From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com>
To: "Memetics List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Subject: FW: applied memetics
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 17:33:17 -0700
The following response is from Ross Jeffries, developer of the "Speed
Seduction" technique that is being discussed here. Since only list members
are permitted to post, I have forwarded his response.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ross Jeffries [mailto:sandworm@via.net]
Sent: Wednesday, September 02, 1998 5:58 PM
To: "From:"@mustang.via.net
Subject: RE: applied memetics
Since it is my work that is being discussed, and Richard was kind enough to
forward Mr. Perper's comments, I thought I would take a brief moment(I'm
busy preparing for my Cancun seminar, Oct 18-24) to respond to his comments.
>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.>>
It depends on what we mean by guaranteed. If you mean something that
will work FOR everyone, WITH everyone, I agree. But surely we can agree
that some approaches are going to be, at least, incrementally more
successful than others.
Well, then, perhaps it is possible that some approaches are EXPONENTIALLY
more succesful than others, because they are looking at things differently
and paying attention to factors/dynamics that other, more conventional
approaches, are ignoring.
Incremental improvements within a field come from within that field.
Exponential leaps often come from outside of the field, because those doing
the leaping aren't bound by the fixed perceptions/preconceptions of those
in the field.
>
>
><<Some commonsense to the rescue: if such techniques
>*did* exist, they would have been figured out millenia ago -- and there'd
>be no reason to sell "new" techniques. Who'd need 'em?>>
That's an odd assumption. Relativity is a valid, proven theory. Why
didn't someone come along and figure it out millenia ago?
Maybe it is because they didn't have the proper conceptual tools to ask
the right questions and pursue the right train of thought. If you don't
know what to look for, you will never have a chance to see it.
Had Einstein stayed within the framework of absolute motion etc, he
perhaps might have made some incremental additions. He jumped outside of it
and changed how we view the world.
Now..EVERY friggin' crackpot will point to Einstein as an example. That
doesn't mean that ALL who point are crackpots; remember universals are only
partially reversible.
>
>
>
>
><<... 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.>>
What makes an expert "genuine"? Degrees after a name? If someone who has
NEVER been to college can pick up and seduce more women, faster and easier
than you, then WHO is the expert in real world skill?
><<If someone wants to challenge me, I
>can set up some tests that would hold up under peer reviewing. One of them
>involves asking who the trained individual approached -- it's easy to
>"seduce" a hooker. There are other tests as well, which I can explain if
>anyone wants to know.>>
>
What constitutes a "peer" in the field of seduction?
The notion that we must or even should apply the scientific method, with
publication for peer review, for common day decision is preposterous.
By analogy, let's take martial arts. There's a school called Gracie
Jiu-Jitsu that claims to be the most effective form of realistic street
self-defense. Do we have to subject Gracie fighters to scientific testing
with peer-review published papers? Or can we just take 10 of Gracie's
elected best, stick them in a ring with one on one matches against fighters
selected by other schools, deemed by THOSE schools to be the best, and then
see who kicks whose buttocks in?
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit