I assume you mean to include 'all' in there. Some pickup practitioners (and pickup strategies) do use lies and manipulation without consideration of whether the outcome is desirable (and the means appropriate.) That is a legitimate concern. It would certainly not be reasonable to assert this is the norm, which you didn't make clear in your declaration of repeated assertion.

In context, I was responding to a generalization with a counter based on exceptions to a proposed rule. I agree there is variety within the pickup community. I disagree that it is uniformly a force for good - and thus that opposition to it is based on dislike for science.

Here it is important not to beware of other optimising. For the average Joe and Jane a courtship protocol that involves attacking each other's self esteem would just be obnoxious and unpleasant. [...]

You're right. I meant to indicate the case of attacking someone's self-esteem in order to make them feel bad (and become pliable), rather than to engage them in a duel of wits.

You collectively? Exactly which collective are you referring to here?

The posters on lesswrong who claim that opposition to pickup on lesswrong is due to women being uncomfortable with explicit analysis of social reality, or (relatedly) that pickup is a uniformly altruistic enterprise (wrt sexual partners).

It's only a judgment on a collective because it's a judgment on a position, and the collective is people who hold that position.