>he purest romantic intentions (the post talks of wife material, not one night stands)

Sure, using academic data to statically enter the easiest class with most chicks exudes pure romanticism. I'm sure the upperclassmen playing professor in a lab or doing the work of women they find attractive is totally helping the students learning. No unwanted advances are taking place is code for "no forced touch or stalking is happening".

I've seen some downright hideous guys get laid and get a girlfriend. They didn't use first year classes as a shittier Tinder, nor were they especially aggressive. The problem seems to be elsewhere...

They didn't say subtle, or that you had to track the entirety of the hypothetical 1000.

I said subtle because I am not inexperienced in this area and these "signals" absolutely are subtle/ambiguous a decent portion of the time. And clearly you do need to track all 1000, otherwise how would you know if someone is trying to "signal interest or a lack thereof"? If I'm not paying attention to that one signal and they use it, then I'm missing the signal.

Indeed, I didn't say subtle because I thought it was so obvious it went without saying. My bad.

Now why these social cues are so often subtle or ambiguous is itself an interesting question. It's not one I have any good answers to though. In this area, as in most, I'm a phenomenologist and not a theorist. Needless to say the phenomenology I've developed precludes telling a woman I'm interested in about the phenomenology I've developed. Except of course when I think she might find it attractive. Human social interactions are marvelously complex. Frankly my inclination to start navel gazing has set me back once or twice.

A smug upperclassmen != Good teacher

Let's change the subjects from "horny upperclassmen" to "MLM representatives that want to get new suckers". Would you be fine with going to a class where a significant percentage of people are trying to get you to sell Amway products? And they don't give a damn about the class?

> Would you be fine with going to a class where a significant percentage of people are trying to get you to sell Amway products?

Yes, absolutely. If they are getting in the way of my ability to focus by talking to me about Amway products, then no. Likewise, if they ask after class "Hey, wanna buy some Amway?" and I refuse, that's fine -- one bite of the apple is reasonable. If they keep asking me if I want to buy Amway, then that becomes a problem.

A bunch of people with any ulterior motive in my class are fine with me. Those people not respecting my motives (learning) is the issue.

> Would you be fine with going to a class where a significant percentage of people are trying to get you to sell Amway products? And they don't give a damn about the class?

Yes?

I'm capable of saying no, even aggressively when people don't get the hint. I've even done it in the past, numerous times.

Would you find their behaviour acceptable? Would you find it positive?

What "behaviour" are we talking about? Sounds like they simply exist and are in the same room as me.

I mean, yeah? If it turned into harassment then no, but the post itself says that's not happening.

How is this any different from Bob talking your ear off about some hobby that he has that you have absolutely zero interest in? You just don't listen or tell him directly you don't care. This thread makes me feel like I'm going insane, this is basic human interaction.

Let's say there's 20 Bobs in your class, and they are pushy, not pushy because that would be harrasment ;) Also the Bobs don't give a shit about the class, they just got in to talk about [INSERT ANNOYING HOBBY].

It's totally okay if you say something that's totally not equivalent.

The specific numbers would make a big impact, and it depends alot on what we define as 'harassment'.

Is it 20 among a class of 600? Or is it 20 among a class of 50? How pushy are they about it? Do they stop if I tell them I don't care once? twice? twenty?

These are all relevant questions but it feels like many folks are automatically treating it as if they make up half the class and they're doing the absolute maximum amount that's just under what would be considered 'harassment'.

For what it's worth, most of the people in my college classes (including myself often) didn't give a shit about any part of the class except for the grade.

Worth considering that with the post in question, these male students are auditing the class so in general they have no consequences if they fail. They are there solely for the purpose of trying to sleep with younger female students and need to place no consideration on their academics.

And as for how pushy they are, according to the author, these male students are trying to take on a perception of authority (acting like instructors/TAs during classes) which implies some amount of attempted coercion (whether explicit or implicit) is likely taking place.

This type of power dynamic is really dangerous and it's a matter of time before somebody particularly scummy takes part and ends up victimizing one of the female students who are actually trying to pass the class.

> Let's say there's 20 Bobs in your class, and they are pushy, not pushy because that would be harrasment ;) Also the Bobs don't give a shit about the class, they just got in to talk about [INSERT ANNOYING HOBBY].

I don't mind - I can say "No" 20 times in a single day and then be left alone for the rest of the semester.

MLM representatives can't be friendzoned. MLM representatives won't teach me a thing.

Damore was (with a lot of benefit of the doubt) totally clueless. Sure, he'll talk about how he thinks that discrimination is bad, and how he doesn't approve of sexism. He turns around and says that women are just neurotic and "more people focused", based on suspect evidence.

Of course you will point out that he was juts talking about the population, and reducing people top that is very bad mkay. He is totally not talking about the fine gals at Google! I could believe that he believes this, but the end result is that the 20% of Blind that is just misogynist assholes get more brazen.

Manu (lightly!) criticized his company with lighthearted cartoons. Demore in practice called 30% of his coworkers neurotic weaklings.

There’s no reasoning with these people. They’re buck broken to the core.

Simply an average mall cop in Night City.

Cynical about the literal CIA? I'm still not convinced it's not some weird counter-productive PSYOP.

It’s about the people working for them. Not the organization itself.

And what would be gained?

Here’s the problem is conspiracy theories: when you divorce yourself from needing any evidence to draw a conclusion (nothing that could go before a court of law or a scientific paper), then anything is possible. No means to confirm or refute it! Why not claim that actually the CIA agents are working for Cuba and trying to reduce moral for the rest of them? That’s equally plausible as a generic psyop, but would at least have a more clear outcome. And I just made that up… or did I? Maybe I’m working for the CIA! I mean Cuba! No Russia!

Once you go down that rabbit hole, you throw away everything. So the baby goes with the bath water. You’re totally ungrounded, and at that point you’re totally manipulatable to whenever wants to create a conspiracy for their own agenda, even if that agenda isn’t very clear or sophisticated (eg aliens are doing X).

A healthy amount of skepticism is important. Too much and you’re wrong most of the time yet no logical argument or lack of evidence convinces you. If this happens at the societal level, it’s devastating.

Well the grandfather comment talked about disability compensation inflation, aka, simple fraud. I don't think it overly outrageous to consider that someone that works for an organization that (recently!) backed death squads, would stoop to fraud for personal gain. They have done literal illegal human experimentation (MKUltra) on random people or even on their own.

I'm not saying that I KNOW this is X plot with Y intentions (most probably it's just mass psychosis) It's just that I do not take what a CIA operative says at face value.

I don't think an individual working for the CIA inherits anything from the CIA training militias in South America any more than I think the guy who refills the coke machine at my job inherits national socialist sympathies.

A CIA doctor talking to a TV doctor on CNN. I'm not buying it.