How women perceive the ways men sometimes express attraction. See the recent comments by Rebecca Watson for an example.
Also I was confused by the nice guy syndrome until I read about how women perceive “nice” guys. There’s actually a bit in Feynman about this, which makes explicit the implicit beliefs of many “nice” guys—that women owe sex to men who are “nice” to them.
There’s actually a bit in Feynman about this, which makes explicit the implicit beliefs of many “nice” guys—that women owe sex to men who are “nice” to them.
It should be noted that it is not “Feynman” who makes this ‘explicit’. It is the feminist who is declaring that as his or her interpretation of Feynman.
This being the rationality forum, it is worth pointing out that Feynman acted as a consummate epistemic rationalist. He was presented with a testable model of female behavior and he conducted an experiment, which happened to validate the model, rather than falsify it. Moreover, he repeated his experiment and got the same results again.
He may have falsified the model on other occasions, but did not report it in his book, possibly due the positive bias. If so, it is not a big deal, given that he committed it in an autobiography, not in a scientific or technical setting (something he warned against in his report on the Challenger disaster).
The feminist getting mad at Feynman for successfully testing a model he didn’t even come up with just looks pathetic.
The trouble is that Feynman learned the wrong lesson—a failure of epistemic rationality. The lesson learned should have been “do what the successful guys do,” basically—that night the MC told him what to do, and he did it, and he got laid.
There was more than that to his hypothesis, though. This extra part, which may be just a teeny bit problematic to feminists, was that it was important to think of the women as “worthless bitches” while you were doing this. This extra part was not tested, yet still gets reported in the story as if it was a good idea.
What about the “worse than a whore” bit? To me, that is the central issue.
The real problem there is the insulting of prostitutes. Providing sexual services in exchange for money is not something worthy of derision.
The ‘worse’ seems to refer to manipulation. The exploitation of knowledge of another’s instincts and the creative use of deception to make them do something that you know that, on reflection, they would prefer not to have done. Some consider that not-ok.
“See, I flunked. The master gave me a lesson on what to do, and I flunked. I bought her $1.10 worth of sandwiches, and hadn’t asked her anything, and now I know I’m gonna get nothing! I have to recover, if only for the pride of my teacher.”
I stop suddenly and I say to her, “You… are worse than a WHORE!”
He screwed up his experiment and was trying to salvage it. Feynman certainly never seriously thought that a woman who doesn’t put out after dinner is worse than a whore. If you doubt that, read the rest of the book and “What do you care what other people think?”. He absolutely liked to have fun when not in a committed relationship, but there was never a hint of disrespect. And that is probably one reason he never used this way to get laid outside of this experiment.
I have read both books. And I’ve also read other things about Feynman’s attitude towards women (search for soup).
Noticing womens’ reactions to attitudes like Feynman’s (that is, not 1940s women, but modern women), and treating them seriously, has helped me in my relationship.
I agree with you, but this experiment could not have been ethically performed on lab mice or monkeys.
And yeah, he should have abandoned it right there, rather than pushing it to this limit, as a proof that it was the model that worked, not his personal charms or maybe the bar ambiance, and conduct a new trial. Certainly would not satisfy the standard required for publication in relevant psychological journals. Then again, he was not fond of repeating it.
Suffer is perhaps not the correct word here. I think shminux is thinking of experimenters wining and dining (or not) and then having sex with monkeys.
However there is a totally viable experimental design with monkeys, if any monkeys exhibit gift-giving as a part of mating—just make sure that the males have some resource, train some to give the gift and some not to, put them in a position where they’re trying to win the attentions of a female, and watch what happens.
What were the things you realized you’d been wrong about?
How women perceive the ways men sometimes express attraction. See the recent comments by Rebecca Watson for an example.
Also I was confused by the nice guy syndrome until I read about how women perceive “nice” guys. There’s actually a bit in Feynman about this, which makes explicit the implicit beliefs of many “nice” guys—that women owe sex to men who are “nice” to them.
It should be noted that it is not “Feynman” who makes this ‘explicit’. It is the feminist who is declaring that as his or her interpretation of Feynman.
This being the rationality forum, it is worth pointing out that Feynman acted as a consummate epistemic rationalist. He was presented with a testable model of female behavior and he conducted an experiment, which happened to validate the model, rather than falsify it. Moreover, he repeated his experiment and got the same results again.
He may have falsified the model on other occasions, but did not report it in his book, possibly due the positive bias. If so, it is not a big deal, given that he committed it in an autobiography, not in a scientific or technical setting (something he warned against in his report on the Challenger disaster).
The feminist getting mad at Feynman for successfully testing a model he didn’t even come up with just looks pathetic.
The trouble is that Feynman learned the wrong lesson—a failure of epistemic rationality. The lesson learned should have been “do what the successful guys do,” basically—that night the MC told him what to do, and he did it, and he got laid.
There was more than that to his hypothesis, though. This extra part, which may be just a teeny bit problematic to feminists, was that it was important to think of the women as “worthless bitches” while you were doing this. This extra part was not tested, yet still gets reported in the story as if it was a good idea.
I haven’t followed this thread, but this part sounds familiar.
Interesting link—and fair point. So yeah , “do what seems to cause success” is a better idea.
What about the “worse than a whore” bit? To me, that is the central issue.
The real problem there is the insulting of prostitutes. Providing sexual services in exchange for money is not something worthy of derision.
The ‘worse’ seems to refer to manipulation. The exploitation of knowledge of another’s instincts and the creative use of deception to make them do something that you know that, on reflection, they would prefer not to have done. Some consider that not-ok.
Oh, that’s out of context:
He screwed up his experiment and was trying to salvage it. Feynman certainly never seriously thought that a woman who doesn’t put out after dinner is worse than a whore. If you doubt that, read the rest of the book and “What do you care what other people think?”. He absolutely liked to have fun when not in a committed relationship, but there was never a hint of disrespect. And that is probably one reason he never used this way to get laid outside of this experiment.
I have read both books. And I’ve also read other things about Feynman’s attitude towards women (search for soup).
Noticing womens’ reactions to attitudes like Feynman’s (that is, not 1940s women, but modern women), and treating them seriously, has helped me in my relationship.
I have read the whole book, and I have always found this exchange breathtakingly disrespectful.
I agree with you, but this experiment could not have been ethically performed on lab mice or monkeys.
And yeah, he should have abandoned it right there, rather than pushing it to this limit, as a proof that it was the model that worked, not his personal charms or maybe the bar ambiance, and conduct a new trial. Certainly would not satisfy the standard required for publication in relevant psychological journals. Then again, he was not fond of repeating it.
I agree with you, but this experiment could not have been ethically performed on lab mice or monkeys.
But mere women, well, surely they could suffer for the sake of an experiment.
Suffer is perhaps not the correct word here. I think shminux is thinking of experimenters wining and dining (or not) and then having sex with monkeys.
However there is a totally viable experimental design with monkeys, if any monkeys exhibit gift-giving as a part of mating—just make sure that the males have some resource, train some to give the gift and some not to, put them in a position where they’re trying to win the attentions of a female, and watch what happens.