It are usually women(correct me if I'm wrong) who object against PU and present a variety of reasons.
Oh come on. This is a ridiculously sensitive subject. That means it requires a lot of tact and even more carefulness. You aren't employing much of either. I could barely read past the first paragraphs because of the sloppy writing. This doesn't even make grammatical sense!
I also note that many males also object to PUA, citing many of the same slogans that females of similar social allegiance chant. This isn't a simple battle of the sexes, the signalling game has at least an extra layer of indirection established.
I generally encourage guys to study at least some PUA material. There are resources out there that can be used to add massive amounts of value to oneself and the people one interacts with. But I am opposed to any advocacy of PUA here that is not handled and presented at a level far above the standards required on most other subjects. Sloppy advocacy achieves nothing but creating more material for straw man construction by opponents.
My view of PUA is distinctly different from yours. It is a much less happy view. Disclaimer: I'm an ex-PUA; I spent a few years in the game and quit after finding my current 4 year LTR. (nb I use PUA as a catchall abbreviation for both PUA and PU.)
1. Their objections are legitimate
PUA at it's core is a training regime to learn the martial art of social interaction backed up by 10,000 hours of practice. Just like in martial arts, a guy who's studied for a couple years will beat the shit out of someone who's never practiced. You might not win every argument / get every girl / impress every person, but you'll do way better than you should for your weight class.
The people I've talked to re: PUA don't have this nebulous fear of loss of power. They're afraid of you personally having a metaphorical loaded gun with you at all times, that you're free to use whenever you want, and there's no consequence when you use it. That's scary.
They also don't want other people going out and getting these social guns, even if it's a dominant strategy, because a future where everyone employs them is not a future they want to live in. I don't think their objections are disingenuous at all.
2. PUA...
PUA is true. It works.
"PU technique works" does not imply "PU theory is true". (That statement should not be construed as an argument for PU theory not being true either, by the way)
The people I've talked to re: PUA don't have this nebulous fear of loss of power. They're afraid of you personally having a metaphorical loaded gun with you at all times, that you're free to use whenever you want, and there's no consequence when you use it. That's scary.
I think that's really close but not quite on the mark
It's a memetic hazard of sorts. It presents a set of ideas which are true and encourage one set of behavior, while ignoring a second set of ideas which are also true and, if known, would modulate the first set of behaviors.
By analogy - "The Bell Curve" shows the reader (presumably) true data about population level differences in intelligence. It doesn't discuss the biological factors that go into creating intelligence. It doesn't show you the studies which more or less prove that the intelligence differences aren't genetic (no fault to the author - those studies were published several years later). It presents half the truth, and human biases fill ...
comments?
I don't know about that last one, so I'll just make a general comment here since you seem to be planning to spend more time on this:
The IQ wars are a rabbit hole you can easily dive down. The literature is vast, spans all sorts of groups, all sorts of designs, from test validities to sampling to statistical regression vs causal inference to forms of bias; every point is hotly debated, the ways in which studies can be validly critiqued are an education in how to read papers and look for how they are weak or make jumps or some of the data just looks wrong, and you'll learn every technical requirement and premise and methodological limitation because the opponents of that particular result will be sure to bring them up if it'll at all help their case.
In this respect, it's a lot like the feuds in biblical criticism over issues like whether Jesus existed, or the long philosophical debate over whether God exists. Similarly there's an incredible amount of material to cover, by some really smart people (what did geeks do before science and modernity? well, for the most part, they seem to have done theology; consider how much time and effort Newton reportedly spent on alchemy an...
Maybe "Mystery" is different from what's in the forums - my first impression was from the forums. I can't generalize to everyone who uses the label PUA - it's possible that some sub-strains are decent.
Should we judge someone for being an asshole if it works for him?
Well, yes! Behaviors resulting from being an asshole are terminally bad. Let's take a step back - a set of ideas has led you to the conclusion that it is okay to be an asshole. Don't you think it is time to re-evaluate?
I'll make my point better, since we're doing a separate post. There is nothing wrong with the idea of optimizing attractiveness, the problem is the specific community of "PUA", which I'm assuming is well represented by the most popular forum, although I may be mistaken.
Check out the jargon on that forum.
AMOG— 1. noun [alpha male of the group or alpha male other guy]: a socially comfortable male who competes with a pickup artist for a woman or interferes with a pickup artist's game. Origin: 01d_Dog. 2. verb: to remove a potential male competitor—through physical, verbal, or psychological tactics—from a group of women. Also: outalpha. Origin: Tyler Durden.
I've seen that type of g...
To be fair, this is mostly a problem with the jargon, which has mostly been chosen for effect. The jargon phrases actually give little or no indication of how these practices actually work in the field. They are far less nefarious than they appear at first glance:
AMOG ...
The preferred AMOG tactic for experienced PUAs is... you guessed it, to befriend the Other Guy since this helps you get an 'in' with the group! However, attempts at befriending are not always successful; sometimes the AMOG really is trying to block or compete with you. That's when something that could be described as "subtle status putdowns" might happen - but by that time, the situation has been antagonized already. Also, PUAs generally strive for effectiveness and do not like wasting effort on a bad "set" - but you can't eject without putting in some effort to show that you will stand up for yourself in a status contest.
BF DESTROYER
Here's how "BF destroyers" work: they are subtle ways of figuring out whether your "target" is reasonably happy in her relationship with her bf. If it turns out that she's not that happy, what's wrong with making an attempt at a r...
I think the downvotes are just expressing disagreement - which is a bit unfortunate, since the entire point of this thread is to tackle the PUA / misogyny issues that have been circulating.
this is mostly a problem with the jargon, which has mostly been chosen for effect.
Maybe. Let's explore the non-jargon parts. This is first thing upon entering the forum:
How To Approach Any Woman With Zero Chance Of Rejection... This Works EVERY Time! How To Make Out With Any Woman You Want In 16 Minutes Or Less The Secret To Developing Emotional Addiction In Women (That Makes Them Loyal And Obedient)
So, all women are the same, you can pressure them to kiss you in <15min, and the goal is obedience? This looks like a scam preying upon the socially awkward. OK, maybe that's just the web admin, let's move on...
What's up in the pua lounge?
...I can't help but feel too cynical now when it comes to relationships and women in general. After reading PUA material and from personal experience, i realise that if you treat a woman nice or show vulnerability then it will later stab you in the back, even with girls who have got their heads screwed on and come across as being generally compassionate.
First question - do the tactics work?
If no, that's a decent thing to point out to deter men from these tactics.
If the tactics work, men will use them. If you want to call winning (instrumental rationality) being an asshole, that's your prerogative. To a large extent, the fact that such tactics win offends my sensibilities, I find the tactics annoying, and I would encourage those in a position to change the outcome to make those tactics lose.
But as long as those choosing the winners choose "assholes", I find it hard to hold "being an asshole" against someone.
First question - do the tactics work?
An at-least-equally-first question is whether the tactics leave everyone involved worse off (on net, aggregated over agents).
But as long as those choosing the winners choose "assholes", I find it hard to hold "being an asshole" against someone.
That a tactic benefits the user in the immediate interaction isn't the only relevant factor for an agent in a social network.
More specifically in this case: if agent A taking action X leaves my community worse off, then it's reasonable for me to object to A doing X, even if X leaves A better off. It's also reasonable for me to act so as to reduce the net benefit to A (e.g., by applying social sanctions), even if I'm not directly affected by X.
This is as true where X is a mating tactic as when X is a financial investment strategy or a waste disposal technique.
So for my part, I don't find it hard to hold "being an asshole" against people, even when "being an asshole" benefits them, even if I'm not directly affected by their "being an asshole". Indeed, I often consider holding "being an asshole" against people to be an important act of social hygiene, and resent members of my community who refuse to perform it themselves.
plenty of women have been attracted to me, despite my never pulling any of the subset of PUA behaviors which I've described as immoral.
But that's not really the test. The controlled test would be whether you had more success or less using the PUA behaviors or not.
It are usually women(correct me if I'm wrong) who object against PU and present a variety of reasons. As often when it concerns humans the presented reasons are rationalizations and the real causes of the antagonism is some deeper feeling that originates for entirely different reasons than the ones presented. I suspect this is also the case with PU. For the moment I will ignore the presented reasons some of which I will address later and instead focus on what I think is the real underlying cause.
This makes me feel very tempted to downvote before I've even had a chance to read the rest of the rest of the post. Please, introduce the presented objections to start with. This will help readers assess how fair your extrapolations of the real underlying cause are. To do otherwise will leave you looking dismissive of their position, and you cannot take it for granted that your audience will accept that such a level of dismissiveness is warranted.
I have opinions on PUA that are positive (I see nothing wrong with it, except that it is correllated with other problems), but whenever I look at these discussions and try to comment, I notice that my comments are probably less rational than usual, and wouldn't really solve anything, because no one else would be convinced by argument anyways (being a political topic), so I don't comment.
I thought you ought to know that there may be other people like me who are reasonable and supportive of PUA, but avoid these discussions.
See also, this smbc
It usually involves great effort for a man to find another woman, this was especially true in past times when people lived in small villages with very few unmarried attractive women. A woman on the other hand will not have much problems finding another male if she is good looking.
You're not pointing out a symmetric situation here. You're saying "Most men find it hard to attract good-looking women. However, good-looking women find it easy to attract men." That is quite likely true; however, I suspect that the reverse is also true: "Most women find it hard to attract good-looking men. However, good-looking men find it easy to attract women."
PUA and Last Minute Resistance: I have no idea why PUA gets its bad reputation from negging when something like this was easy to find "Distract her thoughts with banter: It’s very simple to distract her logical mind… just don’t answer questions, deflect them. If she says “Where do you live” say “Oh, it’s like 5 minutes away”. Keep the conversation flowing and she will be fine."
This one has an explicit "no means no", but a strong recommendation to distract her from anything short of an emphatic no.
This one is interesting-- it puts seduct...
Yet if it is about "10 good ways to prepare for the job interview" I usually don't read this kind of objections. On the contrary it is assumed that when going for an interview candidates will dress as well as they can, have polished their CVs and often waded through lists of common questions/problems and their solutions(speaking as a computer programmer here). Not doing so would be considered sloppy. It is rare to hear: "People, just go to the interview and present yourself as you are, if the company likes you it will take you."
While...
It are usually women(correct me if I'm wrong) who object against PU
I'm not sure how one would correct you in any useful statistical way, but as purely anecdotal matter, there are a lot of men who object to PU and PUAs. I'm an example. The reasons for those objections have been mainly already outlined by others in this thread.
Hi Roland,
I replied to you in the other thread and I'd be interested to know what you think about my comment (I'm not really making the sort of claim you dismiss in this post so I'm curious as to whether you agree with what I'm saying or whether my comments are problematic for other reasons). Comments quoted below for ease of access:
...If the sole determining factor of whether an interaction with a women is desirable is whether they end up attracted to you then, yes, even the most extreme sort of pick up artistry would be unproblematic.
However, if you think
I've adopted the School of Life's doctrine of relationships having disavowed pickup and all but a couple RSDmotivation videos
Disclaimer: this comment may be affected by a higher-than-usual level of cognitive biases. Take it with a grain of salt.
There is a lot of truth to that, but isn't it also manipulation for women to wear make-up, high heels, fake breasts, painted hair, plastic surgery? Yet I seldom see the latter criticized. It is simply accepted, even encouraged.
See also this about how men in modern western societies generally spend much less effort than women on being attractive. To the extent that a world full of attractive people is better than a world full of unattr...
If you regard only women, or only men, the cooperate-defect criteria switches; if no woman wears makeup, the one who does gets an advantage over the others. In terms of relative advantage, these behaviors are defection.
I'd suggest this is a more natural perspective, since the group perspective requires unified decision-making. An individual male or female isn't making a decision "for men" or "for women."
The issue of PU(pick up) or PUAs(Pick up artists) has been discussed several times here and I often see objections against it. So I would like to present my view on it which is rather positive.
Disclaimer: I'm a male.
1. Why is PU hated so much?
It are usually women(correct me if I'm wrong) who object against PU and present a variety of reasons. As often when it concerns humans the presented reasons are rationalizations and the real causes of the antagonism is some deeper feeling that originates for entirely different reasons than the ones presented. I suspect this is also the case with PU. For the moment I will ignore the presented reasons some of which I will address later and instead focus on what I think is the real underlying cause.
The real reason that women have a problem with PU is that it empowers men and dis-empowers women. Allow me to explain.
Good looking women will have no problem attracting lots of interested males. Usually women do the choosing, while males compete for the attention. A big part of the power a woman has over her mate is the threat of withdrawing from him sexually and/or emotionally. It usually involves great effort for a man to find another woman, this was especially true in past times when people lived in small villages with very few unmarried attractive women. A woman on the other hand will not have much problems finding another male if she is good looking.
Even in modern society women usually still have more power in relationships because even though there is nowadays an abundance of women(if you live in a big city there are literally thousands of them available) most men are still limited in that they meet women mostly through their social circle.
What changed with PU?
Picture this, a PUA(call him P) is in a relationship with women W. Say he has enough skills that he will be able to get laid or start a relationship with 1 in 50 women he approaches. Now there is some kind of tension in his current relationship, W threatens to withdraw or W has done something that upset him and he is considering finishing the relationship on his part. Since he is a PUA he knows that if he goes out 3 nights a week approaching 10 women each night he will meet 60 women in two weeks and will get laid once or be able to start a new relationship for sure. If W knows her partner well enough she will know it too. Suddenly the power balance has shifted. I still believe that women in general tend to have more power but PU shifted this towards men. W will have to consider "If I withdraw he can find another woman in two weeks.", she clearly has lost bargaining power. P knows it too and will weigh if it is worth the hassle to remain in the relationship if he can find another woman very quickly. P has more power for being a PUA than he would have if he weren't.
If you followed this reasoning, can we expect women to like PU? Of course not, it is clear that woman have to dislike PU.
Yet the thing is I never see this argument presented when PU is criticized. Why not? Because it is a power struggle and in such every gain in power by one side is a loss of power on the other side. To bring up this point women would have to admit that what they really dislike is the loss of power.
2. PUAs depiction of women
One of the presented arguments against PU is that the depiction of women is often perceived as demeaning.
Quoting from one comment:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/fmv/lw_women_submissions_on_misogyny/8qnn
> I think PUA memes are especially dangerous because they are half-truths, which makes them compelling and "sticky" - but that is an opinion, and I admit only passing familiarity with PUA memes which I've picked up from visiting their forums
I agree that a lot of those memes are half-truths or plain wrong, but some are correct. You also have to be careful with the source of the memes, there is a lot of nonsense written in forums. Yet if you look at the presentation of PU as done by Mystery in his writings and presented to an audience in shows like "The PU artist" I don't think there is anything there that really could be considered offensive.
Also, some depictions may be offensive, yet still true, consider:
>Humans are greedy.
Some people will consider this offensive.
Another quote from:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/fmv/lw_women_submissions_on_misogyny/8qnn
> You've got to show that you are assertive- even if it means being an asshole and playing on people's insecurities sometimes."...etc
I agree this is extremely offensive. Yet at the same time I suspect there is a grain of truth to it. The quote can equally be applied to women asking for a refund in a shop and it could be good advice depending on the context. How bad is that? We can't change the way the world works. Is it wrong to be an asshole if that will enable you to get a refund? Should we judge someone for being an asshole if it works for him?
3. PU as a skillset and activity
At the end it doesn't matter what PUAs write in forums but how they actually engage and interact with women in real life. And most guys who write in forums don't actually practice PU. Any PUA who is disrespectful will not get very far in conquering a woman's heart, on the contrary the art of PU is in making the woman feel good, why would she stay with a man who doesn't make her feel good?
A point never mentioned much by criticizers is that actually PUAs are the ones who are often disrespected. Some have been killed for talking to the wrong woman, I've personally heard insults, was threatened by boyfriends(the women were alone, I didn't know they had a boyfriend until he showed up) and have to put up will all kind of rude behavior(hearing stuff like "I don't give a fuck about you", etc...)
4. Presented reasons against PU
PU is manipulation as exemplified in this quote:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/fmv/lw_women_submissions_on_misogyny/8qnn
> The above aside...I dunno. This statement feels like manipulation via false signalling, and I find that distasteful. I think that's mostly in the phrasing though, since there is nothing intrinsically wrong in wanting to be attractive.
There is a lot of truth to that, but isn't it also manipulation for women to wear make-up, high heels, fake breasts, painted hair, plastic surgery? Yet I seldom see the latter criticized. It is simply accepted, even encouraged.
Consider a webpage titled "10 good ways for charming a woman" and you can imagine comments(mostly from women) along the lines of: "Guys, stop the bullshit just be yourselves and let the woman like you for who you are."
Yet if it is about "10 good ways to prepare for the job interview" I usually don't read this kind of objections. On the contrary it is assumed that when going for an interview candidates will dress as well as they can, have polished their CVs and often waded through lists of common questions/problems and their solutions(speaking as a computer programmer here). Not doing so would be considered sloppy. It is rare to hear: "People, just go to the interview and present yourself as you are, if the company likes you it will take you."
EDIT: I'm still being throttled even when commenting on my own post. So I won't be able to address all the comments. Sorry, this is not something I can fix.