Memetics: Principles and Pride

This post is a follow up to these two:
A World of Ideas
The Sovereign Meme

Another class of beliefs that are usually mistaken to be factual beliefs are opinions: "cheating is wrong", "brunettes are more attractive than blondes". Opinions don't have truth degree, instead they have degrees of good/bad, wrong/right (moral values), delicious/disgusting (taste), and alpha/gay (existential values). Opinions have conviction, the analogy to certainty in factual beliefs. And just like factual beliefs, they also have personal value. However, opinions are simpler than factual beliefs in one regard: personal value and conviction are, for all we need to care about, the same thing. It's hard to imagine someone strongly believing something is wrong without being touched by any observed injustice. By definition, we would equate "strong opinion" with "personal value". However, "has personal value" doesn't meant "takes it personally" when it comes to discussing: one of the key elements of being alpha with respect to opinions is the ability to have them and being able to tolerate those of others.

This brings us very close to what is essential about opinions. Some opinions aren't that interesting to study: I don't care whether you prefer strawberry or chocolate, kissing ears or necks, baths or showers. Instead, I will focus on one particular subset of opinions: principles. A principle, being a meme, is an algorithm. What it does is to trigger an emotion that will affect your behavior according to a set of conscious standards you have. In other words, a principle is a rule for decision making in a set of generalized situations.

Why do people have principles? Is it rational to have them? Compare the guy who will accept any flaky behavior from a girl, versus one who will by principle NEXT any girl that flakes. From a closing perspective, it would seem like the first guy would do better since he isn't eliminating any opportunities by accepting a couple of flakes in the hope of getting a close later. Even if it rarely works, it's still better than zero right?

Actually, it isn't that simple. The problem is that there are two disadvantages to this "pragmatic" strategy, and they are both invisible if one doesn't know where to look for them. Take the girls perspective for a moment, put yourself in her shoes: You are slightly interested by this guy you recently met, but you have other options too. You would like to meet him, but there are other things on your priority list as well. Now, it's time to make a choice: meet him now, or not now. By meeting him now, you could end up having a good night with a guy that turns out to be someone you like. Or it could turn into a nice conversation over a drink and nothing more. There is a discomfort in meeting new people face to face. Having dinner with your friends would therefore put you somewhere in between these two outcomes. Do you go for the risker bet of meeting him now or take the safe one of having dinner with your friends? The choice is not obvious. But what if I you knew that this guy would be available for a meet up next weekend if you were to choose the dinner? What if I told you he would always be available for a day 2, whenever you are ready? Suddenly, the investment of going on a day 2 isn't so important to make right now, since there will be lots of opportunities later. He can and will wait.

On the other hand, what if you didn't have that choice? What if you could only meet him this weekend and maybe the one after? It could be because he is only visiting your home town. Or it could be because from what you've learnt about him, he doesn't deal with that kind of indecisiveness. He would rather move on. If you are curious about him, you are presented with two simple choices: meet soon, or never. He won't wait.

You may now leave her perspective.

Here's the dilemma: what this entails is that there is a gain by having the principle of Nexting flakes, because you are restricting other peoples choices when they interfere with your own. Only...the gain of doing so is only useful before the damage is done, because when she does flake, there is no point in nexting her when you could give it another go! So faking a principle is the optimal strategy when we are playing this game once only. In reality, we are playing it again and again with different people, but because of gossip, people know about others principles. When we say someone is jealous, it means they punish behavior that they consider to be strategies of fear of loss. When we say someone is needy, it means they take any chance they can at getting somewhere. Does it sound like this last definition may have something to do with my analysis of principles above?

It has everything to do with it, but then principles have to do with a lot more than just that. In the many people version of the game above, where people know who will accept anything and who have what boundaries, the optimal strategy is not to fake principles but to follow them! So principles can and do provide a real benefit. These memes provide you with positive fitness.

The second advantage (remember, there were two) is that principles are indirectly transmitted to others through communication. A girl can almost smell which guys are needy and which are not. Many body language techniques are specifically given to help you avoid needy behavior, but imitating behavior is a form of "soft" memetic copying: you only learn the behavior, not the feeling. The idea, is that you will start to feel good when you behave in a certain way, which is true to a certain extent. The feeling that is missing is it the conviction of a principle, and since we by default behave in a manner congruent with our memes, it will actually be harder to have bad BL once these memes are installed. Principles are hence signaled through cues in your behavior. You are leaking some of your memes all the time, through state, through your voice, your choice of words, your facial expressions, what you are looking and when doing what, etc. The only viable solution is to hold a set of memes (with positive fitness), and relevant to our current discussion, a set of principles.

I want to illustrate a difference between the "inner game" and "outer game" paradigm. Every PU works like this: every girl has set of instructions related to PU. Some things she finds attractive, fun, funny, and some she finds creepy, needy, or gay. Due to biological evolution, many instructions are near identical in everyone, or follow a pattern based on environmental differences. Due to memetics, some are arbitrary. Whether the conscious mind is aware of these instruction or not is irrelevant: we only care about what behavior the instructions produce (which typically follows from what emotions they produce). Outer game is a game of calibration: you go in, you try to learn as much as possible about her instructions - by making inferences based on her hotness, her style, her attitude, the size and dynamics of her peer group, etc - so that you can find an appropriate sequence of actions that will bring her to your bedroom. Inner game is a frame game: you go in, you follow your own instructions, and if she likes them you'll have fun, if not, then you Next her. I am exaggerating the "be smooth vs don't give a fuck" attitude for a particular reason: I support none of them, and neither to a support something in between them.

Whereas outer game is about playing her game, inner game is about setting the rules of the game (showing her your rules).

By gaming girls, we can affect their choices towards us. Techniques are made precisely for that purpose: to "change her mind" about us, in terms of attraction. So we don't have to be slaves to others choices. Free will becomes an illusion. But one of the most profound realizations I've had is that I want girls to make that choice, because I want to be liked or dislike for who I am. I don't want girls to reject my opener. I want them to reject me, for everything I am, everything I symbolize. And I want them to like me because they have seen who I am, my core. It is about mutuality, and the realization comes from many years of experience: I have for a very long time suspected that attraction is to a large extent based on factors that are outside of our immediate control. It could be pheromones, genetic matching/mismatching, or anything else for all I know. (And it doesn't meant that we can't do anything to get attraction, it means that we can do things to get arbitrarily close to a certain bound on how much attraction we can get, but that bound is far below 100%) This uncontrollable element of attraction is ubiquitous. It works both to our advantage and disadvantage: some girls are automatically attracted to us, some are just not at all. And then there's everything in between. Attraction is a continuous measurem, I use a 10-scale. But why bother fighting to get something that you would want to be present from day one? Those who are initially 3/10 attracted to you will never experience 10/10 with you. That would be the equivalent of you experiencing a warpig as Carmen Electra, attraction wise.

Here's a thought experiment. Imagine the problem turned out to be pheromones. There is now a perfume that is able to create instant attraction, and combined with your own game, this means that you can now attract virtually anyone. Would you use it? Of course you would, I would too. But how would it be to see your FB lose attraction for you everytime the scent disappears because you're showering? As you literally wash away her attraction for you, she suddenly feels like being "alone" for a while. Until you put on your perfume again, and she's suddenly really sexually attracted again. With this in mind, is it not obvious that we must embrace the fact that some are naturally attracted to us, and others are not? When we only care about ONS, this becomes less relevant. But that's not what I am looking for. I am looking for LTRs (but not necessarily girlfriends, that is not something that can be decided ahead of time). In practice, you will rarely get the girl you want without attraction, it's working your way uphill. Yes, it is possible, and it can be fun to do it. But such relationships lack the sexual charge and tension that I find necessary to even feel alive to start with. My life is more important than PU, and so PU must serve the purpose of finding girls that improve my life. My life value can never be sacrifized for PU, and I will return to this below.

In terms of games and rules, here's a way to think about it: I don't want girls to think I'm uninterested or indifferent if I'm not. If I see something I like, then I'll go for it. I want them to know from the very beginning, because I want them to make the same choice. I like to open girls indirectly, but not because I want to fake disinterest: they still know I'm interested, and they understand that I'm using an indirect approach to give us both a space to communicate in another mode. I set the rules for our game, she chooses whether she wants to play or not. If she does, she will be able to communicate her own instructions during the game. From there only two things can happen: we will either escalate (socially and physically) until we end up having sex, or we will both realize that we are incompatible (our memetics are incompatible). It doesn't matter who makes the realization. What matters is that it is important for both of us: if a girl doesn't want me for something I am, then I am glad she found out because I don't want a girl that doesn't want me for who I am. And the reason why I don't want that, as mentioned above, is because it gives shitty relationships. I want a girl that believe in me, for all I am and do. And I want her feel something special everytime she sees me, from the first time we meet. If they don't feel that way about me, I have lost nothing. In terms of the escalation model, I am happy to use rationalized attraction (because it is very real), but I am not going to work my ass off just to get the escalation process started. If it doesn't start at all naturally, then I will leave it at that.

You won't understand this principle until you feel it: recall that memes need emotional attachment in order to trigger. And when you do feel it, you will see how profound this realization is. It is only one principle, but it is general and profound enough to imply a large set of smaller principles.

Should you assume attraction when you approach? No, because attraction is precisely what you are "looking" for. Yes, you will use your charisma to attract her. You may even want to use techniques/routines (I'll make a separate post about this when it's time). You will do the best you can, as you should always do. You will convey your core personality, and if she isn't attracted, it's time to move on (unless you're only there to socialize of course).

Should you chase girls? Never. You can show them that you want more of their attention or time, but if they don't reciprocate, you will always leave them alone. It's what they want, but it will also be what you want. All we will ever do is approach girls, show them who we are (our state and memes, I will talk about the details of this very soon), and once we have done that, we will only look to see if she's reciprocating herself to us. If she does there will be mutual escalation. If not it's over.

You will never keep texting or calling girls that don't respond. You will never plow. You will never excuse yourself for being rejected. You will never be sad or disappointed for being rejected. You will never let go of who you are, no matter who you are with, and that is what matters. It's about respect, and I want to elaborate on the connection between principles and respect.

Yusha.p analyzed how respect is built between two people: First, you give others knowledge of your principles (normally this is done indirectly through subcommunication). Then, you try to figure out the other persons principles, and follow their principles whenever it doesn't collide with your own (the part where respect is displayed). When their principles collide with yours, you go back to showing them your own principles.

You don't treat others as you want to be treated; you treat them as they would like to be treated. And you expect them to treat you the way you want to be treated. In most instances, this isn't something we consciously think about, because we have social norms that enforce a culturally agreed upon set of behaviors. Many of these are universal: we only need to look at the deviations from the expected. So when someone says "I like energetic people", we assume he means "I like people that are more energetic than what you would expect from me if I hadn't said so".

As Yusha.p points out, his breakdown entails that a person without principles will only adhere to others principles. He has no boundaries, and is only conforming to others. This is gay.

Another point to make, is that you will not get along with everyone. Some people will be incompatible with you, because they may have a principle that directly contradicts one of yours. Perhaps when they say "see you at 18 tomorrow" they implicitly add "unless any of my girls call for sex, or I feel like going out", which is not the way you interpret it. The failure in communication reflects the differences in beliefs.

Some people conform to others beliefs just to get along. This is an example of a reactive behavior at the memetic core, and I think the consequences for your own core (that is, for you) can be devastating in the long run. The prize we pay for being ourselves may even be dislike among some people, but that's what it truly means to stand out, to be yourself and nothing else but that. Recall that I want others to choose or reject me for who I am, and that I don't want girls that aren't naturally attracted to me. It's pretty much all or nothing. I want people to be "meant" to be to me. My closest friends and girls, we never had to meet each other half way in between our dreams, for we share similar dreams and paths.

Now, I want you to apply Yusha.p's principle of respect to yourself: it then says you have figure out your own principles, and follow them as long as they are consistent with your other principles. We cannot show other people our principles if we don't understand them. And we can't expect them to value our principles if we don't follow them ourselves. Moreover, inconsistencies (meme paradoxes) lead to double standards, something people definitely disrespect. The conclusion is obvious: if you don't have self respect, you cannot allow for others to respect you.

There is no relaxing of these conditions. I see guys in this community that do exactly the same things as AFCs: they are needy, plow in every possible way, and never give up. The difference, as they would have it, is that they are "community guys" and they are doing it to "practice". That's fine if you mean practice as in "have a sticking point and will do whatever it takes to solve it within 4 weeks" (see my previous post), because doing it a couple of times during a limited time decreases the damages it causes you. Most important, the requirement is that you install the proper memes and that the purpose of the training is to stimulate the memes, to spark them to life. So that you will start believing in them. This is a far step from what most of these guys are doing, because to them it has nothing to do about their memes, and everything to do with this one particular girl: if they could only plow just a little bit more, and see how it goes...maybe she will change her mind? There is no lesson to learn from this mindset, because there are no new memes that get installed. There is only meaningless hope from a primitive brain that cannot see the long term consequence of its own choices.

You can't possibly hold the principle I've defined above if you behave in a manner incongruent with it.

FMI's paradox is this: you learn game because you want girls. To get girls, you learn that you shouldn't care too much about girls. So you stop caring about girls...but for what reason? Well, so that you can have girls. But...in order to have girls, you can't care about girls! It's a memetic paradox, and I believe the reason why so many guys never get good "inner game" is because of this core inconsistency. With the paradigm I've presented to you, FMI's paradox doesn't appear to begin with, because you should care about girls. You should give them attention, interest, and sometimes love. And you should never compromise your own beliefs and principles while doing so. Girls become an important element of your life, but they could never consume nor dictate it.

That's all for now. Give it some serious thought. Reread it until you understand it. It is one of the most profound realizations I've had, I've paid a big prize to get to it, and I did so without hesitating because of my own conviction that this paradigm is what I have been looking for during the last six months.

My next posts will give practical advice on memetic self reprogramming, examples of powerful memes, and a FR about what it looks like when I'm using this paradigm in the real world.