Post: #1

The "Red Pill" is often stated to be about peeling back the deception in our society to get to the truth. About abandoning pretty lies and seeing things for what they are.

Yet one truth may be that believing pretty lies is, in itself, harmless or even productive. There are many people here, for instance, who are atheists but believe that Christian society enforces the correct kinds of morals, and as such, it is preferable to "buy in" to Christianity, even if you don't think it's true, because it is useful.

Many people here with girls, take the attitude that they're all sluts, and any girl is attainable, you only have to figure out how. This attitude can be very useful in terms of motivating you to get way more girls than you would otherwise. But to say "every girl is a slut" is like saying "all women are beautiful" or "all men are 6 feet tall". With any trait there is variation. You may fuck 200 sluts and believe this represents all women, but likely you are dealing with a portion of women who are particularly slutty. Likely we all are. The pretty lie, that you can have any women with the right approach, helps us get more women and keep a positive attitude, but it's obviously false.

So how do you feel about accepting pretty lies that are useful, vs. facing ugly reality that may not help you be happy or succeed at your goals?

Post: #2

I don't regret reading my share of red pill writings. Ever since college I felt something was off but couldn't put it into words, and the fact that other men feel the same is encouraging.

The thing with the red pill is dwelling on it saps my motivation. If every girl is a hypergamous flakey slut who only gets wet for mutant Spartans, then what's the point? I start thinking about her in disgust rather than with curiosity. I've started sectioning off red pill links in a sub-sub-sub-folder so I'm only tempted to read them once in a while.

It's become a necessary feature of the contemporary world to be a double agent, so to speak. You have to know what's happening behind the scenes (taking the red pill) but calibrate to the social appearances happening around you (active game). Yes, maybe that girl is a slut, but maybe she's not. The only way to find out is to do something.

This reminds me of the parable of the arrow, where the difference between pragmatic action and metaphysical speculation is the difference between life and death.

The red pill is metaphysics; it's a theory as to how the social world works. So long as there are things like promiscuity and the latest, greatest dating apps, there will be red pill blogs commenting on them. Pretty lie believers make illogical, emotionally-driven decisions which will cause rational people to think "WTF". And though metaphysics is merely descriptive; we can't help but feel a reaction after reading, whether disgust or amused mastery or whatever.

Active Game is pragmatics: a technical guide to manipulating the social world to your favor (though not foolproof). You've learned the rules, you understand the environment, now it's time to be an agent and operate within the pretty lies. Maybe you construct your own pretty lies to be the life of the party, or have a detailed method on how to bend the pretty lies in your favor by delivering ugly truths in just the right way.

I don't think game is a pretty lie in that there is no right approach that will get you any woman and keep you happy; that so called "magic bullet" is a pipe dream. Game is a just a set of tools that lets you operate in a world where pretty lies run amok. You're only one person in a sea of many, with a multitude of variables you have no control over. Game maximizes your probability of success compared to holding onto a pretty lie, but you should not rely on it for happiness or self-worth.

The red pill demolishes pretty lies internally. If you leave it at that, you have unfettered nihilism, where your worldview becomes bitter, paranoid and vengeful. Active game provides a call to action in the midst of pretty lies. But it's your passive/inner game, that will get you through the lows and disappointment that active game cannot save you from. It's the ability to introspect as to what you truly want and how firm you are willing to stick to your ideals, that will hold you together. This introspection is the result of taking a journey through hell and back and deciding what's important for you. It's not about the truth anymore so much as your truth. Instead of believing in pretty lies or dwelling in ugly reality, you will have come to a point where you have strong values which are useful and backed by the confidence of your experience.