Love in the Age of the Pickup Artist - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepointmag.com/archive/love-in-the-age-of-the-pickup-artist/ <comment><USER2> I almost feel like a good amount of the discussion being had missed the point, or perhaps most of the commenters stopped reading when the conversation shifted from the PUA community to the life and works of Stendhal.

To me, the articles clearly had three acts. First, was the explanation of the PUA method and the argument for it. This has accounted for nearly all the discussions I've read thus far. Second, was the case of passionate love as made through the works of Stendhal and his characters. In the third "act" is where the true point of the article comes to life. The author tries his best to merry the practices of seduction with natural love as played out through the characters he has introduced. Ultimately this leads to a discussion of which way is the best way to acquire the lover you seek.

This is the conversation I sought when I clicked the comments button; so I suppose I'll just ask the question outright: Which of the scenarios do you prefer, or do you believe is best?

Letting love naturally occur, all the while you are yourself and your beloved sees you for that?

Seduction through the art of 'the game' to acquire the target of your love in spite of the reality that you must "not love her for her to love you"?

Or perhaps you prefer the authors idea of balance through the withholding of the expressions of love, both verbally and through eroticism until the timing is proper?

Hell, maybe you've even got your own idea of middle ground? Let's hear it.

<comment><USER3> Good question.

I believe that passionate love ("limerence" as the kids call it) is always bad for me. My best relationships are ones where I'm not in love. Yeah, love comes with an instinct that makes us want more of it, but the same is true for heroin.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't say we are designed to want more heroin, but that heroin is designed to make us want more...

If you think about it, we crave love even when we've never had it and don't understand it all that well. Nobody craves heroin until they've tried it.

<comment><USER5> Ahh, but books, tv, and movies are the pushers of love. If heroin were as high profile and esteemed in most societies as this love thing, then yeah, we'd probably all want it even before we'd had it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So women don't think you're a real man. And the solution: throw away expression of the personality you like and want to be and respect, turn all interactions with women into a game, and carefully craft yourself and all your presentation with single-minded purpose into a seduction machine. This is treating women as completely different creatures from us (albeit ripe for taking willing advantage of with half-truths and careful conscious manipulation of human impulse). Yes I know it works, but I'm still sure this is just horribly wrong, and far from "not putting the pussy on a pedestal" (as the movie saying goes) this is worship of the game to such an extent that it makes men willing to transform their whole personality and convince themselves that insincerity is the only honest form of human interaction.

That these methods work so well makes me sad about the state of humanity and whatever dreams we could ever have at achieving relations between genders be on equal terms. Maybe the physical and psychological differences are just too great for that, because of the pre-historical assymetry with the burden of carrying and giving birth to a child, I don't know.

<comment><USER7> It's foolish to have such a narrowminded opinion of "game". It's only called game; but in actuality is much more an art. Even if you're going to be so brash as to consider it a game, do you still find it impossible to express personality and self-respect while remaining in the construct of rules? You seem to be answering "yes" to that question.

Putting your reluctance to realize that "games (systems of rules)" and "art" have no fine line aside, the issue of "gender equality" that you pose makes no sense to me. I suppose it's because I have a much more complicated definition of a "true self," which to you seems to be "not treating women with what I consider 'respect' is immoral and wrong and is 'not me'", that I so strongly disagree with you about virtually everything you said above.

Males and females have two completely different mating strategies, and rightly so. For you see, women are stuck with the burden of 9 months of having a baby grow inside them, plus taking care of the child, while men could potentially sire greater-than-the-human-population children every day. Women will obviously be more picky. Men, less so. Intersex competition will be very high and follow a distribution similar to the 80/20 rule, and multiple sexual partners (when it's possible to go undetected) will be beneficial to both sexes.

At any rate, I suppose I'm trying to say three things:

* Males and females have different strategies for sorting out an ideal mate. How you present yourself is part of your strategy.

* If you're willing to always be your "best self," or what you would call "throwing away expression of personality" by "carefully crafting yourself" -- how does that make you not yourself? You are still you, and your actions are yours.

* Evolutionary psychology -- it makes sense.

<comment><USER8> I don't know whether to laugh at or cry for you.

Relationships are not an art, and they are not a game. If you want to out- strategize someone, go play Starcraft 2. If you want to analyze someone from an evolutionary psych perspective, go get a degree in psychiatry.

Romantic relationships are about forming deep emotional connections, about being true with someone in a way that admits a very real risk of emotional agony. Until you grow the balls to take that gamble, you're simply missing the point.

<comment><USER9> Of course relationships are a game: two players, several actions available to each player, and payoffs dependent on both players' actions. That is, by definition, a game.

But it gets more interesting. Relationships are _power games_ , as the player with the most power will dictate the _tempo_ and pace of the battle. If you have more options and are less invested in the relationship than your significant other, then you have power over her. This power gap translates into luxuries like avoiding visiting her family (too often, at least), or not bothering about remembering her girlfriends' names. Moreover, if she's constantly terrified that you'll leave her if she gets fat, she'll exercize often and stay in shape, so that she can sexually arouse you for years to come, thus disincentivizing you from dumping her. You reciprocate by paying attention to her, by pretending to listen to her illogical / irrational arguments, and by abstaining from (too much) philandering. This balance of terror works great for both parties.

<comment><USER10> What you've described may be how _your_ relationships usually go, but it sounds a lot like a living hell to me, and is nothing like my experience.

<comment><USER9> Living hell for her, heaven for you!? Not really. My approach makes her obsession last longer. She never knows when she finally _has_ you, so she keeps fighting to conquer your heart. Since this is a lifetime endeavor (or, perhaps, a death march), then the relationship never gets stale, and she never gets bored with you. Makes marriages last longer, is less traumatic for the kids, and (ultimately) is better for society.

PS: next time your s.o. forces you to visit her boring family or some friends of her that you hate, you'll wish you had more power. Enjoy the whipping!!

<comment><USER10> Your assumptions about my relationship are pretty deeply unfounded--I've never been forced to visit her family, nor do I hate her friends, nor have I ever been forced to visit them. There's no "whipping" involved--I'm every bit as free as I care to be.

It's not a question of power at all--we don't seek power over each other so much as we work hard to keep our autonomy while sharing our lives together. It's difficult, but it's worthwhile as well. Building a strong relationship that respects the freedom of each partner is just as hard as keeping up one side of a power game, but it's more fulfilling in the end. Knowing that someone else truly and deeply loves you is a very comforting feeling, especially when you both know it's mutual. Trying to withhold that satisfaction and make your partner insecure just to keep her (literally) on the treadmill is an asshole thing to do, but ultimately it hurts you too. Winning your power-game style of relationship would be hell to me compared to the relationship I actually have.

Look, I'll just address you point-by-point:

 _Moreover, if she's constantly terrified that you'll leave her if she gets fat, she'll exercize often and stay in shape, so that she can sexually arouse you for years to come, thus disincentivizing you from dumping her when she hits the magic 30-year-old mark._

Fat girls are underrated in my opinion, but there are plenty of strong women who can and do keep themselves in good shape for their own benefit. Of course, a self-starting woman like that is likely far too strong to put up with the kind of bullshit you're talking about.

 _You reciprocate by paying attention to her, by pretending to listen to her illogical / irrational arguments_

I would rather not date stupid and irrational women. I prefer women whom I actually _like_ paying attention to. Especially for a lifetime commitment!

 _and by abstaining from (too much) philandering_

That's not a special favor; that's a basic part of being in a monogamous relationship. If monogamy is boring, have an open relationship and let the girl have some fun too. It might even spice up your sex life to have the odd threesome!

The kind of relationship you advocate might be the best you can get--it may be genuinely difficult to have a genuinely good relationship like I'm talking about--but personally speaking, if the best relationship I can get is some adversarial power game, I'd rather go completely without. I have no fear of dying alone--I am comfortable with the notion.

My personal suspicion: old married couples who treat their relationship like a power game are not happily married couples--they're like the couple in this story: <http://www.violentacres.com/archives/497/happily-ever-after/>

_Watching them was like watching a sick, evil little puppet show. He goaded her, she attacked him. He ignored her attacks, she escalated. Within minutes, dinner was ruined. They both looked supremely satisfied with this result._

 _Before I turned to leave, the man reached out with a bony, desperate hand and clutched my arm._

 _"Never, never get married," he implored._

 _I looked at his wife. Instead of looking offended, her eyes widened in tentative agreement. A slight nod of her head was like the period on the end of his sentence._

 _That couple was trying to save my life."_

<comment><USER9> I am not trying to preach anyone, nor to force anyone to live according to the rules that make sense to me. I will never cease to see any relationship between humans, personal or professional, as a power game. Even if a couple has a deep emotional connection, the one who feels less intensely will have power over the other and be able to dictate the rules. It's the way it is.

 _"I would rather not date stupid and irrational women. I prefer women whom I actually like paying attention to. Especially for a lifetime commitment!"_

I would rather not date stupid / irrational women, either! But the only women I know who are rational, smart, interesting to talk to are in their mid-30s and looking for a husband and father to their future children. Since I have some scruples left, I don't date women who want a family man, because I can't offer what they're looking for.

In any case, I challenge you to find a rational, smart 25 year old woman. You know what they say: you can only understand life looking backwards, but you can only live life looking forwards. You can't have youth and wisdom simultaneously. Pick something in between. It's a delicate tradeoff.

<comment><USER11> I know lots of counter-examples to your theory. However I'd never be willing to introduce you to them because your theories about how to treat them repulse me.

<comment><USER9> Good for you!!! Now I will try to pretend that I actually do care about what does repulse an internet stranger I never met and never will meet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's Feynman's account:

      On the way to the bar I was working up nerve to try the
      master's lesson on an ordinary girl. After all, you don't
      feel so bad disrespecting a bar girl who's trying to get
      you to buy her drinks — but a nice, ordinary, Southern girl?

      We went into the bar, and before I sat down, I said,
      "Listen, before I buy you a drink, I want to know one
      thing: Will you sleep with me tonight?"

      "Yes."

      So it worked even with an ordinary girl! But no matter how
      effective the lesson was, I never really used it after
      that. I didn't enjoy doing it that way. But it was
      interesting to know that things worked much differently
      from how I was brought up.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wish he didn't try so hard to impress us, instead of writing an exercise in clear thought.

I was with him up to the "Let's show off what I've researched about the history of Love," which turned out to be, yes: there have always been pickup artists of a sort, and yes: there has always been desperate deep love. Thanks. I skimmed most of that indulgent name-dropping.

Then he tries to get clever with words and it goes downhill. Loads of those sections could be stripped out for clarity; elegance from simplicity, not pretense from complexity.

Liked the personal stories, the accounts of modern PUA. Did not like the way the research felt like name-dropping. He was trying too hard.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the stilted final sentences. "You have no choice in the matter. Love was hard enough already; it has only gotten harder. Your love will exhaust you. But it will be worth the trouble."

<comment><USER14> Given the solid summary of the PUA mindset and method (considering the space requirements) I would have granted the author some airs of grandeur if he had been able to give some insight on marrying the lessons of PUA with a respect for real romantic love. But he really couldn't, so the article ultimately disappoints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been around a couple of the leaders of this community (one is mentioned in the OP, the other wrote a bestseller) who turned up on separate occasions at workshops I attended with a former student of Milton Erickson. Erickson, for those who don't know, was a psychiatrist who was the great 20th century master of hypnosis; he turned everything about the field on its head. Presumably these guys were there to pick up some hypnotic tricks to add to their game. Anyway, my point is: Holy cow, were they creepy. Creepy in a way that makes you want to stay on the other side of the room. One in particular seemed to have developed lizard-like qualities. Seeing them in person was, for me, something of a counterargument to their teachings.

<comment><USER4> Are you female? It could be argued that a male's reaction is completely immaterial.

Additionally, if you are male- I would like to share an observation. I have found a strong correlation between guys who set off massive warning bells and guys that women are attracted to. I'm not sure whether that's because I'm designed to recognize the most dangerous competitors, or because I can see through their crap, but it happens nonetheless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I read the Neil Strauss book--it's fascinating and fun. But there was one story in there that really summed up the entire culture for me.

The story is about a new PUA posting to a message board. The first post was how excited he was and how he had set a goal to approach 50 women in one day. His second post was about how he had actually accomplished that goal and he was going to set a second goal of asking for 100 phone numbers in one week. His third post was about how happy he was with the process and how he was positive that he would be getting laid within a year. In summary, his definition of success was that after one year of making picking up women his full time job he would get laid once.

That story clued me in to the real strength of the PUA method. It appeals to men enough to turn wall flowers into people actively seeking dates. But the efficiency of that method is laughably bad (not to mention the outcomes being shallow).

<comment><USER14> > But the efficiency of that method is laughably bad

Based on one anecdote from the book? The PUA methods attracts guys who are _terrible_ with women. It's not surprising that there cases where the guys isn't going to improve much. This isn't an argument against the ideas or methods.

<comment><USER16> No, not based on one anecdote from the book. I'm using that anecdote to summarize the entire movement based on reading the entire book. I thought that there were several cases where a lot of time was spent without much payoff.

<comment><USER14> But if you offered a man who was utterly unable to attract woman 40% odds of acquiring just 1 or 2 partners per year through PUA methods (and a 60% chance of no returns) I think he would (rationally) invest a _huge_ amount of time into this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've found out one thing that will no doubt annoy a lot of people - if you are unhappy and depressed, because you don't have many challenges in life, or you are underchallenged or something (in school, work, etc), then try the game as a new fun activity. It will cure your depression, because it's so fundamentally animal, and it has the biggest pay off of any sport you could try.

<comment><USER4> Not so sure I agree there. I'm no PUA, but when you are coldly manipulating the situation, I find that completely lacking in challenge. Like, once you understand some of the rules and know what to say and do, it's just too easy, and all you're doing is going through the motions.

<comment><USER17> It's absolutely challenging. It takes a lot of training, willpower, dedication and willingness to fail to be successful at this.

<comment><USER18> On a side note, your last sentence has an amusingly ambiguous parse:

"(It takes a lot of training, willpower, dedication and willingness) to (fail to be successful) at this."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As much as "the game" advice is fascinating and very convincing, the many followers of this are the ones that repel me the most.

Everyone I met associated with this system, so far have been someone trying to make money off of it, or a misguided person using the system to justify lying, or someone truly dishonest to them selves.

I spent well over 18 months and thousands of Dollars on perfecting this system. I have not met someone who can demonstrate a convincing or awe inspiring performance or at the least a good personality. Most of it is the hype built around very normal qualities.

The introverts build hype for the socially talkative PUAs whom you might find very annoying at work or in classroom. The extroverts build hype for those intelligently speaking PUAs whose ideas might be very questionable. Some guys build hype for the other PUAs who socially disrespect women. PUA is just a title that many of these folks are working hard to get to satisfy their egos and mask their insecurities.

One guy advised me to wear a huge bunch of keys around my pants, because women think you are in charge of something big. One guy advised me to own the room when I walk in. The other guy I met introduced himself as someone who goes to university and also works in a big software corporation full time when he works at a small restaurant.

Most people who are attracted to this are the ones who lacked male role models in their lives and those from countries like India where marriage is the only way and life outside work is confusing still.

Like many other people from my background I felt cheated by the traditional system, which advised to be a good social norms respecting and social expectation meeting person and get a good education, good job, life security etc in exchange for abundant opportunity for sex(remember make love to me randy from south park). In fact the exactly same things are considered a boring personality but if you are a romeo, not having a decent job, depending on friends and family, can have a full time duty talking to women every where, you are considered Romantic by women. Having seen my friend's wives leave their PhD husbands for a "leisurely life" guy, and reading a lot about cheating girl friends, "The game" opened my eyes. It gave a promise size of a Mount Everest. The results were not that satisfactory but at least I got some better parts from it like self improvement and being less socially awkward. Like some one here advised, dating is really a numbers game and the rest is self-improvement

</comment><comment><USER20> If you look at most people of the 'seduction' community, they usually have something in their history that stunted their sexual-social development and basically need instruction/a support group/whatever to help overcome it. Usually people who grew up in religious households, or families that didn't let them out of the house much at all or let them socialize, go out or offer much anything in terms of privacy. Or they imposed it on themselves by being geeks and only socializing really with male friends. Or they developed various phobias or incorrect ideas from adults, caregivers and personal heros (Sexual harassment phobia, taking radical 2nd/3rd wave feminists seriously, etc). It could be more subtle reasons or other things.

Because they're nerds, men, usually young and are dealing with sexual problems the machismo goes to 11 and they do various socially stupid things. And most of the people who started these courses are not the most healthy of people.

<comment><USER14> > If you look at most people of the 'seduction' community, they usually have > something in their history that stunted their sexual-social development...

So you're saying that the people looking for help in understanding and attracting women are more likely to have been bad at it in the past? And that people who already have a lot of experience and success are unlikely to be interested in PUD methods? Isn't that obvious?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > At the height of his "gaming" activity he had eight steady sexual > partners—who all knew about each other—and was maneuvering himself into > threesomes on a regular basis.

Love it or hate it, that's pretty darn impressive. (Assuming they are attractive)

</comment><comment><USER21> If a girl says somthing like: "Remember, as you walk home through the night, be bold," there are problems afoot. Condescending poetry is a death knell.

As an aside -- I've always preferred superficial girls to bad poets. At least the terms are more clearly defined.

</comment><comment><USER22> Maybe all that women want is someone they can talk to as human beings and be with?

No, that isn't true either.

It might be true for me, but it isn't true for someone else. The problem with such generalizations is something rather simple; nature is not absolute. This works if women are absolute beings who care about nothing more than finding a secure man to breed with. There are women like that _and there are men like that too_ , but it isn't a hard and fast rule.

Gender is in fact _a spectrum_ and the idea of women you have in mind for whom such stuff works is only _a portion_ of the total population. There are so many beautiful women and hawt men out there who want more to life than mindless pickups and sex.

Where do evolutionary generalizations come into over here? Think of it this way; you are beating billions of years of evolution every time you use a condom.

Yes, male and female brains are different, but there are fundamental differences _within_ those sets as well (I am living breathing proof of this). So, maybe just maybe such things don't work in the longer term. As it assumes that both parties are in the "game" for something or the other.

What happens when you mature and you realize that you want _more_?

If you treat most women as objects of desire sooner or later your relationship will crash and burn. After all s/he is nothing more than a fancy toy for you. Emotions have to be _felt_ not reasoned with.

I think that the most important discovery any of us can ever make is that; _love is not a noun but a verb_. It is something you have to work for. It simply doesn't "just happen". It takes years of emotional intimacy and mutual respect to have a relationship that can be classified as "true-love", and perhaps that is something worth the while in the longer run...

[edit: forgot grammar and spell check]

<comment><USER23> _Think of it this way; you are beating billions of years of evolution every time you use a condom._

I used to think this, but I'm not so sure any more. Isn't it just a more specific version of "you are beating billions of years of evolution every time you see a women you don't want to have sex with"?

I wouldn't be surprised if evolution and condom use can be seen to fit togething in an interesting and compatible way.

<comment><USER22> >>>I wouldn't be surprised if evolution and condom use can be seen to fit togething in an interesting and compatible way.<<<

Most of my ideas on evolution have been shaped by Richard Dawkins. If you've read his books then you probably know what is coming.

His proposal to look at evolution from the gene point of view is something that is simple and logical to me. He points out that individuals are temporary collections of genes, and it is these genes that play games with us not the other way around. I love it how he puts; we are survival machines built by our genes.

However, for some reason some of those machines have developed this ability to talk to one another over things they have created. They seem to be able to reflect upon their own decisions and instincts in order to improve their response to the environment. There is no doubt that the gene/s that enable this became wildly successful in the gene pool. So, in a quirky way we have this ability given to us by genes that prevent us from carrying out the sole purpose of our existence to those genes; replication.

On the other hand we can argue for the-men/women-you-don't-have-sex-with example by pointing out that each time we mate there is a finite cost attached to it, and in order for the genes to be propagated most efficiently we have to take that into account. To a gene what is the use of having 30 descendants if none of them live long enough to reproduce?

What I am trying to say is that we aren't governed by our gene programming to the extent suggested in pop-culture. The genes themselves have given us a backdoor, and we exploit that backdoor a lot. It is an extremely strange recursion that boggles my mind.

So, at the end, yeah, you are right. There is nothing for which we can be 100% sure, but you have to admit _this_ is a fun game. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was intrigued by the reference to "Ovid's frank advice on meeting women at the theater". This seems to refer to the "Ars Amatoria" which is an interesting read in its own right.

Wikipedia article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Amatoria>

Full text (English translation):[http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Artoflovehome...](http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Artoflovehome.htm)

</comment><comment><USER25> The more you interact with women, the more you get to know women.

There is no method.

Think about throwing a baseball. No professional pitcher looks the same. They each have their own peculiar windup, delivery, and follow-thru. They each have a different selection of pitches. Some are taller than others. Some are from the Dominican Republic. What do they have in common?

They've all been pitching for a long ass time.

Sure, they have insights on the process. They'll show you their grip on their change-up or how they flick their wrists out before they release their curveball. They'll show you little bits of technique but they'll never be able to teach you how to pitch.

You've got to figure it out on your own.

Confidence is absolutely key. You're up on the mound. Your entire team is behind you, waiting for you to deliver the ball. It's just you and the batter. You're on the spot. You can't undo what is about to happen. There is no proof- reading. There are no mentors to run things by.

It's all up to you.

The first pitch might be off target. That doesn't matter. You've still got at least one more pitch to throw. So what are you going to do, fret about what just happened or think about how having a 1-0 count can work to your advantage? What was that last pitch, a fastball, and you missed up and outside with it against a left-handed hitter? Perfect time to throw your slider in for a strike, just nabbing the upper right corner. Now it's 1-1. The hitter is left thinking if the first pitch, way outside that it was, wasn't just some sort of psychological test, a setup, a prelude for the rest of the at-bat.

Congratulations, you've just gotten through a single batter. There are at least two more to go, and that's just for this inning. If you're lucky, you'll get to face 27 or more of them. If you're not up to par, you might only see a dozen or so. The point is you are hungry for the chance to show off your skills.

It doesn't matter if you're a knuckleballer, a crafty south-paw, or a fire- brand young all-star. You're all experiencing the same thing.

However, the method used to succeed is your own.

<comment><USER26> > The more you interact with women, the more you get to know women.

s/women/people/

However, a little instruction about body language and psychology can go a long way if you need it. It's useful to know where you stand. Incidentally, I've started playing poker most nights for the past week, and together with some reading about tells, I feel as though my ability to read people to some degree has improved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If offered the choice between empty meaningless sex and deeply meaningful unrequited love I'd take the first without hesitation.

The former might be shallow and empty but the latter is just _horrible_.

<comment><USER10> If I was offered the choice, I'd ask, "come on, am I absolutely required to choose one? This is almost as bad as election year."

Then, if I had no other option, I would choose the sex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wish there was a manual like this for business relationships.

<comment><USER29> There is. It's called The 48 Laws of Power. Combine that with game and you have a potent combination. I practice game to gain a better understanding of female psychology, but it's taught me volumes about human psychology as a whole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The last section is a bit pretentious ('darkened dorm room', 'do not lament your condition'). I do sympathize with the difficulty of learning how to love in modern times, etc. And I did enjoy parts of the retelling of The Red and the Black. However, there is a more sustainable alternative to PUA, which is also not naive (like blind Romanticism).

And that is, consciously, be awesome and find awesome common ground.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think we all are ignoring the other side of the coin:

There are lots of girls who want to have uncompromising sex but that are tied by the gossip of their own female friends, by the gossip of the 'righteous' men around them, and by the double standards of society in general.

Those girls deserve to have fun if they want, and not being discriminated against. 'Pickup' artists just fulfill the need, that's why their method works.

</comment><comment><USER32> I was captivated by this book and (since I didn't allow myself to buy it) stood for hours in Borders perusing the pages. The game approach to relationships is discussed to death in these comments.

My question is: Can you generalize the PUA approach, e.g. use a form of it for angel investors, prospective customers, etc. For a prospective customer the "neg" could be: "here's where your business fails" and then, when their curiosity is piqued you tell them how to fix it, etc.

<comment><USER33> It is the feeling I got from reading it, so yes. I think lots of people are offended by the end goal of "the game", so they do not even analyse what the means to get there are.

In lots of ways its strategies to show that you are interesting. To learn how you can captivate someones brain for a while. How you break through the normal filtering of the world. To understand when something similar is done to you. I even enjoy it when I know it happens to me, so it is a bit of a game.

There are things like body language saying yes, while words are saying no. Or several stories are being told simultaneously, unsuccessful ones being dropped and new one are started, to keep listeners. Or how to show that you are successful without appearing to be bragging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It seems to me that a lot of the comments on here are written by folks who didn't bother reading the whole article. True, the stuff about Stendhal gets pretty thick at times---I had to skim over some of it---but it's worth it in the end.

There's something ironic about this. The thesis of the essay is along the lines of: love is a very hard road, but worth it in the end. But it is presented in such a fashion that only folks who are persistent will follow it (the essay itself) to the end.

</comment><comment><USER35> No mention that Strauss' girl who he fell for and stopped 'playing' then later left him? How odd.

</comment><comment><USER36> Is Game really just acting confident and being flrity? Ross Jeffries and other people like him talk about using Neuro Linguistic Programming and covert hypnosis to make a girl sleep with you. It sounds REALLY exploitative and I don't believe that it works because what he says to say are these LONG and really weird sounding things that you just sound like an idiot for saying. But SO MANY PEOPLE follow him that I don't understand it.

</comment><comment><USER37> "Your website has been suspended!"

Hacker News effect? :-)

Still in Google's cache [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=ubuntu&#...</a>

</comment><comment><USER38> Game is like the Force. The choice of being Sith or Jedi lies with you.

</comment><comment><USER39> Love is a verb, not a noun.

<comment><USER40> It's also a noun.

edit: Hey, I'm just out here fighting for linguistic accuracy in bumper sticker slogans!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> 15 romantics (votes) or did you all just want Cliffs Notes on "The Game"?

</comment><comment><USER42> Yet everything fades away in the face of death.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, but if you're going to believe the whole "ultimately we're just dust on the wind" point then _everything_ is meaningless and you may as well kill yourself now.

The better alternative is to find what pleasure and satisfaction you can while you're here.

<comment><USER31> I don't really understand that line of reasoning at all. And probably never will.

Ultimately we're just dust in the wind. That's a fact. Our life is very short, as proved by all the research in longevity and how much we want it to succeed.

In my mind this 'you only have one shot at it' aspect only makes life way more important than if there were reincarnation, or life after death or any of those things.

It makes life infinitely more valuable. We don't enjoy life 'despite' its one- shot-itis, we enjoy life MORE because of it.

<comment><USER27> _We don't enjoy life 'despite' its one-shot-itis, we enjoy life MORE because of it._

I'm sorry, but nothing I've seen out there bears this out.

For the most part, people get through their days by ignoring their mortality somehow. If this wasn't the case there would be nothing to explain the plethora of people out there working dead end jobs they hate, stuck in relationships they don't enjoy or telling people they have plans to do 'something else' at some unspecified point in the future.

I know that's a remarkably pessimistic take on it, but really, look at your average person out there. If they were actively conscious of their mortality (and trying to make the most of their one shot) why would they be living the way they do, without trying to change something?

<comment><USER31> They are not conscious of their mortality because they have been denying it all their life.

'Your grand pa did not ceased to be, he just went to a better place' is the lie they tell to their children, and in a minor grade, to themselves.

All those 'life after death', 'angels', 'ghosts', 'zombies' and reincarnation movies and TV programs also help accomplish that.

Now, you are not being pessimistic, just stating a fact. However, whatever the most average person can think should not and does not affect the way I see life.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to edit a human - <AUTHOR> https://www.1843magazine.com/features/how-to-edit-a-human <comment><USER3> It's worth noting that, while fascinating, CRISPR is not yet a solved problem, as the technique in its current iteration can apparently introduce random mutations and damage [1].

[1] [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05736-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05736-3)

<comment><USER4> Gene editing has always been a crapshoot, from _e.coli_ to crops. You basically perform the insertion on a large number of cells and then pick the ones that survive. I'm oversimplifying it, but the point is that there are a lot of causalities with the process.

You can't really do that with a living human being.

<comment><USER5> You can't do it ethically. I wouldn't put it past someone (or some country) to start trying anyway, if they haven't already.

<comment><USER6> They have already:

[https://gizmodo.com/china-has-already-gene- edited-86-people-...](https://gizmodo.com/china-has-already-gene- edited-86-people-with-crispr-1822297524)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The dystopic view would be IVF clinics that offer parents a menu of options for kids," she says. "Nobody has kids by sex anymore. You go to a clinic, pick from a menu, say, 'I want my kid to be this tall, have this colour of eye, this level of IQ,' and all those sorts of things. I think that would be terrible." - <USER2>

It may be unpalatable to our sensibilities now, but this is actually the most likely scenario for how our species as we now know it will cease to exist. I have no doubt that we will upgrade ourselves into other species. There will be conflict over it, but attempting to ban this will never work. The technology exists NOW, how much longer do you think it will take for the will to be there? I'd give it less than 10 years for the first baby, and 5 generations to have a genetically divided society.

<comment><USER8> The technology exists now? How do I ensure my kid has an IQ of 200 today?

<comment><USER7> Don't be hyperbolic, the process is obviously gradual. I'm sure there are a couple dozen scientists who could give you a probabilistic answer to your 2nd question though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've never seen it mentioned, but I'd be ecstatic if someone who knew what the PC RPG series Geneforge is, and made a reference to this modern day dna/gene editing technology.

</comment><comment><USER10> When will it be possible to reverse, in humans, the inability to synthesize vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid), it's due to a mutations in the L-gulono-γ-lactone oxidase (GLO) gene which codes for the enzyme responsible for catalyzing the last step of vitamin C biosynthesis.

</comment><comment><USER11> an ethical debate and interesting.

</comment><comment><USER12> Chainsaws are also effective.

<comment><USER13> Please don't do this here.</comment></comment>


The Nonsense of 10X Developers and GitHub as a CV - <AUTHOR> https://codequalified.com/blog/2014/11/20/nonsense-of-10x-developers-and-github-as-a-cv/ <comment><USER2> Having no open source projects to show off = nothing special.

Having projects to show off = something that makes you stand out.

There's no way around this. I can understand why people haven't got open source projects to their name and that's fine but that doesn't change the fact that those that do will look better in interviews.

<comment><USER3> Have you measured this assertion in anyway? I'm not making a claim one way or the other, but what I have found is that people's perceptions about what is indicative of good candidates is rarely what is actually indicative and data goes a long way to dispel/confirm myths.

<comment><USER4> The problem is we don't have data on the candidates we don't hire.

<comment><USER3> I agree that the negative's are a very difficult case, but in my experience is that most people don't cover the easier case of candidates they can evaluate. Further, evaluation techniques themselves are pretty error prone. But without collecting data and experimenting with it, how do we improve the problem?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The summary of the issue by gnat at [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/179616/a-good...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/179616/a-good..). is quite good. I find McConnell's argument on "10x" (as a shorthand for "4x-20x") more defensible, and distrust the modality argument made by Bossavit, though Bossavit has additional reasons for why 10x is inappropriate.

Unless there's been new research in the last 4 years or so, I don't think there's anything more to say about this topic than what those two have written.

<comment><USER6> That link has some good references and conclusions based from data. There is a very likely chance that professional programmers can have an impact that is many times that of their colleagues.

The original article is the author's anecdotal evidence that a 10 times difference in productivity is caused by environment. It's enough to generate a hypothesis, at least. After reading a few of the references, I've found it's even harder to generate good data for this than I expected. It would be of no surprise to me that environment is a large confounding factor on what generates these "10x" programmers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I do agree with the author that a 10x environment is required for a 10x programmer.

I was a 4x-5x programmer at my last position relative to my co-workers. However, I was fired after I tried to take my government legislated vacation entitlement after 3 months notice (and after the employer lost the right to dictate when I could take the vacation). The threat of firing also came with a promotion without additional pay. Bureaucracy, & labour violations in the pursuit of profit has created a <1x environment.

Mine is somewhat of an extreme case, but anyone will lose any motivation to outperform without commensurate pay/recognition.

<comment><USER8> Yours is not an extreme case at all. In fact, this is standard fare in the industry, but nobody wants to admit it happens to them because it's embarrassing.

Europe has very strict vacation policy (mandated 5-6 weeks), healthcare benefits and employee protections (hours worked, overtime pay, etc). I wonder why that is? Western Europe isn't exactly a developing region. Maybe they realized that you can't give employers all the power and expect them to act benevolently at the expense of profit.

American work laws are dystopian. Being an employee in the USA is sheer stupidity. PG says as much during his essays. I always find the "Who's hiring" threads comically ironic on HN.

We're here not to be employees, but to become entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER3> There are lots of thing in that comment that indicate it is not a USA based employee at all. For instance, I don't know of any jurisdiction in the USA that has a vacation mandate.

So, that isn't to say that USA's work laws are good, only that European style work laws are not enough to prevent abuse.

<comment><USER9> The difference is that if Europe/Canadian workplace laws are being violated, you have recourse, which means you don't have to choose between 'whatever the employer decides to require' and 'quit my job and suddenly have no income'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh wait, a recruiting firm is dissing the data which makes recruiting firms less useful? I am not surprised.

Sadly one of the most influential things I've found on how successful a developer will be at a company is how they like to interact at work and how the folks at work prefer to interact. And that is something recruiters can't search for.

<comment><USER11> I couldn't agree more. I've watched folks come and go in the various jobs I've had, and aside from one very painful case, most of them moved on due to cultural incompatibilities and not incompetence.

I feel like the "Github is not a CV" posts are about as tired as the "Why I'm leaving X" posts at this point. Honestly, if the place you're applying doesn't want your Github account, they wont ask for it. If they do they will. There's no right answer here.

Me, personally, I love using Github as a CV because it saves me the banality of trumping up my chest feathers and getting ready for a show that a resume/CV requires and lets me keep working on things that I'm curious about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Environment and culture certainly play a big role in developer productivity. You can do a lot with average.

That being said in any kind of large organisation changing the culture is 100x harder and slower than hiring better developers.

IMO, building/creating 10x programmers in your area of business is simple but it is not easy.

\- Ensure at least 25% of your developers times are spent on learning and development.

\- Give them the freedom to work on what they think are the most important tasks to the business (e.g. Something similar to open allocation)

\- Ensure you are paying your developers at least market+20% in order to minimise turnover so you actually get something out of creating 10x'ers.

Now go and try and change a large organisations culture to be like the above. I'll wait.... And wait... And wait

</comment><comment><USER12> "Productivity" is the wrong metric to measure for developers anyway. Development is not a factory job, developers aren't cranking out widgets on an assembly line and developers who crank out more widgets aren't somehow superior to those who crank out fewer.

What matters is the value of what devs have created, and that's almost impossible to measure objectively in many cases, with some occasional exceptions. That often takes a lot of work and usually requires someone who is also highly skilled making a subjective judgment. I complete agree with the author here, hiring and culture is hard, and most of the time that fact is ignored and the result is failures on both counts. Taking the time and effort to be good at either is usually a huge competitive advantage.

It's similar to software. Does your product solve easy problems or hard problems? If you only solve easy problems, how do you expect that to keep you ahead of the competition? Determining the talent of a developer is not an easy problem in the general case, and if you only hire the developers that are easy to hire you're probably doing it wrong.

</comment><comment><USER13> Who is "codequalified.com" and why should I listen to him?

There's no author name on the post, in fact there's no name on the entire site. Even the Domain is registered anonymously (DomainsByProxy).

I don't care for names anyway, but there's no links to any external identity or previous work either.

All I see is an anonymous PR blog, seemingly trying to stir some random internet controversy for backlinks.

<comment><USER14> Who is moe?

Knowing someone's name is not a requirement for assessing the quality of their argument, and whether their observations match your own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Yes, relative skill and productivity between programmers can vary wildly, but I would posit that most of the difference you see between organisations ability to deliver software has nothing to do with how many "10X developers" you have hired and everything to do with culture.

That doesn't jibe with my experience at all.

<comment><USER16> Peopleware actually covers a study where standardized programming assignments were handed out to developers for them to take back to their offices and complete. The programmers were asked to time how long it took to complete these tasks.

There was dramatically more variance in completion time between organizations than within any one organization.

BTW, the book is worth reading.

<comment><USER17> It could merely be because different organizations have different hiring standards and cultures and usually gather the same types of people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This reads like "There is no such thing as a fast car, only fast racetracks."

Surely it takes both?

<comment><USER3> Maybe, but most of the studies (I'm thinking of Peopleware's examples) indicate that the environment is the dominant factor and the difference in people is mostly noise.

<comment><USER4> Do they really though? Have they consistently shown you can take the developers in a bad environment and put them in a good one and they will be as productive?

I don't think so. I think they have simply shown that certain environments are horrible for productivity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> People asking for code samples from me run up against the NDAs that I've worked under (code never to be seen by anyone else) or that I don't really care about the code that I write for me and don't bother storing it on github.

</comment><comment><USER20> First comes a typo in your article in the second sentence:

"though I fear they where actually real conversations"

</comment><comment><USER21> The article basically died after saying stuff like:

>Spring Framework is undoubtedly one of the most popular software libraries/frameworks in the history of mankind, yet it is an abominable bag of fail and poor engineering.

Typically when you say something like that, you'd actually know what you are talking about enough to state concisely and easily your reasoning.

</comment><comment><USER22> So much truth spoken</comment>


Killing Email: How and Why I Ditched My Inbox  - <AUTHOR> http://zenhabits.net/killing-email-how-and-why-i-ditched-my-inbox/

<comment><USER2> TLDR:

 _1\. I've set up an autoresponder for my email that explains what I'm doing and how to contact me and for what reasons.

2\. Twitter will be my main form of communication.

3\. For longer conversations, there's IM or Skype chats. These will be required to be scheduled, and are for friends, interviews or close colleagues only — you'll have to DM me on Twitter, and we'll set up a 10-minute chat.

4\. For collaboration, I'll use Google Docs and/or wikis.

5\. Friends and family can call me. Especially if they don't use Twitter. They already do, actually, so email isn't absolutely necessary. The phone is better for personal communication anyway.

6\. A few types of emails will get through for now. My filters allow emails for advertisers, interviews, refunds, and people who want to hire me, to get through to my inbox._

Sounds like more work than it's worth. Why not just learn how to use email judiciously, turn off all Pavlovian-response-inducing new mail notifications on your computers and phone, check 2 or 3 times a day, and continue to benefit from email's almost uniquely asynchronous nature.

<comment><USER3> I'm going to be highly biased and say that there are several things massively wrong with that approach:

Twitter means you need a twitter account to communicate. IM means you need an IM account with the same provider as them to communicate. Same with Skype. Same with Google Docs (though this at least has an "anyone with the link" option). Same with most wikis.

All they've done is say "Want to contact me? Go through closed platform X rather than using this thing you're essentially guaranteed to have called 'email'". It's a massive middle-finger to anyone who doesn't have those accounts; they're requiring they sign up, give away information, and will probably abandon the accounts shortly after, just because they have an issue with the word "email".

If they really wanted emails to behave like Twitter, set up an autoresponder based on email length. > 200 characters = autoreply, explaining about length problems due to volume, and resort to Docs if they _need_ more length (as that has a public option). It's the best of all worlds, and you don't need to worry about Twitter losing your old messages (email providers are typically _far_ more reliable).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
      I've found that I don't need to check Twitter as often, or spend as long
      processing it. It's not an always-connected, always-communicating tool
      that some people think it is — you can choose when and what to process,
      and only do it 1-2 times a day if you like, scanning your messages and
      not necessarily replying unless you feel the need to do so. It will be
      another inbox, but not as tyrannical as email.

This sounds remarkably like email to me. I don't understand the difference. I was expecting an article about ditching email-type communication entirely, which I wouldn't dream of doing but would be an interesting experiment.

<comment><USER5> As for ditching email-like communications entirely, it worked well for Donald Knuth: <http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/email.html>

Perhaps one day I will try it out!

<comment><USER6> Even he still requires email from time to time he admits, he just proxies them through his secretary. I wish I had one of those myself to filter my communications with the world. Then I wouldn't have email or anything. Just a wonderful assistant who managed it all and let me be free to focus on other things. I need me a Pepper Potts to my Tony Stark dammit!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> He took an efficient, even if inelegant, system and replaced it with 5 different services all with their own storage system, credentials and purpose.

That seems like a really terrible idea and a surefire way to increase time waste. Could you imagine trying to find something quickly with a system like this?

</comment><comment><USER8> Long term this sounds like a terrible idea.

What happens when you want to search for a message or attachment you got 3 months ago? Good luck via Twitter.

What happens when Twitter imposes some TOS that you don't like or stifles innovation by closing their platform?

What about the fact that any 3rd party app you give read permissions to can read your direct messages?

The list goes on and on.

I use Twitter but in the big picture it's not remotely close to being able to replace email in the long run.

<comment><USER9> That's not even to mention Twitter's historically frequent downtime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the biggest problem is simply that Leo's making other people do more work.

When you adopt a workflow that's out of the norm, you are forcing the people who want to work with you to make a decision: 1) Make an exception in THEIR workflow to deal with your quirks, or 2) Don't work with you.

<comment><USER9> It sounds like a deliberate decision to try to filter out some of the noise, but, yeah, it does seem kind of anti-social or selfish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I considered doing something similar a while back, but just like snail mail, you cant avoid it if everyone else still insists on using it. I'm still dumbfounded that i have to verify my identity via fax for some organisation or by letter for government institutions. There's just no avoiding it.

its the same with email. How will he deal with verifying his identity with a website that emails him the verification link?

But more to the point, if it's spam he wants to avoid, or people trying to get his attention, he's not going to avoid that just by going to Twitter or Skype or anywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's about managing expectations. Go about emails with the mind set of training people around you to work with your expectations.

Important emails get answered quickly, while every non-issue is trashed. Over time this has worked out great for me. I don't get overwhelmed with emails, slowly it has gone down as those around me understand my priority.

</comment><comment><USER13> This post is almost 2 years old.

<comment><USER14> It's hard to tell without a post date. Or comments.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I know. Really just more of an FYI thing than a complaint. As far as I know, Leo still maintains the same policy.

Oh and while I hate the idea of going email-less, I had a chance to share drinks with Leo and found him to be a great guy and a gentleman. Not sure it has anything to do with the topic, but as a non-fan of minimalism, I thought it would be relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There are so many things wrong with this even before you remember that you need an email address to establish a Twitter account.

</comment><comment><USER16> Man becomes hermit, film at 11.

</comment><comment><USER14> Babuta and other "neo-minimalists" are more dedicated to hyping up their personality cults than actually minimizing. The TLDR by SkyMarshal demonstrates this well.

The system to rid himself of email is more complex than optimizing his email setup.

<comment><USER17> Not to mention that the fact he probably gets more email than others is because his very public personality makes him more desirable for other people to contact him in the first place.</comment></comment>