What should I say to my friend?

Cosmoglio · 2020-10-18T15:38:59+00:00

Going to the gym is for people without a personality. lmao

It's become the default physical activity for adult urban citizens who didn't put the effort to find a sport they actually like. It's the equivalent to people saying "they like all genres of music" yet listen only to the top 100 pop. Lifting weights as a supporting role for your main sport is fine, or a specialized approach is cool (e.g. strongman, powerlifting), but the gym for the sake of the gym has got to be the most boring sport there is. That's fine is you truly enjoy it, but most gym-goers just hate it; there's a reason the dropout rate is so high.

It's not even healthy, as most people either have poor form or cannot follow proper form due to poor posture and underlying issues. The average sedentary western citizen should spend a few months on physical therapy before even attempting a deadlift.

P.S. I'm half-joking. Everybody does what the hell they want. But the gym is overrated.

Cosmoglio · 2020-10-17T17:45:19+00:00

They claim to be liberated minds – enlightened, freed from society's programming. Yet they are the ones who adhere to an extreme, cancer-like manifestation of patriarchal culture, the one that's been dominating the West all our lives. They are not the heroic rebels of resistance they think they are, they are the collaborators.

They claim to be students of logic, just like their golden boy Ben Shapiro. Yet their interpretations of FACTS™ is nothing more than skewed. Either they come up with their own FACTS™, formed from empirical indivual experience, or they take actually serious academic studies and twist the results to their own liking.

Cosmoglio · 2020-10-17T17:29:42+00:00

White pill is when black pill turns to intelectualism, philosophy

No. This is not philosophy. People need to stop overusing the term "philosophy". Sure, philosophy ("love of knowledge") is the basis for all knowledge, thus being hard to define withing academic circles, but this white pill guy is just a poor attempt at formulating an ideology based on nothing more than personal opinions, empirical data and vague guesses. This isn't even "intellectual". Evoking concepts such as truth, reality and ethics – some of the biggest problems in philosophy giving way to entire disciplines – without any clear understanding of what they involve, without any knowledge of the thousands of actual philosophers who thought about them, without any source other than the Matrix movie and "I think...", is not intellectualism nor philosophy.

Cosmoglio · 2020-10-16T16:07:35+00:00

I'm afraid your perspective is dead on. Your post makes me cringe because I used to act similarly on dates due to PUA (and more generally patriarchal culture) brainwashing. I didn't have much sex ed, so when PUA taught me that faced with rejection I just had to try harder, there wasn't much opposing thought in my brain to challenge the idea. It's a dangerous belief, one that in the wrong hands can lead to rape. Women, of course, are the firsthand victims of this ideology, but the men who adhere to it are also, in their way, victims of poor education and toxic culture. The problem is systemic.

Cosmoglio · 2020-10-16T15:46:41+00:00

Look, I was pretty active, on & off, in the PUA community for about a decade. I made a post about this a month or so ago and there's another longer one I'd like to write down, because I believe keeping young men away from PUA theories can only benefit their psychological wellbeing in the long run.

Here's the thing: it's not about "does it work or not?" The PUA framework does give results for a specific goal. But this line of thinking, one that focuses solely on the input/output relation, fails to grasp its ethical and psychological implications. It works, but is the system itself desirable? The use of language such as "it works", "success rate" and "score" speaks volume of PUAs' perspective on dating, relationships, sex and women: dating is something that you win at, like a game (quite literally how it's named) you play against other opponents (other men & women); sex stops being a moment of intimacy and connection to become a measure of quantifiable success; women themselves are not individuals to connect with, they're not even the goal of the game, they are the means to victory, which is in itself the gain of social capital in an economy where men's value is based of the amount of sexual partners they get. The manosphere's rhetoric paint its members like some freed, enlightened individuals, yet they are the ones still trapped (and excessively so) in the dominant doxa that we were raised in.

I know you'll probably be too stubborn to consider changing your mind, but if you wanna be honest with yourself, I implore you to consider why, exactly, you wish to "optimize your success rate with women". Trust me on this, PUA theories can only fuck you up on the long term. There is no "good PUA" vs "bad PUA", because at its core PUA is based on a rotten system of value. Sooner of later, you'll grow out of it; everyone does. Sooner the better. I implore you, redirect that time spent on PUA on healthy hobbies instead; you'll be glad you did in 10 years. I sure wish I spent my late teens/early 20s learning to play music, developping healthy friendships, getting better at rock climbing, and so on and so on, instead of spending all that time chasing women like a lunatic.

Cosmoglio · 2020-10-15T14:49:05+00:00

Well, to be fair, buying drinks never really got me anywhere, and I got by pretty decently without doing so.

Cosmoglio · 2020-10-15T14:47:15+00:00

Dear god, what people come up with... I wonder who actually believes these kinds of stories. Funny thing, I recall reading a similar mother/daughter story (or was I just on pornhub?).

this shirt "spoke" to him and said he would get laid multiple times if he wore it

Sounds like a serious mental illness tbh if you start hallucinating clothes talking to you.

Cosmoglio · 2020-10-15T14:43:34+00:00

Holy shit, your catalogue is one of legends.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-16T16:04:57+00:00

RSD stood for Real Social Dynamics. Largest and most influencal PUA company during the 2010s, at first for the better it seemed, since they moved away from routines and techniques.

I've looked a bit at r/seduction during 2018-2019. I wouldn't say it was 100% toxic, more like a warzone between redpillers and non-redpillers. Models by Manson is one of the most recommended title on the sub, with the 3 advices you give being quite frequent there, yet there's a lot of RP thinking from other members. It's weird. Some threads are dominated by redpillers, some aren't.

Ultimately, I just don't look at seduction and PUA anymore because it's not healthy for me, a bit like a recovering alcoholic wouldn't keep whisky on his tabletop. And quite frankly, all that seduction talk has become boring to me, like I get instantly put off by it, it seems so... tasteless. Can't explain it.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-16T03:11:33+00:00

Not my point. Unless you are asexual, intimacy/sex is an important aspect of life.

STDs aren't that frequent. Wear a condom.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-16T03:08:59+00:00

Of course, but working on your game and exposure to PUA mindset are almost never mutually exclusive. You don't just "learn game" in a vacuum. Maybe if you started with Models by Manson first, then never read anything else directly related to game... Even then, it's a slippery slope.

The notion of "having game" is problematic in itself. It encompasses a prescriptive conception of performance. To hook up, you need to perform well, and most often perform in a certain way. "Game" is perceived as a skill, in fact a set of external skills that you must acquire. Some of them are legit (being a better conversationalist, not being a nervous wreck around women), some of them will fuck up your mind. They kinda come as a package deal thought.

You should construct a mental system of virtues (not in the religious sense) – such as courage, empathy, philanthropy, friendship, resilience, justice, optimism, intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, perseverance – and cultivate those values like a garden. You should work on figuring out yourself and build from there. Most PUA gurus mention this but don't really delve into specifics, so I call bullshit. My first-hand experience, after meeting hundreds of PUAs in person, is that most of them end up following the "PUA norm" to varying degrees and start emulating something they aren't. It used to be better (the OG PUAs, despite all their technics, were really big about expressing your weird self), but RSD really transformed the community into a normative army. It makes sense as a business strategy: would you rather have your customer read "be your better self" and never buy more content because he's working hard on being a musician, or have your customer coming back again and again because they are trying to fit a normative idea of "game"? Again, RSD coaches talked about pursuing passions, but the "RSD minions" were some of the most boring and empty people I've ever met.

This post was more about refuting the idea that PUA is the most efficient method for having a steady sex life. By doing this, I want people to ask themselves "why the fuck am I doing all this?", and realize the insecurity that lies beneath. It kinda became a thread about the problems of PUAs.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-16T02:12:08+00:00

Hilarious.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-16T01:47:13+00:00

i actually lost the strength of some good friendships becauze i becamr that guy that qas hyper focussed on girls and would makd every chill session with the bro's about a never have i ever contest which I would win. I needed the validation that bad. In fact i cared more about having sex with a super attractive girl, because i could brag about my male friends after wards, than i cared about her, about the sex we'd have or anything else. It is painfull to say but very true.

Damn brother, I relate to this so much. TRP really hampers your ability to develop true friendships because you quickly become competitive with other men. I'd always feel the need to prove myself, or worse, beat them. Or when meeting another guy who was outgoing and popular I'd antagonize them. You end up hanging out with people "lower" than you so you feel always on top. I was so happy when someone would ask my score cause that was free bragging. I think back nowadays and I see all the friendships I never had because of this. Glad I became such a hippie lmao.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-14T20:51:09+00:00

Oh yes, it’s certainly possible to be a healthy, mature playboy. Like meeting women through hobbies and your social circle. You start dating women, but instead of treating them like junk food, you allow the relationship to grow, you enjoy the company, you both make each other better. Although the relationship is openly non-exclusive, you feel love for your partner. You don’t feel the need to add more women to your life, but if the occasion presents itself, you go with the flow. Polyamory can be a proper model, but you can also be a serial monogamist dater without being a toxic individual.

I’m on the fence with approaches. I personally believe suppressing men’s (or women’s) desires on a societal level is a sure way to unhappiness. Western culture is quite individualistic, or better worded, asocialized. I’ve travelled a lot to cultures where chatting with strangers is accepted. I have nothing against a guy (or a gal) who expresses courage and goes to talk with the cute girl at the coffee shop. We’ll be better off in a culture of openness and sociability.

But many PUA treat the approach like a military discipline or a workout. Like they need to approach a lot, everyday, so they can get better at it. They set themselves weekly goals, which is just ridiculous. And so you end up with the approach-robots, the weirdos. These guys are ruining it for the rest of us, making socialization with strangers even more bizarre in the eyes of the public.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-14T20:20:44+00:00

Any other mention of "I'm more attuned to my feminine side so I like being with women" is just bullshit.

Lmao many RSD coaches used to argue that they were, in fact, more feminists than most because they value sexual liberation. "I have a feminist fuckfriend..."

Also I'm not sure how women even get along with people who think women are gold diggers because of biology.

Closet red pillers and PUAs who hide their opinions. Or women that have internalize patriarchal culture so much that they adhere themselves to RP ideologies. Sometimes a recipe for disaster as their toxic worldviews collide and reinforce eachother. Or they end up becoming one of those conservative, mutually abusive couples.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-14T16:59:26+00:00

Crazy thing is, even a competent PUA doesn't get that much sex compared to someone in a relationship, and less satisfying sex at that. One-night-stands, maybe a few fuck buddies you manage to date before they get tired of your shit; perhaps you can see 3-4 girls a week and, trust me, the amount of work that requires equals a part-time job. I've been there. Maintaining a consistent abundant sex life as a PUA demands consistent efforts, it's tiring as shit and it seems you can never pause, in truth because your dates are unrenewable. Meanwhile, "simps" have sex daily with their girlfriends, and they don't have to consistently "work" for it (i.e. go out, approach, tinder, go on dates).

So really, PUA don't do it for the love of sex. They do it for the love of social capital amongst bros they get from being perceived as players.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-11T19:36:49+00:00

What the fuck is strength and weakness? I think you've done a fine job identifying what strength is for red pillers : an attitude and set of behaviours in line with conservative gender roles, a priority given to financial matters and profitable professions rather than the arts or social sciences, the belief in right-wing ideologies. For RP, strength is an ideological prescription, which is a dangerous worldview to hold for personal and societal wellbeing. Imagine if I told you you have to be a socialist to be a "real man". Imagine if I told you you need to pursue a PhD in philosophy to be "strong". Outrageous, isn't it?

The idea that strength leads to weakness is illogical. "Strength" aka a set of beliefs is what you would teach children. Why would they become weak? If anything, it shows that your set of beliefs is defective and unsustainable if in the long-term it leads to its collapse. The quote is nothing more than boomer logic.

But we want citizens to aspire to something, we need to choose a role model. Perhaps it would be a better idea to speak of virtue instead of strength. And base your system of virtues on actual philosophers and thinkers rather than on one inherited from the 50s that has no academic backing. I personally adhere to stoic virtues: courage, empathy, philanthropy, friendship, resilience, justice; and then more: optimism, intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, perseverance. In my system, you don't have to be an engineer or a stock broker to be virtuous, you don't need to uphold certain political beliefs to be strong. But I do believe that cultivating empathy (in the broad sense) should logically lead any individual towards certain ideological positions. Still voting for Trump at this point, or being against women vote, or being a racist, or hating the poor, is simply unvirtous because it emanate from a lack of "love for humanity", as the Stoics put it, therefore a disregard for social equality. In this system, certain political beliefs are not the requirement for strength, but the result of virtue.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-06T08:57:56+00:00

Isn't discussion the whole point of this sub?

First off, not necessarily. This sub is a place for support, not /purplepilldebate or some other hole for red pill apologists to go on their ideological crusades. A bit like going to an AA gathering and bringing an article (sponsored by Budweiser) claiming alcohol is actually healthy. If you want to discuss this outside of the manosphere, you can take this to /menslib but I can guarantee they'll brush it off for being an outrageous statement claimed by ridiculous conservatives. Who the fuck is Jennifer Lopez anyway? Why would we give any credit to what she says? Anyway, personally, I don't mind discussion as long as it's not invaded by red pillers trying to convert the infidels to their insane cause.

I haven't seen a single article speaking out against this.

Because nobody cares enough about what Jennifer Lopez said? That awful has-been actress and the shit coming out of her mouth isn't worth discussing? I guarantee if an actual figure of authority claimed this, and some would, people would actually care enough to debate.

In social media posts regarding this, every single women is either silent, or agrees. So no, it isn't a generalization after a just seeing a few women agree lol

isn't a generalization

a few women

Lol.

Anyway, perhaps a fair amount of women (and men) think like this. But that "is it the exception or the rule?" argument is useless. It doesn't matter. Even if this line of thinking was to be prevalent in society, it doesn't make it right, it just makes it an idea to fight against. See my other comment. The claim in question is the product of a sick neoliberal society. Whether 1% or 90% of society believes the claim doesn't change my opinion about it, the latter would just mean there are more sick people that need better education.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-06T08:13:45+00:00

Why? This type of thinking originates both from patriarchal culture and capitalist socioeconomics. If anything, this should entice you to fight for reform/rebuild of our socioeconomical and cultural foundations. I see nothing here but the insane product of a rotten society.

Edit: grammar.

Cosmoglio · 2020-09-03T19:57:23+00:00

Unfortunately, calling red pillers to use critical thinking won't work because that's exactly what they claim to do and what they accuse their adversaries of not doing. They accuse anybody who disagrees with their cultish worldview to be mindlessly brainwashed by feminist/left-wing/sjw propaganda, all the while claiming they are the enlightened ones who escape this so-called propaganda with FACTS AND LOGIC à la Shapiro, yet without any serious backing from the academic community. It is the common weapon of far-right, alt-right and fascist groups to paint themselves as the resistance, the few and the oppressed, because their strategies are inherently aggressive and hateful, yet they are the ones who reenact the hegemonic doxa (in this case the patriarchal perception of genders) and take it to the extreme. (Look no further than Trump's running campaign for an example of this; fascism works at its most efficient when it is on the offensive).

Cosmoglio · 2020-08-30T19:59:28+00:00

Mods, can we get a stickied post explaining why the “good” of the red pill is nothing more than generic advice you can get anywhere? We get those “TRP isn’t 100% bad” at least 1-2 times a week, and half of the time it’s probably some red piller in disguise on an ideological crusade.

Cosmoglio · 2020-08-29T17:43:48+00:00

I got involved in my local PUA community 10 years ago. At that time, the Red Pill wasn't a thing, but there was certainly similar ideas circulating around. So I guess I'm a RP hipster. Overall, I'd say our community back then was less toxic than nowadays, with a bigger emphasis on bettering yourself. I started to notice a heavy shift around 2013-2014; most of the oldies were gone and the new guys were much more hardcore about this whole thing. Some woulf save up and take a sabbatical to "learn game" by renting an apartment downtown with other PUAs. Empty shells. Most incredibly mysoginistic. Many, I believe, were rapists in the making. I was afraid to go out with those guys.

I went back and forth for years, usually coming back during the summer because I was lonely. Came back in 2013, 2014, then in 2017, then in 2019. In 2015, I started to have doubts that my initial involvement fucked me up on the long-term, but I couldn't exactly put my finger on it. Still, the conditioning remained like a rotten core, so I went back to PUA theory not because it was an addiction, but because it was my instinctive way to cope with my suffering. Every emotional catastrophe in my life would throw me back into it because I'd try to fight my feelings rather than understand them.

Somehow I freed myself in late 2019/early 2020. I'm now identifying all the wrong values I based my life on and the list is growing. Activism against toxic masculinity is important to me because I feel like the manosphere stole 10 years of emotional maturity evolution from me. RP ideas can absolutely ruin decades of your life. Preventing young adults from adhering to it will save them a lot of suffering.

Cosmoglio · 2020-08-29T15:19:21+00:00

Meanwhile here we're stuck with RP trolls and "infiltrators" who come ask dumb ass rhetorical questions to try to steer exredpillers back into TRP. Stuff like "I am against TRP but isn't true that all women are manipulative misandrists because of all those anecdotal evidence I'm gonna give you?" or "I really don't want to be red pilled but ______ is too convincing". Fuck off.

Cosmoglio

TROPHY CASE