Pro-Neg-Ative Reactions

In response to my last post, Jay Dee said:

I would agree that game is like a toolbox, but that doesn’t mean all the tools in it are of good quality, or that there isn’t a better tool to use.

For example: Neg can be a tool, but I’d argue it’s about as good as a tool as using a piece of rock as a hammer to pound a nail into a board, when what you really need is a claw on the end of a real hammer to get the nail out. I don’t see any place for negging in a relationship, it’s a tool, but it’s a bad tool that is going to do more damage than good.

I’m actually a pretty big fan of teasing, or The Neg (which is just multilayer teasing), and often use it as a social lubricant.[1] Here’s a recent example; the remembrance of which caused Mrs. Caldo fits for the rest of the day.

We had just finished check-out at the register of a WalMart. I’d teased her about having to pay for everything, and as we walked through the sliding door I said, “You’re all right for a girl.”

About ten feet in front of us was a woman I’d guess was in her late forties who had overhead my comment. I’ve never laid eyes on her in my life, but she immediately whipped her head around gave me a scowl like she was my relative. This shocked my wife, but I just grinned ear to ear, and said, “Seriously. She’s not that bad!”

She turned her head again and responded, “If my husband said that he’d be in trouble.” By this point Mrs. Caldo was confused and angry. Confused because she didn’t know what this woman’s problem was, and mad because she was stirring up trouble.

“Oh, now,” I feigned, “I’m sure your husband thinks you’re all right for a girl, too.”

“Well, he better not say it!”

“Why not? Are you that bad?”

“Well, no…”

This continued on. It happened to be the case that she was parked on the same row as us, and we ended up chatting all the way back, and before we were halfway there she was laughing, and wished us a good day.

When we got into my truck, Mrs. Caldo was seething. “What was her problem? First she’s angry about none of her business, and then she’s all friendly and laughing. Her poor husband…”

“Tell me about it.”, I shot back.

“Hey! I’m not like that!”

“No, you’re all right for a girl.”

 

[1] In his post, I think KG doesn’t quite go deep enough in his analysis of why and how hot women get by on their looks. They often are trying to overtly manipulate men, but they would never admit it.

On Tools

So, Saturday, Dalrock commented on my post and had the exasperating gall to repeat exactly what I said I don’t want to hear:

“Game is a toolbox, or if you prefer a form of applied psychology.”

“Sheesh!”, I mentally expelled. “Toolbox, toolbox, toolbox!”

I decided this was a good time to go outdoors, and do something with my hands. There was a hatchet I’d bought that had yet to be sharpened. It was an impulse buy from this past winter. Some friends and I stopped at a Home Depot on the way to our campsite and since I didn’t have one I picked it up. It was only ever used once, and that was after I warned my friend that I hadn’t sharpened it yet. He quickly came to the realization that $20 axes are not usable off the rack. Still, at the time, I’d thought it was a pretty good deal for an American-made axe. The handle said, “US Hickory”, but I should have looked closer.

While I was gathering up my file and whetstones I continued my inner dialogue. “Ok, Cane. Why do people I respect keep saying that Game is like a toolbox? Is there anything to this that you’ve missed? Alright…let’s back up: What are tools?”

I took the hatchet and sharpening implements into the backyard and finally took that closer look at the hatchet. The edge was chipped in several places from its encounter with my friend, and as I ran the file over it I prepared myself to be doing this for awhile. Chips in the edge mean I’m going to have to remove a significant amount of metal from the blade before the profile is smooth again.

“Is it reasonable to call Game an applied psychology? Probably…certainly the underlying concepts; hypergamy, koreogamy, etc. What do we mean by “applied psychology”? Back up further: What is psychology? Psychology is a science, based on one or more various philosophies about how the mind works and behaves. Actually, psychology is often a set of rehearsed tactics, semantics, and even pharmacology to bring about some preferred state within the object of its ministrations.”

Fortunately, I have a decent file made of American steel, and it chewed through the axe…too well. Twice while trying to re-profile the edge I chipped it further, but I kept at it and thirty minutes later I had a decent blade, if not yet truly sharp. I took the whetstones to it, but I just kept moving the burr back and forth across the edge and never getting it to come off, and therefore never getting the edge sharp the way I like.

“How important are these philosophies? They can be very important, right? The Christian knows that psychology is tinkering with spirituality; so any philosophy that is opposed to Christian precepts–what God has revealed to us about His nature, our natures, and the nature of sin–is extraordinarily important. Does that mean, say, the Jungian philosophy of psychology is bad? Not necessarily. Even some of Freud is very insightful. On the other hand, we need to stay away from any spirit animals, totems, and stuff. Pagan beliefs are full of psychology; even if the word didn’t exist when they invented them. So, crystal-charged transcendental meditation as a form of psychological therapy is definitely out…”

First the blade was too hard; too brittle. Now that I’d removed that troublesome section, I found the next layer of metal too soft to hold an edge. Finally, I was able to (roughly) strop the burr off with some cardboard, and though the edge wasn’t as sharp as I like, it seemed serviceable.

“If I went out to the garage and reached into my toolbox, what would I get? Based on averages: Either a screwdriver, or a socket for a socket-wrench. What is the philosophy and applied science behind a screwdriver that makes it a screwdriver? Of course there’s gravity, and the properties of steel and plastic, but those things are in hammers, too, and in a pinch I have hammered with screwdrivers. Really, the screwdriver just doesn’t exist without screws; and a screw is really just an inclined…

I have a go at a three inch diameter log from an oak that was cut down in May. It remains, I am sorry to say, one very tough piece of wood, and the US Hickory handle broke when the axe was half-buried in end of the oak.

“…plane, like an axe. Hmmm. I could say it as: An inclined plane is the philosophy behind a screw; or: A screw is a tool created by the application of the science of inclined planes. “

Man, that hatchet gave me fits! The hunk of junk is just really bad for an American-made product. Sure: Handles break, but that axehead was ridiculously bothersome, and it is a good part of the reason that the handle did break. I wondered again if it really was made in the USA. The sticker was still on the side of the axehead, and at the end, in very small print: “Made in India”. Sonuvagun. This explained a lot: The low cost; the poor presentation; the poor tempering and uneven carbon distribution that gave chips and burrs.

“So let’s move that back to Game. If Game was an applied science, then an inclined plane of Game would be, say, hypergamy. Teasing, then, is a screw-like tool of Game that operates on principles of the inclined plane/hypergamy. The Neg is just a really big teasing/screw…and sometimes a really big screw is useful.”

Also, because of hypergamy, sometimes a really big screw is useful.

So it came to pass that Saturday, in the backyard, I decided Dalrock and all the other folks saying “Game is a like a toolbox” were right; and I was wrong.

What threw me off was a combination of a few things:

1) There is a difference between a science or philosophy, and a tool. Hypergamy is not a tool. The Neg is not a science.

2) Most of the tools that are described by people who write on Game are actually complex tools. Typically, you don’t reach into a toolbox and pull out a computer. A computer is a tool, but if someone pointed to a workbench with a Macbook and a phillips-head on it and then asked me, “Hand me that tool”, I’m going to reach for the screwdriver. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t pick the wrong one, but the human mind runs on habits.

3) Too many of the tools out there are cheaply constructed, and they simply break down, or force the user to do more work than is really required; continually sharpening an edge that will never hold; never getting any actual work done. Irrational self-confidence is one of these things. It is the cheap knock-off of actual confidence (con-fide–with faith) which is a mixture of real accomplishment and social approval mixed and pounded in the right quantities, and purified and tempered with extreme heat.

Better is a dry morsel with quiet
than a house full of feasting with strife.
A servant who deals wisely will rule over a son who acts shamefully
and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers.
The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold,
    and the Lord tests hearts.

Nevertheless: I was wrong. Game is like a toolbox.

Your Heart is Wicked and Not to be Trusted

I keep meaning to post this video with some of my overly-muscular commentary, but then forgetting. Just watch it. It’s better than my words anyway.

Unplumbed Wrongness

A little over a year ago, Dalrock asked me to write a guest post for his site. It was a bold move from the Christian Men’s Sphere’s rising star, and drew a good amount of criticism from some people. To be fair: Most of that was not angry, or felt I was a real threat to their collective wisdom in any fashion. In fact, a good deal of that criticism was not heated anti-Cane rhetoric, but just generally dismissive. I think the threatened ones were right, but the dismissive ones can be forgiven on account of the incoherency of my post.

At it’s root, most folks don’t know how wrong they are. Many of those who claim to be T-ruth-seeking Red Pill-ers have only scratched the surface. They are, by and large, fine with that. The enjoyment they get for feeling more “in the know about what’s really going on” makes them complacent. More than that: They really don’t like the caverns and dark skies and war going on outside the Matrix. They prefer to pretend that they are free thinkers–as if they are outside the Matrix–, but have the additional benefit of getting the spoils within the Matrix. You can’t. If you’re able to code and Game the world and those around you, then you’re still in the Matrix, and there is no freedom within.

For over a year now, I’ve been asking: “Considering that the Christian man is called to marriage alone for sexual release, and that the world is full of sluts (there aren’t nearly enough virgins to go around), how is Game anything but a round-about method of telling Christian men to Man-Up and Marry These Sluts?”

The responses were mostly pathetic. I don’t just mean wrong, here. Wrongness–failure–itself is not pathetic. It can even be noble, and some of the responses were. See: aside from the obvious wrongness of abject fornication, spinning plates, etc. there is the fact that Every modern date, every romantic kiss between people who are not married is essentially a slutty act. Those wives out there (You know, the one’s we think are the good virgin ones?) the chances they didn’t engage in slutty behavior before marriage approach zero. This is how it can be that one man says, “If you marry a virgin you’ll avoid these problems!”. Another man responds, “I did, and she still divorced me!”; while a third is rambling, “Neither of us were virgins, and we’re fine. You need to get some Game like me!”

They’re all wrong because they all married sluts. Anyone not raised in some fringe culture like the Amish or Mennonites is going to be quite sexually perverted. Actual sex acts involving the sexual organs make this worse, and certainly more stark, but, folks: French kissing is a real sexual act. If you don’t think so: Go french your dad and then tell him it’s just a kiss. Watch your wife tongue another man, and then play it off. Take a moonlit walk with the neighbor lady with your arms around each-other’s waists and see if your wife minds.

Sexuality begins in the heart, long before sex. Game writers know this, and teach it to an extent. They coach men to always be looking for the sexual relevancy of every interaction with a potential object of their desire. Then they lie; scoffing at the idea that romantically holding hands is sex, you prude! It sure is. It is the beginnings of sex. It’s like saying that your toe is not you. It’s not the toetality totality of you, but if I step on it, pain signals will shoot all through your body, along your nervous system, and to your brain–which is where the heart is. It is you.

The bottom line is: Christians who promote Game (beyond understanding women’s sinful nature in general, and his particular woman’s overall nature) don’t know what they’re messing with, and don’t like it when you tell them. They call you unreasonable, with a monotonous and unreasoning regularity.

Let’s look at this problem of unplumbed wrongness from another conundrum: If you don’t question why it is that in our society–not just women–but children go to work fully expecting to keep all their earnings themselves–and wonder when and why did this change–then you haven’t yet begun to wonder if we are doing it right.

A good exercise is to try to unpack that, and understand all the implications if we were to revert to a system where unmarried children’s wages went to the family. What incentives does that create? Which are destroyed? How would that affect our job-prepatory system? What would college campus demographics look like? How long would a public school day be, and how many years?

Dreaming of Drum Major Tom

Last night I dreamt about a guy being shot into space on a one way trip. I knew–the way we know in dreams–that he was going to die.

He was fit, with short dark hair and an unshaven face. He was being hurriedly shuffled along gangways and tubes, by a timer, or invisible leads. His hands were bound before him in a way that I could not see, and he kept trying to lean back and crane his neck to catch a glimpse of something he was leaving behind. With that sixth sense I knew his actions were in vain. Nothing he wanted to see was there because what he wanted to see was his wife and his unborn child. Several more steps and he starts singing softly, “baby please don’t go“, in a meter that I’ve never heard before.

As he turned a final bend in the long cylinders I could see he was being marched towards these sliding doors

baby please don’t go

that opened into a cargo hold of some kind. I couldn’t tell the purpose: everything was made of thick, clear, plastic.

I need your love

He was being moved faster, and he sped up the tempo of his singing to match. All the while I can see he is imagining a baby in his wife’s arms; picturing it laugh.

don’t go

The clear slabs slid open and the invisible prods pushed him in and as they did the bonds disappeared from his wrists. He sang loud now, and fast:

Ineedyourlovebabypleasedon’tgodon’tgo-

The doors on the clear capsule closed and muffled his sustain, but as it shot off from the tube I heard the last of the man’s belt and cry

-ooooo awayyyyyyy

And he was gone into the blackness between the stars.

I think I awoke immediately afterwards. I know for sure that the dream was fresh in my mind; enough so that I can still remember the haunting tune. My first thought was that I had heard the song before. There are A LOT of songs that have “baby please don’t go” in them. Well, I’ve done a lot of Googling this morning and it seems that I wrote this arrangement that the ill-fated spaceman was singing to his never-seen newborn.

What I want to know is: How do I unlock such fiction and music composition in my awakened state???

Let’s leave that behind for a minute.

I did find something of interest in my search for my version of the song (possibly even a music video). The ninth hit on Google for “baby please don’t go don’t go away shot into space” is a post titled “21 Harsh Truths Black People Don’t Want to Hear”, by someone who calls herself “diaryofanegress (observations of an invisible woman)”

Well, I told her, “Turn the lights on, lady!”. She thanked me, and closed down the blog.

I kid! It’s still there.

The post is (spoiler alert!) a list of things that is wrong with the world; especially for black people. Things like, “All black people are mentally ill”. That was point 11. Just before that, point 10 informed us that identifying with white people makes black people mentally ill…

I read the whole post, and if you change each instance of “black people” to “men”, and “white people” to “women” it reads like the writing of a third-tier Manosphere writer; someone whose comments have received an outsized portion of acclaim (based solely on their consonance with the acclaiming parties), and now they just know their voice has got to be heard! Except it’s a black woman talking about black people hating themselves because white people (glacier monkeys) drove them insane by teaching them…how to read, and drive cars. There’s even a good amount of prepper and Old Fashioned Homemaker stuff in there (how to collect and filter water), and lots of government conspiracy theories. (I think there are enough disparate agencies that we actually can all be correct on all the theories.). It’s just like the the various orbits of the Manosphere/Tradsphere/whathaveyou.

It is hilarious. We are hilarious. With a handful of exceptions.

And in the end, we all get shot into the black, alone.

Ineedyourlovebabypleasedon’tgodon’tgoooooawayyyyyy