All of MarcTheEngineer's Comments + Replies

Are you on "The Pill" - Recent scientific studies have indicated that taking birth control hormones actually affects a woman's attraction triggers. Essentially the pill causes a woman to more highly value masculine traits that indicate stability (because it tricks the body into believing its pregnant, the body decides it wants to mate with a male who will take care of it, rather than the best possible sperm).

There is some discussion that the pill could be in part responsible for the increase in divorce rates as women come off the pill after marr... (read more)

2juliawise
I wasn't on the pill when I was looking for a mate. True, pure desperation is not attractive, but I was looking for a medium value between cockiness and desperation.

You are mistaking all pickup theory for a subset of pickup theory that happens to be very effective at picking up at bars. Due to the nature of the beast (picking up in bars) it also tends to be the pickup theory that is the least politically correct... and therefore receives the most attention outside of the pickup community.

If you don't go to clubs you are probably right that the routines in the Mystery Method probably wouldn't work on you... they make sense in the club where they don't seem out of place and are congruent with the general atmosphere. Th... (read more)

5juliawise
As far as I know, there's not pickup literature for the folk dance scene. Yes, in a general way, I find confidence and social competence attractive in any environment. But at least consciously, my strategy was to look for nerdy boys who weren't overconfident - because desperate boys would value me more. Devotion alone doesn't make for a good relationship, so the trick was to find one who was both devoted and interesting. (And a folk dancer.)

I'd agree that many people have a learned helplessness when dealing with computers because of a fear that they can easily break their computer.

I disagree that really destroying your computer is a very easy thing to do (sans going into the BIOS or touching the actual hardware)

5Eugine_Nier
rm -r /

Marius makes a good point with the chameleon - Although when describing something as skinny/fat the color comes first (Red Faced Fat Man vs. Large/Huge Red-faced man)

Almost seems to me that we place words that categorize the object closest to the object - Brown Spider/Green Chameleon/Fat Man are all categories of those objects whereas a Big spider isn't as much of a category as it describes the size of the spider relative to other spiders in the same category.

When you manipulate a person's distressed emotional state to convince them into an action, even when that action is a positive one (sponsoring a child) there is always the potential that the person who was manipulated will later realize the manipulation.

Essentially - If he had convinced the crying woman to sponsor the child she very well have felt better on an ongoing and permanent basis (a positive result for everyone involved), however there is also the potential that at some later date she would have realized the manipulation.

My understanding of being ... (read more)

Count me in as well - I've gained a great deal of useful knowledge from the PUA community despite having found it while in a fine, and still ongoing, long term relationship.

For a smart person it is relatively easy to take PUA advice and gain utility for non pick-up activities.

2[anonymous]
Same here. Also are there any existing google study or self improvement groups from Less Wrong? I would be really interested in joining those.

I was thinking of that exact example with regards to the posts discussion on hypothetical Montessori schools.

The filtering effect still wouldn't vanish - instead of filtering FOR the most engaged parents it would filter AGAINST the least engaged (I.E. all the parents that cared would put their kids into Montessori, the parents who didn't care would just put their kids into whatever school was the most convenient for them)

4Viliam_Bur
You are right. Unfortunately, "any parent who cared at all" is still a significant selection. Also there are different kinds of "care". For example a parent may spend their time choosing the right school, and even pay more money for the school... and yet completely ignore what their children are doing at the school. The filter of Montessori schools may work on both these levels -- require both selection and later parent participation. I am not familiar with details of Montessori schools. A data point: I taught at a school where student grades were not written on paper, but only on a school website. Parents received a password they could use to see their child's grades. During the year 1/3 passwords were never used. That means that parents of 1/3 children either did not care what grades their child has or at least did not care to verify what their child reported. It was a school that required special tests for a child to be accepted, and for many children it was inconveniently far from their home -- so parents did care about choosing the right school, but then 1/3 of them stopped caring about what happened in the school. I guess this could be explained by signalling. Choosing your child's school is a one-time activity that signals that you are a great parent. Reading your child's grades online is invisible (unless someone curious looks into logs later), therefore useless for signalling.

Definitely in agreement with Pirsig's Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Also in non-fiction - Both Rand novels - Fountainhead AND Atlas Shrugged

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."

Robert A. Heinlein