> 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.