nerdspeak

Islamophobia in the 21st century is structurally very similar to antisemitism in the mid twentieth century. Who are these Muslim immigrants who “feel disgust and contempt” for European society? I really think it’s improper and dangerous to generalize like this. (1) Radicalized Muslims are a tiny minority of the immigrants; (2) many of them are refugees created by the War on Terror. If Europe didn’t want them pursuing their asylum rights under international law, it shouldn’t have allowed the US to turn the Middle East into a war zone to pursue control of the global oil market…

Fair enough. But in the US, permanent university staff who speak English and have permanent residency would not be categorized as “migrants.” Here, arguably our children will still be seen as migrants. It’s bizarre.

The issue in Western Europe is that the societies are (1) xenophobic AND (2) locked in permanent wage deflation because of EU mismanagement. Politicians can’t deal with (2) so they direct all anger at (1). This hostile environment reinforces big barriers for migrants to find jobs or housing and for their kids to even make local friends and learn the language properly. They and their children get locked in permanent marginal positions or parallel societies. The crime rates are (predictably) higher as that tracks social exclusion. I’m a scientist from the USA with a permanent research job in a Benelux country. I still get frequent micro-aggressions like, “When are you going back to the US?”. I’m a permanent resident and people treat me like a tourist. For people from Arab countries or even Eastern Europe it’s way worse. That includes professionals who aren’t in “blue” or “red” lol, these categories can be really stupid in how they are applied. My colleague is a scientist with a PhD from Oxford. He is from Lebanon and couldn’t find a landlord willing to rent to him in the city center despite a permanent job and work visa; he had to live in the immigrant neighborhood and commute 30 minutes. He does not have lower “development” than the local population. Aside from his credentials, he comes from a long line of scientists and writers in the Levant and spent his youth reading in five languages and attending prestigious Francophone boarding schools. Neither of us have made any real local friends despite speaking the language and only socialize with other international university staff. Even the local faculty, while professionally polite and courteous, are socially very distant.

Leo was talking about the USA, where crime by citizens is much higher and integration into the labor force by immigrants (even illegal immigrants) is very easy. Europe is very different. Integration in one generation, even two, is almost impossible, and base crime rates are extremely low by US standards. Having lived in both I could go on and on. People really underestimate how different the US and Europe are.

I got to a certain age and approaching a girl without IOIs started to feel thirsty. I also got good at forcing IOIs. There are people who stick with the spam approach but they’re naturally high-energy so it’s fun for them.

Common negative effects: feeling paranoid when you’re not talking to someone; value scanning for people to approach even when not doing pickup; devaluing individual interactions (to an extent this is good but it can get pushed too far); exhaustion mixed with guilt about not “pushing through” it (as Owen becomes less influential this is maybe less common); obnoxious trolling during approaches that is subtly dehumanizing to the people you’re trying to talk to. Most people I know who stuck with it evolved out of spamming to doing 2-3 warm approaches per night. But spamming is maybe a necessary phase before you learn how to spot approach invitations (specific to you) or signs that a woman is looking to meet someone (more generally). Basically I started pre-qualifying my approaches. But that was after almost 10 years.

As a teenager it’s just way easier

I think they work if you start very young, when the brain is very neurally plastic, and live in a monastery continually. When I was 20 I spent 6 months in a monastery doing zazen on average six hours per day and had some wild stuff happen toward the end. Fourth jhana after 20 minutes of sitting, consistently. Sometimes 10. Then I went back to normal life and backslid massively. 20 is still relatively old to start compared to Asia.

160 approaches is nothing. Think like a marketer. With an untested product you wouldn’t expect to make any sales on the first 160 ad engagements. Back in the day we’d do 160 approaches in a weekend. Not saying it’s good, it makes you crazy. But if you’re trying to learn pickup (admittedly a dubious pursuit), you need to crank volume at the top of the funnel for a while.

It’s an ideal age. The people who start at 20 become pickup-obsessed freaks. I was one of them for a time. Really harmed my life. At your age you will be able to keep it in perspective and not let it control your life.

I remember thinking this way in my twenties. Over time I just realized the futility of overthinking and worrying about all this stuff, which is mostly, if you boil down to it, about status and thus pretty pointless, and anyway beyond your control. You could have played it “smart” and got into finance in 2007, just before the GFC, and been forced to work 100 hour weeks for a year and then been unceremoniously fired. You could have been “smart” and studied CS like they told you to, and graduated in 2024 with no job options. The status and other surface-level stuff is mostly right place, right time. There are so many uncontrollable variables in life that what works for me is just doing work that’s fun for me and making sure I’m cash flow positive each month with at least a year of expenses saved. Anything good that happens beyond that is just by the grace of god.

I’m 35 and have had multiple 4-5 year relationships and am in one now that’s going on three years. Marriage doesn’t change much and you have many more years to decide about kids. No use backing yourself into a corner making decisions you might regret later, unless you actually *want* kids now. That said, I’ve lived in New York and Northern Europe my whole life, so women are generally cool with not getting married. If I were in the South, probably I would have gotten married in my late twenties and maybe I’d still be together with that woman as we would have made more compromises for each other. Would that have been better than my current situation? Maybe, idk. Doesn’t really matter, I’m fine with my current life. Even if we’d gotten married and then divorced, that’s really no big deal unless you have a *lot* of money that will turn it into a big fight. As I’ve gotten older I realize the futility of planning too far into the future and just do what feels good for next 6-9 months.

Dating was “easier” because women were under pressure to pair up quickly. But that generation was very frustrated, lots of empty shell marriages people stayed in too long out of social pressure. At the same time, social changes meant increased pressure on nuclear family to meet every social need, as extended kinship ties became less important. The boomers had it rough. Even though material conditions were in some ways better, they were not culturally equipped to deal with their situation. Probably the late 90s early 00s were the best in living memory to be just like middle class. My GenX friends describe it as an amazing time to be a young adult.

Yeah I was clarifying the date range of my firsthand observation. It was already happening in 2011, Owen just didn’t care about it and treated those clients like shit. Once the top of funnel dried up after Juliengate, it makes sense Owen would shift focus to those rich clients. But like I said, a lot of the higher end of the market moved away from RSD to 1:1 stuff with less aggro marketing. One coach in NYC got $250k to coach a billionaire’s kid for three months. They barely went infield and mostly just texted.

This was 2011-2013. Owen didn’t care about selling them much, and was more focused on building his audience, but it was a significant percentage of revenue at least in NY and SF. However, even in 2013 they were losing some of these clients to higher-end sole proprietor coaches who would do lengthy 1:1 mentoring programs that were frankly much more value-add. Like, “pay me $20k-$100k upfront and I’ll be your wing once a week for a year.” Which is obviously much better than 5-10 bootcamps per year, especially if it’s 1:1. In mega cities that business model works.