One of the most frustrating things I’ve had to deal with in this life is knowing men with incredible potential who, for whatever reason, never realize it (or as fully) because they deliberately limit themselves due to a Beta mindset . Whether it’s potential for success due to a particular talent, the potential of their socio-economic state and affluence, or simply dumb luck that put them into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, their blue-pill ignorance or pride, or rule-bound duty to the feminine imperative thanks to their Beta frame of mind, hold them back from really benefitting from it.
God forbid you’d have to cooperate with a guy like this in a business or creative endeavor where your own livelihood might be attached to his inability to move past his Beta frame or his feminine conditioning. One of the benefits of becoming red pill aware is a heightened sensitivity to how the feminized world we live in is organized; and part of that sensitivity is becoming a better judge of Beta character and avoiding it, or at least insofar as minimizing another man’s liabilities as a Beta to how his malaise could affect you.
I used to work with a very rich man who owned a few of the brands I became involved with in my career. While he was wealthy and had a certain knack for developing some very creative and profitable products, the guy was a deplorable chump with regards to his personal and romantic life. He was very much a White Knight Beta bordering on martyrdom when it came to his wives and the women in his life, who were all too happy to capitalize on this very obvious flaw. At one point he was attempting to launch a new product for which he needed some financial backing, but simply couldn’t get it from investors because they weren’t convinced their part of his venture wouldn’t end up as part of his next divorce settlement since he was planning his 3rd marriage.
His self-righteous ‘love conquers all’ White Knight idealism chaffed at the suggestion he would need a pre-nuptial affidavit for anyone to even chance being involved with him professionally, but his proven Beta mindset was a liability to his realizing his full potential. His story is an exceptional illustration of this Beta limitation dynamic, but there are far more common examples with everyday men I know, and you probably do too. That limitation may not even be recognizable until such a time that it becomes an impediment to some future opportunity that opens up to you.
From Letting Go of Invisible Friends:
I can’t begin to list the number of otherwise intelligent and ambitious men I’ve known who’ve drastically altered the course of their lives to follow their ONE. Men who’ve changed their majors in college, who’ve selected or switched universities, men who’ve applied for jobs in states they would never have considered, accepted jobs that are sub-standard to their ambitions or qualifications, men who’ve renounced former religions and men who’ve moved across the planet all in an effort to better accommodate an idealized woman with whom they’ve played pseudo-boyfriend with over the course of an LDR; only to find that she wasn’t the person they thought she was and were depressive over the gravity that their decisions played in their lives.
And again from Dream Killers:
It never ceases to amaze me when I talk with these young men in their teens and 20s and they try to impress me with their fierce independence in every other realm of their lives, yet they are the same guys who are so ready to limit that independence and ambition in exchange for dependable female intimacy. They’re far too eager to slap on the handcuffs of monogamy, rather than develop themselves into men of ambition and passion that women naturally want to be associated with.[…]
All of this is limited by a man’s attitude towards the opposite sex. Women are dream killers. Not because they have an agenda to be so, but because men will all too willingly sacrifice their ambitions for a steady supply of pussy and the responsibilities that women attach to this.
Social feminization and the Feminine Imperative both play an active role in curtailing a man’s potential, but more often than not it’s with a willing male participant. It’s important for red pill Men to remember that the Feminine Imperative is more concerned about women’s perpetuated long-term security than it will ever be about Men actualizing their true potential – even when it means his sacrificing that potential to sustain her security, and by doing so makes him progressively less able to sustain it.
Women who read my Appreciation essay and try to wrap their heads around my assertion that women will never appreciate the sacrifices men will readily make to ensure a feminine-primary reality never take this equation into account. They think I’m attacking the sincerity of their commitment by pointing out a less than flattering truth — hypergamy wants the security of knowing (or at least believing) that a woman is paired with the best man her SMV merits, but the fundamental problem is that her hypergamy conflicts with his capacity to develop himself to his best potential.
Turnkey Hypergamy
Hypergamy wants a pre-made Man. If you look at my now infamous comparative SMP curve, one thing you’ll notice is the peak SMV span between the sexes:
Good looking, professionally accomplished, socially matured, has Game, confidence, status, decisive and Just Gets It when it comes to women. Look at any of the commonalities of terms you see in any ‘would like to meet’ portion of a woman’s online dating profile and you’ll begin to understand that hypergamy wants optimization and it wants it now. Because a woman’s capacity to attract her hypergamous ideal decays with every passing year, her urgency demands immediacy with a Man embodying as close to that ideal as possible in the now.
Hypergamy takes a big risk in betting on a man’s future potential to become (or get close to being) her hypergamous ideal, so the preference leans toward seeking out the man who is more made than the next.
The problem with this scenario as you might guess is that women’s SMV depreciates as men’s appreciates — or at least should appreciate. As I outlined above, the same hypergamy that constantly tests and doubts the fitness of a man in seeking its security also limits his potential to consistently satisfy it.
Developing Potential
Just Four Guys (fast becoming my most lurked blog) had an interesting article on Quantifying Sexual Market Value:
Rollo Tomassi at Rational Male has a differing graph of SMV based on his personal estimation. While his evaluation of female SMV with age matches both these graphs quite closely, the same cannot be said of male SMV. However, the difference is that he is measuring potential SMV, rather than actual SMV, and he believes that older men who maintain a proper lifestyle can maximise their SMV to far higher levels than younger men can.
By age 36 the average man has reached his own relative SMV apex. It’s at this phase that his sexual / social / professional appeal has reached maturity. Assuming he’s maximized as much of his potential as possible, it’s at this stage that women’s hypergamous directives will find him the most acceptable for her long-term investment. He’s young enough to retain his physique in better part, but old enough to have attained social and professional maturity.
Thus, what we’re seeing here is the SMV that is actualized by the average male, whereas Rollo’s SMV is what a man could theoretically achieve with good inner game.
One misinterpretation I diligently tried to avoid in estimating men’s relative SMV is in using sex (or the capacity to attract potential sex partners) as an exclusive metric for evaluating men’s overall SMV. Notch count in and of itself is not the benchmark for SMV, rather it is a Man’s actualization of his real potential (of which notch count is an aspect) that determines his SMV. Hypergamy wants you to fulfill your best potential (the better to filter you), but it doesn’t want to assume the risk of protracted personal investment that your fulfilled potential will eventually place your SMV so far above her own that you leave her and her investment is lost.
This then is the conflict between male potential and feminine hypergamy. I detailed this in The Threat:
Nothing is more threatening yet simultaneously attractive to a woman than a man who is aware of his own value to women.
On the blue pill reddit forum I recently read a criticism of my SMP graph, dismissing it by stating that an early to mid-thirties guy was far more likely to look like your average schlub, with an average low wage job than some mature, successful guy, who’s kept himself in shape and maintains some GQ lifestyle. I have to say I’m inclined to agree; most men, average men are men who haven’t realized the potential they could. Whether this lack is due to motivation, the limitations of a feminine socialization, or an inability to come to terms with their blue-pill reality, they never actualize the potential that would make them higher SMV men. The blue pill redditors can’t see that it’s Men’s potential that sets them apart on the SMV scale.
I’ll finish this with a quote from New Yorker in last week’s comment thread:
I think that the primary lesson of Game is that one needs to have a life and purpose that makes a man happy and determined to wake up every morning. Once a man takes control of his life, then a woman becomes an interchangeable part of it like anything else. The road to that state only lies through relentless self-improvement and the shedding of prior limitations. Otherwise, the same brutal cycle repeats itself.
…the preference leans toward seeking out the man who is more made than the next and relentless self-improvement
Exactly!
Life is full of opportunities. What is a car wreck to you, is a parcel full of resellable parts to another.
Men who hamstring their own futures because of unrealistic and romaticised views of the ugly sex are not that important as things go. They’re just wasters of opportunity on the great carousel of missed chances.
Once a man loses the illusion that females have any connection with a good and satisfying life, he can also look calmly at the wasteland created by those who insist otherwise.
I have to say I’m inclined to agree; most men, average men are men who haven’t realized the potential they could. Whether this lack is due to motivation, the limitations of a feminine socialization, or an inability to come to terms with their blue-pill reality, they never actualize the potential that would make them higher SMV men. The blue pill redditors can’t see that it’s Men’s potential that sets them apart on the SMV scale. Exactly. Your SMV charts show the ideal state of male and female SMV, not actual state. A man who stays a Beta schlub and a… Read more »
Rollo,
there any news on your upcoming book yet?
Great post, I hadn’t thought of the fact that it’s in a woman’s interest not to allow a man’s SMV to continue growing far beyond the point where she “caught” him. It’s interesting to also reflect on your graph, since it is an idealization, when the reality is that men sacrifice their potential up and down the board by marrying young or marrying a woman that’s well past her prime. I’ve come to realize recently that women are largely interchangeable. The end game for most is still commitment and monogamy that’ll handicap further personal growth. The desire to find a… Read more »
Once a man loses the illusion that females have any connection with a good and satisfying life, he can also look calmly at the wasteland created by those who insist otherwise.
This, in buckets. I in fact cannot think of one romantic relationship where the woman helped the man reach his potential.
Or, didn’t charge him a take-care-of-my-bastard-kids-and-all-my-debts fee for it.
I think that the primary lesson of Game is that one needs to have a life and purpose that makes a man happy and determined to wake up every morning. Once a man takes control of his life, then a woman becomes an interchangeable part of it like anything else.
This is very relevant:
http://laidnyc.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/man-on-a-mission/
It’s funny you right this column and note that women want a “Made” man now instead of buying low and hoping he builds himself into her hypergamey ideal. Because i was talking to my mom of all people about this the other night. I was saying…”You know back in the day, a girl would find a smart succesful guy in college and bet on him to become something of a man. It was almost like race horses. You see a young one and you buy it and hope he wins the triple crown….. And men got something out of this… Read more »
So basically what this article is saying in a more Video game like associated term that I came up with is: “Untangled leashes” Basically, a Man is leashed to this world. Whether it be by his job, belief, morals, age etc. We as men are chained down to this world. There is no escaping to Mars or The Moon to live. We are here. Leashed an chained up. Same as women but, being just because they are women they have more freedom in a lot of certain areas. Especially during youth and if they’re SMV has hit the Genetic Lottery.… Read more »
Here’s a man who finally actualized his potential and might finally be aware of his own value (much to Miley’s chagrin)
http://coed.com/2013/09/18/eiza-gonzalez-sexiest-pics/#photo=1
Another great post. My only problem with this perspective is its applicability to a more traditional scenario where women actually do capitalize on their youth and beauty by marrying very young, to younger men. In such a scenario, the women are gambling to a much greater degree, marrying men decades before they’ve had time to build up to their potential. If, hypothetically, the vast majority of women in America started locking in good mates in their very early 20s, would hypergamy simply flare up less and allow the men to reach greater potential? Is there a natural suppression to hypergamy… Read more »
@redpillsetmefree
Hollywood fiction has stories that match this. The Netflix series “House of Cards” (American version) has exactly this scenario between the characters played by Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright.
If a woman places limitless expectations on her man, yet directly sabotages his efforts to meet her expectations, that sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unless he can overcome the drags she places on his achievement, forever, then it is inevitable that someday Atlas will shrug and she will hate him for shrugging. What are the alternatives? – Avoid marriage. – The wife must temper her expectations and reach a place of contentment/satisfaction. Unfortunately, modern women are entitled and selfish. Too much power and too little consequences corrupts decision making. Any expectations he holds her to are usually met with indignation… Read more »
@donalgraeme Exactly. Your SMV charts show the ideal state of male and female SMV, not actual state. I believe in Rollo’s original post with that graph, he describes those plots as “normalized” potential to the individual. This means that the numbers on the plot when referenced to any individual just represents their maximum possible for that age. You can be a super wealthy 15-year-old boy with fantastic pedigree, but you’ll still be more valuable in your 30s than at 15, and your value with age will likely still follow that plot. Likewise, you can be a fantastically feminine, in-shape and… Read more »
Thanks for the article Rollo. It provides me with a new insight into my ex-wife’s behavior. I continued to improve myself, and after a certain point of improvement, she became a hindrance & discouraged any further self-improvement. Up to about 30, she was all for me going to school & doing the best I could in the military. After my second tour (30ish), I was looking at a challenging but rewarding path in the military. She actively campaigned against it. Had I done so, my SMV would have shot up, while hers declined due to age. I took the dull… Read more »
I would term this something like husband-goggles, but that sounds kind of silly. You would term it as simply hypergamy satisfied. When hypergamy is satisfied, she has the yacht already and while there might be a bigger one nearby, beyond noticing the yacht, she doesn’t care. would hypergamy simply flare up less and allow the men to reach greater potential? Yes, but the point of a wife isn’t for her to allow her man to reach greater potential, it is to help him reach his highest level. It is easier for a wife to do this when her hypergamy is… Read more »
A good read. A lot to unpack in this post, as usual. First, it is definitely fair to say that the women’s SMV curve is a lot simpler than the men’s curve, because women generally proceed along the same path as they age. On the other hand, I think it could be very tough to rank women between say 18 and 24–on the one hand, 18 has more years left before the wall, while, on the other hand, 24 is still peak nubility and could potentially be more ready for a relationship (if one were so inclined)… maybe for pure… Read more »
It would also be interesting to see your point of view on the 35 to 50 year old woman, that after marrying, staying home to raise kids, now finds herself not quite at the empty next stage, but kids need her less and less each day – and she is trying to fill a void. The husband has provided for her, but in typical style, has probably less interest in her also. What do they do? Fill their feelings of emptiness with trolling FaceBook/Tumblr/Twitter for validation? Maybe get some interest from “men”? Possibly look to upgrade or side-grade to a… Read more »
I have experienced this in my own marriage. I was once an aspiring novelist, and early in our relationship and marriage my wife was supportive and encouraging. That support slowly faded and transformed into jealousy. “I need you to pay more attention to me and less to your writing.” Never mind that the fucking novel I was trying to get published was dedicated to her – it was “what have you done for me lately.” Instant gratification, with no patience for the trial and error and struggle of real improvement and accomplishment. Like you said, Rollo: I want it NOW.… Read more »
@tin man
Bingo. Instead of appreciating and cherishing all you’ve accomplished together, it is the old standby “What have you done for me lately?”
Timely post. This is the theory and what I encountered last weekend illustrates the practical application. Last Saturday, I went to see the Mayweather fight with a buddy of mine at a bar. A guy next to me started commenting on how Canelo was being “outtechniqued” by Mayweather. I agreed and started small talking. He was telling me that he had just been transferred to Chicago to be a store manager at a Target. He said he loved the city and the diversity. Once one of the rounds was over, a gorgeous blond model with delicious breasts walked across the… Read more »
My earlier comment is directly related to my own experiences – but here’s the rub – I don’t blame my (x)wife. Sure I got angry with the situation and how it all went down, but once I started reading and gaining more knowledge, I realized what had happened was that I quit being true to myself. I gave up on my “mission” – my wants and desires. During the last couple years of our marriage, she asked this question over a thousand times “What do you want?” — and I never had a real answer. I was so conditioned to… Read more »
Great article. As alphas we take this shit for granted, but many a beta gets derailed by steady pussy. It’s also a great way to tell real alphas from faux alphas like Minter. See how willing they are to settle for dream killers.
Alright, I have a completely separate comment from my previous one. I sense a lot of hostility toward beta-ness in this post and I’m not sure if it’s entirely warranted. Take away the feminazi type guys who are terrible to interract with and those who are obsessed with white knighting. There are lots of beta guys who are actually great to interract with (and many natural alphas who aren’t because they really are a-holes). There are tons of really successful guys who could be characterized as beta with respect to women. A smart beta realizes he gets value from being… Read more »
@Donttreadonmatt
“Bingo. Instead of appreciating and cherishing all you’ve accomplished together, it is the old standby “What have you done for me lately?”
HaHa…when I read that, I thought it’s like living with the biggest prick of a Sales Manager 24×7 – they guy that pushes, not to make you better and succeed, but the one that is only looking at how you are (or aren’t) making him money.
rollo…you the same dude from TBL? shoot me an email (fig you can get it via the WP dashboard)
[TBL?]
@Tin Man
When reading your comment about being asked “What do you want?” I thought “I want to live out in the woods in a log cabin” and then thought about the bar scene from Se7en:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=snxgxpVyt6Y&feature=c4-feed-u
Morgan Freeman is the red pill man, Brad Pitt is the blue pill man. And we all know how horribly it ended for Pitt’s character.
Way off topic….has anyone had the chance to read this article…interesting that it’s in Business Insider…don’t really know what to think of it and it will take much longer to dig through the comments…
Inside Red Pill, The Weird New Cult For Men Who Don’t Understand Women by DYLAN LOVE SEP. 15, 2013, 8:06 AM
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-red-pill-reddit-2013-8#ixzz2fMuZmJmO
@Stingray
By what mechanism is hypergamy satisfied through a woman marrying while young (and valuable) to a younger (likely lower-value) man? I can’t see it.
@Tin Man
Didn’t your mother ever beg you for grandkids?
That’s what older mothers do, they beg for grandchildren ASAP.
“Women are dream killers.”
Tolstoy, War and Peace: “Never marry…”
@Jeremy Hypergamy would probably never truly be satisfied, but picture a woman at a college known for a large wealthy population with a boyfriend/soon to be fiance with family ties to be in line to a high paying job. Or with a major leading to a high paying job. There could still be the “if things don’t go as planned…” gremlin that could show up on her shoulder, but she’d hear a louder cha-ching that would drown out the usual thoughts of waiting to see until she’s in her 30s. I got into a conversation with a woman one time… Read more »
One dude I was helping swallow the red pill and start learning game, told me he wish he wasn’t in med school…he didn’t like it or want to do it, but he thought being a doctor would mean he would be able to find a wife and surprise surprise he hasn’t been laid or been on dates in years despite working to become a doctor. When he started realizing he could just go out and talk to girls, but he was too busy studying in school to go out enough to get good, he was devastated. He realized he had… Read more »
I think there is a tendency of guys who aren’t game aware..or even those who are to morph towards the path of least resistance: succumbing to femi-centric pressures to be a “nice guy”. I’m struggling with this all the time. Am now grappling with whether to reply to shit-tests, aloofness, distancing, bitchiness or how to keep my cool and focus on my own stuff. I think one “aha” moment was talking to a family member who separated from his wife. He claims he was “abused” for 15 years. He is positioning himself as some sort of victim and wallowing in… Read more »
My wife’s favorite lines were “you work too much” and “most people work less and spend more time with their families”. Of course, when I started my own company, she flipped out and started demanding “security”. Coming home every day was like going into a war zone. The woman had anointed herself the protector of “family stability” and felt that she was within her right to help determine what I did with my career. After this persisted for 2 years I decided that I had to decide whether my life would be defined by a partnership with someone who obviously… Read more »
I’ve suffered from this damn near my entire life. I had to potential to excel in quite a few areas, but the Beta-male mindset of not wanting to step out to the plate fucked me over in a grand way. And the guys who are out there with the Alpha’s persona are usually the one without potential.
@New Yorker In my marriage, I got the whole yo-yo thing…first it was “”you’re gone too much…” then I stop traveling so much, do more work from home and it was “are you sure you don’t need to be there more, you don’t want to mess things up…”. And the one I loved was “you took the safe route, why don’t you take more chances…” then when a chance is taken “…don’t you think you’re taking a big risk…”. And on last one “…I just want me and kids to be as important to you as your job…” Which just… Read more »
The articles on this blog are generally well-written, and surprisingly elicit some equally well crafted comments and replies, but I’m very curious to know a couple of fundamentally important things: 1) who is Rollo—the “About” page is practically useless; and 2) where’s the data? I’m a scientist and I have a keen interest in western cultural conceptions of relationships; not because that’s what I study, since it’s not, but because I’m in an ‘LTR’ so I have a vested interest. Part of being a good scientist is a little thing called ‘source criticism’ and without any kind of bibliography that… Read more »
The flip side of ’30 year old schlub’ is how there are plenty of fat, frumpy 18-24 year old girls wasting their potential. It takes work for anyone to have a high smv, a fact girls often ignore.
@Chris Carleton 1) who is Rollo Totally irrelevant lol What he says and how well it gels with reality and the experience of other men is important, not who he is. It doesn’t matter if the person telling you 2 + 2 = 4 is a crackhead on the street or the CEO of a billion dollar business, it doesn’t change what 2 + 2 equals. 2) where’s the data? In the field. Go out and see it for yourself like the rest of us. 😉 But since you won’t, here are over 19,000 Field Reports that each contain from… Read more »
I’m not sure which fallacy to invoke first on your first argument. But, I’ll try to briefly show you what I mean. In order to buy your pitch the way you phrased it regarding the validity of knowledge irrespective of its source, the knowledge has to be 1) self-evident, 2) already established, or readily and objectively verifiable. As far as I can tell, the information in this [opinion] piece qualifies as none of those. So, it’s pretty inappropriate to liken it to mathematics, which does have all of those traits. As far as the data are concerned (the ‘field reports),… Read more »
There were data gathered from OkCupid that pretty much matched Rollo’s SMV chart.
The scientist might find data in his own life.
I’m a water cannon marksman.
Andrew-“The flip side of ’30 year old schlub’ is how there are plenty of fat, frumpy 18-24 year old girls wasting their potential. It takes work for anyone to have a high smv, a fact girls often ignore.” I don’t think they ignore it. I think the effort is what they can’t stand. The effort to change what you think and should like seems that they find much easier. Which is funny because the former is actually easier and more productive. And would end up being more satisfying to them. The latest I’ve been hearing is “hey, I’m built just… Read more »
Chris, I’m a connector of dots. If you feel that one dot doesn’t connect to another as I’ve explained, please, tell me, tell the manosphere, why you don’t think so. That’s what open discourse and a marketplace of ideas is about. Heartiste is more of a statistician than I am, and every time he posts a scientific study reinforcing his perspective there’s a gallery of critics ready to tell him his study is flawed. It’s the nature of the subject. If you take issue or have a countervailing take on something, please, bring it up here. You’re a credentialist. If… Read more »
Hi Rollo, Thanks for the reply. I hope people aren’t reading my comments as “disrespectful”, but in no legitimate knowledge generation process can “assertions” be taken for anything more than that. Without objective evidence, it’s all pretty worthless—well, perhaps not worthless. They incite discussion and can be a nexus for generating hypotheses, but I try to avoid them myself. That said, hypotheses must be tested. Anyhow, I digress. I wouldn’t consider myself to be a “credentialist”. There are two points to make here: 1) in the absence of hard data and analysis or references to the same we’re left with… Read more »
@Chris Experimentally testable assertions are never worthless. I invite you to spend a night practicing game in a social situation and then come back here and tell me that what is asserted here is not at the very least testable, if not plausibly true. There is no known shareable method, save a video-camera watching your every move that is invisible, of collecting such data. Fortunately for the curious, there’s numerous social situations in which to practice game and test the assertions. Moreover, no social scientist in the world would ever receive a lick of funding for attempting to demonstrate the… Read more »
@ Chris Carleton Chris wrote: “I’m not sure which fallacy to invoke first on your first argument. But, I’ll try to briefly show you what I mean. In order to buy your pitch the way you phrased it regarding the validity of knowledge irrespective of its source, the knowledge has to be 1) self-evident, 2) already established, or readily and objectively verifiable.” What Rollo said, and furthermore: The information presented here, and on other preeminent manosphere blogs, such as (in addition to Heartiste, mentioned above) no-maam.blogspot.com, and dalrock.wordpress.com (which contains more links of the kind that interest you), are precisely… Read more »
The links did not show up properly, so I am going to repeat this one:
http://no-maam.blogspot.com/
Rob Fedders has been involved since the very beginning, and this, his final blog, contains an amazing wealth of information, both in the center section and in the sidebar.
@eon Thanks for the link. Your reply was lengthy, but I have to object to this: ““assertions” can indeed constitute proof” It’s not possible. This is definitely an absurdity. Evidence supports assertions, not the other way around. If there is a preponderance of evidence for any aspect of this very complicated subject then fine, but an assertion does not constitute evidence. Also, “feminist academia refuses to consider such topics.” is certainly a bold, sweeping statement that I think is incorrect. I’ll try to dig out the papers I’m thinking of, but I’m confident that the affect of the feminist movement… Read more »
Chris said: “… I have to object to this: “ “assertions” can indeed constitute proof. It’s not possible. This is definitely an absurdity. Evidence supports assertions, not the other way around. If there is a preponderance of evidence for any aspect of this very complicated subject then fine, but an assertion does not constitute evidence.” Yeah, that is why I put quotation marks around your term, to indicate that I was using it in a nonstandard way, to tie what I was saying to how you had approached it above. I doubt that any sincere person was confused by how… Read more »
@ Chris Chris, Reading your comments, I sense a smug superiority of someone who has never been exposed to the elements. It is also the attitude of someone who believes that he is the only “elite” person in the group. Whatever your credentials, I can assure you that there are people on this forum who would help you find your modesty if we had to compare credentials. With that said, what Rollo talks about easily falls into the self-evident category. Having discussed this issue among many men, I have yet to hear anyone object on any other grounds except that… Read more »
By what medium would such “good data” be collected and recorded?
Those are not my words.
It doesn’t matter that the man behind author name ‘Rollo Tomassi” is a lot like Peter Diamandis.THE MATTRESS POLICE CHRIS CARLETON® is afraid he has to pull rank on @Rollo Tomassi
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/onBJkfrQups&w=640&h=360]
Correction-Chris actually said that he hasn’t had much trouble with women. Not that has hasn’t had any. So maybe looking at the trouble that he has had,(which he has had trouble because he said so) he can start there for his data. The study of anthropology involves studying and making assertions on past (dead, no longer available to interview for concrete data) cultures and people. Many conclusions in that realm are considered valid. Chris to Eon-“Your reply was lengthy… Found that amusing. If the book gets enough notice, I can see this playing out exactly on a talk show somewhere.… Read more »
@ Chris I never said that asking for evidence was disingenuous and irrelevant. What I said was: You are not the first person here to “not want to see the dots connected”, and so your arguments become visible as repetitive, disingenuous and irrelevant. You said: Also, “feminist academia refuses to consider such topics.” is certainly a bold, sweeping statement that I think is incorrect. I’ll try to dig out the papers I’m thinking of, but I’m confident that the affect of the feminist movement on men in society is being looked at, though as you say it’s just picking up… Read more »
@Chris, I understand your want for empirical data, but I don’t think you’ve been involved in the manosphere long enough to know where to look for it. As has been mentioned Dalrock and Heartiste (mostly) are statisticians, but did you read the article I linked in my post? http://www.justfourguys.com/quantifying-sexual-market-value/ It may take a bit of reading for you but I also link the work of Dr. Martie Hasselton on my side bar: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/papers/ You might also Google Dr. Warren Farrell. He and Hasselton are references for me. As I stated above though, I expect you’ll find some flaws with the… Read more »
Hi Rollo, Thanks, that’s exactly what I wanted. I’ll get back to you after I’ve read those. I’m not exactly sure about what this means: “ego-investments you hold and have been condition for about gender and women” But, I can say that I’m a pretty objective researcher and compelling arguments supported by good data *should* convince me. Part of being a skeptic, in my opinion, is a willingness to change ones mind in light of new evidence. On a related note, I’ve found one of the references I was hoping to share. Here’s the citation: Kaplan et al. 2010 Learning,… Read more »
I’ve spent too many years in marketing and sales (along with a stint in market research) to believe that data does anything but help some people sleep better at night. Anyone that has more than 10 years of experience, and are aware of what’s going on around them, will know that most of what is presented in the Manosphere is mostly true – just like stats, data, and research studies – there will be outliers, events that don’t represent the norm, but they are the exception, not the rule. Here’s my assertion…a single person may or may not act in… Read more »
For issues to do with credentialism, please see my earlier arguments. It’s an issue of source criticism and understanding—note that people aren’t allowed to publish anonymously in academia and for very good reasons. @WaterCannonBoy I have minor point of contention with this: “The study of anthropology involves studying and making assertions on past (dead, no longer available to interview for concrete data) cultures and people. Many conclusions in that realm are considered valid.” Anthropologists in NA follow, typically, a four-field approach, only one of which deals with “dead” cultures and people, with the exception that a grey area is arising… Read more »
Chris,
This is a great forum for discussion, irrespective of views. If you disagree with anything written, please, advocate what you think is a plausible alternative explanation of behavior. We are unlikely to approach the burden of proof that an academic journal would require….but if every engineer, businessman or explorer needed that burden of proof then we would likely still be in the stone age.
“the knowledge has to be 1) self-evident, 2) already established, or readily and objectively verifiable” The knowledge is both of those…to people who go out and socially apply game regularly, instead of sitting inside trying to get other people to Google data for you. You could ask me for scientific data papers determining that the sun is bright…or you could just open a fucking window and look outside like the rest of us lol It’s Saturday. Go out tonight and watch the sexual marketplace in action. Even better: participate in it. Even better: do that every night for a few… Read more »
@Chris The mistake your making with Rollo is the same one that a lot of my haters in the Manosphere make about me because I post a lot of Tyler PUA videos: you’re assuming that Rollo is spouting his own personal theories from a mountain-top and the rest of us are just standing below in a cult-like fashion saying “yes Rollo, if you say it, then it’s true! Go forth and spread the word everyone, our leader has blessed us with his guidance!” People think that’s how Tyler’s “cult” works too. What those people, and yourself, don’t grasp is that… Read more »
Jeremy,
I apologize for not responding to your comment yet. I’m working on it, but I just haven’t had the time to write it up yet. I hope to get back to you soon.
@YaReally…
Quick question and off topic (sorry Rollo) — just curious what you’re thoughts are on someone older (I’m 52) and wondering if age is a barrier and possibly where I could get advice geared towards a older guy. Or maybe just tell me – it doesn’t matter. Just curious…thanks.
I just wanted to mention that there is no reason for sincere readers to hesitate about participating in the discussions here. Comments without an agenda are discussed on their merits, sincere newcomers are guided carefully, and honest questions are never treated as stupid. However, an arrogant and disparaging approach that resembles historical interactions with feminists tends to meet with little tolerance. If Chris had done something like: 1) approach with respect and a bit of humility (especially since Rollo has put a great deal of time and intelligent thought into helping men) 2) acknowledge that a) creating explanatory models using… Read more »
@Tin Man
Sept 21rst 2013
Not Rollo… but may God Bless him, and, since I am 56 let me say that age is not yet a barrier , the rules described here, still apply.
@Phillip
Thanks…I’ve learned a bunch, but have a ways to go. Most of what I’ve learned over the few years is that I don’t want to be married – but then again, I’ve got kids – and trying to inpart as much of this knowledge as possible to them – but I’m ready to start having fun with woman again – not get into a relationship – fun and frolic only. Any advice is always welcome from any of the gentlemen here.
[…] Tomassi examines the problem of conflicting male and female SMV in the context of hypergamy in The Curse of Potential. He also warns against making Appeals to Reason to […]
@Chris Scientific studies are not the be all end all, in that they’re always conducted by people, and all people have bias (although the best studies try to minimize this). Methodology, funding, etc, all play a role in the outcome. However, they can be and are more often than not, very useful depending on context. I’ve had various medical conditions that I couldn’t find answers to for many years. I went to numerous doctors and read countless “studies.” I was able to alleviate my issues based on “anecdotal evidence” I read about through various online forums/message boards. I had to… Read more »
[…] had an interesting piece up this week entitled The Curse of Potential in which he discusses how many men today are not meeting their full potential due to the fact that […]
@ Jeremy,
My response to your question is here.
Given it’s length it made more sense to post it there.
SSM is having a meltdown.
@ TinMan
Age is not irrelevant, but it only matters if she’s looking for a beast of burden. Otherwise you play the temporary comfort, the kindly father figure, the charming older man, the sage. Think Bhagwan Sri Ranjeesh. In my case lucky genetics mean I can still pass about 10 years below my physical, but being a ‘free spirit’ is where the attraction lies.
It’s never a coincidence that women’s “choices” in men start to change significantly from the age of 23 to 25 – as shown on the SMP Curve when their sexual market value commences descent mode. Cute and hot women will most signify this trend, as their once options of good-looking men are taken to one side for a perhaps lesser looking man. They often cloud this reality with reasons along the lines of preferring other metrics – personality, charisma, loyalty, etc – to justify their path, but the stronger truth is their egoism subconsciously drawing them away from a man… Read more »
@ManlyMan
What?
For a blog not “affiliated” with red pill ‘truth’ or the manosphere she sure writes a lot of about both.
She should just close all comments and go full Walsh.
SSM isn’t a bad woman or anything. She has actual good intentions. People shouldn’t hold a lady up to a man’s standards.
That’s the real issue. Men shouldn’t be looking for advice from women. Susan Walsh and SSM do the best with what they have but they inherently limited. Women should be the ones that hang out there not guys.
Reading some of the comments, I’m losing respect for SSM with almost everything she writes at this point. Lots of assertions about the manosphere without evidence, generalizations as points, accusations if intellectual dishonesty without evidence. Frankly, I think it’s her that is having a problem with having the core part of her FI questioned. She wants to believe in the virtue of herself and women as a baseline, but she completely ignores all the hard work she put into becoming a “virtuous” woman. It’s like she forgets all the time she spent listening to sermons from preachers and dealing with… Read more »
Great Man of Higher Knowledge, Grander Education Than You His Majesty Chris Carleton® writes: I’m not really that interested in whether “Game”, as a behavioural prescription, yields desired results. I’m only interested in the theoretical underpinnings of Market Sex Value and Rollo’s Market Sex Potential. In other words, “I’m interested in THEORY rather than truth that actually applies to real life since this is a game to me.” Some are into fantasy football, some are into ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and others are into watching sports on television (instead of participating in getting in shape themselves). Being only interested in… Read more »
Mr. Carleton, I have been dealing with these chuckleheads and their inane epistemologies for over two years now, and I associate myself 100% with your remarks. There is nothing to be done, do yourself a favor and waste no more of your time. You very politely begged to differ, and the zealots around here treated you like you came in bad faith, as though you were stupid and/or malicious. Rest assured, that paranoia is on them. You also charitably demonstrated that this collection of ideologues, amateurs, and dilettantes are simply not ready for prime time. They treat scrutiny like apostasy,… Read more »
Thanks for the angry, aggressive, ad hom., diatribe, @Live Fearless (Sam). I think I’ve been one of the few participants in this often overly aggressive back-and-forth that hasn’t resorted to cheap debate tactics like false dichotomy and ad hom’ing. Generally, I wouldn’t even dignify such comments with a reply, but in this case you seem to be really angry about what’s been written, if I can be forgiven for taking the liberty of reading between the lines. For someone whose own webpage describes him as eloquent, however, I find the second paragraph in your assault to be largely uninterpretable. Anyhow,… Read more »
Chris- The problem with your stance is that many men have been hurt in some cases severely by the current system of male/female relations. So for you to enjoy this stuff as an “intellectual exercise” would be offensive in the extreme to those men.
@Matt
Sounds reasonable to me. I suspect I have already spent too much time trying to defend or explain myself—after all, there’s only about 1000 readings on my desk and a dissertation to finish so I’m sure my supervisor would strongly agree that I should just get back to work already!
I also definitely agree that there are highly interesting nuggets in these posts and I’ll have to work on those when I get time.
C
@Matt I think you’re projecting your own extreme Catholic zealotry on us. @Chris This whole thing is getting hot women to drop their panties and a guide to not being a some woman’s bitch. Do we really need double blind studies to tell that the concepts here are true especially when we see it play out in real life and replicated by thousands upon thousands of men? I mean do you demand proof that water is wet? In today’s crazy society I wouldn’t be surprised if such a study was commissioned and the conclusions we were told was that water… Read more »
Our dimwitted Jesuit Matt King writes:
“You very politely begged to differ, and the zealots around here treated you like you came in bad faith, as though you were stupid and/or malicious. Rest assured, that paranoia is on them.”
OK guys. Who wants a $10 bill for every time Matt King has responded this way to someone who politely disagreed with his sermonizing?
I agree, letting the women “love” you for your power and money, rather than your true charme and personality is very “beta”, someway.
The responses to Chris do seem a little hostile. And him being the scientist, I can see where his desire to see analytical data or some sort of testable, controlled situation. However, some knowledge comes from experiencing, and that knowledge can be taken as truthful. Like the person who can read body language and facial expressions doesn’t need to have somebody actually measure a millimeter raise of an eyebrow, a slight increase in heart rate, or whether the pupils sightly dilated. This isn’t a scientific study, no scientific method. None of the blog entries I’ve read are. They came from… Read more »
Jesuit Pope Francis told the Catholic publication, La Civilta Cattolica that the Catholic Church shouldn’t be “obsessed” with preaching about gay marriage.
Was that flirting?
They question raised by @Chris is valid…where’s the science, where’s the research? Who are the sources? Can they be vetted? And, what I would say, and this is without hostility at all — get on your keyboard and start searching — “man up” and do what we do, take your own action. If there is no research and you believe it is both valid and necessary, then do it yourself. My assumption, because I don’t know your motivation, is that you are more interested in reading something, than doing something. And that’s where I would call you out – and… Read more »
A scientific approach to analyzing human behaviour is very difficult. Even more so because once you figure something out and publish about it, the theory will not apply anymore because humans learn and adapt. Primal behaviours that we have no control over can be mapped a bit better, but our intellectual forebrain is powerful and often corrects these primal behaviourisms. This causes these studies to be non-reproducable, it is an inherent quality. And thus alpha studies are seen as non-scientific by many beta studies scholars. As for all empirical evidence to hold someone else needs to be able to reproduce… Read more »
It seems to me that a good place to start data type research would be with studies on the great apes and their social interactions, specifically those wired socially like us (chimps and gorillas, but not bonobos nor orangutangs). For example, there are numerous observations of female gorillas using emotional manipulation and trickery on males in order to achieve goals, since they are too weak to affect change through force. There are little poltics there, whereas for humans it’s all about politics. The trouble with human sociological studies is that they are hardly a science to begin with. They could… Read more »
@ThomasGray said: “Even more so because once you figure something out and publish about it, the theory will not apply anymore because humans learn and adapt. Primal behaviours that we have no control over can be mapped a bit better, but our intellectual forebrain is powerful and often corrects these primal behaviourisms. This causes these studies to be non-reproducable, it is an inherent quality. And thus alpha studies are seen as non-scientific by many beta studies scholars. As for all empirical evidence to hold someone else needs to be able to reproduce it under the same circumstances.” But, there are… Read more »
Hi Rollo and everybody else!
Now that you are talking about Game and science, I thought that maybe somebody would find this list of relationship studies (compiled by me) interesting: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hNUTHl_MGrb2oBNz0xweRwwg7Mku641gG7jQ_v936UQ/edit (more than 250+ study links)
I used to read Manosphere blogs very actively, but at some point I thought that it’d be interesting to see whether the scientific papers also support the viewpoints expressed here. It was quite surprising to me that, actually, quite many papers tend to support the opinions I’ve seen on this blog and others…
Don’t get caught up responding to Chris any more than you would talking to a chick who shows up here and insists that we’re all a bunch of misogynists. Show me the hard data in history. Show me the double-blind, placebo-controlled studies in history. What’s that you say, there are none? Well damn, the conclusion one is forced to reach is that it’s impossible to know anything about history. There’s a useful question lurking here, but it’s not the one that Chris is asking. Don’t project it onto what he’s said so far. That question is: why should I believe… Read more »
I think it’s important to bear in mind that red pill awareness is the result of an aggregate of male experience from a global consortium of men, who before the rise of the internet and digital communication never had the opportunity to collect in one place. If one were to be a scientific ‘expert’ on the red pill, he would need to be a sociologist, psychologist, biologist, endocrinologist, historian, evolutionary specialist, archeologist, etc. Yes, there are plenty of scientific studies that reinforce red pill theory, but it’s important to remember that no one guy is an expert on what is… Read more »
@Archon
“Finally: wtf do you care whether anyone else believes you? Let’s go be men.”
Amen Brother. We don’t need no stinkin’ data to prove nothin’ to us. There are only two types – those that do and those that don’t. Regardless of what the “doing” is.
Thanks for the google docs link VH. I’m looking over that now and it looks like you’ve compiled a great resource.
If Aunt Giggles was a doll, when squeezed it it would say “Where’s the data?”
That was before she sold the rights of HUS to the Huffington Post. Now it’s just 17 magazine for aging spinsters.
“Behind every successful man is a woman.”
Finally, we can put that misconception to rest. The truth is that he was “caught” when his SMV was at an optimum.
Thanks, Rollo.
[…] to VH for compiling and sharing this google […]
Thanks for doing all that work xsplat. Like I said, the “science” is there if you want to run it down. I may reference individual studies on a by topic basis (such as Martie Hasselton’s research) such as my post on Menstruation: http://therationalmale.com/2012/09/25/your-friend-menstruation/ But for most people those studies are just ancillary points to the dots I’m connecting from that data. Menstruation is a fact, women’s propensity to search out Alpha seed in a woman’s proliferative phase in favor of comfortable Beta providership and security during her down phase is a fact, what I propose men do about those facts… Read more »
It’s also important to remember that some of our most deeply held beliefs simply have to be take on faith. Ask Matt King about that. After all, no one can scientifically prove the existence of a supernatural being who created the earth and the heavens. Yet Matt bases his entire belief system on the notion that such a being DOES exist. Nonetheless he still swaggers onto this site and mocks Rollo and the commentariat for believing in “Game” and the Red Pill et al. He treats those beliefs as childish because there is not — in Matt’s mind, anyway —… Read more »
I repeat my question to Chris and restate it for anyone/everyone.
If you were to go and collect field data for the expressed purpose of proving or disproving red-pill/game theory, what form would that data take? All encounters are open to subjective interpretation and no variables can possibly be controlled.
I submit it is impossible to gather hard data on such a subject.
I tend to think that nothing is certain, but predictions can be made based on patterns. As I get older, I find that many things we are asked to accept on faith, I have experienced to be true. So, ultimately, “faith” comes from experience: that of those who came before us. In my mind, its a self-generating loop. A wise person tells a younger person to accept their wisdom based on faith. If they can live a good life by adhering to that wisdom, they pass their faith on and outside experience never enters the picture. They can learn through… Read more »
why are all you guys dissing chris? he’s the world’s foremost pickup scientist.