Wikileaks is desperately short of money right now. I feel morally obliged to give them something, but I can’t promise I won’t be cowed into passivity by the size of my own credit card debts.

However, it isn’t generally vain to hope that people will change their views on institutions. Because they may do that for self-interested reasons. So, informing people of where there interest lies is very important.

You view of marriage is actually a good example of that. You are skeptical of the older ideas about marriage, so am I. I’d argue that we are more realistic about it than those who pledge everlasting love. You see it as something more flexible.

What’s more, your personal interest leads you to use it in that way. And because of many people doing that the institution changes and becomes more flexibly defined. This is what I mean earlier by improvement of social institutions.

As Hayek says in “The Constitution of Liberty” humans are as much rule-following beings as they are rational beings. There are many problems that most normal people can never be expected to handle with reason.

Take, for example, the institution of marriage which you mention. Many people believe this is a holy sacrament wherein two people pledge love everlasting and sublimate their separate uniqueness to the unity of two-becoming-one. I have never held that view, and I knew I could never have been happy married to someone who did. Probability suggested that sooner or later I would encounter someone who shared my own view; therefore I never felt the need to discard my view or insist that other people discard theirs. In effect, it matters little what the social institutions are or are assumed to be; what matters is how individuals approach their own actions and decisions. If everyone approached their behaviour with a bit of common sense, there would be no need to impose social institutions or change upon them.

Going back to what I said earlier about social institutions though, this is important.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you are right and traditional ideas about attraction are more-or-less right. In that case little needs to change in that area of society.

However, if Roissy is right then things are different and attitudes need to change. If that were to happen then attitudes to institutions, such as marriage, will change, as will those institutions. And that is what can really change the world for the better. Not just hoping that humans will change how they behave towards each other.

It’s positively destructive to advocate that people believe in each other. Rather they should have to earn each others trust. The same is entirely true of the self. You should start each day from the presumption that you are a “pink robot” (in Scott Adam’s words) and so is everyone else, and attempt to make it untrue.

I’m a beta, so I am, naturally, no good at this stuff. That means I’m probably destined for a life of short-term relationships or no relationships. But, despite Roissy’s obsession with sex I don’t think this is much of a problem. There are plenty of other enjoyable things to do in the world.

And yes, Roissysphere simplifications can indeed be useful. If I were a man, though, I would exercise caution in putting them into practice, especially if I were not naturally flippant and manipulative. It’s hard to keep up an act for any extended length of time, and although the gains might be good in the short term, I’m not sure they outweigh the pitfalls in the long term.

This is all a bit different if you’re a man, as I am, and you see how well this sort of stuff works.

However I still think the groups that the Roissysphere discuss are useful simplifications. As you point out in an older post it leads to quite Libertarian conclusions anyway.

As for the “anti-individualism”, I think it’s very necessary. Just as Libertarians often point out that humans are self-interested when dealing with economic analysis.

Any rigourous case for Libertarianism relies on it being the Utilitarian thing to do (for some broad definition of Utilitarianism). I support Liberty only because I think it’s long term social consequences are better than other course, I am a “Consequentialist Libertarian”. I don’t think Freedom has any cosmic significance meaning that it should be valued, it should be valued for what it can provide.

Maybe he’s right and I’m wrong; but it doesn’t really matter, because each person is distinct in his or her needs and desires and should be treated as an individual. When you, or Roissy, or whoever, start tossing around this kind of group psychology, you perpetuate the very anti-individualism of which I’m so suspicious.