XKCD is incredibly cruel to PUA

[Tim]

Anyone else on here a regular follower of the very excellent web comic XKCD?

Well today's comic absolutely ripped into PUAs (while still being hilarious). This may be the most insightful and harsh takedown of PUA I've ever seen in so few words. Instead of making me angry towards the community, it just made me sad.

http://xkcd.com/1027/

[Matt T]

PUA != MM

Just saiyan

[FirstAidKit]

This was the most perfect timing - I just this morning received my first really obvious 'neg' message on OkCupid. ("You'd be hotter if you had a tan") So I just replied with the comic...

also suggested pulling girls' hair when he likes them might be a more subtle technique.

[Mark]

Haha, this comic is awesome.

[CHB2]

That was kinda incredible. Thanks for sharing

[crazyhorse]

Awesome commic!

(03-09-2012 06:32 PM)FirstAidKit Wrote:  This was the most perfect timing - I just this morning received my first really obvious 'neg' message on OkCupid. ("You'd be hotter if you had a tan") So I just replied with the comic...

also suggested pulling girls' hair when he likes them might be a more subtle technique.

I really don't get guys who put effort into those things.... It also sucks for us men that there are weirdos out there like that.

sorry that you had to hear that

[Zac]

crazyhorse Wrote:It also sucks for us men that there are weirdos out there like that.

I feel bad for guys like that. I was once a guy kind of like that. It's very frustrating.

I think guys like that existing also makes it very easier for me in the long run because now I'm not and girls appreciate it.

[FirstAidKit]

(03-09-2012 08:33 PM)crazyhorse Wrote:  Awesome commic!

(03-09-2012 06:32 PM)FirstAidKit Wrote:  This was the most perfect timing - I just this morning received my first really obvious 'neg' message on OkCupid. ("You'd be hotter if you had a tan") So I just replied with the comic...

also suggested pulling girls' hair when he likes them might be a more subtle technique.

I really don't get guys who put effort into those things.... It also sucks for us men that there are weirdos out there like that.

sorry that you had to hear that

honestly - I don't mind all that much. Makes it extremely obvious who not to waste my time with! I'm not going to tar all men with the same brush because of a couple of weirdos, I've talked to and met plenty of awesome ones - even if there wasn't any chemistry the dates have been fun.

Thing is - the guy was actually pretty cute, though we didn't have much in common. If he'd messaged with some actual conversation or wit he'd have probably got a reply if not a date.

Remember kids, "just talk to her like a fucking human being"

[Tim]

XKCD is a great comic in general too; quirky, full of humanity, and absolutely hilarious.

(03-09-2012 07:26 AM)Matt T Wrote:  PUA != MM

Just saiyan

Yeah but it still applies. Most PUA advice advocates presenting a false version of yourself, whether it does so implicitly or explicitly is not so relevant.

I never got guys who are PM members and read Mark's posts on separating himself from the PUA community and label but still define themselves as one. It's like being Christian and then having almost inconvertible proof that god doesn't exist, but then still claiming that he does. And then continuing to advocate the information that proves he doesn't!

I think the guys who do this are smart enough to realize that what Mark says about lines and routines being a waste of time is true, but then don't like having to also deal with his message that you can't control most of your results, and, being desperate to retain that sense of control, selectively ignore that advice and continue to use PUA.

[Alvar]

Seems like Dilbert has also been looking up some dating tips:

[Alvar]

Haha. What do those who have read Rand's books say about the latest XKCD?

Quote:

Title text: I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'

[Tim]

The title text is key I think. If a lot of the people who criticize Ayn Rand without reading her did actually read Atlas Shrugged with an open mind they'd find themselves enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence. But then yeah, the conclusions she sometimes comes to are a little disturbing. There's a lot to dislike about her as a person and her work. But then she was involved with Nathaniel Branden, who wrote an absolute classic in 'The 6 pillars of self-esteem', so you've just got to realise that some ideas can be divorced from others, and the fact that they were lumped in together doesn't make the valid ones any less legitimate.

[Alvar]

Thanks. Yup, the text is pretty key here. I just noticed that in the last pic he picks the book again.
I've heard the audio for "the virtues of selfishness" and after a while I realise the pattern: I enjoyed listening to Branden's chapters, Rand's made me want to vomit... so I started skipping those chapters.

I've been thinking of reading Atlas so I can pass it on to my kids, after a friend sent me this "possibly biased" quote last week: "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
There's no translation for the Atlas, so I still have 3-5 years old before my 11yo will agree to pick it. Two weeks ago he took me to a library and, after exhausting my self-control, he directed me towards the Lord of the Rings trilogy

[Jon]

ATLAS SHRUGGED SPOILER ALERT

I loved the fountainhead, and then thought rand jumped the shark a bit with atlas shrugged.

1) The importance of creativity and entrepeneurial characteristics is all well and good, but she seems to think that really, society doesn't actually need manual laborers at all.

2) John Galt's motor is a deus ex machina. He happens to invent a device that makes his preferred economic system much more feasible. Oh, it is also clearly physically impossible, in a way that would be apparent if Ayn Rand had ever asked a physicist.

3) The book assumes that talented people will all agree on everything if you give them long enough.

4) There's a strong implication that most people can never be John Galt or Dagney Taggart, and if they can't, well, they are subject to the mercies of whether talented people want to bother helping them or not.

[Alvar]

Title-text: Oh right, eye contact. Ok, good, holding the eye contact ... holding ... still holding ... ok, too long! Getting weird! Quick, look thoughtfully into space and nod. Oh, dammit, said 'yeah' again!

[Traindom]

Hehehe.

[Creatine Dreams]

(03-09-2012 06:32 PM)FirstAidKit Wrote:  This was the most perfect timing - I just this morning received my first really obvious 'neg' message on OkCupid. ("You'd be hotter if you had a tan") So I just replied with the comic...

also suggested pulling girls' hair when he likes them might be a more subtle technique.

Well, you would be hotter with a tan. Am I doing it right?

[Mark]

She's from England, EVERYONE would be hotter with a tan.

[Creatine Dreams]

Good point Mark. I was there last summer and I can agree with the above statement.

[Tim]

Brits can't tan, they can only do white or red. That's why those are their national colours.

[FirstAidKit]

We don't really have much option to tan. We've had about 2 weeks of summery weather this year :[

[SeXyBaCk]

What's your problem?

I'm half british and I tan better than Ricky Martin. Scratch that, he's gay-like. Enrique, that's him, I sizzle on an Enrique Iglesias'que level.

On a more important note, let's get a fake-tan cash-can going for my girl Miss Nightingale over here.

Hmm, look at that, I'm a poet. It rhymes. Someone set it up on paypal?

[Traindom]

Or if you were tan: "You'd be hotter if you bleached your skin."

[SeXyBaCk]

Michael Jackson is so 2009 man.

[Traindom]

Too soon .