MMX2010

Thank you. What's ultimately ironic about Kevin Beal's position is that he's "Failing the introduction" - meaning that his position is blatantly contradictory to Stefan Molyneux's first podcast in the Introduction to Philosophy series. In it, Stefan asserts that "Philosophy is primarily about discerning between Truth and Falsehood, because the mind is prone to error. And we determine Truth and Falsehood through the process of debate and argument, centering on objective evidence." After spending some time stressing the importance between Objective and Subjective, he uses the following statement as an example of a non-philosophical statement that can never be true, "I had a dream about a unicorn last night." That statement can never be true, because you can't enter into that person's brain and find a recorded experience of the dream, nor can you hook that person's brain up to any machine to determine the "residual traces" of that dream. So when Kevin Beal says, "I think we should downvote assholes!", he's using the word "asshole" subjectively - because it's impossible for him to use it objectively. And so he's trying to coordinate the entire community around his own personal, subjective, non-universalizable, aesthetic preferences. When he does this, he makes it harder for everyone in the community to discern Truth from Falsehood. When you speak of your personal annoyance at having to un-hide my posts, you're feeling the harm that his (and everyone else who supports him) coordinated efforts have produced. (I'm guessing he'll say, "But I'm not coordinating with anyone else!" - which may be true, but it's an amusing truth, because he can't prove that objectively AND he'd be placing his own emotional needs ahead of the philosophical needs of everyone else in the community by making such a statement.)

My latest post to you didn't make it past the moderators. So I'll say this as nicely as I can. What do I do when I chat up a woman and don't find her attractive? I leave her alone for the rest of our lives, then I find a more attractive chick and chat her up with a smile. What do you do when you chat up a woman and don't find her attractive? You find her facebook page and give her a stern lecture as to how you don't admire certain traits about her. Then, when she puts you on ignore, you say, "AHA, THIS IS PROOF THAT SHE CAN'T HANDLE PHILOSOPHY!" If you sincerely don't realize how toxic, stalker-esque, and potentially deserving-of-worse-adjectives that response is, I really don't know what to tell you. Someone - Rainbow Jamz, Troubador, J. D. Stembal, anyone - back me up here.

Is that true, Joel?

You are not highly philosophical. You are a 24 year old man who has never had a girlfriend, who expects his conclusions about female nature - especially female intelligence and female philosophicality - to be taken equally seriously as men who've had girlfriends. That alone should indicate that you're not-at-all highly philosophical. But it doesn't. Your emotional read of the situation is correct, but your assessment is wrong. I've posted this article-snippet by TheLastPsychiatrist many times on this (and other) message boards, and people are either highly helped or extremely enraged by it. (I love it so much that I have this memorized, and can recite it in face-to-face conversations.) -------------------------- Andrew is what medieval people used to call a "scold" - someone who deliberately places himself in situations where he always comes out morally superior, because that's the goal. He doesn't really want our advice on how to find a girlfriend. He wants us to tell him how morally superior he is to every woman on the planet. He is, quite simply, more comfortable feeling terrible about the situation than he is in doing the productive work of change.

It wasn't satire. If it were satire, Joel wouldn't have upvoted my post and explained why he liked it. Right, deflect with a joke. There have been two threads that you've extensively participated in with me, WastachMan. This one and your religious morality thread. In both threads, you displayed a complete inability to emotionally connect with people who disagree with you AND an intense focus on the smallest logical disagreements in threads. You also routinely display the stance of, "Everyone else has to change, but I don't have to change anything." (Billions of religious people must self-examine, but you mustn't self-examine your lack of feeling towards religious people. The laziness you perceive in certain upvoters is somehow evidence that Joel Patterson was wrong, but you couldn't emotionally connect with his argument - so you erroneously thought it was satire.) Earlier, I asked how many people do you routinely interact with on a face-to-face basis. But you didn't answer the question, and subsequently derailed a thread to accuse me of "subtle trolling". So, rather than ask my question again, I'll just encourage you to pursue self-knowledge in the form of emotionally connecting with real people outside of this message board.

Right. So, once again, we're slowing down the entire discussion so that WastachMan can focus on "the logical contradictions" between certain behaviors. Meanwhile, for you to participate in this discussion in that manner requires you to ignore the emotional impact that Joel's actions had on the community. Joel sets an example. I follow his example. The community grows. You scratch your head.

Did you miss the part where Joel Patterson both upvoted and gave me feedback about my posts. And then did you miss the part where I responded that I find my posts sad, rather than funny? And did you ultimately miss the part where the community's knowledge and wisdom was expanded because he and I had that exchange? Did your focus on calling out the upvoters' "lack of logical consistency" leave you blind to the community-enrichment that he and I provided? Yes, this is an "Ask not what FDR has done for you; ask what you can do for FDR." speech, but it's well worth it.

And this is the part that's extraordinarily infuriating about you. "If I were a woman...." (You're not, so why bring it up? Why treat your sentence as if it had any intellectual merit or truth behind it?) "I'm interested in knowing if she's interested in talking. How would a joke help me find out?" (Seriously? You're legitimately asking how a joke would help you decide whether a woman is interested in talking to you? Okay, then....) Worst of all, how did you derive these "oh-so-philosophically-rigorous" conclusions about a woman's nature? By having multiple girlfriends at once, over a period of years? No, of course not. You've never had a girlfriend. But does that stop you from expecting your conclusions about women's nature from being taken seriously? Sadly, of course not. Ignorance is when you know nothing-at-all because you have no experience. (As in, you're ignorant of what it's like to live in an Arctic desert because you've never been there.) But you are at minus-ignorance, because you think you know things that happen to be dead wrong. (As in, you've never had a girlfriend - but you think you understand women as much, or even better than, men who've had girlfriends.) Stef is a mid-forties genius who has both dated multiple women and is married with a daughter. You are a mid-twenties non-genius without Stefan's interpersonal skills nor experience. Do not compare yourself to Stefan; assume, instead, that you're twisting his message because he is successful and you are not. So, let's get this straight. You are not attracted to this girl. But you insist on talking to her through facebook. And the major theme of your messages are concern over her level of honesty, specifically the part where you dislike the way she talks about schools. Again, you are not attracted to this girl. But you're specifically talking to her to express your concern about her honesty, and the way she talks about schools. I'm repeating it twice because you insist that you're "honest and calm", and you've entitled this topic, "How to find a girlfriend" because (and this is an assumption on my part) you're interested in actually finding a girlfriend. Meanwhile, no reasonable guy I've ever met has concluded, "The key to finding a girlfriend is to facebook message women whom you're not attracted to, using conversational themes that make it rather obvious that you're not attracted to her, while expecting her to madly fall in love with both the criticisms and the implications that she's wholly unworthy as a person." All reasonable people I know would call such behaviors TOXIC and STALKER-ESQUE.

Quote-mining is when you deliberately obscure the beginnings or endings of full-sentences in order to misrepresent someone's words. It is also among the most dishonest things you can do in any intellectual discussion. In this case, the full sentence begins, "But if you respond with silent apathy, you'll know why I'll never support a transgender... Removing the dependent clause leaves, "you'll know why I'll never support a transgender" - which is twisting my words. The first sentence, as I said earlier, is a Conditional Declaration. The second sentence, your strawman, is a Definitive Declaration. And those are not the same things. Right. So misquoting me the first time is really bad. And misquoting me the second time, after your mistake was pointed out is really, really, really bad. But this is hilarious. Here's your quote, Alice: "I am only responding to this and nothing else because if you have already made up your conclusion beforehand there is no point in discussing it with you." If you understood that the phrase, "IF you have already made up your conclusion beforehand" is a conditional hypothesis, then you would need to test that hypothesis by responding to everything else I posted. However, by refusing to respond to the rest of my posts, and by refusing to apologize for TWICE mis-quoting me (an extremely dishonest maneuver), the question arises, "With what intellectual integrity does Alice Amell routinely discuss transgender issues?"

Game is a specific series of learned-behaviors that begin with Pre-meeting a woman and end with either Sex (if you're a shallow man) or Relationship (if you're not a shallow man). Game is also memorizing specific jokes (or entire scripts) that can be used during important parts of a conversation. Game is the ultimate rejection of the "Just Be Yourself" advice that everyone receives, but few can realistically implement. In my opinion, no he cannot "simply" relax, meet a girl, and have fun because he's already injected the process with moralistic, identity-based language. He actually thinks of words like, "unicorn", "Who I Really Am", "manipulation", "virtuous", and "qualities of a wife" in the first three minutes of talking to a girl. I've joked to people, "Yes, I'm quite smart, but there's a drawback. Imagine me staring at a pretty chick, but all I can think of is physics equations." - but Andrew's version is ten times worse and not nearly as funny (or fixable). It is fixable by learning Game and applying Game until that language leaves his brain. But it'll take a massive effort on his part.

(1) Do you know any proper Game-based responses to, "I have a boyfriend"? The following is my favorite, and field-tested, but you need just the right attitude to pull it off. Her: I have a boyfriend. You: So I guess we're not getting married, then? Her: I guess not. You: I'll see you at 8pm. Her: Okay. The following is wonderful, and field-tested, but you need just the right attitude to pull it off. Her: I have a boyfriend. You: I have a goldfish. Her: What? You: Oh, I thought we were talking about shit that doesn't matter. The following hasn't been tested, and is probably too long to pull off. But it might work on really smart, observant chicks. Her: I have a boyfriend. You: So do I. What's his name? Her: *gives name* You: *overblown skeptical face* Hmm, how tall is he? Her: *gives height* You: *even more skeptical face* Wow...ummm, what's his last name? Her: *gives last name* You: You're sleeping with my boyfriend! (2) You know that voice in your head that says, "She ain't your unicorn, Jimmy"? That's self-sabotage. It's also arrogant fearfulness. For one thing, it's impossible for you to know whether she's your unicorn based solely on a fifteen minute conversation with her. For another thing, it's extremely needy and desperate to even consider whether she's your unicorn based solely on a fifteen minute conversation with her. Combine those two things together, and my impression of every girl's impression of you is, "He doesn't really like me. He's just doing this whole Game thing because he's angry whenever he's alone." There's no joy to any of your approaches, nor is there any empathy for what she wants and how she feels. Do you even like girls? Do you like whenever they feel something you don't understand? Do you like whenever they get super-smiley or super-angry over something that you think is legitimately not worth getting worked up about? Because I don't get the impression that you do, nor do I get the impression that you realize that you have to at least pretend that you do in order to get her to feel comfortable with you.

Good for you, man. Stand-up comedy is both the perfect metaphor for what you need to do, and is much harder than most people think.

The anger you describe happens when people assume that others must prove themselves first, before they can open-up to others. But the PUA in me says, "No one, and especially no attractive woman, is going to prove herself to me before I hint at (or display) certain attractive qualities." I'll never stop noticing the contrast between the PUA and anti-PUA approach. PUA, "Try to meet as many people as possible. Don't take any rejections personally. Always assume that it's up to you to give an excellent performance, and up to her to either accept / reject your performance. READ THE GIRL, and try not to introspect so much." ANTI-PUA, "Don't waste your time trying to meet many people, because it's obvious that most people aren't worth meeting anyway. Don't waste your time approaching people in public, close-by, unless they're already pre-screened (preferably by being on this message board, or by agreeing with a Stef-podcast that you think is awesome). When meeting people, ALWAYS INTROSPECT. Ask yourself whether you're being authentic, and if the other people can't accept your authentic self, assume they're not virtuous." The PUA's social-circle expands as he becomes more skillful, but I can't see how the ANTI-PUA's circle expands as he gets more skillful. You're dead on here. My parents will never change, but I can wall them off entirely. Sometimes the wall prevents me from expressing my emotions in public, but that can easily be fixed with exercise, proper sleep, and hitting on girls. That RJ still talks about his parents indicates that there's no wall between himself and them. Or that his wall isn't nearly as strong as mine. And if he's still in proximity to them, then he's liable to have his emotions negatively altered by their presence. So Plans #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 should all be the same, "How do I leave?"

You have to be, at minimum, a bronze donor.

A Roosh V User gives his insights into the difference between Reddit and the Roosh V Forum. FDR's reputation system is very similar to Reddit's, although there is room for individualized attention to avatars and user names here. ---------------- Reddit is one of the worst site designs ever created, and the sooner it dies the better. For a start, it's hard to decode what is and isn't important information from the clunky layout, and the actual mechanics of the site encourage homogeneity of ideas: posts with lots of "upvotes" appear higher up than posts with lots of "downvotes" by default, punishing deviation from the dominant ideas and beliefs of whatever subreddit you're currently in. Coupled with the fact that there are persistent user identities, the desire for ones ideas not to be rendered invisible by mass-downvoting, and the similar desire to be a respected "member" of the "community" create a network of incentives which are thoroughly anti-intellectual; where the best-loved (and therefore most visible) members of each subreddit are those who are capable of most creatively expressing orthodox thoughts. It's also why the site took off with women in a way 4chan failed to (even if it's still predominantly male) - acceptable and unacceptable opinions are clearly flagged so there is no doubt as to which memes and opinions you need to repeat to "fit in", making it the social equivalent for nerdy girls that Thomas the Tank Engine is for autistic boys. The unsavoury side effect is that everyone who enters a subreddit comes out with radicalised versions of the beliefs they went in with... and an inability to express them in anything besides memes. The way I look at it, the two extremes of online communities are imageboards like 4chan, and tightly controlled forums like this one: both have their pros and cons, and are useful for different kinds of discussion. In an imageboard, there is little-to-no persistent identity for individual users, and posts are ranked purely by the time at which they were posted. As such, different viewpoints have similar visibility, differing only in the frequency they are posted. If you browse an imageboard for any length of time, you will encounter a wide spectrum of views and beliefs, argued with differing levels of artistry - you will also encounter an awful amount of low-quality posts, memes, gore and trolling. In my opinion, imageboards are at their best when the sudden need for a think-tank arises, and there is a coalescence of differing interests on a board. Ideas get thrown around at an astounding rate, and in a few hours there's a virtual army pulling off something that would have been unthinkable the day before. You have to have experienced it first-hand to really know what I'm talking about, but I think a few guys here will know what I mean. On the other hand, forums like the Roosh V Forum encourage a generally high quality of posting, at the expense of stifling alternative viewpoints. In the case of RVF, that's not such a bad thing - if you want to encounter alternative viewpoints, simply go anywhere-else on the internet. As with imageboards, posts are ranked by the time at which they were posted, but here people have names, avatars and signatures. Your eye is surely drawn more to posts by members who have consistently posted good things in the past? Unlike Reddit, which rewards what the group-mind values, this rewards what you, personally, value. Places like this are markedly slower to organize than on imageboards whenever there's a "happening", but they tend to be more meticulous and strategic, and so are important in the longer game. I also can't think of anywhere near as many posts on imageboards that have added real value to my life as I can from here, where I've been for a fraction as long. The restriction to male posters here also solves a problem less controlled forums are crippled by: the way in which male group dynamics are changed by the introduction of women. It only takes one woman, and one thirsty man, to destroy the functionality of any group, and begin the slow change of focus from whatever the group cared about before to women's feelings and vaginas. The only large board I can think of which has escaped this plague, despite not being strictly controlled, is the misc forum over at bodybuilding.com, which is somehow functionally more like an imageboard. I think it's due to the extremely masculine focus of the main board and the fact that, with no one to enforce social consequences for lack of sensitivity towards fee-fees, easily-triggered women know to stay away. There's no dopamine fix to be found; the most they'll get for their screeching is a "top kek" and then everyone ignores them. I think my idealised forum would be a combination of an imageboard, or some anonymised version of IRC for shit-talking, spontaneous organisation, discussing things of no real consequence, and expressing views in a context where it doesn't matter who gets offended by what, and then this place, pretty much exactly as it is, to discuss game, give/receive lifestyle advice, and read well thought out posts by people who care about expressing themselves in the best possible terms to this community; posts you know will still be there in a year's time. Reddit is the exact, polar opposite of this - shit-talking is preserved forever, and almost inversely ranked by quality, whilst important (and therefore longer than 7 word) posts are drowned out in a sea of excrement. I hope it dies. I really do - good riddance. The sudden move towards censorship seems unlikely to make the site sufficiently attractive to the kind of women who currently avoid it that they can monetise it. If anything, it's more likely to drive away a large portion of the core demographic, or even cause them to start a rival site that doesn't regulate what is and isn't acceptable "behaviour". ---------------------- In my opinion, the first paragraph is most important, because it echoes what I feel about FDR's reputation system: (1) Are the most highly upvoted posters the one's who most cleverly express FDR-orthodox ideas? (In my opinion, Yes.) (2) Does the desire to be an "upstanding" member of this "community" limit the intellectual-openness with which certain subjects are discussed? (Yes. PUA, for example, is discussed in a very closed-minded manner. So is sex-outside-of-committed-relationships. So is sex-that-doesn't-result-in-emotional-bonding. So is hypergamy. So is to-therapy-or-not-to-therapy. So, probably, is transgender.)

Here's my actual quote, Alice: "It's mean of me to predict your responses, so I'll let you respond for yourselves. But if you respond with silent apathy, you'll know why I'll never support a transgender or pro-transgender individual, no matter how noble he presents himself. Because once a ten year old gets emotionally abused so that his parents can feel "enlightened", all bets are off. AND if you're not perceptive enough to realize that no ten year old girl will ever be forced to do masculine activities in order to become "gender enlightened", then you're a pawn in the war against masculinity and side with Stefan's repeated admonition, "Man bad; woman good." My statement doesn't say, "I will never support a transgender person, period." It says, "If four people in this thread respond with silent apathy to the emotional abuse of a child, then I will never support a transgender person." One of the easiest things to do in logic is separate a Definitive Declaration (your strawman of my sentence) from a Conditional Declaration (my actual sentence). Now you have two choices: (1) Profusely apologize for misreading my declaration, thereby presenting yourself as a humble, honest seeker-of-truth. (2) Refuse to apologize or acknowledge your mistake, thereby presenting yourself as the opposite. Not only the opposite, but also, "Unstable interpersonal relationships in which others are either idealized or devalued." Your strawman was immediately followed by, "I'm not going to address your arguments any more!" - which is a clear attempt to de-value me. So I'll wait for an apology and acknowledgement. From there, you can explain WHAT you did when you were trying to be normal.

The Fearful One often saves your ass by lying to you. (Not just you, specifically, but you - everyone.) For example, "Looking at her I think for a moment I don't like her. She doesn't want to look at me but I say hello, would you like to talk to a stranger? She says no thanks." "Would you like to talk to a stranger?" is terrible game, especially if you delivered it in an honest, forthright tone of voice. In girl logic, the only reason you would ask such a question is that you're creepy and trying to over-power her creep-detector. Furthermore, your explanation is interesting. First, you developed the impression that you didn't like her, and then you exhibited bad Game. Did you consider that your impression caused the bad Game? Worse, do you think, "Would you like to talk to a stranger?" is a legitimate and honest way of opening up women-you-don't-know? Worst of all, if you didn't like her, why didn't you just NOT talk to her? (I mean, maybe, you were trying to disconfirm your impression that she was unlikable. But to disconfirm your impressions, you have to act as if your impressions are wrong, and then see if you're surprised. And bad Game would, therefore, confirm your impressions.) That's the biggest lie of all. How do "glasses, bags, makeup, iphones, and other crap" even relate to a woman's virtue? Do ALL (or most) Virtuous Women eschew these things completely? (No.) So where do you get off judging the "virtue" of women by their material possessions? Worse, do you think your impression that "she isn't virtuous" doesn't leak into your interactions with women? (I'm not saying I succeed with every woman I hit on, but I don't enter into those interactions thinking, "She's stupid, but..." or "She's not virtuous, but..." Instead, I enter with the question, "How do I bring the joy to this interaction, no matter how she reacts?") The worst lie, though, is your conclusion that you have to FIND a virtuous woman. No virtuous woman has made herself virtuous by not interacting with virtuous men. She either had a virtuous father, or a virtuous boyfriend (or two, or three) who led her down the path of virtue via their relationship. So your expectation that you need to FIND a virtuous woman is a lie. And it's the lie that informs all of your other lies.

Uh, no. I've never been to a KKK meeting, but I'm sure that many of its members have a penchant for cracking jokes that many of its members find funny. But their complete disconnect from the real world causes them to gather into a specialized group, which allows them to develop specialized jokes that the majority of people (the real world) find non-funny. Yes, I do mind you saying, because you're basing your "conflation" argument on your non-experience of the Roosh V system, which you earlier said that you cannot comment on. (Nor is it true that you cannot comment on it, because if you're philosophically-rigorous and open-minded enough, you'll see my point.) Furthermore, you're commenting on the efficacy of a system that involves hundreds of members by saying, "Well I haven't made an abundance of silly jokes." The system isn't you. It's everyone else. So, once again, don't give your "honest emotional experience with FDR's reputation system". Instead, think of how the system affects everyone, and then comment on that. (Or, admit that you find it difficult to reflect on how FDR's reputation system affects everyone, and then temper your comments because of this.)

No one countered my earlier argument comparing the Roosh Forum to this one. The Roosh forums separate Reputation Points from Likes, which separates the serious and helpful truths from the merely funny. On the Roosh forum, Reputation indicates helpfulness in improving other peoples' lives, and Likes indicate amusement. The FDR Forum equates the serious and helpful truths with the merely funny. So, on this forum, you can get two Upvotes for making a silly joke that two people Like OR you can get two Upvotes for posting the most brilliant summary of narcissism and co-dependency in a way that dramatically and permanently improves the lives of two individuals. So, yes, the popularity of the High-Repped individuals is unearned.

It's more than just "feeling like you are not yourself". It's also "the expectation that everyone who doesn't instantly acknowledge these feelings with empathy and moral support has something wrong with them", and "the expectation that, if only everyone in the world were to acknowledge these feelings with empathy and moral support, then the world would automatically and efficiently become a much more enlightened, happier place". If Alice Amell "tried to be normal" in certain predictable ways, then Alice will be like every other transgender individual who "tried to be normal", and will therefore be both experiencing the same false expectations and advancing the same flawed arguments. That's why I'm waiting for Alice to answer the pertinent question, "HOW did you try to be normal? WHAT actions did you take while trying to be normal?"

You're responding to the tone of my message, without addressing the substance of it. The substance is: (1) The pro-transgender message has led certain parents to emotionally abuse their male children by forcing them to live as female children as an "experiment", for them to "achieve enlightment". (2) The pro-transgender individuals in this thread responded with complete indifference - (if not outright hostility and personal attacks) - when this emotional abuse was pointed out. (3) The pro-transgender individuals don't want their observed not-speaking-out against this emotional abuse to be used as an indictment against either their character or their non-empathy-for-children BUT they're not mounting a valid argument against facts #1 and #2 above. So, no. Not trolling. More like exposing the weaknesses of your arguments by helping the audience focus upon the logical outcomes of believing in your arguments. In other words, "By their fruit shall ye know them."

I'm not humoring your curiosity. You asked a brilliant, poignant question - so you got a brilliant, poignant answer. Other people fail to ask brilliant and poignant questions, and they also fail to consider that I don't give them brilliant or poignant answers because of this.

I don't know you well enough to have any sense of whether this is true or not. But I would ask you to consider whether you're strong enough in your own personal development to be routinely talking to this dude. I'm not saying "DeFoo" from him, but I am suggesting that limiting your exposure to him could be beneficial to your self-development.

It is interesting that (1) the most important sentence in this entire paragraph is highlighted in blue, (2) the blue sentence doesn't jive with the rest of the paragraph, and (3) I don't believe you when you say, "I tried to be normal." I'm not saying you didn't do anything, or are trying to fool everyone. But I am saying that what you did, (what you call Tried To Be Normal), isn't best named Tried To Be Normal. It's far better named something else entirely. So, the ultimate question is, "WHAT did you do when trying to be normal? HOW did you go about trying?" I'll wait for your answers before giving my answers.

Do you still routinely talk to this dude?