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daenerys comments on Rational Romantic Relationships, Part 1: Relationship Styles and Attraction Basics - Less Wrong
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I have purposefully stayed out of the PUA discussion so far, but as it is still going on and no one seems to have taken a macro view, I am going to just this once give some of my opinion on it:
I think that the vast majority of people on this site want a general egalitarianism between the sexes. I’m not saying that I think men and women are completely equal in all ways, but rather that I think that women making 80 cents to the dollar is bad. Males growing up being taught to be ashamed to talk about feelings (especially in cases like PTSD or suicide) is bad. All the hidden messages society teaches our children about what they can’t do because of their gender is bad.
Rationalize it however you want. Call it utilitarianism or values ethics or whatever. But I for one want to live in a society where the children I care for don’t have their choices limited (directly or indirectly) by their gender. I am willing to bet that the majority of people on this site, both male and female, agree with me. If I am wrong about that, well then I wouldn’t want to be on this site anyway. But how does that apply to PUA?
Parts of PUA may work. Parts may be moral. Parts may be immoral. I will definitely say that I think SOME of it is misogynist. I will also agree that there is stuff out there that is completely OK. But all of that is irrelevant to the point I want to make now, which is that PUA is bad for gender equality in the macro view.
Don’t focus on the ethics of ONE guy seducing ONE girl, who may or may not want to be seduced. Think about the affect of MANY guys thinking of women as “things to be seduced”, and countless young girls stumbling upon PUA on the internet or on the tv, and consequently thinking of THEMSELVES as things to be seduced.
In other words, my problem with PUA is that it precipitates a CULTURE that is not conducive to gender equality. Of course, PUA isn’t the only problem, nor is it even the main problem. For example, I think this is a WAY more important fight than PUA.
That being said, I do not think all PUA stuff is bad. I myself am, for all intents and purposes, a professional PUA, and when I looked it up on the internet (after reading so much about it here), I actually thought it was pretty amazing that they had terms for the stuff I learned through trial and error. So I definitely don’t want to bash everything that PUA can teach on an individual basis.
What then to do about men who lack the confidence and social skills to obtain relationships? Firstly, I would like to say that I think this is another way that gender inequality raises its head. Females are socialized from childhood to have high social skills. Men are not. Therefore they have trouble interacting with the generally much higher social skills of women. (Guys, think of a person you know with the lowest level of social skills. Imagine having a conversation with them. Get the picture?)
I would be totally ok, if certain aspects of PUA were taught instead as general social skills. Not “how to seduce women”, but rather “how to strike up conversations with random people and have them like you”. I would even be ok if there were UNDER THE GENERAL RULES some specific exceptions for how to interact with women, and how to interact with men. However the very one-sided way it is right now (with some small exception to girl game) is NOT helpful to humanity overall, regardless of whether it actually works or not. And regardless of whether it is moral on a case-by-case basis or not.
That phrase doesn't mean just one thing. I think that the vast majority of people on this site want a fair system of college admissions. That just means the label "fair", like "general egalitarianism" points inward at the speaker towards the speaker's values. "General" backs away from meaning anything too specific, and its use provides the opportunity for readers to insert their own idea of reasonableness.
You'd probably be interested in Clarisse Thorn's Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser. She spent quite a bit of time researching PUA, both in theory and in practice.
Short version: There are a lot of kinds of PUA, ranging from types which are generally benevolent through types which are iffy to flat out misogyny. PUA is probably better for men who learn some skills, then leave the subculture(s).
Having a strong habit of maintaining "strategic ambiguity" (I think this is Thorn's phrase) can lead to loneliness, no matter how many people it attracts.
Note: there's a section about Thorn's relationship with a PUA which isn't terribly interesting. You may want to skip to the end which gets back to good stuff. She's aware of the problem with the section, but no one could agree on what needed to be cut.
She says that feminists have been working on explicit verbal consent, and PUAs have been working on understanding non-verbal consent, and the two groups have useful things to learn from each other.
Upvoted for:
I can talk to anyone, you're engaging, he's a creepy PUA?
I don't understand the question, sorry. Will you rephrase?
I'm playing the usual game: I'm <something positive>, you're <something neutral>, he's <something negative>. It's not really a question.
I still don't really get it. Are you opposed to repurposing PUA soft technology to help teach social skills?
I don't care if people use PUA otherwise and I certainly don't want to get caught in this thread's quagmire.
It's a lighthearted cultural reference (which does have something of a useful moral embedded within). A common form is "I'm strong willed, you're stubborn and she's pig headed". It is just a comment about the same thing being labelled differently depending on how closely we associate with it. It tends to be approximately neutral to the subject matter.
Ah, ok. Thanks for the clarification.
I don't have an opinion on PUA. I'm just playing a game.
I'm still chewing this one over. Can you give me an example of persuasion that doesn't follow this format in some way? How would I convince <someone neutral> to stop doing <something negative> without first qualifying my idea as <something positive>? Is it bad if these categories are personified?
That's already been proposed.
After reading your comment, my thoughts are somewhat confused. The first half seemed like a censorship by association: "some people feel that X is related to Y, we agree that Y is bad, therefore we should never tolerate a discussion about X".
Then, the last paragraph seemed very reasonable, which makes me wonder whether the rest of the comment was just one huge disclaimer necessary to remove the guilt of speaking about X (which as we know is associated with Y, which is bad).
Now on the topic -- Teaching about general social skills, with some gender-specific sidenotes, seems to me like a great idea. But I feel that this version somehow removes the most motivating part for some people. The "you should learn this because it can make your life awesome!!!" motivation turns into rather anemic "you should learn this because we told you so".
Is this a necessary cost? It is even allowed to discuss things that seem awesome to a typical guy but not to a typical girl, or does any such discussion automatically deepen gender inequality? Seems to me that focusing too much on inequality leads to a zero-sum worldview. Generally, creating a positive utility for some people and zero utility for other people seems like a net improvement; but if it happens to statistically deepen some inequality, should we percieve it as bad and try to avoid it? So even things that highly motivate men to learn social skills should be replaced by their less attractive alternatives, simply because men are already having it too awesome today.
If people are willing to learn calculus, so that they can learn physics, so that they can go out and actually do engineering, I think it would be feasible to have entry-level training in general etiquette and ethics as a prerequisite before someone can learn rigorously scientific flirting.
For more on the subject: Confessions of a Pick-up Artist Chaser by Clarisse Thorne. It's an extensive overview of PUA practices and subculture, with many quotes from HughRistik.