Discussion on another forum about the old "aplha' chesnut which was basically the scientific definition from wikipedia.

It got me thinking and I posted the following reply, which I hadn't ever thought out properly until I wrote it. Now that I have, I'd like to hear what some of the more natural, confidence and self-improvement crowd on here think of it. Strongly suspect I'll be shouted down on the other forum.

"Agree fully with Luke Blue Rain here,

The notion of ‘Alpha’ in the PUA community is very much overstated and points toward a wider problem with a lot of the material.

There is so much intellectually weak backwards rationalizing and concept transfer that goes on – or to put it more concisely : BAD SCIENCE.

PUA is a humanist discipline, it pulls its information from psychology, anthropology, sociology, evolutionary theory and (less often) quantum physics. It is very rare indeed that any of the principles that are used in PUA are ever fully understood or fully relevant. They are largely used by people who have figured out how to be good with women and wish to over-intellectualize the process after the fact – there is nothing wrong with this but it does lead to some rather simplistic notions of what constitutes ‘creating attraction’.

For example, the logic might run something like:

1) From an evolutionary perspective women seek men who can provide them with healthy offspring – traditionally this role would have been filled by ALPHA males, characterized by strength, power, dominance, overt leadership and the respect of the group.

THEREFORE:

Replicating these qualities is essential in success within PUA.

However,

1a) Although those qualities are attractive to a degree, they have to be modulated through aeons of sociological development and evolution, society no longer necessarily values these qualities over a much deeper and more complex mix that needs to include empathy, humour, irony, a sense of the absurd, a knowledge and awareness of cultural symbols and an ability to manipulate them at the right times – these are just a few examples.


Ever gone into set and ended up feeling ‘over aggressive’ ‘negged too hard’ ‘ amoged by someone less dominant’?

This is why – you HAVE been alpha, but your notion of what ALPHA means is so simplistic as to render you in a beta role almost immediately. You won at your game – but no one else was playing.

THIS IS NOT PARTICULAR TO THE PUA COMMUNITY,

It is also at the heart of a lot of nonsense ‘self help’ fads (sometimes the similarities to pua are depressing). Take for example, the notion of ‘positive thinking’ ‘ power of attraction’ ‘ the body as energy’ and all of the rest of that stuff.

It is argued that the basis for this is scientific. And to an extent it is, but they human mind seems to have a need to push the scientific into the realm of the human. ‘The power of attraction’ is true, BUT ONLY WHEN REALTED TO THE BEHAIVOUR OF ELECTRONS AND MOLECULES AS OBSERVED IN A SPECFIC DATA ENVIRONMENT – it does not apply to wealth, sex or your family life, infact research shows that better outcomes actually arise from negative thinking… i.e. What will my life be like if I don’t change job/partner etc.. rather than visualizing yourself in an imagined positive future (this can lead to living in a dream-life, full of fantasy but devoid of action)

So, in short, it is a lot more complicated than the material will have you believe, but on the other hand it is based on a solid simplicity that can only be accessed through the simple gestures that in themselves contain so much data as to be impossible to summarise.

Just say hello to her, smile, have confidence in who and what you are – it doesn’t make you beta, it doesn’t make you an AFC, it just means you are well on your way to having positive relationships.

Until the next e-book is published of course ….. "

a few points I'll make.

the positive thing I agree with. When I worked in sales I got really pissed off cos it seemed every time I listened to the coaches my sales got worse.

they were obsessed with the whole positive thing. I actually sound I got better sales saying you'll end up paying more with (competitor). than you''ll pay less with us.

In the 48 laws of power it says that powerful people avoid conflict and instead stab them in the back or get someone else to kill them. So being confrontational makes you look like a loser.

I think that sales bit shows the fear of loss is more powerful than the want for gain interesting thought.

I read something relevant yesterday in Rob Yeung's Confidence (which is fairly sane for a self-help book by the way).

If you say to someone, 'let's toss a coin; if you win I'll give you £100 and if I win you give me £100'. Few people play. Apparently most people need a gain twice the size of the loss to become interested.

Hmm, 'heads you get to sleep with me once, tails I get to sleep with you twice'...

One thing that can help you in all aspects of life is this saying.

People like people who are like themselves.

IF you are able to mymic, copy and adapt your personality at the flip of a swith you will be a very seductive person and very sucessful socially.

AJay

Whatever happened to just being yourself....

That is sort of my point, that residing in those who have the confidence to genuinely project who they are is they multitude of complex symbols and signals that the 'science' of much of the PUA material vastly oversimplifies, moving you further away from your core and therefore further away from your ultimate betterment.

We all copy others thats how we learn. So a personailty is a mixture of what that person has percieved and how they have copied it. Obviously nothing is ever copied down to a tee. We are ourselves, if we change a part of our personalities we are still ourselves.

AJay

Yea i strongly believe it depends how you were braught up and your experiances as a child that determines how confident you will be as an adult. However it is still posible to change that as an adult, but you carnt just flip a switch and become confident, you need to take baby steps like learning to play the piano. Your brain will form new connection between neurons which will help you act and be percieved by others as confident.

AJay

You said at the flip of a switch, this isnt learning/growing its just being fake