12 ms·

Bald has been there couple of years ago, that's when I first heard about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c_Yts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c

by elros 5y ago

Bald has been there couple of years ago, that's when I first heard about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c_Yts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c_Yts

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
On thing that really surprised me watching his channel is just how empty all these periphery russian republics appear to be. I understand that there is economic struggle as in many other parts of the world. But I was really surprised by the general lack of actual people against the large swaths of land.
- ajb 5y ago
  Russia's population is half that of the US, in twice the land area
  - enkid 5y ago
    And ~80% of that lives on the ~20% of land in Europe, making the rest of Russia very sparsely populated.
  - brudgers 5y ago
    And a lot of the US is pretty sparsely populated.
  - eigenket 5y ago
    Also the US has five times the population of the UK, and 40 times the area.
    - arethuza 5y ago
      And its not like the UK has a uniform population density internally - we have a greater area of peat bogs than built up areas: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.744440 https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.74...
- yorwba 5y ago
  Most of the planet is sparsely populated: http://www.luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/ http://www.luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/
  - KingMob 5y ago
    And the population of the solar system is heavily concentrated on just one planet.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  Afaik it's either due to climate (too cold or not enough rainfall) or soil not very conducive for farming (which is the case for Siberia). Populations explode in arable areas, which in Russia means mostly the European side.
string 5y ago
Just a friendly heads up: I used to be a huge fan of this YT channel until I saw some pretty damning evidence that the guy is a predatory sex tourist/pick up artist. I really enjoyed the content (the editing is a breath of fresh air on YT), but ultimately unsubbed and stopped watching. I'd encourage others to look into it and make your own judgement, of course.
- mettamage 5y ago
  I know many pick up artists that are in a long-term relationship. The group that call themselves pick up artist is too heterogeneous to describe them as people that have ill intentions. People that don’t know about hackers assign similar ill intentions to hackers, much in the same way as pick up artists. But at HN we know that a hacker (criminal) is not a hacker (curious techie). The same goes for pick up artists (womanizers that are systematic about it with questionable ethics). You have a lot more pick up artists (men not being able to find relationships for years and deciding to fix that problem). Both groups have members in them that do stupid and/or criminal things which is unfortunate.
  - 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
    No dude they are not the same. PUA stuff came out of a deeply misogynist internet subculture with close ties and many overlaps with far right activists, "red pill" violence, and ethnonationalism. Plus it's just inherently manipulative and gross. I know no one on HN likes to hear a value judgement but seriously go take a look. And I'm sure someone will jump in with like "but it's not manipulation just acknowledging reality/it's empowering for shy nerds/whatever" and ok sure sure sure but no.
    - mettamage 5y ago
      > I know no one on HN likes to hear a value judgement I get it. When identity, sex and romance are concerned then emotions in oneself can run high. I definitely see it in my own comments. I feel closely to 3 groups which are: pick up artists, hackers and feminists. I am not alone in this, though definitely not a "majority". Whenever any of them are blanket statement attacked without any nuance, I offer a different perspective. I mostly have this with feminism since the idea of a pick up artist isn't used that often in Europe. > Go take a look. I did: * Double Your Dating (the page on humor is cool, "attraction is not a choice", don't remember anything else) * Juggler Method (learned about disqualification -- aka not taking things too seriously but then more methodically -- and statement of intent -- aka answering "why are you talking to me?" <-- and answering that truthfully and respectfully) * Mystery Method (high level overview, peacocking and getting yourself in a sociable mood, discarded the rest -- no negging, no routines, Mystery Method is tricky, I had to read this very critically since he seems a bit deluded and IMO most people that read this book read it in the wrong way and start to become negging routine people. IMO, not a good thing. When I read this book I followed a course on ethics because being sharp on that subject is required.) * Pickup 101 (lots of playfulness and improv) * RSD (mostly Tim's stuff, which is high energy optimistic positivity, didn't connect with the rest, Tyler seems too "Cartman-like" to me) Communities I've been part of: * Almost all Dutch communities (had friendships with some of the members, mostly spiritual or super down to earth types) * I've been to the 21 Convention in Stockholm (in 2008, which was the time where this was an active thing in my life) That's the stuff I connected with. I read much more stuff that I didn't connect with. Some companies are deeply misogynist, but the participants aren't (well some are). The participants are the majority of the whole culture, a culture that's mostly silent (and a few loud people that then goes on to have all the media portrayals). I've seen a few things happen in people their development path: * Some people become misogynistic while they weren't at first * Some people came in misogynistic and "sharpen their ways" * Some people become spiritual (a subset even celibate), because they realize it's not about finding love and so on * Some people develop a lot of hobbies and start to learn how to enjoy life (I love this group, you can tell they get a lot out of it) * Some people find a relationship * And finally there are some people that are still stuck with their old problem after years I have no numbers, but to insinuate that most pick up artists are misogynistic requires that you've been in the seduction community and spoke to all kinds of people from all walks of life that did not take the center stage and did not appear in the media. Because it's those people that make up the 99% of the culture. > many overlaps with far right activists, "red pill" violence, and ethnonationalism. Another thing: US and EU differ. My perspective is EU, I make no claims about the US since I only know the "media side" from there. And yea, that's not a great side to see. > Plus it's just inherently manipulative and gross. No it's not. Before I did this, I was too serious with people. I still am. Now I am aware of it and can account for that. This means that people have more positive experiences with me. Moreover, it taught me more about empathy from an emotional point of view (through meditation, the most life changing thing I've experienced). Being optimistic, being positive, empathetic and doing meditation all came because I took a few pages from the pick up artist playbook. There's a lot in their playbook, these were the most important things that I took from it. I do agree that there are gross/manipulative ideas in there. I did my best to filter those out. I see a lot of men do that (and unfortunately also a sizeable group that didn't and straight up got culted into some pickup company's philosophy). In other words: it depends, it's more nuanced, it's not inherently anything because reality is more complex than that.
apples_oranges 5y ago
off topic, but people keep mentioning youtubers here in a way that makes me wonder: Hm, should I know that channel? Am I completely out of the loop?
- zmix 5y ago
  Yes, it would be more helpful, if they would not talk about these Youtuber's as they'd be our next door buddies but be a more explicit: The Guy's channel is named "Bald and Bankrupt", he is from the UK and travels a lot, which he documents on Youtube. The link to the video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c_Yts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c_Yts
- TigeriusKirk 5y ago
  I dunno, but I was hoping the comments on the story would offer some insight into the region. But half of them are gossip about some random youtuber who went there once.

by elros 5y ago

Bald has been there couple of years ago, that's when I first heard about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c_Yts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c_Yts

DoingIsLearning 5y ago

On thing that really surprised me watching his channel is just how empty all these periphery russian republics appear to be. I understand that there is economic struggle as in many other parts of the world. But I was really surprised by the general lack of actual people against the large swaths of land.

ajb 5y ago
Russia's population is half that of the US, in twice the land area
- enkid 5y ago
  And ~80% of that lives on the ~20% of land in Europe, making the rest of Russia very sparsely populated.
- brudgers 5y ago
  And a lot of the US is pretty sparsely populated.
- eigenket 5y ago
  Also the US has five times the population of the UK, and 40 times the area.
  - arethuza 5y ago
    And its not like the UK has a uniform population density internally - we have a greater area of peat bogs than built up areas: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.744440 https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/land-cover-atlas-uk-1.74...
yorwba 5y ago
Most of the planet is sparsely populated: http://www.luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/ http://www.luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/
- KingMob 5y ago
  And the population of the solar system is heavily concentrated on just one planet.
burntoutfire 5y ago
Afaik it's either due to climate (too cold or not enough rainfall) or soil not very conducive for farming (which is the case for Siberia). Populations explode in arable areas, which in Russia means mostly the European side.

string 5y ago

Just a friendly heads up: I used to be a huge fan of this YT channel until I saw some pretty damning evidence that the guy is a predatory sex tourist/pick up artist. I really enjoyed the content (the editing is a breath of fresh air on YT), but ultimately unsubbed and stopped watching. I'd encourage others to look into it and make your own judgement, of course.

mettamage 5y ago
I know many pick up artists that are in a long-term relationship. The group that call themselves pick up artist is too heterogeneous to describe them as people that have ill intentions. People that don’t know about hackers assign similar ill intentions to hackers, much in the same way as pick up artists. But at HN we know that a hacker (criminal) is not a hacker (curious techie). The same goes for pick up artists (womanizers that are systematic about it with questionable ethics). You have a lot more pick up artists (men not being able to find relationships for years and deciding to fix that problem). Both groups have members in them that do stupid and/or criminal things which is unfortunate.
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 5y ago
  No dude they are not the same. PUA stuff came out of a deeply misogynist internet subculture with close ties and many overlaps with far right activists, "red pill" violence, and ethnonationalism. Plus it's just inherently manipulative and gross. I know no one on HN likes to hear a value judgement but seriously go take a look. And I'm sure someone will jump in with like "but it's not manipulation just acknowledging reality/it's empowering for shy nerds/whatever" and ok sure sure sure but no.
  - mettamage 5y ago
    > I know no one on HN likes to hear a value judgement I get it. When identity, sex and romance are concerned then emotions in oneself can run high. I definitely see it in my own comments. I feel closely to 3 groups which are: pick up artists, hackers and feminists. I am not alone in this, though definitely not a "majority". Whenever any of them are blanket statement attacked without any nuance, I offer a different perspective. I mostly have this with feminism since the idea of a pick up artist isn't used that often in Europe. > Go take a look. I did: * Double Your Dating (the page on humor is cool, "attraction is not a choice", don't remember anything else) * Juggler Method (learned about disqualification -- aka not taking things too seriously but then more methodically -- and statement of intent -- aka answering "why are you talking to me?" <-- and answering that truthfully and respectfully) * Mystery Method (high level overview, peacocking and getting yourself in a sociable mood, discarded the rest -- no negging, no routines, Mystery Method is tricky, I had to read this very critically since he seems a bit deluded and IMO most people that read this book read it in the wrong way and start to become negging routine people. IMO, not a good thing. When I read this book I followed a course on ethics because being sharp on that subject is required.) * Pickup 101 (lots of playfulness and improv) * RSD (mostly Tim's stuff, which is high energy optimistic positivity, didn't connect with the rest, Tyler seems too "Cartman-like" to me) Communities I've been part of: * Almost all Dutch communities (had friendships with some of the members, mostly spiritual or super down to earth types) * I've been to the 21 Convention in Stockholm (in 2008, which was the time where this was an active thing in my life) That's the stuff I connected with. I read much more stuff that I didn't connect with. Some companies are deeply misogynist, but the participants aren't (well some are). The participants are the majority of the whole culture, a culture that's mostly silent (and a few loud people that then goes on to have all the media portrayals). I've seen a few things happen in people their development path: * Some people become misogynistic while they weren't at first * Some people came in misogynistic and "sharpen their ways" * Some people become spiritual (a subset even celibate), because they realize it's not about finding love and so on * Some people develop a lot of hobbies and start to learn how to enjoy life (I love this group, you can tell they get a lot out of it) * Some people find a relationship * And finally there are some people that are still stuck with their old problem after years I have no numbers, but to insinuate that most pick up artists are misogynistic requires that you've been in the seduction community and spoke to all kinds of people from all walks of life that did not take the center stage and did not appear in the media. Because it's those people that make up the 99% of the culture. > many overlaps with far right activists, "red pill" violence, and ethnonationalism. Another thing: US and EU differ. My perspective is EU, I make no claims about the US since I only know the "media side" from there. And yea, that's not a great side to see. > Plus it's just inherently manipulative and gross. No it's not. Before I did this, I was too serious with people. I still am. Now I am aware of it and can account for that. This means that people have more positive experiences with me. Moreover, it taught me more about empathy from an emotional point of view (through meditation, the most life changing thing I've experienced). Being optimistic, being positive, empathetic and doing meditation all came because I took a few pages from the pick up artist playbook. There's a lot in their playbook, these were the most important things that I took from it. I do agree that there are gross/manipulative ideas in there. I did my best to filter those out. I see a lot of men do that (and unfortunately also a sizeable group that didn't and straight up got culted into some pickup company's philosophy). In other words: it depends, it's more nuanced, it's not inherently anything because reality is more complex than that.

apples_oranges 5y ago

off topic, but people keep mentioning youtubers here in a way that makes me wonder: Hm, should I know that channel? Am I completely out of the loop?

zmix 5y ago
Yes, it would be more helpful, if they would not talk about these Youtuber's as they'd be our next door buddies but be a more explicit: The Guy's channel is named "Bald and Bankrupt", he is from the UK and travels a lot, which he documents on Youtube. The link to the video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c_Yts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_eA_c_Yts
TigeriusKirk 5y ago
I dunno, but I was hoping the comments on the story would offer some insight into the region. But half of them are gossip about some random youtuber who went there once.