nerdspeak

Nietzsche was literally an incel.

I agree he sounds bitter sometimes Leo’s views are coming from the perspective of someone who found dating hard because they’re shy and average looking, and who tried solving the problem through cold approach. Which does work but is an especially brutal way of trying to date. When I stopped doing pickup my views became a lot softer and I became a much happier person. I guess I still talk to women I don’t know sometimes but only when I feel like it. Regarding Nietzsche, he was literally an incel. Of course he’s brilliant but I don’t take his views on women seriously.

Not really, when you get a bit older and you can’t rely on your parents or peer group for support or backup, having a partner provides psychological comfort. It’s conditional and to an extent an illusion, but let’s say I get sick and can’t work for a relatively short period, like 1-2 months. My gf would take care of me or help me. If I become depressed and start being horrible to be around for long enough, of course she would leave. If I became disabled and couldn’t work forever, probably she would leave. But still this limited support is useful — you don’t have much else in this life given how society is set up.

Ezra Klein wants to make soft neoliberalism work better by adding some Keynesian elements. It’s still the same shill.

It really depends on the age you start too, I think. There’s a reason they used to start monks off as children. I started Theravada stuff in my late teens and made insane progress. Could sit for 3-4 hours without a problem, lots of inadvertent “power realm” experiences. i had to take a few years off from serious practice due to financial challenges and work, and getting back into it in my late twenties was ROUGH. It takes me 2-3 days of retreat practice to get to level of samadhi I used to achieve in 10 minutes when I was young. I may have also corrupted myself working in tech in NYC and doing pickup, and picked up some bad karma. But I think it’s mostly less neuroplasticity.

I left in 2020, no regrets

I don’t doubt Owen has done $100mm in sales over 20 years, but (1) he was first to platform on organic YouTube, so it’s more a function of that; (2) how much of that was profit, and of the profit how much did he keep. My understanding is not much, although if he pivoted to 1:1 high-end coaching and subscriptions since then, I’m sure he has made a lot since RSD. I knew one of the RSD coaches and two of the main independent NYC coaches in the 2010s, and they were no richer than successful psychotherapists or NY law firm associates. Mid six figures. And there were several coaches with really good game that I knew who were struggling just to break even in NYC.

This is just wrong, there are lots of components to value besides looks. If you are rich, extroverted, and socially savvy but average looking you will have an easier time dating the hottest girls than an introverted good-looking guy. Context matters a lot too. If you are an average-looking guy in Moldova (or Montreal or New York) you will have an easier time dating a hot girl than a good-looking guy in San Francisco. You are right though that the most common reasons guys get frustrated is they try to get girls that are unattainable for them. No amount of marketing or sales tactics can fix a product that is plain overpriced.

Omg this thread. People like to hate on dating teachers but there’s a sense in which they deserve some kind of humanitarian award. It is probably worse than being a social worker and doesn’t pay much better either.

You’re right that I phrased my “peak technocracy” comment in a way that left it open to misinterpretation. That said, I think there is a connection between these events. The War on Terror (which Obama extended despite promising to end) and the mishandling of the financial crisis severely harmed public trust in government. In both cases, experts funneled money upward while claiming it was necessary and that the average person couldn’t understand why. I am sympathetic to Charles Taylor’s diagnosis of democratic degeneration, and would extend it to suggest that COVID skepticism is symptomatic of a broader decline in the perceived legitimacy of liberal democratic states and their officials. Inequality, and the (valid but of course incomplete) perception that Western states prop up that inequality, is leading a significant number of people to lose trust in public officials — even those in non-political roles like public health. Populist authoritarians then mobilize that distrust, although of course once in power, they just make the situation worse.

@Apparition of Jack Yeah of course, I am not a moron despite what Leo apparently thinks. The point of my comment was that in an environment of completely degraded public trust in both government and in expertise, you would expect a populist backlash to a drastic policy measure like lockdowns. Many influencers tacked to the right to profit from that backlash, since they’re mostly entrepreneurs rather than intellectuals or scientists.

@Leo Gura I should be grateful for George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld “saving my life” in the War on Terror? You missed the point of what I said, which was about the optics and the political opportunity it created. There has been a huge crisis of legitimacy since the War on Terror and especially the 2007-2008 crisis. No one trusts anything the government says. Because…they constantly lie. Whether the lockdowns were on-balance beneficial is a completely separate issue from public trust in government being in total crisis.

COVID was peak technocracy. The bureaucrats went from telling you war and austerity was necessary, to telling you to stay inside for two years lol. I won’t get into whether it was a good idea or not, that’s a separate issue. The point is, you would expect a backlash—which you see now, as every government in power in 2021 has effectively been thrown out — and influencers were positioning themselves for it.

10-15 years ago, many of his followers did. RSD generally attracted angry young men whose parents had failed them, so they were looking for a replacement belief system. I agree it’s irresponsible for Owen to feed that impulse, but that’s audience capture. Regarding whether “pickup” is ethical, doing cold walk-ups is a lead gen channel like any other—a moderately obnoxious one like broadcast fax or cold-calling. Is cold-calling unethical? The tactic itself is not the part that got RSD in trouble, it’s the other sleazy beliefs that RSD promoted.

Engaging with Owen content is too risky, he’s a sociopathic Zen devil type. I would just avoid.