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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   30492 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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Another point the book makes, which I mentioned before, is that no strategy really seems to pay clear and great dividends

Surely the dividends of self-improvement are just that, self-improvement? If someone is only improving themselves in shallow ways to get girls then perhaps this would be better categorised as fraud. This point is more than a quibble about definitions, as women find the moral qualities (or lack thereof) which motivate men to be attractive or repulsive in themselves.

Lately I’ve greatly improved both my wealth and general status, and yet success has been sorely lacking

Wealth and social status certainly play a part in attraction but perhaps there are certain personality traits people fail to display which makes this all for naught, wealth and social status alone don't make it pleasant to spend hours with someone after all. Tattoo artists don't have much wealth or (outside of being the best of the best) social status, but they get laid a lot as spending hours distracting someone from physical pain while they talk about their life is great empathy training.

If someone is only improving themselves in shallow ways to get girls then perhaps this would be better categorised as fraud.

"You're only working out, improving your diet & lifestyle, practising your social skills and progressing in your career so that people (including women) will like you more and find you more attractive!"

yeschad.png?

If you're only doing that because you want people to find you more attractive and not because the progress justifies itself I think there would be a problem. Would this stuff be worthwhile even if it didn't get you attention from women? It should be, and you're not going to surpass any heavy lifters if you're relying on a steady increase in female attention for motivation i.e. onlymenaremiring.png.

And how would the progress justify itself? You'll look more attractive i.e. people will find you more attractive. Sure, you may feel more confident, be generally healthier and have improved mental health, but these are ancillary benefits at best. Everyone knows that the purpose of men going to the gym is to look more attractive, and failing to recognise this leads to "I don't wear makeup for guys, I wear makeup to feel good about myself" levels of cope and rationalisation.

A healthy body drives a healthy mind. There is no separation; its all one organism. Being healthy makes you happier. There is much focus on the gym here, but also vastly important is diet.

And how would the progress justify itself? You'll look more attractive i.e. people will find you more attractive. Sure, you may feel more confident, be generally healthier and have improved mental health, but these are ancillary benefits at best.

Attention from women is also an ancillary benefit (and not necessarily more important than the others you mentioned imo), and something I think could be gotten with much less effort through other means. The gymcel is a real thing and if you're grounding your motivation for lifting on women you're risking disappointment. Unless you take steroids it's going to take at least a year (more like 2-3) and hundreds of hours to get jacked.

I'll expand this to self-improvement in general and say that if something is worth doing it's worth doing even when the ancillary benefits aren't clear, that's how I'm distinguishing shallow from meaningful pursuits. I could try my hand at listing all the external reasons you should focus on fitness but strength is valuable in a way I can't exhaustively articulate, anecdotally I'm getting way more attention from women now than when I was at my strongest but there's still some feeling of loss from no longer pushing the limits of my body.

and failing to recognise this leads to "I don't wear makeup for guys, I wear makeup to feel good about myself" levels of cope and rationalisation.

I'm no feminist but I think it's both. Women do care about beauty for its own sake, this is evolutionarily ingrained in them for its mating advantage but as an internal state the drive for beauty precedes making the connection to attention from men or learning facts about evolution. It also extends beyond the former in the fact that women care about making things look nice which have no connection to male attraction (and might even annoy the men in their life by insisting on beauty at the cost of utility).

Surely the dividends of self-improvement are just that, self-improvement? If someone is only improving themselves in shallow ways to get girls then perhaps this would be better categorised as fraud. This point is more than a quibble about definitions, as women find the moral qualities (or lack thereof) which motivate men to be attractive or repulsive in themselves.

I really think this is a bad/unproductive framing. How exactly is it fraud if the quality of the good is raised, and not just the marketing of it?

If a man, tired of not getting laid, works out a ton, becomes buff and successfully lands a woman, I struggle to believe that most women would consider this a failing as opposed to a guy who works out for either "himself" or because he enjoys it. Either way, they get a buff boyfriend/husband.

Sure, the former might increase the chances that the guy gives up on the effort when he's getting tail and lets himself go, but empirically that does not appear to matter. I can't say the period where I diligently worked out did much for my actual success with women, even if I do think it increased the odds; and men are still motivated by a desire to keep doing what's bringing in the poon.

Further, if the woman doesn't leave the guy after he stops working out, that signals that she derives some degree of positive satisfaction, from revealed preferences. Sure, people regularly stay in relationships they have ended up hating for many reasons, but at that point it's on them for staying.

I really think this is a bad/unproductive framing. How exactly is it fraud if the quality of the good is raised, and not just the marketing of it?

There's no distinction being made between quality of a person (which has inherent value) and marketing is my point. If we judge things solely by the metric of getting women building bigger muscles is just a more effortful alternative to peacocking or practicing pickup lines, marketing and quality are just different strategies geared towards the same end.

Maybe I'm just being a poor decoupler, but in the same way that a Christian would be offended at someone saying that going to Church paid no dividends in their dating life I want to shout 'you're missing the point!'.

Maybe I'm just being a poor decoupler, but in the same way that a Christian would be offended at someone saying that going to Church paid no dividends in their dating life I want to shout 'you're missing the point!'.

Is that person going to church only for dating? If not, well, I'm sure millions of both men and women go there while sincerely religious and expecting to find a like minded partner.

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