This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The "Clavicular Thesis" would be closer to "Looks are the most important thing, more important than everything else." You could say, yeah, everyone knows looks are important, but since you're not currently a looksmaxxer, clearly your preference for looks is weaker than Clav's. And he'd say your preference was wrong.
In a way it's almost saintly, of course everyone knows virtue is good but are you actively cultivating your virtue? So you become a hero by embodying virtue at a higher level than everyone else. I guess in some sense that's just what it means to be an idol.
As for scam courses and money, the modal donation to a streamer is in the $5-$10 range. The scam courses are almost a separate category of behavior. (I think the problem is actually somewhat class-coded, participating in that world is low-status, it's like Alex Jones advertiser supplements, Trump University, influencer bodybuilding routines, etc. There's nothing wrong in principle with paying for any of these things but we think of it as low-status.)
Most important for what? For getting casual sex, sure. For developing a soul-deep bond with someone you'd enjoy talking to every day for the rest of your life… jury's still out. Or, rather, Manosphere types don't even try to make such an argument, because they don't believe in romance. I think that's the underlying assumption that makes them repellent and anti-human, the real Clavicular Thesis: "there's no such thing as true love, so don't even worry about anything more sophisticated than hacking the female monkey brain's sex drive (for which looks are trivially the most important thing)".
Well, I think the steelman of the argument is that to have the soul-deep bond with a woman as a romantic/sexual partner, there needs to be primal attraction on her part. So that if she has short term flings with attractive men who won't commit to her; and then settles for a less attractive man who is otherwise a good relationship partner, but doesn't excite her in the same way, the relationship will be poisoned from the start and she will always resent him for not living up to her past partners.
I do think there is some degree of validity of this argument. If society is willing to agree that men can be spoiled by frequent use of pornography and frequent viewing of women who meet "unrealistic beauty standards," why is it so difficult to accept that women can be spoiled by casual sex with extremely desirable men?
More options
Context Copy link
Income, status, happiness, grades, romantic success, job hunting, everything. It's a pretty consistent finding in social research that people treat you better when you're more attractive. People treat you differently when you're good-looking. They give you things. They take your ideas more seriously. They're nicer.
Being physically attracted to someone is an extreme prerequisite for wanting to spend the rest of your life with them.
It doesn't seem to be for women. I've seen too many instances of "woman falls in love for another reason, finds guy physically attractive now that she's in love with him" to chalk it up to coincidence. I don't know why, but it certainly seems to be common from what I've seen.
More options
Context Copy link
Sure; but it is not the only prerequisite, and past a certain level of time and energy spent looksmaxxing, you're going to be neglecting other, very necessary things that aren't confined to the merely carnal. Also, I'm not convinced that being the most attractive gives you anywhere near as big an edge in the fall-in-reciprocated-love game as it does in the getting-lots-of-one-night-stands game. A relatively high baseline of attractiveness is important to both, but comparative attractiveness seems much more important to the latter.
In any case, I think you're making an argument that these guys don't actually make. I might be mistaken - I'm not exactly an aficionado - so if you want to prove me wrong, by all means show me prominent Manosphere types evangelizing about the two-sided intellectually, emotionally, spiritually fulfilling romantic relationships that looksmaxxing has netted them. But my understanding is that the very notion embodied by the "Red Pill" meme involves denying that such things are possible.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Many of these streamers stream 7 days a week all day, that $10 a stream adds up fast, there’s a reason these guys are buying Lamborghinis.
Most important thing for what? I think a reasonable framing is that looks are very important, especially when seeking a partner (but also generally, the halo effect, etc). That’s just biology. But that doesn’t justify looksmaxxing to the extreme lengths some of these people go to. You can agree that looks are important without devoting thousands of hours to going from an 8 to an 8.5, for example. That is not a simple way to make bone smashing or leg lengthening necessarily rational.
Right, but what I mean is that it's not necessarily dysfunctional on the part of the viewer. You made the remark that "they’re the young men who donate their hard earned money to them on stream" -- but for most people the occasional $5 tip doesn't amount to a very high-stakes donation. (I donated $5 once to someone through that "Buy Me a Coffee" page because a supplement he had been advertising actually solved something I was dealing with.
I agree with you but I imagine your intuition on what's reasonable from Clavicular's is very different. Observably there are a lot of "looksmaxxing interventions" that don't cost much in terms of time or money but are enormously effective.
For example: I got turned onto Vitamin A by a friend's girlfriend I incorrectly pegged as ten years younger than she actually was. You can get adapalene over the counter or you can get a simple script from your doctor for tretinoin. I ran out of mine a few weeks ago and when I resumed my friends immediately complimented me on how good I looked, have I lost weight? It's not an extreme intervention and has basically no significant side-effects. (Tretinoin can dry out the skin so you use a little lotion or you can go with a lower dose Vit A supplement, it's really not a big deal.) And this is talked about on looksmaxxing forums. Maybe you haven't heard about it before, in which case, the looksmaxxers would feel satisfied that they are offering something above and beyond something "everybody knows". Or maybe you still don't feel like doing any of this (above and beyond the immediate excuses that you're at your desk, you're busy right now, you're intrigued but will look into it etc.). In which case, the looksmaxxers would feel satisfied that they are cultivating a virtue that materially improves their good looks that most people are not pursuing.
Imagine there were $10 bills on the sidewalk, so you tried to encourage your friends to start picking them up. And they said: "Everybody knows already about the $10 bills," "$10 really isn't that much," "Money isn't all that important". I'm certainly not going to say you need to spend all day picking up bills to the exclusion of everything else, but...
More options
Context Copy link
I'm reminded of a line in some Op Ed (NYTimes or Boston Globe, IIRC) I read in early 2000s, where some Republican pundit was justifying his push back against president Bush, in part by saying something like, "When the car you're in has veered sharply to the right towards a cliff, the proper thing to do isn't to turn the wheel back to neutral; it's to turn it sharply back to the left." Looksmaxxing to the point of self-surgery like in Gattaca seems extreme to a demented extent, but it's a response to what I perceive as an environment in which the idea that looks don't matter at all has become the only allowable opinion to be expressed, to the extent that a significant portion of the population of those environments have decided to believe it, as expressed by their behaviors in terms of looks with respect to romance.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah but... so? What does it exactly even mean for a preference to be "wrong" or "right" in this context? Near as I can tall, it's a debate on what is effective (for attracting women), and my observations on what the type of a guy who attracts a lot of women and has a highly successful dating life indicates that yes, looks are important, but they're not as important as being fun, charismatic and confident, and the manosphere types are frequently not a reliable type on what sort of looks are actually the most attractive to women (partly due to ignorance, partly due to their predilection for maing money by advertising get-swole-quick solutions etc.)
Looking hot is the number one determinant of whether people interpret you as fun charismatic and confident.
Although there is always an arbitrary component attractiveness has many objective parts. Bone structure, body fat percentage, frame, jawline, hairline, fashion, clear skin, red lips, etc. etc. There are some guys who take it too far into ridiculous caricatures but generally when we talk about looking more attractive we all know what's being talked about. There aren't a lot of competing schools of thought here, there isn't one group claiming you should shrink your hairline, another claiming you should restore your hairline, one claiming you should gain 100 pounds, one claiming you should develop acne, etc. etc.
Clav would say, essentially, that you're coping. That some like blondes and some like brunettes doesn't change the basic beauty ideal. And maybe, sure, too much goes too far but women who profess to look down on looksmaxxing in theory swoon for the looksmaxxers in practice.
As I said, I'm comparing what is being said here with my own observations for 40+ years of life and counting. Who am I going to believe, my own lying eyes or some guy online?
Well, sure, obvious stuff is obvious, but there are in fact differing opinions on how muscular you should get and where, whether you should aim for the hollow-cheeks look etc.
More options
Context Copy link
Oh come on. I had a friend who was quite handsome but mumbled and had the presence of wallpaper. Ended up drinking himself to death, creeping women out on the way.
This is like if I said that men are taller than woman and you said, no way, the tallest person I know is a woman, she's 6'5.
Do you think that's literally the only example I've ever seen, not simply the most salient?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link