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"Hurting people non-consensually" is an awfully low bar. For example, if you dump someone, you're hurting them non-consensually.
At this point you may try to invent some deontological rule that would say that hurting people is okay in some contexts but not okay in others. If you're especially honest, your rule will even have equal real-life impact on men and women, though it seems to be really hard to achieve. But let's look at the bigger picture instead. Is there any strategy of behavior in love-related matters that is "uniformly non-harmful"?
That's not a very charitable interpretation.
Anyway, we're actually arguing for the same thing - the pickup community is not composed of altruists (with regards to their sexual partners).
While that may be the same content it seems to be missing valuable context. The pickup community is not composed of altruists, but it seems likely to me that anyone who considers themselves an altruist when it comes to romance is self-deceiving.
I can't speak for the pickup community, but I'm only interested in win/win relationships, which seems to me to be your primary concern. Do either lies or manipulation preclude win-win relationships? No, of course not. Thus, any unqualified complaints about lies or manipulation do not interest me.
I share your low opinion of people who pursue win/lose relationships, and hope they change their ways. But I think that's where the real issue is.
I assume that lies and/or manipulation make win-win relationships less likely. Am I missing something?
There are many kinds of lies, and many kinds of manipulation. Some are healthy, some are unhealthy, and it takes a fair measure of skill and knowledge of the other person to tell them apart. Honesty is the first order approximation to the best policy, but is not the best policy.
I'd agree - if one "side" doesn't have all the facts - it's harder for them to make an accurate prediction and an effective negotiation and thereby come to an optimal "win".
Okay, I think that's simply a definitional disagreement - by altruism I meant "interested in win/win relationships", basically.
What I take issue with is the idea that
PUA doesn't prominently involve techniques that preclude win/win or are unconcerned with the difference between win/lose and win/win (e.g. sabotaging existing relationships). That is, manipulation in the "on-net harmful" sense.
therefore, people who have a problem with PUA are just not able to deal with science / analysis.
One thing that came up quickly on a cursory search: http://www.pualingo.com/pua-definitions/boy-friend-destroyer-bfd/ I suppose I should correct myself though - I intended to refer to techniques and attitudes etc. (based on the descriptions of people familiar with the culture, I expect that mysogyny is fairly common, even if not in the majority).
Pardon me Cu. It seems you caught the reply before I deleted it. I had reread the premise in question and noticed it said 'prominently' rather than 'predominantly'. Those two letters make a big difference!
While it is not unlikely that I still disagree on the degree to which kind of behavior is popular within the relevant subculture it certainly wouldn't be enough to quibble over whether it counts as 'prominent'. I can just agree that to the extent that such behaviors exist they are undesirable.
A philosophy I hold dear is that it is important not to judge a whole subculture based on the worst traits of those within it. The pickup arts and feminism both have features (and acolytes) that we would do well to be wary of and reject. We don't want self-centered manipulative misogyny and we don't want hypocritical sexist judgementalness either (which refers not to the behavior of anyone here but to the analogous extreme fringe in feminism to the extreme fringe in PUA). Instead we want to take the lessons of practical rationality, personal development, overcoming of emotional biases, sexual liberation, social justice, equality and empowerment from both. Perhaps one of the most desirable feature common to both of those subcultures is that they cut through bullshit cultural traditions that serve to hold people back from experiencing life to the fullest.
You mentioned before the necessity to abandon a 'soldier' - and that is an important point. There really are bad things related to pickup arts - and one of those is certain behaviors that basically amount to being a bitchy asshole. If someone is so caught up with advocating PUA that they aren't even willing to admit the legitimate problems that are there then the conversation is doomed and their own cause may be undermined. For this reason it disheartens me when discourse reverts to 'sides'. Nothing good is likely to come.
The above is why I feel no dissonance at all as I disapprove of and reject the use of bitchy relationship sabotaging tactics and the use of particularly powerful persuasion techniques on vulnerable women while at the same time appreciating and advocating the use of PUA training as a form of healthy personal development that is a net benefit to society in general.
I think we're on the same page, then!
I agree quibbling about precise levels would be pointless, particularly because I couldn't give good estimates for those precise levels. I emphatically agree that we shouldn't judge groups by the worst traits they hold within their borders - and in fact, in my research job I am planning to look into some basic pickup literature to see if there's anything useful (regarding first impressions, specifically), as it is (or so I am told) one of the few places where social interactions are subjected to numerical analysis. (The sociological and psychological research I've read has been frustratingly qualitative! It's almost like it wasn't intended for use by robots.)
What I am resisting here is the notion, repeated several times in the LW PUA discussion, that the only reason people (or, alternately, women) are uncomfortable with PUA is discomfort with applying analysis to sex and romance.
It sounds like you agree that this isn't the case (and I imagine you'd agree that it's dismissive, simplistic, and possibly misogynistic), but it comes up disturbingly often (frequently accompanied by arguments like "manipulation isn't a precise or universally negative concept -> dismiss all claims that some form of manipulation is bad").
Cheers, in any case :)
Just to clarify, who has said that this is the only reason that some people may be uncomfortable with pickup?
Many important concepts aren't precisely defined, yet they are still meaningful (e.g. status). We shouldn't throw out these concepts. Yet sometimes we should try to nail them down a bit more precisely and examine the intuitions behind them.
I've been trying to figure out what people actually mean by "manipulation" on LW, and the ethical theory behind it, but I haven't had much success. I don't want to make people abandon it, because I think that it is a meaningful concept. I've proposed my own definition: "unethical social influence." But I am a bit disappointed that people constantly fling it around without examining it.
My worry is that it is used overbroadly, constraining the personal development of people who need to intentionally learn social skills. Furthermore, I feel that some behaviors get tagged as "manipulation" when they are analogous to other behaviors that are considered ethical: it's just that people are accustomed to one, and not the other.
And I think people just intentional social influence too harshly when calling it manipulation, and/or don't judge unintentional social influence harshly enough. (Didn't learn social skills by age 18? Too bad... if you try now, you'll be manipulating people, so stop trying to get above your station, and return to the back of the bus.)
Finally, the charge of "manipulation" often seems directed to social influence that is framed in a way that triggers a disgust heuristic. I'm not claiming that the disgust heuristic is the entire reason that people use the word manipulation, and disgust can be a pointer to a valid argument, but I do see people getting icked out by social influence around sex, intentional social influence, or social influence that they haven't seen before or don't understand very well.
Vaniver did, at least by negligence when making oversimplified replies. The rest of this group seems to be populated by straw men. Conveniently demonstrated as a reply to you here by taryneast. That is one issue that is mentioned at times by yourself and others but certainly never as 'the only' - which is what you would be being condemned for. Chances are I have mentioned the subject myself - and it is so in keeping with the entirety of OvercomingBias that I don't even recall whether Robin Hanson has said anything directly.
Um... you did. See the comment that I originally replied to. I quote:
and also
Well, in response to one of cousin_it's comments, I've given my own definition:
It's pretty clear cut what does and does not count as "unethical" here.
Can you give me some examples of these behaviours?
Please note: I am quite interested in a lot of the analysis-side of PUA - I am totally unopposed to guys gaining more confidence, understanding and social skill - especially through analysis of what actually makes women happy and how guys can go about gaining it. I just don't like the Dark Arts parts of it. I think it can be performed with win-win in mind. No manipulation necessary.
I'd love to hear the opposite side too. Is there an equivalent PUA community for women? if not - why not?
Well, let's see. This seems to be an argument against the notion that there are other considerations. This comment regards removing such a claim from the top-level post, and repeats the claim. Here is another one.
I know that earlier in this thread you pointed out this aspect of distaste with PUA, but acknowledged more legitimate criticisms as well.
Suppose someone said that people are uncomfortable with discussions on how to rape people on lesswrong because of discomfort with science, I explained that that wasn't the part that bothered me, and they replied by saying that consent is sort of a thorny issue, one that's imprecisely defined and entangled with other complex concepts. Sure, fine, but that's missing the point.
In these contexts, I use 'manipulation' the same way you suggest, and often qualify it with additional terms - 'harmful', 'dark arts', etc. - to clarify.
The wider meaning of manipulation I take to mean a collection of behaviors of varying levels of sinister-ness which may or may not be deliberate. In this less serious sense, both learned and innate social skills involve some level of manipulation.
I still think, just as you do if I recall correctly, that some aspects of pickup practice and culture are extremely undesirable - my main point is that attributing people's discomfort with this to unrelated matters is disingenuous and unhelpful.
Does this sound fair and reasonable?
Edit: My choice of analogy was poor, and I withdraw it completely. In its place, consider "People ( / Women) don't become card counters because they don't like math."
Of course, back when I was in school the back of the bus was where all the cool kids got to sit. In fact, when I managed to get myself to the back seat of the bus it was much easier to flirt with my female fellow passengers. I was the impressive senior back-seat-sitting cool guy after all!
First, the technique: I don't see a problem with the BFD. One who is satisfied cannot be seduced. The other man loses, but any success in romance is necessarily a loss for one's competitors. (There's even a reminder that cheating on her while she's still dating the guy could hurt him deeply.)
Which makes me somewhat skeptical about the attitudes: I expect the prevalence of misogyny in the PUA is far above what I'd like it to be. But from everything I've seen, most of their rancor is pointed at the guys they feel superior to, not their targets. That they've attempted to put women under a microscope and figure out what they respond best to seems like it will make them interact with women better. A general improvement in the game of men should also correspond to a general improvement in the lives of women, as relationship satisfaction will increase.
That is, could this be base rate neglect? It's unfortunate, but a lot of men are misogynists.
As they say, 'all is fair in love and war'. There is a lot to that sentiment and there is only so much use in judging people for acting in self interest in an inherently self interested game. But do you know another thing that has traditionally been fair in love and war? Killing anyone who is a clear threat to your territory. So challenging these guys to duels to the death isn't legal any more but this is certainly a behavior that I would want to see prevented by cooperative collective punishment if it is possible. Because I don't want that crap anywhere near me.
(Note: I make no distinction as to whether the perpetrators learned BFDs explicitly, whether they are naturally inclined that way or they learned it on 'desperate housewives'. Or, for that matter, whether it is a male or female doing the aggressive seduction of the non-single target. Although I probably would be squeamish about challenging the girl to a duel to the death.)
Pffft. Nonsense. They can so. Maybe you just need to spend some more manipulative effort making them feel like they are unsatisfied. Or distracting them from that which was satisfying sufficiently. If you are going to go around seducing women who have boyfriends don't try to sugar coating it by pretending it always means that the relationship was unsatisfying.
Hence why one should attempt to induce the girl to break up with her boyfriend, rather than attempt to induce her to cheat on him. As you point out, that has a distressingly high chance of ending in murder.
I don't swing that way. Regardless, I suspect our disagreements about the axiom are definitional. The terrible thing about satisfaction is that it is relative; it seems fair to say that one who willingly ends a relationship does it because it is unsatisfying. If it was made unsatisfying because one put forward a better offer, I have a hard time seeing that as villainous. (If one is fraudulent about the quality of the offer, that fraud is villainous- but that's a separate issue from the BFD.)
Erm, this statement is clearly false as soon as you reflect on it?
Personally, if I was going to come up with a clever rationalization for BFDs, it would be something like, "Any boyfriend who keeps her locked up in a closed relationship must clearly be a patriarchal bastard."
Are you skilled at either seduction or being satisfied?
I have reflected upon it, and it still seems to me to be true. Perhaps rewording it will reveal our disagreement; what do you think of "Satisfaction is the best defense against seduction"?
Only allowed if the BFD actually personally uses that justification in the course of persuading a woman to leave her boyfriend for him.
('cuz I like the mental image, that's all.)
Yeah. It's nice that we can agree.
Sure thing - that can probably be easily re-phrased to "deliberately doing something with the intent to hurt a person (without their consent) and thereby to gain advantage over them"
Breakups do not fit the above as you are not generally breaking up with a person for the express purpose of hurting them - it's kind of collateral damage, and leads to a better situation for both in the long run.
This is often not true. Look at all the people who have killed themselves over a breakup.
So is hurting a woman in order to have sex with her. Hurting people is rarely a terminal goal.
In general, as a consequentialist I find it hard to care about intent. It seems you're trying to invent a new deontological rule, but I don't understand why it should be adopted.
Nope - collateral damage is damage done unintentionally. "hurting a woman in order to have sex with her" is a pretty good example of intentional damage.
My definition is pretty clear about which is the unethical of these two.
You are using the word incorrectly. This is independent of what behavior is ethically acceptable.
All damage that is incidental to the primary purpose of an action is collateral damage.
Additional note: Calling Bob collateral damage when you run him over so that you don't kill lots of children is a correct usage.
You and I disagree about whether this is collateral damage, not because we have a different definition of collateral damage, but because we disagree about whether there is intent in this situation.
If the end-goal is to have sex with a woman, and you choose to hurt this woman to gain it, then her being hurt is part of the plan - and is thus intentional. It is an important sub-goal of the main plan, which is what makes it intentional.
You could have instead chosen to buy her flowers, flatter her, or to choose a different woman (one that does not need hurting for you to gain the end-goal of sex). The presence of acceptable alternatives is one reason why I consider this situation to not be a case of mere collateral damage, but of intent.
So, I realize this is completely tangential to your main point, but: if the army launches an attack against a military target that happens to be located in a civilian neighborhood, knowing perfectly well as they do so that civilians are going to be killed in the process, I'd consider that a pretty good example of both collateral and intentional damage.
Yep - I agree. It's a classic case that covers both ends of the spectrum.
It also only tends to trip up people that fall for the fallacy of the excluded middle ;)
In this case, it matches my pattern of "intentional damage" and therefore ethically questionable, in my opinion.
That's not to say that if more evidence came up eg information about how it's the only alternative, or if the "greater good" outweighed the downsides... it might still be the only preferable choice... but in any case, I'd take a strong interest in the ethics involved before making the decision if I were put in that position.
Huh.
I agree with you here, but I now have no idea what you meant by "collateral damage is damage done unintentionally."
"unintentionally" in my head means literally "done with intent".
Ie, if I decide "I hate Joe Bloggs" and then I get in my car, drive until I see him walking alongside the road and intentionally choose to jump the curb and run him over - then I would say that I intentionally killed Joe Bloggs because that is the outcome that I intended to happen.
however - if instead, I get in my car, and am driving down the road, my brakes fail and I see a whole classful of schoolchildren crossing the road... and my only option to not kill them is to jump the curb, which I do... but Joe Bloggs happens to be there and I see that he's there and choose one death over many...
Well - I would consider that him being killed was unintentional. The main intent of my action was not "I want Joe Bloggs dead" but "I want not to kill the schoolchildren". It was unintentional to my main aim.
Does that make sense?
It makes sense on its own but it contradicts what you said earlier about the cases cousin_it suggested.
It does seem to - which made me think about exactly which cases I'd consider one or the other. So here goes again... :)
In the example above - I am trying avoid causing hurt to the children - therefore if I hurt one person because it's the only way to avoid hurting multiple people, it is ethically-difficult... but, in my head, ok in the end because the re is no other option available. If you had the opportunity to choose even less collateral damage (eg slamming on the brakes) you would do so.
In the case of intentionally hurting one woman in order to gain advantage for onself - this does not apply. Especially because you are intentionally hurting another person to help onseself - the sex is the eventual goal... but the hurt is chosen as a necessary step for that goal - there are no other means being considered.
In the case of breaking up with a person - you are intending that you and they not be with one another anymore - you are not hurting them with the intent to hurt them - therefore the "collateral damage" is unintentional. - Also the expectation is that you will both be better off apart (on average). Yes, there are rare cases where an unstable person will not recover... but on average I'd say that if you were trying to have a relationship with the kind of person that was suicidal - you might be better off not being with them... that is obviously an ethical dilemma that will never be covered by a cut-and-dried rule.... but I can safely say that in my head - if I were to leave somebody whom I suspected to be suicidal - I'd be leaving them, not with the intent that they choose to commit suicide - therefore the harm would be unintentional (also, I'd make sure to call somebody that could help them with their suicidal tendencies... but that's by-the-by).
As to the case where we're deliberately choosing to kill people that are located in a civilian location... I'd consider it ethically questionable, because you are deliberately choosing to kill people... not just to avoid killing other people (as in the schoolchildren case).
There is intent to kill - even if these particular people are not part of the main intent. I'd consider it less ethically questionable if they found a way to try to kill these targets without damage to the surrounding areas.
... in fact, in thinking more, I think a big differene is the actual intent itself. Are you trying to Gain by the hurt, or to Reduce a Bad Thing?
I think it's more ok to hurt to reduce a worse Bad Thing, than it is to simply Gain something that you'd otherwise not have.
I'm going to assume you mean "without," here.
It's not how I use the word, but yes, it makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
That said, to go back to the original example... if you consider "hurting a woman in order to have sex with her" a pretty good example of intentional damage.... it follows that the main aim in that example is not to have sex, but to cause pain?
Oh - and in any case - thanks for asking these questions. It's helping me clear up what's in my head at least a little. I appreciate not only that you are asking - but also that you're asking in a way that is quite... erm approachable? not-off-putting perhaps? :)
Yep, good catch. bad (ok, non-existent) proof-reading on my part. :)
And you're right - nutting it out a bit more has made me think more about what I consider intentional or not - and also what the main intent is or not.
In the case of "hurting a woman to have sex" - you are deliberately choosing to hurt her to gain. I think the difference is that the intentionally "hurting a woman to have sex" is more pre-meditated than having no choice but to jump the curb and kill one person instead of many.
Goals build on other goals. Your end-goal is to have sex... but if you make it your temporary goal to reduce her self-esteem to make the main goal more likely, then you are intending her to be hurt, in order to further your goal.
In the case of, say, jumping the curb to avoid children your main goal is avoiding children... jumping the curb is not something you choose as a sub-goal... if there were any other way - you'd choose that instead. It's not a goal in and of itself, it's your last possible resort - not your best possible choice.
Anyway - not sure I'm being very clear here - either with you, or in my head. This is the kind of thing that is difficult to extract from one's emotions. I know there's been some psychological research on this kind of thing - and AFA my fuzzy memory serves - it's fairly common to see a moral difference between the "intending to hurt somebody to further a goal" vs "unintentionally having to choose to hurt somebody to help something worse not happen" situation.
Edit: Looks like PhilGoetz mentions it in his comment about trolley problems
I don't think there is a clear dividing line here - because there a confounding of what's "moral/ethical" with whats "intentional".. I think there are two things tangled together that are difficult to separate. I get the feeling that I'm trying to define both at once.
In my head now is that "intentional is generally non-ethical" "unintentional is generally less unethical... but it depends on the main goal and whether or not you are trying to gain, or reduce Bad Things..." :)
There is already a common deontological rule that one should adopt appropriate caution. "Appropriate caution" allows one to break up with people under most circumstances, but my limited understanding of pickup sounds closer to "recklessness".
I wasn't actually telling other people to adopt my rule, in fact it isn't even a rule. Other people might call it a part of the social contract. I'd consider it to be an overwhelmingly useful heuristic for getting along in society. One example of a pathalogical case does not overbalance the majority of cases where it holds true.
If you are only interested in the consequences for you and haven't figured out why it's sometimes good for you to behave according to the social contract, then that's your choice. But my choice is not to trust you or anybody like you... which is kind of the whole point of this argument.
The consequence for you is that other people watch your actions (or even just your words in this case) and no longer trust or respect you.
That has it's own further consequences down the line. If those further consequences later impinge upon your utility (eg help that you need but is not extended to you), then it would be worth considering adopting "my" rule.
That doesn't seem to be true either. To take an extreme example, being a compulsive liar who enjoys telling falsehoods for fun is one of the "dark triad" of male qualities that are exceptionally attractive for females. The reputational knock-on effects aren't enough to balance things out.
How can you be sure? You may well be noticing the successful compulsive liars (at least, the less subtle ones) and not noticing the guys who told one lie too many to the wrong people in their lives.
It is normally difficult enough to avoid selection bias, but there's the additional difficulty here that a disproportionate number of the unsuccessful ones are located in prison.
So this brings up one of the questions I wonder if PUAs can answer: do you have any kind of metric capable of telling whether something is attractive for "females" or for "the kind of females PUAs find easy targets"? It was obvious when I did my psychiatry rotation that the Cluster B personality disorder patients found themselves drawn to one another. Is the Dark Triad good for picking up women who aren't Cluster B, or primarily for picking up women who are? Or at least, are there tools available to actually answer that question?
Edit: this comment is in reply to wording that cousin_it has now removed from his comment. You can get the gist from the brief excerpt that I have quoted.
You are assuming that I'm trying to give you advice that benefits you?
Thats interesting - especially when you've made it clear that you don't bother to consider whether your actions benefit other people (in fact you choose to actively work against the benefit of other people). I think I made it pretty clear that, due to this behaviour, I neither respect you nor have any particular reason to help you. I was replying to your stated lack of understanding: "I don't understand why it should be adopted." in case you happened to have anything interesting to say about it.
I never thought that on balance you would choose to adopt the rule. :) I gave you the reasons why people do adopt this rule and let you choose for yourself if that applies to your circumstances.
I'm sure we can each find oh-so-convenient examples that match what we choose to believe. I also expect that one person being a defector will probably clean up pretty nicely in a society full of people that choose not to defect (on average).
On average, it looks like it works for people that I've met (male and female)... that's about all I can say. Why do you expect that for my advice to be good advice that it has to be 100% true for you as well as me?
Please reread the following paragraph from your own comment:
Cousin_it's reply made sense. Yours does not. The context makes it incoherent.
Weird... my comment above was a reply to a completely different comment of cousin_its
I can easily see why it looks incoherent.
I'm now going to go looking for the comment that I was actually replying to.
Edit: nope, looks like cousin_it has re-edited his original comment and removed that which I was actually replying to, so that my reply appears to be no longer relevant.
I am leaving my comment in place anyhow.
Oh - and I was giving advice that may or may not benefit people in general - not specifically for cousin_it's benefit. Thus why my reply is not entirely incoherent :)
I was mainly responding to his statement that "I don't understand why it should be adopted." by explaining why it's worth considering as an option - ie why other people adopt it.