Is pick up artistry creating sociopaths?

[Darzin]

So I recently by clicking on several links in some rather dodgy travel forums fell into the dark world of the manosphere a collection of blogs and forums of Pick up artist and men’s rights activists. And well to me it seems like their training people to be sociopaths. There whole shtick is built on manipulation and appearance, not dealing with women as people but as machines with emotional levers to be manipulated. The whole thing just has a weird vibe to it.

Granted some of their basic theories seem pretty decent you’ll get more women to like you if you appear confident interesting approach them and don’t seem to needy, ok great that seems like good advice. But their deeper theories seem to view people as sexual robots, with so much emphasis on sex its unbelievable as if nothing matters more in the world than sleeping with as many women as possible even sans pleasure. I don’t really see why this in itself is a good goal and I was going to write the negative effects this could have but one blogger already put it better than I could.

I guess if you use all their techniques you’ll probably pick up more girls, but at the cost of being able to relate to women as people which is a pretty poor trade. Most of these guys were frustrated at their lack of ability to pick up women and resented women for going with “bad boys” but by turning to Pick up artistry they have turned themselves into the sociopathic jerks who they resented in the first place

Also they intellectualize and justify emotional abuse and view it as normal for example take this comment from the aforementioned message board.

A girl can be in love with you, but that love isn't maintained by buying her flowers and taking her to dinner-- the "right" ways. Its maintained by emotionally controlling her in an almost formulaic way.

Once you've seen and done these things--once you've emotionally abused a girl and seen her come back for more--and not once, but over and over again, 80% of the time or more-- how can you respect the gender as a whole?

And yes, there are exceptions. But they are exactly that.

That’s normal to them there is nothing wrong with emotional abuse/manipulation in fact its viewed as the only reliable way to maintain a relationship I've traveled a bit and visited some very sexist places but I have never been somewhere women are viewed as machines ore where the above statement is seen as ok.

And this pseudoscience and ideology is growing not shrinking what with the recent Men’s rights conferences and the new prevalence of “alpha” and “beta “ in certain circles. It’s crazy to me that people are turning to this ideology but they seem to be. Any ideas on why? This just seems so empty, pointless and angry to me.

[sologdin]

besides all of the obvious defects and douchery, it's comical that dude seems to believe that he is not subject to 'manipulation' and 'control.'

[straits]

And this pseudoscience and ideology is growing not shrinking what with the recent Men’s rights conferences and the new prevalence of “alpha” and “beta “ in certain circles. It’s crazy to me that people are turning to this ideology but they seem to be. Any ideas on why? This just seems so empty, pointless and angry to me.

That's pretty obvious. It's all for the pursuit of and entitlement to sex from women. And the inevitable side effect of standardizing the methods of acquiring sex is seeing women as biological logic circuits with probable responses to certain actions and words. And some people are willing to gain this leverage over women in exchange for the ability to form real intimacy.

[Arkhangel]

Personally I wouldn't say so much creating sociopaths as appealing to, channelling and feeding the predisposition towards sociopathic thinking which certain people already carry.

[Castel]

And this pseudoscience and ideology is growing not shrinking what with the recent Men’s rights conferences and the new prevalence of “alpha” and “beta “ in certain circles. It’s crazy to me that people are turning to this ideology but they seem to be. Any ideas on why? This just seems so empty, pointless and angry to me.

We accept that 5% of the population may be sociopaths. Can we not then accept that some percentage of the population, when faced with moral misgivings stamped unto certain methods of pursuing things generally valued by society, will simply not give a shit? Gordon Gekko, Jordan Belfort, for every few people that look at those characters and don't like what they see, there's someone that ignores any moral message and thinks "without all that cumbersome shit that sounds awesome". They do not care about whatever fanciful notions people have attached to those concepts for whatever reason as long as they get theirs.

I also suspect that it's exciting to take full responsibility for everything. If the agency of half the population is limited then success and failure both depend on you. It sucks to fail but, for some, it might suck be more comforting to accept your failure than to believe that it wasn't entirely up to you.

[Pecan]

I dabbled in this stuff a few years ago and then kind of lost interest in it. Generally, what I can tell you is that it's largely misunderstood by outsiders, and a lot of that misunderstanding has to do with the way the material is marketed, and then the way that marketing is in turn interpreted by the press and bloggers. There's just a lot of hype and misinformation kind of floating around.The reality is that for various reasons there are a lot of desperate guys out there that don't have the first clue how to talk to women and how to exhibit attractive behaviors and attributes. And so a market is formed to try and address this need.

I can tell you that lots and lots of guys study this stuff and as a result, they pick up a few tips; they get some better clothes (especially shoes), a good haircut, maybe drop a few pounds, and they get off their couches and actually start going out and forcing themselves to approach a few women here and there. If they're smart, they go out armed with a few handy stories and conversational topics. For 99.9% of guys that study this material, that's all there is to it. It's a net positive for the guys because it's essentially a forcing function for self-improvement, and it's a net positive for women because they're meeting guys that are at least making an effort.

[maarsen]

Here is an older guy's impression of this stuff. Absolute crap. I was extremely shy and and awkward as a child and well into adulthood. This stuff was around then and it was crap then. If you want to meet women and find one whose company you enjoy, learn to talk to them without all the bullshit. Just talk, without trying to make everything about getting into their pants.

[Mark Antony]

Demonstrate value, Engage physically, Nurture dependence, Neglect emotionally, Inspire Hope, Seperate entirely

[deleted01]

Here is an older guy's impression of this stuff. Absolute crap. I was extremely shy and and awkward as a child and well into adulthood. This stuff was around then and it was crap then. If you want to meet women and find one whose company you enjoy, learn to talk to them without all the bullshit. Just talk, without trying to make everything about getting into their pants.

This.

:cheers:

[MinDonner]

The fedoras do make it easy to spot which douchebags to avoid though.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Min,

Fedoras? Is that a thing with these guys?

Just found this:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/20-reasons-you-shouldnt-date-men-who-wear-fedoras?s=mobile

[Stannisaurus2]

Personally I wouldn't say so much creating sociopaths as appealing to, channelling and feeding the predisposition towards sociopathic thinking which certain people already carry.

Agree, I doubt pick-artistry is creating them, more like they attracted to it and "grow" their tendencies with it.

On the other hand I don't think all of them are sociopaths, some are just assholes.

[Theda Baratheon]

Demonstrate value, Engage physically, Nurture dependence, Neglect emotionally, Inspire Hope, Seperate entirely

HAHAHAHAHAHA. The D.E.N.N.I.S system is obviously foolproof.

[eyenon15]

Can we get some links or something?

[AverageGuy]

But their deeper theories seem to view people as sexual robots

Actually, this is probably a big part of the whole thing. Take a bunch of guys who don't know how to talk to people and are probably scared of/despondent at rejection, then teach them to disassociate the person they're approaching from the basic idea of a human being: lower the feeling of intimidation by using a bunch of negative labels, tell them women are interchangeable, and train them to move on to the next woman after rejection until they meet someone who may be interested in them. It's a twisted version of, "Keep putting yourself out there, it's okay if one person doesn't like you because eventually you'll meet someone who does."

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

AG,

But... making dehumanization a necessary feature of that equation? That's, at a minimum, weird.

[Jon AS]

AG,

But... making dehumanization a necessary feature of that equation? That's, at a minimum, weird.

It's a tried and true method of getting people to act towards other human beings in ways they'd never do if they saw them as equals. It may not be necessary, but sadly it works.

[AverageGuy]

AG,

But... making dehumanization a necessary feature of that equation? That's, at a minimum, weird.

Not necessary, hence "twisted." Whoever came up with it obviously had some issues.

[Darzin]

But... making dehumanization a necessary feature of that equation? That's, at a minimum, weird.

Yeah its really... off, and the fact that there methods are somewhat effective seems to draw lonely people in, but the deeper you go the more weird and misogynistic it gets. Maybe someone who knows better than me can address this, did the men's rights movement come out of pick up artistry because a lot of the ideas seem to be connected. It seems to me that this new manospere is succeeding at promoting a deeply unhealthy ideology, any ideas how to counter it?

[eyenon15]

Links?