I hesitate to ask this clarification because I don’t want debate to take over the thread—feel free to ignore this if it seems likely to have a poor cost-benefit ratio.
It is my impression that team red seems to allow for qualitative variance among males in mating behavior (“alphas” v “betas”, dominance v. prestige behavior, etc.) but expects that all women dance to basically the same biological piper. My own experience suggests that some women behave just as team red predicts, and some women do not. This leaves me a bit puzzled how to answer this question. On the one hand, team red is probably describing something real. On the other hand, I think there is qualitative variance in women’s mating instincts (not sure if I would go so far as to say “individualism”), and that men who do not follow team red’s advice can still succeed with the “right” women.
Is that answer you would consider “parts of both”? In my personal behavior, I’m clearly on Team Blue....
Within the Redpill ideology, the female equivalent of alpha/beta is slut/prude. They claim that just like women have short term relationships with “alphas” and settle down with “betas”, men don’t mind having flings with “sluts” but would rather marry a sexually inexperienced woman. Conversely, they claim that while “betas” give out attention indiscriminately and fail to acquire sex (the “friend zone”), sluts give out sex indiscriminately but in the end fail to acquire commitment.
(The above does not reflect my own views and I personally think that the language they use is in very poor taste. I also think idea as a whole is wrong about gender and human instincts, but bears just enough superficial similarity to how some humans behave under some conditions to be compelling to some people. )
Within the Redpill ideology, the female equivalent of alpha/beta is slut/prude.
I can’t speak for the Redpill ideology, but in my experience the alpha/beta terminology is well applicable to both sexes.
I know some women who are (very clearly to me) alpha females in the direct terms of status and domination, and I know some women who are beta females and are cooperative, preferring to be led, even submissive. That distinction doesn’t correlate with the slut/prude dichotomy.
In more general terms, the Blue and the Red positions are described in the {grand}parent post look like extremes on a continuous spectrum to me. The problem with the Red team is that it treats individuals as fungible: provide the right signals and it doesn’t matter who your partner is. The problem with the Blue team is that it ignores the underlying mechanisms—you just click together, it’s magic, don’t ask how it works.
For example, it seems reasonable to me that for a successful relationship people do need to “click” together (Blue), but whether they do click is determined partly by what they are, what image they present, and what signals they send out (Red).
Sure, it’s quite possible that people have a stable preference for dominant/submissive behavior in social interactions. I think that’s a fairly uncontroversial thing to posit.
The problem with the Blue team is that it ignores the underlying mechanisms
That’s probably because the “Blue” side is not actually a monolithic, self-aware school of thought. “Blue” is an exonym created by Red to describe the amalgam of conventional wisdom and pop-feminism to which they construct themselves as opposing (analogous to how “Cathedral” is not a monolithic, self aware group, but an exonym created by reactionaries). In reality, pop-feminism and conventional wisdom doesn’t often bother delving into evo-psych and thinking about sexual strategy...so the seeming lack of specificity inherent in “click” is not in opposition to anyone, but simply the result of not having adopted a position on the matter.
The problem with the Red team is that it treats individuals as fungible: provide the right signals and it doesn’t matter who your partner is
Well, personally I think the additional, and more pressing problem with Red is that it is factually mistaken in its conclusions about what sorts of signals one should send out and how these thing work.
it seems reasonable to me that for a successful relationship people do need to “click” together (Blue), but whether they do click is determined partly by what they are, what image they present, and what signals they send out (Red)
What you described there is not a spectrum from Blue to Red. Blue to Red would look something like “attraction is about signalling affection and kindness” vs. “attraction is about signalling dominance and demand”.
What you describe is a spectrum from Black to Red, where Black is the absence of ideas about attraction and sexual dynamics—”something” happens and it just clicks—whereas Red/Blue is a specific position on what that “something” is. The difficulty with distinguishing Blue and Black arises because the whole construct described by the term Blue is partly real conventional wisdom and partly a Red straw-man.
And there’s no reason to a priori assume that Red or Blue is actually correct* about what general signals you aught to send out to induce attraction in the average, generalized case, nor is there reason to assume that the truth is anywhere in the middle of these two. There might be a third, Green position which captures the fact of the matter.
In reality, pop-feminism and conventional wisdom doesn’t often bother delving into evo-psych and thinking about sexual strategy
That doesn’t seem to be so. Conventional wisdom has TONS of heuristics about sexual strategy. The real problem is that these heuristics are just a bunch of separate pieces of advice so they tend to contradict each other and in general lack any coherence or structure. In that sense I agree that the Blues have not “adopted a position on the matter”, but instead they propose a large variety of inconsistent positions.
Red is … factually mistaken in its conclusions about what sorts of signals one should send out and how these thing work.
I think it’s pretty obvious that this depends. It seems to me that there is a subset of people for whom the Red approach works well (there is some self-selection here as well) and there is a subset of people for whom it doesn’t. I agree that the Red claims about their “truths” being biologically hardwired and universal to all humans are… excessive :-)
what general signals you aught to send out to induce attraction in the average, generalized case
That’s not a good way to formulate a problem. Any specific individual isn’t much interested in the “average, generalized case”, s/he has more or less specific preferences, and using any techniques selects for people who respond to these techniques.
To give a crude example, flashing a Rolex, keys to a Lamborghini, or talking about your private jet is an excellent signal to “induce attraction” from a very specific kind of females. If you’re interested in this specific kind it’s a good technique. If you’re not, it’s not.
It seems to me that there is a subset of people for whom the Red approach works well...I agree that the Red claims about their “truths” being biologically hardwired and universal to all humans are… excessive
Sure, and there is a subset of people for whom Blue conclusions works well, and for whom Green conclusions work well. Just because the conclusions work for some people in some places, doesn’t mean the premises are actually sound. Following bad premises will eventually lead to suboptimal outcomes.
Accepting false premises based on conclusions that by chance happen to be instrumentally useful in some restricted cases is considered dangerous for very good reason.
I am not particularly interested in debating whether the Red map matches the territory well or not, but note that in your post you make strong claims—that Red techniques succeed only “by chance” and even that temporary success “will eventually lead to suboptimal outcomes”. Beware of the Typical Mind fallacy.
temporary success “will eventually lead to suboptimal outcomes”. Beware of the Typical Mind fallacy.
Just to clarify, by “sub-optimal outcomes” I didn’t mean that you’ll end up unhappy in your romantic relationships (which I agree would be a case of typical mind fallacy). I was referring to sub-optimal outcomes in domains unrelated to sexual strategy.
Also to clarify, the “by chance” refers to the general case of theories which come up with techniques that sometimes work for reasons that may or may not be what the theory says, not to Red/Blue specifically.
To give a crude example, flashing a Rolex, keys to a Lamborghini, or talking about your private jet is an excellent signal to “induce attraction” from a very specific kind of females. If you’re interested in this specific kind it’s a good technique. If you’re not, it’s not.
If you mistakenly model all women as identical to this specific subset and behave accordingly, you’ll create sub-optimal outcomes in a global sense. (For example: What does having this model mean for how you treat women colleagues, coworkers, or students? How you treat daughters?)...note that the Red I’ve experienced does advocate that its model is true in the general case, rather than for a specific subset (they even have a name for it—“AWALT—All Women Are Like That”)
Of course, you could still argue that “optimal outcome” in this domain is specific to who you are...but typical mind fallacy doesn’t matter with respect to terminal preferences and values. I don’t want a society where people are treated that way, especially not from a young age.
But in general, stepping back from this issue specifically...I just think it’s bad epistemic hygiene to judge models by the apparent usefulness of the techniques which they suggest, especially when the fact that the technique is effective was well known before the model was generated.
Why? Doesn’t that mean you’ll end up accepting all manner of placebo and frequently misunderstand the reason that something works?
forecasts
You’re mis-paraphrasing “forecasts”, where I just said “techniques” in general. I think the distinction between pre and post hoc is important here.
If they are actually forecasts (as in, the prediction was made after making the model) then it does lend some credence...but if the model was made post-hoc of seeing certain techniques work and observing certain trends, as is the case with most of what we are talking about, it’s another matter entirely.
Doesn’t that mean you’ll end up accepting all manner of placebo and frequently misunderstand the reason that something works?
The fact that I want to judge models by their effectiveness in the real world does not imply that I have to be stupid about it.
If they are actually forecasts
The Red models make forecasts: they tell you what to do and what results to expect, all in the future.
but if the model was made post-hoc of seeing certain techniques work and observing certain trends
That’s usually called historical data on which the model is based (or fitted) :-)
But is it your contention that Red techniques (regardless of whether the underlying Red models are correct or not) actually work? You seem to have been saying that they don’t.
We all try to be stupid about it, but all sorts of biases will begin coming into play with nebulous criteria like that.
A model based on historical data becomes more trustworthy once it makes a prediction in a novel scenario. If the Phlogiston model tells you to predict that fire goes out when airflow is restricted, it doesn’t increase the model’s impressiveness because Becher knew that fact before he made the model.
You seem to have been saying that they don’t
Yes, I was sort of saying that earlier when I was talking about generalities. But I am also in agreement with your previous statement, that they work for a subset of people who have certain goals.
We all try to be [I assume there is a missing “not” here] stupid about it, but all sorts of biases will begin coming into play.
That looks like a general argument against any kind of empirical testing.
once it makes a prediction in a novel scenario.
You join the Red team, go out to a bar, meet a girl you’ve never seen before. That is a novel scenario—the alternative is to accept that the Red techniques work because of biological imperatives hardwired into all human females, something I think you’d be loath to do.
And not to accuse you of rationalist sins, but do you think there is some motivated cognition going on?
You join the Red team, go out to a bar, meet a girl you’ve never seen before. That is a novel scenario—the alternative is to accept that the Red techniques work because of biological imperatives hardwired into all human females, something I think you’d be loath to do.
Red Theory: Go to the bar wearing a suit and rolex because it signals wealth and status, find a girl and take her home. Make an advance. She’ll act reluctant at first, but she’s just testing your dominance so you should make another attempt later on. She’ll rationalize it later in the morning—you have to provide plausible deniability, so she can pretend that “it just happened” and enjoy herself without feeling like a slut. She’ll be attracted to your willingness to assert your desire.
Blue Theory: The display of wealth did catch her eye—she was raised in a traditional manner and wanted to settle down with someone who could provide, and she’d always had a thing for suits. However, once she got back to your place, the woman really didn’t want to, but she felt awkward, was alone with a strange man, and was too tipsy to make good decisions. She just wanted to get the situation over with and go home. She regretted playing along with it and not giving a more clear denial the next morning. Her self esteem lowered as a result of the encounter.
The above scenario plays out repeatedly in clubs and bars everywhere. Same sequence of events, and same predictions about what will happen...but very different underlying models of what is happening. Why should Red get to be the privileged hypothesis about what’s really going on here? Especially when Blue seems more in line with what people say they have experienced in such situations?
(Also, “a technique produces the results it has produced in the past” is not the same as “empirical testing of a hypothesis”)
once she got back to your place, the woman really didn’t want to
What exactly did she go “back to your place” for? What were her expectations at the moment she said “OK, let’s go to your place”?
same predictions about what will happen
Really? That just casts women as helpless powerless victims. Sure you want to go in that direction?
Why should Red get to be the privileged hypothesis about what’s really going on here?
So, what’s the Blue hypothesis? Why did the woman go back to his place? Why did she consent? Which falsifiable (in the Popperian sense) assertion about what really happened can Blue make?
Blue seems more in line with what people say they have experienced in such situations?
Really? That just casts women as helpless powerless victims. Sure you want to go in that direction?
Sort of, yes. I think a large segment of humanity (women and men) are hopelessly unable to assert their own preferences, and if an assertive person tells them to do something, they just sort of...go along with it. This is even more apparent when alcohol is added to the mix. You don’t even need to go so far as the Milgram experiment—humans are shockingly (pun intended) compliant to much weaker forms of authority. The aversion to conflict can override a lot of other preferences. It’s kind of disappointing, but that’s just how humans are.
And that’s before you add in complications relating to impulse control and people’s short term vs. long term preferences.
However, it’s not really victimhood I’m describing here—what I described isn’t quite at the point where I’d call it a crime scene. I’d say it’s primarily a mis-communication of preferences between two parties, fueled by hyper-assertiveness on one end and conflict-aversion on the other.This is the reason that feminists advocate much stronger forms of communication and consent.
selection bias
Yes, but it would be foolhardy to ignore available evidence in favor of some hypothetical speculation about what the evidence that slips my notice might be. In any case, this seems like the sort of scenario where I’d advocate everyone err on the side of caution by making sure to get verbal consent in the absence of strong, insistent application of social pressure, and most importantly to take reluctance at face value.
I think a large segment of humanity (women and men) are hopelessly unable to assert their own preferences, and if an assertive person tells them to do something, they just sort of...go along with it.
Well, that’s interesting. To hell with who gets to screw whom—what do you think about social and political implications of this? This approach basically says that democracy cannot be anything but a sham, for example. It also heavily implies that people need a benevolent philosopher-king to rule over them.
If a “large segment” of people have, basically, reduced capabilities, what does that imply about their rights?
it’s not really victimhood I’m describing here—what I described isn’t quite at the point where I’d call it a crime scene
Oh, come on, the common use of the word “victim” nowadays (especially in the SJ circles) has nothing to do with crimes and legality in general.
what do you think about social and political implications of this?
Pretty bleak. See: Third Reich. But I don’t see how knowing that humans are vulnerable to do things they don’t like when authority tells them to means we should have more central authorities—there’s some inferences you’ve made that are opaque to me. If anything, I would think it means we should be all the more suspicious of authority and vigilantly maintain egalitarianism. (Of course, if you’re somehow guaranteeing that they be benevolent and competent philosophers to boot, that does seem pretty good...)
Oh, come one
I don’t think there is any need to adopt any other group’s broadened usage of “victim” here?
it means we should be all the more suspicious of authority
Your premise is that a “large segment” of people is basically incapable of this, and even if it gets suspicious can be just intimidated and shouted down into submission.
I don’t mean this as confrontational way, just an observation: there’s this pattern of where I write something, and then you respond as if I wrote a subtly exaggerated version containing some additional points which I didn’t actually write. This comment really typifies the tendency.
Just because I think many humans have a weakness for obeying authority and avoiding conflict (do you actually dispute that?) doesn’t mean I think society is going to collapse as a result of this tendency
Just because a lot of drunk people at a night club are often pressured into making quick decisions they regret later doesn’t mean that no one is capable of questioning authority and standing up for themselves.
Maintaining egalitarianism means preventing people from systematically exerting power over one another in a way that significantly overrides each others preferences, and that’s not a non sequitur.
there’s this pattern of where I write something, and then you repeat back a subtly exaggerated version
Yes, I find it an efficient way to gain understanding of other people’s positions. Basically, if you make a point, I don’t know—and I lack a proper word for that—how far are you willing to take it. So I sharpen that point and repeat it back to you. There are several possible outcomes. One is that I misunderstood you and what I repeated back to you isn’t what you meant. Another one is that yes, you are fine with the “sharpened” point. Yet another one is that the sharpened point goes too far so you want to define a boundary beyond which your point doesn’t apply. In any case I understand your point much better.
doesn’t mean I think society is going to collapse as a result of this tendency
I don’t have in mind a collapse. I have in mind a totalitarian state.
systematically exerting power over one another in a way that significantly overrides each others preferences
As far as I can tell, the main function of democracy is to prevent the power structure from dramatically violating the citizen’s preferences. Totalitarian rule doesn’t have that feature, creating a higher risk of it becoming an unpleasant to live in, as well as unstable.
Isn’t that, essentially, what government is?
Yup.
There’s a balance to be struck between facilitating centralized organization and decision making, which involves a top down structure, and preventing top-down coercion.
I think we’re reaching realms of political science which are outside the domain of things which I know about / have thought about enough about to speak confidently.
Did the sides in this debate suddenly switch in these last two comments? I thought you were both making really good points above, and then got lost here at the end. :P Oh well, I gave y’all some upvotes.
My last comment was referring to things in general, rather than the Red/Blue issue
L had pointed out that there is a subset of people for whom Red works well
I said that Red, Blue, etc… referred to models of reality, and the accuracy models should be judged by the evidence supporting those models, rather than the apparent usefulness of the associated techniques. (Example: If someone said aspirin cured headaches by chasing away evil spirits, we shouldn’t take the fact that aspirin cures headaches in a subset of cases as evidence that there are evil spirits being chased away.) I further said that making this mistake would lead to sub-optimal outcomes.
L pointed out that what is sub-optimal for me is not necessarily sub-optimal for others.
I also agree with L’s assertion that neither of us is defending a fixed position, though I don’t think that was the reason for your confusion?
There are at least 5 reasons why Team Red is not fond of this argument (often deriding it with the acronym NAWALT).
Taken literally, it is seen as pedantic, much like the guy who insists that every statement of the form “men are stronger than women” be followed by the suffix “on average”. Of course in a planet of 3 billion women there are going to be some exceptions; that’s not an interesting observation.
If women have less biological variability than men (see Coscott’s poll above), we would expect a single mating behavior model to have greater predictive power among females than among males.
The prior probability that a particular woman does not follow the Team Red model is not seen as good. Powerful evidence is needed to overcome it.
The man who brings up this point is often talking about his sweetheart, and will thus be unable to analyse the relevant evidence in an un-biased fashion.
FWIW, reading that first link has made me less sympathetic to Team Red. I’m assuming you consider that blog to be a strong exemplar for the team or you wouldn’t have chosen it; to me it reads as dripping with contempt for women and makes me take the idea that Team Red is engaged in dispassionate analysis less seriously.
On point 1, to clarify—my experience (and no, I’m not literally talking just about my own relationships) is that we’re talking about about at least a substantial minority, not rare exceptions. I also don’t think the behaviors in question are scalar; it doesn’t make sense to talk about them “on average” unless you’re making a fairly uninteresting point about the modal woman, where then non-modal women are qualitatively different.
On point 2, again, the reason women are thought to vary less than men is that they have two copies of the x chromosome. It’s a principle roughly similar to the difference between rolling 2d6 and 1d12; you expect a lower standard deviation in the former. And again, there’s no reason for this to predict that women would be homogenous in their mating strategies.
Point 3 is basically assuming the conclusion.
Point 4. Not in this case.
Point 5. The comment you link to contains numerous inaccuracies about US divorce law, as is pointed out in that thread. Aside from that, what Lumifer said.
On point 2, again, the reason women are thought to vary less than men is that they have two copies of the x chromosome.
The reason women are thought to vary less than men is because that’s what nearly all the statistics say. There is a fairly straightforward ev-psych explanation for this. As for the mechanism, there is no consensus on it and it’s not at all clear that the mechanism you describe is the only (or even main) one.
The reason women are thought to vary less than men is because that’s what nearly all the statistics say.
The only statistics I’ve actually seen addressing sex differences in standard deviations from the mean are IQ, height, weight, and life expectancy. Do you have links to studies from this perspective on other traits?
There is a fairly straightforward ev-psych explanation for this.
Without disputing the fact that evolutionary psychology may correctly explain some things, the problem with ev-psych exlanations is that they can explain anything. Just as you can finance pundit diametrically opposed stock market data and they’ll find some way to fit both sets to their theory, and armchair evolutionary psychologist can explain any behavior in ev-pysch terms, correct or not. Being able to offer a mechanism is, in my view, rather important for corroboration.
the problem with ev-psych exlanations is that they can explain anything.
Um, no. Yes it’s possible to rationalize anything if one is creative enough, this isn’t limited to ev-psych, but just as some arguments are better then others, some ev-psych explanations are better then others, and this one is pretty straightforward: namely since the number of children an individual female can have is much more limited then an individual male, it makes sense for females to use less risky, i.e., lower variance, strategies. Hence, we should expect males to have a higher variance in most traits unless there is some reason for that particular trait to be selected otherwise.
Being able to offer a mechanism is, in my view, rather important for corroboration.
Um, in fact in this case a single mechanism would be evidence against the ev-psych explanation, which predicts evolution to arrange this for each trait in whatever way it happens to stumble upon.
That may or may not be so, but ev-psych explanations are no more than post factum just-so stories, nothing but handwaving. They are useful to humans because humans have a need to have things explained, but they are not science.
Honestly, your comment appears to consist of a bunch of non-sequiturs. In case I’m missing something could you explain whether you think this is equally true of any evolutionary explanation. If not what’s so special about ev-psych?
Ok, what about evolution itself, or the theory of the big bang? Basically, I’m trying to figure out what you mean by “no more than post factum just-so stories, nothing but handwaving”.
Evolution is a mechanism that can trivially be shown to work. Evolution can be demonstrated in species with short reproduction cycles. The Big Bang theory makes predictions about what you should see and what you should not see in reality. So far its predictions were correct.
The Big Bang theory makes predictions about what you should see and what you should not see in reality.
So does ev-psych. If you mean that ev-psych rarely makes predictions as opposed to explaining existing data, the same appears to be true of the big bang.
Taken literally, it is seen as pedantic, much like the guy who insists that every statement of the form “men are stronger than women” be followed by the suffix “on average”. Of course in a planet of 3 billion women there are going to be some exceptions; that’s not an interesting observation.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, whereas zero-article plurals in English are usually taken to only refer to central elements of a category (“ducks lay eggs” even though male ones don’t) in descriptive statements, they often aren’t in normative statements (say “ducks aren’t allowed here”). Therefore, claims like “women are X; therefore, women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y”, insofar as “women are X” would normally be taken to refer to typical women and “women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y” would normally be taken to refer to all women, sound a lot like fallacies of equivocation to me.
Therefore, claims like “women are X; therefore, women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y”, insofar as “women are X” would normally be taken to refer to typical women and “women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y” would normally be taken to refer to all women, sound a lot like fallacies of equivocation to me.
Or maybe the claimers do not believe that every rare exception warrants a deontological obligation to create an entire legal/social/institutional framework to acommodate it, regardless of consequences such as horrible inefficiency, toxic social pathologies, or the abandonment of vitally important Schelling fences (I am reminded of a comment on Steve Sailer’s blog: “The military is too male. I don’t have a joke, I’m just really in awe of that phrase. I’m thinking about the length of a journey that a culture must undertake in order for that to stop sounding crazy.”)
If that’s their argument, I’d rather they stated that explicitly, rather than relying on the ambiguity of generic plurals.
(And in certain cases I can’t see what’s wrong with just using the same legal/social/institutional framework that already exists for men. “After all, we are a university, not a bath house.”)
Because the consequences of assuming a woman does not follow the Team Red model when she does are so terrible, a man is better off provisionally assuming that all women operate under the Team Red model.
The consequences you linked to are exactly the same for assuming a woman follows the Team Red model when in fact she does not.
Refusing to marry a woman who wouldn’t divorce you anyway? I can see that consequences of doing that are also bad, but “exactly the same” sounds like a stretch.
I also already wondered if there is an analogue to the Alpha/Beta distinction in women.
There definitely are alpha and beta women, but it is not about slut / prude dilemma.
Imagine a group of young people discussing what to do, for instance which movie to see. If an alpha woman says, she wants to see Titanic, suddenly several men want to see Titanic, even though it seems disproportionate, if we have known those men for longer and are aware they do not generally like this type of films. Then a beta, or rather omega women says, she wants to see Matrix and is ignored.
What makes an alpha woman become alpha ? Confidence certainly helps, there is an analogy to PUA teachings. Women magazines recommend that all the time. Alpha woman probably does not behave in so strongly dominant manner, as is suggested by PUA for men. But still, she is somewhat dominant. I guess so. You tell me, boys. Beauty helps a lot, too, although there is anecdotal evidence, that bad looks can be overcome.
Now I start feeling lost as I am writing this, so I am leaving my theory incomplete.
“Genuinely desirable” seems like the problem here, in that it’s conflating base sexual attraction with a more pragmatic evaluation of someone’s prospects.
Beta males certainly have many admirable qualities; they’re reliable productive and civil, usually friendly and loyal as well. But those qualities, while again being very important, are simply not attractive.
Alpha males, on the other hand, are really quite a menace. The Dark Triad traits which make them attractive also mean they are shiftless and poor contributors to society, at least for the most part.
Hence the pattern of “Alpha fucks, Beta bucks.” Women want to get the Alpha but will, if forced to by circumstances, trade sex to Betas for resources / security.
In that context, female “Betas” would be the low-risk women men settle for reluctantly while “Alphas” would be high-risk women who are highly sought after.
I am am correspondingly looking for alike orthogonal traits in women that are both independently desirable for men.
Candidate womens traits could be:
Beauty, Health
Practical intelligence
Ability and willingness to care for and foster offspring.
Capability to influence others (corresponding to male Alpha trait)
Sexual willingsness
The questions is: Are these actually clustered into two orthogonal features? I cannot see such a clustering. And I also see no clear evopsych reason for it.
Well, I can come up with pairs of orthogonal traits, but I don’t know why would you call them Alpha and Beta. These terms are pretty solidly associated with dominance/status.
But if you want to make up an orthogonal pair, sure: Alpha = sexiness, ability to turn heads on the street, good in bed, bombshell. Beta = keeping house, being a good mother, a good cook.
The parallel is that Alpha qualities make you noticed and attract potential mates while Beta qualities keep them over the long term.
Evo-psychologists distinguish between short-term and long-term mating strategies for women, but, as far as I can tell, they attribute the difference more to environmental cues than persistent traits of particular organisms. I’m not very confident that my recollection\impression is accurate though, so don’t update much without double-checking.
In popular culture there the “The Rules” which get’s often cited as a analogue to PUA practices. It contains such rules as: ”2. Don’t Talk to a Man First”
Don’t Call Him and Rarely Return His Calls
Always End Phone Calls First”
There are also other cultural difference between woman. In the social justice warrior camp you find individuals who argue that any physical touch from a stranger that isn’t explicitly announced to be welcome is inappropriate.
If you go in a Yoga class, I think you find plenty of woman who don’t have a huge problem with physical touch provided it’s done in an aware manner. Those woman care much more for emotions and how it makes them feel than for following mental rules about what kind of touch is allowed in what circumstances.
They totally believe that they should be legally able to hire an employee based on the advice of a tarot reading or intuition instead of a specific intellectual analysis of the merits that a person has.
But I don’t know how many of that type are active on Lesswrong.
My own experience suggests that some women behave just as team red predicts, and some women do not.
Just adding a data point that I have a similar experience. Some women are like textbook examples of the Team Red theory. Other women are not. Some seem to fit the model partially.
I hesitate to ask this clarification because I don’t want debate to take over the thread—feel free to ignore this if it seems likely to have a poor cost-benefit ratio.
It is my impression that team red seems to allow for qualitative variance among males in mating behavior (“alphas” v “betas”, dominance v. prestige behavior, etc.) but expects that all women dance to basically the same biological piper. My own experience suggests that some women behave just as team red predicts, and some women do not. This leaves me a bit puzzled how to answer this question. On the one hand, team red is probably describing something real. On the other hand, I think there is qualitative variance in women’s mating instincts (not sure if I would go so far as to say “individualism”), and that men who do not follow team red’s advice can still succeed with the “right” women.
Is that answer you would consider “parts of both”? In my personal behavior, I’m clearly on Team Blue....
Within the Redpill ideology, the female equivalent of alpha/beta is slut/prude. They claim that just like women have short term relationships with “alphas” and settle down with “betas”, men don’t mind having flings with “sluts” but would rather marry a sexually inexperienced woman. Conversely, they claim that while “betas” give out attention indiscriminately and fail to acquire sex (the “friend zone”), sluts give out sex indiscriminately but in the end fail to acquire commitment.
(The above does not reflect my own views and I personally think that the language they use is in very poor taste. I also think idea as a whole is wrong about gender and human instincts, but bears just enough superficial similarity to how some humans behave under some conditions to be compelling to some people. )
I can’t speak for the Redpill ideology, but in my experience the alpha/beta terminology is well applicable to both sexes.
I know some women who are (very clearly to me) alpha females in the direct terms of status and domination, and I know some women who are beta females and are cooperative, preferring to be led, even submissive. That distinction doesn’t correlate with the slut/prude dichotomy.
In more general terms, the Blue and the Red positions are described in the {grand}parent post look like extremes on a continuous spectrum to me. The problem with the Red team is that it treats individuals as fungible: provide the right signals and it doesn’t matter who your partner is. The problem with the Blue team is that it ignores the underlying mechanisms—you just click together, it’s magic, don’t ask how it works.
For example, it seems reasonable to me that for a successful relationship people do need to “click” together (Blue), but whether they do click is determined partly by what they are, what image they present, and what signals they send out (Red).
Sure, it’s quite possible that people have a stable preference for dominant/submissive behavior in social interactions. I think that’s a fairly uncontroversial thing to posit.
That’s probably because the “Blue” side is not actually a monolithic, self-aware school of thought. “Blue” is an exonym created by Red to describe the amalgam of conventional wisdom and pop-feminism to which they construct themselves as opposing (analogous to how “Cathedral” is not a monolithic, self aware group, but an exonym created by reactionaries). In reality, pop-feminism and conventional wisdom doesn’t often bother delving into evo-psych and thinking about sexual strategy...so the seeming lack of specificity inherent in “click” is not in opposition to anyone, but simply the result of not having adopted a position on the matter.
Well, personally I think the additional, and more pressing problem with Red is that it is factually mistaken in its conclusions about what sorts of signals one should send out and how these thing work.
What you described there is not a spectrum from Blue to Red. Blue to Red would look something like “attraction is about signalling affection and kindness” vs. “attraction is about signalling dominance and demand”.
What you describe is a spectrum from Black to Red, where Black is the absence of ideas about attraction and sexual dynamics—”something” happens and it just clicks—whereas Red/Blue is a specific position on what that “something” is. The difficulty with distinguishing Blue and Black arises because the whole construct described by the term Blue is partly real conventional wisdom and partly a Red straw-man.
And there’s no reason to a priori assume that Red or Blue is actually correct* about what general signals you aught to send out to induce attraction in the average, generalized case, nor is there reason to assume that the truth is anywhere in the middle of these two. There might be a third, Green position which captures the fact of the matter.
That doesn’t seem to be so. Conventional wisdom has TONS of heuristics about sexual strategy. The real problem is that these heuristics are just a bunch of separate pieces of advice so they tend to contradict each other and in general lack any coherence or structure. In that sense I agree that the Blues have not “adopted a position on the matter”, but instead they propose a large variety of inconsistent positions.
I think it’s pretty obvious that this depends. It seems to me that there is a subset of people for whom the Red approach works well (there is some self-selection here as well) and there is a subset of people for whom it doesn’t. I agree that the Red claims about their “truths” being biologically hardwired and universal to all humans are… excessive :-)
That’s not a good way to formulate a problem. Any specific individual isn’t much interested in the “average, generalized case”, s/he has more or less specific preferences, and using any techniques selects for people who respond to these techniques.
To give a crude example, flashing a Rolex, keys to a Lamborghini, or talking about your private jet is an excellent signal to “induce attraction” from a very specific kind of females. If you’re interested in this specific kind it’s a good technique. If you’re not, it’s not.
Sure, and there is a subset of people for whom Blue conclusions works well, and for whom Green conclusions work well. Just because the conclusions work for some people in some places, doesn’t mean the premises are actually sound. Following bad premises will eventually lead to suboptimal outcomes.
Accepting false premises based on conclusions that by chance happen to be instrumentally useful in some restricted cases is considered dangerous for very good reason.
I am not particularly interested in debating whether the Red map matches the territory well or not, but note that in your post you make strong claims—that Red techniques succeed only “by chance” and even that temporary success “will eventually lead to suboptimal outcomes”. Beware of the Typical Mind fallacy.
Just to clarify, by “sub-optimal outcomes” I didn’t mean that you’ll end up unhappy in your romantic relationships (which I agree would be a case of typical mind fallacy). I was referring to sub-optimal outcomes in domains unrelated to sexual strategy.
Also to clarify, the “by chance” refers to the general case of theories which come up with techniques that sometimes work for reasons that may or may not be what the theory says, not to Red/Blue specifically.
If you mistakenly model all women as identical to this specific subset and behave accordingly, you’ll create sub-optimal outcomes in a global sense. (For example: What does having this model mean for how you treat women colleagues, coworkers, or students? How you treat daughters?)...note that the Red I’ve experienced does advocate that its model is true in the general case, rather than for a specific subset (they even have a name for it—“AWALT—All Women Are Like That”)
Of course, you could still argue that “optimal outcome” in this domain is specific to who you are...but typical mind fallacy doesn’t matter with respect to terminal preferences and values. I don’t want a society where people are treated that way, especially not from a young age.
But in general, stepping back from this issue specifically...I just think it’s bad epistemic hygiene to judge models by the apparent usefulness of the techniques which they suggest, especially when the fact that the technique is effective was well known before the model was generated.
I disagree. I think that judging models by the success of their forecasts in empirical reality is precisely how they should be evaluated.
Why? Doesn’t that mean you’ll end up accepting all manner of placebo and frequently misunderstand the reason that something works?
You’re mis-paraphrasing “forecasts”, where I just said “techniques” in general. I think the distinction between pre and post hoc is important here.
If they are actually forecasts (as in, the prediction was made after making the model) then it does lend some credence...but if the model was made post-hoc of seeing certain techniques work and observing certain trends, as is the case with most of what we are talking about, it’s another matter entirely.
The fact that I want to judge models by their effectiveness in the real world does not imply that I have to be stupid about it.
The Red models make forecasts: they tell you what to do and what results to expect, all in the future.
That’s usually called historical data on which the model is based (or fitted) :-)
But is it your contention that Red techniques (regardless of whether the underlying Red models are correct or not) actually work? You seem to have been saying that they don’t.
We all try to be stupid about it, but all sorts of biases will begin coming into play with nebulous criteria like that.
A model based on historical data becomes more trustworthy once it makes a prediction in a novel scenario. If the Phlogiston model tells you to predict that fire goes out when airflow is restricted, it doesn’t increase the model’s impressiveness because Becher knew that fact before he made the model.
Yes, I was sort of saying that earlier when I was talking about generalities. But I am also in agreement with your previous statement, that they work for a subset of people who have certain goals.
That looks like a general argument against any kind of empirical testing.
You join the Red team, go out to a bar, meet a girl you’ve never seen before. That is a novel scenario—the alternative is to accept that the Red techniques work because of biological imperatives hardwired into all human females, something I think you’d be loath to do.
And not to accuse you of rationalist sins, but do you think there is some motivated cognition going on?
Red Theory: Go to the bar wearing a suit and rolex because it signals wealth and status, find a girl and take her home. Make an advance. She’ll act reluctant at first, but she’s just testing your dominance so you should make another attempt later on. She’ll rationalize it later in the morning—you have to provide plausible deniability, so she can pretend that “it just happened” and enjoy herself without feeling like a slut. She’ll be attracted to your willingness to assert your desire.
Blue Theory: The display of wealth did catch her eye—she was raised in a traditional manner and wanted to settle down with someone who could provide, and she’d always had a thing for suits. However, once she got back to your place, the woman really didn’t want to, but she felt awkward, was alone with a strange man, and was too tipsy to make good decisions. She just wanted to get the situation over with and go home. She regretted playing along with it and not giving a more clear denial the next morning. Her self esteem lowered as a result of the encounter.
The above scenario plays out repeatedly in clubs and bars everywhere. Same sequence of events, and same predictions about what will happen...but very different underlying models of what is happening. Why should Red get to be the privileged hypothesis about what’s really going on here? Especially when Blue seems more in line with what people say they have experienced in such situations?
(Also, “a technique produces the results it has produced in the past” is not the same as “empirical testing of a hypothesis”)
What exactly did she go “back to your place” for? What were her expectations at the moment she said “OK, let’s go to your place”?
Really? That just casts women as helpless powerless victims. Sure you want to go in that direction?
So, what’s the Blue hypothesis? Why did the woman go back to his place? Why did she consent? Which falsifiable (in the Popperian sense) assertion about what really happened can Blue make?
You know about selection bias, right?
Sort of, yes. I think a large segment of humanity (women and men) are hopelessly unable to assert their own preferences, and if an assertive person tells them to do something, they just sort of...go along with it. This is even more apparent when alcohol is added to the mix. You don’t even need to go so far as the Milgram experiment—humans are shockingly (pun intended) compliant to much weaker forms of authority. The aversion to conflict can override a lot of other preferences. It’s kind of disappointing, but that’s just how humans are.
And that’s before you add in complications relating to impulse control and people’s short term vs. long term preferences.
However, it’s not really victimhood I’m describing here—what I described isn’t quite at the point where I’d call it a crime scene. I’d say it’s primarily a mis-communication of preferences between two parties, fueled by hyper-assertiveness on one end and conflict-aversion on the other.This is the reason that feminists advocate much stronger forms of communication and consent.
Yes, but it would be foolhardy to ignore available evidence in favor of some hypothetical speculation about what the evidence that slips my notice might be. In any case, this seems like the sort of scenario where I’d advocate everyone err on the side of caution by making sure to get verbal consent in the absence of strong, insistent application of social pressure, and most importantly to take reluctance at face value.
Well, that’s interesting. To hell with who gets to screw whom—what do you think about social and political implications of this? This approach basically says that democracy cannot be anything but a sham, for example. It also heavily implies that people need a benevolent philosopher-king to rule over them.
If a “large segment” of people have, basically, reduced capabilities, what does that imply about their rights?
Oh, come on, the common use of the word “victim” nowadays (especially in the SJ circles) has nothing to do with crimes and legality in general.
Pretty bleak. See: Third Reich. But I don’t see how knowing that humans are vulnerable to do things they don’t like when authority tells them to means we should have more central authorities—there’s some inferences you’ve made that are opaque to me. If anything, I would think it means we should be all the more suspicious of authority and vigilantly maintain egalitarianism. (Of course, if you’re somehow guaranteeing that they be benevolent and competent philosophers to boot, that does seem pretty good...)
I don’t think there is any need to adopt any other group’s broadened usage of “victim” here?
Well, should we stock on ammo and beans, then?
Your premise is that a “large segment” of people is basically incapable of this, and even if it gets suspicious can be just intimidated and shouted down into submission.
That’s a non sequitur.
I don’t mean this as confrontational way, just an observation: there’s this pattern of where I write something, and then you respond as if I wrote a subtly exaggerated version containing some additional points which I didn’t actually write. This comment really typifies the tendency.
Just because I think many humans have a weakness for obeying authority and avoiding conflict (do you actually dispute that?) doesn’t mean I think society is going to collapse as a result of this tendency
Just because a lot of drunk people at a night club are often pressured into making quick decisions they regret later doesn’t mean that no one is capable of questioning authority and standing up for themselves.
Maintaining egalitarianism means preventing people from systematically exerting power over one another in a way that significantly overrides each others preferences, and that’s not a non sequitur.
Yes, I find it an efficient way to gain understanding of other people’s positions. Basically, if you make a point, I don’t know—and I lack a proper word for that—how far are you willing to take it. So I sharpen that point and repeat it back to you. There are several possible outcomes. One is that I misunderstood you and what I repeated back to you isn’t what you meant. Another one is that yes, you are fine with the “sharpened” point. Yet another one is that the sharpened point goes too far so you want to define a boundary beyond which your point doesn’t apply. In any case I understand your point much better.
I don’t have in mind a collapse. I have in mind a totalitarian state.
Isn’t that, essentially, what government is?
As far as I can tell, the main function of democracy is to prevent the power structure from dramatically violating the citizen’s preferences. Totalitarian rule doesn’t have that feature, creating a higher risk of it becoming an unpleasant to live in, as well as unstable.
Yup.
There’s a balance to be struck between facilitating centralized organization and decision making, which involves a top down structure, and preventing top-down coercion.
I think we’re reaching realms of political science which are outside the domain of things which I know about / have thought about enough about to speak confidently.
It was a nice arc from PUA techniques to viability of sociopolitical structures :-)
Did the sides in this debate suddenly switch in these last two comments? I thought you were both making really good points above, and then got lost here at the end. :P Oh well, I gave y’all some upvotes.
My last comment was referring to things in general, rather than the Red/Blue issue
L had pointed out that there is a subset of people for whom Red works well
I said that Red, Blue, etc… referred to models of reality, and the accuracy models should be judged by the evidence supporting those models, rather than the apparent usefulness of the associated techniques. (Example: If someone said aspirin cured headaches by chasing away evil spirits, we shouldn’t take the fact that aspirin cures headaches in a subset of cases as evidence that there are evil spirits being chased away.) I further said that making this mistake would lead to sub-optimal outcomes.
L pointed out that what is sub-optimal for me is not necessarily sub-optimal for others.
I also agree with L’s assertion that neither of us is defending a fixed position, though I don’t think that was the reason for your confusion?
Maybe? :-) I think we were discussing the issue, not defending fixed positions.
Fair point :)
There are at least 5 reasons why Team Red is not fond of this argument (often deriding it with the acronym NAWALT).
Taken literally, it is seen as pedantic, much like the guy who insists that every statement of the form “men are stronger than women” be followed by the suffix “on average”. Of course in a planet of 3 billion women there are going to be some exceptions; that’s not an interesting observation.
If women have less biological variability than men (see Coscott’s poll above), we would expect a single mating behavior model to have greater predictive power among females than among males.
The prior probability that a particular woman does not follow the Team Red model is not seen as good. Powerful evidence is needed to overcome it.
The man who brings up this point is often talking about his sweetheart, and will thus be unable to analyse the relevant evidence in an un-biased fashion.
Because the consequences of assuming a woman does not follow the Team Red model when she does are so terrible, a man is better off provisionally assuming that all women operate under the Team Red model.
FWIW, reading that first link has made me less sympathetic to Team Red. I’m assuming you consider that blog to be a strong exemplar for the team or you wouldn’t have chosen it; to me it reads as dripping with contempt for women and makes me take the idea that Team Red is engaged in dispassionate analysis less seriously.
On point 1, to clarify—my experience (and no, I’m not literally talking just about my own relationships) is that we’re talking about about at least a substantial minority, not rare exceptions. I also don’t think the behaviors in question are scalar; it doesn’t make sense to talk about them “on average” unless you’re making a fairly uninteresting point about the modal woman, where then non-modal women are qualitatively different.
On point 2, again, the reason women are thought to vary less than men is that they have two copies of the x chromosome. It’s a principle roughly similar to the difference between rolling 2d6 and 1d12; you expect a lower standard deviation in the former. And again, there’s no reason for this to predict that women would be homogenous in their mating strategies.
Point 3 is basically assuming the conclusion.
Point 4. Not in this case.
Point 5. The comment you link to contains numerous inaccuracies about US divorce law, as is pointed out in that thread. Aside from that, what Lumifer said.
The reason women are thought to vary less than men is because that’s what nearly all the statistics say. There is a fairly straightforward ev-psych explanation for this. As for the mechanism, there is no consensus on it and it’s not at all clear that the mechanism you describe is the only (or even main) one.
The only statistics I’ve actually seen addressing sex differences in standard deviations from the mean are IQ, height, weight, and life expectancy. Do you have links to studies from this perspective on other traits?
Without disputing the fact that evolutionary psychology may correctly explain some things, the problem with ev-psych exlanations is that they can explain anything. Just as you can finance pundit diametrically opposed stock market data and they’ll find some way to fit both sets to their theory, and armchair evolutionary psychologist can explain any behavior in ev-pysch terms, correct or not. Being able to offer a mechanism is, in my view, rather important for corroboration.
Um, no. Yes it’s possible to rationalize anything if one is creative enough, this isn’t limited to ev-psych, but just as some arguments are better then others, some ev-psych explanations are better then others, and this one is pretty straightforward: namely since the number of children an individual female can have is much more limited then an individual male, it makes sense for females to use less risky, i.e., lower variance, strategies. Hence, we should expect males to have a higher variance in most traits unless there is some reason for that particular trait to be selected otherwise.
Um, in fact in this case a single mechanism would be evidence against the ev-psych explanation, which predicts evolution to arrange this for each trait in whatever way it happens to stumble upon.
That may or may not be so, but ev-psych explanations are no more than post factum just-so stories, nothing but handwaving. They are useful to humans because humans have a need to have things explained, but they are not science.
Honestly, your comment appears to consist of a bunch of non-sequiturs. In case I’m missing something could you explain whether you think this is equally true of any evolutionary explanation. If not what’s so special about ev-psych?
Basically, yes, “evolutionary explanations” are narratives and not science.
Ok, what about evolution itself, or the theory of the big bang? Basically, I’m trying to figure out what you mean by “no more than post factum just-so stories, nothing but handwaving”.
Evolution is a mechanism that can trivially be shown to work. Evolution can be demonstrated in species with short reproduction cycles. The Big Bang theory makes predictions about what you should see and what you should not see in reality. So far its predictions were correct.
So does ev-psych. If you mean that ev-psych rarely makes predictions as opposed to explaining existing data, the same appears to be true of the big bang.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, whereas zero-article plurals in English are usually taken to only refer to central elements of a category (“ducks lay eggs” even though male ones don’t) in descriptive statements, they often aren’t in normative statements (say “ducks aren’t allowed here”). Therefore, claims like “women are X; therefore, women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y”, insofar as “women are X” would normally be taken to refer to typical women and “women shouldn’t be allowed to do Y” would normally be taken to refer to all women, sound a lot like fallacies of equivocation to me.
Or maybe the claimers do not believe that every rare exception warrants a deontological obligation to create an entire legal/social/institutional framework to acommodate it, regardless of consequences such as horrible inefficiency, toxic social pathologies, or the abandonment of vitally important Schelling fences (I am reminded of a comment on Steve Sailer’s blog: “The military is too male. I don’t have a joke, I’m just really in awe of that phrase. I’m thinking about the length of a journey that a culture must undertake in order for that to stop sounding crazy.”)
If that’s their argument, I’d rather they stated that explicitly, rather than relying on the ambiguity of generic plurals.
(And in certain cases I can’t see what’s wrong with just using the same legal/social/institutional framework that already exists for men. “After all, we are a university, not a bath house.”)
The consequences you linked to are exactly the same for assuming a woman follows the Team Red model when in fact she does not.
Refusing to marry a woman who wouldn’t divorce you anyway? I can see that consequences of doing that are also bad, but “exactly the same” sounds like a stretch.
No, failing to sustain a satisfying relationship because you are giving your wife what you assume she should want, except that she actually doesn’t.
I also already wondered if there is an analogue to the Alpha/Beta distinction in women.
There definitely are alpha and beta women, but it is not about slut / prude dilemma.
Imagine a group of young people discussing what to do, for instance which movie to see. If an alpha woman says, she wants to see Titanic, suddenly several men want to see Titanic, even though it seems disproportionate, if we have known those men for longer and are aware they do not generally like this type of films. Then a beta, or rather omega women says, she wants to see Matrix and is ignored.
What makes an alpha woman become alpha ? Confidence certainly helps, there is an analogy to PUA teachings. Women magazines recommend that all the time. Alpha woman probably does not behave in so strongly dominant manner, as is suggested by PUA for men. But still, she is somewhat dominant. I guess so. You tell me, boys. Beauty helps a lot, too, although there is anecdotal evidence, that bad looks can be overcome.
Now I start feeling lost as I am writing this, so I am leaving my theory incomplete.
No. That doesn’t sound right. We are no looking for Alpha<->Omega i.e. graduation of success at dominance.
We are looking at genuinely desireable (for men) but orthogonal properties in woman.
Men: Alpha = Capability to control others, Beta = capability to provide and care for children
Women: Alpha = Beauty?, Capability to influence others?, Beta = Health? Practical intelligence?
“Genuinely desirable” seems like the problem here, in that it’s conflating base sexual attraction with a more pragmatic evaluation of someone’s prospects.
Beta males certainly have many admirable qualities; they’re reliable productive and civil, usually friendly and loyal as well. But those qualities, while again being very important, are simply not attractive.
Alpha males, on the other hand, are really quite a menace. The Dark Triad traits which make them attractive also mean they are shiftless and poor contributors to society, at least for the most part.
Hence the pattern of “Alpha fucks, Beta bucks.” Women want to get the Alpha but will, if forced to by circumstances, trade sex to Betas for resources / security.
In that context, female “Betas” would be the low-risk women men settle for reluctantly while “Alphas” would be high-risk women who are highly sought after.
Any examples ? Even fictional evidence ?
Can you rephrase? I don’t understand what this means.
Basis is the interpretation of Alpha/Beta citend by Viliam_Bur from e.g. here: http://marriedmansexlife.com/take-the-red-pill/alpha-and-beta-male-traits/ Where Alpha and Beta traits are orthogonal and both independently desirable (not Alpha good, Beta bad).
I am am correspondingly looking for alike orthogonal traits in women that are both independently desirable for men.
Candidate womens traits could be:
Beauty, Health
Practical intelligence
Ability and willingness to care for and foster offspring.
Capability to influence others (corresponding to male Alpha trait)
Sexual willingsness
The questions is: Are these actually clustered into two orthogonal features? I cannot see such a clustering. And I also see no clear evopsych reason for it.
Ah, I see.
Well, I can come up with pairs of orthogonal traits, but I don’t know why would you call them Alpha and Beta. These terms are pretty solidly associated with dominance/status.
But if you want to make up an orthogonal pair, sure: Alpha = sexiness, ability to turn heads on the street, good in bed, bombshell. Beta = keeping house, being a good mother, a good cook.
The parallel is that Alpha qualities make you noticed and attract potential mates while Beta qualities keep them over the long term.
Evo-psychologists distinguish between short-term and long-term mating strategies for women, but, as far as I can tell, they attribute the difference more to environmental cues than persistent traits of particular organisms. I’m not very confident that my recollection\impression is accurate though, so don’t update much without double-checking.
In popular culture there the “The Rules” which get’s often cited as a analogue to PUA practices. It contains such rules as:
”2. Don’t Talk to a Man First”
Don’t Call Him and Rarely Return His Calls
Always End Phone Calls First”
There are also other cultural difference between woman. In the social justice warrior camp you find individuals who argue that any physical touch from a stranger that isn’t explicitly announced to be welcome is inappropriate.
If you go in a Yoga class, I think you find plenty of woman who don’t have a huge problem with physical touch provided it’s done in an aware manner. Those woman care much more for emotions and how it makes them feel than for following mental rules about what kind of touch is allowed in what circumstances.
They totally believe that they should be legally able to hire an employee based on the advice of a tarot reading or intuition instead of a specific intellectual analysis of the merits that a person has.
But I don’t know how many of that type are active on Lesswrong.
For game-theoretic reasons, nobody can actually follow this strategy. The equilibrium would end up as
ring ring Man: “Hi” Woman: “Bye.”
Just adding a data point that I have a similar experience. Some women are like textbook examples of the Team Red theory. Other women are not. Some seem to fit the model partially.