site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2947 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 12, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Has anyone successfully paid a third party to run a dating profile? I really thought this would be a well-established market but I can only find a handful of extremely sketchy looking services I don't trust at all.

I am a loser who photographs poorly and I'm not good at talking to girls online, but I have a fair bit of money, so I'd pretty happily trade someone who's good at this a few hundred dollars per actual date who shows up (subject to sane constraints--no pros, not homeless girls, no one too old to have kids, not morbidly obese, etc.). I'd rather kill myself then ever swipe again, but I tried for six months to meet girls offline and got nowhere...so it's tinder or die alone like a pathetic loser.

I am a loser

What makes you say this? I'm not trying to give you an internet pump-up speech along the lines of "you're probably pretty great!"

No, I will accept at face value that you fucking suck, loser. Now, let's identify the problem.

Are you short and skinny? Do you smell and dress bad? You say you have a fair bit of money. Did you earn it or did someone die an leave it to you?

The point is that getting out of loserdom is really just a project like anything else. Identify what is lacking, create plans for compounding improvement, execute those plans, track and log progress, adjust along the way.

Here's a generalize bullet list that 99% of dudes benefit from:

  1. I'm a physical loser ---> Go to the gym. There are a million beginner lifting routines. Do one. After six months, add a competitive sport. Doesn't have to be MMA / BJJ, just something where there is a definite winner and loser and people take it seriously. Don't do beer league softball.

  2. I'm a social loser ---> Get good at small talk. Start by making short observations at checkout lines. Try to make simple jokes. If it goes poorly, you're in a checkout line and the interaction will end in literally seconds. You'll know you're getting good when it becomes almost second nature and you can get a chuckle most of the time. Next step, start going to bars and doing this with the bartender (doesn't matter if they're male or female). Most of their day is spent making small talk to medium talk (i.e. bullshitting with regulars about their jobs or whatever). They're pretty much on autopilot and also paid to be nice, so they'll help the conversation along even if you still kind of suck. This will help you get better at developing a few quick "lines" into full on conversations. An option but not really recommended step is to do this at strip clubs. Again, I don't recommend it but have great stories. I digress.

  3. I'm a loser loser, meaning I have no confidence in myself ---> Paradoxically, one of the easier ones to solve. Confidence comes from exactly one process; demonstrate competence in a difficult task. You will pick a medium term task or project that seems hard, and then you will do it. Build a website, build a birdhouse, organize a party, train for an complete a 10k, something that takes around 90 days. Pick it. Do it. Write about it as you are doing it in a journal style. At the end, after you do it, read the journal, relive the emotional journey and realize "I did it even though it was hard along the way." Boom, confidence.

  4. I'm an internet loser. This is guy code for "I watch porn." It's easy - stop.

Build a website,

failed at that, what to do?

  1. Why did you fail? Make a list of reasons. Pick one or two to try and improve on.
  2. Pick a different project. Maybe make it related to your failed website.
  3. Project plan --> execution --> log and journal --> repeat.

There's no shortcut here and part of the only way to progress is to encounter and then surpass failure. This is a short comment because all of the content you actually need is in it.

This is the same content density of 98% of all self-help books.

i can't start to use next free (kinda) hosting i try. i fail with setting SSL keys. looks like format of SSL is somewhat distinct from much earlier, on another free hosting, where https is not default, i failed to set up https using "turing on https on our hosting is very easy"

Would recommend posting this in maybe the small scale thread for today asking for pointers on how to do things like this.

: sob :

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats