Seriously, how many people would actually refer to thoughtful critique and even rejection of mainstream views as "Red Pill" material?
Arguing about what a term means is bound to go nowhere, but in my experience, "red pill" has been associated with useful and interesting ideas. Maybe that's just me and my experience isn't valid though.
I don't think it's fair to characterize an entire space of ideas by it's strawest members (shock-value seeking "edgy" losers). I could use that technique to dismiss any given space of ideas. See for example Yvain's analysis of how mainstream ideas migrate to crazytown by runaway signalling games.
I think there is a high proportion of valuable ideas in the part of "redpillspace" that I've been exposed to. Maybe we are looking at different things that happen to be called the same name, though.
But based on your terminology and attitude here, I think you are cultivating hatred and negativity, which is harmful IMO. In general, I think it is much better to actively look for the good aspects of things and try to like more things rather than casting judgement and being outraged at more things.
ALERT. Fully General Counterargument detected in line 1.
Correct, I attempt to see the good parts of things and ignore the crud with full generality.
Mencius Moldbug
This is beside the point, IMHO; Moldbug's references to "taking the red pill" are well explained by his peculiar writing style. I think they are mostly unrelated to how Athol Kay, reddit!TheRedPill and others use the term. OTOH, Multiheaded's comment upthread provides proof that Kay's views are genuinely problematic, in a way that's closely related and explained by his involvement in TheRedPill meme cluster. For the time being, I make no claim one way or the other about other "high quality PUAs".
Do also note that I ...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.