= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Gray comments on Less Wrong NYC: Case Study of a Successful Rationalist Chapter - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (166)
Long post. I hope I've managed to express this stuff clearly, I feel like I'm leaving stuff out, but I guess we can get to whatever that is when it comes up.
... What I am saying is, I will not become angry if someone "actually analyses social phenomena". I do not think it is bad. That is not the issue.
This seems disingenuous. It looks like you're saying, essentially, "Ah, but nothing has inherent meaning!". Are you unable to understand the concept of "manipulation" in non-technical terms?
(As an aside: following the pattern "Even if I thought X were an A rather than a B, something something," typically one treats X as an A rather than a B.)
As I understand it, people did not on the whole have a problem with the PUA discussion because some pick-up artists are misogynists, but rather because of the parts of the discussion that weren't analysis but were instead themselves casually misogynistic or exclusionary or clueless or whatever. Like, for example, "with women, you have to pretend that they don't have cheat codes (unlike with us tough-minded rational men)", or "bayes tells us we should all bang hot chicks".
It's partially a PR thing, but PR isn't just waving your hands about in a mystical pattern to calm people down - it's also about effectively communicating. You don't want the most rational response to your comments to be "this person rejects sexual equality", for example.
I think it is useful to compare/contrast the terms manipulation and influence. Barry Cotter did talk about a "continuum of influence", and I think this is the point that you're missing. Between two people, if one person is far more influential in their relationship than the other, then we call it manipulative. But there is an area in the middle of the continuum where their influence on each other isn't one-sided.
I don't know a whole lot about the whole PUA thing, but of the things I've read here and there online, one interesting point is that sexual attraction isn't this innate thing that you either have or don't have. So yeah, you can influence other people by presenting yourself in a more appealing way. But this shouldn't be seen as "manipulation", unless you're doing something underhanded.
But if we're going to exaggerate all influence by calling it manipulation, then we have an extremely inhibited view of society. A society where members didn't influence each other could hardly be considered a society at all.
Certainly, I agree with this. But there are prominent pickup techniques that are manipulative and undesirable - you know, stuff like undermining someone's self-esteem. That's what I'm talking about. I'm using "manipulative" to refer to these "bad influences" or, if you prefer, "Dark Arts".
Edit: Or, in other words, I'm not exaggerating all influence by calling it manipulation - I'm using the word to refer to basically the same thing you are ("influence other people by... doing something underhanded").