Observations Quantifying mastery

[Carousel]

There was also a discussion in the chat one day about whether it was possible to reach "elite level" in more than one skill. Some would say no, some would say yes.

But I quickly realized that this is a totally ambiguous question without a clear and cross-disciplinary definition of "elite".

I had also read this excellent post by @Chase about how to master anything, where there is a 5 step plan for mastering any skill.

How to Master Anything

While the focus on here is normally pointed squarely at getting girls, I wanted to broaden that today to a topic that's of significant importance not only to pickup and seduction, but to anything and everything you will ever lay your hands on, set your mind to, and go about doing. That topic, in...

www.girlschase.com

But again, this begs the question, what level exact is "mastery"?

Some days ago I had the following insight: We can actually numerically quantify mastery with high precision across very different domains.

It is actually very simple: Use ranking percentages.

I won't assume much math knowledge here. You will only know what a percentage is and how to divide two numbers. The concept is probably best illustrated with an example. Note: If you comment here, do not nitpick my numbers - they are just meant to illustrate the theory.

Say we have 1000 students who take an exam get and get fine-grained test result.

The top 5 students are in the top 0.5% (5/1000 = 0.005 = 0.5%)
The top 10 students are in the top 1% (10/1000 = 0.01 = 1 %)
The top 20 students are in the top 2% (20/1000 = 0.02 = 2%)
The top 100 students are in the top 10% (100/1000 = 0.1 = 10%)
The top 500 students are in the top 50% (500/1000 = 0.5 = 50%)

Now you probably also realize three things:

A) As long as we have some clear measure of rank, this can be done, making it robust across domains.
B) If we don't have exactly 1000 students, just divide number above a given level with the actual total number. This operation is denoted to normalize.
C) The framework is not either/or, we have something continuous, so we don't need to get caught up in exactly what is "advanced" and what is "elite", we can just talk about a single number.

So our framework goes as this:

1) Find a meaningful metric of achievement in our domain of question.
2) Find how many people that are doing better than you and divide by the total number of relevant practitioners.

Note that there may be multiple meaningful metrics. If we talk about wealth, both income and net worth may be relevant and they will tell us somewhat different things. Just be consistent so you don't compare apples and oranges, and also note the tendency for people to deny metrics they don't score well on and rationalize the importance of metrics that favor them. Note also that it matters who you normalize against: the general public vs advanced practitioners, for example.

Voila! Note that we also give jack shit about shape of the probability distribution function of the scores, whether it is Normal, Pareto, power law, flat etc. While this may be interesting to other aspects of such a problem, NONE of this is relevant to defining these percentages.

So, let us discuss some applications of this framework in order to get a bit more familiar with it.


Pickup

Before Tinder became a factor, I dug into various Norwegian and Swedish sources and found something along these lines for men:

30 sex partners ~ top 10%
50 sex partners ~ top 5%
100 sex partners ~ top 2.5% (Probably valid, this number was stated by a specialist in sex addiction)
150 sex partners ~ 1%

Now I do not care whether this is actually true as such a metric is prone to both misreporting and distortion from quality differences - this is only to illustrate the framework.


Powerlifting

In this otherwise excellent guide to training progress, Martin Berkhan, a rather recognized guy I believe, is mentioning "elite" level strength levels.

Fuckarounditis - Leangains

Dear readers, it is with troublesome news I break my three months of silence. The statistics all point towards the same conclusion: we have a global outbreak of fuckarounditis. Fuckarounditis is a behavioral disorder characterized by a mediocre physique and complete lack of progress, despite...

leangains.com

For a 75 kg guy this would be bench+squat+deadlift = 540 kg.

This level is surely elite relative to the current population. If you instead normalize towards competing lifters, it is about top 25-30%. https://ibb.co/8Dnw0vH

The top guys in national championships here in Norway are maybe top 5% and the international competition winners are ~1%, again vs competing lifters.


Wealth

There is a lot of chatter about the (top) "1%" of society. People usually envision billionaires and elusive, shady individuals in this context.

But in the US there is one billionaire pr 559000 people! This is certainly a much lower percentage than 1 of 100. It is not even 1% of 1%, that would be 1 in 10000.

List of countries by number of billionaires - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In Norway, I calculated the "1%" to be about 3 million USD in net worth other assets than real estate.

You guys can calculate this for the US or other countries as an exercise.


Science

In science, citations are known to be a rather good metric for your impact. However, in some fields, a person getting 200 citations may be of the top 1% most cited authors, while in other fields you need 2000 citations to be at 1% level, due to different sizes and citation practices in even closely related fields.

Note that a lot of people who are referred to as "Elite" are WAY above the 1% level. Billionaires have been mentioned in the wealth section, a guy such as Elon Musk or Einstein is much much rarer, they are literally one of a generation.


Another use of this framework is the concept of BASELINE ACHIEVEMENT.

I have first talked about what is going on on the elite end of the statistical distribution. Now I will talk about what is going on at the middle of it, the world of the average person. Time to go from the 1% to the 50%!

BASELINE ACHIEVEMENT is a actually a technique I have picked up in a book about artificial intelligence, which has strong connections to statistics.

For example, say you are predicting the weather. If you find by experience at your location that a banally simple model as assuming the weather tomorrow is the same as the weather today has a 70% success rate, you have defined a common-sense BASELINE.

This is necessary to define in order to measure any real progress in your work. Because, if you now make a much more fancy algorithm, you will have to compare it to the baseline to see whether you are actually making any real progress. What if your very fancy algorithm only predicts the weather tomorrow correctly 65% of the time? You can immediately say that no matter how fancy this model is, it is NONSENSE because it does not beat the simple, common-sense 70% baseline. It can actually be surprisingly hard to beat such simple models.

Baseline achievement would in its simplest form be the mean, the median or any similar measure of what the general population achieves. We are now talking about being in the top 50% or similar, not in the top 1%. Just as multiple different metrics may be valid for high-end achievement, multiple different metrics may be of relevance for defining average achievement. For example, beating the mean or median income in a country will be different numbers. Some of these measures must be normalized against your age group, for example if you are 20 and poor, it makes no sense to compare you to an old average guy who never did anything very smart, but just worked for corporation his entire life and conclude that YOU did something wrong and HE did something very smart.

The concept of baseline achievement has multiple uses. Three areas will be discussed.


1) My first use of baseline achievement was to judge whether people claiming revolutionary hacks or knowledge were worth listening to or fakes. This includes individuals such as "red pill" guys and wantepreneurs. Just as we can pick mathematical mental masturbation in prediction analysis apart by baselines, it is very easy to pick apart cheaters and talkers apart by asking:

Did the "red pill" knowledge enable the person in question to actually beat the baseline achievement of normies on the area of interest?

Some examples:

Good PUAs pass the baseline achievement test. Their "secret" knowledge enables them to get into the triple digits, while the average man is probably in the single or low double digits. They also outperform chodes on other baselines like meet to lay ratios and lays pr time unit.

Successful entrepreneurs pass the baseline achievement test. They will always be able to document their progress in my experience and generally end up freer and/or wealthier than the corporate chode.

Wantepreneurs fail the baseline achievement test. They are never able to document that they earn more from their pursuits or have a net worth higher than an average person with an average job. So they fail not just one, but two baselines.

Manosphere morons like Roosh fail the baseline achievement test. He talks about being "traditional", yet is 40+, not married and no kids. An average chode at 35 years with 2 kids is far more "traditional". (AND NOTE, AGAIN THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE, THIS THREAD DOES NOT ADVOCATE ANY WORLD VIEW OTHER THAN CRITICAL THINKING AND NOT BEING A TALKER OR CHEATER)

Various whiny ideological countercultures fail the baseline achievement test. If you actually know so well how everything works, why are you not on the path to victory over the average ignorants? Loud moralists are often not conforming any more to their principles than the general population and quite often violate them all the time. None mentioned, none forgotten.

Incels fails the baseline achievement test, obviously. This is just a bunch of guys not getting laid, but at the very same time they know so much better than the average man who gets laid now and then and maybe has an average LTR how the sexual marketplace works and why they don't get laid. I call bullshit.

A related debunk is that anything or anyone that claims EXTRAORDINARY OUTPUT without a corresponding EXTRAORDINARY INPUT in terms of talent, competence, effort, discipline, resources or other fundamentals etc. is fake.

Bottom line: You shall not brag before you have beaten the baseline of society and normies. If you violate this, you are a bullshitter. You should also not expect your "red pill knowledge" to be taken seriously outside echo chambers before you are able to beat at least some societal baselines.


2) A second use of baseline achievement is to know what you should achieve given a given age, time of focus or level of effort.

The post by Berkhan about strength standards is a beautiful example of this. Intermediate goals: ~2 years, advanced goals: ~5 years, elite goals: ~10 years.

If you have trained for say 5 years of time and not reached the advanced goals, you then know that you have either done something wrong, not showed up enough or there is something wrong with your physiology. But usually the culprit is incorrect or lacking practice.

Such goals can be defined on many kinds of areas in life.


3) A third use of baseline achievement is to know where YOU are unbalanced relative to the general population.

This does not imply that you WANT the same as the general population, but now you are in a position to make an informed analysis.

As @Chase pointed out in another thread, very high achievers tend to be unbalanced individuals.

It may be a good idea to at least analyse where your achievement is less than the average man.

Though if you actually are a very high achiever in something, you may WANT to throw all your energy into this pursuit on the expense of other areas, at least for a good amount of time.


Conclusion

Using rank percentages results can be compared across multiple field. This is not an exact science and multiple metrics for success may be just as relevant. It is also important to note whether you are normalizing toward the general public or towards practitioners of a craft, and exactly WHO you are normalizing against. My framework also allows us to deduce what level of talent and/or effort is needed to reach a specific level of mastery, by simply looking at a representative sample of people who are at that level. I think it also makes it possible to to answer the question raised about being elite at multiple fields: It gets progressively harder the lower percentages we are talking about, though at the 1% level it is probably possible, especially if one goal is attacked pr decade of your life and you are a reasonably talented person. Another use of this framework is the concept of Baseline Achievement. Defining common-sense baseline achievement in various areas of life and other pursuits allows you to weed out fakes, debug how you spend your time and debug your own imbalances.

 

[ljrozz69]

Hey Carousel,

I find this subject particularly interesting! I've tried to quantify such things in the past and I've used this framework but never bothered to really think about it in detail. This thread has raisen my awareness about it and now I am a bit more reluctant about using it.

I think this framework may be useful for beginner/intermediates -before they specialize -in a highly competitve field with enough practioners. This is because whereas in such field there is a saturation phenomena in the sense that the max skill is attained in a skill-range and there is enough people to reprensent an accurate skill-range -% not based on luck or other external factors- ,otherwhise the skill levels for any % will fluctuate.
Also as people raise in their skill levels such metric does not represent skill any more. This may be due to the fact that most people will specialize at some point.
Let me illustrate this: The skill difference between a guy that has 50 lays and a virgin is probably bigger than a guy that has 300 lays and one that has 200, even if it is twice more lays. (btw, from reading post in the forum it seems ppl stop counting after a certain high-enough number...)

This leads to a need of new metrics.

Another few remarks:

1) Find a meaningful metric of achievement in our domain of question.

This may very hard to do since you need to find out a metric that is easily mesurable and has enough signifiance. But there is even harder :

2) Find how many people that are doing better than you and divide by the total number of relevant practitioners.

There may be no way to find out easily -youd need to make tests or questionnaires and make sure you run them on enough ppl-. In the case of questionnaires or any self-reported mesuarement it is likely that you may have some bias. Thus one should estimate such bias... wich makes everything even harder.

My last point is that such framework may not encourage to achieve or get futher into mastery. It is because you are not directly tracking improvement -Imo what really matters- but instead comparing your results to others'. The framework leads to one focusing on acheving a better % instead of focusing on the different aspects of the skill itself, with some that may not be fully covered by the metric used to get that %.
Competition may be fine but I find it not encouraging when you are competing against someone that is not real -your idea of a person at the top % is probably not real- instead of someone who is physically in field with you.

TL;DR :

• Usable but needs to be in a highly competitve field with enough practioners.
• People that have attained mastery can't be measured the same way as those who have not.
• This framework may be require a big amount of effort in order to used.
• It may hard to track improvement.

Another approach would be to find out what masters care about and then transform that into metrics. From knowing ppl, usually what I've noticed is that they care about: aesthetics and/or efficiency and/or effectiveness -of course anyone is wellcome to correct me if their personal experience doesnt match this-.
So perhaps one could make metrics that concern those...

Hoping that it was useful,
Klimax

 

[Carousel]

I think this framework may be useful for beginner/intermediates -before they specialize -in a highly competitve field with enough practioners. This is because whereas in such field there is a saturation phenomena in the sense that the max skill is attained in a skill-range and there is enough people to reprensent an accurate skill-range -% not based on luck or other external factors- ,otherwhise the skill levels for any % will fluctuate.
Also as people raise in their skill levels such metric does not represent skill any more. This may be due to the fact that most people will specialize at some point.
Let me illustrate this: The skill difference between a guy that has 50 lays and a virgin is probably bigger than a guy that has 300 lays and one that has 200, even if it is twice more lays. (btw, from reading post in the forum it seems ppl stop counting after a certain high-enough number...)

Huh? The skill difference between 50+ and 200+ is usually large, at least if we are talking about PUAs. I do not understand why you are claiming this. Have you hung out with many such guys? Are you anywhere near these levels yourself?

This may very hard to do since you need to find out a metric that is easily mesurable and has enough signifiance. But there is even harder :

I believe most things are measurable. If a field is not measurable (spirituality etc) it is usually not competitive so the reasoning here will not apply.

There may be no way to find out easily -youd need to make tests or questionnaires and make sure you run them on enough ppl-. In the case of questionnaires or any self-reported mesuarement it is likely that you may have some bias. Thus one should estimate such bias... wich makes everything even harder.

World of today is full of good statistics. Also most of my examples above do NOT rely on questionnaires or self-reporting.

My last point is that such framework may not encourage to achieve or get futher into mastery. It is because you are not tracking improvement -Imo what really matters- but instead comparing your results to others'. The framework leads to one focusing on acheving a better % instead of focusing on the different aspects of the skill itself, with some that may not be fully covered by the metric used to get that %.
Competition may be fine but I find it toxic when you are competing against someone that is not real -your idea of a person at the top % is probably not real- instead of someone who is physically in field with you.

So looking at those who perform better than you is not beneficial for learning? Are you denying everything Chase wrote in the link above also? Because I have only elaborated on his theory by the use of statistics.

• Doesn't reflects improvement and may be toxic

Statistics are toxic? Seriously?!

 

[Velasco]

The skill difference between 50+ and 200+ is usually large, at least if we are talking about PUAs.

Another approach would be to find out what masters care about and then transform that into metrics. From knowing ppl, usually what I've noticed is that they care about: aesthetics and/or efficiency and/or effectiveness

He makes a good point, Carousel. Much better than using number of lays as a metric to determine the skill level of the PUA imo.

For example using these numbers (200 Vs 50):

Guy with 200 lays (80% of which come from online+social circle game) Vs guy with 50 cold approach lays
Guy with 200 cold approach lays (80% of which come from HB6s and 7s) Vs Guy with 50 cold approach lays (80% of which come from HB8s and 9s)
Guy with 200 cold approach lays that goes out 4x / week for 3 years Vs Guy with 50 cold approach lays that goes out 1x / week for 3 years

Then of course we have the factor of whether the bulk of hot girls he picks up were traveling or you are in a location were its easier for you (due to accent, looks)

Nearly every European woman I’ve approached (in a loud club with fierce competition btw) have been easier to talk to when compared to American women who have the talent of blowing you out without batting an eye. I really can’t think of an exception to this. I have no idea why that is, but I’ve experienced it enough to know, as a general rule, a foreign accent means an easier time.

In an American club if you can pickup hot American bitches than picking up European women should be just as easy if not easier due to travel/vacation/au-pair boost.

As a Brit, most of my success here comes from Polish/Hungarian/Latvian girls who have moved here.

And when I go to the US, I feel like i'm interacting with an entirely different species! One who is trained to be polite and talk back and ask you questions! (Most UK girls literally do their very best to end the convo as soon as possible after the opener lol whereas I adore American girls)

I'm sure with American girls, my accent must help me to some extent so i'm not ignoring that, although I can tell from watching all kinds of things on youtube (infields, pranks vids, random blog vids etc) that US people are way way more friendly and approachable/social with strangers compared to Brits.

this is the truth.
actually I feel like location is not preached enough.
here in kenya there are certain universities where i get lays consistently,while there are other universities where i cant even get a number,
why this is so is just a mystery,as all these universities have pretty much the same level of beauty in girls more or less and the same sex ratios.
anyway for a long time i felt like i was "cheating" when i was avoiding places i had a hard time,but when i saw guys here and also on rok,avoid whole continents,i just made peace with the fact that thats just the name of the game

Privilege in game?? Have you checked your privilege - shitlords?! - NextASF

There are many definitions of game but for the purpose of this post we will be using: Game - the ability to overcome resistance. My full definition would be:''Game

nextasf.com

 

[Carousel]

He makes a good point, Carousel. Much better than using number of lays as a metric to determine the skill level of the PUA imo.

For example using these numbers (200 Vs 50):

Guy with 200 lays (80% of which come from online+social circle game) Vs guy with 50 cold approach lays
Guy with 200 cold approach lays (80% of which come from HB6s and 7s) Vs Guy with 50 cold approach lays (80% of which come from HB8s and 9s)
Guy with 200 cold approach lays that goes out 4x / week for 3 years Vs Guy with 50 cold approach lays that goes out 1x / week for 3 years

Then of course we have the factor of whether the bulk of hot girls he picks up were traveling or you are in a location were its easier for you (due to accent, looks)

It is sad that you guys could apparently not resist wrecking my thread. Let me emphasize what I wote in the OP.

I won't assume much math knowledge here. You will only know what a percentage is and how to divide two numbers. The concept is probably best illustrated with an example. Note: If you comment here, do not nitpick my numbers - they are just meant to illustrate the theory.

Before Tinder became a factor, I dug into various Norwegian and Swedish sources and found something along these lines for men:

30 sex partners ~ top 10%

50 sex partners ~ top 5%

100 sex partners ~ top 2.5% (Probably valid, this number was stated by a specialist in sex addiction)

150 sex partners ~ 1%

Now I do not care whether this is actually true as such a metric is prone to both misreporting and distortion from quality differences - this is only to illustrate the framework.

 

[Velasco]

It is sad that you guys could apparently not resist wrecking my thread. Let me emphasize what I wote in the OP.

My apologies. I thought @Klimax made a great point with regards to using different metrics to measure skill level. that's all

 

[West_Indian_Archie]

Great topic!

TL DR - I think it's important to measure skill. I wouldn't use body count, as it's not particularly useful given what guys in the scene typically want - and I submit that we want to pull any chick we see.

I usually measure a guy's game by the thoroughness of his thought process (and later on applying his knowledge in the field)
_____________________________________________________________
I agree with Klimax on this point.

JMULV claims a 1,234 body count -

If true, there's some skill there.

But bragging about a 1,000 plus body count shows gaps in his understanding of the game. Rather than being a selling point, it comes off as disturbing. (and watching his material, without even going through what's been published about him only makes it worse). So his understanding of social dynamics is painfully off.

Numbers?

Racking up monumental numbers can be done via social funnels (rock star, famous musician, actor, power broker, instagram famous, owning a brother or cam studio or strip club or porn studio) or finding the right niche (being in the "scene" in your town - i.e. club promoter, local musician, drug dealer, frat president) or the right archetype (locally rich, handsome, athletic). Being a cool white guy in SEA or a cool black guy in Scandinavia/Germany gives both game minded men superpowers in terms of notches.

Plenty of ways to skin a cat.

Thinking about all the different ways that a man can bed women, very little of it seems to be the thing that I think most PUAs are after.

What is a better measure?

Most guys want to be able see a random woman anywhere, start the interaction, and then take her home.

Any girl, any time.

This is an unreachable goal, in the realm of fantasy, but the more accomplished PUAs are able to choose girls that they find attractive, and either uncover hidden attraction/arousal in the girl, or generate the attraction, trust, and comfort at a success rate much higher than normal men, better than men with "natural" gifts, and obviously better than fledgling PUAs.

Who among us haven't picked up the first girl we approached on a given night?
Is that evidence of skill? What kind of skill?

The generation of attraction/trust/comfort that results in a short time between meet and actual physical relationships is further teased out by focusing on the indifferent girls. The fact that we can generate attraction where there was none is, I hope, no longer up for debate, as this is a perennial topic of discussion at lower levels.

With that in mind, I usually assess PUAs and their knowledge, by the particularity of their descriptions.

Or like we say more colloquially, game recognize game.

A lot of Youtube Gurus tend to make general pronouncements, "do X to get Z result" without explaining how it works, why it works, what happens when it doesn't work, and common practical scenarios.

A lot of the art of the game gets meme-ified or shorthanded into things like "Agree and Amplify", "Push/Pull", "Show Intent", "Abundance Mentality", "Hold Frame"....

So if a guy is giving mere kernels of advice, and isn't very thoughtful, i tend to think he doesn't really know game. There are times to be stoic, and other times to wear your heart on your sleeve.

The way I typically gauge a guy's skill, online, is to see how he approaches the problem.

It's not so much about him agreeing with how I would tackle any given issue, I don't run my game like a lot of you guys. We will differ on what needs to be done.

But the fact that he considers things that might be issues, and has contingencies for them.

This is a common question I see on forums.

"How do you bang a chick in HER house? "

Guys that don't do pick up say - "Hotel, AirBnB, in your car" - they don't deal with the question asked, and instead answer a question not posed.

The newer PUAs rattle off techniques and tricks. "Just try and get in her house, and say you need to pee" (c) Todd Valentine.

Better PUAs ask for more information about the girl, the social dynamics, the guy's game, the guy's mindset.

Given that I say that we're all trying to bag chicks in different situations (a universal goal that is up for debate), A good PUA sees scenarios more so than numbers.

• Pulling a drunk sorority girl away from her friends at a night club is difficult, as getting things to flow right is like herding cats.
• Pulling that same sorority girl, sober, during the day, between classes - to your off campus apartment for sex while she should be in organic chemistry is another skill.
• Using eye contact at a business meeting to convey messages to a peer from the other side, is another skill.

Good topic.

WIA

 

[Velasco]

if a guy is giving mere kernels of advice, and isn't very thoughtful, i tend to think he doesn't really know game. There are times to be stoic, and other times to wear your heart on your sleeve.

The way I typically gauge a guy's skill, online, is to see how he approaches the problem.

It's not so much about him agreeing with how I would tackle any given issue, I don't run my game like a lot of you guys. We will differ on what needs to be done.

But the fact that he considers things that might be issues, and has contingencies for them.

+1

 

[ljrozz69]

It is sad that you guys could apparently not resist wrecking my thread.

That was not my intention, I simpathize if it made you feel bad.

 

[Carousel]

That was not my intention, I simpathize if it made you feel bad.

Perhaps you then should think a bit about how you come off? Starting to talk negative gibberish to somebody is a sure way to disapproval.

That is not what I wrote.
I was comparing the skill gap between the former case and the latter.

That is not what I wrote.
Looking at how somebody achieves something is not comparing/competing with that person.

That is not what I wrote.
It is clear that I was talking about the framework.

You did use the word TOXIC about what I wrote. If you find competition, modelling and ranking toxic, well please don't project this on everybody else. You also stated that what I wrote was essentially useless "very hard to apply/ highly unpractical" and "Doesn't reflects improvement".

Or what ever you are meaning, I have large problems understanding anything of what you are saying.

Me too. But there is still difficulty of measurement.

This is just denialism. A lot of things can be measured. Powerlifting is objective. Other sports are objective. Chess is objective. Test scores in schools are rather objective. Wealth is objective. Income is objective. Sales numbers are objective. Citations are objective etc.

Most, but perhaps not the number of sexual partners wich perfectly illustrates my point and is really what we care about here.

Who are you to dictate "what we care about here"? Who are "we"? My thread was about MASTERY IN GENERAL, just like the thread from Chase which I supplemented. There are 5 different examples in my OP. Yet everybody started to talk about sex partners when I made it totally clear that this was only a very approximate example. Geez.

PS: I am highly unhappy that a newbie which I have given a lot of free career advice and TRE advice on PM comes into a thread which I have been thinking about for weeks and starts trolling. You have the nerve to ask me for advice about both personal and professional evolution, but then go on to say that other aspects of my theorizing on the very same areas are "toxic" and "unpractical" and generally useless. What the hell are you even doing in "Advanced"? There will be consequences, this is the last time I help somebody I don't know well here on PM.

 

[Bacchus]

This is a very insightful post @Carousel

You analyzed the intuitive and somewhat mysterious topic of mastery. Broke it down into a measurable substance, while introducing a simple framework which can even be used. . . by seducers at various skill-levels to determine how game. . . or a lack thereof can recognize game.

I must admit that I had to read the OP a few times. . . in order to wrap my head around it. I will most likely re-read it a few more times this weekend. But anyway, here are some of my present thoughts regarding your OP that might add some value to this discussion.

Now, I have tried to quantify mastery in seduction in the past. . . quite unsuccessfully. You might remember the thread in question. . . back on NextASF. However, I think that with the framework you've presented here a much better estimation can take shape. . .

We may consider pragmatism and the ability to get laid as the two pillars of this metric.

Normalizing against the general population of men, the upper echelons or lower percentages. . . are made up of men who can access abundance. Meaning they will have little trouble. . . finding an average looking or fairly cute girl to shag. Once a man is operating at this level of ability, the current amount of notches he has already racked up loses relevance. . . since time and effort will directly translate into a higher lay count.

Normalizing against seducers and the rankings look different, now the upper echelons or lower percentages are the men. . . who have reached absolute abundance. Meaning a man with the ability to get consistent results. . . with the high quality women he truly desires. To get even more specific we can take pragmatism into account. . . and consider the actual efficiency and effectiveness of each man in these samples.

Efficiency can be evaluated using lays per month. Effectiveness can be determined from meet to lay ratios.

If we normalize against regular guys we can evaluate their pragmatism in terms of regular abundance. When we normalize against seducers, we may consider the process of finding, meeting and bedding. . . high quality women instead. This is an imperfect metric because there may be significant differences in individual contexts, the types of sets approached and challenges faced. But I'm curious to hear what you think about it. . .

 

[Carousel]

Normalizing against the general population of men, the upper echelons or lower percentages. . . are made up of men who can access abundance. Meaning they will have little trouble. . . finding an average looking or fairly cute girl to shag. Once a man is operating at this level of ability, the current amount of notches he has already racked up loses relevance. . . since time and effort will directly translate into a higher lay count.

Normalizing against seducers and the rankings look different, now the upper echelons or lower percentages are the men. . . who have reached absolute abundance. Meaning a man with the ability to get consistent results. . . with the high quality women he truly desires. To get even more specific we can take pragmatism into account. . . and consider the actual efficiency and effectiveness of each man in these samples.

Efficiency can be evaluated using lays per month. Effectiveness can be determined from meet to lay ratios.

If we normalize against regular guys we can evaluate their pragmatism in terms of regular abundance. When we normalize against seducers, we may consider the process of finding, meeting and bedding. . . high quality women instead. This is an imperfect metric because there may be significant differences in individual contexts, the types of sets approached and challenges faced. But I'm curious to hear what you think about it. . .

I also think lay count loses much relevance beyond some level. At least other aspects like time spent, quality, demographics and preferences must be considered at that point. Related metrics like lays pr month and meet-to-lay ratios make much more sense then. Those are also easy to verify for people you hang out with, whereas lay counts are prone to bragging.

Actually I think this framework is only approximate for seduction. Many of the other hierarchies I have mentioned are much more one-dimensional and clear cut in terms of metrics of success.

 

[Chrance]

I see what you mean Carousal about science having clear metrics (in the chat). I didn’t even think about citations.

 

[Skills]

Great topic!

TL DR - I think it's important to measure skill. I wouldn't use body count, as it's not particularly useful given what guys in the scene typically want - and I submit that we want to pull any chick we see.

I usually measure a guy's game by the thoroughness of his thought process (and later on applying his knowledge in the field)
_____________________________________________________________
I agree with Klimax on this point.

JMULV claims a 1,234 body count -

^ true example of someone who i still don't get it, he could have a million lays, he comes across as try hard, qualifying himself and playing massive numbers game and totally unlikable... i gave the dude a chance and nothing he said really help me but back fired, and the other stuff such as paying for premium online services is dah advice already written about, he constant losing of friends such as alvarado and the rest is the same.... I just got a pop up on him with baddacus when he couple of months back says he online ONLY endorse the dude from playing with fire. anyways...

i always post this in this type of blogs, from mark manson(i know people don't like him i like a lot of his stuff when it comes to none practical):

In the beginning picking up women can be a science, but the better you get, the more it becomes an art. Once guys pass a certain threshold or so, the only thing that differentiates them is style. This style is based mostly on your personality and what types of women you like. Improvement only exists in adapting your objective skill-set to your subjective desires. Any sort of “next step” is actually more of a lateral movement, rather than moving up.

Beyond getting the first couple lays, quantifying “game” in any sense approaches the impossible — completely subjective and any arguments about skill-levels, quality, consistency, or styles is arguing past one another — like claiming heavy metal is better than rap just because… well, just because.

Over the years, I’ve dated women that other guys think are hideous. I’ve dated women that guys who don’t know me literally come up to me in bars and give me high fives when she’s not looking. There are a lot of women that most guys consider “hot” that I have absolutely no interest in, and vice-versa.

What I’m getting at, is once you become consistent, the only real metric for “success” is your own satisfaction. We’re always playing a numbers game, and once you get your % up to 1/10 or above, really any objective measure of skill kind of becomes pointless.

Once your % passes that magic threshold, it’s really just a matter of how much time and effort you’re willing to dump into your sex life. Some of us dump a lot of time and effort. Most don’t.

For this reason, the idea of “who is the best?” Or who can close the most consistently, or who has the best club game, the best day game, etc. — it’s a bunch of nonsense and as my friend Doc used to say, “Dick crack.” It gets a bunch of competitive and horny guys and their egos excited. But at the end of the day, whether I can lay a girl in 50 minutes and you need two dates is pointless. If my girl has a 9 body and a 5 face and yours has a 6 body and 8 face is pointless.

When it comes to learning pick up this is where is at:

I usually measure a guy's game by the thoroughness of his thought process (and later on applying his knowledge in the field)
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^ i always used david d when i had no idea he did not get laid and he got me laid and a 10 year gf...


my final point lets say a dude got 1000k lays pre milleneals era...... The game today and i know most people disagree with me on this, is a different game, which is why i can't stand people such as rollo relying in his 50 lays 20 years ago...

 

[ljrozz69]

My post was intended to contribute by providing ideas as I find the topic very interesting. I regret that those got wrongly conveyed; words like "toxic" and "unpractical" weren't proper words to convey them. I've edited my previous messages in order to cut them off.
My sincere apologies.

I'll stay out of the advanced forum from now on.

Klimax

PS: I highly value Carousel's threads and advice. This was not an attempt to troll or discredit the thread.

 

[Carousel]

Another use of this framework is the concept of BASELINE ACHIEVEMENT.


I have first talked about what is going on on the elite end of the statistical distribution. Now I will talk about what is going on at the middle of it, the world of the average person. Time to go from the 1% to the 50%!

BASELINE ACHIEVEMENT is a actually a technique I have picked up in a book about artificial intelligence, which has strong connections to statistics.

For example, say you are predicting the weather. If you find by experience at your location that a banally simple model as assuming the weather tomorrow is the same as the weather today has a 70% success rate, you have defined a common-sense BASELINE.

This is necessary to define in order to measure any real progress in your work. Because, if you now make a much more fancy algorithm, you will have to compare it to the baseline to see whether you are actually making any real progress. What if your very fancy algorithm only predicts the weather tomorrow correctly 65% of the time? You can immediately say that no matter how fancy this model is, it is NONSENSE because it does not beat the simple, common-sense 70% baseline. It can actually be surprisingly hard to beat such simple models.

Baseline achievement would in its simplest form be the mean, the median or any similar measure of what the general population achieves. We are now talking about being in the top 50% or similar, not in the top 1%. Just as multiple different metrics may be valid for high-end achievement, multiple different metrics may be of relevance for defining average achievement. For example, beating the mean or median income in a country will be different numbers. Some of these measures must be normalized against your age group, for example if you are 20 and poor, it makes no sense to compare you to an old average guy who never did anything very smart, but just worked for corporation his entire life and conclude that YOU did something wrong and HE did something very smart.

The concept of baseline achievement has multiple uses. Three areas will be discussed.


1) My first use of baseline achievement was to judge whether people claiming revolutionary hacks or knowledge were worth listening to or fakes. This includes individuals such as "red pill" guys and wantepreneurs. Just as we can pick mathematical mental masturbation in prediction analysis apart by baselines, it is very easy to pick apart cheaters and talkers apart by asking:

Did the "red pill" knowledge enable the person in question to actually beat the baseline achievement of normies on the area of interest?

Some examples:

Good PUAs pass the baseline achievement test. Their "secret" knowledge enables them to get into the triple digits, while the average man is probably in the single or low double digits. They also outperform chodes on other baselines like meet to lay ratios and lays pr time unit.

Successful entrepreneurs pass the baseline achievement test. They will always be able to document their progress in my experience and generally end up freer and/or wealthier than the corporate chode.

Wantepreneurs fail the baseline achievement test. They are never able to document that they earn more from their pursuits or have a net worth higher than an average person with an average job. So they fail not just one, but two baselines.

Manosphere morons like Roosh fail the baseline achievement test. He talks about being "traditional", yet is 40+, not married and no kids. An average chode at 35 years with 2 kids is far more "traditional". (AND NOTE, AGAIN THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE, THIS THREAD DOES NOT ADVOCATE ANY WORLD VIEW OTHER THAN CRITICAL THINKING AND NOT BEING A TALKER OR CHEATER)

Various whiny ideological countercultures fail the baseline achievement test. If you actually know so well how everything works, why are you not on the path to victory over the average ignorants? Loud moralists are often not conforming any more to their principles than the general population and quite often violate them all the time. None mentioned, none forgotten.

Incels fails the baseline achievement test, obviously. This is just a bunch of guys not getting laid, but at the very same time they know so much better than the average man who gets laid now and then and maybe has an average LTR how the sexual marketplace works and why they don't get laid. I call bullshit.

A related debunk is that anything or anyone that claims EXTRAORDINARY OUTPUT without a corresponding EXTRAORDINARY INPUT in terms of talent, competence, effort, discipline, resources or other fundamentals etc. is fake.

Bottom line: You shall not brag before you have beaten the baseline of society and normies. If you violate this, you are a bullshitter. You should also not expect your "red pill knowledge" to be taken seriously outside echo chambers before you are able to beat at least some societal baselines.


2) A second use of baseline achievement is to know what you should achieve given a given age, time of focus or level of effort.

The post by Berkhan about strength standards is a beautiful example of this. Intermediate goals: ~2 years, advanced goals: ~5 years, elite goals: ~10 years.

If you have trained for say 5 years of time and not reached the advanced goals, you then know that you have either done something wrong, not showed up enough or there is something wrong with your physiology. But usually the culprit is incorrect or lacking practice.

Such goals can be defined on many kinds of areas in life.


3) A third use of baseline achievement is to know where YOU are unbalanced relative to the general population.

This does not imply that you WANT the same as the general population, but now you are in a position to make an informed analysis.

As Chase pointed out in another thread, very high achievers tend to be unbalanced individuals.

It may be a good idea to at least analyse where your achievement is less than the average man.

Though if you actually are a very high achiever in something, you may WANT to throw all your energy into this pursuit on the expense of other areas, at least for a good amount of time.


Conclusion

Defining a common-sense baseline achievement allows you to weed out fakes, debug how you spend your time and debug your own imbalances.

PS: I will edit this into the OP.

 

[Chase]

This was an awesome, nuanced thread by @Carousel.

@Klimax gets on with the first response calling it "good for beginners and intermediates" and then talking about it being toxic and whatnot. Then goes into nitpicking.

Whatever Klimax might have added here that is worth a discussion he's overshadowed by coming in on response #1 and tearing down the OP, which is clearly a post Carousel put a lot of work into.

I've written a lot of stuff over the years. Tons of it. I'm no stranger to criticism, and actually appreciate it, so long as it's good and delivered without hidden barbs (sometimes I like the barbs too though, if we're being honest... it gives me a rare excuse to use a few barbs back. Which usually I refrain from doing). However, there is a special place in hell reserved for guys who where you put a ton of work into a post, and the first thing you get back in comment/post #1 is someone dumping on it.

I know there's the culture on the Internet of "If I see someone saying something I disagree with, I have to correct him" -- but when you are doing it on a forum like this, there's also a certain expectation of social grace. That's entirely lacking in Klimax's response.

Obviously if someone posts something that is just a complete pile of garbage, we don't want to dance around that.

But this post by Carousel is actually quite cool. He's attempting to do something here people do not normally do. How do you quantify the difference between PUA A and PUA B, or PUA B and Natural M? They have completely different styles, specializations, drives, etc.

We got some great replies from @West_Indian_Archie and @Bacchus that were thoughtful and (especially in West_Indian_Archie's case) offered different perspectives and disagreed with some of the OP without tossing it out. @Klimax, take a look at WIA' response -- that's a great way to add a different perspective to a thread while doing so in a calibrated way.

Anyway... looks like I should probably do a post here on proper forum etiquette again.

Seems we are in need of that right now.

Chase