Let’s Take Looksmaxxing Seriously

[Valach]

11 minutes ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

I wasn’t going to revive this thread, but I sense a lot of self-deception going on here.

Let’s just think about this simply. Attractiveness is an important metric for romantic and social outcomes, right? With some honesty we’ll agree on the former, and the latter has great evidence in the form of the halo effect. So if we care about improving any aspects of our life, looks should be one of them. This is simple logic.

You guys don’t realize that your ego is tricking you into thinking the looksmaxxers are the deluded ones, while it’s actually you tricking yourselves!
 

We would be tricking ourselfs if we did not have anything proof from real life experiences confirming that it does not matter that much (at least for men).

[AtmanIsBrahman]

6 minutes ago, Valach said:

We would be tricking ourselfs if we did not have anything proof from real life experiences confirming that it does not matter that much (at least for men).

Ah yes, so a short, ugly person will have the same results as a good-looking tall person running the same game. I don’t deny that game works, but it’s absurd to say looks “don’t matter that much.” Plus you conveniently ignored my point about social outcomes. This isn’t just about dating. 

[Valach]

22 minutes ago, AtmanIsBrahman said:

Ah yes, so a short, ugly person will have the same results as a good-looking tall person running the same game. I don’t deny that game works, but it’s absurd to say looks “don’t matter that much.” Plus you conveniently ignored my point about social outcomes. This isn’t just about dating. 

If all the other aspects are same, yes, the good looking guy will have better results. But that rarely happens. The points of the statement about looks not mattering as much is that it is just way more rewarding for a guy to focus on developing his personality, his inner game etc. than to focus on looks.

I did not ignore anything. I just do not really know what you mean by the social outcomes, could you expand?

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Deriving a substantial portion of your identity from anything outside yourself is a good recipe for low self esteem. And looksmaxxing can easily slide down this path. It can (and does, often) play into the powerlessness one can feel in a chaotic, uncertain, unpredictable external world (largely the state of society) - and attempts to find a mechanism of control to alleviate the anxiety (excessive preening and weird metrics for attractiveness). It can also be another form of obsessive status hierarchy one can try to master when they do not have any other value skillset.

There is nuance in what users are saying here; no one is saying looks don't matter. 

The critique is toward looksmaxxing as a psychological framework, not the act of improving ones appearance.

[TheBG]

Not going to read this whole thread but I just want to say that Owen Cook himself has talked about and shown some extremely short men who were not that attractive getting great results based on their skill and internal work alone.

Owen isn't dazzeling to look at either, yet he gets great results.

Does looking good help? Sure. It can be the difference between showing you take care of yourself or not.

Do we need to follow the maxxing train? No. I have seen men who look like models that think their looks are the issue. Then they post on reddit asking for help, get surgeries, and end up kind of like clavicular. Meanwhile their internal state is terrible and women don't like them because they are insecure as fuck.

Leo's blog post has a lot of truth in it https://www.actualized.org/insights/the-highest-form-of-game-is-being-god

Owen Cook essentially follows this same line of thinking in his own way. Making men as free and socially calibrated as possible. The results from this plus basic selfcare/grooming will outweigh any silly looksmaxxing advice. I am not saying it doesn't help out either. It's just not *that* big of a deal in comparison.

If you want to attract the hottest women you can, looking good helps, but you don't want to make it it's own bottleneck, as people here have said many times.

Edited 6 hours ago by TheBG

[TheBG]

One of the fittest, most attractive people I knew growing up is married to a very plain, fat, hard working man. Blue-collar

What he does have is a beautiful internal state. HE is funny. He is extremely thoughtful and loving. Non needy. Doesn't qualify himself. Etc.

They have a great partnership. But sure. Let's say he was more handsome. Would she like that more? Yeah. Would it make or break her being with him? No.

Does it make sense now?

At a certain point, why should someone even need lots of people to think they look good?

Edited 6 hours ago by TheBG

[LordFall]

There is some truth to this but Owen definitely has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to traditional markers of success and status. What he says is correct but half truths. Most people won't get phenomenal success from just cold approach because they don't structure their life like he did. He went all in and went out basically every day for a decade and built a business around it. Most dudes that have a job and go out a few times a month won't have the same level of leverage from just social skills.

I've met some of RSD Madison's students when they were out on bootcamp in Toronto after a few nights of coaching and it seems like he didn't teach them basic things like dressing well and one dude had these really funky thick glasses that made it at least 5x harder for him to hook women. Stuff like this needs to be fixed to get great results with the least amount of pain possible. 

Also a lot of looksmaxxing is fitness and muscles. Upper body muscle mass is one of the top predictors attraction for a man that actually translates to sexual interest in women. 

Leo's blog post is a bit cope. Women don't fuck enlightened dudes in droves, they fuck those that give them the right cocktails of emotions which is basically dopamine. Who get's laid more an enlightenment guru or the average club promoter? The whole human experience's point is to experience materialism, just being high consciousness will not cut it. If you can be as materialistic as possible while being high consciousness and loving and growth oriented THEN I think you got a good recipe for hooking up with a lot of hot high quality women.

Edited 3 hours ago by LordFall