A far better (and female) take on nice guys and jerks.
Definitions: inhuman vs. inhumane
I didn’t say an inhumane world. That’s a world that is cruel and insensitive to suffering. Some of it (most of the collective world) is, some of it (most of the world of individuals) isn’t. It’s certainly not an organizing principle for all humanity.
An inhuman (no e) world is one essentially lacking in human qualities - such as kindness and pity. That, I think, is an organizing principle. A world like ours, where the forces of commerce are demanding more and tighter control over the lives of individuals in exchange for their livelihoods, is inevitably going to become progressively more inhuman. In the process, it’s going to *dehumanize *more and more people, because that will be the price of your daily bread - of just continuing to exist.
I think that under those conditions, we may retain some innate humanity. But it is probably going to be very little - probably not enough to contribute to the quality of a common life for all of us. That, if I’m right, is going to be more and more a luxury.
What a person is going to need in the world I imagine is a way to be more and more fully two contradictory things at once. To be strong, reliable, productive, effective in the world, they are going to have to become more and more inhuman. It will require putting your own interests before those close to you, and the interests of your richers and betters before your own. It will require judicious, but deliberate, application of unkindness and pitilessness. But to be loving, to be worth loving, people will also have to remain human.
In a sense, both men and women are going to have to learn the way of the alpha. We are going to have to get a lot better at becoming machines with souls.
You’re me from a couple years back! Listen, I don’t care what anyone says, put all your money down on the Saints in 2010 and you’ll never lose.
Machines with souls? Brother, it’s not that critical. Live your life and talk with people about theirs. Pass some time in conversation. Occasionally, take a chance and let her know you’re interested. It don’t hurt none and you’ll eventually find someone who’s interested back. Yeah, so what I’m a starry-eyed optimist, it’s worked for me, so it can work for anyone.
Also, just because you have to work for your richers (Betters? Yeah, I’ll concede Donald Trump is better than me when he can grow his own hair and run a mile without an oxygen tank :p) doesn’t preclude you having your own plans for what you want to do given your circumstances, or with making connections with like-minded others to make larger changes. We ain’t lost yet!
Same difference to me. The beautiful thing about existentialism is that even if there’s nothing better, we can totally make something better.
By all accounts, Nietzsche was a massively insecure, mild-mannered, socially disastrous nerd when it came to women in real life. He did not see women as equals because of abuse at the hands of his religious Aunts and his crazy anti-Semite sister. He proposed twice and was turned down both times. The only ass he ever got was in a brothel, from which he contracted syphilis, lapsed into catatonia, and died.
One of the most fascinating things about Nietzsche, to me, is how he often fought to reconcile his own life experiences with his philosophy. It wasn’t just an intellectual exercise for him; writing was an act of desperation, an attempt to work out his own salvation.
…Is it getting hot in here?
Thanks for the starry-eyed optimism, ET. Most people don’t waste it on chronic grumps.
Unfortunately, I tend to turn people away when talking with them about their lives. I assume a lot, most of it not good, and the grump in me shows through quickly. Especially when they ask about my life, when I go into Grump Warp Drive. At such times I become Nietzschean, and not in a good way.
Are you talking about Nietzsche or the author of the blog?
Right on man. Women hate men who are too sensitive, aka: A Huge Pussy.
It’s not about being a bad boy so much as not projecting weakness on a daily basis. A man can cry but not too often. Most women in my humble experience like feeling protected and maybe being just a little bit submissive to a man even if everything else in the relationship is equal.
So women like nice. Just not too nice. It’s simple! 
I like really nice and sensitive. But never passive-aggressive, and I dislike it when any human has a hard time controlling their outwardly emotions (including anger, not just sadness).
Then what? You saw him eating with his hands and remembered he made like $37,000 a year?
This.
Look, where I come from, nice guy or dick, it’s pretty fucking weird if you haven’t had sex by the time you graduated high school. Sure it’s tough finding “The One”, but most people by the time they reach their 20s, typically have at least learned how to date.
Whenever I read material like the blog the OP linked to, I think one thing - these guys are a bunch of pathetic losers trying to figure out how to pretend to be “alpha”.
My philosophy? The way you “be Alpha” is to actually be the best at whatever it is you are doing. And you know what? If I’m not the best at what I’m doing, I’m perfectly content to let whoever is be the “Alpha” and try and learn from him. Because I’m confident enough to be comfortible with the fact that I don’t know everything or am I awesome at everything.
Seriously. What’s wrong with walking up to a woman and saying “Excuse me. I find you very attractive and I’d like to take you out so we can get to know each other better.”? Is there some Jedi mind shit that’s going to make you seem more attractive or awesome in her eyes?
Actually…it just occured to me that I’m really not that “nice”. Not like I try to be mean to everyone, but I can be a little bit of a sarcastic dick. Maybe that’s why I haven’t had that much trouble with the ladies.
I like my women like I like my coffee - all up in my lap making everything wet and sticky!
You all seem like a smart bunch, and “game,” seen superficially, might appear crass and hateful. My posts, written from a candid, emotional, and unfiltered perspective, undoubtedly only encourage that stereotype.
However, at its best, game encourages self-improvement, personal responsibility, and a positive outlook on life. It provides hope, and it provides tools. Not every guy is blessed with the ability to fulfill his romantic dreams, and the pain of repeated sexual rejection is real, and can lead to much worse things than a venomous blog.
The problem is, too many sensitive, caring, and intelligent men are duped into thinking that these are the exact qualities women want above all others. And then we feel confused, angry, and frustrated when life repeatedly proves to us that this is not the case.
With my blog, I am simply trying to retrain my brain to think differently about how I should think, feel, and act as a man, in order to bring about greater success and happiness, not just for me, but for my romantic relationships as well.
Before any of you completely dismiss game, I strongly recommend two books which are much more enlightening, sensitive, spiritual, humanistic and well-written than my blog. They are:
No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life,by Dr. Robert Glover
The Way of the Superior Man: A Man’s Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire, by David Deida
http://www.enlightenment.com/media/bookrevs/superiorman.html
All of you currently not in a state of perpetual romantic bliss could probably learn something from these books.
Cheers,
rivelino
If you are truly the author of the ‘Becoming Alpha’ blog, then let me thank you for contributing to this thread. It’s a real rarity to have somebody defend their views so civilly. Also, welcome to the Straight Dope. Feel free to stick around 
Thank you, Autolycus. One aspect of game which I have learned a lot about, but not written enough about, is something called frame control. I actually first starting learning about it a few years back, when I began following the Democratic primaries as an Obama fan and volunteer.
Frame control is critical for debating. Any verbal argument can be won using this technique. The first rule of frame control is that you must always remain calm and assertive. This is actually a term I borrowed from Cesar Milan, as I also started getting interested in dog training a few years ago, and both go well together.
If someone wants to or attempts to debate you, and you get angry, irrational, or aggressive, you have lost the argument in the objective sense. This assumes a civilized arena, of course, not a back alley.
So if someone starts attacking my blog, I can either buy into their frame, and get defensive/aggressive; or I can simply chalk it up to a misunderstanding. If you reply to a verbal attack with a combination of magnanimity, strength, and kindness, often you will be able to diffuse the situation, and come off as the leader of the situation. An alpha leader of a group, in the natural world, is calm assertive. Thus, we instinctively react favorably when that kind of energy is emitted by a person, especially under situations of duress.
Think of the classic story of Joe Montana on the final drive of the Super Bowl, pointing out John Candy in the stands.
Frame control is not just an important part of dog training, speech & debate, and of game/pua, it is important for dealing with people overall, for life. I have found it to be very helpful at work, where there is one jerk in particular in my group who is always trying to put me down. His name is Ivan and he is a typical bully, who gets his high by making fun of others.
Frame control is also in some sense just a fancy way of talking about attitude, of the famous “is the glass half-full or half-empty” quandary. One excellent article which helped me see the power of frame control is this one, in the NY Times, about the narratives (frames) we create for our lives:
This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/health/psychology/22narr.html
It essentially states that if you feel you have been successful and lucky in the past, then you will believe that you will be in the future, and your prophecy comes true. If you feel you have been given a raw deal by life, then this will also be true. Basically, your mind has the power to shape your reality, your future, and your life.
I have a saying: FRAME CREATES REALITY. It is the greatest truth I have ever discovered.
I am looking forward to discussing this inspiring and critical aspect of self-improvement in more detail. It is good to be challenged, because it makes you have to express yourself more clearly and intelligently.
Best,
rivelino
Even if that’s true—and i find your argument less than convincing—the fact is that the blog linked in the OP is not game “at its best.” It’s game at its worst, its most reactionary, its most misogynistic, its most self-absorbed.
The style and the “substance” of the writing are either intentionally over the top, or they are a true reflection of the author’s position. If the former, the posts are useless because any valid argument the author might have is lost in the sophomoric rhetoric. And if the latter, the author is a narcissistic sociopath.
That’s the problem with 90% of stuff written by so-called “players” and “pick-up artists” (not like I’ve read that much of it). It sounds like it was written by a predatory self-loathing psychopath who was ignored by girls through his teen years and is going to get back at them by fucking as many as he can. It’s never “I really like women, how can I get better at meeting (and possibly sleeping with) them?” It’s always “I can believe how much of a loser I was before I learned to dominate women!”
The thing is, from the position of someone who studies primates, that website and nearly everyone striving to be ‘alpha’ in this PUA games have what it means to be an alpha male all wrong. The alpha male is a strong, confident, aggressive guy, but he also can’t afford to be a jerk for several reasons:
One, the females won’t tolerate it. Even in the species where males are dominant over females, females have a lot of power, especially when they can join together with other females. Among the capuchins I study, the females will team up together to fight the alpha male if he does something wrong. No matter how strong a potential alpha male is, he can’t control the group if he doesn’t have support of at least the influential female figures. This doesn’t mean that jerks towards females don’t get made alpha, just that they also have to suck up to at least certain females in order to maintain their power and occasionally the ones instrumental in their overthrow are female.
Two, the other males won’t tolerate it. Like most apes and intelligent monkeys, we are a social species where power isn’t captured by brute force but is formed and maintained through alliances. A single jerk can be overthrown by a group of others. In order to maintain his position as an alpha, an alpha male must have support from other males. Sometimes this goes as far as allowing the other males to have privileges he’d rather have for himself. For example, there was a chimp in a zoo who allowed the beta male (the one who’s second to him) to have more matings than he took himself in order to hold onto power.
Three, violence and general jerkiness isn’t necessarily a good characteristic of a leader, which is what it means to be an alpha. Often the meanest in our groups end up being beta rather than alpha. The alpha has to be socially clever and maintain friendships and social times and, while social cleverness and brute strength/meanness aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, it’s rare to find an individual who is maxed in both aspects. As I said before, what we often find is the alpha and his beta ‘enforcer’.
Finally, I had a chance to ‘meet’ the individual who was the longest running alpha male in animal history with a reign of at least 19 years. He was a very socially astute kind monkey who groomed everyone (normally alphas receive grooming rather than do it themselves) and built up an army of males who were incredibly loyal to him because he was generous with his favors. He was a tough monkey to be sure, and he socially manipulated the males in his group so they never could team up together against him, but he wasn’t the biggest monkey or the strongest monkey I’ve seen. Eventually he was overthrown, but only after a long reign, as the average capuchin lifespan is estimated to be about 40-50 years, and they don’t reach sexual maturity until about 7 years.
In other words, a good primate alpha is one who is socially astute and clever and often relies on social manipulation rather than overall aggression or posturing.
I’m of the opinion that this is a viral marketing stunt put out by some movie studio.
A feature film is coming out that will pit a “Game” character against a “Rules” character. The Rules character will likely have one gay friend; the Game character will have a former fratboy friend who is now married, stable, and immersed in fatherhood. The main characters meet via some threadbare contrivance and the movie follows the two as they try and woo and be wooed by each other (initially because of the challenge, eventually because a spark of romance ignites). Much comedy ensues. Amid all the high-jinks, the two will grow to realize that they just want to be loved, that their pretenses were actually alienating them from friends, family, and society in general, and that the empty rewards of the Game/Rules were actually standing in the way of their ultimate happiness.
Unfortunately for the characters, the studio signed Darren Aronofskyto direct: the characters learn their lesson too late; with no friends or family to care for them, they ultimately end up cold and alone in a state-run, abusive nursing home.
Thanks for providing a link to this interesting article. It jives well with the work of Martin Seligman (the psychologist who discovered the phenomenon of learned helplessness and author of Learned Optimism.) I’m a huge fan of positive and cognitive psychology and feel the narrative concept is pretty central to my understanding of myself.
I agree, in part, with many things you have expressed in this thread–without question, people will tend to listen more to individuals who stay calm and rational. However, I’m at a loss trying to reconcile this apparently reasonable perspective with the vitriolic writing in your blog.
When I think critically about it, though, I do see a central theme running through both your thread posts and your blog posts. That is the need for control and social approval. Even in your polite, reasoned thread posts here in the Pit, your motivation is still status and dominance rather than connection with another human being.
This is where you and I differ. I think you will find just as much heartache down that road as you found being a doormat. We are stuck in a society that perpetuates this lie about what is valuable in life. We all fall for it from time to time, but I fear you are willing to make a religion of it.
Rather than actually being in control of your life, I think you are ceding control to what is essentially a construct in your own mind of what successful people are. As you yourself said, what you think creates your reality. You think you need status and attention to be happy and successful, therefore you do need those things. But the catch is you will never have enough of those things to satisfy you. You will spend your entire life chasing a dream you can’t realize. That is the fundamental problem with an achievement-driven life. It’s empty. You think you have power, but really you’re just a rat in a cage, frantically pressing the bar for that next pellet. In letting someone else define happiness for you, you’re submitting to someone else’s rules, man. You’re society’s bitch.
If you really want a fulfilling personal relationship with anyone, you gotta think less in terms of achievement/conquest and more in terms of humanity. There is no game here, only people. It’s your mind that makes the game. And, with all due respect, your mind is fucking you harder than any woman ever could.
I agree you aren’t likely to win an argument by losing your cool, but I wouldn’t agree that it’s an automatic win - what if you’re debating with someone who also isn’t losing their cool?
Or you could be wrong. 
True dat.
I’d like to welcome you too, by the way. It is intriguing to be able to debate with the author of something we’ve been discussing.
Very insightful, and I have to say that I agree with what you wrote. I have sometimes fantasized about moving out of the city and going to live in the countryside. Taking my savings to a small rural town, buying a small house with a big yard, rescuing 10 shelter dogs and just living with them for the rest of my days. Reminds me somewhat of Holden Caufield’s desire to go live as a deaf-mute in a small town.
I am indeed society’s bitch. I was indoctrinated at a young age to be obsessed with beautiful women. I believe it is a combination of my marketing-oriented personality, my artistic eye, and my lonely and frustrated adolescence.
I am looking for ways to combine my love of nature with my love for beautiful women. I think there is a way.
However, I think you make the same common mistake that many others do, in just saying that we should all think “in terms of humanity” and that there are no games here, only people. I wish that were true. Sadly, we humans love to play games. We love to both collaborate but also compete. And not everyone plays nice. A lot of people play dirty.
I wrote my more-detailed thoughts on this issue here:
http://alpharivelino.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/criticism-of-game/
I need to read more about Nietzsche’s Will to Power. I think it explains the world.
Cat Whisperer:
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Right. If neither person loses their cool, if both remain calm and assertive, then we have a real debate going. All I said is that the first rule of frame control is don’t lose your cool, or you automatically lose. I am still learning other strategies of frame control as it pertains to “winning” an argument, but I do know that a good way is to go beyond the text of the debate, and seek to frame the other person as insecure. I am talking about just in social situations, of course. The Celestine Prophecy talks about this, about calling out the other person’s “drama.”
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True, I could be wrong. But as stated in the strategy above, if I say “We’ve just had a misunderstanding”, I am trying to frame you and the other writers on this thread as having misunderstood what I wrote, and me as being the thoughtful, patient, wiser one. See how it works? I am trying to distract the general audience from the actual text of what is being debated. Of course, most people don’t fall for that. But imagine I repeat this strategy ten times, and I remain patient and calm and with a subtle hint of condescension. Eventually, you might lose your cool because I am being a phony jerk. But if you lose your cool, I win the debate.
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Thanks for the welcome. I am a big fan of Cecil Adams. Anyone who challenges conventional wisdom and seeks to find true answers is cool in my book.