Various thoughts not yet packaged as an overall point, just seem relevant to me:

Vetting for safety/vulnerability should be one cog. Sex is vulnerable, physically (going somewhere private typically) and/or emotionally. Conversation might be one of the best [perceived] ways to assess character. Some people are much less worried and therefore might bypass it,

This post frames sex as the valuable goal to be attained and everything else as cost. For some that might be true, for many I think not.

Wanting to do genital-involving stuff with another person is a kinda weird thing that human brains ended up wanting. It's relatively more obvious why, but I don't see that as an inherently privileged desire over other things, e.g. enjoying banter or playing games, status- or otherwise.

If you want sex a lot, and overwhelmingly sex over other things, then getting good a touch-heavy thing is probably a good thing to try and many people with those preferences are making a mistake if they're just going in on the parties. It's also possible there's more equilibrium here than is at first apparent. I don't know. Maybe if more guys^[1] show up at dance, the gender ratio gets worse until some give up.

My impression is that clubbing is a alcohol/dance/touch instance where casual sex happens without the banter, and maybe efficiently, but I've never gone that route.

• For females, getting males to put lots of effort into seduction grants status. The more effort the males put in, the more status the woman gains, because the men's effort is a costly signal of the woman’s appeal.

That pattern matches to a past era for me. I think these days the status to women comes from whether the guy has agreed-upon desirable traits. Expending the effort itself doesn't increase status, but it's more opportunity to signal the traits (convince her and/or help construct a satisfactory story).

To be clear, this game sucks and I am quite happy to sidestep it.

Something sucks and something has gone wrong, but it feels akin to something having gone wrong with capitalism. People still suffer, but you don't just declare money the problem and eschew it. Status is doing something and I don't begrudge people factoring into their choices just because it's "status" and it's taboo to care about it too openly. Alternatively stated, my inclination is to fix the game rather than try to sidestep it.

1. ^{^}

   Focusing on them as the pursuers.

Yeah, I've done the same one. I think they do them once or twice a year. (Audi Car Club also does them.) I also go to the racetrack with BMWCCA.

They're not perfect. Feels like first half the day is focused on road safety and then they segue in to preparing you more for the racetrack (why would street drivers need throttle steering?). Still, it's well worth doing.

Motorsportreg is where events are advertised. Mostly racetrack events, but control car clinics too and I think there are filters for event-type.

"Car Control Clinics" are a pretty good idea for anyone who drives. (Those are very very safe.)

+1
I have seen enough people run red lights that I try to always look carefully, left and right, before crossing an intersection when the light turns green.

There is one territory. There should be one map that corresponds to it. If one map predicts things well on one occasion and another predicts things well on another occasion, then both are clearly wanting and you need to combine them into an actually good map that isn't surprised half the time.

I think the math your sharing is muddling things. Maybe try math for some kind of predictor/estimator function that is a function of whichever inputs are required to predict accurately, be it time or whatever. 

No, a position between extremes is a one-dimensional thing.

I disagree. "Some people are nice, some people are mean." is a middle position between "everyone is nice" and "everyone is mean".

I see now. It is both true that some people just need a friendly pointer to set them right and others are beyond saving.

This seems like a convoluted way to just believe a single functional reasonable position between extremes.

Ah, but the same entity that solves all the other problems will solve that one, too. So maybe I shouldn't be concerned after all.

Yeah, I would have expected that too. We're planning to soon remove all the modals, but if that's going to be delayed long I'll try to fix this.