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Comment by rwolf | Hacker News Reader

The author suggests the same interpretations in more general terms:

"Another idea is that smarter people are more risk averse, and delaying these activities is a byproduct of enhanced concerns about unwanted pregnancy and disease. While not avoiding sexual behaviors, per se, they are just less likely to seek it out or consent to it for fear of the potential consequences.

...

Another idea, consistent with popular media portrayals of geeks and nerds (males at least), is that intelligent people actually want to have sex, but are simply less likely or unable to obtain willing partners because they are disproportionately viewed as unattractive or undesirable as partners."

edit: this comment is not meant to support your claims, only to suggest your claims are redundant to HNers who read the article.

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I think it's similar to "Why Nerds are Unpopular".

In my parents' day, "finding a husband/wife" wasn't something most people had to make an active effort in order to do. It happened fairly naturally. So smart people paired off at a similar rate to everyone else.

In the post-"Game" world, wherein breaking through womens' defenses and attracting them requires learning a bag of cheap sales tricks, the big losers are the people who don't learn them. These are the dumb, who are unable, and the smart nerds, who can't be bothered because they find childish social games uninteresting.

> In the post-"Game" world, wherein breaking through womens' defenses and attracting them requires learning a bag of cheap sales tricks

The entire industry of pick up technology is based on the premise that there may be a technique that can successfully attract a woman. Wheras, in real life, there is no magic technique - it's all about confidence and putting youself out there, taking a risk/taking the lead.

What the pickup artists are really marketing is protecting the guy's ego - e.g. I wasn't rejected - it was the approach/technique. Which, as we all know, is false marketing.

"The entire industry of pick up technology is based on the premise that there may be a technique that can successfully attract a woman."

As far as I understood, the real point was not there is some magic bullet that can attract any particular woman a man desires.

Instead it was about finding some subset of female population upon which some of these tricks do work.

It's kind of refined Feynman's strategy - keep trying whatever shtick you have on different women till you find some on which it works.

That is why these people can report some successes - if just you want to attract some woman, it's much easier than wanting to attract that woman.

The entire industry of pick up technology is based on the premise that there may be a technique that can successfully attract a woman.

It's not that simple, just as there isn't one "magic trick" that can close a sale. It's a complex set of skills that has to be learned over years.

On the other hand, some guys are able to feast because they've mastered a bag of cheap tricks, and there are a lot more men dying to be like them.

> It's a complex set of skills that has to be learned over years.

Yes, in my unscientific survey of reading about men posting about their experiences on various pickup forums - the fraction of those who really became good at "pick up" - basically became good not because of the technique but because they went out there with their icebreaker "I need a female opinion" and went from there and gained confidence and experience, to the point that eventually they were so desensitized of rejection (yet, aware) of interacting with women that really no women made them nervous (Bill Clinton was legendary for his ease around all women) - and this is what made them attractive. Snowball effect.

I find your use of the terms "close a sale" and "feast" in this context disturbing.

You should. I'm not sugarcoating the ugly, ruined world that supposed "sexual modernism" has brought us to.

I am all for the right of gays to marry, legalized abortion, and 95 percent of the feminist platform. The problem is that we now have a generation of women who feel "empowered" to "try out" a few of the scumbag men that, in previous generations, they wouldn't have dared be seen with. That hurts almost everyone.

How outrageous that women should feel empowered to sleep with people of whom you disapprove. If only they had the sense to ask your opinion first!

That clearly doesn't scale.

On the other hand, it's a better world when people behave sexually in a manner that is consistent with their public morality. That means that they don't sleep with people they wouldn't be proud to be seen with by their parents, family, and friends and to call a boyfriend or girlfriend.

You know, I'm not entirely sure this discussion is going anywhere, but I thought I'd jump in and share a thought that might be valuable anyways.

> On the other hand, it's a better world when people behave sexually in a manner that is consistent with their public morality.

This sentence here, it assumes people's public morality is their real feelings on the matter, instead of doing what needs to be done to get by without ostracism.

I think most people have at least a little different public and private moralities - there's what you believe, and there's what you'd be comfortable representing you believe in your community.

Assuming that the public morality is the real or sensible morality seems to miss that a lot of people aren't happy with the roles they're generally expected to take. Some very outstanding people openly show their countercultural preferences, but many people just quietly dissent, and that's not altogether too crazy if their dissent leads them to the best possible life for themself.

Now, people being unable to make good judgment calls on what furthers their real goals - that's a big problem. But giving a nod to public morality, much of which is imposed on people, seems to be a little off. I think the issue is more of good judgment and long term thinking than it is with public/private morality.

>breaking through womens' defenses

I think this metaphor may be your problem.

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