Roissy on HBD and Game

I've been critical of the assertion that the Game movement is an ideal vehicle for HBD to hitch a ride in on its way to popular acceptance. Roissy just posted on the subject. This excerpt gets at the most important part of that post:

So HBD nerds need to get over the obvious “money/looks/fame” box within which they argue and constrict themselves, and begin to see that, like human differences in general, there is room to remake ourselves into better versions of who we are. To deny this is to deny there is any reason to put forth effort into anything of note after birth. There is more than one way to pierce a pussy. Women love game-spitting charming assholes as much as they love resource-providing stoic captains of industry. There is no contradiction in this observation.

As I point out below, the condescending attitude directed at those who aren't sold on the narrative isn't something to get caught up on. It's part of the game, er, Game. I suppose I could seriously argue that Game is a way for guys who aren't where they'd like to be in terms of "money/looks/fame" to convince themselves that they are at least on par with, if not superior to, those who have more money, better looks, and greater fame than they do, but who tend to excuse themselves to use the restroom in casual conversation rather than just leaving mid-sentence to heed nature's call like PUAs do. Yet even though it's said that status is everything, there is no concrete evidence that this is the case, and even if it were, it does not speak to the veracity of the narrative. Ideas, not the people who promote them, is what we're after, right?

I left the following comment:

Great post. The errant idea that Game somehow epitomizes the realities of HBD needed to be tempered. That Game takes down the feminist myth about gender being a social construction by illustrating that there are differences in what men and women are attracted to (the primary point of difference being how on the guy's pie chart physical attractiveness also covers all the space that is devoted to social status on the girl's chart) is, from an HBD evangelist's perspective, solid gold.

However, the fact remains that Game is founded on the premise that all the female detection mechanisms that have been honed by selection (natural and sexual) throughout human evolutionary history do a pretty crummy job at what they're commissioned to do. The degree to which they fail is open to debate--and your assessment is more attuned to reality (they do an okay job, but they're far from precise) than those made by some of your most zealous minions (they basically don't exist) are--but it's axiomatic that they are significantly flawed.

This is in contrast to the detection mechanisms of men, which are far more perspicacious than those possessed by women are. Science has thrown a few wrenches into man's well-oiled machine with plastic surgery, breast enhancement, and the like, but prior to World War I, women were almost powerless to do anything at all to influence male detection mechanisms.

HBDers like OneSTDV and Randall Parker (both of whom I have great respect for) would be wise to acknowledge this. That by no means implies that either HBD or Game is bunk--genetics and ancestry aren't everything--but they aren't natural bedfellows. Using one to push the other is akin to using geology to sell people on the wonders of chemical engineering--there's a bit of overlap, but we're not talking accounting and finance here.

I don't take any offense at the slights directed my way, either. The atmosphere is such that to question any aspect of Game is to tacitly admit to being unsuccessful with women, much like questioning the idea that discrimination is the reason for the black-white achievement gap is to tacitly admit to being a racist. Conveniently enough, my recent tangling of tongues and limbs with a voluptuous black girl serves as a refutation two-fer, but I don't get bent out of shape when my anonymous pseudonym is disparaged as being piloted by a 40 year-old virgin who leads Klan cross-burnings on the weekends!

Miller commercial, like the men it targets, shuns cougars

The forces of feminization and multiculturalism are said to have deballed white men. We are now popularly portrayed now as lumbering buffoons, far removed from the more traditional images of hard-working, self reliant pillars of modern civilization. But we're still the ones who earn the money that fuels the the consumer economy, and marketers target us.

Beer companies are certainly among those who aim specifically at young and middle-aged working and middle class white guys. This Miller ad demonstrates how, despite the nonsense about the ability of professional women to easily hold off into their thirties and forties before settling down with their choice of man, youth is hot and termagents are not:



The bartender's (age ~24) social status is lower than the cougar's (age ~36), who is presumably a professional corporate type of some kind. But the average joe is more desired by the cougar because her options are more limited than the bartender's are. The bartender is self-evidently smoking, but the cougar is not ugly. In fact, 12 or so years ago, she was probably near the bartender's level of physical attractiveness. Now, though, it's not even close, as the rest of the kitty cat guy's friends illustrate by showing disgust for the cougar.

That physical attractiveness is the most important attribute a woman has in attracting male attention is obvious to virtually all heterosexual men (though not all will admit as much), but there is an endless supply of delusional women who still act surprised whenever evidence of it hits them in their faces.

IQ and the best countries in the world

I'm late on this, but the relationship highlighted is hardly time sensitive. A month ago, Newsweek compiled an international list of 100 countries deemed by the magazine as "a study health, education, economy, and politics" to "rank the globe's true national champions". Newsweek looked at statistics falling into one of five different headings; education, health, quality of life, economic dynamism, and political environment. The criteria used to come up with the rankings are good--this is a solid objective measure of which countries are the best (and worst) places in the world to live in. The only significant shortcoming in the rankings is the absence of some of the most authoritarian nations (North Korea, Zimbabwe, Burma), presumbly due to the insufficiency of available data in those countries.

The following table shows best countries index scores on the y-axis and aggregate IQ scores from Lynn and Vanhanen's IQ and Global Inequality.


The correlation between the two is a vigorous .85 (p=0). That is, 73% of a country's Newsweek best countries score is 'explainable' by its average IQ. Nothing new for HBD-realists to see here. Communism has a deleterious effect on a country's attractiveness. Removing Russia, China (the conspicuous outlier at 105 IQ but an index score of only 62.1), and the seven former Soviet states included from the list bumps the correlation up even higher to .88.

How do the editors and staff at Newsweek, being the left-leaning, Establishment publication that it is, justify constructing such a list? Well, for one it gets attention. But, as Steve Sailer has explained, it's not particularly exciting because it's so predictable. Western Europe is at the top, followed closely by East Asia. Eastern Europe comes next, with Central Asia, South America, and the Middle East vying for spots in the middle. Sub-Saharan Africa is at the bottom.

Maybe those at Newsweek and their like-minded SWPL readers enjoy seeing a list of best places in the world that keeps the US and even Canada out of the top ten. That begs for a retort about how the US has much more of the bottom countries in it than Finland or Sweden do. It probably wouldn't be a bad bet to make that if Minnesota were included in the rankings as the 101st entrant, Minnesotans would give the Finns a run for their money.

How predictive is the preseason?

One last NFL-related post before the season gets underway (okay, the NFC championship game rematch that have guys who love field position contests like yours truly hoping the Saints' win is a sign of things to come means the regular season has officially started). Playing poker at a friend's house, someone turned on the Royals' game just a few minutes before the Chiefs were to play the Eagles in preseason. My protests were met with assertions that the preseason is meaningless and thus not worth watching. I responded with the opinion that the NFL is always worth watching because, well, it's the NFL. I wasn't going to argue that the preseason was of little use in predicting how the regular season would turn out.

Still, I've heard forever that the preseason is not a portent of the regular season following it and want to make sure the claim is justified. NFL.com has preseason standings going back to 2006. I'm sure digging through the sports archives, I could find results going back much further than that, but four years is enough to determine, at least in the contemporary NFL, the preseason doesn't predict much. The correlation between a team's preseason and regular season winning percentages for 2006-2009:

2006: .02
2007: .16
2008: (.13)
2009: .05

Nothing approaching statistical significance in any of these seasons. Over the last four years, the Colts, arguably the top team over that span of time, won a total of four preaseason games--one per year. Hilariously, in 2008, the Detroit Lions were the only team to go undefeated through the preseason and also the only team to go winless during the regular season of the same year.

I hate to break it to Niners' fans, but there won't be any glory reclaimed in 2010. And for those counting the Colts out because they went without a win this preseason... okay, they are the odds-on favorite to win the Super Bowl this year, so I'll stop trying to act as though anybody puts stake in what transpires during exhibition games.

It's anybody's Game today, folks

In a post last month considering the relative influence of Steve Sailer and Roissy in presenting the realities of HBD to the general public, OneSTDV excerpted Kudzu Bob making the following comment:

Forget arguing statistics with brainwashed liberals. That's strictly for losers and chumps. If there's a better recruiting tool than "Embrace HBD and get laid," I can't think of what it might be.

There is a glaring problem here. The game phenomenon is billed as being a way to bed beautiful women. Pay attention to these lessons, take notes, practice, and you'll be able to thwart female mechanisms for assessing male desirability that have been honed over the entire course of human evolutionary history. It's akin to what blank slatists maintain regarding virtually everything else. Who you are biologically doesn't matter--with the right education, you'll be able to do anything. Alphas are made, not born.

In an unrelated post, OneSTDV agrees, at least philosophically:

Liberalism feels good because anyone can succeed. And this underpins its success; realist ideologies advocate fatalism and no one likes that.

That's an oversimplification, of course, but I fail to see how pushing the idea that education is the key to success in fornication is comparable to what Steve Sailer writes when it comes to truly comprehending HBD at work in the world. Game is great for gaining insights into what women find desirable, and in that respect the praise heaped upon it is entirely justified.

Randall Parker speaks for many HBDers in praising the game movement (which has morphed into the intellectual sphere in the last few years, but is decades old--I can remember hearing in middle school "Don't hate the player, hate the game", and the like):

Smart guys who are single virgins should be encouraged to use internet dating, PUA techniques, and anything else to hook up with the smartest women they can find and make babies.

Raising fertility of smart people should become a topic of serious discussion among HBD realists.

But my concern is that it is becoming overly idolized, as if Roissy's narrative regarding changing sexual patterns and mores (for which there is essentially no quantitative evidence, a good deal of data suggesting that things have changed little over the last several decades and that, if anything, it is "betas" who are doing more than their fair share of the procreating) is beyond question. To claim that one is an alpha and those who discover holes in and consequently challenge the game narrative are bitter betas of lower social value who should be disregarded would elsewhere be recognized as a typical leftist smear tactic.

White knights or a celestial purge at recent US Open?

OneSTDV points to an incident in the stands during the US Open last Thursday. Here are the two relevant videos:





OneSTDV's take on the thing:

The fat daughter and father are completely ignored by everyone in the crowd as even more men start berating blue shirt guy. Throughout all this, the fat woman
points at her fallen father as if he's an innocent victim in this whole affair.

The crowd's reaction is a wonderful illustration of white knight beta syndrome and female entitlement. Of course, such displays accomplish little in a society where chivalry brands one a boring beta provider. Men can no longer rely on the societal gender hierarchy to assert their relative social dominance and thus any hint at supplicating husband status (like this one) devalues them in the post-60s, feminist-tinged sexual marketplace.

That's not my perception of what went down. He insinuates that this is illustrative of how American men have become increasingly 'beta' over time, but I wonder at what point in time would it have been more acceptable for a healthy young guy, in self defense, to force an unknown woman or elderly man into physical submission than it is today? The gender egalitarianism of modern feminism promotes an absurd image of women as equally as capable as men in terms of physical prowess, with the consequence being that men are discouraged from treating women in a different way than they treat other men (ie, women should be able to drive racecars and step into the ring to compete against men).

Context is important, too. This was a tennis event, with a fanbase that is more upscale than that of just about any other major sport save for golf. Most of the people at the Open, even the cheap seats where the scuffle took place, are dressed in summer business casual. The young guy who was assaulted looks pretty proleish by comparison (and his inept friend, whose jeans have holes in the knees, appears even more proleish) like he should be at an NFL game instead of a tennis tournament, and is clearly acting in a way that disrespects the customs of tennis spectating. He's cussing profusely, claiming that he is free to say whatever and act as he pleases since he paid for his ticket ("I don't give a fuck what anyone wants!"). The woman is apparently trying to censure him for trouncing on tennis fan etiquette.

As for the putatively despicable white knights, it is possible that they didn't see (or weren't paying close attention to) the initial spat and only took notice when the geezer and the young guy started going at it (the videos clearly show that virtually everyone in the area was rubbernecking once the two men locked horns; before that point, however, some were watching but many others were not). If this was the case, their reaction is understandable--they see a young guy hurl grandpa down a row of seats and then push a flabby bag onto the ground when she starts slapping at him for owning her father (or wife?).

But they may have just been looking for an excuse to do what they'd been wanting to do since for awhile--kick the crap out of an unruly jackass who was souring the experience for everybody around him. Regarding the zeitgeist being such that most people take the side of the old man and woman who took turns assaulting the young guy before he physically responded, the video from afar is full of comments about how the young guy was attacked and consequently is the victim in the incident. Youtube commenters are overwhelmingly of the same mind*. Those nearby the confrontation, however, have much greater hostility for the young guy and sympathy for the older couple, almost certainly because they shared the couple's sentiments--the uncouth loudmouth was ruining the matches for everyone around him and needed to STFU or be thrown out.

I'm more receptive to the argument that the fact that a pudgy hag had to confront the young guy when a man more physically imposing than the prole should've done so indicates enervation of the masculine culture in the West than I am to the argument that the subsequent subduing of the prole does.

Parenthetically, the sympathy for the young guy's right to impinge on the experience of everyone else at the Open illustrates what I see as another unfortunate shift in Western culture over time--the increasing promotion of positive rights at the expense of negative ones, a theme that underlies a host of assaults against the wishes of the majority of the American public (same-sex marriage, the Cordoba Initiative, mandatory diversity training, quota hiring, etc).

* I love how the highest rated comment is from a hardass who uses the "white knight" phrase and then proceeds to use a Starcraft analogy about how the young guy was assaulted! It is so something I can relate to (the post's title makes an M:TG analogy).

AE muddles on

It's almost so stereotypical as to be beyond parody, but I've been hooking up with a girl over the last few weeks who constitutes my first interracial experience (no home base, though). She's black, 18, great body, but she's not relationship material for a host of reasons that I won't bore you with (and are pretty predictable anyway). I haven't been as straightforward about my lack of interest in anything commital as I think I should have been, but I've been frustrated over not being able to attract any interest from a gorgeous, Jesus-loving all-American 22 year-old former college cheerleader who lives in the house next to the one I spent my adolescence in (I babysat her a decade ago, but only recently got to know her after she returned to her parents' house upon graduation). Like a pretentious brat, I've justified screwing someone over since the world's screwing me over.

The last exchange I had with the black girl, before seeing her one more time and then cutting off follows. We've always done the typical 'black friends' back and forth, so it's not really as crass as it appears to be.

---

Chanara: Are we not talking anymore?

AE: What's this royal 'we'?

Chanara: What the fuck is your problem?

AE: 99 problems but I guess this bitch ain't one of them.

Chanara: You guess? Your [*shudder*] ass was pose to have me over a long time ago. We should just get a hotel room and call it a day

AE: I don't do prostitution. Don't mix me up with your customers.

Chanara: Dont make fun of me. You never told me when to come over

AE: YOU'RE wrong, I said you could get in line but YOU'RE too prude.

Chanara: What are you talkin about? You mad cause we havent fucked?

AE: I don't get mad, I just get on. Rolling stone gathers no moss.

Chanara: Ok your disappointed we didnt fuck. your the one thats always working

AE: YOU'RE. God, it's "you're", not "your".

Chanara: Your not going to tell me how to talk

AE: Fine, talking is not what I want to do with you ;)

Chanara: lol let get together soon

AE: Seriously?

Chanara: What

AE: Never mind, we'll let that one slide.

Chanara: What are you talkin about?

AE: Abuse of the English language.

Chanara: Ill show you abuse

AE: On the way :)

[A couple days later, after not responding to multiple texts]

Chanara: You better not be tryin to talk to another bitch because it wont be good

AE: Look, I told you not to wait for me. I think you've got the wrong idea. I really need to sleep now, it's late

Chanara: omg Fuck you. i cant believe this shit

[She's sent a few other texts since, but I've decided not to respond, at least for awhile. I genuinely feel bad about leading her on.]

---

I'm kind of a mess right now, if the post doesn't make that obvious enough. My first serious high school girlfriend, who got married three years ago, just had a baby. I'm not getting any younger. I'm doing the open book thing here for my own benefit, hoping maybe to tap into the wisdom of readers who've been around a bit longer, whatever their reactions might be. Stop aiming for the stars, secure and invest in something on a mountaintop, stop jacking around, and realize you're a few years from thirty and need to stop jacking around, perhaps?

Chanara:
Cheerleader: