Summary: Revolutions begin in the shadows, only emerging when they grow too large to ignore. So it is with “Game”, the 21st-century street science of seduction. It began when men discovered that women love bad boys, men with Dark Triad traits. Game has become a front in the Gender Wars. This is an update and revision of a post from the archives.
Modern American women love bad boys!
A new era for women begins
“During this whole century the progress of artillery has been a duel between the maker of cannons and the maker of armor plates to keep the cannon balls out. You build a ship proof against the best gun known: somebody makes a better gun and sinks your ship. You build a heavier ship, proof against that gun: somebody makes a heavier gun and sinks you again. And so on. Well, the duel of sex is just like that.”
— A pick-up artist talking to a first wave feminist in George Bernard Shaw’s play “You Never Can Tell” (1895). See the follow-up conversation in the comments.
During the past century, science has forced breaks with the past certainties. For example, traditional State-to-State conventional war became suicidal with the development of nuclear weapons. But every force produces an opposite reaction. The reaction to nuclear weapons was a shift to new forms of conflict such as 4GW, cyberwar, economic war (for more about this see Unrestricted Warfare).
Similarly, technology created a break in history by allowing women to control their fertility. This made possible the serial social revolutions called feminism, still in motion with ends as yet unseen. Women were emancipated from their families and unleashed from many of society’s restraints. Women’s increased financial independence diminished their need to quickly “settle” – i.e., marry stable male providers (for more about this see these controversial articles in The Atlantic: Feb 2008, March 2008, April 2010). Today women delay that until their late 20s or early 30s.
Now liberated, women can follow their true natures. One expression of this is Girls’ Game: romance the man, stage the party-of-her-life, marry, have kids, divorce when they are in school — then get community property, child support, and independence. The husband provides support during those first few difficult years of raising children. Then divorce gives a woman the children she wants without the bother of having a husband. It is the logical strategy for women raised to value their independence above all else.
These changes are more fundamental to society than anything produced by splitting the atom.
Dark truths from Science
The results of women’s liberation were foreseen neither by scientists nor social reformers. First, women’s hypergamy was released. That is their drive to seek men of high status (e.g., the combination of wealth, income, status, height, appearance, and charisma). These are called “alpha” men, men of high social rank. It is a term loosely derived from ethology. The benefits of hypergamy to women are obvious.
Second, society lifted the restraints on women expressing their love of men with the Dark Triad of behavioral traits. Psychology Today describes them. Their appeal is not obvious to most men.
“Defined as a set of traits that include the tendency (to seek admiration and special treatment (narcissism), to be callous and insensitive (psychopathy)), and to manipulate others (Machiavellianism), the Dark Triad is rapidly becoming a new focus of personality psychology. …
“The technical definition of the Dark Triad, as stated in Jonason and Webster’s article, is rather daunting: “the Dark Triad as a whole can be thought of as a short-term, agentic, exploitative social strategy…” This means, in simpler terms, that people who show these qualities are trying to get away with acting out against others in order to achieve their own ends. Each of the individual qualities alone can make life difficult for those who know people like this. Combined, the Dark Triad traits in another person close to you can be detrimental to your mental health.”
Men can take this test to see their level of Dark Triad traits.
About “Game” – the counter-revolution begins
The reaction to feminism has begun – in the shadows, as do all revolutions and counter-revolutions.
As women’s liberation accelerated after WWII, the methods of pick-up artists” (aka “seducers”) evolved as well. Decades of slow experimentation on the streets brought Guy’s Game (aka Game) to maturity in the mid-1990s. It is a crude form of applied psychology developed by men through trial and error. Like alchemy, it is a mixture of fact and superstition used by people working without theory. It began, like most revolutionary actions, with an observation and an insight. Men saw that many women prefer bad boys. Men realized that they could act as bad boys and so increase their odds of success with women. Even pretending, against their natures, works.
As with other innovations in interpersonal relations – new forms of dancing (e.g., the waltz), divorce, abortion, the pill, rock music, postal boxes on the street – moralists condemn Game as a step on the road to iniquity. Feminists have gained the high ground in control of society’s institutions, and watch with outrage as men act in defiance of the new social norms they seek to impose. They use their power to suppress the spread of this knowledge: publishers don’t publish, YouTube closes down channels, social media ban heretics. I doubt this will succeed.
Street science: evidence that Game works
Word of this slowly spread as undernews during the past few decades. While the major media usually ignore Game, hundreds of books, videos, and courses teach men – imperfectly, crudely, often amorally – how to apply these methods in their dealings with 21st-century American women.
Much of Game consists of learning to pass the tests that women use to identify alphas. Neither the women’s tests nor Game is pretty. Both are acts in a Darwinian conflict, like those seen in nature films of life on Africa’s savannah. These are not the threads from which romantic comedies are woven (but then rom-coms are dying off, as a genre too alien for modern boys and girls).
What about the rest of us? Successful men living by the social codes of the past are “betas” (e.g., white knights, nice family men, good boys). Men unable to deal with modern women are “omegas”, substituting porn, sports, and computer games for women. These are the brutally honest classifications of street life.
See these demonstrations providing evidence that Game works.
Like all skills – painting, marksmanship, selling – not everybody can learn to use Game. Most will not make the necessary effort to achieve mastery. Many who try will fail. But, as with most skills, incremental improvement comes with learning and practice. Often that is enough to make a difference.
The Dark Triad goes public
“The Heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care.”
— From a letter by Emily Dickenson to her sister, Mrs. Samuel Bowles, 1862.
Often a catalyst makes the public aware that society has changed. The film 9 1/2 Weeks
The 100 million copies sold of Fifty Shades of Grey
The future
Feminism and Game are the next steps in the evolution away from the nuclear family that began after WWII – and accelerated when Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Family Law Act of 1969 retroactively abolishing the core of the marriage contract.
No barrage of condemnation from authorities can stop the spread of insights that produce more success with women. The standard first response to news about a revolutionary change in society (e.g., atomic weapons, women’s liberation, AI) is deploying Zeno’s paradox: change is impossible in “X” (whatever “X” is). It is a comforting but daft response.
We have begun the second stage of society’s response to Game: recognition. Articles mocking and condemning Game appear in major publications, in films, and on TV (e.g., “Till Death do Us Part
Are these developments good or bad? Consult a priest or philosopher, for you will not find the answers here. The FM website only attempts to help its readers more clearly see and understand the world, and decide how to act.
Science demonstrates the truths of Game
As with alchemy, science follows the amateurs in new fields. First, men on the street discovered the effectiveness of dark triad behaviors. Then scientists did experiments and developed theories to explain this. Here is a sample of the vast body of research validating many of the precepts of Game.
- “Dating preferences of university women: An analysis of the nice guy stereotype“ in Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, issue 4 (1999).
- “Do “bad boys” really get the girls? Delinquency as a cause and consequence of dating behavior among adolescents“ in Justice Quarterly, issue 2 (2004).
- “Niceness and Dating Success: A Further Test of the Nice Guy Stereotype“ in Sex Roles, August 2006.
- “Courtship compliance: The effect of touch on women’s behavior“ in Social Influence, volume 2 (2007). Ungated copy.
- “From dating to mating and relating: Predictors of initial and long-term outcomes of speed-dating in a community sample“ in European Journal of Personality, January/February 2011.
- “Mate-selection and the Dark Triad: Facilitating a short-term mating strategy and creating a volatile environment“ in Personality and Individual Differences, October 2011.
- “Quantifying the strength and form of sexual selection on men’s traits“ in Evolution and Human Behavior, September 2013.
- “Can an Insult Make You Fall in Love? Does nagging (or negging) make someone seem more attractive?“ by Jeremy Nicholson (PhD, psychology) in Psychology Today, 31 August 2013 — Cites several studies.
- “Dominance and the traits associated with it predict men’s mating success, but attractiveness does not in Evolution and Human Behavior, September 2013.
- “Choosy But Not Chaste: Multiple Mating in Human Females“ by Brooke A. Scelza in Evolutionary Anthropology, September/October 2013.
- Superior reproductive success of criminal men in Evolution and Human Behavior, November 2014 — Criminals get more women; they have more kids.
For More Information
What happened to the pioneers of Game – “pickup artists”? They were pretty extreme and most burned out. Also, the Left moved against them – deploying their immense power. Publishers would not publish their books. Many retailers would not sell their books. Social media and YouTube closed them down. See The death of the PUA community” (PickUp Artists) by Charlie Powell at Return of Kings, 11 March 2018.
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about Game, about women and gender issues, especially these…
- The feminist revolutionaries have won. Insurgents have arisen to challenge the new order. As always, they’re outlaws.
- The coming crash as men and women go their own way.
- MeToo discovers that there is always a counterrevolution.
- Game is toxic to feminism
- Red Pill knowledge is poison to marriage.
- Women unleash their rage! Beta males revolt!
- Bad results of #MeToo appear, surprising only feminists. – Men adopt defensive tactics with women at work.
Start here to understand the Gender Wars
Rollo Tomassi is one of the explorers of our strange new world. See his website and Twitter feed, and the poem on his “About” page.
The Rational Male
by Rollo Tomassi (2013).
“The Rational Male is a rational and pragmatic approach to intergender dynamics and the social and psychological underpinnings of intergender relations. The book is the compiled, ten-year core writing of author/blogger Rollo Tomassi from therationalmale.com. Rollo Tomassi is one of the leading voices in the globally growing, male-focused online consortium known as the “Manosphere”.
“It outlines the concepts of positive masculinity, the feminine imperative, plate theory, operative social conventions and the core psychological theory behind Game awareness and “red pill” ideology. Tomassi explains and outlines the principles of intergender social dynamics and foundational reasoning behind them.”
Thought i’d use this post as an opportunity to let you know, Mike ‘muggy Mike’ Thalassitis, referenced in an earlier post, died in March. Suicide.
Didn’t 91/2 Weeks bomb because it was a crap movie?
Ruby,
“Didn’t 91/2 Weeks bomb because it was a crap movie?”
“9 1/2” weeks did not bomb. It did poorly in the US, but exceptionally well overseas. The soundtrack also sold well in the US and Britain.
The two sequels, released on video, were also profitable.
It seems to me that the dark triad are really just the disordered versions of traits common to men with natural leadership capabilities.
Narcissicism is a disordered form of high confidence in yourself and a willingness to fight for your goals and ambition, even when the world pushes back. A man who thinks he is unworthy or just a “regular guy” is unlikely to step up and take charge when needed.
Psycopathy is disordered martial courage. The capability to engage in violence and confrontation is necessary for anyone who has something to fight for and protect . A psychopath goes beyond that and pursues conflict and violence as a means to pleasure and satisfaction.
Finally, machiavelianismm is disordered prudence. Being able to act with calculated and directed intent in your relations with others, a necessary precursor to forming alliances and leading. Men who are unaware of how their actions impact others or who can’t influence people are not going to be effective leaders. This becomes disordered when manipulating others becomes an end in of itself.
These qualities are going to be attractive because even if disordered they will be percieved as better for the woman from a purely pragmatic perspective.
Think of a man who is neurotic and self-depretiating, overly gentle and fearful of confrontation, and never measures his words or actions. Such a man is of no use to a woman from a sexual or societal point of view and are held by women in extreme contempt. Just look at the hatred towards “nice guys” or “incels” among feminists.
It bombed.
9 1/2 weeks, or the similar Thief of Hearts two years earlier, did poorly because they were poor films, not because they express dark truths the American public just wasn’t ready for. (Two Moon Junction, or Wild Orchid can be dismissed as B movies, and poor films).
As Siskel and Ebert pointed out at the time, 9 1/2 Weeks is a do over of ‘Last Tango in Paris’- a successful film in every sense of the word, had a good US box office despite being a foreign film, evidently American moviegoers were more than ready for the message at the beginning of the seventies.
And that would be my point, a woman turning from the safe boring guy, for the unhinged, alpha (or whatever you call him) is an idea that’s been making the ’rounds for a very long time. It shows up in fiction often, anyone can make their own list. A deep cultural prejudice, as opposed to something recently discovered by the youth ov today.
No tears or thoughts for Muggy Mike?
Ruby,
“It bombed.”
False. It cost $17 million to make. It took in $100 million, per Wikipedia – mostly from overseas.
“As Siskel and Ebert pointed out …”
Nobody cares what critics think.
“We have begun the second stage of society’s response to Game: recognition. Articles mocking and condemning Game appear in major publications, in films, and on TV.”
I believe this is because woman want the real deal, a natural alpha, not a beta that pretends to be an alpha.
Sven,
Perhaps so.
Perhaps because feminists’ successful war on boys has reduced the number of strong men in America, and women are reacting to that. Some say that the widespread support among women for open borders is another result. They want strong men from patriarchial – even misogynist – societies. “Biomechanics is God.”
Well, there are certainly some temporary rewards to be reaped from engaging life as a calculating, manipulative jerk, if those rewards happen to be one’s primary attractor and motivator. But at the end of it all, once all those sought-after experiences have come and gone, what remains is the echo and legacy of a life lived as a calculating, manipulative jerk. That such a masquerade could pass itself off as true strength is its own best commentary on present-day human culture, not limited to whatever forms mating dances currently assume., and whatever mannered gestures and ornate costumes accompany them.
Fabio,
“there are certainly some temporary rewards to be reaped from engaging life as a calculating, manipulative jerk”
Life on the streets doesn’t match your trite moralisms. Women use dress and cosmetics to enhance their image. Pretty much everybody exaggerates or lies. Women go on dates for free meals. Men use tactics to get women in bed. Those at the top of the pecking order often treat those below them brutally. Etc, etc. Get used to real life!
I’ll keep you in mind if the world needs a Pope to pass judgment on people!
So, because these are the attributes of “real life”, one should never mock any of them? I understand the need to recognize these attributes as “givens”, but wouldn’t necessarily recommend imitating the worst of them (smile). Plus, I thought I was being sardonic rather than moralistic, because it isn’t really my concern what people do along the aforesaid lines— human nature will express itself as it does. And such expression will generate its own feedback, in line with the fact that a person’s motives will shape their destiny (or is it vice-versa?). If someone’s natural inclination is to embody the lowest common denominator of their surrounding peer culture, then so be it– I suppose this tendency consitutes much of the glue that holds societies together, so maybe it’s not a bad thing after all.
In short, Everything finds its own level, and yet no level remains static. Recognizing that particular reality frees anyone from having to be a moralist or a busybody.
Fabio,
“one should never mock any of them?”
The Pope, or wannabe popes, don’t mock. Your comment wasn’t mocking. It was passing judgment. Oddly, there is little demand for Popes.
“I thought I was being sardonic rather than moralistic,”
Nope.
One of the drawbacks of this medium (blog comments) is that it isn’t transparent to tone. And when tone is the larger part of the message, much of the message itself may be missed. Also, by writing a brief comment, one is necessarily emphasizing one facet of what is often a much more complex reality, and thereby neglecting other perspectives that may be of equal or even greater value in their own right. But then, that’s precisely what makes valuable the best kind of give-and-take that’s present on forums such as this– it provides a more balanced and complete perspective than could be generated by a single voice alone.
If I’m reading you correctly between the lines (itself a big “if”, due in substantial part to the inherent opaqueness of this medium), it seems that your innate temperament may be a bit more reverent toward baseline human realities, whereas I often lean toward a kind of detached bemusement at the Vanity Fair aspect of collective human existence and interaction, coupled with little inhibition to mock things playfully (even when donning a “serious” mask dramatize the point being made) or to call a spade a spade (as I see it, of course).
Perhaps I shouldn’t need to mention that the energies behind those respective dispositions generally create at least a mild dissonance, but then all dissonances and other tensions can last only so long before they resolve themselves, even if that resolution is ultimately into nothingness.
Fabio,
This isn’t complex. Calling people “jerks” is appropriate in junior high schoolyards. It’s not useful in adult conversation, except over drinks with friends. Nobody cares to hear about the subtly of your thinking.
If you have an objection, provide a quote and explain why you disagree.
“Calling people “jerks” is appropriate in junior high schoolyards.”
The word “jerk” was used to designate a general personality type that most people recognize under that rubric, and applied to a generic group of males who fit that profile– we’ve all been exposed to such– and not leveled at any specific individual(s). (There are corresponding terms used with respect to certain categories of predominantly female behavior, often with equal accuracy and validity if not politeness.) In other words, the term “jerk” was used in the abstract, and nobody was called a jerk (perhaps I should have used a more euphemistic equivalent to reveal that I’d graduated from Junior High?). If derogatory terms shouldn’t be applied to anything or anyone, what would be the value of laudatory terms absent such contrast? And what would be the value of value itself, without any broad continuum for it to inhabit? Under those circumstances, what conversation would remain for us to have?
“Nobody cares to hear about the subtly of your thinking.”
You speak for everyone? First I’m chastised for the crudeness and simplicity of my epithets (“jerk”), and now I’m criticized for subtlety. Sometimes ya just can’t win :-)
Two remarks from someone watching the war from as far away as possible:
Pro-feminist websites are full of articles to identify narcissist, psychopaths and “gas lighting” (manipulation or Machiavellian in the tirade diagram above), almost all of them can only be used after a period of close relationship with such a person (few claim to identify such people from first meeting but false-positives should be very high). So basically girls will fall to the Game but will have an excuse: it’s not her fault for choosing a bad boy he’s just a narcissist, a psycho, a gas lighter but this next bad boy is going to worship me and never look at anyone else bedside me!!
Pro-feminist social media mocks “nice guy” posts on the internet: these are posts (on twitter, facebook, etc) where a male either declares he will not be a “nice guy” anymore or rants about the bad-faith treatment from a girl even though he was a “nice guy”, some of these slander the girls, others are just guys who can’t get a relationship but some are actual nice guys (No quotes) who were hurt by girls; girls and pro-feminists seem to think mocking them is the progressive way forward. It’s like the gazelles mocking the lions for giving up on vegetarianism!
My own understanding of history and anthropology follows (not your standard take I admit, but please give it a read):
Marriage and patrilineal descent was invented by women for the benefit of women (not a popular statement I know!), I believe it developed in Arabia after the end of the Humid Period (7,000 years ago) when the environment went from grasslands as far as the eye can see to desert. Suddenly there was only enough food to support 1% of the population, women needed someone to go out and fight for food and bring it back to them and their children (not necessarily his children because without marriage you only have a mother but no father). The change (from humid to dry) happened in a series of escalating droughts, the alterations between extreme stress and abundance is exactly what helps evolution and is what produces super-bugs today, what you call the ratchet-up effect.
Women traded their only advantage, ie sex, for protection and support. Men would only die for a woman and her children if they knew 100% the children are theirs and there was no other way of obtaining favors from a woman. It’s the women who enforce traditional norms like sequestration, covering, chastity (in the movie Cinmea Paradiso it’s the women of the village who react unfavorably to the hyper-sexual new comer who threatens their social order by seducing their men) when it comes to stoning an adulteress its the women who throw most rocks and not the men, the offer of sex from a prostitute or unmarried woman (trading sex with different men for favors) will undermine the motivation for men to go out in the sun and work all day for the women and their children let alone standing in a battle-line to protect the settlement from outsiders.
The end of the humid period in Arabia had other great effects: it pushed farmers from the northern parts into Europe where they introduced farming and replaced the hunter-gatherers living there. Another branch went through the Caucasus into the steppe and became the Proto-Indo-Europeans, thousands of years later they would invade Europe and massacre the farmers and replace them (in the north and east almost completely but less in the south and west). It’s effect on Arabia was even more profound, patrilineal descent put man in the center of society instead of women (hence the switch from the Earth goddess to the warrior god in ancient religions) and scarcity of resources necessitated co-operation either in the form of warfare or society. A single man now ruled a tribe or a city instead of the collective of old mothers that held sway before, now action can be taken much quicker and decision came from one person exactly what success in warfare or settlement under threat needs.
Civilization started to develop: from the end of the Humid Period to the pyramids it took only 2,000 years; while the stone age had lasted 100,000 years with very little development, such is the difference between matrilinear and patrilinear descent or between women-led and men-led cultures (the long slow progress of the stone age is necessary and can’t be skipped in the history of human development, but there is no need to go back to it anymore).
For info on the Humid period:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period#Manifestations
The genetic origins of early European farmers and Proto-indo-Europeans are available on YouTube in great lectures (from the people who developed the new technique making such reconstruction possible), just search for “genetic origin Europe” and you should get a bunch of them.
Lewis H. Morgan’s book Ancient Society is a must read (and it’s free on the Internet):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Society
It’s certainly outdated and might be even wrong in some aspects, but it’s a great introduction to thinking about how human culture changes and develops (and how science has developed over the last 150 years). His ethnographic information about at least my own culture is 100% correct, the similarities with Native American tribes is uncanny and opened my eyes to understanding human cultures (people who live similar lives will have similar cultures and strange cultures are explained by the lives people lead).
My apologies for the overly long post and I hope you don’t dismiss it outright as you usually do with new ideas; you once mocked a graph I posted and a couple of years afterwards posted the same graph (comparing the Japanese stock market from 1990 onward to the US stock market from 2000 onward, you mocked it because the starting dates were different and a couple of years later you cited it to show that the US might be on the same path as Japan!!).
Thank you for that information-rich comment. It’s outside my knowledge to comment on. There is one detail I can mention, however – trivial tho it is.
“girls will fall to the Game but will have an excuse: it’s not her fault for choosing a bad boy …”
Game is nice guys learning to simulate being a bad boy. I prefer the alternative framing (taste varies in these things), betas immitating being alpha. True bad boys and alphas (I’m uncertain on the degree to which those overlap) don’t need Game. Or perhaps the are Game.
These things are on the edge of the known, and so are complex and inchoate.
“you once mocked a graph I posted and a couple of years afterwards posted the same graph (comparing the Japanese stock market from 1990 onward to the US stock market from 2000 onward, you mocked it because the starting dates were different and a couple of years later you cited it to show that the US might be on the same path as Japan!!).”
If so, I apologize. I see your original comment here. But I don’t see any such graph posted on the FM website from Bloomberg, or any graph comparing US and Japan stock markets. I searched on my WordPress media library, which has every image ever posted here. I used Google search as a check (it did find your comment).
Finding nothing does not surprise me, since stock market indexes are pretty useless as an economic indicator.
Anonemiss,
A trival point, as follow-up.
“you mocked it because the starting dates were different”
That was not my objection. I said “No economically similar starting points, nor are the two series indexed.”
Dark Triad is not something you adopt, it’s something you are born as. Have you heard of the word INTJ? Same thing.
Cognition,
“Dark Triad is not something you adopt, it’s something you are born as.”
The point of Game is not to develop Dark Triad traits. It is to convince women in an evening or two that you have them. This consists in part of learning to duplicate their behaviors, and in part learning to fake them.
Authenticity is overrated.
I think it might be relevant: “The death of the PUA community” (PickUp Artists) by Charlie Powell at Return of Kings, 11 March 2018.
Satepestage,
Thank you for that relevant and useful article! I’ve added it to the post.
Statepestage,
I’ve been thinking about that article. First stage revolutionaries are often odd ducks – who else would do so? And they have a high failure rate.
“Pick up artists” are like first wave feminists advocating wearing bloomers (named after feminist Amelia Bloomer) – no longer representative of the movement. The baton has passed to people like Rollo Tomassi (“The Rational Male“), Dalrock, Black Label Logic, and Chateuau Heartiste (who was recently booted off WordPress).
Most are mild, somewhat academic in tone, but still revolutionary in their challenge to the feminists which dominate the establishment. This combination of traits has allowed them to survive. But as Heartiste learned, the Left eventually come for them all – to crush or suppress them.
Judging by birth rates, the process is not US or culture specific, but technology generated and world wide.
Here that extrapolates into a lot of aging PUAs and SJWs, who won’t have much to say to each other.
Japan is probably the optimal outcome, a still functioning aging society, Europe and China seem less adjusted.
Maybe there will be a culture shift back towards children as the human priority, but it seems unlikely at present.
etudiant,
“Here that extrapolates into a lot of aging PUAs and SJWs”
I doubt that those groups are a substantial fraction of the child-bearing population.
“Judging by birth rates, ”
Thanks for flagging this! I had not looked at US total fertility rates in a long time. Replacement is 2100 per thousand women. The CDC’s 2017 report calculates it as 1,766 for the US!
Here is a graph of their results, showing US fertility by ethnicity.
The point to me is that the fertility collapse is happening everywhere where there is modern technology, no matter whether it be the US, Europe, China, Russia or Japan.
Only Africa seems immune thus far, but it is still early in the tech game.
So that indicates that the US gender wars are more symptom than cause. There are similar results, with different justifications, in other societies.
etudiant,
“So that indicates that the US gender wars are more symptom than cause.”
I don’t understand what you are referring to. What is the relationship declining fertility to this post? How does women shifting their desired traits in men to the dark triad, and men’s response, affect TFR?
Your original statement was “Here that extrapolates into a lot of aging PUAs and SJWs, who won’t have much to say to each other.” That is a possible future development, but hasn’t yet happened. The rate of marriage among women has declined, but not enough to have much effect on TFR.
As said in other posts, these trends might become important if they accelerate in the Millenials and Gen Zs. That’s why the conclusion section has the header “The Future.”
The link to declining fertility is imho directly given in the recent ‘First Fruits..’ posting.
The point however that I was trying to make is that the evidence around the world is that modern technology appears to bring with it reproductive dysfunction. The specific manifestations vary, but the consequent birth rate collapse is universal. That seems something that we really need to understand.
etudiant,
“The link to declining fertility is imho directly given in the recent ‘First Fruits..’ posting.”
No. The title “First fruits” says that is a new phenomenon, not the cause of the generations long decline in fertility. It might cause a further decline in marriage rates, which might cause a further decline in fertility. But it could cause substantial social damage – including blasted lives – even if fertility is unaffected.
“That seems something that we really need to understand.”
The fertility decline is a widely recognized phenomenon and under intensive study. It is, however, unrelated to the subject of the gender war posts.
“Authenticity is overrated.”
OK then, that explains everything.
Fabio,
“OK then, that explains everything.”
That’s a foolish statement. While accurate, it does not “explain everything.”
Please at least attempt to say things of some use to others. This isn’t grade school Show and Tell.
My goodness, I think while reading this, and having followed up on the links about PUA. My goodness, America is a weird place. And they don’t even realize how weird they are. They think it entirely natural and can conceive of no other way. They think its just human nature.
My goodness.
Henrik,
“and having followed up on the links about PUA.”
What links are those? I see two. The first is to a 1895 British play. The second is a historical note about the origins of Game, done by people as strange as were the first wave feminists. No social revolution is begun by buttoned down typical people.
The two videos are demonstrations, street psychology. If it was not a violation of PC, interesting papers could be written about this phenomenon.
“America is a weird place. “
How nice of you to share your parochial judgements, said by most travelers since the dawn of time. Just for fun, can you explain why you say that?
“They think it entirely natural and can conceive of no other way. They think its just human nature.”
If you have traveled, you must know that is true of most people almost everywhere. Cosmopolitans are rare in most societies.
Larry, sorry to take so long replying. What do I think is weird and why?
What came out from reading the PUA link and the comments thread also. And I have read other material on similar lines as a result of some of your other pieces on this topic. Maybe its not representative. What I thought I saw was an environment in which the men seem to believe the women around them are treacherous, calculating, out for what they can get, and selling sex to the highest bidder (hypergamy).
And are also fatally attracted by preference to unpleasant, cruel and manipulative men who get all the sex. So faced with this the nice but frustrated non-elite man in desperate need of sex has to emulate those men. This involves heavy doses of deceit and manipulation, which is fine because its the only way to get the sex they have to have, and are being wrongly denied.
I have the impression that this is happening in a fragmented society, where there is no real milieu for these guys. It seems to be a collection of solitary individuals who have fleeting encounters with strangers, dip in and out of social relationships.
You have quoted from advice to women from women which endorses behaving in this nightmarish way, sleep with lots of bad boys because its fun, go after your career and don’t let anything stop you, then finally (and this is the hard part….) find some loser and settle down with him long enough to have the idiot support your kids through adolescence, and then move into happy singlehood again.
I don’t know if this is really how America is now. Its not the America I always knew, though there were even a long time ago tendencies to it which in retrospect were warning signals, albeit faint ones.
If this is really how it is now in the wider nation, its weird in the sense that its unusual. Other cultures and countries I know and have lived in really are not like this. If I had to summarize it, what it looks like is a society in which, in relations between the sexes, all sense of people dealing with each other as people appears to have vanished. All that is left is strangers who hardly regard each other as full human beings, seeing each other instrumentally as the often frustrating potential source of some basic need gratification. Love and friendship have vanished, along with traditional ethics.
Its men and women working together and seeing each other in social situations all the time, but regarding each other as cats and dogs in a household do. Together but completely alien, in different worlds in the same room.
How can this be, I wonder, in a country in which co-education is almost universal? But it seems to be.
Now, you can say this is just the way all societies really are. It doesn’t feel that way to me. It feels to me like a rare social pathology and specific to America. Or maybe I have got it wrong, and this is not at all how life is, and the bits I have been reading are unrepresentative.
Anyway, right or wrong, this is what I meant.
henrik,
(1) You did not explain what links you read about PUA, which was first-generation Game. First-gen revolutionaries are usually odd. PUAs are no more representative of current Game than are first wave feminists advocating wearing bloomers (named after feminist Amelia Bloomer)t. The baton has passed to people like Rollo Tomassi (“The Rational Male“), Dalrock, Black Label Logic, and Chateuau Heartiste (who was recently booted off WordPress).
Most are mild, somewhat academic in tone, but still revolutionary in their challenge to the feminists who dominate the establishment. This combination of traits has allowed them to survive. But as Heartiste learned, the Left eventually come for them all – to crush or suppress them.
(2) “I thought I saw was an environment in which the men seem to believe the women around them are treacherous, calculating, out for what they can get, and selling sex to the highest bidder (hypergamy).”
If you read the links provided, you would have learned that hypergamy is a fact. It has existed across cultures and time. As for the other traits, literature shows that some men believed those things about women in 1900. In 1800. Probably in 1800 BC.
(3) “I have the impression that this is happening in a fragmented society, where there is no real milieu for these guys.”
I have the impression your “conclusions” are the result of your imagination, not facts, plus your biased view of America. Your conclusions are quite weird.
As illustrated in the quoted interaction from “You Never Can Tell”, weapons and defenses are always adapting, and feminism is adapting, rather rapidly, to Game.
The normalization of abrogated female sexual responsibility, combined with concepts such as Rape by Deception and Trauma-Informed Investigation (none of which apply to male victims of course), have made Game and casual sex in general decidedly hazardous activities for men. Add in the #MeToo campaign which established the effectiveness of punishing men via Social Media, for slights real or imagined, and it’s clear that feminism has developed a series of weapons for which there is little defense.
Just a few decades after Pick-up Artistry and Game arose, the death knell is already ringing throughout the west.
Franklin,
“casual sex in general decidedly hazardous activities for men.”
Can you provide any evidence that many young men believe that? I know a lot of young men (23 – 34), from those I led as Boy Scouts. I’ve never heard any say that. Many say that it is too much work for too little gain. Many find it too difficult to bother work. I’ve never heard one say that pursuit of casual sex was too hazardous.
Some years ago I was rather roughly rejected by a woman I had been courting, which put me in a defiant, hell-with-it frame of mind. So for a day or three I was absolutely indifferent, borderline contemptuous, with pretty much every woman I interacted with. The results were astonishing, and revealing. I hadn’t done badly before by any means, but all of a women came out of the woodwork to engage me. It was very instructive, in an anthropological kind of way, not to mention unsettling.
Scott,
Thank you for sharing that first person experience! I’ve heard similar stories. Like you, I find this unsettling.
This goes my one of my big insights about the current situation – Women were intensively indoctrinated in the West, and are far less so today. So we get to more clearly see their nature. That’s unsettling, since the feminist revolution was widely supported on the belief (at some level) that girls are made of “all things nice.” We were naive, even foolish.
The unfettered female persona can be a highly destructive thing.Too much of it and your society achieves not matriarchal bliss, but dysfunction followed by implosion. Our ancestors understood this, perhaps, and made rules.