Overview: This is a proposal for a LessWrong Pick Up Artist (PUA)-like sub-community; PUA without the PU (get it?)1. Members would focus on the deliberate practice of social artistry, but with non-mating goals. Origins and intent of the goal are discussed, possible topics for learning are listed, and suggestions for next steps are solicited.
Origins:
The PUA Community began decades ago with men that wanted to learn how to get better at seducing women. As I understand it, they simply began posting their (initially) awkward attempts at love online. Over the years, they appear to have amassed a fairly impressive set of practical knowledge and skills in this domain.
I admire and applaud this effort. However, my ability to meet women is not currently a limiting factor in my life satisfaction. In reading some of the PUA literature, I was struck how often different authors remarked on the unintended side benefits of their training: better relationships at work, better interviewing skills, more effective negotiations, more non-pickup social fun, better male friendships, more confidence, etc. These guys were able to make major strides in areas that I've struggled to improve at all in... without even bloody intending to! This struck me as an something worth taking very seriously!
I find it alarming that such a valuable resource would be monopolized in pursuit of orgasm; it's rather as if a planet were to burn up its hydrocarbons instead of using them to make useful polymers. PUA ought to be a special case of a more general skill set, and it's being wasted. I say that my goals are noble, and as such I should have the opportunity to sharpen my skills to at least the keenness of a PUA master!
Statement of Purpose:
The purpose of this post is to open discussion on how to construct a community of developing social artisans, modeled after the useful components2 of the PUA community. If there is sufficient mass, the next goals are probably sussing out learning methods and logistics.
The mission of the hypothetical community will probably need to be fleshed out more explicitly (and I don't want to be too prescriptive), but pretty much what I was thinking was expressed well by Scott Adams:
...I think technical people, and engineers in particular, will always have good job prospects. But what if you don't have the aptitude or personality to follow a technical path? How do you prepare for the future?
I'd like to see a college major focusing on the various skills of human persuasion. That's the sort of skillset that the marketplace will always value and the Internet is unlikely to replace. The persuasion coursework might include...
- Sales methods
- Psychology of persuasion
- Human Interface design
- How to organize information for influence
- Propaganda
- Hypnosis
- Cults
- Art (specifically design)
- Debate
- Public speaking
- Appearance (hair, makeup, clothes)
- Negotiations
- Managing difficult personalities
- Management theory
- Voice coaching
- Networking
- How to entertain
- Golf and tennis
- Conversation
You can imagine a few more classes that would be relevant. The idea is to create people who can enter any room and make it their bitch. [emphasis added]
Colleges are unlikely to offer this sort of major because society is afraid and appalled by anything that can be labeled "manipulation," which isn't even a real thing.
Manipulation isn't real because almost every human social or business activity has as its major or minor objective the influence of others. You can tell yourself that you dress the way you do because it makes you happy, but the real purpose of managing your appearance is to influence how others view you.
Humans actively sell themselves every minute they are interacting with anyone else. Selling yourself, which sounds almost noble, is little more than manipulating other people to do what is good for you but might not be so good for others. All I'm suggesting is that people could learn to be more effective at the things they are already trying to do all day long.
Word! [EDIT: We need not be bound by this exact list. For instance, there is no way I'm going to be doing any golfing.]
I've met people who were shockingly, seemingly preternaturally adept in social settings. Of course this is not magic. Like anything else, it can be reduced to a set of constituent steps and learned. We just need to figure out how.
Next steps:
I have a rather long list of ideas ready to go, but they made this post kind of awkward. Plus, Scott Adam's post says much of what I was trying to get at. Let's just start the conversation.
So, what do you think?
1 I have nothing whatsoever against the majority of the PUAers with whom I've had encounters, and the title is just meant to be funny. No offense!
2 The mention of PUA drags along several associations that I want to disavow (think anything obviously "Dark Arts"). I considered omitting the fact that much of the intellectual heritage of this idea is the PUAers to avoid these associations, but I couldn't think of another way to tie it together. This idea owes its genesis to the PUA community, but the product is not intended to be its exact replica. Undesirable elements need not be ported from the old system to the new.
And so the Noble House of Slytherin begins to take form.
Slytherin 2.0, after its triumphant remake following Draco's enlightenment!
The skills in question have appeal across the Houses:
I've studied pickup for many years, and I can confirm that in areas of life aside from mating. I have skills in about half the items in Scott Adams' list that I wouldn't have if I hadn't studied pickup.
Many PUAs are already applying the pickup framework to be successful in other areas of their life; as you observe, PUAs talk about this all the time. Yet while I think it's useful to take the mating component out of pickup, the mating component may actually a big part of how PUAs develop skills in non-mating areas.
If you are a beginning PUA, then you have a lot of areas that you need improvement in. You will probably need to work on your voice, fix your body language, get over shyness, become a lot more confident, and improve your fashion sense. Most normal self-improvement focuses on any one of those areas as its entire goal.
It may be that a big part of what makes pickup work for self development is that you are focusing on improvement in so many areas at the same time that tie together and mutually reinforce each other, and you do it all in service of a greater superordinate goal of mating.
Many... (read more)
Right on. To summarize: PUAs succeed because they have something to protect (or rather conquer). The same reason Eliezer succeeded in inventing something new in the Sequences - he had a big external goal (AI) that was more important than intellectual pleasure. (Incidentally, the same goal motivated many people to create many wonderful things, e.g. Lisp.) Here's a quote from his post that could just as well have come from a creepy lonely man setting out to invent PUA:
Well said!
I like how you phrase the "superordinate goals" bit. It captures two potential problems that I had considered:
PUA's have outcomes ("closes"), which makes it possible to do tests and measure success. What are our outcomes?
Motivational power of sex might be necessary and irreplaceable.
I'm still not sure if these are surmountable, but I think it's worth trying.
I'll share my thoughts soon, but someone like you probably has more insight. I have far from comprehensive knowledge of the seduction community's efforts.
Looking forward to hearing more, I'm really encouraged by the quality of the comments so far!
Scott's recommendations seem in-line with a lot of the training upper-class sorts used to get as a matter of course, even in schools (as I understand it, 'nobility' and the uber-rich still get it). It seems like it's about time this sort of thing is getting to the masses.
It seems like the discussion taking place on Lw is not out-of-line, as it seems to relate to an important aspect of instrumental rationality, so long as most of the discussion is coming from a solid empirical foundation.
It could fork off Lw if someone wants to provide the hosting. If so, a name like "Less Socially Wrong" or "Less Awkward" seems called-for.
Nuts! I was going to suggest that one!
I've had people say they liked the name "Less Wrong". Your heuristic may be too simple.
The problem with a lot of personal development stuff is that people read it but never really change their behavior.
PUA has the advantage of making the way you practice relatively straightforward. You go to a club and approach girls. If you do dozens of approaches per week, sooner or later you will develop skills.
It's not complicated to plan to spent time in deliberate practice. It requires some confidence to overcome approach anxiety but you know what you have to do.
If you don't what to do at some step you can go and read a PUA article that explains a method in detail. It's all about removing barriers that stand in the way of deliberate practice.
When it comes to a skill like being good at job interviews than it's a lot harder to create an environment that allows you to spent hours of deliberate practice per week.
A while ago Socrates made an argument against books. The problem with a book is that it tells the same to everyone.
Today with dynamic websites that doesn't have to true anymore. Dynamic websites can show different people different exercises depending on their previous skills. If something isn't quite clear and the lack of clearness stops the user from taking action than t... (read more)
I'd be in.
You can dismiss the shitstorm associated with the phrase PUA by just calling it social skills or charisma.
Some thoughts and anticipated difficulties:
... (read more)Should this be a forum, a blog, or a LW-style "community blog"? I think the LW structure might actually be optimal: there are top-level articles (which would contain advice) and long threaded discussions (which would contain personal experiences.)
What do you do about different levels? Some people need what I'd think of as "basic" advice (wear a clean suit to a job interview) and some people want something "advanced" (how can I make people think my ideas are awesome?)
A major challenge, I think, is when you can't tell how you appear to others, or when you get too caught up in the moment to remember to make a good impression. Most social-skills advice is along the lines of "remember to do X, Y, and Z" -- but how do you remember to remember? Someone who has cognitive insights could be very helpful here.
Scott Adams' list is very corporate-focused. We might need to poll people to see how many of us actually need golf, tennis, and management techniques.
Scott Aaronson once began
I could, but every time I've tried to describe this without mentioning PUA people tell me to go to Toastmaster's or take a leadership class. It's the community + field-tests + feedback + iteration that I want. Shitstorm notwithstanding, I think this gets my intention across best. If the PUA part becomes too much of a distraction I might re-label it.
I have my own list topics/problems/thoughts that I cut from this just before posting. I'll bring these up if no one else does.
3 - It better be very focused, with a strong cultural element that says "do this or you are doing nothing", on in-person practice and feedback, otherwise it will just be wankery - "social skills porn" posts that people read and write without ever learning anything. You know, kind of like Less Wrong is rationalist porn :). While I'm sure that lots of people read PUA without practicing it, there is a strong cultural tradition that PUA is all about "the field" and you can't practice it very far without going into "the field". If you don't have that, you are doomed.
I have a long post about this coming up, with a pretty similar viewpoint to yours, just a more general goal, and similar technical requirements, we should talk.
Actually, the proportion of "actually stupid" to "just sounds stupid" is very, very low. The problem is that what you might call "action skills" and "satisfaction skills" do not operate using the same parts of the brain that "intelligent" (i.e. analytical) people are accustomed to using.
So, if you evaluate a statement using the machinery you're most accustomed to thinking with, the sayings sound stupid, even when they're not also phrased in new-agey or pseudoscientific ways.
I've found that most of my advances in personal development came after I realized that my intellectual bullshit-detectors were filtering out everything that was useful in the self-help field, simply because it wasn't true.
IOW, if you ignore the truthiness of a piece of advice, and simply attempt to adopt the state of mind and mental/physical behaviors given, you will very often find that the stupidest, most nonsensical theories are shielding you from some incredibly useful practical advice.
I was once told "Believe in yourself" -- yes, in those words -- by a person I respect.
Knowing him, I know he must mean something genuine by it: there's some kind of behavior that he figured out how to do that he thinks would help me. But how the hell do you "believe in yourself"? That phrase is opaque to me.
That's sort of what I'm getting at. It's not that I'm a condescending asshole who always thinks advice-givers are stupid. In fact, I know this particular guy is very bright. It's just that you'd need to phrase it some other way before I'd understand "Oh! That's what he means! I'll just do that now!"
I take it to mean something like "The time for a lucid appraisal of your own abilities is prior to action, not in the middle of it. Once you find yourself engaged in real-time application of some skill or other, act as if your mastery of that skill isn't at issue at all, rather than let yourself be distracted by assessments of the likelihood of failure, because they are likely to be self-fulfilling prophecies."
You can see why people prefer the short version.
Morendil's given one meaning that's useful; another one is, "assume that you'll be able to handle the (likely) worst-case results of your actions, so that your decision making isn't paralyzed by implicit fears."
Btw, I used to think that doing these sorts of translations were all that was needed for self-help to be usable by geeks, but that's not actually the case: being able to understand a piece of advice (like this one or Morendil's variant) is not at all the same as being able to implement it.
In practical terms, the advice I've just given usually requires one to let go of many existing beliefs or fears, while the one Morendil gave is a skill that requires practice, and may also require letting go of the same beliefs or fears. In neither case is the mere understanding remotely sufficient to accomplish anything except a feeling of having insight. ;-)
(Btw, in general, when self-help advice says to "believe" in something, it actually means refraining from disbelief, i.e., you do not have to convince yourself of something that isn't true, but merely refrain from questioning it, just like one doesn't ques... (read more)
FWIW, PJ Eby has attempted to do this, somewhat:
http://dirtsimple.org/
http://naturallysuccessful.com/
http://themindhackersguild.com/
There's a book, "59 Seconds" by psychologist Richard Wiseman, which examines a lot of common self-help claims by looking at actual studies. He shows how many are wrong or are actively harmful. However, the book also has quick tidbits of actually productive things one can do that are comparatively minor. People interested in these issues should read the book.
I myself would like to be part of such a community. But I wouldn't like colleges to offer courses in it, because it seems to be a negative-sum game. What would the world look like now if we had a million graduates of such a curricula in the US? I suspect most people taking the courses would do so in order to go into marketing or politics, and thus reduce the signal-to-noise ratio when choosing products or politicians even more.
How can you disavow Dark Arts? This is the Dark Arts.
I acknowledge that this appears to be on the Dark Side of the Arts Spectrum, but I'd like to keep it as light a gray as possible.
I just want to be effective at something that is important to achieving my goals. I'll do good with my powers, honest!
This wins the award for "comment I'd think was Clippy's if I had the anti-kibitzer turned on".
I am skeptical that we can win without the Dark Arts.
There are lots of people out there with bad goals and wrong beliefs and powerful skills at persuading and manipulating people to take on those beliefs and help those goals. Like marketers and politicians. If we want resources for our goals, and to spread our beliefs, we need to learn the techniques of persuasion and memetics.
This isn't a video game, the world doesn't care about Light and Dark, and it isn't set up so that the good guys can win. Those who employ the best techniques for achieving their goals are more likely to achieve their goals. In a world where good people refuse to learn how to persuade others and gain power, the world will be ruled by bad people. That's how it is now, and I'm sick of it.
I'm Gray and proud of it. Shades of gray matter - a lot - but White is for losers.
Sure; but you're not addressing the question, which is: Would teaching a whole lot of randomly-chosen people how to manipulate other people be good on balance? Especially considering the selection bias: What sort of people are more likely to sign up for the course?
Sure, on average it's negative sum. But I have to guess that society as a whole suffers greatly from having many (most?) of its technically skilled citizens at the low end of the social-ability spectrum. The question would be whether you could design a set of institutions in this area which could have a net positive benefit on society. (Probably not something I'll solve on a Saturday afternoon...)
Saying that you don't consider someone a bad person is no good if you talk in a way that assumes they are a bad person.
Here, Nancy asks komponisto:
Yet komponisto has never argued that women should give men "mercy fucks." After he clarified his comment, it's clear that he doesn't want women to have sex with guys they aren't into (i.e. "mercy fucks"), he wants to evaluate the basis by which women decide what they are into in the first place.
Asking him this question implies that he is a bad person.
Here, Nancy says:
Similarly, Alicorn said the following (though it was before komponisto's clarification, so it makes more sense):
The conceptualizat... (read more)
directly pursuing mating is low status, let us disguise it....
You've got my support.
Sorry to continue the unfortunate trend of the comments so far to focus on labeling, but I just thought I'd throw this out there: You want to capture the framework and emphasis on testable results from PUA, but lose the sex and focus on social adeptness. Many aspects of which we refer to as "clicking" with people.
I hesitate to suggest this, since if someone else did I dunno if I'd laugh or cover my face in shame, but what about "Click Up Artist"?
I want to join this so I can learn how to better convince humans to help me.
Clip Up Artist?
Great, we're getting down to the nitty-gritty here.
The original problem I had with this comment was that it triggered a certain schema of men trying to figure out ways of interacting with women sexually, and then women accusing them of bad things.It kind of looked to me something like this:
PUAs: Let's do a lot of work fulfilling women's criteria and figure out some more reliable ways of being successful with them.
SarahC: Wait, if you guys do that, you could think that you are guaranteed success with women, and then if you get turned down... it could turn into RAPE!
That perceived reaction is not quite what SarahC said (and my version of what PUAs say is not quite what she has heard). And it's not her full reasoning. But until she clarified and explained more about her priors (e.g. George Sodini), there seemed to be some sort of slippery slope going on in her comment, which the above is an exaggeration of.
There is quite a gap between getting turned down and be... (read more)
In all seriousness it is displays like you have been making here that I will expend effort to make unwelcome. You behaviour appals me and I consider it somewhat trollish.
I also suspect that komponisto did learn something, particularly about the importance of tact when discussing controversial topics. I know that isn't the lesson you want him to learn (roughly speaking, submit!) but it is the one that will be most useful for kompo in accordance to his own ethics and values (that is, kompo's, not yours and not Alicorn's).
If someone hits me I don't always learn "I should give them my lunch money". Sometimes I learn "I need to avoid that person", "I need to seek allies to protect me" or even "I need to develop my combat skills so I can defeat would be assailants".
The self defence skill that would may be the most benefitial for people in the kind of situation that kompo was is verbal assertiveness of the ... (read more)
Actually, the importance of tact is something I was already convinced of; the lesson here was more about the nature of tact, i.e. what constitutes tact and what doesn't.
As hard as it may be to believe now with hindsight, when I was actually writing the infamous comment I thought I was being tactful.
I have a contribution to this topic, and I have a comment.
First, the contribution. I lurk on PUA and similar forums. I am interested in it as an application of Neurolinguistic Programming, which I sometimes see mentioned. The wikipedia page on Seduction Community does correctly describe the modern edition of these activities as beginning with the NLP trainer Ross Jeffries. I have never seen it mentioned anywhere on the internet that Jeffries was not a successful NLP trainer. Everybody in the NLP community I have discussed him with (who expressed an opinion) said that Jeffries was not only an unsuccessful NLP trainer, but he was a crappy one.
I have written up a very short beginner's how-to for NLP on my blog if anybody is interested.
Second, I have a comment more specific to this post. I see a reductio ad absurdum here, which I have not seen mentioned in the thread yet. Robin Hanson has mentioned it on Overcoming Bias. To join a PUA group is to signal to people that you are not yet getting the sex satisfaction you want, which is a signal of low status. I may have other reasons for refusing to publicly associate with these guys, but that reason alone is sufficient for me. I would exte... (read more)
Perplexed:
However, it seems to me that replying with indignation is a failure of rationality, the way this term is normally used here. Ever since I started reading this site, I've always thought that if it lived up to its ideal perfectly, one would be able to post arbitrarily outrageous, offensive, and inflammatory ideas, and get back nothing except calm replies detailing the factual and logical errors contained in them. (And indeed, I must commend ... (read more)
There's a difference between explicitly informing someone about your emotions and expressing them in the tone of your writing. And I think that the former, unlike the latter, would be good. I wonder whether it would help to stabilise emotionally volatile discussions if there was a policy of giving full explicit disclosure of your emotional reactions and automatic associations raised by others' comments when responding to them. Something like "this part of your post made me scared, the next part angry and the epilogue inexplicably caused me to think about Hitler. Sorry about that and now to adress your points..."
You haven't described what the "tormenting" consists of here. My answer is different depending on where it falls on the scale from consensual ("mom, he keeps looking at me!") to nonconsensual (e.g. striking).
If it were (and I'm not sure I've seen anything I would consider an example of such in this thread; perhaps you could point one out), then I'd say that there's a "Vote Down" button,... (read more)
Google has most of the book-- all but the last two chapters. I have a paper copy.
Her Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things that Are Very, Very Bad for Me is likewise amazing.
The most surprising essay-- she talks about the bacon deficiency economy in which restaurants never give you enough bacon, so she cooks and eats four pounds of bacon to be sure she has enough-- used to be online, but doesn't seem to be there any more.
I will tentatively recommend her books to any of the men here who can't seem to figure out why things keep blowing up when they write about se... (read more)
I'm very interested in this, and for some time have been working to improve social skills without a strong desire for sex. I almost wish I had more desire, because it seems to be a great motivator, and also provides tangible results, or tangible lack thereof.
IMO, Real Social Dynamics has some very good material for this kind of thing, especially their most recent video program, The Blueprint Decoded. Every time I've gone through even a fraction of my notes, I experience significant and immediate gains to confidence and social skill. (I still have a ways t... (read more)
Sounds great.
I think the ideal scenario would be if we coordinated with Tricycle so that we could use our existing logins on the new site, but we had fresh karma scores or none at all.
Especially interesting would be a series of "sub-LWs" that one could be subscribed to in a way similar to subreddits. Other potential subLWs: posts that use math; posts on fighting akrasia (e.g. take caffeine pills at 6 AM and you'll wake naturally at 8 AM. That sort of thing.) Maybe even one for software development?
If I'm understanding you correctly, you mean the combination between someone suggesting that feeling unfairness about rejection could lead to violence, and then someone responding by expressing such unfairness? And the significance is, what... that komponisto willfully triggered a woman's express worry about violence instead of being sensitive?
That would make sense, if komponisto's whole post hadn't been about how the jump from rejection to violence is premature. He was sensit... (read more)
An interesting proposal, but you've got an important obstacle to overcome if you want (PUA-PU) to amount to more than anecdotes and philosophizing. Sales, marketing and PUA all share the unusual characteristic of being amenable to the experimental method, because you can try them repeatedly on large numbers of people and get clear feedback about what doesn’t work. Most of the other areas you mentioned are either too fuzzy for an easy evaluation of success, or too slow/rare to allow much testing.
If you want to establish a reliable body of knowledge about t... (read more)
There is no complaint here. I am taking the opportunity to encourage XFrequentist to follow through with his proposal. I get the impression that he or she is better suited to the social engineering required to make the system a success. Since XFrequentist has actually made moves to test for support and interest he or she seems like the perfect person to take the lead here. I would, of course, be willing and able to provide technical support and hosting.
This is what this whole post was about. The tangent is, Cthulu forbid, interjecting something on topic.
Count me in. This sounds as though it would help both with people skills and with general efficacy, energy and developing "doing" as opposed to merely "thinking".
I am quite fond of this idea.
I discovered pickup ten years ago and also found that it can have a considerable positive impact on one's life. I'd love to see a rational, generalized approach to socialization skills.
Echoing SarahC and KristianKI's comments, here are some thoughts:
Name: I also think this should have a better name than "Pick-Up Arts" - some possibilities: Charismatic Arts, Socialization Arts.
Focus: I agree with your core idea about moving the focus away from orgasm and dating, but I suspect this may be more difficult than anticipate... (read more)
Ordinary goals aren't strong enough.
Last winter I became very ill. Felt pain all the time, couldn't eat or sleep, had trouble even drinking water through a straw. It took me four days in that state to overcome my aversion to doctors and seek good medical help. If it hadn't been so extreme, I'd have simply waited it out like I do everytime I get a cold or something.
There are many guys who don't get any female attention, suffer greatly from it (comparable to my illness I'd say), know about PUA, but never give it a try. In fact most unpopular guys are like that. Some of them are more willing to kill themselves than make an effort.
Are your work-related desires comparable in strength?
No.
No
... (read more)You appear to be making your apology conditional on answering a questionnaire, which is both long enough that it represents a significant time commitment, and personal enough that it likely contain questions which he would prefer not to answer. Withholding an apology as leverage for anything comes across as very hostile and defeats the point of the apology if i... (read more)
When arguing against an idea, avoid conveying indignation that the idea was suggested.
The thing is, if you can have 4 hours of charismatic conversation, and do this several times, the self that you revert back to will slowly get more charismatic.
This is like putting on makeup that actually makes the face more beautiful when taken off.
I'm not so worried about this sort of faking, because it trains you to develop the real thing that you are faking.
That was the kind of case I was considering. Moreover, if someone can successfully have a 4 hour interaction with prepared material then that's a damn impressive achievement. Managing the flow of a conversation such that you can use that much canned material without the interaction being grossly stilted is extremely difficult and it is the presentation far more so than the material itself that conveys charisma.
The distinctive thing about the PUA approach is the amount of experimentation.
You have now officially accused me of being a bad person.
Not, for example, of having underestimated the cost to Group X of a certain proposal to help Group Y -- or any other error that a decent person might make. No, you have now made it explicit that you think I have bad -- indeed "creepy" -- intentions.
Do you stand by this, or do you want to reconsider?
That is not a charge that should be made lightly, and I don't think it's true.
This reminds me of: Art Of Charm, I met the guys at a conference earlier this year: http://theartofcharm.com/. Basically PUA for business/social success, as a professional coaching business: "The Art of Charm is a team of lifestyle coaches and social dynamics instructors. We teach the skills to become successful in both business and life, with an emphasis on social interactions."
The relationship may not be causal but I suspect clown-suit-wearing communities currently in existence are extremely good settings for developing social arts. And I'm not even including 'Mystery' in that category!
It is an interesting question why the psychological or sociological research community has not yet paid any serious attention (as far as I know) to the pick-up community.
I've been asking this question myself for, like, 5 years. If anyone wants to do some research, I'm happy to help.
The most attention I think it's gotten is by psychologist Paul Dobransky, and undergraduate feminist Elana Clift's honors thesis. Both are reasonably well-written, but I think they underestimate the interest of PUAs in relationships.
Dobransky portrays himself as a Moses-like figure bringing mature masculinity to the seduction community, yet many experienced guys in the community already hold the ideas about masculinity that he advocates. His piece has some good observations, but I also find it a bit condescending.
While there is a lot of support for men in the seduction community interested in one-night stands and short-term dating, and there are cynical ideas about relationships, there still is a lot of support for relationships (every large pickup forum has a relationships board).
Lots of guys in the seduction community have had either very little success with women, or are coming out of a bad relationships. Since the community is probably growing, the largest segments are probably newbies. Once these guys start getting women to notice them consistently, I think it's u... (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.
More or less.
Again, if you're going to condemn people based on such far-fetched inferences about their motives, you should note that you don't have the monopoly on this strategy.
When it comes to controversial topics, a rational discussion can be had only if the participants discipline themselves to address the substance of what's been written, and nothing more than that. If instead it is permitted to throw moral accusations at people based on indirect inferences about their supposed underhanded motives and personality defects, everyone can easily start playing that sa... (read more)
Perplexed:
That is a very fine principle to abide by in most cases, but the trouble is that it runs into a contradiction with standards that specify not only that certain beliefs and attitudes are unacceptable, but also that it is unacceptable to merely bring them up for open discussion. In such cases, questioning the standard ipso facto involves breaking it. It is undeniable that many such standards are near-universally accepted in the main... (read more)
Speaking from experience of watching the storm of indignation approach (on a much larger and more elaborate scale than happened here), the actual effect can be fear of speaking at all. About anything.
I didn't post to livejournal at all for months after Racefail got started, and I still don't do reviews. I may start doing reviews in the forseeable future.
I feel as though I might be a refugee from a damaged culture who brought some of the bad practices to a new home.
There's history there:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/1j7/the_amanda_knox_test_how_an_hour_on_the_internet/
Incidentally, could we not have a flamewar - please!
In my experience, this only happens when a person is already unsure of themselves, otherwise th... (read more)
You have switched from talking about communicating individual feelings of indignation to demanding unanimous community indignation. This seems to cast your earlier comments as deceitful.
lmnop:
There are two ways in which I could interpret this comment.
If you're saying that some topics are inherently insensitive and unpleasant, in that a rati... (read more)
Someone feeling indignant over something you actually said is useful. Someone feeling indignant over potential implications of something you said is useful, as long as they don't treat you like you believe that implication. Someone feeling indignant over something someone else said that is correlated with what you've said (but not implied by it) is also useful, as long as they aim the indignation at the other person, not at you. Otherwise, you feel like you are being made into the bad guy instead of having your arguments treated with charity.
That doesn't seem to be an accurate or appropriate dichotomy to construct here. No comments here advocate the incidence of rape or other actions which ignore female agenthood. Is the advocacy of such atrocities a crime so abhorrent that even innocence is no excuse?
There is a reason that most countries have laws against libel as well as against other more direct violations of the person.
I'm guessing that they aren't pretending. They really don't know what they're doing.
Like Scott Adam's in the quote from the original post, I'm skeptical of the category of "manipulation." People use it to mean a lot of different things. Some use it to mean "influence," in a morally-neutral way. Others use it to mean something like "unethical" influence." Since there isn't a common meaning of what "manipulation" means, I don't find it a useful term. Instead, I would rather just talk about ethical and unethical forms of influence (and if you do see me using the word "manipulation," I us... (read more)
"why are descriptions of it so often done in such a bad way"?
Because I suspect that men find it more appealing to think of themselves as clever, seductive villains than as just catching up to normal people.
That's a good question. We've had this conversation here in the past, and my position is that you can't put much stock in the connotations of PUA language. Is it problematic? Is it bad PR? Yes, but thankfully it's not a mirror image of the attitudes of PUAs. You know what PUAs call their regional meeting clubs? "Lairs." And that's not because they believe that they are evil creatures.
To me, "time distortion" sounds like bad science fiction. Captain, ready the Time Distortion Ray!
"Compliance" indeed has negative connotations. But I think that the same thing could be described as "cooperation." If you are trying to date someone, and they are completely uncooperative with you, then something is probably wrong. You want to be a in situations where you can say something like "hey, hold my jacket for a sec?" or "hey, let's go to the park..." and the other person will cooperate. If things are going well, then you can hold your hand out when walking and see if the other person grabs it, or you can pat your lap and see if they sit in it.
The other person's willingness to cooperate (or even comply) with your lead in the interaction i... (read more)
Many "alpha" behaviours can be creepy.
Someone being submissive is not creepy.
This as a personal note, not as a general truth.
In this thread, you have used language and expressed opinions which have sounded antagonistic and upsetting to me. I did not intend to be hostile in return, and apologize if my emotional state has caused me to use poor word choice in such a way as to upset you.
wedrifid said:
I disagree. This is exactly the sort of discussion that needs to happen between rationalists with different sorts of life experiences (e.g. male and female rationalists). The controversial nature of these subjects shows why it needs to be hashed out, not that these subjects need to be avoided. Of course, individuals are free to bow out of these discussions.
Nancy said:
Yes, put particular details about the exchange don't quite make sense to me.
Originally, SarahC made the point that pickup won't guarantee men success with women, and women are still free to reject PUAs. I don't quite understand why she brought up this point in the first place, and I'm not sure why she speculated about a potential for violence. PUAs know very well that their methods don't guarantee success with any particular woman, and they work very hard on coping strategies to deal with rejection. She said:
... (read more)The part in bold could not be further from the truth. A not insignificant number of men here are terrified of contributing on this subject, due to their previous discussions. It reached the stage where people making a point that touched on human mating patterns apologised, asked for permission and generally supplicated and grovelled in an attempt to avoid reprisal. It nauseated me.
Precisely, and I hate this effect, as it applies to either sex and people of every conceivable sexual sexual orientation. This is why I hope XFrequentist (or whomever) creates a spin off site where the topics can be discussed without fear of reputation sabotage.
My comments here are targeted towards exactly that ultimate goal, with no small measure of thought behind which intermediate steps ... (read more)
I'm in support of this idea under the condition that all of its output be freely accessible to the public.
Any particular reason, or just a limiting belief you happen to have?
Offhand I can think of several reasons golfing is a good idea: you're outside breathing big air; the walking and the exercise are good for you; it makes for a relaxed setting in which to have conversations with like-minded people.
The main reason people like me don't golf is... that people who golf typically don't golf with people like me. But that's precisely the kind of reason which wouldn't stand, any longer, if this discussion leads so... (read more)
I'd be in.
Among other things, I'm interested in how social skills can be used to get people to genuinely consider new ideas.
The obligation should be no stronger than the obligation to welcome a homeless person into your dwelling for a night's sleep, or to donate a large portion of one's savings+income to feed the starving - that is, nonexistent.
The typical person would not necessarily offer sex to all comers on a pro bono basis, but could fund professionals who choose such a line of work.
No, I was not claiming that. I was implying that Alicorn's comment complaining about your behavior being downvoted and your comments being upvoted are evidence that you won that particular status contest here.
But I'll also go ahead and claim that Alicorn doesn't get too much support for her request that you not post any comment nested under hers. Votes, again, are some evidence there.
And I will further claim that... (read more)
Perplexed:
Then would you be so kind to specify precisely what this additional part of the allegations consists of? I would be really grateful to see it spelled out, not least because, assuming you are correct, it would rectify some of my own misconceptions.
(In the interest of avoiding a confrontational tone, perhaps I should also add that I am not among the people who have downvoted your recent comments.)
This comment isn't even intelligible. I can't tell whether or not you're being sarcastic when you write
I have no idea what my allusion to the Knox case could possibly have had to do with this. Maybe that was your (sarcastic) point, but, like I said, I can't tell.
In any event, the reasons I mentioned it were: (1) it provides my stock example of a belief of mine with credence on the ... (read more)
Perplexed:
So in other words, if there exists a near-consensus on something in the contemporary Western society, this should be considered as holy writ which it is unacceptable to question, no matter how arbitrary, unjustified, and irrational it might turn out to be under scrutiny?
Or do you actually believe that the current state of mainstream Western opinion is such a magnificent edifice of rationality, objectivity, and moral perfection that only evil or deluded people could ever wish to discuss propositions that run contrary to it?
As I said, I was comparing abused-by(X, me) to abused-by(Y, me), in rejection of the hypothesis that males are not subjected to cruel "street harassment" by females.
I was comparing the subsets of X and Y that had bullied or harassed me personally.
Why do you think this?
Having a different worldview and set of priors on the subject of gender is not the same thing as hostility.
Surprisingly enough the usual victims don't seem to have made an appearance in this iteration of the discussion. Perhaps they have learned enough about the game to realise they are better served by just letting HughRistik handle the conversation with his usual combination of personal experience, education and level headed insight.
It does to at least one.
I'm all for this. I've gotten sort of lucky by wandering into a path where I can be professionally and financially successful without needing social skills beyond not saying blatantly inappropriate things. But developing those skills would provide many more options, and give me a much better shot at making an actual impact on the world.
And yes, being involuntarily single for years is neither enjoyable nor conducive to productivity.
Something that I have used with some effectiveness is setting an alarm, taking caffeine and modafinil upon awaking then returning to sleep until I wake up 'naturally'. This is far less psychologically draining than relying on multiple alarms and willpower.
I'm sorry if somebody else remarked upon that, but wouldn't the obviuos area of study for people on lw not be how to influence others (supposedly without their knowing), but how to avoid such influences or recognize the associated techniques?
I'll readily admit there is a certain overlap, but still.
Controlling for variables. Does this work for me because I have PhD? Perhaps this doesn't work for me because I'm too tall. Maybe this only works because its an interesting counter signal. Maybe copying the exact dress style of Mystery isn't a good idea for me.
As to cultural transfers. Winning friends in say rural Russia is a different endeavour than trying to influence a group of Cape Town teenage Goths.
Would a PUA - PU be able to find the equivalent of some of the principles of game that are nearly universal? Or would it just be a catalogue of culture specific hacks?
Mating is good. I am somewhat baffled as to why the "PUA" discussion has had a strong negative connotation. As you say, there's a ton of benefits for everyone involved, and it serves as a successful, easy-to-test model for many related skill sets. Personally I think the hesitancy to talk about mating and mating development is likely no more than a sort of vestigial organ of society's ancient associations with religion. It still seems "improper" in ordinary society to talk about how to get into someone's pants. But I see no reason why the sort of thing like "pick-up-artistry" must be unethical or wrong.
There's at least two groups of people who potentially stand to lose from widespread discussion of PUA: women, who may fear that they will be duped into choosing low quality mates by males emulating the behaviours they use to identify high quality mates and men who are already successful with women who may fear increased competition.
These sources of antipathy to PUA are rarely consciously expressed but given how crucial mate selection has been to reproductive success throughout evolutionary history you might expect strong negative reactions from those who sense a threat to their interests. Much of the strong reaction to PUA seems to me to stem from this.
Yes, excellent point. But the reason is not, as you think, because PUAs are duping women. The reason that PUAs provide a net benefit for women is that over time, they actually grow into men who fulfills women's criteria. Although beginners start out with "fake it 'til you make it," experienced PUAs eventually do come to hold the qualities that large segments of women find attractive.
Wait a sec, what exactly is "false" signaling? And what's an example of it in pickup?
As I've argued in the past, you can't judge social reality by the standards of epistemic reality. In social reality, if you can get yourself and a bunch of other people to believe an assessment of yourself, and that assessment isn't based on blatant factual errors, then it becomes true.
PUAs indeed present themselves in a self-enhancing way, but they are late to that party. Everyone, except for perhaps some geeky people or non-neurotypical people, already does tons of ... (read more)
I'm with you, Hugh.
If more geeks could come across as "exciting badboys, or masculine and high socially-skilled" then women who are subconsciously attracted to that type could actually wind up with someone intelligent and decent, instead of the usual jerks. You're raising the average quality level of the socially successful man.
The one thing I still have a problem with is self-help courses that guarantee you success with women. Nothing can guarantee you that. You can do things that can make you statistically more likely to succeed, but in the end, when you have consensual social interactions, the other person could always rebuff you. It can get creepy when men think they're entitled to a quota of women, and that it's unfair when they get turned down. I worry about that driving men to violence. You can get better at attracting women, and that's great, but women are free to reject you.
If I may say so, there is something troubling about your third paragraph (edited, with emphasis added):
Try to imagine substituting other forms of consensual social interaction here, and seeing if the tone feels right. For example, right now the economy is bad in many places, and many people are unemployed. I can easily imagine that there are numerous self-help courses that teach people how to make themselves more attractive to employers, by teaching them how to behave during interviews, etc. Now obviously no such program can guarantee anyone a job. Imagine, however, that some poor soul -- let's make her a woman -- goes through these courses, does everything she can to improve her prospects, but still can't manage to secure a job. Presumably, a person in that position would naturally feel a sense of frus... (read more)
Is getting pregnant really the only danger? Sex can cause the release of mind altering drug that can cause you to pair bond (women more so than men). This can have a dramatic effect on your life if it is with the wrong person.
HughRistik:
I have my own pet theory about this, extrapolated from real-life observations and a number of other clues, which are not very strong individually, but seem to add up to a pretty strong web of evidence.
To put it as succinctly as possible, the problem stems from two not very pretty, but nevertheless real facts. First, the attractiveness of individual men to women has an extremely high statistical dispersion, even more so than vice versa. (In other words, the difference between men from different percentiles in women's eyes will be significantly greater than the difference between women in analogous percentiles in men's eyes.) Second, and more important, for a typical woman, the attractiveness of men she can get for non-serious temporary relationships is significantly higher than the attractiveness of her realistic options for permanent commitment. (This also holds far more so than the reverse.) It ... (read more)
Excellent point; I was thinking along similar lines in this comment.
I think part of the reason that I found komponisto's original comment in the thread to be less offensive than others was because it instantly reminded me of the hypothesis you describe, which is a potential way of rationalizing his comment.
The argument goes something like this: For many gender-typical heterosexual women, the guys who are the most sexually exciting may not always be the best relationship partners. This could be partly be because the men who are highly attractive to women are also highly attractive to other women, and have so much options that it's difficult for particular women to get them in a relationship. Men have l... (read more)
I wonder if the women who go for "flashier" males make up a disproportionate portion of the dating pool, because women who tend to choose those types of males who are inclined to become long-term mates end up with long-term mates and stop dating?
It's sort of like how, according to my Econ 101 textbook, most people who are unemployed experience short-term unemployment, but most of the people unemployed at any given moment are experiencing long-term unemployment. For example, during one year, you'd have three people who are unemployed all year, and twelve people who are unemployed for only a month. If you look at who's employed at any given moment, you'll see the five long-term unemployed people and only one short-term unemployed, but the person who's short-term unemployed keeps changing while the long-term unemployed people are always the same ones.
(I think I said that awkwardly...)
Sexual relationships are far more personal, and decided on far more idiosyncratic criteria, than employment relationships. There are fairly explicit and well-defined understandings of what constitutes qualification for a job that do not depend strongly on the personality of the hiring manager. If Human Resources is looking for a new shelf stocker or a new receptionist or a new medical transcriptionist and turn down our heroine as you describe, and they can be shown to be doing it for certain prohibited reasons, they are breaking the law.
Sex is qualitatively different from everything else. Pretend I repeated that a couple dozen times, because I think this concept might be the barrier to understanding in conversations like these.
You realize that it's not just made up that sometimes desire for sex turns into violence, right? Let's hear your priors on how likely it is for there to be a victim of sexual harrassment or assault r... (read more)
Some things I didn't get around to posting earlier-- Hanson is somewhat on my shit list because he's posted more than once about how the world would be a better place if women would have sex when they don't want to. He's a geek economist, so he gets to speculate about such things, but oddly enough, he doesn't consider the costs to women in such scenarios.
Consent and fear and all that: There was a previous discussion here about women giving out fake phone numbers, and there seemed to be no grasp of why a woman might do that instead of giving a straightforward refusal.
Imagine a world where all the socially acceptable partners for you are bigger, stronger, and probably more aggressive. You may prefer such yourself, but it's certainly the case that you'll take a status hit if you chose otherwise.
Furthermore, you've had niceness training-- it's hard work to directly contradict what someone else wants. Doing that amount of work is a gift which might not be bestowed on a spammer.
And you're not supposed to make the first move, for values of "not supposed to" which range from being blamed if you're raped to putting off potential partners if you do. I realize both of those vary... (read more)
This sounds suspicious to me -- a bit too Fully General. It seems that you could similarly Engrave In Stone For All Time any set of currently existing norms this way.
I'll have to think about this more to determine the extent to which I agree.
That's certainly better and more specific -- and would naturally prompt the followup: "afraid of what?"
I agree -- but also take note that it seems that a large portion of those advocating for sex workers' rights are women.
ISTM that unattractive men are denounced online by women all the time, but it's usually based on what a man has said or done, not their appearance.
School-age unattractive males (up to and including college age) are "street harassed" by women as well. As a teenager, I was chased, threatened and verbally abused by females in a variety of venues, despite (or perhaps because) I just wanted to be left alone.
Women most assuredly do harass men, and I assure you they are much more creative in finding ways to inflict lasting emotional pain.
And about males, and inanimate objects. And fictional stories. I'd go as far as to say that some men just talk in crude and vulgar ways. Also, they are usually hairier and more smelly.
To rephrase komponisto's reply to this in a simpler manner, and minus the controversial bit:
I wish everyone would extend to the unattractive people of the world, of either sex, our right to feel bitter. This does not make us rapists. Thank you for your attention.
That's exactly what I was trying to get at.
Aside from hyperbolic marketing materials, what would make us think that PUAs believe that they are "guaranteed" success with women? What makes us think that they resist the notion that women are free to reject them?
Actually, by joining the seduction community, PUAs demonstrate a recognition that success with women is not guaranteed, and that they will only achieve it with a lot of work figuring out how to satisfy women's criteria.
PUAs call getting obsessed about any one particular woman "one-itis," which is one of the cardinal sins of pickup.
To understand the attitude that PUAs have towards rejection and towards the validity of women's preferences, let's take a look, not at the words of PUAs, but at the wor... (read more)
Of course.
My point was about literal guarantees, and men who believe them. There are very stupid people in this world. It's easy to assume them away, but they do actually exist. George Sodini, I suspect, was a stupid man -- or, at least, deeply unrealistic. He had the Charles Guiteau attitude: fiercely convinced that he was owed something that would never have been likely. Being that unrealistic is dangerous to oneself and others.
I would guess that LW doesn't harbor so much of that, but I feel obligated to make these kinds of disclaimers because I do see people here who don't take social conventions for granted and who don't pick up cues very naturally.
To get back to the main issue, I think it's basically good to get better at picking up women, and even more generally good to build social/networking/charisma ability. I'm just inclined to be very careful about handing too much of an ideology to people who are high-risk for doing bad things with it.
Mating is important to most people.
However, I agree that there is an art of encouraging people to respect you and enjoy your company, which just so happens to be useful in attracting a romantic partner. It might be best to discuss it (or develop it) while denying that such a use is the primary motivation (as it likely will be for many people). But if people are avoiding talking or thinking about the concrete goal they have that motivates their efforts, or aren't practicing their ideas in a way that gives very clear success/failure feedback, then you can ... (read more)
Intriguing.
I do believe that the discussion should take place off LW. The LW karma system creates biases and would be muddied by the pursuit of a different goal.
That's even more concise, but I think a bit too narrow.
So this thread kind of went dormant. What are the next steps? Any movement for a meetup?
When you put it this way, I agree with you. I just t... (read more)
A lot.
He doesn't need to change for me to consider it worthwhile to help him. I'll help him if he gives me stuff or, say, kills one of my enemies for me.
Is the other blog also somewhat inclined to poetry?
A problem with the storm of indignation approach is that it can be unclear to people on the receiving end just what is unacceptable.
Ok, your call, of course.
Just to throw in my own two cents as to when it might be time:
Social norms change all the time, but they do so slowly, on a time scale of generations. I am unsure what causes such changes but it seems unlikely to me that a change in female sexual mores could be triggered by a discussion on a male-dominated rational discussion group. Furthermore, regardless of what triggers the change, the actual mechanism by which this kind of change becomes widespread is that some adventuresome soul tries it and comes back to report to her peers... (read more)
"there are many people to whom it doesn't apply".
Sorry for the confusion, english is not my first language so sometimes my sentence structures will be confusing.
If the site takes an implicit almost-every-of-us-is-a-single-het-man then it will probably self-select into that direction.
One of the ancestors of that comment would probably be a link to the other site, yes.
I don't like the tone. You seem to be suggesting that wanting to make such a comment is a personal failing. I don't agree.
del
I took a couple classes in biomechanics, and what I think of as "biomechanics" is not at all relevant to these articles.
Is there a meaning of this term that neither I nor wikipedia is aware of?
My concern is that the LW standards of communication and goal of rationality do not correspond to PUA methods. Rewarding a user for advancing a PUA discussion does not reward rational discussion but instead rewards the ability to teach social interaction.
As teaching social interaction is not a subset of rational behavior, so PUA discussion is not a subset of LW discussion. The difference lies in the approach to subconscious stimuli; PUA exploits where LW illuminates.
I think Violet meant "there are many people to whom it doesn't apply', not "there are not many people to whom it applies".
I think that's a too simplistic view of it, if all you want is an orgasm the fastest route would be using your hands.
Are you implying that a PUA who is just looking for sex has less noble goals?
Again you seem to be judging others here.
Unfortunately it seems that you are operating under the assumption that "men who are just looking for sex ... (read more)
How's that?
I accidentally pronounced the 'PU' in the title as 'poo' and surprisingly it made even more sense.
You make a mistake in putting to much meaning in a label. PD and PUA are great for a few people, decent for many and flat out not effective many many more. But that is not a problem with the concepts. Both are containers for ideas that are sometimes contradictory, sometimes BS, and sometimes amazing tid bits. Maybe make up your own term before you go with 'PU without chicks'. The label is not really that important, if you know what content you want! One starting point mentioned a few times was Dale Carnegies: how to make friends and influence people. Some ... (read more)
I find it disappointing that there aren't any more recent comments than halfway through this year - I'll scan the comments to see if the discussion was ported elsewhere, but usually that's flagged in the post so I doubt it ...
Their best interest as judged by whom? If you mean their best interest as judged by them, does changing someone's opinion of what their best interest is count as influencing or manipulating them?
Reading all these comments to glean the knowledge within is not adverse to my goals, I'd just prefer to read a guide or the results of a formal discussion group if it exists. I couldn't find one. So, @XFrequentist: Is there a discussion group? If not, can we please start one?
If anyone else knows of relevant articles on LW, or another website or in a book, please link me stuff like this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/818/how_to_understand_people_better
My Goal: To start building one of these: http://lesswrong.com/lw/4ul/less_wrong_nyc_case_study_of_a_successful in... (read more)
I have to agree that taking the concepts which make it easier to get dates, and applying them to the rest of life seems worth exploring to me.
I met all of my closest friends because they were gamers / programmers / interested in rationality, essentially the people who I felt comfortable having a long conversation with and who it felt easy to get along with before I knew much about them. When it comes to talking with an average teenager who is interested in sports, fashion, getting drunk, or their career, I just do not know what to talk about or what they t... (read more)
For people who are not in a dense urban area, something like chatroulette might be useful for interacting with a large number of people quickly and allow for more extensive testing of techniques.
Well, the paper says that the ageing process in those materials means that they relax to equilibrium more slowly, and this keeps them in the "creep regime". I read it as a statement of how to avoid becoming a creep, but you could also read it as a statement on how to avoid creeps. The literature of solid-state physics is full of inspiration here: papers about the creep transition, the universal creep equation, the dependence of frustration on twisted boundary conditions... And even if it falls flat as humor, you learn some physics along the way.
"Optimizing interaction techniques for social enjoyment" is too long and abstract -- it signals that the group doesn't understand what it's setting out to do.
Perhaps "Social Optimizer"? It's understandable and gets the overly nerdy angle w/o being confusing.
That would be highly unlikely.
It isn't the sort of thing that I would expect a dating site to advertise. "10:1 ratio of guys to girls" (for example) isn't the kind of message that is well calibrated to attract participants of either sex.
I have seen research done into sex ratios for online dating sites in general, not limited to OkCupid and the balance is far from even.