which one?
this one? i suppose it is interesting, in the sense of being unusually craven and intellectually lazy.
or is it this witty and thoughtful riposte?
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The Game - Neil Strauss
- Thread starter IdleRich
- Start date
which one?
this one? i suppose it is interesting, in the sense of being unusually craven and intellectually lazy.
or is it this witty and thoughtful riposte?
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Ha - no, just this:
"If Machiavelli gives sound and universally applicable advice in Il Principe on how to aquire, increase and retain power by exploiting human weaknesses, I don't see why it shouldn't be equally possible, given a sufficiently high motivation to investigate the matter, to actually come up with pretty reliable and efficient tecniques to be successful in the much more mundane area of life that is dating."
It would be a heartless exercise, but I agree with his point - people are easily swayed by manipulation, alas. I think everyone's had that experience of being 'wowed' by someone, and then afterwards regretting having been so easily swayed for what, in retrospect, seem pretty shaky reasons. Hence, room for manipulation.
Oh shit, just me?
Not advocating manipulation at all, just that I can see how systematic manipulation would be possible.
"If Machiavelli gives sound and universally applicable advice in Il Principe on how to aquire, increase and retain power by exploiting human weaknesses, I don't see why it shouldn't be equally possible, given a sufficiently high motivation to investigate the matter, to actually come up with pretty reliable and efficient tecniques to be successful in the much more mundane area of life that is dating."
It would be a heartless exercise, but I agree with his point - people are easily swayed by manipulation, alas. I think everyone's had that experience of being 'wowed' by someone, and then afterwards regretting having been so easily swayed for what, in retrospect, seem pretty shaky reasons. Hence, room for manipulation.
Oh shit, just me?
Not advocating manipulation at all, just that I can see how systematic manipulation would be possible.
Leo
Well-known member
i'm an old married dude, so wtf do i know about this but...my question is: when all is said and done, what do the pick-up artists actually have to show for themselves?
my guess is they get turned down a lot more often than they admit, but even if they do succeed in getting laid, what have they actually gained? a fun hour (or few minutes, as the case may be)? they certainly don't end up with any genuine friends, because most people see them as blatant manipulators/users.
yes, i have no doubt that they sometimes attain their "goal." it's just that their goal is one that doesn't have any real value.
my guess is they get turned down a lot more often than they admit, but even if they do succeed in getting laid, what have they actually gained? a fun hour (or few minutes, as the case may be)? they certainly don't end up with any genuine friends, because most people see them as blatant manipulators/users.
yes, i have no doubt that they sometimes attain their "goal." it's just that their goal is one that doesn't have any real value.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
For the record, I think it'd be pretty cool to have the confidence to chat up any woman you liked the look of - and have a good chance of success, I mean - and if you picked up some tips from a book, so what? It's not even necessarily mysogynistic either, that all depends on why you're really doing it and your attitude to women generally. And if you can show a girl a good time in the sack, so much the better.
What makes me alternately laugh and cringe is the idea of there being this whole "community" dedicated purely to pulling and the elevation of it from something completely normal and worldly, that almost everyone does at least sometimes, into some kind of mystical personal-growth quest. All this talk of "enabling" and "empowering" (to say nothing of zhao's marvelous "attaining higher spiritual levels", as if life is some sort of karmic video game with power-ups to collect and bosses to defeat) is vaguely new-agey and self-helpy while at the same time oddly corporate-sounding; I like to think of this combination as 'assholistic'. It just puts me in mind of 'workshops' where name-badged delegates watch PowerPoint presentations and then discuss things in a circle while some goon writes random words on a flipchart.
For a good example of why the "community" aspect makes my skin crawl, consider:
What makes me alternately laugh and cringe is the idea of there being this whole "community" dedicated purely to pulling and the elevation of it from something completely normal and worldly, that almost everyone does at least sometimes, into some kind of mystical personal-growth quest. All this talk of "enabling" and "empowering" (to say nothing of zhao's marvelous "attaining higher spiritual levels", as if life is some sort of karmic video game with power-ups to collect and bosses to defeat) is vaguely new-agey and self-helpy while at the same time oddly corporate-sounding; I like to think of this combination as 'assholistic'. It just puts me in mind of 'workshops' where name-badged delegates watch PowerPoint presentations and then discuss things in a circle while some goon writes random words on a flipchart.
For a good example of why the "community" aspect makes my skin crawl, consider:
Now maybe this just makes me a laughable old-fashioned prude, but if I had to choose between that^ and lifelong celibacy, I'd start to think seriously about the latter...I mean a 'sex club', seriously? To say nothing of one of which your partner's (or your own!) parents are members...it just makes the whole thing sound about as sexy as a bridge club or knitting circle. "Sorry, I'd love to come out for a pint after work, but I've got Sex Club tonight." Tell me there is something just a *bit* weird about that sentence.comelately said:
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I don't think anyone doubts that people can be manipulated. Con artists, politicians, sect leaders, a lot of people do it. I think Mr. Tea, padraig etc. just oppose the idea that in the case of PUAs it's an act of self-improvement. Just because the human psyche has ways to exploit it, it doesn't mean it's natural and ok to do so.
Ironically beginning PUAs are manipulated the same way as they manipulate by letting them feel bad about themselves ("hey, you're just an average frustrated chump"), taking their money for books, seminars, dvds etc. and then reinforcing the mechanisms that let them feel bad in the first place (number of sex partners = self worth).
grizzleb
Well-known member
This is the authoritative post in this thread. I loled a good few times. Cosmic video game is brilliant.
comelately
Wild Horses
*shrug* Ideas regarding sexuality are different in continental Europe. Your parents probably had sex at some point.....me going to that sex club probably isn't anything like a typical 'community' experience anyway. Calling something or someone weird is the very epitome of a meaningless neg 99% of the time.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
well it's officially a dissensus thread now that zhao has chimed in with some nonsensical gibberish
their "out of the ordinary" aspirations to pick up women & get laid, are you for real?
the irony of you saying this in direct response to one of the churlishly sophomoric response I've ever seen on Dissensus is almost certainly lost on you I realize
(also back the hell off high school jocks bro, how is that you the master of all things personal enlightenment are the perpetrator of such cliched stereotype as if athletics couldn't be/aren't a totally valid path to all your higher truth b.s.)
their "out of the ordinary" aspirations to pick up women & get laid, are you for real?
the irony of you saying this in direct response to one of the churlishly sophomoric response I've ever seen on Dissensus is almost certainly lost on you I realize
(also back the hell off high school jocks bro, how is that you the master of all things personal enlightenment are the perpetrator of such cliched stereotype as if athletics couldn't be/aren't a totally valid path to all your higher truth b.s.)
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Whatever, if you enjoy it I'm not trying to stop you. And yes, idea about sex are different everywhere you go, but I would hazard a guess that most people even in the great country of Europe are probably not members of sex clubs...dogging, cottaging and blowjobs in alleyways happen in Britain too, after all...
Edit: fair enough, you got me, 'weird' in and of itself is not a devastating critique. But I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to make out that anyone who doesn't go to sex clubs (i.e. 99% of people) must be prudish or scared of sex (the 'your parents had sex at some point' bit).
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padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
yeah I will actually agree with you here. I think I was pretty clear in the original thread that the issue is/was never promiscuity, or people's fetishes or whatever. sex clubs, not my thing, other consenting adults wanna do it, 100% cool. same goes for (pretty much) whatever as long as all involved are - main point - mutually consenting. that's really where the whole PUA thing runs into trouble, granted it's a much grayer area than any kind of non-consensual act (also I hear (kinda) the argument that in a sense (some) women are at least open to being picked up & that this is all just an enhancement of what happens naturally - I don't really buy it, but I least hear it). really what it means is that like I been saying if c.lately & whoever wants to do their thing sure I'm not exactly thrilled by it but it's not something explicit where you can draw a definitive line, ultimately it's still up to each person to make decisions they find morally acceptable.
also I think anyway attacking a PUA thing specifically is a bit of missing the forest for the trees, in that it's largely symptomatic of broader issues in re: gender, gender relations, alienation, etc what have you anyway
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
oh but you are too clever my good man, I shall think fondly of this delightful and stirring repartee next time I'm skimming through one of your overwrought grad student philosophy reference diatribes on AIDS denialism and the like
(for the record - ahem - gina carano is a Muay Thai & MMA fighter, not a bodybuilder. bit of a difference. & not that matters, but no, I wouldn't mind a bit of manhandling, not at all. I think my Muay Thai would have to get a lot better first tho given that her last 2 boyfriends are arguably the best 2 American MT fighters of the last decade)
also for the PUAs sake I feel I should tell you you're not doing them any favors with all that Machivellian bit. yeah that's just what's needed for dating to become more realpolitik...
comelately
Wild Horses
Yes....but I remember mentioning going to the club to an older Dutch friend some time on, and although he probably wasn't the sort of person to go, he had certainly heard of the club and found the revelation very non-shocking.
With regards to padraig's last comments, I indeed find some pua tactics to be more than a little distasteful. I think running cold-reads where you say the same thing every time is over the line. I think ridiculously structured ways of getting past what is called 'last minute resistance' are pretty nasty etc. And as I suggested earlier, it is possible to be critical about some aspects of new-age thought while using other aspects of it for positive purposes. People josh about my little dance group, and fair enough I guess, I am the only UK male on it. However, there are several lesbians as well (who like me), and indeed around 45 women of all ages and background. And indeed part of what we get to do is discuss and play with these wider issues of gender, gender relations, alienation etc.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Even if you think that the techniques described in the book are not in themselves mysoginistic it's pretty hard to argue that the constant references to women as numbers from one and ten and the general level of constant and extreme objectification of women really is - and very much so.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Oh jesus, I'd forgotten that - I was just thinking about the thread about psychedelics and therapy, and his insistence that medication for a debilitating mental illness is bad because it robs people of their right to be artistically and romantically depressed, and that this goes doubly for psychedelics because it offends some student's notion of protecting the authenticity of his drug experience from the intangible corrupting tentacles of Kapital. Next up: the Apollo hoax?
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lanugo
von Verfall erzittern
Speaking of which, the documentary "House of Numbers" I mentioned back then which challenges the standard scientific/political theory of HIV/AIDS has actually been released ever since and I can only encourage everyone to watch it, do further research and make up their own mind. It is nothing short of mindblowing what the film has to say about the glaring confusion in the scientific community about the exact definition of AIDS, the shocking unreliability and inadequacy of every available HIV testing method, the cooking up of global AIDS statistics, and, most of all, the lack of definitive scientific evidence for a chain of causation between HIV and 'AIDS'. The film is certainly NOT promoting a conspiracy theory of any kind but merely gives a forum to numerous experts on the matter - renowned scientists, journalists, former UNAIDS employees, AIDS-infected patients - who raise well-founded doubts concerning the mainstream HIV/AIDS orthodoxy.
comelately
Wild Horses
I don't equate objectification with hatred as easily as you, but obviously you have a point. I think you will find that the numbers really aren't used that much anymore. There's an idea in some paradigms that you have to do certain things differently with '9s and 10s', but there is actually more involved in being a '9 or 10' than looks anyway and it has more to with one's perception of her value as perceived by other people than your personal 'objectification' - though in some cases as a (possibly pathetic excuse for a) human being, you will be attracted to somebody because you perceive others are attracted. As I say, a lot of paradigms don't really bother with numbers. That still leaves you with stuff like HBBigTits, which is not unproblematic, but night clubs are about sex and are going to be about objectification to one extent or another. As I said over a year ago, it wasn't all shamanic dance spaces in Leicester Square prior to 5 years ago.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Where's the banging-your-head-against-a-brick-wall emoticon?
This is the exact same logic as saying "But we're not denying Darwinian evolution, we're just questioning it [because we're tacitly hostile to it]". For evolution you can substitute all sorts of things - the historicity of the Holocaust, for example.
Your supreme un-selfawareness would be almost endearing if you weren't so fucking obnoxious at the same time.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
oh i remember that AIDS thread. i remember
i also remember Nomad being on form and patiently going through loads of things for Ianugo, although as a neat summary i'd say
was pretty helpful
i also remember Nomad being on form and patiently going through loads of things for Ianugo, although as a neat summary i'd say
was pretty helpful
Darwinian evolution most CERTAINLY needs to be questioned. many many aspects of his work, and their various interpretations, has been continually questioned since its publication by the scientific community, and to fruitful results.
on this PUA thing, the sexist and misogynistic dimensions involved is very much apparent and obvious to all. and here is someone actually involved in this stuff, who is saying that it is not necessarily all about sexism and misogyny, and that there are other dimensions which he claims are beneficial to his personal growth, and perhaps to others as well.
this is interesting. to me and maybe others. and i would like to read what he has to say without miserable fucks like you and padraig acting like dismissive self-righteous pricks from the get go. it's boring: "oh here is an easy target for us to make fun of, and we can act like the moral authority and come down on this guy, because it's safe and easy to attack someone who is into The Game".
it's much too easy to reduce these guys to the lowest stereotype image, and apparently that's all you are interested in doing. and this is not productive in the least. not to mention fucking ANNOYING.