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Nornagest comments on How to deal with someone in a LessWrong meeting being creepy - Less Wrong
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I'm not a PUA expert by any means, but from what I've read of the field its approach is complex. On the one hand, it concerns itself extensively with not coming off as creepy, as that's one of the easier ways to be profoundly unattractive. On the other, it acknowledges that building social skills entails a lengthy awkward phase while they're being learned, wherein an aspiring PUA might inadvertently seem creepy, and encourages an aggressive approach during this phase in order to gain skill faster. Offhand I couldn't say whether this approach inspires more or less lifetime creepy feelings than the alternative.
I'd model most of the PUA types I've read as being dismissive of at least some attempts to minimize creepy behavior on grounds of it trying to solve a wrong problem, but as being outright contemptuous of the behavior itself.
My experience of PUA memes for "improving success with women" is that they're written by men, cast interaction in competitive terms, treat all the parties' interests as zero sum, and their success relies on women having little or no agency and remaining that way.
I contrast that with intersectional social justice feminism, which is largely written by women, casts interaction in collaborative terms, rejects zero-sum framings, and its success relies on upgrading everyone's agency & ability.
I also can't help but think that if & when PUA works, its success inversely varies with a woman's intelligence, self-awareness and rationality. The opposite is true with social justice feminism.
I actually taught my girlfriend some of the PUA stuff so that she's better at seducing me! (with success)
I hope that doesn't make me any of those things :p
Well, I really don't see much hope for bridging the gap between pro- and anti-PUA camps on this board; both positions are already entrenched, and large portions of both sides have adopted the other as a Hated Enemy with whom no rational dialogue can be maintained. It's not a battle I'm interested in fighting; besides, that battle's already been fought. Several times. To no productive effect.
Speaking as someone who's fairly familiar with both sides yet identifies with neither, though, I think they have more in common than they're willing to admit. There's a great deal of adversarial framing going on, yes, to the point where you've got people like Heartiste who've built their reputations on it. But both sides are basically trying to advocate for greater agency and fulfillment within their scope and among their constituents, which sounds like a great opportunity for intersectionality if I've ever heard one. As to zero-sum framing -- well, "leave her better than you found her" is a well-known, and fairly mainstream, PUA catchphrase.
If I'm going to demonize anything here, this unspeakably stupid war-of-the-sexes model seems like by far my best target.
At the very least this doesn't seem to be clearly the case. To the extent this is an unstable property influenced by social norms, approved claiming of more certainty than actually present pushes the norms towards establishing that property more strongly. Since what you describe is a bad property ("no rational dialogue can be maintained"), I disapprove of the claim of certainty you've made.
Interesting perspective. I think the grandparent should make it fairly clear that I disapprove of this state of affairs and feel that entrenched members of both camps are, at best, wasting their time; on the other hand, I also feel that most of the cultural mass of the problem is out of our hands. This isn't an endogenous squabble of LW's; it's a wider cultural dispute that just tends to instantiate itself here because of our demographic placement (and our taste for metacontrarianism). And since for whatever reason it doesn't seem to partake of our norm of political detachment, I think we'll have a very hard time with it unless and until the conventional wisdom shifts one way or another.
I could be wrong. I hope I am.
I think that to the extent we have a conflict between "pro-PUA" and "anti-PUA" camps on LW, most of the conflict consists simply in deciding whether to cheer "yay PUA" or "boo PUA", and, relatedly, what specific memes to treat as central to the PUA memeplex. I suspect that if people were asked to endorse or repudiate specific pieces of concrete social advice, there'd be a lot less disagreement than there is over "yay PUA" or "boo PUA".
"What specific memes to treat as central" is very important part. I would say this is the part where many memetic wars are won or lost.
If you allow pro-X people to design the official definition of X, every time you use the definition you automatically provide applause lights to X. If you allow anti-X people to design the official definition of X, every time you use the definition you automacally provide boo lights to X.
A typical pro-X definition of X is something like: "X is a movement of people who want happiness and cookies for everyone". Far-mode applause lights; omitting the controversial details.
A typical anti-X definition of X is something like: "X is a movement containing evil low-status people (here are some extreme examples)".
For any group consisting of humans, you can create both definitions, and then pro-X and anti-X people will disagree on which definition is the correct one. The group more successful in popularizing their message has essentially already won.
I'd love to see Yvain's blog post you linked turned into a top-level LW post. I found it more elucidating that the Worst Argument in the World post, say.
Your testimony thereof gives an overwhelming impression that your experience with such memes comes either exclusively from or is dominated by second hand sources who are themselves hostile to the culture.
Yes. (And dating advice for men written by women gets a different label.)
A significant aspect of it, at certain phases of courtship, yes.
Nonsense.
This assumes that the will directing said agency does not wish to mate with or form a relationship with someone with the social skills developed by the PUA. As it happens the universe we live in enough people (and, I would even suggest most people) do prefer people with those skills
Those sound like noble ideals. It is plausible that there is a group of people who adhere to them. Did they come prepackaged with your prejudice or can you buy them separately?
I doubt that.
Social justice feminism is a strategy for attracting mates that can be compared in efficacy to skills developed with the active intent to attract said mates? That would be an impressive set of ideals indeed if true!
Mm, I agree I could know PUA better than I do. You're under no obligation to educate me, of course, but if you had a few links you thought exemplary for PUA at its best, I'd be much obliged.
I'm finding (scholarly, thoughtful) critiques of PUA and the seduction community from a feminist social justice perspective, but in case they're attacking PUA at its worst. I'll do some reading. I'm concentrating on inside-view critiques from people well versed in PUA techniques and the seduction community, there are some good links out there.
Putting this as charitably as possible, even if in fact there is nothing misogynistic or unjust in PUA, there is a vast amount of feminist distrust of it, and PUA doesn't seem to have responded well to those critiques (or even particularly to think they need to be responded to, as far as I can tell).
PUA is probably too far off-topic for this post and I'm willing to continue this elsewhere (Discussions?) or let it drop for now.
Here are a few quick counterexamples to your comments about zero-sum, lack of agency, lack of response to feminism, etc::
I think these should be sufficient to provide a shift in your opinion regarding what the field of "PUA" includes, even if you view these schools of thought as isolated examples. (They aren't the only such schools, of course; they just happen to be ones it was easy for me to find representative links for.)
See also Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser, a substantial overview of different sorts of PUA, a woman's experiences exploring the PUA subcultures, and some theory on the subject.
Has anyone read the book?
She picks up on something I find off-putting about much of the PUA material I've seen (and LW is almost the only place that I've seen PUA material). It seems to be set in a universe where no one likes anybody.
That is actually a good way of stating the difference between the material that I don't like, vs. the material I do. People who focus on the zero-sum aspects of mating and dating (i.e. both inter- and intra-gender competition) seem, well, creepy to me.
I suppose those folks might write off my concerns as simply saying they're displaying low status by focusing on those aspects, but I think the real issue, as you state, is simply that they seem to live in a universe where nobody likes anybody or has any positive intentions, and people who think otherwise are all just signalling or deluded. It's like if HP:MoR's Professor Quirrel was giving relationship classes!
(Luckily, this is not a universal characteristic of PUA theory, as Soporno and AMP demonstrate.)
[Edit: brain fart - I wrote "non-zero sum" when I meant "zero sum"]
Non-zero sum? I'm not sure that's the issue.
In theory, I think it would be possible to have an alliance-building PUA model of relationships, and it would still be Quirrelesque.
HughRistik had a different list of benign elements in PUA, I think-- but have any of the benign styles shown up at LW?
I'm not sure whether this is relevant, but it took me a while to put what bothers me about PUA as I've seen it into words, and longer than that to pull together the nerve to post about it.
I agree; it's just a symptom. "A universe where no one likes anybody" is a much better summation.
Define "shown up".
Appeared with sufficient force to make an impression.
This is admittedly subjective (and probably incomplete-- I don't read everything at LW), but what I saw was probably mid-range PUA-- neither grossly misogynistic nor obviously benign-- combined with claims that there are excellent elements in PUA and I shouldn't stereotype it by its worst.
Reading the book now. I'm certainly less anti-PUA than I was before I started reading it., and I have much more sympathy for the guys who join the seduction community than I used to.
She picks up on something I find off-putting about much of the PUA material I've seen (and LW is almost the only place that I've seen PUA material). It seems to be set in a universe where no one likes anybody.
Yes, this!
It was written by a Less Wronger. I'm not sure whether that's ironic or not.
I read and enjoyed it.
Thank you, I'll take a look.
EDIT: Have read those links several times and digested them over the last few days. I am poking at why the third one bothers me (I think it's the "it's in their nature" statement).
Certainly the first two are good counter-examples to my earlier impressions. Thank you again.
Why would they find that worth their time?
Agree and my own reaction took this a step further---I was glad to hear that JoeW, as someone who seems to affiliate with people politically opposed to PUA, got the impression that the PUA community felt no obligation to engage or respond. I would have thought less of the community if it did.
PUAs are not political activists. They are people who enjoy, practice and develop a specific set of skills with a specific purpose. Their comparative advantage really isn't in engaging in moral and political debate to convince others that they deserve respect, acceptance or special treatment. Moreover acting as if you need to justify yourself (or your group) to others already represents a significant loss of standing. That is one aspect of politics in general that PUAs should be expected to be familiar with, since it overlaps so much with the rules of the social game that they are dedicated to mastering.
(This is different from simply explaining their own personal ethical values completely divorced from any reference to external critics and in terms of conveying information rather than giving excuse. That is something that PUA-instructor types seem to enjoy doing.)
What's the downside?
Adopting PUA techniques and values: arguably improves sex and/or relationship outcomes with some women. Visibly adopting and affiliating with PUA: definitely worsen sex and/or relationship outcomes with some (other but not wholly disjoint set of) women.
Addressing those perceptions might offset some of the latter (certain) penalty, and it's not clear to me that it would come at any reduction to the former (possible) bonus.
I'm still reading the "PUA at its best" links so I don't know enough to say how costly this approach is. Perhaps you're saying you think it's better to cut your losses, completely give up on any women alienated by PUA and focus on those who don't notice or don't care?
Time and effort spent are a very real costs as is opportunity cost.
I'm not sure why women who are alienated by PUA would be off the table as potential romantic partners. I'm sure it has a cost, but I'm not sure the kind of person who sough out PUA in the first place doesn't still have better odds using game and paying the price, rather than doing what he would have done before.
I'm sceptical of claims that PUA being practised in the wild is easy to spot. To bring in ancedotes from my social life, I've had both false positives and negatives when guessing which strangers (later acquaintances and friends) where running game and which had never heard of it.
I've had very positive experience talking to my gfs about game as I see and practice it (sprinkled with general Hansonian observations about status and behaviour), they are very interested and often talk to me about it. One became very enthusiastic to the point of reading the same gaming blogs as I do and reporting gossip in the jargon, which makes it almost fun to listen to. Not to mention the opportunity for great inside jokes. :)
I think it made communication about desire, sexuality, socialization and relationships easier. Maybe I would be even better off if I hadn't shared this interest or didn't have it in the first place, but I don't think that is the case.
That was my question though, albeit not stated so clearly: is it really an opportunity cost?
Does fetishising intelligence, sex positivity, communicative effectiveness, intersectional social justice, and active informed consent really turn off mainstream conventional women? Serious question; I seldom have relationships or sex outside that constellation of characteristics.
The thing is convincing people on the internet about something is very different from talking to people in your personal life.
I'm just wondering what is intersectional social justice? I found it challenging to unpack the meaning behind the words used in the wikipedia article. Please try to idiot proof the explanation in accordance with this while retaining as much accuracy as possible.
It's not your fault: the wikipedia article is gobbledygook. The TL;DR version is that discriminated outgroups (classified by gender, race, sexual orientation, physical ability etc. etc.) should want to cooperate among each other, since mitigating discrimination and socially systemic ingroup bias is in fact a common interest shared by all of them.
Oh my, I hadn't read that Wiki page, that's not very useful no.
The answer from bogus doesn't seem incorrect to me, but it seems incomplete. It's not just a call for cooperation but for rejecting single-issue reductionism, which fails to address (sufficiently or at all) matters such as relative privilege (e.g. women of colour face additional issues that white women do not) or situational privilege (localised exceptions to more global privilege divisions, such as some public health policies discriminating against men.
The claim is engaging in any one issue of social justice without considering the others alienates allies due to hypocrisy (e.g. where relative privilege recapitulates inequalities in wider society). First-wave feminism has been heavily criticised for being a feminism of middle-class educated white women, for instance, just as 1970s sexuality movements have been criticised for being largely run by white men.
TL;DR might be "utility functions take more than one argument" and "don't burn your allies - you'll also burn yourself".
http://goodmenproject.com/noseriouslywhatabouttehmenz/social-justice-101-part-one-i-blame-the-kyriarchy/
http://goodmenproject.com/intersectionality/social-justice-101-part-2-agents-of-kyriarchy/
I like to think about Kyriarchy more than about intersectionality
Some of these, yes. PUA makes it easier to connect with women who have no preference for thinking about sex/sexuality - or even gender relations - in such active and overt terms.
Furthermore, PUA often seems very focused on specifically-sexualized enviroments in which nobody is actually speaking directly (A particular sort of high-class Los Angeles nightclub seems to be the original target) and really ruthlessly optimizing.
Plus wayyyyyyyy too much Dark Arts.