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cousin_it comments on [LINK] Ethical Pick-Up Artistry (Clarisse Thorn) - Less Wrong Discussion

16 Post author: KenChen 07 April 2011 06:34PM

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Comment author: cousin_it 07 April 2011 08:15:26PM *  13 points [-]

How are feminists supposed to generate good pickup advice? If typical female advice to males actually worked, the PUA community wouldn't need to spend so much effort figuring out the right approaches. Any woman who wants to generate useful dating advice for men needs to first recognize that the default advice that comes to her mind has a counterintuitively poor track record, so her only chance of success is to try something weird.

Possibly relevant quote from Paul Graham's "Beating the Averages":

The average big company grows at about ten percent a year. So if you're running a big company and you do everything the way the average big company does it, you can expect to do as well as the average big company-- that is, to grow about ten percent a year.

The same thing will happen if you're running a startup, of course. If you do everything the way the average startup does it, you should expect average performance. The problem here is, average performance means that you'll go out of business. The survival rate for startups is way less than fifty percent. So if you're running a startup, you had better be doing something odd. If not, you're in trouble.

Comment author: KenChen 07 April 2011 08:20:17PM *  0 points [-]

Hugh Ristik, who was linked in the article, addresses the question of how to generate good pickup advice:

Feminists tend to criticize male sexual behavior and only explain what not to do. PUAs are exploring what to do. If feminists want to guide the expression of male sexuality in ways other than shouting “don’ts” from the peanut gallery, then they would do well to study the teachings of the seduction community, take from it what they like, and throw away the rest.

Comment author: cousin_it 07 April 2011 08:24:08PM 6 points [-]

That doesn't seem to be about generating new advice. Basically he proposes to take someone else's hard-won research, throw away the parts you don't like (with no way of knowing if these parts were important to the function), and repackage it as your own. I'm not sure you can get a superior product that way.

Comment author: Raemon 08 April 2011 01:32:13AM *  12 points [-]

Nothing says that PUA people HAVEN'T generated perfectly good advice. The point is not to independently generate advice that works, or to claim credit for advice someone else came up with. The point is to try to filter that advice into something we can point shy guys to and say "this will help you, without being unethical."

You're also missing that men can be feminists. Producing a quality system of PUA that is ethical and effective will require the efforts of both men and women.

Comment author: Gray 08 April 2011 03:20:51AM 7 points [-]

You're also missing that men can be feminists. Producing a quality system of PUA that is ethical and effective will require the efforts of both men and women.

Yes, yes, this is it. Some of us are looking for advice without the sleeze factor.

Comment author: HughRistik 08 April 2011 05:05:55AM 4 points [-]

PUAs have drawing selectively from pickup knowledge for years: using what they like, and throwing away what they don't. I see no reason why non-PUAs shouldn't do the same. Of course, they shouldn't just plagiarize pickup without citing their sources.

Comment author: cousin_it 08 April 2011 08:54:49AM *  4 points [-]

PUAs have drawing selectively from pickup knowledge for years: using what they like, and throwing away what they don't. I see no reason why non-PUAs shouldn't do the same.

Well, I see a reason. After you modify someone else's advice, you ought to test it to see if it still works. If you didn't test your modified version, you shouldn't publish it. What would you think about advice for entrepreneurs that was tweaked and republished by a salaried programmer?

Comment author: HughRistik 14 April 2011 04:45:41AM 1 point [-]

Clarisse has been consulting with me and other people with pickup background. I don't completely agree with all her conclusions, but she isn't just cherry-picking pickup knowledge to keep and throw away completely haphazardly.

Comment author: clarissethorn 18 May 2011 11:18:16AM 0 points [-]

Haha. That's some vote of confidence there.

Comment author: HughRistik 19 May 2011 09:22:30AM 1 point [-]

Believe it or not, it was ;)

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