1027: "Pickup Artist"

[philsov]

And here's a try at the pro-PUA themes.

It's not witty enough to be humorous, biting enough to provoke a serious response, nor honest enough to take to heart.

This wall of text is worse than a political cartoon.

[J Thomas]

The first rule for STDs is: Don't have sex with people who are more promiscuous than you are.

Er, no. Very no. How about "use protection with every casual sex partner"?

"Protection" does not completely work. It's worth using, and it is not completely effective.

Still, I like your idea for a first rule. Mine should probably be a second rule, and it sounded good as a first rule, stylisticly. I don't think anybody here would think of it as the advice they will use from now on when they ignore your first rule.

1) if everyone only had sex with less promiscuous partners, no one would ever get laid
2) I'm extrapolating, but "not promiscuous enough to be likely to have an STD" is not a safe metric for STD risk for you
3) your rule shows a considerable disregard for the well being of your partner: by your own rules, they shouldn't have sex with you since you're more promiscuous. Especially since, for instance, you may carry chlamydia but be asymptomatic, but transmitting the bacteria puts your partner at risk of infertility

This actually came from an analysis that ignored the way people in all known cultures actually do things.

As somebody else briefly pointed out, if you have sex with somebody who's had sex with only one other person, but the one other person they had sex with had 250 previous partners, that isn't very good.

But from a limit-the-coercion POV, it would work pretty well if everybody had sex only with others who shared their own level of promiscuity. Then STDs (and particularly so-far-undiscovered STDs or brand-new STDs) would spread at different rates in the different groups. How promiscuous should you be? Yer makes yer choices and yer takes yer chances.

We currently have no way to track how promiscuous people are, and so we can expect lots of people would lie about it. There's no point even trying, given the level of hypocrisy we can expect. But if we were not in fact human beings but rather something more reasonable, we could do it and make it work.

Say you're monogamous. Great. Then you have sex with a second person. Now you're in the class of people who've had sex with 2-3 others, and of course monogamous people will not have sex with you. Reach number 4 and you're in the class of people who've had sex with 4-7 others, and people who're still at 2-3 will not have sex with you. Reach #8 and you switch classes again.

You could stay a long time in the 128-255 class, if you were careful.

1) if everyone only had sex with less promiscuous partners, no one would ever get laid

You can't expect to keep it exact.

2) I'm extrapolating, but "not promiscuous enough to be likely to have an STD" is not a safe metric for STD risk for you

There is no safe metric except complete abstinence. Unless you have one partner you completely trust. Or perhaps two partners you completely trust. Or possibly three partners you completely trust. Get to four and it's real unlikely all of them are completely trustworthy.

3) your rule shows a considerable disregard for the well being of your partner: by your own rules, they shouldn't have sex with you since you're more promiscuous. Especially since, for instance, you may carry chlamydia but be asymptomatic, but transmitting the bacteria puts your partner at risk of infertility

Asymptomatic communicable diseases are a problem, aren't they? How easily can they be transmitted? Can you get them on your skin? If she rubs herself and rubs you some while she puts the condom on, can that do it? Once your wife tests positive, then maybe you'll test positive too. How did it happen? Have there been enough controlled experiments done?

Oral herpes can be caught genitally, and vice versa. Be careful with that rubber dam.

I have a solution in mind which would solve some other important problems also, far better than the promiscuity groupings, but I doubt human beings could carry it out. Every now and then we get into wars, and we tend to ignore most of our other goals until the war is over. Anything that depends on us to stay focused for more than a few years at a time will fail.

[Pfhorrest]

On the subject of involving women in the "PUA" brainstorming (i.e. ask women how to approach them), I want to emphasize again my earlier anecdote about how this is a phenomenally good idea [...] because the resulting methods you settle on [...] will be much more effective.

They don't give a shit what the women think. The women aren't people to them, just points on a score card.

I've redacted and bolded my quoted sentence above to highlight how I was trying to address that fact.

Some guy is a douchebag who only wants to get laid. He wants advice on how to more effectively get laid, but he doesn't care what women think about it. I'm saying to him, the most effective "technique" I've ever found can be reduced to "don't be a douchebag" (or at least, it entails not being a douchebag, nor a "white knight"), and I learned it from a woman.

It's kind of a zen thing. Want to decipher the female psyche and increase your chances of getting laid? Easy. Realize the female psyche does not need special deciphering, and stop caring so much about getting laid. Suddenly, you will understand women much better, and be much more "successful" with them (sexually and otherwise).

[J Thomas]

And here's a try at the pro-PUA themes.

It's not witty enough to be humorous, biting enough to provoke a serious response, nor honest enough to take to heart.

Sorry, I intended both of them to be completely honest.

It looks to me like the anti-PUA side mostly doesn't have a position or an argument. What they have is a moral outrage. They say "You're bad. You're eevvvillll. Stop doing whatever it is you're doing and instead do what good people do. If you don't already know how good people do things it's because you're eeeevil and nobody should have any sympathy for you."

The pro-PUA side tries to say they aren't evil manipulators, but the truth is they have a goal and a method toward reaching the goal, and anything you do to reach a goal is manipulation. So once they accept that manipulation is wrong, they sort of have to admit they're wrong. But instead of just admitting it they try to confuse the issue.

For myself, I say that people are diverse, people live different ways, some ways look better to me than other ways but people don't always know how to change their situations even when they can imagine something better. Attempting to manipulate other people is not inherently wrong. Better when you think you know what's good for them. Better when you're right about what's good for them.

Better to have defenses against other people's manipulation and decide for yourself what to do based on the merits you see. Better when you think you know what's good for you, and better still when you're right. When you notice people trying to manipulate you, notice also whether they appear to you to be acting in your best interest. If you think they are trying to get you to do things which are bad for you, then you don't think they're really your friends. But friends do try to manipulate friends all the time. It isn't something human beings get away from much.

[Jave D]

It looks to me like the anti-PUA side mostly doesn't have a position or an argument. What they have is a moral outrage. They say "You're bad. You're eevvvillll. Stop doing whatever it is you're doing and instead do what good people do. If you don't already know how good people do things it's because you're eeeevil and nobody should have any sympathy for you."

You really enjoy burning that strawman, don't you?

I mean it's always easier than actually addressing what someone else has actually said.

[J Thomas]

It looks to me like the anti-PUA side mostly doesn't have a position or an argument. What they have is a moral outrage. They say "You're bad. You're eevvvillll. Stop doing whatever it is you're doing and instead do what good people do. If you don't already know how good people do things it's because you're eeeevil and nobody should have any sympathy for you."

You really enjoy burning that strawman, don't you?

I mean it's always easier than actually addressing what someone else has actually said.

Tell me what they say that doesn't fit this.

Is there something more than merely a moral outrage?

I saw various claims along the lines of "What I know you are doing does not fit with my morality so you need to stop.".

There was one bit of advice, that went like this: "If you stop thinking the way you're thinking now, and start thinking the right way with empathy, you will find that women think exactly the same way you do and you won't have any trouble understanding them."

But when I invited the anti-POA guys to try empathy with the people they were vilifying, I got a total un-self-conscious rejection. Usually when people claim to have empathy and I ask them to prove it, they at least make some sort of attempt. This time there was nothing at all.

So what do you want addressed?

[dawolf]

Someone disagrees with you but - because you're a woman - they should pay extra attention? Somehow disagreeing with the opinions of women is worse than disagreeing with the opinions of men?

Woman says 'this makes a woman uncomfortable'
Man says 'pshah, does not'.

Who is more likely to be right?

And there is also quite a bit of this:

Woman says, 'this makes me uncomfortable'
Man says, 'does not, you are wrong'.

Ridiculous, isn't it? And yet that is what is happening.

Intent is not fucking magic. You may not 'intend' (and if you were honest, a lot of PUA tactics DO intend) to make a woman uncomfortable, but that is exactly what you are doing. PUA tactics take deliberate advantage of the social conditioning women experience, which I've pointed out repeatedly, to pressure women into reacting the way the PUA moron wants. They take advantage of the woman's discomfort in appearing to be 'the bitch' who tells a guy to go away in order to continue the conversation by deliberately disregarding and ignoring social cues that she wants the conversation to end. They use silly justifications like 'well she touched her hair when she said she was waiting for somebody, so that means she must really want to talk to me.' They take advantage of the fact that a woman may be uncomfortable in leaving the populated area to avoid the PUA moron, and then justify as 'well she didn't flee into the dark parking lot to escape me, so she must still want to chat'. Or the 'well she didn't knee the guy three times her size in the groin so she must be okay with him touching her boobs' defense.

[/quote]

You miss my point. My point was simply and only that the argument presented was weak, because it was a call to consent based on the sex of the person who made that argument.

Look, I have multiple sisters, multiple female friends and I KNOW that women talk about how to be successful in the love game. There's even a book about it, which Randall has referenced in the past.

And your point is?

[/quote]

That women play the same game from the other side.

Look, simply put, there are some guys who are naturally successful with women. There are some that over time become successful with women. And there are those that are never successful with women. And lots of other groups of course.

And your point is?


PUA tactics take advantage of the social conditioning women experience to make them uncomfortable. This discomfort is used to attempt to control how the woman responds, due to taking advantage of the social conditioning. That's the problem. That is what we have pointed out to you. That is what you are trying desperately, to the point you must engage in willful ignorance, not to get. I've pointed out the social conditioning that PUA tactics are taking advantage of, and been ignored. And that is because to the PUA moron, the woman in the equation doesn't matter. She's a means to an end, and that end is bragging rights to his male buddies.

Speaking AGAIN as someone who is not a PUA, I have no idea where you get the idea that this is what a PUA is. A good friend is a natural PUA. They don't make women uncomfortable - on the contrary, women are extremely comfortable around them, hence why they find it extremely easy to get laid if they wish.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

[dawolf]

and learning to to get frustrate and just walk if they don't sense mutual interest.[/i])

The part that's in italics is something you shouldn't have to learn. Any decent human being knows to do that.

Really? I was an extremely decent 16 year old. Far more decent than now.

I didn't know how to do that as well as I do now. Why? Because I wasn't capable of sensing interest as well as I do now.

So in my sample of 1, there is a negative correlation between decency and ability to sense mutual interest (not causative - a correlation nonetheless). And without that sense, the first part of your sentence is nonsense.

Or to put it another way - if I see someone I know acting like a twat, maybe they've never been told that this behaviour is wrong. Why not tell them, so their behaviour improves in the future?


Seriously, what is with this thread and people being so anti-improving someone?

[jpk]

It looks to me like the anti-PUA side mostly doesn't have a position or an argument. What they have is a moral outrage.

Among other things, I suppose. Is it weird to be morally outraged by the morally outrageous? No, I suppose it isn't. So, if you find that psychological manipulation of others to serve your own ends is abhorrent, then presumably you have a basis for moral outrage here.

Perhaps the object is more one of ethics. If you feel that a decent regard for other human beings is a required basis for any reasonable ethics, then I think you have some grounds to complain.

I'm finding a lot of traction, personally, with the aesthetic objection. The PUA crowd is after sticking their dick in anything that won't say no too strenuously or too long. That's just not my cup of tea, so the whole business is nauseating to me.

Then, following on to that, there's the practical objection: as a male human being who enjoys the company of women, I find these dickless jerkoffs to be poisoning the well of human interaction. Their shotgun approach makes all men look skeezy, so by wandering around failing desperately over and over again, they make it harder for a normal person to have a normal conversation - every interaction I have with a woman is initially tainted by the possibility that I'm one of these monotesticular twerps.

And of course there's the objection from simple courtesy. The reason the practical objection arises is that most women find this sort of thing repulsive, and so these pukewads are, as part of their normal everyday routine, subjecting innocent people to behavior they quite rightly find distasteful, just on the off chance that they might hit on someone who says yes just because they know that this jerk will be gone in the morning and they won't have to deal with them any more. This is annoying - just for this, I'd enjoy seeing every one of these douchebags die in a fire, and I'd happily bring the marshmallows.

Honestly, there are plenty of reasons why the world would be better off without these festering maggots. Has any one of them got a redeeming characteristic, or are they all as stupid and infantile as their written works indicate?

[Marlayna]

and learning to to get frustrate and just walk if they don't sense mutual interest.[/i])

The part that's in italics is something you shouldn't have to learn. Any decent human being knows to do that.

Really? I was an extremely decent 16 year old. Far more decent than now.

I didn't know how to do that as well as I do now. Why? Because I wasn't capable of sensing interest as well as I do now.

So in my sample of 1, there is a negative correlation between decency and ability to sense mutual interest (not causative - a correlation nonetheless). And without that sense, the first part of your sentence is nonsense.

Or to put it another way - if I see someone I know acting like a twat, maybe they've never been told that this behaviour is wrong. Why not tell them, so their behaviour improves in the future?


Seriously, what is with this thread and people being so anti-improving someone?

Seriously, what is it with this thread and people not actually reading what they're replying to?

If the problem is that you CAN'T SENSE interest, then yes, that's something to learn. If the problem is that you don't walk WHEN you sense no interest, then you're a creep. I have made that abundantly clear in my previous posts.

[tanthalas]

Seriously, what is with this thread and people being so anti-improving someone?

Because "people being so anti-improving someone" is a strawman.

No one's making the claim that it's not okay to improve yourself - be it social skills or otherwise. The claim being made is that PUA does not lead to self-improvement (that in fact, in most cases it does the contrary), and whatever pieces of self-improvement to be had from PUA could be more easily and reliably gotten from other sources (like, you know, talking to women about how to socialize with them). And that despite the few good things you might learn from PUA towards self-improvement, the attitude towards woman that you glean from following such a philosophy is incredibly detrimental to both your own growth as well as to the rest of society (as demonstrated by the PUA community itself, which even the PUA apologists in this thread are readily willing to admit).

(It took me a day and a half, but I finally got through reading all 40 pages! With exclusion to a large majority of J Thomas's post, of course.)

[J Thomas]

It looks to me like the anti-PUA side mostly doesn't have a position or an argument. What they have is a moral outrage.

Among other things, I suppose. Is it weird to be morally outraged by the morally outrageous? No, I suppose it isn't. So, if you find that psychological manipulation of others to serve your own ends is abhorrent, then presumably you have a basis for moral outrage here.

Well, yes. If you think something is morally outrageous then you get morally outraged. A is A. That's a valid tautology.

Perhaps the object is more one of ethics. If you feel that a decent regard for other human beings is a required basis for any reasonable ethics, then I think you have some grounds to complain.

So, you believe somebody else's ethics is different from yours, and your response is to complain.

I'm finding a lot of traction, personally, with the aesthetic objection. The PUA crowd is after sticking their dick in anything that won't say no too strenuously or too long. That's just not my cup of tea, so the whole business is nauseating to me.

Sure, I said that one. You think they're ugly so you tell them they're no good shits. The natural response to personal ugliness all round, we've all seen people do that.

Then, following on to that, there's the practical objection: as a male human being who enjoys the company of women, I find these dickless jerkoffs to be poisoning the well of human interaction. Their shotgun approach makes all men look skeezy, so by wandering around failing desperately over and over again, they make it harder for a normal person to have a normal conversation - every interaction I have with a woman is initially tainted by the possibility that I'm one of these monotesticular twerps.

Yes, of course you feel like they are hurting your chances to get laid yourself. That's your own personal self-interest on the line. No, you didn't quite say that. You only want to *talk* to women and women tend to shun you at first because they think you might be a POA. Got it.

And of course there's the objection from simple courtesy. The reason the practical objection arises is that most women find this sort of thing repulsive, and so these pukewads are, as part of their normal everyday routine, subjecting innocent people to behavior they quite rightly find distasteful, just on the off chance that they might hit on someone who says yes just because they know that this jerk will be gone in the morning and they won't have to deal with them any more. This is annoying - just for this, I'd enjoy seeing every one of these douchebags die in a fire, and I'd happily bring the marshmallows.

I feel the same way about direct mail. They send junk mail that annoys tens of thousands of people hoping that 10 or 20 of them will buy something. Sure, that's annoying.

Honestly, there are plenty of reasons why the world would be better off without these festering maggots. Has any one of them got a redeeming characteristic, or are they all as stupid and infantile as their written works indicate?

Well see, this is where you stop. My natural thought when I see a problem is to look for solutions. I've been told that this is a particularly male habit. Sometimes women find it offensive. What the women do, is they see some problem and so they talk about it with each other and with men who're good at that kind of thing. They tell each other what a horrid, horrid problem it is. They talk about how they shouldn't have to put up with it. And then when they've talked enough to "discharge their feelings" then they talk about something else. Nothing decided, nothing done, but next time they get around to feeling bad about the same thing they can do it again.

I had to learn how to do that. A woman has a problem and she wants to talk about how she feels about it, without any thought for doing anything. Later, you can suggest doing something that might help with three or four problems at once and she might like to do it. But you're not supposed to think about that too early. Not all women do that, or do it as much as the norm.

So, you feel like the solution would be for all these festering maggots to die. You don't propose to burn any of them alive, you only offer to bring the marshmallows. You are being totally feckless. If you want them dead, why aren't you figuring out how to kill them?

Or if you don't actually want them dead but just not messing things up for you, teach them better. You may not have understood how they think, not being empathetic and not being their kind of man and all, but these guys actually want more than just sex. They want women to approve of them too. That's a great big lever. You want their behavior to change -- their leverage is sitting there right out in the open for you to use. You can get them to be better for themselves, and better for women, and better for you. Oh, but no. That would be -- manipulation! No, it would be unethical for you to actually help them like that. The only right thing for you to do is talk about how much you despise them and how you want them dead.

I've watched this unfold to the point I'm doing it myself. If I was still competent I'd be getting you to see it, not just telling you what a hypocritical shmuck you are. Maybe I'll recover quickly.

What's going on here, on this forum, is a tiny piece of a giant catastrophe. A whole lot of men have been declared Other, Outsiders, Aliens, and they see no particular hope of happy relations with women. Some of them take up PUA hoping to somehow dominate, and maybe some of those learn better. A lot of them are Rush Limbaugh fans etc. A great big resource wasted, at a time when we don't have a big resource surplus. Well, but here I am arguing to create good consequences, when it's plain you guys are more interested in proving that other people are No Good Shits. That dog don't hunt, I should have learned by now not to bother.

A heresy is the revenge of a forgotten truth. Every monstrous appearance or movement is the revenge of a forgotten strength, of a vitality untapped in us. And it looks like a good year for monsters. RA Lafferty

[SirMustapha]

Hmm, allow me to summarize the pro-PUA themes in this thread!
...

Allow me to summarize this whole thread!

1- BULLSHIT

[tanthalas]

Giving this further thought --

I think one of the more unsatisfying things coming from the anti-PUA crowd is that they are shooting down a system of alleged self-improvement without offering a valid alternative of their own, aside from the usual platitudes such as "treat women like you would any other human being -- with decency and respect." And it's true - nobody has offered anything very concrete that could be feasibly implemented without huge monetary cost.

But that's really the crux of the issue here, isn't it? Relating to people is fucking hard, and the reality is that there is no "system" or methodology that'll teach you how to do it... because by definition, relating to others is about treating everybody as a unique individual, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to doing this.

So that's what makes PUA at the same time so attractive (to those who feel they need it) and so repulsive (to those who know** that you really don't). It offers a shortcut - an easy way out of the inherently difficult task of growing, maturing, and increasing self-awareness. Instead of telling you to be a brutally honest and impartial observer of yourself and your interactions with other people, PUA offers a "here, try following this checklist/flowchart for teh success/secks!!!"

So in a lot of ways, it shifts the focus away from what self-improvement actually entails - which is a hell of a lot of introspection and observation, honesty with yourself, and a true abandonment of the ego (or at least, the beginnings of an attempt to do so)... and instead shifts the focus to everything but. Oh no, the problem isn't with you. It's the system. Don't hate the playa, hate The Game. Here are the ways you can game the system so that you can get the girl.

But if self-improvement is really the goal, then why all this fuss about getting the girl?

** to address this point of "knowing" - most folk here who see PUA as a sham have at some point or another acknowledged that they've "been there" - that is, they know what it's like to be stuck in the nice-guy/white-knight syndrome and seeing this as a very attractive way out. some have even gone down this path to find that it doesn't actually give you everything that it promises (or that it does, but what it promises really isn't good enough). but i'd daresay that all of them have at one point or another gone through or are still going through the grueling journey of finding out who they really are and how they can truly, authentically fit into this world of other people who are, just like them, trying to do the same.
----

Unrelated but related question -- what do PUA apologists think about applying the golden rule here? how do you feel about someone you find unattractive applying PUA techniques on you?

[jpk]

it's plain you guys are more interested in proving that other people are No Good Shits. That dog don't hunt, I should have learned by now not to bother.

Oh, it's obvious that they're no-good shits. Hardly needs proving. I'm just pointing out that there are plenty of objections to the no-good shits beyond simple moral outrage.

Well, yes. If you think something is morally outrageous then you get morally outraged. A is A. That's a valid tautology.

Thank you for validating my tautology.

So, you believe somebody else's ethics is different from yours, and your response is to complain.

If I think someone promulgating an ethics that you think is destructive, yes, speaking up about it is a right thing to do. Treating other people as fuckholes for your personal pleasure is bad enough, but proclaiming this as a positive good in society - that demands a rebuttal. Before you start, I'm not claiming that my post here qualifies as a rebuttal. There's been plenty of that already, and I've only read about a third of the thread. Again, this was simply a response to your simplistic claim that the only objection to The Passtime is "moral outrage" (as if moral outrage were not a reasonable grounds for objecting to the outrageous)

However, if I believe that someone holds a theory of ethics that differs from mine in some harmless way, I don't see why I would complain. I might enjoy discussing the matter with them, and I might even come around to their view of the world.
If one of the putrescent bags of sick that we're discussing here were capable of putting together a coherent argument supporting their claim that women exist merely to gratify their desire to control and dominate others then I might even listen, but the rationalizations put forth here fail to even stand on their feet, let alone bear any weight.

Sure, I said that one. You think they're ugly so you tell them they're no good shits. The natural response to personal ugliness all round, we've all seen people do that.

I think their behavior is ugly. I think some of them are personally ugly as well, but I don't think that's a hanging offense. If it were, I might not be debating this with you now.

Yes, of course you feel like they are hurting your chances to get laid yourself. That's your own personal self-interest on the line. No, you didn't quite say that. You only want to *talk* to women and women tend to shun you at first because they think you might be a POA. Got it.

Well, since I do actually enjoy talking to people, I think I have a valid reason to complain when some needledick twerp with bad hair is going around giving people the idea that they have to be ready to fend off sick mindgames when they talk to anyone who happens to be a man. So yes I think these maladjusted tossers are in fact causing me a personal nuisance. Not because I want to lay every "HB" that my eye falls upon, but because I'm sick of having to deal with the consequences of their juvenile idiocy. Your snide suggestion that I'm only annoyed because I think these guys are restricting my access to all those ladies and their lady parts suggests that you've been spending too much time reading these permavirgins' fantasy blogs. Keep in mind that most people don't actually view every person in the world as either a place to put their dick, or a potential obstacle to them putting their dick where they want to put it. It's only a small subset of men who constitute this incontinent horde.

Well see, this is where you stop. My natural thought when I see a problem is to look for solutions. I've been told that this is a particularly male habit. Sometimes women find it offensive. What the women do, is they see some problem and so they talk about it with each other and with men who're good at that kind of thing. They tell each other what a horrid, horrid problem it is. They talk about how they shouldn't have to put up with it. And then when they've talked enough to "discharge their feelings" then they talk about something else. Nothing decided, nothing done, but next time they get around to feeling bad about the same thing they can do it again.

I had to learn how to do that. A woman has a problem and she wants to talk about how she feels about it, without any thought for doing anything. Later, you can suggest doing something that might help with three or four problems at once and she might like to do it. But you're not supposed to think about that too early. Not all women do that, or do it as much as the norm.

Are you really suggesting that there's a peculiarly feminine vice which consists of not always following your advice?
Maybe they don't do what you suggest because you tend to give bad advice. I don't know if that's the case, but it's at least as plausible as the scenario you describe.

So, you feel like the solution would be for all these festering maggots to die. You don't propose to burn any of them alive, you only offer to bring the marshmallows. You are being totally feckless. If you want them dead, why aren't you figuring out how to kill them?

Even if I did seriously wish them dead, I am still capable of maintaining the distinction between what I want and what I should be able to get. That's something that you learn when you grow up a little. You'll get there.

As it happens, I was engaging in a little hyperbole. (go look it up, I'll wait)

(yes, now I'm the one being snide. acknowledged. shall we move on? good)

You might find as you spend a little time rambling about this glen of sublime delights that we call the Internet, that some people overstate their case for effect from time to time. I might say "the world would be a lot safer if all of the people who talk on cell phones while operating vehicles would simply crash in to the nearest obstacle and die before they crash into another person and kill two people". I don't actually propose that we should rig automobiles to disable their steering mechanisms when cell phone use is detected in the vehicle. It's hyperbole. So no, as horrible and wretched as these malignant little losers are, I don't actually want them dead, and if I did, I would still not want to live in a society where one person had the power to exert such a whim, even if that person were me.

Or if you don't actually want them dead but just not messing things up for you, teach them better. You may not have understood how they think, not being empathetic and not being their kind of man and all, but these guys actually want more than just sex.

I don't think they want more than just sex, I think they want something quite different from sex. They want power. They want to be able to control and dominate other people, and they use sex as a means to accomplish this. And yes, this is the same motivation that is usually understood to drive the rapist and no I'm not saying that these horrible people are rapists. I'm only saying that their motivations seem pretty clearly to be the same ones, differently expressed.

They want women to approve of them too. That's a great big lever. You want their behavior to change -- their leverage is sitting there right out in the open for you to use. You can get them to be better for themselves, and better for women, and better for you. Oh, but no. That would be -- manipulation! No, it would be unethical for you to actually help them like that. The only right thing for you to do is talk about how much you despise them and how you want them dead.

They don't care if women approve of them. Remember, they're not sticking around to find out. They want women to submit to them.
I think more women responding the way the hero of this comic did would be a good sort of manipulation, and I'd be happy to see it happen, but as a man who doesn't spend time in singles bars, I'm not really in a position to pull that off. Especially since I don't think I could pull of drag well enough to convince anyone.
But I suppose it's possible that by provoking these guys to lay out more of their defensive absurdities, I help them make their idiocy more public, and this in turn helps to fore-warn and fore-arm women to squash them like the insects they are. We'll see.
I'm not going to organize some sort of massive collective rehabilitation effort to reprogram these guys, but mocking their indignant squawks of self-justification is a fun and a minor contribution. Can't possibly do any harm, anyway.

[Jave D]

It looks to me like the anti-PUA side mostly doesn't have a position or an argument. What they have is a moral outrage. They say "You're bad. You're eevvvillll. Stop doing whatever it is you're doing and instead do what good people do. If you don't already know how good people do things it's because you're eeeevil and nobody should have any sympathy for you."

You really enjoy burning that strawman, don't you?

I mean it's always easier than actually addressing what someone else has actually said.

Tell me what they say that doesn't fit this.

Is there something more than merely a moral outrage?

I saw various claims along the lines of "What I know you are doing does not fit with my morality so you need to stop.".

There was one bit of advice, that went like this: "If you stop thinking the way you're thinking now, and start thinking the right way with empathy, you will find that women think exactly the same way you do and you won't have any trouble understanding them."

But when I invited the anti-POA guys to try empathy with the people they were vilifying, I got a total un-self-conscious rejection. Usually when people claim to have empathy and I ask them to prove it, they at least make some sort of attempt. This time there was nothing at all.

So what do you want addressed?

You could try addressing one of the many, many arguments actual posters make, instead of addressing the "arguments" you say they make in your generalized strawman summary. It starts with responding to another person other than yourself. Go back over the posts written to you in response to you and start there. Summarizing "claims along the lines of [insert strawman here" will not do, for example.

As for you accusing people of not having empathy, and them not "proving" to you that they have it, what of it? When you ignore and dismiss entire arguments and then go "where's the argument?" you're going to find yourself confused as a matter of course.

[Aetius]

and wouldn't it be just a little disturbing that there's a community that specializes in teaching women how to do this sort of thing, such that you now have to worry about if the girls you pursue actually look much much much uglier than what you thought they looked like?

I believe that community is Youtube.

[J Thomas]

Tell me what they say that doesn't fit this.

Is there something more than merely a moral outrage?

....

So what do you want addressed?

You could try addressing one of the many, many arguments actual posters make, instead of addressing the "arguments" you say they make in your generalized strawman summary. It starts with responding to another person other than yourself. Go back over the posts written to you in response to you and start there.

OK, I guess I'll do that. Somebody has to start somewhere, and it clearly won't be you.

As for you accusing people of not having empathy, and them not "proving" to you that they have it, what of it? When you ignore and dismiss entire arguments and then go "where's the argument?" you're going to find yourself confused as a matter of course.

Rather than consider whether anybody you agree with has shown empathy, you attack the messenger. My own thought is not to tell you that you're a no-good shit because you have utterly lacked empathy. I want to encourage you to try it. Of course, it's risky. When you actually see other people as human beings and notice how they feel, it might affect you.

http://forums.xkcd.com/posting.php?mode=quote&f=7&p=2908726#pr2908691

it's plain you guys are more interested in proving that other people are No Good Shits. That dog don't hunt, I should have learned by now not to bother.

Oh, it's obvious that they're no-good shits. Hardly needs proving. I'm just pointing out that there are plenty of objections to the no-good shits beyond simple moral outrage.

In his long response JPK points out that beyond moral outrage he also has esthetic disgust and he feels his self-interest is threatened because women confuse him with a POA. He feels that nothing should be done about the situation, but he enjoys mocking them.

He makes a theoretical contribution -- he says that POAs do not want women's approval but instead want power over women. I believe he's partly correct there, sure, they do want power but that's only part of it. And anyway, that's stereotyping. If a man said "Women all want the same thing and only one thing" that would be pretty silly, right? Or "Republicans only care about getting power over other people and nothing else", same way.

I said that women tend to talk about their problems in a different way than men tend to. Men tend to follow an OODA loop. Define the problem, look for potential solutions, look for ways to carry out the solutions, postpone further discussion until the situation has changed. Women tend to talk about their problems as a method for social bonding. Describe the problem, get sympathy, bonds are reaffirmed. This clearly is not something that only women do, since JPK is doing it here. He agrees with women here that it's a terrible problem and sympathizes about it at length, with no slightest implication that any problem-solving can or should be done. The problem has a moral obligation to solve itself.

If I've missed the point maybe he'll tell me what he really meant.

http://forums.xkcd.com/posting.php?mode=quote&f=7&p=2908726#pr2908483

It looks to me like the anti-PUA side mostly doesn't have a position or an argument. What they have is a moral outrage. They say "You're bad. You're eevvvillll. Stop doing whatever it is you're doing and instead do what good people do. If you don't already know how good people do things it's because you're eeeevil and nobody should have any sympathy for you."

You really enjoy burning that strawman, don't you?

I mean it's always easier than actually addressing what someone else has actually said.

Here, Jave D says "You're wrong. You didn't pay attention to what other people actually said" with no attempt to show where I went wrong.

Of course it's always easier to say "You missed the point" than to state the point clearer.

http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=81485&start=1560#p2908223

I'm a mostly neutral party here.

I find this statement less than compelling given how much complete bullshit the rest of the post contained.

In this piece of constructive criticism JudeMorrigan gives me a lot to respond to.

http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=81485&start=1560#p2908291

Oh my fucking god J Thomas, shut the fuck up. You strawmanning, pro-PUA asshole.

I've seen concentrated acid that was more neutral than you.

Feltir makes the same argument, not realizing he has been ninja'd.

http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=81485&start=1400#p2905657

Please put the feelings aside for a minute and put on your thinking cap.

I can't, I have Shark Week.

When I looked it up, Shark Week is in July. I believe this was Meaux Pas dropping the discussion. She had flubbed a minor point of logic which really didn't matter to the discussion. People do that kind of thing all the time, and I think it's best to just correct it and go on. Not like a momentary lapse means you're a no-good shit who ought to be hounded over it. Or she might have just gotten tired of the whole thing.

[Angua]

pssst - sharkweek is forum-speak for being on your menses.

[PeteP]

Here, Jave D says "You're wrong. You didn't pay attention to what other people actually said" with no attempt to show where I went wrong.

Of course it's always easier to say "You missed the point" than to state the point clearer.

Stating points clearer only makes sense if you assume that the straw man aren't deliberate. There are many straw man in this thread and there are basically two options: a) they are deliberate b) The standpoints of the anti pua side are so foreign, that the straw man makers simply can't wrap their head around them and have to translate them to concepts that are part of their world view.
There would be a third option : c) the points aren't clear enough. But the straw man in this thread have demonstrated a very high resistance against clarifications, so I consider that unlikely.
And how likely is b? The anti pua side doesn't have such unusual standpoint that someone would be unable to understand them, do they?
"a" strikes me as the most reasonable explanation, making explanations futile.

[WithinThisMind]

You miss my point. My point was simply and only that the argument presented was weak, because it was a call to consent based on the sex of the person who made that argument.

Then your 'point' demonstrates you didn't actually comprehend what I wrote.

That women play the same game from the other side.

Except when it comes to this 'game', women are stuck with the special olympics version due to the sheer number of handicaps they are under thanks to social conditioning. Remember - if she puts out, she is a slut, if she doesn't, she is a prude, the double standard has her condemned right out of the gate.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Then you are daft and blind and have never for a moment thought about the world from the perspective of a woman.

I think one of the more unsatisfying things coming from the anti-PUA crowd is that they are shooting down a system of alleged self-improvement without offering a valid alternative of their own, aside from the usual platitudes such as "treat women like you would any other human being -- with decency and respect." And it's true - nobody has offered anything very concrete that could be feasibly implemented without huge monetary cost.

So...treating women with respect is a simple 'platitude'? That's some serious privilege you have there. It's not a solution because treating women with respect would be 'expensive'? Is that really what you are trying to say? That's it's just too hard to treat women as people, so you find that solution unsatisfying? Really?

Thank you for doing an excellent job of demonstrating exactly WHY we have a problem with the PUA mindset.


Their entire argument comes down to 'it's toooooooooo haaaaaard to treat women as people, I just want to get laid!'.

Go buy a damn realdoll, that's all you want anyway.

[J Thomas]

Here, Jave D says "You're wrong. You didn't pay attention to what other people actually said" with no attempt to show where I went wrong.

Of course it's always easier to say "You missed the point" than to state the point clearer.

Stating points clearer only makes sense if you assume that the straw man aren't deliberate. There are many straw man in this thread and there are basically two options: a) they are deliberate b) The standpoints of the anti pua side are so foreign, that the straw man makers simply can't wrap their head around them and have to translate them to concepts that are part of their world view.
There would be a third option : c) the points aren't clear enough. But the straw man in this thread have demonstrated a very high resistance against clarifications, so I consider that unlikely.
And how likely is b? The anti pua side doesn't have such unusual standpoint that someone would be unable to understand them, do they?
"a" strikes me as the most reasonable explanation, making explanations futile.

When I believe that communication is impossible, I stop trying to communicate.

But then, sometimes you can't tell the trolls from the trolls. If you feel compelled to answer yet again, and so does the other guy, which one is the troll and which is getting trolled?

So far no one has said anything to say that my basic claim about the anti-PUA side is wrong. They feel moral outrage and they want to express that outrage.

When pro-PUA guys say that they have it wrong about what the pro-PUA guys are doing, they ignore that or disagree, and express more moral outrage. They know what it is they're outraged against, they know that it's real and the real thing, and if a PUA guy says it's something else they don't believe it.

When pro-PUA guys say that a sizeable fraction of women they meet like getting propositioned, the anti-PUA people say that they are wrong, that they don't notice that the women who submit to them are doing it out of fear or annoyance or whatever, and then express more moral outrage.

Does it look to you like this is most of what's going on? If not, what did I miss?

Note -- I do not claim that they are wrong to feel moral outrage. People have to choose their own ethics, and I don't want to tell them they have chosen wrong and should do things my way instead. I am saying that this is almost all of what they're doing. Do you disagree?

You miss my point. My point was simply and only that the argument presented was weak, because it was a call to consent based on the sex of the person who made that argument.

Then your 'point' demonstrates you didn't actually comprehend what I wrote.

This is an opportunity for you to say where he got it wrong.

When he can say it back in a way that you agree that he got it right, then you're getting somewhere. When you just say he got it wrong, that doesn't tell him what you really meant at all. He repeated his point in new words, trying to get across what he was saying. You did not. He didn't repeat your whole argument to show that he understood it, but he repeated a part of it he thought he understood, enough to show you that he did not understand.

Point to dawolf. He made a try at communicating. You did not this round, yet.

[SpringLoaded12]

41 pages?
Jesus fucking Christ, you guys take this way too seriously.

[jpk]

So far no one has said anything to say that my basic claim about the anti-PUA side is wrong. They feel moral outrage and they want to express that outrage.

Wrong. We discussed the various ways in which you were wrong, so I know you've at least acknowledged that these are existing objections to the Passtime. Have you had a stroke or other major brain event since 2012 2:10 am UTC?

[Red Hal]

Have you had a stroke or other major brain event since 2012 2:10 am UTC?

What day and month?

[FireZs]

Wait, so what fundamental argument made by PUA apologists or anti-PUA people in this thread isn't a moral argument, besides the brief analogy arguments? PUA apologists say PUA is moral, and anti-PUA people say it's not. Saying that anti-PUA people only have "moral outrage" is just an attempt to appeal to our resistance to moralize and grandstand. It's vacuously true, as we can just easily say that the PUA apologists' argument is "moral permissiveness."

[J Thomas]

So far no one has said anything to say that my basic claim about the anti-PUA side is wrong. They feel moral outrage and they want to express that outrage.

Wrong. We discussed the various ways in which you were wrong, so I know you've at least acknowledged that these are existing objections to the Passtime. Have you had a stroke or other major brain event since 2012 2:10 am UTC?

I wrote what I got from your answer, and when I repeated back what I got, to me it looked entirely consistent with my claim.

Did I miss your point? What did you mean instead?

I don't see anything listed for 2:10 am UTC, I see Aetius at 1:50 am and me at 5:02 am.

[TheButler]

If nobody minds me taking this in a different direction, I could use some... spiritual advice, I suppose.

You look like you’re going to spend your life having one epiphany after another…but nothing will ever change…the thing standing in the way of your dreams…is you.

I might not be the only to say this, but that hit really close to home. Really close. It's actually got me kind of worked up at the moment, because of that last panel where she adds, "[Thinking about your life] won't help." -- and it hasn't.

Before anyone suggests the obvious, I've got a therapist, but all he ever wants to talk about is my sex-life. I swear I'm not a troll, I just need help. This place seems to have a lot of smart, capable people running around. Any advice?

-- Dreamless in Atlanta

[Felstaff]

I suggest picking up a woman.

[philsov]

Dear Dreamless:

I can't give any sort of solid advice because I don't know to what extent you've had these epiphanies and what you've done with your life. On a guess I'm going to say that you lack discipline and spend much of your time pursuing something new, getting 5% done with it (or 95% done with it.), getting bored, and then seeking out a new venture. You half know what you should be doing, but can't get past the "how" when the reality is that there is no how -- you just do it. If that's the case then do stuff like establish a new routine, set small deadlines for yourself, get a pocket planner you can scribble in, and if you can volunteer ANYWHERE that has some sort of schedule -- the structure and socialization aspect should be a benefit, and the fact that you're helping people should ideally help motivate you to keep coming back.

[RogueJustice]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. But this 'discussion' is just too epic to not get a word in.

I was actually going to lurk more, but then I did something some people here might never have a chance to do: I asked my girlfriend what she thought on the matter and her response was so concise that I wanted to share it:

"Best case: Bunch of white knights thinking being Forever Alone puts them on some kind of moral high horse. Worst case: Pack of closet sexists who don't think women can make informed decisions and hence need 'protection' from 'jerks'."

In other news: Big German newspaper features today: "Tips for women: How to get any man!"

[tanthalas]

So...treating women with respect is a simple 'platitude'? That's some serious privilege you have there. It's not a solution because treating women with respect would be 'expensive'? Is that really what you are trying to say? That's it's just too hard to treat women as people, so you find that solution unsatisfying? Really?

Thank you for doing an excellent job of demonstrating exactly WHY we have a problem with the PUA mindset.

Their entire argument comes down to 'it's toooooooooo haaaaaard to treat women as people, I just want to get laid!'.

Go buy a damn realdoll, that's all you want anyway.

You didn't actually read my post, huh? Please point out what I have said to deserve such a vitriolic labeling or attack, when I'm merely pointing out where the gap in communication appears to be occurring between the two sides of the debate here. Well, *a* gap, since there is clearly more than one...

"Treat woman with respect" - in quotes, as a saying, as a moral guideline, is indeed a simple platitude. Or it sure as hell ought to be. What person would disagree with that statement, or find it as anything but obvious? I'm reminded of the Stephen Fry quote about how too much of anything is bad for you. Treating women with respect isn't something anybody disagrees upon - it's usually the implementation (or lack thereof) that causes disagreement and objection.

Again, if you'd actually read my post, you would have concluded that what I said - and what I meant - is that there is no plain and simple system or methodology that "just works" for human interaction - regardless of whether you're dealing with men or with women. Which is precisely why the anti-PUA folks are offering nothing more than broad statements (some of my favorites from TGH include "I know nothing about relationships" - which is the right attitude to have for anything else beyond relationships as well, really)... because these general guidelines are really the best we've got. (and yes, some of them are hard to do, although respecting people shouldn't really be hard - but so many people get it wrong so easily all the time.)

tl;dr --- anti-PUA folks are saying, "the approach you're using to meet women and/or improve your social skills are unethical, you are a bad person"; PUA apologists respond with "but it works! give me something better"; and while some folks here have politely pointed out that it doesn't work as well as advertised (again, TGH, hats off to your posts which I've enjoyed most reading this entire thread), others have merely resorted to continual name-calling instead of actually responding to that... I'm simply trying to explain that one of the reasons there is no seemingly satisfying answer to "give me something better" is because it's not easy, it's not supposed to be easy, and taking shortcuts won't get you anywhere near the kind of social enlightenment that you think it will.

As a sidenote, demonizing the people you're arguing with isn't exactly the most convincing approach. They may very well be wrong, but they are people too. Instead of trying to infer a separate meaning from "I just want to get better at socializing and meeting people" - take it at face value and use that as the jumping board for discussion. It's probably far easier to convince someone that what they're going about doesn't really get them what they actually want, than to talk to them as if they are horrible, horrible people who want nothing more than to denigrate and objectify women.

[Zamfir]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. But this 'discussion' is just too epic to not get a word in.

I was actually going to lurk more, but then I did something some people here might never have a chance to do: I asked my girlfriend what she thought on the matter and her response was so concise that I wanted to share it:

"Best case: Bunch of white knights thinking being Forever Alone puts them on some kind of moral high horse. Worst case: Pack of closet sexists who don't think women can make informed decisions and hence need 'protection' from 'jerks'."

In other news: Big German newspaper features today: "Tips for women: How to get any man!"

I wish I had a girlfriend, then I could ask her questions too. Do you know some things that could help me get a real girlfriend?

[RogueJustice]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. But this 'discussion' is just too epic to not get a word in.

I was actually going to lurk more, but then I did something some people here might never have a chance to do: I asked my girlfriend what she thought on the matter and her response was so concise that I wanted to share it:

"Best case: Bunch of white knights thinking being Forever Alone puts them on some kind of moral high horse. Worst case: Pack of closet sexists who don't think women can make informed decisions and hence need 'protection' from 'jerks'."

In other news: Big German newspaper features today: "Tips for women: How to get any man!"

I wish I had a girlfriend, then I could ask her questions too. Do you know some things that could help me get a real girlfriend?

Took her over from her now ex-friend who was a long-term acquaintance of mine. He was a door-mat, I wasn't. Three years and counting.

[jpk]

I wrote what I got from your answer, and when I repeated back what I got, to me it looked entirely consistent with my claim.
Did I miss your point? What did you mean instead?

If you claim that there is a single sole motivator for holding a position ("moral outrage") and someone responds with a list of independent reasons for holding that position (ethical objections, aesthetic objections, practical objections, objections from courtesy, etc), most people would consider that a contradiction of your claim. Do you not see it that way?

You might not find these objections convincing, and I don't expect that you do, but they are objections which have been expressed in the course of the discussion in this thread, therefore they are live objections to the Misogynist Brigade's tactics, and they are objections which are not founded in moral outrage. Therefore, your claim is false.

Respond.

I don't see anything listed for 2:10 am UTC, I see Aetius at 1:50 am and me at 5:02 am.

This one.

Maybe you did have a brain event of some sort. See a doctor, just to be on the safe side.

[Bharrata]

"Best case: Bunch of white knights thinking being Forever Alone puts them on some kind of moral high horse. Worst case: Pack of closet sexists who don't think women can make informed decisions and hence need 'protection' from 'jerks'."

So all men are sexists in disguise then?

I don't think most of us are saying women need to be protected from PUAs...just that PUA guys are, most of the time, scumbags.

Women are perfectly capable of making informed decisions, and they're perfectly capable of being wrong too. But then again I doubt your GF is actually dissecting the issue rather than giving her superficial opinion in an attempt to one-up snarkily.

[FireZs]

They may very well be wrong, but they are people too.

No they're not. Men who aren't getting sex but feel they deserve to are despicable and sub-human. They should lead miserable lives and die alone and unloved.

[sophyturtle]

As someone madly in love with a not dominate man, I think people need to remember there is someone for everyone and maybe, just maybe, acting like someone you are not is not a good strategy for relationships. Cause like, how the fuck does that work?

IGNORE ME!

[philsov]

As someone madly in love with a not dominate man, I think people need to remember there is someone for everyone and maybe, just maybe, acting like someone you are not is not a good strategy for relationships. Cause like, how the fuck does that work?

BZZZZ BZZZZZBZZZZ

We have a fly problem on the fora

[tanthalas]

They may very well be wrong, but they are people too.

No they're not. Men who aren't getting sex but feel they deserve to are despicable and sub-human. They should lead miserable lives and die alone and unloved.

It's an equal disservice to the discussion to put up some ridiculous, hyperbolic claim like this and attribute it to what people are saying, when in fact they are saying anything but this. All it does is set up a straw man for the other side of this claim to burn, which leads to nothing but more miscommunication, frustration, and infuriation on each side.

I've seen you and J Thomas doing this the entire thread, and frankly, it's one of the reasons why I don't even bother to read half your posts anymore.