The popularity and ethics of PUAs and similar communities

Wibbs wrote: »

I'd kinda disagree with this. Now maybe it was a generational thing, but when I was 18-20 odd I noticed the single sex educated dudes were more successful with women. I went to an all boys school and what I noticed when I repeated the oul leaving in a mixed environment was you could kinda spot the mixed school guys fairly easily in general. They were more "mature", less a bunch of dossers, often less craic. The addition of young women in their lives as adolescents dialled back their exuberance a little. Without women in the classroom to impress the single sex schooled guys gave less of a feck. Plus more of the mixed dudes had women "friends" and weren't so great at making them girlfriends. Whereas the male only blokes didn't have that friend phase so much so were more likely to look for the romantic/sexual stuff up front. Now of course this was in very general terms. Plus I was usually comparing single sex rugger bugger type schools with less... well arrogant school environments. Arrogance at 20 gets you a longer way as a general rule. Later on not so much.

What you're saying may well be true, but you're perhaps missing the point. Growing up in a mixed sex environment provides a safety net to those who need it, in my opinion. The young lads you're referring to probably mixed with girls outside school. But not every young lad interacts with girls outside of school hours, and if there is little or zero contact made with the opposite sex throughout those crucial years, it is surely going to have some sort of negative impact - in theory at least. Your examples are only correlations, and from a small pool of people. Also, how long ago was it?

My view is that it's better to lock the gate before the horse has bolted, or at least attempt to. If I ever have a son, I will want to provide a stable environment for him. I wouldn't want him to end up being a Lothario or someone who can't communicate with women - I'd like him to be somewhere in the middle - well balanced and normal. One theory is that same sex schools make young lads more likely to be sexist in later life.

My initial reaction to the school topic was that if kids having weak social skills was the biggest problem with schools we wouldn't be doing too badly. That's not really fair though as schools are making changes and trying to improve but it's a very difficult/slow process in an underfunded area. It's also not fair because it doesn't really address the question and it's certainly a discussion worth having.

Segregating by gender makes a certain amount of sense. Boys and girls tend to learn differently and it would allow more specialized teaching methods. Segregating by age group makes a certain amount of sense as well. Students will tend to be at similar levels when split by age. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the best approach though. Using the current batch process might not be ideal either. You could argue for segregating by personality type (analytical, creative, entrepreneurial, artistic, artisans, etc.) rather than by age or gender. That might improve teaching but you also risk social development by keeping students with similar personalities together.

Which then brings the question of whether social development is or should be the responsibility of schools. If it is a responsibility, how high a priority is it. As in, when a conflict arises between creating economically useful people or creating socially well adjusted people, which takes precedence and to what extent.

It's an interesting discussion:
RSA - Changing education paradigms video
Seth Godin - What is education for? PDF
There's also a bunch of TEDTalks on the topic.

Are schools even the problem though? Studies are showing that students who use SMS texting abbreviations actually score higher on grammar and spelling tests. Recent generations do most of their social interaction via written word. It's not really surprising that literary scores are improving while interpersonal social skills might be decreasing. Of course, every technological improvement causes the same anxiety. When TV and radio were invented, people complained that everyone’s brain was going to go to mush. When the printing press was invented, people thought it was going to destroy our ability to speak eloquently. Social media is the latest victim of this but studies are showing that it doesn't necessarily cause narcissism and also that it's not interfering with the closeness we feel with others which are the biggest arguments for "the internet is ruining us".

You could argue that game is experiencing this same anxiety. "It's going to turn men into bitter misogynists and social robots", etc., etc. In a way it's a very new technology. If social skills are a bigger issue with men today then game is probably the ideal solution for it. In terms of motivation I can't think of a better sell to young men then learn social skills and you'll have more success with women. It's also, by far, the most advanced tool to teach it. Instructors have gone into excruciatingly analytical detail on the subject of teaching social skills and forming connections in order to help students who needed it. In fact, it's a common complaint from critics that game is unnecessarily analytical. Do we teach game in schools...? :pac: Don't think we're there yet but people balked at the idea of bringing tv or computers into schools at one stage as well. We get back to the question of whether that should be the responsibility of schools in the first place though. I highly doubt we'd see it in schools in it's current form but I'd imagine some cleaned up, socially acceptable version of it may start influencing things, if it hasn't already.

Pug160 wrote: »

Schools are at least partially responsible for social development. I'd be very surprised if anyone in authority refuted that claim. To what extent they're responsible is in question. It's certainly not a case of one or the other when it comes to good grades or social skills - both can go hand in hand. Grades will take precedence over everything else but it would surely depend on the individual school. If the choice was between a single sex school that was only marginally better than the mixed sex school in terms of results, the overall benefit of the mixed sex school could very well be better. Once again, it's not always about having one thing or the other, many mixed schools do very well.

Sure, both can certainly go hand in hand. Sometimes there might be conflict though. Grades taking precedence sounds reasonable enough to me.

Pug160 wrote: »

It depends what you mean by problem. I don't think any dysfunction has a sole reason behind it. But the truth is, the school years are very important developmental years where learning skills - both academic and social - stand people in good stead for the rest of their lives. Why do you think so many conscientious parents - particularly middle class parents who have more money than average parents - sign their kids' up to so many extracurricular activities? It gives the children more social confidence and helps to make them well rounded. This notion that many parents are only worried about results and nothing else is a falsehood in my opinion. The old saying about not being able to teach an old dog new tricks does have an element of truth to it unfortunately. We become more rigid in our ways as we age, so it makes much more sense to learn life's essential skills early on when the brain is absorbing more information.

Absolutely.

Pug160 wrote: »

Teaching men social skills and certain laws of attraction is useful. But it should never really get to that stage - that's my whole point. This whole 'game' thing isn't really something that should be promoted anyway - certainly not in the same way as promoting cognitive behavioural therapy or anything else with legitimate backing. But I do acknowledge that it probably is useful to some people. But that's all it is - a tool which may or may not be useful - depending on what advice you take. I personally think there are more well rounded avenues one can go down, which are less likely to be destructive. I think there is an ethical route to being successful with women but that is not often promoted. Abandonment of certain moral scruples is often promoted as well as varying degrees of chauvinism.

It can all be avoided if a person has had a balanced upbringing.

I agree that it would be better if men were taught social skills and taught about women earlier in life. There would probably be much less anger. It's become pretty accepted now that anger is a phase guys tend to go through when they're learning about the red pill. Something similar to the 5 stages of grief. It definitely depresses a lot of guys as well. Some guys end up jaded. It's why there can be a lot of misogyny. A lot never accept it and stay in denial, sometimes they have a real life experience later on that resonates with the red pill beliefs and they accept it. Some people never change their beliefs, it's somewhat accepted that not everybody will want to change beliefs they've held onto and built identities around, especially later in life. Personally I'm at the acceptance stage and didn't really have an anger or depression phase. I came into game through the purple pill route so most of the red pill stuff I learned about 6 months ago was old knowledge from experience anyway. Purple pill tends to be very practical and negative beliefs unsurprisingly aren't particularly helpful when trying to meet women.

Not sure what you mean by legitimate backing or why you think game doesn't have it?

If we agree that game is just a tool then the question of ethics doesn't really come into it. Like a gun isn't ethical or unethical, it's a tool.

A lot of the problem is with the explanations for why these techniques work. The original guys had a lot of issues and came up with explanations that were pretty manipulative and made very little sense but have hung around despite better explanations. If you followed it for the reasons they gave then I'd agree it would be pretty unethical and immoral. Probably destructive also. I kinda wanted to avoid the ethical topic because it's a long explanation but we might as well address it.

A lot of pickup techniques can be traced back to avoiding tripping the heuristics girls use to filter guys out and tripping the ones that filter guys in. Girls are the sex who need to filter through their options. Men perform, women choose. They don't have time to fully get to know everyone who's interested in them. Female attraction is much more complex than male attraction, which is primarily visual. To filter their options they use heuristics which have evolved over time, they're very good at it and it's unlikely to be a conscious process which is why asking the girls won't work. They're not trying to be dishonest, they don't consciously know the reasons so they use meaningless, socially safe, explanations like "no chemistry". Our heuristics (beautiful face, tits, etc.) are much more immediately obvious.

Unattractive guys will usually follow certain patterns. Attractive guys often go against them. Most of the early PUA guys spotted these patterns and backwards rationalised explanations (often pretty manipulative ones at that). Texting back instantly is something most unattractive needy guys will do so the advice to take time avoids triggering this heuristic. Explanations about making the girl anxious don't really make much sense, I don't see that being a productive thing. Takeaways work similarly, an unattractive guy isn't used to getting responses from girls and won't look away. Qualification follows a similar theme. An unattractive guy won't have standards, he'll take what he can get. A guy who qualifies will trigger this positive heuristic for girls. Letting the girl know you like her for reasons other than her body/looks isn't that important, she knows you're attracted to her body/looks. Negs were something an unattractive guy would never do, it was never about "lowering a girls self esteem". Teasing is taught instead because it triggered the same heuristic without the potential downsides of insulting a girl. They still "work" though, in the sense that they trigger the heuristic, they're just harder to execute and unnecessary. An instructor said recently that everything in pickup is disqualification, you're avoiding the behaviours that an overly interested guy would do. None of these are mandatory but they're all helpful which is why you'll see discussion about which ones you can cut out, what's "essential", etc. Preselection tends to be very accurate which is why it's such a powerful heuristic for women. Wealth is a heuristic women use, it's rarely about being "gold diggers".

So the explanation for why it works always boils down to unattractive guys tend to not do these things, attractive guys tend to do them. If you want the "why" then you ask why unattractive guys exhibit the negative traits more often and attractive guys exhibit the positive ones more often. It's never about having a particular effect on the girl (manipulative or not).

Beginners need to be taught these techniques so they don't keep making the same mistakes. The better you get (or better looking you are) the more unattractive heuristics you can trip without it costing you, your natural behaviour no longer inadvertently trips other unattractive heuristics and you end up accidentally triggering the attractive heuristics. Advanced guys will do these things as a favour to the girl to make the process easier for her. They're no longer required but they help things along. They know they're attractive guys but they appreciate that the girl doesn't know that yet.

The idea that guys are encouraged to "put up a pretense" in order to sleep with girls is off base as well. It can take a while for a girl to decide whether you meet her threshold for attractiveness, it's something she's trying to figure out and that can sometimes take time. It's a fun process though so it's not exactly some chore men are putting themselves through. She'll also test to find out as well, this is often a subconscious process although sometimes they do it to mess with guys for amusement. Different girls respond better to different heuristics like some men respond better to different heuristics for fertility (beautiful face vs. tits vs. ass, etc.). Heuristics are cultural and evolving as well. Girls will always look to see that you're still the same attractive man, even after 50 years of marriage they still check. Guys are never advised to lie and tell girls they're looking for relationships, etc. for the simple reason that it's counterproductive. Unattractive guys almost always want relationships while only some attractive guys do. Unattractive guys hate being single and want to grab onto the first girl that comes along. No matter how well she knows you already, by giving relationship vibes, you're triggering this heuristic. Even if you do want one, guys are advised to make it seem like it's her idea and something that appears like a "sacrifice" because it makes you seem like a more attractive guy to her.

So is this ethical? It's no more unethical than a girl wearing heels or (well applied) make up really, which is the converse for male attraction that game is for female attraction. Personally I prefer when women make the effort to look as beautiful as possible. I want to sleep with the most attractive women I can. There's also scientific literature that show men having larger ejaculations when sleeping with more attractive women, likely an evolutionary trait to maximise reproductive chances with the most fertile women. So you're making yourself look like the most attractive man you can be to her. Pretty much all game blogs/companies advise working on your actual attractiveness and inner beliefs at the same time. Getting reference experience with women will naturally increase your attractiveness so it's somewhat of a catch 22 there. It's like advising a girl to eat well, exercise, take care of her skin, hair, nails etc. rather than telling her it's ok to eat nutella out of a jar and squeeze into a corset before she goes out, pretty obvious stuff. Personally I'd prefer if all women were taught how to apply make-up properly, some girls destroy their natural beauty with bad make-up application. Likewise I'd imagine most women would like guys to make themselves as attractive as possible and cut out the needy, unattractive behaviours.

Adopting the behaviours without actually working on the underlying issues (like the original PUAs did) is pretty unethical I'd agree. It would be the equivalent of girls stuffing their bra or wearing a corset to disguise their weight. If the illusion is going to be gone before sex then it's kinda bad form in my opinion, although it's not the end of the world I guess. If it inspired me to make the effort to seduce her it's not like the sex is going to be unenjoyable anyway. Less likely I'd see her again though. I wouldn't expect a girl to go reapply make-up before sex but taking it off and purposely making herself look less attractive before sex isn't very considerate. Likewise a guy who asks for permission or supplicates and acts submissive during sex is making himself less attractive to the girl so it's not very considerate either. Where you want to draw the line of what's ethical or unethical is personal opinion of course.