Naah.

delta-wave-inducing binaural beats for #3

Do you know of any way of figuring out if binaural beats actually have a stronger effect than just listening to random ambient noise? The idea's cute, but last I looked at it, there wasn't much research confirming the brainwave entrainment effect.

1) Antidepressants

2) Amphetamine/methylphenidate (though it's not a pure reinforcement of wanting to excercise)

3) High doses of melatonin (3mg at least, stronger effects at 10mg+) and then staying awake. Also cannabis, or audio/visual brainwave entrainment.

4) I had a kratom customer that was a professional PUA (meaning clients paid him for applied lessons) and he found kratom before hitting the clubs helpful for him and his clients.

5) Cannabis. But it's not really great for doing math or science...

6) A drug which puts you in the state of asking "does what I'm doing make sense?", doing an honest search for an answer., and then putting the answer into effect.

Admittedly, the drug that gives you a pony would be easier, but I think that reflectiveness and executive function have physical bases.

I strongly recommend anonymity when participating in this thread.

Why? Concern over future background searches? Expressing a purely hypothetical wish for the existence of a particular drug sounds even less embarrassing to me than, say, expressing a purely hypothetical wish for the end of some of the most ridiculous of anti-drug laws. Which I would well hope weren't reason enough to lock you out of a job.

Participant here from the beginning and from OB before that, posting under a throwaway account. And this will probably be my only comment on the race-IQ issue here.

I don't think the view that there are genetic racial differences in IQ is popular here, if that's what you're referring to. It's come up a few times and the consensus seems to be that the evidence points to cultural and environmental explanations for the racial IQ gap [emphasis mine].

The vast majority of writers here have not given their opinion on the topic. Many people here write under their real name or under a name that can be matched to their real name by spending a half hour with Google. In the U.S. (the only society I really know) this is not the kind of opinion you can put under your real name without significant risk of losing one's job or losing out to the competition in a job application, dating situation or such.

Second, one of the main reasons Less Wrong was set up is as a recruiting tool for SIAI. (The other is to increase the rationality of the general population.) Most of the people here with a good reputation are either affiliated with SIAI or would like to keep open the option of starting an affiliation some day. (I certainly do.) Since SIAI's selection process includes looking at the applicant's posting history here, even writers whose user names cannot be correlated with the name they would put on a job application will tend to avoid taking the unpopular-with-SIAI side in the race-IQ debate.

So, want to start a debate that will leave your side with complete control of the battlefield? Post about the race-IQ issue on Less Wrong rather than one of the web sites set up to discuss the topic!

The issue about helpless anger at my end seems to be that I'd have to believe I shouldn't have been hurt when I was mistreated if I could choose whether or not I'm angry.

I actually have better resources now-- probably not as good as they should be, considering that I was screaming at a pocket the other day[1]-- but I also believe I was doing the best I could when I was a kid. I couldn't access choices I didn't know I had.

I'm trying to be more careful about saying "some PUA", and I've been referring to it as a group of sub-cultures.

You can grant accuracy, even to people who don't offer it. :-)

The kind of thing I imagine when I hear about PUA is a woman I met some time ago-- she would love to spend some time by the ocean, but her husband doesn't like the ocean and isn't willing to have her spend time away from him. He'd taken charge to the extent that she's presumably never going to see the ocean again unless she outlives him in good enough health do it.

He probably wasn't PUA-- this is probably from before PUA was invented. For all I know, she would prefer living with a man like that than someone who'd find a way to tolerate a trip to the beach, but speaking as a person who needs to see an ocean now and then, I find her situation horrifying.

It may be a matter of, not just the way I react to PUA, but the way a lot of others do, but you write as though the best side of PUA is all that's real about it.

Any thoughts on how women can distinguish early between "good guy in charge" vs. "bad guy bullying" vs. "average guy who's taking excessive advantage"?

[1] I kept getting phone calls which consisted of a ring and then rustling-- and the "person" wouldn't get off the line when I hung up. After the first few, I was yelling and slamming the phone. It turned out to be a phone carried in a pocket where the autodial was repeatedly pressed by accident.

Your comparison isn't fair -- compare mental manipulations vs. physical ones, and notice that "The Rules" were almost as controversial as "The Game".

All manipulations under discussion pass through the mind, so I don't understand the distinction mental vs physical. And, "The Rules" certainly hasn't gotten near the attention as "The Game", nor does it commit the sin of breaking from advice women already get. ("Hold off on having sex with a man" -- gee, I'm sure women aren't taught that, right?) So there parallel isn't nearly as strong as you claim.

Conversely, you're not going to be declared evil if you tell men they should work out to get a certain chest-waist or shoulder-waist ratio that women find attractive.

But that's not advice of remotely similar effectiveness: a) women rank looks as relatively unimportant beyond a certain point, and b) for a man, simply looking good is not attractive in that it does not, er, attract. You won't get approached by women just for looking good; women, OTOH, will be approached by men mainly on their looks.

Nobody cares that much about what men and women do to emphasize their physical attractiveness, or change in superficial behaviors to be more attractive. It's things that involve direct effect on the attractee's mind, or direct alteration to the attractor's body (e.g. implants, lifts, hair plugs) that produce the most impression of deception and manipulation, and thus the most excoriation.

(ETA:) I'm not alleging deception or hypocrisy in those standards and judgments. What I criticize is the attempt to suppress and disparage truthful information about what criteria women are actually using. What goes on now would be like if men adamantly denied that breast implants have any effect whatsoever on female attractiveness, and that they're immoral, and pursued women with implants almost exclusively. (I know you disagree that this accurately characterizes what goes on, and my responses to that are elsewhere in this post. I just want to clarify what specific behavior I'm criticizing.)

Also, phrasing is very important. I could rephrase your controversial advice in a much-less offensive way thus:

[...] I just gave essentially the exact same advice, but in a harder-to-object to form.

Not for "ordering them around", you didn't; there was no parallel in the advice you gave for that. More importantly, the good advice you claim women agree with is given side by side with the stuff that's completely ineffective and countereffective (gifts, admiration, letting her make choices -- which by the way does not contradict "knowing what you want"). How are men supposed to know which advice is deception and which isn't (or perhaps more politely, which advice reveals a lack of self-understanding / luminosity / going along with what one's expected to say)?

Most women I know would not only agree with the correctness of this advice, but would express their wish that more guys understood these things, and advocate educating men in this fashion -- since it emphasizes the benefits of these behaviors for women. (i.e., confidence, relatability, and independence)

Sure, but like above, they say the same thing about men doing the counterproductive stuff. A clock is broken even when it's right twice a day.

The problem is that men and women do not always use the same (connotational) language for behaviors. ... the terms women would use to describe the behavior they find attractive ("a man who knows what he wants, and isn't afraid to say it").

It sounds like you're saying women are truthful as long as you stick to euphemisms and politician-speak("a man saying what he wants") and stay away from practical implications ("a man ordering a woman to use a different fashion" [1]). Am I supposed to be thankful for this?

[1] Which counts as sexual harassment, btw (unless you're really hot).

The negative reactions may have to do with the fact that such advice -- and indeed, a comment like the above -- amounts to accusing half the audience of a very blatant form of hypocrisy. Obviously one should exercise extreme caution when making such an accusation, and it had better be backed up with some pretty solid evidence -- to say nothing of the pragmatic considerations of whether there is much to be gained by voicing such truths (if they are in fact true).

Yes, lots of people probably don't tell the truth about what is sexually attractive to them. But if you go around saying "women are such hypocrites", it's understandable for a woman hearing this to take it as a personal insult. (If you didn't mean for her to be insulted, you wouldn't say it that way.)

I can't but refer back to simple comparisons of the social reactions to advice

Your comparison isn't fair -- compare mental manipulations vs. physical ones, and notice that "The Rules" were almost as controversial as "The Game". Conversely, you're not going to be declared evil if you tell men they should work out to get a certain chest-waist or shoulder-waist ratio that women find attractive.

Nobody cares that much about what men and women do to emphasize their physical attractiveness, or change in superficial behaviors to be more attractive. It's things that involve direct effect on the attractee's mind, or direct alteration to the attractor's body (e.g. implants, lifts, hair plugs) that produce the most impression of deception and manipulation, and thus the most excoriation.

Also, phrasing is very important. I could rephrase your controversial advice in a much-less offensive way thus:

"Women prefer men who are confident and know what they want. So be clear about what you want, and don't be afraid to tell them. They don't like it when men come across as needy or uncomfortable around women, so it can be helpful to think of how you might interact with your kid sister -- playful and teasing, rather than reverent or worshipful. Similarly, if you seem to have nothing to do but hang around with her, then you might seem like a loser with no other options. Cultivate other interests, including ones that don't involve her."

I just gave essentially the exact same advice, but in a harder-to-object to form. Most women I know would not only agree with the correctness of this advice, but would express their wish that more guys understood these things, and advocate educating men in this fashion -- since it emphasizes the benefits of these behaviors for women. (i.e., confidence, relatability, and independence)

The problem is that men and women do not always use the same (connotational) language for behaviors. To a low-attractive male, any action taken by a high-attractive male is suspect. Thus, an initially low-status PUA is more likely to describe high-status behaviors in negative terms (e.g. "ordering her around") rather than the terms women would use to describe the behavior they find attractive ("a man who knows what he wants, and isn't afraid to say it").

A PUA trying to teach others is also likely to use this negative language because his target audience of other low-attractive males will relate to it better, and it will also provide an outlet for their frustrations. However, this isn't the best language to use for an objective discussion or to use with people who are, well, not sexually and socially frustrated to misogynistic or near-misogynistic levels.