If someone is routinely stepping on feet, it would make more sense to find out why, and offer non-destructive ways of accomplishing that. For example, if they're stepping on feet to get attention, then offering the general rule of "don't step on feet" is just setting yourself up to write an unending list of articles about "... or lift people in the air", "... or play airhorns", "...or dress as a clown", etc.

(And I know, "you're not obligated to fix other people's problems", but once you've decided to go that route, you should take into account which methods are most effective, and "don't [do this specific failure mode]" isn't it.)

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).

Here are a few quick counterexamples to your comments about zero-sum, lack of agency, lack of response to feminism, etc::

• http://www.authenticmanprogram.com/authenticity/authentic-outer-game-impossible/
• http://www.authenticmanprogram.com/attraction/why-sharking-for-girls-will-always-leave-you-hungry/
• http://johnnysoporno.com/workshops/philosophy/reframing-rejection-overcoming-misogyny/
• http://johnnysoporno.com/workshops/philosophy/converting-girl-friends-into-girlfriends/

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.)

Ask first. Always. For everything. Really.

I'm going to disagree with this. Honestly, straight up asking can be even more creepy in a lot of situations. For example if you ask, "Can I give you a hug?", you've double creeped me out.

First, you violated my boundaries because we're not hugging friends yet if ever. Second, you violated my social norms by not reading our friendship hug level from the vibe of our conversation and my body language. You're right that I may not actually tell you "no" because it is more difficult to opt-out, but that doesn't make it less creepy.

There are some situations where asking is appropriate, but most of the time I would say if the social cues aren't clear err on the side of caution and later on ask a buddy who's good at that stuff what was going on in that situation and if you made the right call. Asking for stuff just tacks awkward onto creepy.

I suppose that these rules could move someone from "creepy" to "extremely awkward", which is probably an improvement. People never say no to "Would you like to talk to me?" or "You look kinda bored, do you want to continue this conversation?" (unless they take the latter to mean "I'm bored, go away").

Refusals are always at least a little rude. True opt-in forms use implications (things like "I like bowling, too bad my friends don't" vs "Want to go bowling?"), but they require social skills to generate and understand.

My experience of PUA memes for "improving success with women" is that

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.

they're written by men

Yes. (And dating advice for men written by women gets a different label.)

cast interaction in competitive terms

A significant aspect of it, at certain phases of courtship, yes.

, treat all the parties' interests as zero sum

Nonsense.

and their success relies on women having little or no agency and remaining that way.

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

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.

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 also can't help but think that if & when PUA works, its success inversely varies with a woman's intelligence, self-awareness and rationality.

I doubt that.

The opposite is true with social justice feminism.

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!

I think there's some good argument that privilege is itself a cognitive bias - a complex one, that both builds on and encourages development of others.

It's not clear to me that privilege is a bias of its own, so much as aspects of privilege are examples of other biases, like availability bias.

I think the primary reason that attempts to discuss privilege don't go well is because the quality of most thought on privilege is, well, not very good. People who volunteer to speak on the topic generally have strong enough opinions that they can't help but moralize, which is something to resist whenever possible.

I don't agree that the links contain only "don'ts"... but, well, so what if they did? If there are clumsy don'ts as routine mistakes, learning to recognise and avoid them is surely an improvement?

For the reason I gave earlier: the weird stuff happens because they don't know what the superior option is, not because they're under the impression that it was a great idea all along. Moreover, to borrow from EY's felicitous phrasing, non-wood is not a building material, non-selling-apples is not a business plan, and non-hugs-without-asking is not a social adeptness enhancement method.

As these aren't academic peer-reviewed articles, ...

you should probably avoid implying that they met such a standard with a statement like:

I have seen several posts in LW where someone moderately informed in a field comes to us with (my paraphrase) "there are many flaws and mistakes being made here, and time spent dealing with issues that are actually well understood in the field; here are some high-value expert resources that will quickly level you up in this field so you can at least now make interesting and important mistakes, rather than repeating basic mistakes the whole field moved past"

If you're saying you'll accept anecdotes as weak evidence, then yes, I am one data point there.

I accept anecdotes as weak evidence. I accept self-reports as weak(er) evidence. I do not, however, accept that this evidence suffices given the strength of your claim (and confidence in it), nor do I accept the comparison to the other articles you mentioned.

I'm not saying either way which it is, but if only 1 percent is useful, that doesn't mean the other 99 percent is neutral. It could very well be BAD.

I have seen several posts in LW where someone moderately informed in a field comes to us with (my paraphrase) ...

These have been universally well received (AFAIK) except for this one - and make no mistake, that's exactly what the OP was.

I'm sorry, do you have actual evidence that reading Yet Another List of Don'ts will "quickly level you up" in this field? Or that the TC is an expert? Or that they are even high-value resources? Can you identify even one person that has (as you put it) gained a few levels from these resources?

Being extremely doubtful of this parallel you've made, I can't buy your claim that this is being treated differently.

I suspect there is also a correlation here with approving of PUA and disapproving of anti-"creeper" measures, and am now fascinated by how we might confirm or deny that.

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.