Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980902181618.00a1c488@popmail.mcs.net>
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 18:16:18 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
Subject: RE: applied memetics
In-Reply-To: <001201bdd6b9$24ec4640$372a3fce@uymfdlvk>
>Tim Perper wrote:
>
><<Over the years of studying courtship and seduction, I've drawn two
>conclusions. One is that there will never be lack of entrepreneurs who
>want to sell "guaranteed" seduction techniques, and the other is that no
>such things exist.>>
>
>Tim, I suspect no one will argue with your first point; your second,
>however, is easily disproved by counterexample. The Ross Jeffries products
>are indeed guaranteed; anyone who does not successfully seduce three "hot
>babes" in the first year is offered their money back. What you probably
>mean, though, is that no seduction technique will work for all men at all
>times on all women. I suspect no one will argue with that either. Even
>Jeffries claims only 70% efficacy with his techniques even when mastered.
Tim's full message was not posted to this list. If he had posted to the
public list, he would probably have checked his words more carefully. I
suspect that by "guaranteed" Tim meant something like "foolproof," though
we have to ask him for his meaning.
Commercial "guarantees" are often empty gimmicks by companies knowing that
only a minority of dissatisfied customers will go to all the trouble of
repackaging a product, mailing it in, describing the problem, etc. to get
their money back. When the product is sexual, I suspect that embarrassment
lowers the rate of applications for refunds even lower. And in the event
that Ross does not honor each legitimate guarantee claim, how many men will
want to go through a public process of complaints and lawsuits? Not many.
Potential claimants know this in advance, which can further discourage them
from even asking for the refund.
The misinformation that Ross Jeffries disseminated about my own sex life
and bladder function does not inspire *any* confidence in his honesty about
his customers' sex lives. Nor does it inspire any confidence in his honesty
about any future test results.
The promotion of such products in connection with memetics does little to
inspire confidence in the honesty of memeticists as a group, either. It is
also the kind of thing that would give grantmakers pause in considering
whether to fund memetics research. Even if they found such material
convincing, few would want to fund work that seemed likely to be used in
the speed-seduction of their daughters.
[snip]
><<... But as a genuine expert in the area, I do not believe
>the claims that NLP or related techniques will make seduction more likely
>than with any other prosocial ability.>>
>
>It's a pleasure to meet an expert.
Tim is an expert on courtship and sexology. He is author of the book Sex
Signals: The Biology of Love. Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1985.
>How many women have you seduced? How many do I need to qualify as an
expert too?
Tim does not need to be a Don Juan or an aspiring Don Juan in order to be
an expert in his field.
Even if this were an argument between Don Juans or aspiring Don Juans, a
"how many" argument is pointless. For any answer given, it can always be
trumped by a liar or a bigger liar. We are not about according "expert"
status on the basis of ever bigger lies.
--Aaron Lynch
http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
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