Funny thing is that I agree with the first article, I just have completely different connotations to that.

Yes, the stuff Mystery teaches really is dumbed down. Which is good, because some guys start so dumb that they need this; sometimes they have problems to understand even this. I was there once. And the stuff helped me to get out of there.

It feels to me like saying: "The elementary schools are so dumb, I learned much more at university!" -- Sure, good for you! Also, well-played sir; you gently reminded us of your higher status. The competition among PUA bloggers is strong these days; many authors have to market themself as beyond-PUA to be able to sell their PUA products. (Nothing wrong about that, I would probably do the same thing if I weren't too lazy to blog.)

I also agree with the rest of the article. If you take a mentally unstable person and teach them PUA, you will get a mentally unstable person with some PUA skills. And therefore... I mean, if you take a mentally unstable person and teach them Java programming, you will get a mentally unstable person with some Java skills. Perhaps it is socially unresponsible to teach mentally unstable people anything that increases their powers without fixing their problems first. But that is not a problem specific to PUA industry.

EDIT: Changed my mind about this.

My take is that PUA seems to be set in a universe where no one likes anyone else.

Men helping low-status men to overcome their lack of social skills... is an evidence that no one likes anyone else? (Ten years ago, the help was provided online for free, only later it developed into a profitable industry.)

But they don't focus on liking women, do they? Well, they often don't. To make a fair comparison, how often do seduction (sorry, relationship) articles, magazines, and books for women talk about liking men, respecting their agency, et cetera?

And maybe the people criticizing PUAs just focus too much on the bad parts, and ignore the nicer parts. But I admit the bad parts may be majority of the stuff.