comments on More art, less stink: Taking the PU out of PUA - Less Wrong
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If I may say so, there is something troubling about your third paragraph (edited, with emphasis added):
Try to imagine substituting other forms of consensual social interaction here, and seeing if the tone feels right. For example, right now the economy is bad in many places, and many people are unemployed. I can easily imagine that there are numerous self-help courses that teach people how to make themselves more attractive to employers, by teaching them how to behave during interviews, etc. Now obviously no such program can guarantee anyone a job. Imagine, however, that some poor soul -- let's make her a woman -- goes through these courses, does everything she can to improve her prospects, but still can't manage to secure a job. Presumably, a person in that position would naturally feel a sense of frustration; they may even feel that they are the victim of unfairness. Can you imagine applying a word like creepy to this -- general, unspecified, hypothetical -- woman's distress? ("Creepy" is about the strongest form of social condemnation that exists in near mode -- i.e. when we're not talking about distant political villains.) Would you feel the need to point out -- in a rather defensive-sounding way -- that employers are in fact free to reject those whom they regard as less-than-qualified candidates? It's unlikely you would worry too much about such a person turning to violence -- and to the extent you did, it would probably be in the standard sympathetic way in which thoughtful, liberal people usually discuss the relationship between poverty and crime.
I don't mean to single you out personally and question your motives, so please don't take what follows that way; but it seems to me that underlying remarks like these -- which I have seen and heard from many people in many places over the years -- is a fundamentally inadequate level of sympathy for "unattractive" men. I wonder if it's time someone made the bound-to-be-controversial suggestion that women in modern society are excessively conservative when it comes to granting sexual favors. There is apparently no greater female nightmare scenario than mating with a less-than-optimally-attractive male. The Darwinian reasons why this should be the case are too obvious to be worth stating; but it should be equally obvious that such behavior is less than rational in our modern era of contraception: sex simply doesn't have the same dangers that it did in the ancestral environment.
(I would guess that the analogously irrational male behavior is probably sexual jealousy.)
Ok, you have put the suggestion out there, it was indeed controversial, you received some criticism, but apparently no hit to your karma for suggesting it. Isn't it time now for you to flesh out just what it is you mean? "Excessively conservative" by what standard, and who or what makes that kind of standard? The phrase "granting sexual favors". Was that phrase just a convenient euphemism, or do you think that "granting favors" is the right framework for this discussion? (Surely, after all, the world might be a better place if we all did more favors for each other, but it seemed as if you were calling for one small segment of humanity - young, attractive single women to provide the favors, presumably for the benefit of a different small segment. You didn't mention any favors flowing in any other direction. Perhaps now might be the time to mention them.)
Also, you might clarify that bit about:
You see, I notice unattractive men getting married every day, and then going on to have children. Their wives don't seem to be having nightmares about it. That is the kind of thing you meant by "mating", isn't it? Or, if you are using "mating" to refer to some other behavior, and you want to continue to use that word to exclude the kind of mating I mentioned, please explain why your usage is the correct one.
As I indicated here (final paragraph), I do not currently feel that my further discussion of this topic would be worthwhile.
In other words, I wondered if it was time to make that suggestion, and the answer came back: no.
Ok, your call, of course.
Just to throw in my own two cents as to when it might be time:
Social norms change all the time, but they do so slowly, on a time scale of generations. I am unsure what causes such changes but it seems unlikely to me that a change in female sexual mores could be triggered by a discussion on a male-dominated rational discussion group. Furthermore, regardless of what triggers the change, the actual mechanism by which this kind of change becomes widespread is that some adventuresome soul tries it and comes back to report to her peers that it was safe, it was pleasant, it was actually kind of fun.
In other words, to promote the kind of change you are seeking, you need to talk to men, not women.