What are your opinions on Pick Up Artists (PUAs) and "game"?

[AEmer]

@ DDL Regarding yours and Vectors discussion:

You're...being a bit patronizing on VectorM there. Perhaps it's due to you being a brit and him being...Swiss? German? Something not british, at least. I mean, this is broadly generalizing, but british politics is really bloody bad; you have what's (equivalent to) a two-party system, and your parties are woefully stagnant. Your government practices jerrymandering. And, lets not forget, you have what's essentially a senate where a good deal of the senators never come up for reelection, and so can do whatever they please. The trust in the british government is ridiculously low in brittain, whereas the trust in the Swiss government is ridiculously high in Switzerland.

Fact of the matter is, you probably don't share much of a common point of reference when it comes to politics.

The only commonality between democracy as such is the ethics that repressentative democracy rely on everywhere. There's disagreement as to what these ethics are, but some honest-to-god hold that repressentative democracy functions according to its stated aims; those of providing liberty, life and freedom for all through the machinations of a complicated beaurocracy.

You're free to disagree with this - and I do personally, being a proponent of direct democracy myself - but I think you're mistaken in your assertion that noone actually believes in the stated principles of democracy anymore. Many americans, in particular, seem to believe those principles so strongly it feels like I'm watching an edutainment cartoon when I listen to their arguments...and to me, that says that local political culture plays a huge part in where you stand on 'how democracy works'.

But I digress. The TL;DR: You come off patronizing, and I think that might be because you and VectorM don't share a common point of reference.

@ DDL regarding victimhood.
Look, what I'm trying to say is, if you know better than to do something, and you do it anyway, you don't get to claim you're a victim. This isn't just about the chance of deceit; this is about willfully taking a risk.

If I play the lottery, I know there's a very small chance of success. If I don't win, I don't get to claim victimhood because the lottery didn't turn out like I wanted it to. I'm personally responsible for my decision.

There are winners and losers on any some night stands. If you participate in one, you better make sure you get what you want out of it, because noone is in a better position to ensure that than yourself. The choice is on _you_.

This is not a blame the victim, paranoid delusion of a philosophy. This is an empowering philosphy. You're in control of what happens to you. You can say no. You can say yes. The only one you need to answer to is you. The natural extension of that is, when something happens that you don't like, and you knew better than to let things happen as they did, you don't get to blame anyone but yourself; this is fundamentally how you learn.

You mention the poor girl who regrets her decision the next day; but that girl should have decided to take that one night stand for one reason only: She wanted it for herself, right then and there. If she only did it out of some naive belief that the one night stand would only turn into a lasting relationship if she slept with the person immediately, guess what, not only should she have known better than to do that, I will bet that any girl I know of _would_ know better than to think that...and any girl who might not has no business going clubbing, because she's clearly self destructive in such situations.

Anyway, this is all about the ethics of the supposed victimhood here. That's what I'm objecting to right now. I'm not arguing that players are good people, that they're innocent and so on - but establishing that they aren't predators stalking victims is pretty darn important to taking that subject on.

[DDL]

Is it, though? Because that then comes back to "it's ok to be a douche if you're only being douchey to people who should know better."

My entire central point is one of "no, no it's not ok, regardless of the circumstances".

Under your viewpoint, presumably, prostitutes murdered by jack the ripper should've known better than to be prostitutes in victorian london: "they don't get to play the victim".

I would say "Yes they do". I would argue that the right to not be actively deceived SHOULD be a fucking given, and that while clearly this is an unlikely ideal as long as we live in a world swimming in deception, it is still a vastly more laudable aim than pursuing the right to actively deceive anyone because hey: they should know better amirite? Because down that route madness lies.

If we get to the point where something as basic as "trusting your fellow man with ANYTHING" is considered a high risk activity that totally clears them of any and all culpability for fucking you over, then we're doomed as a civilised species. We'll be living in boarded up bunkers in a decade, shooting each other for cans of beans.


Back to Douchebag in Bar (TM):

let's say DiB is schmoozing up some chick, telling her everything he knows she wants to hear. She should know better, right? It's not HIS fault she's falling for it.

Ok, this time DiB is schmoozing up some chick who's less keen, but he's buying her a whole ton of drinks. She should know better, right? It's not HIS fault she's falling for it.

Still agree?

Ok, this time DiB is schmoozing up some chick and he's slipped a roofie into her drink. Hell, she should TOTALLY have seen that one coming, right? So it's totally her fault.

Still agree?

This time he just says "Hi there!" and then smacks her with a monkey wrench. Again, TOTALLY should have seen that one, right?

Is this reductio ad absurdum? OH HOLY FUCK YES, but that is kinda my thing.
Point is, one party (i.e. the female) does not change behaviour here, yet comes off worse in every scenario, because of the actions of the douchey party. He is guilty of deception (and increasingly illegal behaviour) in each of these cases, she is guilty of nothing. According to your reasoning she is in control of what happens to her, yet clearly at some point on my horrendously crude sliding scale this is no longer the case.

And this is every bit a legal minefield: the news is full of stories about men who have gone to bars, slept with very drunk women, and then been accused of rape. Sometimes it sounds ludicrous (she was incredibly drunk already, and had gone out looking for sex), sometimes it sounds highly plausible (he bought her drink after drink after drink until she could barely stand), but as soon as you start shifting the onus for responsibility wholly to the deceived you essentially legitimise exactly this sort of behaviour.


We should not be aiming for a world in which deception is expected and the onus of responsibility lies wholly with those stupid enough to be deceived, because that is a horrible, horrible, miserable fucking world.

[AEmer]

Again, and I hate to be repeating myself, but the discussion of culpability you're trying to have is _not_ the one I'm trying to have - not yet - because there's a more fundamental discussion that must come first. Responsibility and victimhood, and how those terms relate to the hypothetical situation we're discussing is fundamental to having a discussion about the culpability of a supposed miscreant.

Without establishing common ground on what it means to be a victim, and how much responsibility you hold in your own hands, it doesn't make sense to discuss what it means to perpetrate a misdeed. Fundamentally, being a victim is about rights, and rights are about freedoms - those of yourself, and those of other people. It's a hairy discussion, but it really is where our disagreement lies.

Because, to be unequivocal: If I presumed that, as you seem to think, the woman in all those examples is a victim, there is no other choice than to conclude that the perpetrator is a reprehensible douchebag. It follows logically.

But in the examples you bring up, I think the woman you mention is a victim in some of them, I don't think she's a victim in others. In other words, the devil is in _those_ details, the presumption of victimhood. That is where we disagree. Conflating the issue via a reduction ad absurdum when I believe there is a very clear seperation between the examples you mention doesn't do us any good. We disagree on the central premise.

As such, I'm not interested in discussing someone who uses roofies on women; for one, it is _not_ the issue at hand, for another, it is not even arbitrarily related to the issue at hand, and for a third, if it were the issue at hand, we would agree! By broadening the discussion like that, you're including all sorts of meaningless aspects that only serve to muddy up where our disagreement lies.

So. Either you'll agree to have a discussion about victimhood, what it means to be a victim, and who can reasonably be said to be victims, or it's litterally pointless to continue; at least that's how I see it.

[VectorM]

How can you be old enough to have semi-civilised conversations on the internet yet still come out with things like "why do you trust said people to run society, like the vast majority of people do"?

Nobody fucking trusts politicians. Political office basically attracts exactly the wrong sort of person. This is pretty much the fundamental basis of almost all political discourse, ever. The most optimistic attitude to politicians is "perhaps they won't screw things up more than they already are". I am astounded that this is, apparently, news to you.

People who are deceitful, manipulative, power-hungry and fundamentally amoral are terrible choices for leaders, but tend to do incredibly well in politics, whereas people who are honest, principled power-averse and earnest are much better choices for leaders, but do terribly, because politics is not about making the world a better place, it's about DOING WELL IN POLITICS.

Are you seriously this daft, or are you intentionally strawmannig me? I KNOW all of this is true. I KNOW that everybody hates politicians. Which is EXACTLY why the VAST majority of people are complete hypocrites when it comes to accepting that politicians run their lives. "I hate politicians, I distrust them completely, but I will let them run my lives"

[Cybernetic pig]

There is fuck all you can do about it though. appear on question time and go off on one? Organise a protest without it ending in mindless violence? People have been speaking out for years but Politics, politics never changes.

They are all controlled by the illuminati anyway

I wont pretend to be an expert though, I pay as little attention to the pretentious old men as possible.

[DaveW]

1. So you're saying most people then are selfish? I can guarantee that most guys who buy flowers and shit on valentines day do it not because they want to but because they expect a result in return. Good thing we agree on something.

2. Excellent.

3. Why on Earth is that a good state of affairs? This guy goes through life fearing rejection so much that he won't try to initiate conversation with a woman he likes because he is scared. How is that a good thing? Surely it would be better to simply keep trying?

4. People will judge you anyway. You can't stop that. What part is manipulation if you are honest with the person and indicate you wish to have sex with them? The girl might want it too, you know

5. You can have no idea if this is someone you want to know further. You might like one aspect about their looks, something they're wearing, their behavior etc. So you approach and find out. But if you're too scared to do anything, that's not a good state of affairs. Then you will never find out.

6. Game does not teach this, I can assure you. Sex is an end result, but it's not the only thing that game teaches. The word manipulation again. What if you approach, the girl knows what is happening and does indeed want to have sex with you? I mean if girls are so open to manipulation as you say they are, they must be pretty dumb.

7. How is it not relevant? You claim it's not hard to spot. Then what are the signs? What's the difference between a really social guy going about and approaching people at a bar, club, event etc and someone using game? You claim its a douche tactic, but what part of it is the douche part? A guy approaches 5 different girls that night and gets blown out each time. Is that a guy using game? Or just a sociable guy trying to meet new people?

1. Yes, most people are selfish.

2. I'm not suggesting most people are like me in that regard - the difference with gifts is that it's a mutual thing; both sides of the couple do it. The problem with using that behaviour to justify 'Game' is that it's purely the male attempting to trick the female.

3. Of course he should keep trying, but that doesn't mean he should pretend to be someone/something he's not to try and trick a women into liking him. That's an even worse state of affairs.

4. But that's my entire point - by trying to manipulate someone and mask your intentions you're absolutely not being honest. There's no problem if you're upfront about it.

5. If the women in question does not want to know you further, it is not your fucking right to try and make her. This is such a basic concept: you don't have the right to make decisions on behalf of other people and try and manipulate them when you don't get your way.

6. If you're seriously trying to claim the intention of pickup isn't to have sex, I don't know what to say to that. Also: re-read what I said. The intention of manipulation. I make no call on whether many women are actually manipulated or not, or make any judgement on them deciding that they still want to sleep with you even though you're a douchebag.

The problem isn't just the act, it's the intention of the act.

I can't really think of a good analogy here, but I feel I need to use one to explain another simple concept you're not grasping. If I steal something from someone, and they realise I've done it and say "Well, I didn't like it anyway. Keep it". - does that make it right to steal on basis that people might not mind it?

7. I'm not drawing a particular distinction between 'womanising douchebag' and 'game-using douchebag'. But the difference is intended manipulation of a woman which the other guy may not be doing. If he is - then he's a douchebag too.

Are you seriously this daft, or are you intentionally strawmannig me? I KNOW all of this is true. I KNOW that everybody hates politicians. Which is EXACTLY why the VAST majority of people are complete hypocrites when it comes to accepting that politicians run their lives. "I hate politicians, I distrust them completely, but I will let them run my lives"

Perhaps you've never heard the term 'realist' before. I hate most politicians and I distrust most of them completely; I would love to see a political class that is truthful and trustworthy - but there isn't one. Your attitude seems to be "If you can't have a perfect political class, you're a hypocrite for wanting to live in modern society" - which is wrong on so, so many levels. I hate politicians, but it's a lot better than anarchy.

I..can't believe I just had to explain that.

(EDIT: Plus DDL beat me to it anyway)

[DDL]

Ah, VectorM. Every time I start to feel like maybe I was too harsh on you, you go and remind me exactly why I treat you like a child.

So "You are a hypocrite" should really have been "You are a hypocrite in the same sense that absolutely everyone is the entire world over, so really, this is not exactly worth noting."

Of course, the problem with politics, as noted, is that people don't WANT to run every aspect of their lives. They don't WANT the buck to stop with them when it comes to deciding every last fucking random minutiae of foreign policy. Not only because it's a fuckton of responsibility, but because it takes fucking aaaages. Holding national referenda for every political decision? Totally unworkable.

The ideal is to have this outsourced to dedicated people who want this responsibility and are worthy holders OF that responsibility. The ideal is unachievable, thus you end up with dedicated people who want this responsibility because they're powerhungry fuckbags. This is suboptimal, obviously, but still MORE workable than national referenda for everything, or everyone living in a nation of one, like a crazy libertarian commune.

Shitty compromise beats unworkable situation every time. Them's the breaks. Is this hypocrisy? Or is it just basic common sense?

[VectorM]

You both need to read some Rothbard.

is that people don't WANT to run every aspect of their lives. They don't WANT the buck to stop with them when it comes to deciding every last fucking random minutiae of foreign policy.

Things like foreign policy is exactly the type of thing that people, indeed, don't want to run, but don't actually need anyone to run (by using the force of government). Politicians are not there, because we think they are useful for that, nobody in our society consciously made the decisions to hire propitiations to make said desicions. They have always been here and they have always tried to convince us we need them, when in reality we don't. And politics controls things way more personal than foreign relations, you know.

Holding national referenda for every political decision? Totally unworkable.

If politicians didn't have that much power to begin with (and there is no reason they should), then this isn't an issue.

We wouldn't need a national referendum over gay marriage, if politicians didn't have the power to regulate marriage to begin with, and there is no logical reason why they should do that, as they do now.

[bobby 55]

Things like foreign policy is exactly the type of thing that people, indeed, don't want to run, but don't actually need anyone to run (by using the force of government). Politicians are not there, because we think they are useful for that, nobody in our society consciously made the decisions to hire propitiations to make said desicions. They have always been here and they have always tried to convince us we need them, when in reality we don't. And politics controls things way more personal than foreign relations, you know.

Yeah, people actually prefer others to organize things for them. I can't see too many hospitals, highways, utilities and so on in this non-political utopia. It does stem from our tribal days you know. Elder men, tribal leaders, over time morphs to Aldermen, which in this country means a member of local government.

[DaveW]

Things like foreign policy is exactly the type of thing that people, indeed, don't want to run, but don't actually need anyone to run (by using the force of government). Politicians are not there, because we think they are useful for that, nobody in our society consciously made the decisions to hire propitiations to make said desicions. They have always been here and they have always tried to convince us we need them, when in reality we don't. And politics controls things way more personal than foreign relations, you know..

Care to explain why we don't need foreign policy?

Also; by participating in elections, people are making a conscious decision to allow politicians to make said choices. That's what a vote is. And people do abstain from voting if they don't think people should be given certain powers. Oh, and while it wasn't entirely policy making, that same British government masterminded a scheme where the public got involved/took over local services. Empowering the people! People don't want politicians doing that! Turns out no one cared, and wanted the government to run said services.

We wouldn't need a national referendum over gay marriage, if politicians didn't have the power to regulate marriage to begin with, and there is no logical reason why they should do that, as they do now.

Because without regulating marriage, marriage (as we know it) wouldn't exist.



A thought experiment for some 'Game' defenders - particularly Hashi, I guess:

Imagine a scenario where you approach a 'random', you wear your mask, use your material (negging, sarging - etc.) and it works. Would you be at all comfortable - at that very moment - to admit to what you've just done; that you've approached her with the intent of either 'bettering yourself' or having sex with her, using techniques you learned from a book? And do you think she would want to continue, at that point?

2 questions, pretty simple answers. I suspect that unless you are batshit insane and/or delusional, you couldn't answer yes to the second question. Therefore your idea that "it's fine, because they might be ok with it" (which is a fucking creepy mentality to have) would be rendered kaput.

[VectorM]

Because without regulating marriage, marriage (as we know it) wouldn't exist.

So?

Care to explain why we don't need foreign policy?

Burden of proof rests on you. Why DO we need foregn policy, in the context of people like you and me?

by participating in elections, people are making a conscious decision to allow politicians to make said choices.

And if I decide not to participate, that means I don't allow politicians to make said choices and I am therfore not affected by them, right? Oh, wait, I am still forced to do so. DEMOCRACY!

[G-Flex]

Social decision-making is... well, just that. There's usually some system by which we collectivize important decision-making, including the interpretation and execution of social mores/laws. Generally, the more complex your society is, the more complex those mechanisms become (unless you're cool with a totalitarian despot, and even they need a measure of bureaucracy and hierarchy to manage a large population). Even in tribal culture, there are methods by which group-wide decisions are made, and people to defer to in order to make, or help make, those decisions.

So yes, we need politicians, or at least some way to collectively organize society and make collective decisions. Really, that's what all of government boils down to: Establishing some kind of consensus regarding what's lawful or unlawful, where to allocate resources, how to handle affairs with other political entities, and so forth.

The reason we need "foreign policy" is because relationships between nations (or other social/political entities) are just as real and complex as relationships between individuals. If a political entity such as a tribe or a nation interacts with another such entity, it will necessarily need to manage that relationship in some collective manner. Each entity effectively has agency and needs a way to exercise that agency such that they operate as discrete entities with each other.

The only time this wouldn't be the case is if the political entity involved does not have that sort of agency, and has no means to collectively make decisions or interact with another such entity, in which case the entity does not exist as such in the first place. A nation with no means by which to rule or govern itself, or interact with other nations, is simply not a nation in the first place by any sensible definition, and if it does have that capacity, then it's going to have relationships with other nations, which is precisely what "foreign policy" is in the first place.

[bobby 55]

Eloquently put G-Flex.

[DaveW]

Because without regulating marriage, marriage (as we know it) wouldn't exist.

So?

So if marriage as we know it didn't exist, then a lot of people wouldn't want to get married. So in the pursuit of your 'freedom' from government power, society would destroying something it wants.

Sounds legit.

Burden of proof rests on you. Why DO we need foregn policy, in the context of people like you and me?

I guess I can't really provide any examples on why foreign policy is important, at all. Nope - completely unimportant to me as a human being.

And if I decide not to participate, that means I don't allow politicians to make said choices and I am therfore not affected by them, right? Oh, wait, I am still forced to do so. DEMOCRACY!

Feel free to start your own country, don't throw a tantrum because most people in society think your ideas are stupid. Your idea of democracy seems to be everyone agreeing with your ideas. Sounds farmiliar.

[Cybernetic pig]

Yeah, people actually prefer others to organize things for them. I can't see too many hospitals, highways, utilities and so on in this non-political utopia. It does stem from our tribal days you know. Elder men, tribal leaders, over time morphs to Aldermen, which in this country means a member of local government.

Oh yes we need Government for society to run properly. Just wish there wasn't so much corruption. But again people speak up, campaign etc but nothing really changes.
Still NOTHING can be perfect, and humankind has come a long way.
If some party were to stupidly overthrow the government somehow, they would need to take thier place, and they would most likely just fuck everything up even if they had good intentions.

Still, the gap between poor and rich needs to shrunk a touch (not too much, still need a gap) and they need to stop wasting money on retarded things like monuments. But I suppose shit like that brings in tourists. Speaking of: are the Olympics profitable for a countries economy somehow?

How will things change when robots start replacing jobs? More unemployment. How do we counter that? Share jobs deemed low responsibility but increased wages?