And if you’re interested in what groups do rather than how they do it, you’re in a vast minority. Good for you—you don’t have to join a church, even a rationalist one! Nobody’s making you!
But people have emotions. It’s not ‘rational’ to ignore this. As Eliezer says, and clarifies in the next post, rationalism [is/is correlated with/causes] winning. If the religious get to have a nice community and we have to do without, then we lose.
Yes, I would like to join a community of people very much like a church, but without all the religious nonsense. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.
I suspect that efficiency is not necessarily the reason that many dislike PUA techniques. Personally, I don’t particularly doubt that there are patterns for how women react to men (and vice versa), and that these can be used to have more sex. On the other hand, spiking people’s drinks or getting them drunk can also be used for the same purpose, and that’s commonly known as rape.
Sure, there are ways to hack into people’s minds to get them to do what you want. The fact that they exist doesn’t make them ethically acceptable.
Now, I don’t know whether PUA methods are or aren’t—but the fact that “the attitude that your partner should be respected” is seen as a negative thing seems to be pointing pretty clearly towards the no direction.