Randomness thread, part two.

[boost]

edit - for the whole muslim debate going on I have to feel it's much more culture over religion in the points that people are making. The media really do push a terrorist = muslim agenda.

What is the source of the culture? And even if it isn't a religious source, the problematic culture we are discussing is defined by its religion. So even still, reform needs to happen in the religion so that killing people for blasphemy is not seen to be supported by the religion. Whether Islam is the source of these acts, or simply a safe haven for the people championing and carrying them out, Islam needs to figure its shit out.

[boost]

How much do people think the same type of belief is held in muslim countries on Christian beliefs?

I like where you're going, however I think the more apt question replaces "Christian beliefs" with "secularism."

[spoonitnow]

What "people" respect, or consider manly, couldn't be of less interest to me when I choose my behavior.

However, your respect matters to me, and I'm stymied.

I feel that even in my initial presentation I was conversational. I openly digressed about the colon and comma and admitted that I asked for outside advice. In my apology, I accepted your criticism of my own grammar.

I welcome the criticism. I'm not claiming to be perfect at grammar.

I thought you were saying, "If you're going to tell someone about something, you better be an expert."
So I guess I misunderstand you.

The bold is a problem that a lot of people have, and it's unfortunate for a wide range of reasons.

[wufwugy]

An issue with discussing Islam is that most people who do it know little about it, myself included. Anything I can provide is generalizations like "correlation =! causation" and "various sects with various beliefs exist".

Beyond that, I think, on the issue of extremism, that religion is redundant. You can combat violent extremism by combating violent extremism. It gets hairy when trying to define the cause of extremism as a broad doctrine. Additionally, I don't think attacking anybody's religion does any favors. Even when the criticism is correct, people put their dukes up when they think their beliefs need defending.

Basically I'm saying that I don't think pointing the finger at Islam provides any benefit. How about we kill some fucking terrorists instead, religious correlations notwithstanding?

I'm interested if anybody believes that last line to be the wrong approach i.e. if anybody believes it's important to focus on Islam as a way of getting at extremism.

[Savy]

[boost]

An issue with discussing Islam is that most people who do it know little about it, myself included. Anything I can provide is generalizations like "correlation =! causation" and "various sects with various beliefs exist".

Beyond that, I think, on the issue of extremism, that religion is redundant. You can combat violent extremism by combating violent extremism. It gets hairy when trying to define the cause of extremism as a broad doctrine. Additionally, I don't think attacking anybody's religion does any favors. Even when the criticism is correct, people put their dukes up when they think their beliefs need defending.

I like where you're going with this. If you can be seen as attacking a religion, you've already lost the fight with many, including many non-believers. This happens because people conflate religion, as in a set of ideas held to be divine, with people grouped by religious belief. So maybe this approach is a dead end to ending violent extremism, or maybe this distinction needs to be better articulated.

I think the problem with abandoning a critique of religion is that it reinforces religion's undeserved status of sanctity and being beyond critique. No idea should be beyond critique, most certainly not ones based on supposed supernatural events and revelations.

Basically I'm saying that I don't think pointing the finger at Islam provides any benefit. How about we kill some fucking terrorists instead, religious correlations notwithstanding?

This is probably far more counter productive. They want the fight. Why should we give it to them? I don't want to come across as a pure pacifist, because I do think there are times in which you need to employ violence to curb more extreme violence, but being baited into a fight with Muslim extremist just creates more Muslim extremist.

I'm interested if anybody believes that last line to be the wrong approach i.e. if anybody believes it's important to focus on Islam as a way of getting at extremism.

I think it is likely one avenue, while other methods can be worked on simultaneously. I don't want anyone to be put in camps, I don't want to "nuke 'em!", I just want everyone to be able to be able to participate in honest debate and draw whatever cartoons they fancy drawing without having to put their lives on the line in doing so. Multiple strategies can accomplish this, and I think we shouldn't shy away from this one simply because it offends the religious and sets off political correctness alarms among progressives.

[wufwugy]

This is probably far more counter productive. They want the fight. Why should we give it to them? I don't want to come across as a pure pacifist, because I do think there are times in which you need to employ violence to curb more extreme violence, but being baited into a fight with Muslim extremist just creates more Muslim extremist.

I think they cause so much damage to people that they need to be fought and defeated. I don't agree with the principle behind the idea that fighting them just creates more of them. We tend to not allow ourselves that logic elsewhere.

They want the fight because they want to keep hurting people and don't want to be stopped. Another primary reason is that they believe that engaging the US will bankrupt the US and will finally restore the Islamic world ruling over the Levant. The latter is not an economically sound idea and the former shouldn't stop anybody from stopping them.

I'm a realpolitik guy. Geopolitics is ugly, and I think the "puppy dogs and ice cream" view of the world the left-wing espouses just makes things worse. That ideology has been on display for years now by the Obama administration and it has been doing untold damage. I think the kinds of lessons we need to learn are that the Iraq War failed in administrative efforts, not that bad elements should be allowed to fester.

[wufwugy]

I think it is irresponsible to think that the US shouldn't be the "world police" (as the phrase regarding the Middle East goes). Popular sentiment has dug deeply into this and the Obama administration has operated largely on this principle. All it has done is allocate enforcement to less capable, more corrupt governments.

[boost]

They want the fight because they want to keep hurting people and don't want to be stopped

This doesn't make sense. How does provoking the preeminent world super power advance the goal you assume for them?

The CIA funnelled money and arms to the Mujahideen, because they saw Afghanistan as the Soviets' Vietnam. They hoped the Soviets would go bankrupt due to a prolonged war.

What makes this idea economically unsound?

I think there is clearly a problem with America being the world police. There is a problem with Nato recruiting everybody and their dim witted cousin to join. There are regional powers perfectly capable of dealing with this stuff. Sure they aren't as capable as us, and there may be higher levels of corruption, but they'll figure it out, and they won't be seen as Western imperialists. Insisting that we must be the world police, because everything would fall apart otherwise-- it's missing the fact that being the world police means you'll almost certainly lose the PR war. Your citizens will resent the role, allies will resent it, your enemy will use it to fuel recruitment, it's lose lose.

Also, I have no clue what "puppy dogs and ice cream" refers to in any context, but certainly not this one.

[BooG690]

The bold is a problem that a lot of people have, and it's unfortunate for a wide range of reasons.

I wanted to say this but I didn't want it to look like I was picking on someone for disagreeing with me. Playing well with others is pretty important, in my eyes. While I understand the whole "I'm gonna do my own thing and not care what others think" thing, the idea of not caring about earning respect is troublesome.

[wufwugy]

This doesn't make sense. How does provoking the preeminent world super power advance the goal you assume for them?

I phrased that really poorly. I meant that they're causing serious problems; therefore the fight gets brought to them, reasonably so.

The CIA funnelled money and arms to the Mujahideen, because they saw Afghanistan as the Soviets' Vietnam. They hoped the Soviets would go bankrupt due to a prolonged war.

What makes this idea economically unsound?

The short and vague answer is because central banks control the nominal economy. That basically means that demand is a nominal issue. For the most part the Fed keeps the nominal economy stable. Which means any bankrupting by war would come via supply constraints.

Afghanistan didn't bankrupt the USSR. That tends to be something touted by all sorts of people, but I haven't seen much in academia that accepts the theory. Al Qaeda's declared intention has been to bankrupt the US by getting it overextended in the Middle East. I wouldn't put an ounce of respect into al Qaeda's understanding of how to bankrupt a nation.

I think there is clearly a problem with America being the world police. There is a problem with Nato recruiting everybody and their dim witted cousin to join. There are regional powers perfectly capable of dealing with this stuff. Sure they aren't as capable as us, and there may be higher levels of corruption, but they'll figure it out, and they won't be seen as Western imperialists. Insisting that we must be the world police, because everything would fall apart otherwise-- it's missing the fact that being the world police means you'll almost certainly lose the PR war. Your citizens will resent the role, allies will resent it, your enemy will use it to fuel recruitment, it's lose lose.

World police is certainly not without problems.

Most US allies stuck in conflict zones want more US involvement. Iraq and Afghanistan initially rallied behind the West, only to be soured by the poor administrative efforts of the US military. Probably the main strategic problem was that the Bush administration focused mostly on the marine side of the things and little on the constructing civic institutions side of things. Obama hasn't fixed the problem and instead has had a pseudo-Pontius Pilate approach.

Also, I have no clue what "puppy dogs and ice cream" refers to in any context, but certainly not this one.

It's basically naivete of the hard truths of the world. Not all leftism is like this, but the US one likes to bring pen and paper to a bazooka fight. It isn't that pen and paper is not needed (it's very needed), just not when fisticuffs going down.

[spoonitnow]

I wanted to say this but I didn't want it to look like I was picking on someone for disagreeing with me. Playing well with others is pretty important, in my eyes. While I understand the whole "I'm gonna do my own thing and not care what others think" thing, the idea of not caring about earning respect is troublesome.

I have a point I want to make about intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and feeling like you have permission to improve yourself with either, but I need to prepare it with a small amount of information that might help illustrate what I mean with a visual.

In the parlance of game/TRP/neo-masculinity, there are essentially two spectra that men will fall on. The first spectrum is how interested they are in being a part of the social hierarchy, and the second is how effective they are in being a part of the social hierarchy when they need to be. This creates four "quadrants" when the two spectra are laid across each other. I'm totally about to break out MSPaint since a visual is worth 1,000 words at this point:



Game teaches men to be better at improving on the horizontal scale (being able to engage better socially). A side effect sometimes happens with this when otherwise undesirable or self-loathing men are "given permission" to take part in self-improvement in that they start naturally rising on the vertical scale, though this isn't necessary.

So here's my point: Essentially, the vertical axis determines whether they're driven by intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, and the horizontal axis determines their confidence in pursuing self-improvement along those lines. Without sufficient confidence (and with it the ability to endure failure while improving at something), then someone can never improve no matter what type of motivation they have.

For good measure, I'm going to break down these four "quadrants" based on what types of motivation they have and what types of self-improvement they can feel like they're "allowed" to participate in.

Alpha - In the alpha quadrant, men are almost always driven by extrinsic motivation because of their high desire to be effective in the social hierarchy. Their ability matches this desire, which creates the confidence required for self-improvement, so they're able to get fulfillment from this. Online poker specifically and people who are self-employed in general tend to have lower percentages of this type of man than the average population for obvious reasons.

Sigma - In the sigma quadrant, men are almost always driven by intrinsic motivation. Their ability to enter and be effective in the social hierarchy when it suits them or when it's necessary gives them confidence in themselves, and this drives their self-improvement in a similar way. Online poker specifically and people who are self-employed in general tend to have larger percentages of this type of man than the average population for obvious reasons.

Gamma - In the gamma quadrant, we have a high desire to be effective in the social hierarchy with a low level of skill in actually being able to. This translates to extrinsic motivation without the confidence required to really push themselves to "go get it." The supplicating "white knight" type of social justice warrior/male feminist usually falls into this category as well. The general idea is that they don't really believe that they're good enough, so they sabotage themselves outwardly so that everyone can see all of these good reasons why they can't do better (so that they have what they believe to be social validation of their failure). The recent case of Andreas Lubitz is a good example of extreme. He'd been trying to get this girl back, and he just bought her a brand new car (ie: lack of social prowess) which she rejected. He was extremely bitter about his position in life (the combination of wanting to be good socially and not knowing how). Then he turned around and became our most recent mass murderer because he wanted to make his name known (something he said specifically to the girl who rejected him).

Omega - In the omega quadrant, we have a low desire to be effective socially with a low level of skill to be able to do so when needed. Video game addiction and porn addiction are at their highest with these types, and their lack of confidence will mean that they'll basically have a sort of narcissistic rage if you try to take them out of their comfort zone. As a result, their intrinsic motivation is only realized in situations where they have a high degree of control (like video games or online discussion boards) because they don't have the confidence required to endure failure when trying something new. Elliot Roger is an excellent example of where this can lead at its extreme levels. If you read his manifesto, you'll see that he didn't really have a desire to fit into the normal social hierarchy or even to be good at dealing with the social hierarchy as it is.

[BooG690]

Sad that you probably lost 60% of your audience simply due to using the word "alpha" here. I blame this on the seduction community for being so cunty. At the same time though, they've great information to share.

Anywho, nice graph. I agree with the quadrant breakdown though I was never aware of the names of divisions. I see a lot of your gamma and omegas at grad school in my computer science courses. A lot of them are geniuses without the soft skills to sell themselves to would-be employers and grab work. Speaking to them, they give off vibes of pent-up anger (and I wonder how much of that is sexual frustration).

It's cliche but it's ALWAYS best to work on yourself first. Building confidence by crushing it at the gym is one way of doing so. With this confidence, being social becomes easier. Simply by attempting to be social, social practice (an underrated concept) is put in. Talk to EVERYONE (this is a seduction community technique, FYI). This makes being social easier, helps realize social mistakes, and claws people closer to actually understanding what it takes to live in a society with other people.

Respect earns respect. I've always thought it as that simple.

I can probably ramble on and on about the importance of being social. It makes for happier people. Go out there guys. Talk to a stranger.

[spoonitnow]

Sad that you probably lost 60% of your audience simply due to using the word "alpha" here. I blame this on the seduction community for being so cunty. At the same time though, they've great information to share.

Anywho, nice graph. I agree with the quadrant breakdown though I was never aware of the names of divisions. I see a lot of your gamma and omegas at grad school in my computer science courses. A lot of them are geniuses without the soft skills to sell themselves to would-be employers and grab work. Speaking to them, they give off vibes of pent-up anger (and I wonder how much of that is sexual frustration).

It's cliche but it's ALWAYS best to work on yourself first. Building confidence by crushing it at the gym is one way of doing so. With this confidence, being social becomes easier. Simply by attempting to be social, social practice (an underrated concept) is put in. Talk to EVERYONE (this is a seduction community technique, FYI). This makes being social easier, helps realize social mistakes, and claws people closer to actually understanding what it takes to live in a society with other people.

Respect earns respect. I've always thought it as that simple.

I can probably ramble on and on about the importance of being social. It makes for happier people. Go out there guys. Talk to a stranger.

The PUA/seduction community (a small subset of the overall game/TRP/neo-masculinity community) became synonymous with scumbags for three major reasons. Two of these have a lot of merit, and one is bullshit.

The first reason is that when people realized they could make a lot of money with it, the market started being flooded with every Tom, Dick and Harry who wanted to make a quick buck. Many of them turned to more and more outrageous marketing strategies because of the increased levels of competition, and this put a bad taste in the mouths of people who were exposed to this type of systematic method for increasing social prowess. This has a lot of merit, and I don't think any reasonable person who is active in the game/TRP/neo-masculinity community would argue otherwise.

The second reason is that a lot of the truths of how social dynamics really work are difficult to accept. I gave an earlier example in this thread or another of a guy who is "friend-zoned" by a girl as the result of doing exactly what the girl said she wanted. The idea that she either doesn't actually know what she wants or lied about what she wants is very difficult to reconcile. This has a lot of merit from a psychological basis.

As an aside, this dynamic is exactly what the "red pill" analogy was so good initially because it requires seeing the ugly truth instead of the fairy tale that you've been force-fed from the time you were born. It also fits because the older you are, the more difficult it is to accept reality (remember Neo flipping the fuck out initially). This red pill analogy has been completely played out at this point, however, by people who more or less just use it to sound cool. It's an analogy that's been used entirely too much for entirely too large of a range of ideas, many of which are pretty weak analogies, so it doesn't hold the power of an analogy as it used to.

The third reason, and the only one of the list that I really have a problem with, is that the idea of empowering men to be able to actively and systematically improve socially is very threatening to today's politically correct, feminine-centric society. So much has been done to "tear down the patriarchy" that anything that tries to empower men gets labeled misogyny, etc.

[spoonitnow]

Why the Word "Alpha" Turns People Off

On the topic of the labels alpha (in particular), sigma, gamma and omega, they're just a naming convention for the sake of convenience. The use of the word alpha has been played out more than "the red pill," as if that should even be possible. I'll try to explain to the few readers I have left where this came from, what it means and its importance in improving at being effective socially.

There's a spectrum of alpha and beta, and most people make the mistake of judging actions by saying doing X is alpha or doing Y is beta. This is not the correct use of the terms. The alpha/beta spectrum is just as much an evaluation of the context (also known as frame) of the action and not just the action itself. In fact, almost any single action can be considered extremely alpha or extremely beta depending on the surrounding circumstances. While it applies to all social interaction, there are always times to perform things in an alpha way, and there are always times to perform thing in a beta way. This balance should typically be more in favor of the alpha by approximately a 2:1 ratio as a general rule to give you an idea of what you're aiming at. When this gets too out of balance in either direction, you start running into certain types of problems no matter the situation, but the "correct" balance could change depending on circumstances.

Quick example: In the context of seduction specifically, alpha actions build attraction, and beta actions build comfort. A man's wife completely bitches him out for 30 minutes because he left a plate on the table? Too much beta and not enough alpha. A man's wife constantly worries that he's going to cheat on her and feels completely neglected like he doesn't care about her at all? Too much alpha and not enough beta.

Along these lines, you can have ideas of "good alpha," "bad alpha," "good beta" and "bad beta." Good alpha usually has a touch of comfort, and bad alpha is typically pure asshole. Good beta typically has a touch of attraction, and bad beta is usually pure supplication.

In game (aka the study of social prowess or applied charisma), the context of your actions is known as frame. You can have either a weak frame or a strong frame. A weak frame means that you're doing something from a position of weakness, and a strong frame means that you're doing something from a position of strength. Frame can drastically change whether an action is good or bad inside of the context of alpha or beta. Generally speaking, a strong frame will lead to a good action, and a weak frame will lead to a bad action.

Another quick example: In the context of a marriage, if a man gets his wife flowers because she bitched about him never getting her flowers, then that's a weak frame that makes getting flowers bad beta. However, if a man gets his wife flowers just because he fucking feels like it, then that's a stronger frame, and that can very easily be good beta. While most people would think of getting flowers as an inherently beta action, there is still a correct and incorrect way to do it.

Since I just gave an example of good/bad beta, I'll do the same thing with alpha. Being a total asshole for the sake of being an asshole (ie: push-push-push-push instead of push-pull-push-pull) is bad alpha when it's done over the top for too long. Basically it turns you into a bully instead of a leader. Being an asshole at moments with playful teasing that isn't taken too far, on the other hand, is good alpha.

I've already typed entirely too much, but maybe that will clear some things up for the 2 people still reading this far.

[BooG690]

The third reason, and the only one of the list that I really have a problem with, is that the idea of empowering men to be able to actively and systematically improve socially is very threatening to today's politically correct, feminine-centric society. So much has been done to "tear down the patriarchy" that anything that tries to empower men gets labeled misogyny, etc.

Damn Spoon. Nobody would disagree that you're one of the better posters around but this last paragraph: Nail. Head. BOOM. (I'm obviously good at words)

As for your last post, good stuff as well. A lot of this "alpha" mess spewed by the seduction community resulted in men not respecting each other. Subtly putting another man down to give off the perception of dominance became a thing. It became "manufactured dominance" by systematically looking for ways to put others down. While teasing is one thing, putting others down (with the intent to lower their self-esteem) is always uncalled for.

My point is that I see "being alpha" as being the dude that is respected by others for EARNING that respect by giving off positivity.

Spoon used the example of getting your woman (the last two words there have gotten me into hot water with some feminists. I find it crazy that there are people in this world that are so sensitive, they take offense to that.) flowers. Spoon pointed out that society sees the act of getting flowers for your significant other is inherently beta. I personally think it as alpha (I hate this word. Let's replace it with respected, or something) if you're doing it as a means to show [respect/affection/appreciation/etc.]. If you're doing it as a way to wiggle your way out of the dog house, ugh.

Even me showing respect for Spoon's quality posts can be seen by others as "beta" simply due to my pushing a man up (there's gotta be a better way to phrase that. Again, I good at words) instead of putting him down. That kills me.

What's my point? I really don't know. Respect each other? Yeah, that.

[spoonitnow]

There's a lot to cover here that I want to comment on, so I'm going to try to break it down part-by-part.

Damn Spoon. Nobody would disagree that you're one of the better posters around but this last paragraph: Nail. Head. BOOM. (I'm obviously good at words)

This basically comes down to one thing: Feminism in its modern iteration (third wave) is not about equality. Instead, it's about advancing the interests of privileged, white women. Feminists of a previous generation are completely attacked by this new breed of idiots. Warren Farrell, one of the most important male proponents of second wave feminism has been picked apart endlessly just to give one example. The difference is that Farrell is for equality and third wave feminism is not, and that's the source of the conflict.

"Everything went well until the mid-seventies when the National Organization of Women (which he was a member of the board of the NYC chapter 3x, more than any man ever) came out against the presumption of joint custody [of children following divorces]. I couldn't believe the people I thought were pioneers in equality were saying that women should have the first option to have children or not to have children—that children should not have equal rights to their dad."

As for your last post, good stuff as well. A lot of this "alpha" mess spewed by the seduction community resulted in men not respecting each other. Subtly putting another man down to give off the perception of dominance became a thing. It became "manufactured dominance" by systematically looking for ways to put others down. While teasing is one thing, putting others down (with the intent to lower their self-esteem) is always uncalled for.

My point is that I see "being alpha" as being the dude that is respected by others for EARNING that respect by giving off positivity.

Men earn respect through dominating their environment and the people around them in certain ways (ie: winning at something, personal achievement, self-improvement) without being insecure. This last point is key, and it's the reason why good sportsmanship is so important when you win. A good quote on this subject is, "When you're in the end zone, act like you've been there before." Domination does not mean humiliation or controlling someone against their will.

Spoon used the example of getting your woman (the last two words there have gotten me into hot water with some feminists. I find it crazy that there are people in this world that are so sensitive, they take offense to that.) flowers. Spoon pointed out that society sees the act of getting flowers for your significant other is inherently beta. I personally think it as alpha (I hate this word. Let's replace it with respected, or something) if you're doing it as a means to show [respect/affection/appreciation/etc.]. If you're doing it as a way to wiggle your way out of the dog house, ugh.

Some people want an excuse to be offended. It's almost always because they have nothing else going on in their lives, so they have to come up with ways to justify their own importance so that they don't feel bad about themselves. In the grid I gave above for men, this most commonly happens in the "gamma" quadrant.

[wufwugy]

I thought you numbnuts told me I'm gamma. Super sigma over here. I can come off as alpha or omega, depending on what I'm looking to get, but never gamma. At least that's IRL. Internet is such a different medium.

I like the alpha/beta description of flirting and relationships. It syncs with my experiences.

[spoonitnow]

I thought you numbnuts told me I'm gamma. Super sigma over here. I can come off as alpha or omega, depending on what I'm looking to get, but never gamma. At least that's IRL. Internet is such a different medium.

I like the alpha/beta description of flirting and relationships. It syncs with my experiences.

I never claimed such a thing.

Sigma presenting alpha is super common (by purposefully injecting himself into social situations), and it can even turn into a situation where the desire to be social increases to the point that the line between alpha and sigma is blurred (or you just go into full-blown alpha territory if you start liking it that much). Strategically presenting omega is also common. Gamma can probably be presented, but I've never had a need for it.

It's worth noting, and not pertaining to you, that a lot of omega types over-estimate their own social abilities and believe themselves to be sigmas after learning this model. A really good book on narcissism of this type is The Narcissism Epidemic. It's only slightly dry and exceptionally data-driven.

With all of that having been said, this is not the only model. There's also a one-dimensional breakdown that's kind of like what Dungeons and Dragons did with their alignments that simplifies things.

[wufwugy]

I'm interested in seeing more material on this stuff.

[rong]

This shit is actually quite interesting.

[rong]

Hold up, missed the last 3 posts, hadn't refreshed in a while.

Not sure where we are now.

[rong]

Is it possible to be literally all of these quadrants at different times with different people and different environments ? I'm pretty sure I am.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Boost for President.

[wufwugy]

Is it possible to be literally all of these quadrants at different times with different people and different environments ? I'm pretty sure I am.

my simplistic read of it:

gamma: socially awkward, desiring of high status
omega: socially awkward, not desiring of high status
sigma: not socially awkward, not desiring of high status
alpha: not socially awkward, desiring of high status

In this framework, I'm about 85% not socially awkward and 15% desiring of high status. Which means that while part of me wants higher status, it's easy for me to not get it since I'm not terribly motivated for it. But when I am motivated for it, I can get it because dem social skills holmes.

[rong]

But status varies depending on the social group.

[wufwugy]

But status varies depending on the social group.

It does, which is part of why I think I can come off omega. Some social groups I just don't care to raise status in. Are you saying there are some groups you desire high status in and are also socially awkward?

I feel like gamma and sigma may be mutually exclusive. Of course assuming my read is constructive. The description of gamma is somebody who knows of something better he wants but doesn't understand why he's not getting it. The description of sigma is somebody who knows he's capable of getting something better but doesn't necessarily want it. These strike me as two things of which nobody can be both.

[rong]

Yea, there are some horrible times like that.

[wufwugy]

come to think of it, it does make sense that somebody could be either in unrelated circumstances. just because you're good at one thing most of the time doesn't mean you're always good at that thing all the time.

[wufwugy]

The thing that upsets me the most about Lena Dunham's comparing Jews to dogs isn't any possible racism, but that this no-talent assclown thought that obviously unfunny article would be funny and her no-taste assclown fans spew from the woodwork to defend their esteemed no-talent assclown.

[spoonitnow]

my simplistic read of it:

gamma: socially awkward, desiring of high status
omega: socially awkward, not desiring of high status
sigma: not socially awkward, not desiring of high status
alpha: not socially awkward, desiring of high status

In this framework, I'm about 85% not socially awkward and 15% desiring of high status. Which means that while part of me wants higher status, it's easy for me to not get it since I'm not terribly motivated for it. But when I am motivated for it, I can get it because dem social skills holmes.

More or less, but you have to be careful with saying "high status" because that includes other things like money. It has to be confined to status in the appropriate social hierarchy. For example, plenty of sigmas are driven to accumulate money, women, property, etc., that could fall under the more general heading of "high status."

On a different topic, I'll give you another few ideas to think about on your own. On the alpha/beta situation regarding attraction/comfort and the role of frame, consider the differences between the typical friend-zoned nice guy and the bad boy/criminal ultra-asshole who is too dangerous to be a viable option. The former is entirely too much beta for a relationship to form (ie: not enough attraction) and the latter is entirely too much alpha for a relationship to form (ie: not enough comfort).

Here's a bold statement: Women want men who are better than them but that make them feel comfortable about it. Everything comes down to this single idea.

Edit: Your spot on the two spectra I listed above can change based on context. However, they will very rarely change enough to shift you very far. Even in a socially awkward situation, you'll still come through as being in control of yourself if you're a socially skilled individual, etc.

[a500lbgorilla]

I'm having a hard time reading your tone here, so I'll just respond flatly.

Yes, I think it would be a better world if there were no Muslims. As well, I think there'd be an improvement with the erosion of belief in any form of the supernatural. The best place to get started, in my opinion, is belief in divine revelation, and more specifically belief systems based on divine revelation which call for the brutal punishment of doubters. Divine revelation that reveals that questioning divine revelation must be punished by death is clearly a recipe for trouble.

I was just playing at you low-key hating Muslims.

But a more general point, Religion was clearly a force for 'good' for a long time in that it confers to people the good rule-space for behaving as part of a society - no theft, monogamous marriage, be poor, love thy neighbor, be giving, etc etc.

Where it went wrong, who knows, probably when Europe flipped from Roman hegemony to Christian hegemony. I don't know if religion is seen as a force for evil in China.

[a500lbgorilla]

Alright guys, what are some principles worth living by?

[spoonitnow]

Alright guys, what are some principles worth living by?

There are three quotes that are the most important principles that have affected me in terms of how I live and being happy:

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.

-Niccolo Machiavelli

A man wants to walk across the land, but the earth is covered with thorns. He has two options - one is to pave a road, to tame all of nature into compliance. The other is to make sandals.

-Hindu Proverb

1. Sze-mâ Niû asked about the superior man. The Master said, "The superior man has neither anxiety nor fear."

2. "Being without anxiety or fear!" said Niû;-- "does this constitute what we call the superior man?"

3. The Master said, "When internal examination discovers nothing wrong, what is there to be anxious about, what is there to fear?"

-The Analects

[rong]

Alright guys, what are some principles worth living by?

What would Don Draper do?

[spoonitnow]

Hey guys, I know there's no poker in the commune etc, but I promise that this isn't exactly poker-specific. It's a pretty big deal, and it has to do with the idea of hijacking involuntary bodily functions to allow an interface to controlling your brain like you would control a computer. I've put it in the context of starting out with a simple exercise so that you can see how it can work first before you get into reading more in-depth about how it actually functions so that you can figure out ways to leverage the concept for yourself.

I've put it in the context of triggering a state of focus for the context of poker for the sake of my weekly strategy column, but if you guys could do the exercise in the link and post back in that thread, it would help me a lot. I'm looking to really expand on this sort of thing in general and not just for poker specifically.

Thanks.

[wufwugy]

What would Don Draper do?

Be a weak child.

[wufwugy]

Sounds like a sigma is an alpha who doesn't want to be in the spotlight.

[spoonitnow]

Be a weak child.

Thank god someone else gets this.

Sounds like a sigma is an alpha who doesn't want to be in the spotlight.

Introverted vs extroverted, etc.

[aubreymcfate]

The third reason, and the only one of the list that I really have a problem with, is that the idea of empowering men to be able to actively and systematically improve socially is very threatening to today's politically correct, feminine-centric society. So much has been done to "tear down the patriarchy" that anything that tries to empower men gets labeled misogyny, etc.

I totally agree with this and this is the main thing that keeps me in a constant tension with many other feminists online. I've thought about this a lot, why there seems to be this fundamental miscommunication or misunderstanding between feminist rhetoric and well-intentioned men that feel unfairly demonized. There is misunderstanding on both sides but, to be clear, I definitely think there is this weird reductive and tyrannical shutdown mode a lot of feminists get into when it comes to certain expressions of masculinity. While I think it's important to be aware of how society may have instilled sexist behavior in us without realizing it (we should be free-thinking on every level, or at least aspire to be, not just when it comes to gender), you can't militantly try to snuff out displays of masculine behavior, or natural displays of dominance-submissiveness between men and women that are traditionally masculine/feminine. Having a critical eye at all kinds of social behavior is great, I'm all for constantly questioning, but it's like.. ugh I'm trying to think of a good analogy.. It's like trying to kill an ant in your apartment by knocking the whole building down. Like taking blanket offense at every usage of the phrase "your woman," which is totally insane and makes me want to slam my head against the wall.

bleh, i have a lot of thoughts on this, may share more at a later date. I really have invested a lot of time in trying to understand the psychology on both sides of this equation.

[BooG690]

I totally agree with this and this is the main thing that keeps me in a constant tension with many other feminists online. I've thought about this a lot, why there seems to be this fundamental miscommunication or misunderstanding between feminist rhetoric and well-intentioned men that feel unfairly demonized. There is misunderstanding on both sides but, to be clear, I definitely think there is this weird reductive and tyrannical shutdown mode a lot of feminists get into when it comes to certain expressions of masculinity. While I think it's important to be aware of how society may have instilled sexist behavior in us without realizing it (we should be free-thinking on every level, or at least aspire to be, not just when it comes to gender), you can't militantly try to snuff out displays of masculine behavior, or natural displays of dominance-submissiveness between men and women that are traditionally masculine/feminine. Having a critical eye at all kinds of social behavior is great, I'm all for constantly questioning, but it's like.. ugh I'm trying to think of a good analogy.. It's like trying to kill an ant in your apartment by knocking the whole building down. Like taking blanket offense at every usage of the phrase "your woman," which is totally insane and makes me want to slam my head against the wall.

bleh, i have a lot of thoughts on this, may share more at a later date. I really have invested a lot of time in trying to understand the psychology on both sides of this equation.

Just saying, I'd really be interested in reading more on your view of all this. It seems not many females share your POV and I think some feminine insight will only make this discuss better.

[spoonitnow]

Analogy:

I am a real feminist. I do not believe in most of the things that modern feminists believe in. Instead, I believe in what feminism was originally about. They even say it's about equality for the sexes on their website.

I am a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I do not believe in most of the things that modern members of the Ku Klux Klan believe in. Instead, I believe in what being a member of the Ku Klux Klan was originally about. They even say it's about protecting the south from carpetbaggers on their website.

Inevitably, someone will chime in with something along the lines of, "That's not the same thing because [insert obvious observation here]." Yeah that's why it's called an analogy. If they were the same thing, it would be called repeating myself.

I was recently asked if I was a feminist. My response was, "No, I believe in equal rights and opportunity."

[BooG690]

The thing that upsets me the most about Lena Dunham's comparing Jews to dogs isn't any possible racism, but that this no-talent assclown thought that obviously unfunny article would be funny and her no-taste assclown fans spew from the woodwork to defend their esteemed no-talent assclown.

I came to comment on how wasn't too racist but you never said it was so we're cool.

[spoonitnow]

Lena Dunham admitted to sexually abusing her little sister in her biography with no major backlash. Why would anyone care if she compared Jews to dogs? She's a female, so she can't be held accountable for her actions like a man would be because feminism.

[surviva316]

Lena Dunham admitted to sexually abusing her little sister in her biography with no major backlash. Why would anyone care if she compared Jews to dogs? She's a female, so she can't be held accountable for her actions like a man would be because feminism.

Not sure if trolling, but I really don't think anyone would have faced much more heat than Dunham for admitting to a strange sexually exploration thing when they were 7.

Also, her piece comparing Jews to dogs has been widely criticized. I don't know what you're looking for. Bill Cosby-level backlash? For poking fun at Jewish boyfriends and wondering what her sister's vagina looks like as a 7-year-old? What male celebrity can you cite as an example for there being a double standard here?

Louis CK has admitted to showing a girl with Down Syndrome his penis in an alley as a teenager. He's made questionable jokes on everything from Chinese babies to epithet-laden tirades on Sarah Palin, etc. Some people grumbled here and there, but he hasn't faced anything more than Dunham's faced.

Getting easily offended is one thing; getting offended by other people being easily offended is another; getting hypothetically offended because people aren't getting offended by one thing whereas you think they might hypothetically have been offended by something similar is just like ... can we all just take a deep breath?

If you think Dunham is a monster for making jokes about Jews, then go ahead and say it; if there are male celebrities who you think were wrongfully ousted from the public sphere, then let's bring him up and try to clear the air for that poor person; I think what you're going on here, though, is a bit weak.

[BooG690]

Hey fucker, nobody got offended by her Jewish article. Wuf put it best. It did kinda suck.

PS. Get back to New York. I want Moroccan food.

[surviva316]

Shouts and Murmurs always sucks. Nothing new there. Their opinion of the humorous is worthless. They must use a Guest Editor system where they cycle in head-writers from hit CBS sitcoms or some shit. It's an auto-skip. I get more value out of reading the Goings on about Town, even though I don't live in NYC anymore. Etc, and so forth.

I am looking for any excuse to come up to NYC if you'd like to provide one.

[BooG690]

I can't think of one at the moment. Anything happening in DeliWear?

[surviva316]

I can't think of one at the moment. Anything happening in DeliWear?

Online poker traffic has apparently merged with Nevada traffic.

[Renton]

[BooG690]

Haha, that's excellent. Nicely done.

[spoonitnow]

Not sure if trolling, but I really don't think anyone would have faced much more heat than Dunham for admitting to a strange sexually exploration thing when they were 7.

Also, her piece comparing Jews to dogs has been widely criticized. I don't know what you're looking for. Bill Cosby-level backlash? For poking fun at Jewish boyfriends and wondering what her sister's vagina looks like as a 7-year-old? What male celebrity can you cite as an example for there being a double standard here?

Louis CK has admitted to showing a girl with Down Syndrome his penis in an alley as a teenager. He's made questionable jokes on everything from Chinese babies to epithet-laden tirades on Sarah Palin, etc. Some people grumbled here and there, but he hasn't faced anything more than Dunham's faced.

Getting easily offended is one thing; getting offended by other people being easily offended is another; getting hypothetically offended because people aren't getting offended by one thing whereas you think they might hypothetically have been offended by something similar is just like ... can we all just take a deep breath?

If you think Dunham is a monster for making jokes about Jews, then go ahead and say it; if there are male celebrities who you think were wrongfully ousted from the public sphere, then let's bring him up and try to clear the air for that poor person; I think what you're going on here, though, is a bit weak.

If a man had bribed his younger sister into helping him masturbate, then he'd be painted as a fucking monster. Fuck Lena Dumbham and every single one of her fans, supporters and apologists.

[aubreymcfate]

If a man had bribed his younger sister into helping him masturbate, then he'd be painted as a fucking monster. Fuck Lena Dumbham and every single one of her fans, supporters and apologists.

Setting aside societal hypocrisies for a second, what do you think the appropriate judgment should be were Lena a man?

(boog I will elaborate at some point, I do want to expand on that. Also, you'd be surprised at how many women think that way. They're just not as vocal online and don't masochistically read inane shit like I do, lol.)

[aubreymcfate]

and fwiw, the SJW crazies completely lost their shit on Lena. Painting her as a monster is an understatement for what they did.

[spoonitnow]

Setting aside societal hypocrisies for a second, what do you think the appropriate judgment should be were Lena a man?

Anyone here have a daughter in the first grade? I want to let my elementary school-aged nephew bribe her into kissing him while he masturbates.

[bigred]

Rock out brahs: https://open.spotify.com/track/6sj9rODkg2fpS30JlWbb2t

[surviva316]

Anyone here have a daughter in the first grade? I want to let my elementary school-aged nephew bribe her into kissing him while he masturbates.

Well, it's clear at this point that you're trolling, so have a nice day.

You have provided a sweet little demonstration of the problem with these conversations, so I can appreciate that.

[surviva316]

I've thought about this a lot, why there seems to be this fundamental miscommunication or misunderstanding between feminist rhetoric and well-intentioned men that feel unfairly demonized.

I don't keep up with Tumblr or /r/theredpill, so I really don't know much about how the discussion goes out there in social media world.

But one thing that has annoyed me in the literary world is the constant vigilance about whether authors are being misogynistic/racist/etc. The point of literature is not for the author to prove that they're on the right side of history. If a writer has any sympathies with the fucked up perspectives that pervade in our world, then for the fuck of fuck please share that! That is incredibly valuable content!

You (the hypothetical reviewer) *do* realize that we're in the 21st century now; we don't *have* to read narration at face value. We shouldn't be looking to our authors as arbiters of the divine doctrine, as if we could just figure out what they're "intending to say," then we'd have solved all the problems of the human condition.

I read reviews that are like, "Ben Marcus represents everything that is wrong with men," and I'm like GOOD! Someone needs to represent what is wrong with men. I would say that's damn-near in his job description. Is it really a struggle for you to see how this adds value to the greater discussion?

[BooG690]

Well, it's clear at this point that you're trolling, so have a nice day.

You have provided a sweet little demonstration of the problem with these conversations, so I can appreciate that.

I suggest you read up on the conversation we're having. I'm pretty sure Spoon isn't trolling, is making a decent point and you're quitting the conversation because it doesn't match your POV. Still love you though.

Edit: I wonder how many people reading the conversation would consider Spoon (and, I guess, by extension, me) a misogynist/sexist. If anybody out there does, please explain why. I'm genuinely curious. I've been called a misogynist before for expressing opinions on this matter with little to no explanation as to what exactly made me a misogynist.

[surviva316]

I suggest you read up on the conversation we're having. I'm pretty sure Spoon isn't trolling, is making a decent point and you're quitting the conversation because it doesn't match your POV. Still love you though.

I'm not quitting this conversation because it doesn't match my POV. I don't even know if his post matches my POV. I read through a fair amount of his posts on ... whatever you'd call it ... male-oriented social perspective, and it incited 0 rage in me.

My post wasn't meant to employ a dirty trick to help win an argument or anything. I know "troll" is obviously an unpleasant term and I'm using it accusatorially, but beyond that, I mean it more descriptively than anything else. Like I'm giving him credit for purposefully opting to incite an argument for whatever reason he has for doing that--which I don't always think are bad--instead of working together to see the issue through to its end. That's patronizing, obviously, and if I'm wrong and spoon is being sincere, then my bad, bro.

I think audrey made a good step toward taking a logical line through the conversation. You can almost follow the flow chart of "Who has been wronged, and what should be done about it" with the first step of that flow chart being to provide judgment on the issue directly at hand (from there, you move onto the men who have been wrongfully villainized by the public, and etc down the line). And he responded with something that repeats points already made in order to appeal to the pathos on a hypothetical situation--it does this without elucidating his personal feelings on the issue. If it were clear from his post that he's personally enraged by what Dunham did to her sister, then the appeal to pathos would make sense; if it were clear that he felt the question audrey asked was bullshit, then the deflection would make sense, but as written, it just seems like he's happily staying off course while being as incendiary as possible.

(If you want to take this analysis all the way down to its most granular, then "elementary school-aged" is a god-damned mouthful to read and is more vague than the obvious alternatives. I would tend to guess the motive is something other than being clear and concise.)

I'm also not necessarily quitting the conversation. I'd just be shocked if the course I'm critiquing would ever get either side anywhere (I don't know what "side" I'm predeterminately on, by the way; spoon has just done nothing to convince me).

I went with the response I did instead of this over-the-top analysis, either:

1) for protection from the inevitable reply from d0zer being like, "Why do you bother", or

2) because I thought it was a better guess at what was happening beyond the mere argumentative mechanics and so would be more productive.

I will feel like an ass, though, if it proves to be the most counter-productive possible response.

[surviva316]

I made a sort of intellectual discovery a few weeks ago, but never knew what to do with it. So I might as well bring it up at a time when I'm at risk of being accused of a PC-faithful, white-knighting SJW:

Black people have make up a disproportionately high percentage of the poor population in this country. It is racist to attribute this to some innate laziness or lack of intelligence, and the long-preferred theories involve institutionalized disadvantages for them as a race as a whole.

Conversely, Jewish people enjoy a level of success in our society that's disproportionate to their population. You will get labeled as a tin-foil-wearing anti-Semite if you attribute this to anything other than their innate hard-work and talent as a people and culture.

Surely something has to give. We can't say the system is everything on one issue, but then on the other issue attribute everything to personal responsibility.

So which is it: are Jewish people evil conspirators who have the tables unfairly tilted in their direction (away from, eg, black people), or are black people just collectively as a people neither hard-working nor intelligent?

[a500lbgorilla]

Why couldn't it be that Jews have a systematic advantage AND blacks are lazy, worthless rods? There's no reason to assume THE SYSTEM can't be of such a form.

[a500lbgorilla]

But one thing that has annoyed me in the literary world is the constant vigilance about whether authors are being misogynistic/racist/etc. The point of literature is not for the author to prove that they're on the right side of history. If a writer has any sympathies with the fucked up perspectives that pervade in our world, then for the fuck of fuck please share that! That is incredibly valuable content!

You (the hypothetical reviewer) *do* realize that we're in the 21st century now; we don't *have* to read narration at face value. We shouldn't be looking to our authors as arbiters of the divine doctrine, as if we could just figure out what they're "intending to say," then we'd have solved all the problems of the human condition.

I read reviews that are like, "Ben Marcus represents everything that is wrong with men," and I'm like GOOD! Someone needs to represent what is wrong with men. I would say that's damn-near in his job description. Is it really a struggle for you to see how this adds value to the greater discussion?

Amen, brother. It's an incredibly silly thing that's growing in certain parts of society these days, this belief that certain thoughts must not be thunk and can not be shared. Bitch, please, I have an imagination and I'm going to use it and use it safely.

[a500lbgorilla]

I've been called a misogynist before for expressing opinions on this matter with little to no explanation as to what exactly made me a misogynist.

It's a tactic. You can't prove you're not and for some set of people, it's plausible you are. Before the might of public opinion, misogynists are an enemy to progress, to a just and inclusive society. You lose support and a footing in the debate.

It's the same with racist. Rare is that hatred in younger generations, but they've still found a way to keep that relic of scarlet letter alive by recustomizing it as power+prejudice. YOU might not hate blacks, my gen Y/millennial friend, but you and your KIND are still racist.

[a500lbgorilla]

Why couldn't it be that Jews have a systematic advantage AND blacks are lazy, worthless rods? There's no reason to assume THE SYSTEM can't be of such a form.

As a cabal of Jew Illuminati would, in interest of maintaining THE SYSTEM stability, offer blacks many easy routes to moderate means, but the blacks may largely fail to take advantage for many reasons outside of the influence of the Central Banks (Jew Control).

[BooG690]

Disclaimer: generalizations going on here. Please note that I'm speaking on a subset of each culture.

Jews keep it in the family and insure each others' success. If you ever go to a Jewish neighborhood or school, you'll see just how much they support each other. That type of bond is hard to find in other cultures.

African-Americans unfortunately don't have that and the ghetto culture is pretty self-destructive. Negative influences are abundant in ghetto culture. African-Americans welcome them and fulfill their stereotypes.

[spoonitnow]

I suggest you read up on the conversation we're having. I'm pretty sure Spoon isn't trolling, is making a decent point and you're quitting the conversation because it doesn't match your POV. Still love you though.

Edit: I wonder how many people reading the conversation would consider Spoon (and, I guess, by extension, me) a misogynist/sexist. If anybody out there does, please explain why. I'm genuinely curious. I've been called a misogynist before for expressing opinions on this matter with little to no explanation as to what exactly made me a misogynist.

I'm a sexist by definition since I discriminate based solely on gender in certain cases.

I am also a misogynist by modern definition since I have contempt for women as a whole.

Being neither of these things is inherently bad.

Edit: A good example is how I teach math to men and women in completely different ways. Over 80 percent of the 150+ females I have tutored or had as math students have told me explicitly, point blank that I am the best math teacher they ever had because I taught them differently. I can expand on this later if there's interest, but I don't have time atm.

[wufwugy]

I can expand on this later if there's interest

please do.

[wufwugy]

Anyone here have a daughter in the first grade? I want to let my elementary school-aged nephew bribe her into kissing him while he masturbates.

The point isn't to show that society views males and females differently in this regard. It's that just because a woman has special status because she's a woman, where she isn't being a vilified as she would if she was a man, that doesn't mean that the right approach is to vilify her more but instead to vilify the male gender less.

Unless you think what she did was super wrong. I don't really know what she did, and I'm not interested in defending Dunham because her talent consists of a symbiotic relationship with entitled, tasteless elitism.

[Renton]

Black people have make up a disproportionately high percentage of the poor population in this country. It is racist to attribute this to some innate laziness or lack of intelligence, and the long-preferred theories involve institutionalized disadvantages for them as a race as a whole.

...

So which is it: are Jewish people evil conspirators who have the tables unfairly tilted in their direction (away from, eg, black people), or are black people just collectively as a people neither hard-working nor intelligent?

African-Americans unfortunately don't have that and the ghetto culture is pretty self-destructive. Negative influences are abundant in ghetto culture. African-Americans welcome them and fulfill their stereotypes.

They're not innately lazy or lacking in intelligence, and IMO the "ghetto culture" effect is overstated.

The U.S. government ruins black people. Almost every federal policy is targeted with surgical precision to bring black people down, yet not in the way that liberals think. Though the drug war is definitely hurting the black community, it is primarily the left-wing policies that hurt blacks the most, and as 95% of blacks in America vote democrat, they're harming themselves.

Much of it is the welfare state. There is tons of data to suggest that welfare, food stamps, medicaid, and the child tax credit are ruining black families. Again, not just in the intuitive ways, i.e. de-incentivizing them from working and building human capital or over-incentivizing them to have children they can't afford, though that is part of it. But there are also less-intuitive psychological effects that are rarely addressed. Handouts make people feel like victims, and cause them to have lowered expectations for themselves. Yes, people like free shit, but their subconsciouses respond very badly to receiving free shit. Everyone in their sphere of influence, especially their kids, pays the price for this, as does society.

American culture dovetails with this effect to create an entrenched victim class by dredging up past injustices against blacks, especially slavery and Jim Crow. If you didn't already feel like a victim from being patronized by everyone, wait until you get told that your people have intrinsic disadvantages because your ancestors were denied opportunity.

I forgot to mention that the welfare state and the feminist state work together to maximize the number of single mother households in America, with black households suffering the most in this regard. Women have all-too-much incentive to have kids they can't afford and then split from the children's father to get bigger benefits, including huge lump sums every April from the IRS. The black woman welfare queen stereotype is deeply unfortunate for responsible black women, but its well-earned in general.

I actually think that "ghetto culture" could be having a net positive effect on blacks. I mean yeah it glorifies violence and stuff, but its also quite materialistic. A demographic group noted for its concentration of poverty would do well to have some added drive to stack paper and get bitches, IMO.


I should probably post-script this post by saying that when I say the U.S. government is ruining black people, I mean that it is strongly predisposing black people to ruin. There are obviously tons and tons of responsible and productive black people. And most of this post could have edited the word black and put latino or even just poor, though I think that removes a lot of the cultural nuance. The economic incentives are the biggest factor, but America promotes the concept of black victimhood FAR more than any of the other downtrodden minorities.

[spoonitnow]

...and as 95% of blacks in America vote democrat, they're hanging themselves.

lol ouch word choice

[Renton]

lol edited

[spoonitnow]

please do.

I could probably write a book on this topic, but I'll try to keep it more to the point. I'll start with my claim that men and women learn differently. More specifically, the optimal way to learn for men and women is necessarily different. I'm going to give it in two angles for the moment, and if I get more time, then I'll expand more including why I believe that the strongest female mathematician should be better than the best male mathematician if the learning process is optimized on both sides.

Performance Psychology Angle: Consider the following...

1. Women respond emotionally to external stimuli a lot more than men do. (Source) - This is important because it necessitates that we consider the emotional impact of the material on women. From there...

2. Women feel much more anxiety than men. (Source) - So why should this matter?

3. Anxiety leads to poor academic performance when facing challenging subjects. (Source (PDF)) - Ding ding ding.

My approach is largely based on a line of logic similar to (but more expansive than) this, but you can get the basic idea. This approach includes more emphasis on handling the anxiety of the situation, especially when learning something new.

Learning Style Angle: Gender differences in learning style preferences among undergraduate physiology students - There's a lot more data here based on preferred learning styles as opposed to the anxiety argument.

[wufwugy]

Sounds like it boils down to the one rule needed when dealing with women: consider their emotions.

[spoonitnow]

Sounds like it boils down to the one rule needed when dealing with women: consider their emotions.

This is definitely it, but there are problems with doing it inside of the context of education even if you're coming to it from a scientific basis. Initially, you're going to be called sexist/misogynist/bigoted over it. Part of this is that a lot of people assume females are inherently worse than males because of their increased level of emotion/intuition-based thinking and their decreased level of logic/rational-based thinking. However, the fact of the matter is that women are simply not taught to harness this increased level of emotional engagement in mathematics. Along similar lines, men are not taught the inherent logic in things like language skills.

There are fixed ways of teaching these subjects that don't ever really change, and it works very much in favor for teaching men math and teaching women language skills, for a couple of examples.

Personal example: I never learned grammar on a high level in school because it wasn't taught in a way that I could really connect to. Later in life, I shot ahead by great leaps and bounds in a short period of time because I discovered (mostly by accident) that there was a very logical and syntax-oriented way to approach it. This is the difference between something being grammatically correctly and just "sounding right." Along these lines, I've taught men more about grammar in an hour (I also tutored literature and psychology in college) than they learned in 13 years of K-12 school because I know a better way to approach it for the way they are most likely to think.

The bottom line is that no one would think bad of you for changing your teaching methods to accommodate someone who had a kinesthetic learning preference. However, the PC police immediately flip shit if you decide to change your teaching methods to accommodate someone who is more likely to learn to do things based on feel than linear thinking (aka men vs women).

I can go into some specific examples of how I teach math to women and how heading off anxiety before it gets out of hand is so important later.

I'd also like to add that this idea of treating women like they're men (or vice versa) is stupid and the polar opposite of empowering for either.