In an ideal world, arguments would be fair and sporting contests between gentlemen, the point of which is the comparison of competing models of reality and the fair evaluation of each on their merits. Men would champion their perspectives logically and charitably, following the others’ premises and lines of reasoning until one or the other was caught in a factual or philosophical dead end. Jolly good, they would say, shake hands, and pop off for a round of polo.

But we do not live in an age of honest argument. We live in the age of post-modern discourse. Civil debate is a thing of the past, rhetoric is about victory more than honest inquiry, and you are advised to arm yourself accordingly.

Today we’re going to study a very common, very sneaky, and very effective tactic: The Argumentum Ad Amog.

(For the unaware: AMOG is a well-worn pick-up acronym which stands for Alpha Male Of Group. If I am the coolest guy in the room, I am the AMOG. It also functions as a verb – if I stroll up to you and your friends, and thirty seconds later they all think you’re a dweeb and I’m hot stuff, I have successfully AMOGed you.)

The Argumentum Ad AMOG is characterized by its ability to elevate the perceived status of the man making the argument, while diminishing the status of any man who dares object to it. The logical connection of the argumentum ad amog to the subject at hand is irrelevant. The argument is effective because it is only true if one or more status-elevating premises is correct. The man who argues ad amog sneakily makes an implicit statement about himself, in the guise of speaking about the ideas at hand.

My favourite example of the argumentum ad amog is the assertion by the Professional Libertarian class (Cowen, Caplan et al.) that unlimited Latino immigration to the United States is a good and necessary thing. America descends into a culturally enriched socialist hell with ~20%+ actual unemployment rate, but the nation’s self-styled libertarian economics professors agree: Cheap Chalupas Uber Alles!

On the surface, they cloak their message in high rhetoric of human rights and the gains from trade that can be derived on a chalkboard in the hypothetical land of homo economicus. But what message do they truly wish, deep in the cockles of their hindbrain, to communicate? I suggest something more akin to this:

“Good sir -I am a sheltered, wealthy, and well-remunerated scion of The Thinking Class. I earn my daily bread with my mind, not with a wrench, hammer or plow, as if I were some feudal serf. Oh no, my station in life is so great, I am free to consider the demographic upheaval of the United States of America from the safety of my quite un-diverse neighbourhood, place of employment, and social circle. 

Ah, dear friend, is immigration negatively affecting your life? Perhaps by pushing down your working class wages or rendering your formerly bland middle-class neighbourhood suddenly vibrant? I’m so sorry, but such things are quite outside my reality! What a pity that they are inside yours.

Oh I know! Why don’t you just… create a bubble! Yes, that will solve all your worries, toot sweet.”

This sort of subtle one-upmanship is not (usually) a conscious process, but it serves all the same. This psychoanalysis applies to a wide variety of left-wing policies, which generally have the effect of converting middle-class America into a second-world country, sparing only the wealthiest of enclaves. Advocating for the left is status-enhancing, because only the highs have the ability to insulate themselves from the consequences of socialist policies. The middles do not have this luxury, and worse, speaking out in favour of the preservation of order reveals themselves as middles or lower.

Another example. Regular readers will note that I rarely if ever write about the contemporary politics of race. Why not? It’s certainly an interesting enough topic. Well, as it happens I have the good fortune to live in a wonderfully safe area. Throughout my life, I’ve known many upper and upper-middle class people of African, Arab, Asian, etc, descent, and they’ve all been fine friends. As far as I can see, within my own bubble, multiculturalism and diversity truly do work. If I had grown up in, say, Baltimore, my outlook might be different. I didn’t, so it’s not.

But if I wanted to be a dick, I might pull Chuck Ross aside and say something like this:

“Charles! Another post on anti-white prejudice, hate crimes, and other such…. burdensome topics. Why? Why Charles? In my experience, these topics are simply not worth discussing. Why, I’ve never heard of this ‘knock-out game.’ In my experience, people are pretty much all the same, stereotypes are for the intellectually lazy, and we’re all just a bunch of human beings trying to get along as best we can!”

But what I’m really saying is:

“Hey Chuck – did I mention that I can afford to live in a neighbourhood that is entirely free from any sort of youth-led rabble-rousing, burglary, muggings, random assaults, and petty crime? ‘Cause I’m mentioning it now. Oh, and I basically never have any contact with any members of America’s vast criminal underclass, because I have the money and social status to properly insulate, insulate, insulate myself and create a bubble in which I only interact with the better people of any race. I mean, it’s not like I’m some shmuck waiter who cares enough to notice who leaves smaller tips and bigger messes in restaurants. Based on my experiences with multicultural friends, including the third cousin of a Saudi prince, the son of a Turkish media mogul, and grad school classmates who scored in the 99.99% percentile of the GRE in Bangladesh, Iran and Nigeria, I think diversity is just swell.”

Now, if Chuck wants to win the argument over diversity, he has to concede and make explicit my claim to higher social status. Not an easy thing to do.

Here’s an example where I’m guilty. I’ve written a few pro-love, pro-relationship, pro-family posts like this, this and this. The reason? In my life, I’ve been in a few great relationships with fantastic girls with whom I made real connections. So I argue that relationships aren’t so bad, and despite all the bullshit around marriage law in the 21st century, being completely closed off to marriage and fatherhood is excessively paranoid.

But what am I implying when I write that all these other PUAs have it wrong, that love isn’t dead, and that there are still good women out there?

I’m covertly bragging that I am capable of finding good relationships, that I am able to find and lock down quality women, that I am uniquely gifted in the art of building healthy, satisfying connections with women. How many otherwise successful pick-up artists are unable to do this? Quite a few! And yet I can. Brag brag brag. It doesn’t mean I’m wrong. But, as with any argument you hear from now on that slyly elevates the status of the speaker – you should be careful to accept or reject it on its merits, rather than based on how it reflects on your perceived status.

*

Yesterday on Twitter, I got to sparring with Post Masculine author Mark Manson. Mark argues that writers from the dark side of the PUA blogosphere use the poor quality of American women as an excuse to avoid making necessary improvements to themselves. Is there truth to that charge? Sure. But it’s not valid to dismiss every criticism of American women, because a fraction of the men making the criticisms are motivated in part by the need to preserve their egos.

In one of his final tweets of the day, Mark writes: “I honestly had little trouble getting hot girls in the US. Like I said, cultural complaints, not women complaints.”

Dear reader, can you spot the ad amog here? Here’s my translation of the above tweet:

“Hey guys! I’m Mark Manson! I’m an extremely smart, accomplished, worldly, and interesting person. I’m at the prime age of my life and I appear to be [Ed: no homo] a fairly good-looking guy. I’ve traveled all over the world, because I run a lucrative location-independent business that allows me to live a life that most men can only dream about. I’m basically famous, and oh, I’ve spent the past decade of my life studying the science of seduction and training myself and others to be better with women.  And guess what? I have no problems at all finding cool girls in the US of A!”

Now this will come as a great relief to men who bring a similar resume to the table. Hey! Listen up all you good-looking wealthy international man of mystery niche celebrities with ten thousand hours of pickup workshops under your belt! You’ll do great in America! Don’t worry, Mark checked it out!

But the average American dude – especially if he hasn’t learned that Evil Men Get Laid and that there’s a Pill That Cures Approach Anxiety – is playing at a different level. He will not be comforted by Mark’s success. In his world, the combination of hypergamy and declining female quality have created a brutal dating landscape.

For what it’s worth, I will go ahead and do some explicit bragging of my own: I’m a top-tier guy. I also have no problem dating hot girls in contemporary North America, the occasional episode of whiny emo hand-wringing about the meaning of it all aside.  This is my reality, and I’m not afraid to lay it out explicitly like the egotistical dick I am.

But I recognize that for the average man, the contemporary dating scene is a muffin-topped, flake-filled, target-poor war zone. Sure, you can still do fine if you manage to crack the top 5% – and as hard a path as that may be, it’s the only one available, and thus the one I recommend to my readers – but it’s not a universal solution for restoring order and balance to the sexual marketplace. The pessimism of the dark side of the Manosphere regarding the degenerate and hypergamous state of modern American woman may not be as psychologically soothing as the starry-eyed optimism of Post Masculine. It may not even be as productive. But it is the truth.

This country is filled with men who cannot get laid. Often it’s their own fault. They have let themselves go. They are slackers. Their standards are too high.

But there are also many decent-looking, gainfully employed, kind-hearted men with who are going hungry. Regular guys with good jobs, who are in good shape, have interesting hobbies, are close with their friends and family, dress well, and act like perfect gentlemen on dates and in relationships. Again and again, these men are frustrated by the disrespect they get from marginal girls in bars, and the radio silence that follows every single one of their carefully written OK Cupid opening messages.

In unison, these men cry out: What the hell am I doing wrong?

Good men of America, I have your answer. I know why you’re not getting laid. I know what you have to do to change your situation. But before I tell you, we need to get into the proper frame of mind. Good guys of America, let’s make a list of some men who the average American woman would much rather fuck than you:

1) Terrorists

Who is Dzhokar Tsarnaev? Hardened terrorist and a murderer of innocents… or misunderstood bad boy with a heart of gold?

If you ask teenage girls on Tumblr or the New York Times, your answer is the same: He’s just a scared boy with a good heart. All he needs is a green card, another shot at the boxing title, and the love of a good woman. Then he will see the light. Truly, the blood of the Boston victims is on our own hands for depriving him.

“[Dzhokhar] sounded much more terrified than you could have possibly been. “Are you okay?” You begged him to tell you he was fine, nobody really knew. “I’m hit, in the leg, but I- wait what? You’re asking if I’m okay?” He was surprised, but calmer now. “I know you didn’t do it, and even if you did, I know you aren’t harmful.” He sighed with your words, he felt safe for the first time since he saw his face on the television.”

Fact: If you commit evil acts and take innocent lives, women will lust after you. Our most prestigious press organs and politicians will join the Tumblr crowd in excusing and explaining away your actions. You will have legions of adoring fans, maybe a book deal. And all for what? A few years in prison? Which brings us to the next entry on our list…

2) Convicted Felons

Gunning for that promotion to Senior Associate? If sex is your goal, you’ll probably have more luck climbing the greasy ladder to the top of your local prison gang.

“Thirteen female corrections officers essentially handed over control of a Baltimore jail to gang leaders, prosecutors said…

…The officers were charged Tuesday in a federal racketeering indictment. At the center of the investigation was an alleged leader of the Black Guerilla Family, Tavon White, who prosecutors said fathered five children with four of the corrections officers — Jennifer Owens, 31, of Randallstown; Katera Stevenson, 24, of Baltimore; Chania Brooks, 27, of Baltimore; and Tiffany Linder, 27, of Baltimore — since his incarceration on attempted murder charges in 2009.”

Of course not every prisoner can have a harem of female guards servicing him regularly. But I will lay money that a shithead who spends his 20s and 30s in and out of jail has a lot more access to willing women than your typical accountant or software engineer.

In any case, you have to do some pretty hard shit to actually get sent to prison these days. As long as you don’t actually kill anyone and have a good lawyer, you can probably walk the streets as a free man. For example, here’s another guy who the vast majority of women would step on your dick in their haste to fuck him…

3) Chris Brown

It’s a classic heartwarming love story: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy overcomes obstacle to win back girl. In this case however, the obstacle was that he laid into her with a few haymakers. I am pleased to report that Brown and Rihanna are doing just fine, so fine in fact that she recently bought him a million dollar Mercedes. Here’s a picture of Rihanna after their little tiff not so long ago:

And here’s Chris Brown’s new car:

Friend, let your eyes flick between those two photos for a minute while the message sinks in.

This is not to say that if you beat a girl she will buy you a car. But do note that Chris Brown still possesses a legion of lovestruck female fans, including Rihanna, despite his tendency to beat her like a ginger stepchild. One wonders if she would have been as forgiving, if he had committed the far greater crime – from the gina tingle perspective – of increasing the frequency and smiley-face content of his text message communication.

4) Serial killers

Are you spending an inordinate amount of time crafting the perfect OK Cupid profile opening messages? Perfecting the ideal length? Wondering if you should use that picture with your niece as the main profile, or go with the rock climbing one? Argh! The decisions! Still, your responses are hit or miss.

Meanwhile, Serial Killers have no problem locking down pen pals and converting them into sexual partners:

“…Ogas and Gaddam find substantial evidence from Web searches, posts, and many 1,000s of romance novels that women demonstrate a strong erotic preference for dominant men. Or toward what’s now commonly referred to as alpha males—in the authors’ words, men who are “strong, confident, [and] swaggering [as in “cocky,” and the pun is intended].” Unfortunately, what these descriptors often imply is behavior sufficiently bearish, self-centered, and insensitive as to often cross the line into a physical, mental, and emotional abuse that can be downright brutal.

Consciously, most women would like their men to be kind, empathic, understanding, and respectful. But there’s something in their native wiring that makes a great many of them susceptible to “bad boys.” Possibly because, as the authors quote Angela Knight as reflecting (in a sentiment that echoes the conclusions of most evolutionary psychologists): “[Their] inner cavewoman knows Doormat Man would become Sabertooth Tiger Lunch in short order”.

“…Moreover, in responding to the question as to whether some men, such as “serial killers, violent offenders, and rapists,” might be too dominant for women to accept, Ogas and Gaddam note: “It turns out that killing people is an effective way to elicit the attention of many women: virtually every serial killer, including Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and David Berkowitz, have received love letters from large numbers of female fans.”

5) Bums

The ladies of r/AskWomen were recently so kind as to let their Ids run off leash in this thread: What tastes in men do you have that you’re not proud of ? Tip of the hat to the fine folks at r/TheRedPill for this find.

The responses are illuminating.  Roosh has observed that many women have a type that can be described as an Unemployed but Interesting Bum. Clean cut and hard-working sarari-men of America take note: If your primary reason for not quitting your job, growing a beard, and going on welfare is that you want to be attractive to women, think again. From the top-rated comments:

• “If there’s a man in a 10 mile radius with scruffy facial hair that is completely broke and selling the weed he just grew it’s likely I will find him and date him.
• Druggies. Ugh, I’ve dealt with so much drama from dating addicts. I’m mostly cured of it now, but I still swoon over potheads.
• I’ve found I like to “fix” men. Not in a “he’s an asshole and I’m going to bring out his soft side” sort of way. I date losers. I want so badly to help them succeed, whether its financially, for school, for moral support.
• Men with no job. What can I say? I’m a hard worker, I wanna take care of you.
• If you look even remotely homeless, I will probably try to fuck you.

6) Sociopaths

Women are drawn to men who embody the Dark Triad traits. Assholes, manipulators, schemers, cocky pricks, dark souls – you’re in luck. Modern womenfolk are buying what you’re selling. Nice guys – read these adulations of sociopathic men, and pick the last few shards of blue-pill delusion from your soul:

• I like arrogance. Not just confidence but that arrogant nature. Superiority complex. Think Loki from Avengers. Not necessarily people who would insult me though. Usually my long term relationships aren’t with these types though, thankfully.
• Ugh. Arrogance is so attractive to me. I hate that I’m a sucker for the cocky guy who boldly rolls up on a group of women and just knows that he can charm the panties off every single one. I love that type. I just hate dating them.
• I like unavailable men. “What? You have no interest in me whatsoever? Why, let me obsess over you for months!” Thanks, Dad.
• I still find myself attracted to a “cool guy” over the nerdy guy. The guy who plays guitar and sports, and blah blah blah. It’s pretty ridiculous, considering I am a fucking adult now. Those things don’t mean anything. The nerdy guy is smart, and therefore has a good job, but for some reason that means nothing to me.
• When I was younger I used to be really attracted to the ”bad boy” type guys. In trouble a lot, drank a lot, generally rebellious… The guy you wouldn’t bring home to your mother. Then I grew up a bit [translation: vroooom screeech ahhh where did that wall come from?] and really dislike that type of person now.
• I like the serial killers…idk why. when i was younger, i found myself attracted to those types. the joker, roger from lord of the flies, the villian in cartoons…im insane i guess.
• The biggest one of all, they are emotionally unavailable.
• Dark and brooding, boarderline evil. Not that I’d ever actually date someone like that, but the idea is attractive to me (kind of liking ‘bad’ traits about something because it’s ). My real life SO is a total sweetheart so the idea of his absolute opposite is new and exciting, but just to think about.
• I always like the men that dont like me :/. Then i get picked up by a nice boy and have a great bf, when we arent together anymore, i cant help myself, but wanting the guys that dont want me. 99% of the time I am used and end up disappointed.

And so on.

None of the above will be new information to regular readers of Thumotic. But every day, a few more men wake up from the happy-slappy fairy tales we’ve been told about women, sex and love in the 21st century. Maybe you, right now as you read this, are feeling a bit of an epiphany coming on. An author can hope.

If so, you’re probably wondering – what do I do with this information? How do I act on it?

I do not recommend blowing up innocent people, committing felonies, beating your girlfriends, or killing hookers and wearing their skin.

But you can, and should, and truly often you must, inflict upon the women you love, a measured dose of cruelty:

- Ignore their texts

- Blow off dates

- Act cool for no reason

- Prioritize your own needs above hers

- Hold onto your freedom to bang other women, with the fervor that pre-feminist women would have guarded their virginity. Retain your emotional chastity. Make her work for every scrap of emotional vulnerability that you reveal. Weak men are sluts, and are treated with the same subconscious disrespect. Strong men are aloof, uncaring, selfish… and evil.

Women like evil men. They will gravitate towards you, the worse you treat them. They will fall deeply in love with you, the more you torment them with a constant barrage of alternating icy coldness and fleeting glimpses of warmth and vulnerability. Lie to them and they will love you for it. Destroy them and they will follow you. Concern yourself with your own needs your needs alone, and they will do the same. Treat them kindly, with deference, respect, courtesy – and you will be ignored.

Somebody call the CDC. There’s an epidemic of Player Burnout in the air. Edward Thatch, YouSoWould, and Roosh are all contenders for patient zero. I myself recently took a medically-imposed month of vacation from The Game, and I don’t feel like I missed much.

Could it be, fellow gentlemen of ill repute, that our pride- and lust-fueled romp through the wreckage of western civilization is an insufficient means of slaking our manly thirst for purpose in this life? Could there be more to life than the pursuit of our next notch? How often do we even consider the question?

A hungry man cannot imagine a higher purpose than his next meal. The sex and love-starved young men of America cannot imagine a greater goal than woman. But gorge a man on either food or sex, and he will start to see the base and biochemical nature of the pleasure they offer. Roosh spent a decade honing his social skills and traveling the world in search of nubile young babes. He lived the literal dreams of so many men.  Still, he returns to us and tweets: “I’m bored of women.”

Edward Hatch describes the emptiness of the modern dating scene thusly:

“The bottom line is that what I learned from banging 5 girls in 7 days is that I don’t give a shit if I bang 5 girls in 7 days ever again. It’s too much work, there’s zero return on investment outside of an hour or two of carnal pleasure, and the moment I bust a nut, I can’t stand the sound of her voice or having her in my personal space. The sad thing is that the vast majority of them are actually pretty nice gals, but once they start in on me with the “OMG I never ever do this!” talk, a portion of what little bit of soul I have left dies.”

After a while, they all start to blend together: Come up for just a minute, gorgeous. I’ll show you my bar. Have a seat. Care for a glass of wine? Of course you would. Let me put on some music, smooth jazz classics. I’ll tell you the story behind some strategically-placed pieces of art and furniture in my apartment. At some point I’ll mention that my roommate isn’t home, whether he is or not. These pictures on the table? I just got them developed, let’s have a look at them. Oh why yes I suppose I have traveled quite a bit, now that you mention it. Soon, we’ll be in my room and the door will be closed and I’ll be lighting candles and after between five and one hundred and twenty minutes of pretending that you’re a nice girl who hardly ever does this, we’ll be laying in a fetid marsh of sweat and sex and I’ll be wondering how long until you leave without my having to ask, and if you were worth the load of laundry I’ll have to do in your wake.

Another night, another notch. Rinse and repeat. Player burnout:  Bro, I know that feel.

The origin of player burnout, and any other negative emotion really, is incongruity between what we truly desire and the actions we’re taking in life. There are many factors that can lead us to act against our best interest – peer pressure, laziness, bad information – and our emotions exist to guide us back on our true path when we stray from it. This all sounds like hippie drivel, but the motivated reader can rephrase this basic idea in terms of evolutionary psychology or Christian theology, depending on his preference.

Player Burnout is a real medical crisis. It will afflict one in four American men at some point in their lifetime. I’m tempted to start a crimson ribbon campaign to show our support and raise awareness. Until that catches on, here’s my theory on the primary cause of this tragic disease.

Player burnout occurs when a man is pursuing sex and fresh women, to the detriment of his core self

There are a few reasons why a man might do this.

Social pressure, for one. Our culture – and by this I mean ‘our’ culture, the Manosphere – prizes the prolific man over the staid. Eschewing the next one-night stand for the sake of a monogamous long-term relationship, or god forbid marriage, or god forbid celibacy, is viewed as weak. I assume it took some degree of courage for Roosh to confess to his readers, and perhaps even himself, that the pursuit of fresh notches – a pursuit that has defined most of his adult life – is of waning appeal. In the great culture war, even this outpost of reaction and conservatism is infected with the worship of r-selected behaviour.

Pride is another. This is a truth I happened upon with much help from several thick caps of chewy fungal introspection, but perhaps you can get there with a few minutes of meditation: How much of your desire to bed new women is based on lust, versus the desire to prove yourself as a man? Variety is a wonderful thing. But is it better than looking in the mirror and seeing a man who has a girl for every day of the week? How many men would rather date a six who turned into a nine when you were alone with her, then the other way around? Be honest.

*

The internet pick-up community attracts a certain sort of man: Intelligent, introspective, analytical. Koanic Soul has some interesting ideas about exactly what sort of man that is. Men such as these are not wired to derive satisfaction from emotionally detached relationships. The Manosphere is telling these men to cast off their ideals of love and commitment, and trade them for the deracinated and solitary life of the perpetual bachelor.

As YouSoWould put it, possibly referring to this post of mine:

“Just the other day I read an article trumpeting the benefits of being a father as if it was some kind of fucking revelatory information – are people around here really so maladjusted? I may not want kids at this stage in my life, but when I do, I have no doubt what a rewarding experience it will be, the opportunity to pass on my lifetime of experience, and to provide a safe, stable family unit with a strong masculine presence for them to develop in. Does this really need pointing out to people? Really?”

How many of the men who read this blog – the vast majority of whom are 120+ IQ, analytically-minded introverts – can honestly say that they don’t want love and a family? I am a Sociopath by any clinical definition, but I know this: I want those things. I crave them. If you do not, then your heart is even harder than mine, which is hard indeed. The sort of men who spend their hours reading blogs such as this have too much depth to be satisfied with such a simple, base life. They will crave some combination of family, wisdom, purpose, and closeness to God. Defining a life on the practice of running around and fucking every hole in sight is the prerogative of a chimpanzee, not a Man.

The world perceives a stereotype of the seduction community. We’re a bunch of cold, soulless, degenerates, doing whatever needs to be done to get the lay. We hate women. We’re men of singular mind and purpose. But this is not the reality I’ve seen, in the decade or so I’ve been immersed in the community. It takes a certain degree of intelligence and capacity for analytical thought to truly grok the seduction community, and those traits tend to correlate with a craving for real emotional bonds. Many of us have repressed those cravings, because we’ve been hurt, because it’s easier to wear the armour of emotional invulnerability, or because  it is what this subculture demands of us.

The symptoms of Player Burnout present when the heart of the pick-up artist cries out for something more. It is a yearning for something greater. If you cannot find satisfaction from sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll alone, be grateful for that.

Sluts are great. What’s not to love about a slut? Slutty girls are sex-on-tap. On any given day, I can meet a slutty girl, share a few drinks, take her back to my place, bang the shit out of her, then never call her again. The magic of sluts!

But sluts must be enjoyed as they are, with full recognition of what they are not – dateable women. Trying to make a girlfriend out of a slut is like training a cat to play fetch. Cats are great at being cats, but not much else.

Are you the male equivalent of a slut?

A woman becomes a slut by recklessly giving away her most valuable bargaining chip in the sexual marketplace – sexual access – without demanding anything in exchange. A male becomes the equivalent of a slut by giving away his valuable resource – emotional commitment – on the same terms.

We can use this analogy to better understand our relationships.

Consider how your mental process works when you meet a new girl. Yes, you are going to try to get her to fuck as soon as possible. Yes, in some sense you “want” her to fuck as soon as possible. These days, it’s a rare girl who doesn’t fuck as soon as you get her behind  a closed door with a bottle of wine. But, if and when you encounter a girl who isn’t a slut – wow. She’s intriguing. She’s interesting. Her perceived value skyrockets. On one level you’re frustrated that she’s not fucking, but you’re also excited by her and far more inclined to consider her seriously as a prospect for any sort of commitment.

This is exactly how women feel about men – just substitute beta for slutty behaviour:

• Women want men to betaize themselves, because it’s empowering, it’s an ego boost, and women really, really love to watch men fawn over them. But, just as men quickly lose interest once they’ve banged out a slut, women quickly lose interest in men who do not challenge them.
• Beta behaviour (sluttiness) is a strategy by which weak men (weak women) attempt to ‘punch above their weight’ in the sexual marketplace.
• Beta behaviour (sluttiness) is often an effective means of attracting short-term interest from women (men), but it is an ineffective means of persuading women (men) to offer up their sex’s most valuable and finite resource of pussy access (commitment)
• Women (men) are happy to use a beta orbiter (slut) for emotional support and resources (sex). But no self-respecting woman (man) would ever fall for a beta (slut).

A beta who gives away resources and emotional commitment early in a relationship, is a male slut. Just as men with options don’t date sluts, women with options don’t date beta males.

So what’s a man to do? Obviously, don’t be a beta male. Be chaste with your emotions. Don’t give it up for just anybody. Make her work for you. Make her wait. Make her claw with her fingernails for every sliver of warmth from your heart. She will rage and wail at your reticence – as you would at her chastity – but in the end, she’ll keep up the pursuit and love you all the more for it.

Identifying the feminist in the wild can be a challenge. They bear a passing resemblance to the human female, but with a few notable exceptions. The Feminist is wider, stockier, and has the consistency of a beanbag chair with a skeleton. The feminist has a wider berth and perma-scowl. It has a thick coat of insulating hair on its legs and udder.

Photographs are hard to come by however, as wild feminists have the ability to shatter camera lenses with their hideousness. For many years, this was the best image we had:

Although we do have many artist’s renditions. Here is one:

The problem is that photographing wild feminists is wild. It is difficult for a mortal man to gaze at one for more than a few seconds without turning to stone. For many years, we only knew of the existence of feminists from the tell-tale signs of their herds: Matted grass where they’ve bedded down for the night; discarded carcasses of double-stuff oreo boxes where they have fed; broken families and decaying societies, wherever they’ve been listened to. Biologists pieced together an impressive literature from such clues, but we could never conclusively answer the question: What does a feminist look like?

But finally, we have an answer. A brave man wearing earplugs and a welder’s mask, risked life, limb and dignity by walking into a congregation of wild protesting feminists. He took aim with a camera and recorded this amazing footage:

Yes, gentlemen, finally we know: This is what a feminist looks like.

If you’re going to be in areas with undomesticated feminists, be sure to carry a box of cookies or tub of Ben and Jerry’s  to use to distract them if they pursue. If the lumbering beast continues to give chase, walk briskly. She will undoubtedly succumb to cardiac arrest within a hundred metres.

There are many advantages that the Red Pill community has over the mouthpieces of mainstream culture. We are smarter. We are honest and curious. We are in touch with the philosophical roots of our ideas and the modern discourse, in contrast to our opponents who disregard anything written before 1960 as tainted by white-male patriarchal privilege. We are more fun. We are, in general, more content and more successful in our personal lives. We are humble, if not always superficially so.

But there is one metric in which the Feminists have us thoroughly beaten: Quizzes. On this dimension they have us outclassed. One cannot open a car door today without hitting a women’s website or magazine with a helpful quiz. Are you a secret-keeping Sally, Guarded Gertrude, or a Blabbing Betty? Are you an Domesticated Diva or a Free-Bird Femme Fatal? I wish I was making this stuff up.

I think it’s high time that loyal Red Pill readers had access to their very own quiz.

The rules are simple. It’s a game of Chicken or Go. Read through each one the following heretical Red Pill beliefs, and say ‘uncle’ when you feel we’ve gone far enough outside the boundaries of  your politically correct comfort zone. Once you reach your limit, make a note of which number you’re on. That’s your score! Now scroll down to find out the name of your ideology, and some recommended reading material. Yippee!

* * *

Red Pill # 1: A man can improve his ability to attract women through the study of patterns in human behaviour.

Red Pill #2: Our culture has developed a strong anti-masculine bias. Men and masculinity are belittled in popular culture, labeled as evil and responsible for all the world’s ills. This has led to a crisis over the definition of modern masculinity, and the gradual realization among the men of our generation that we have been greatly misled in our upbringing, to the point that many of us have to re-learn the basics of male-female relations from scratch.

Red Pill #3: In America and throughout the western world, traditional families are falling apart. Frivolous divorce is rampant, society is atomizing, and increasing numbers of young people are growing old with out marrying and having children. The demographic, economic, and spiritual consequences of this flight from the family and into the arms of a hedonistic and empty hook-up culture, are strongly negative. The Feminist movement is responsible for these trends, and it must be stopped.

Red Pill #4: The Feminist movement is best understood as just one front in the battle being waged against order and civilization by the armies of the Left. Feminism is just another flavour of Leftism, a movement which marches under whatever banner best suits it at any given time. Given the opportunity, Leftists will take any excuse handy – female empowerment, anti-racism, social justice, income inequality, gay rights, unseating ‘dictators’ – to chip away at the foundations of western civilization.

(Still with us? OK! We now enter the choose-your-own-adventure section of the quiz! Pick one of the following:)

Red Pill #5a: The Left derives its energy from the entropic release of power and energy from the breaking apart of the bonds keeping holding society together – families, contracts, hierarchies of authority, social classes, meritocracies. Our present era is no more than the latest iteration of the great historical cycle of orderly consolidation, decay, and collapse.

Red Pill #5b: The Left is motivated by evil incarnate. The Left’s petulant rebellion against all that is good in decent in the world, is a literal continuation of Satan’s rebellion against God.

Red Pill #5c: The institutions of western civilization are unsalvageable. Pour a drink and wait for them to be purged with fire.

* * *

All right, we’re done. Now let’s see what you scored.

If you scored a … 0. You are a Hater.

A Hater is a man who despises those who seek to learn about women, seduction, and human nature. As a hater, there’s nothing you enjoy more than bravely shattering the illusions of so-called pick-up artists, by reminding them that: Looks are everything; Game doesn’t work; My friend X gets laid all the time and he never studied game, and; you know this one guy who studied game for a year and still never got laid.

If this accurately describes you, hang out with your fellow Haters such as puahate, A Voice For Men, and Aaron Sleazy.

If you scored a …1. You are a Delusional Mangina Faux Pickup Artist.

DMFPUA for short. As a DMFPUA, you are down like a clown to learn some routines and improve your fortunes with women, just so long as everything you learn is like, super positive, man. You are a seeker of the Truth – provided that the Truth is a source of good vibes.

As a DMFPUA, you are totally digging the grooves of sex-positive feminism. You leave girls better than you found them. Monogamy is like, just an outdated construct, dude. You are increasingly frustrated by the growth of outdated sexism, objectification, slut-shaming double standards, and just plain bad vibes in the seedy underbelly of the seduction community.

r/seduction is your favourite source of occasionally decent game advice, and more importantly, warm fuzzy feelings, good vies, and PC rationalizations for your manipulation of the sexual marketplace..

If you scored a …2.You have eyes, but do not see.

Well, you’re certainly in an interesting spot, aren’t you? You’ve noticed some things. You sense that not all is right with the world. But, you’re not yet ready to follow any lines of thought that might lead to crimethink. You may be a smart chap, and your political apathy may not hinder your ability to help yourself and those around you live better lives. But you have shut your eyes to the implications of what you have discovered. Your fingers have brushed the truth, but you refuse to grasp it and yank.

Mark Manson, though one of the top three authors whose ouevre I would recommend to a Manosphere n00b, is the standard bearer in this category.

If you scored a …3.You are a Masculine Conservative.

Click over to Roosh’s post defining Masculine Conservatism, and read the twelve beliefs he lists. Are you on board? Congratulations, you are a Masculine Conservative.

“It’s possible for you not to agree with all twelve beliefs, but chances are you believe at least half if you’re a regular reader of mine. If I were to pull a random feminist off the street and show her this list, she would believe absolutely none of them. In fact, if one of your more liberal friends finds out that these are your beliefs, she will think about ways to start a whisper campaign, either online or off, to deal with your thought crime that goes so strongly against what she believes to be truth.”

There are certainly worse banners to march under than that of Masculine Conservatism, but I have two issues with the coinage: 1) Our goal is not the triumph of masculinity, but the return of both sexes to their traditional gender roles, masculine men and feminine women. Look around any gathering of American women and you’ll see that ‘masculinity’ is doing just fine without our help. 2) I am not a Conservative. What is left to conserve? The time for standing athwart history yelling Stop has passed. We need to truncheon the hippies away from the wheel and turn this ship around.

If you scored a… 4. You are a Reactionary. Here at Thumotic, this is the label we’re proud to wear on our shirt. The particular flavour of Reaction you prefer will come down to your preference for Red Pill 5a, 5b or 5c.

Secular Reactionaries (5a) will enjoy the historical revision porn and political engineering geekery of Moldbug and Foseti.

Christian Reactionaries (5b) will grok the serene acceptance of our fallen world, as preached by Vox Day, Dalrock, and Bruce Charlton.

Nihilistic Reactionaries (5c) can kick back poolside with Heartiste and Aaron Clarey.

(Where, you ask, do I fall? 5a, 5b, or 5c? It seems to depend on the day.)

So that’s it kids. The Official Thumotic Red Pill Diagnostic Quiz ™.

Reactionaries will have had a fun time of reading and nodding. I’m confident that that Masculine Conservatives will come around to our way of seeing things, in good time. I’m even cheering for the willfully blind, the manginas, and the haters to figure it all out eventually. Whatever our ideological backgrounds and current levels of deprogramming though, there is still one question upon which we can all agree: That chick from glee on the magazine cover has a nose that could spear a rabid boar, but I would bang her nonetheless.

Dear Readers, how did you do on the quiz? Post your results below with an explanation and, please, remember to share this quiz on Instagram with all your BFFE’s.

I have a guest post up at Return Of Kings Today: The Pill That Cures Approach Anxiety:

Seeing as it’s the 21st Century, can’t I just take a goddamn pill or something and be done with it?

I write this tongue-in-cheek, but the answer is: yes you can. You can take a safe, cheap and legal pill, and remove approach anxiety as an obstacle in your life. Return of Kings readers, please allow me to introduce you to: Theanine.

The gist of it is that Theanine is a cheap, safe, legal supplement with no side effects and no risk of addiction or tolerance. I started taking it for its Nootropic effects, then noticed I felt much more socially courageous during daygame sessions. I did some Googling and learned that Theanine is commonly used to treat social anxiety. The combination of Theanine + my already inflated ego and sense of entitlement, resulted in virtually zero social fear.

It is truly a pickup artist’s wonder drug. Read the rest of the post here.

On a related note, a user at the Roosh V Forum pointed me towards this post on Phenibut, which sounds interesting as well. Look past the terrible design and fixation on penis enlargement, and Good-Looking Loser is chock-full of good intel.

Ah, the sheer idiotic beauty of the modern North American middlebrow dance club: Chubby poorly made-up girls; wanna-be pickup-artist chodes; guys who aren’t even as cool as the wanna-be pickup artists.

I, too, used to revel among them. But whether I’ve changed (at 28, I’m too old for this shit) or the clubs have changed (what ever happened to 50/50 ratios?), I’ve reached a new conclusion: Clubs are retarded. The girls who go to clubs are retarded. The guys who go to clubs are retarded. Fuck em all, I say. There are better places to meet girls, easier ways to get laid, and better times to be had with your friends elsewhere.

Here are five reasons why you should skip the club and stay in tonight:

1) Clubs are for idiots

To get full value from this post, I recommend cranking some Nicki Minaj while reading it.

Modern pop, of the sort one hears at great volume inside a typical club, is music for idiots. Listening to it for prolonged periods will make you stupid, if you aren’t already. Some might argue that the audiology of Nicki Minaj is more complex than that, or at least that modern Top-40 is bad but still fun to dance to. Fools, all of them.

But what about EDM? I have several friends who absolutely love EDM. Most are interesting and intelligent people. The typical rave kid is not an idiot. He’s just high as fuck. Even Richard Urgell, the Christopher Columbus of Ibiza, hates EDM:

“Ricardo Urgell, the son of a Barcelona engineer, built Pacha in the early 1970s on a desolate half-acre he bought for about $14,000. After its opening in 1973 the club came to represent ultracool debauchery and an escape from the conservative moral code of Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator. Native Ibicencos mixed with artists, hippies, thieves on the lam and those whose bronzed bodies were all the clothing they required.

But as the scene grew, the elder Urgells eventually became disenchanted by the music that made them millionaires.

“It’s monotonous sound and volume; it’s bodies squeezed together, it’s a little masochistic,” Ricardo Urgell said in a 2011 interview. “The great defect of this music,” he added, “is that it has to be accompanied by drugs. I took Ecstasy just one time in my life and found that out for myself.”

Electronic music, Piti Urgell said last month, “hasn’t evolved in 20 years and is for idiots.”

2) Clubs are a terrible place to meet women

Am I crazy? Am I going to the wrong places? Or have ratios been getting way, way worse over the past half decade? It’s getting to the point that 3:1 is a pretty solid ratio in most places after midnight. Dance floors are a ridiculous sea of cock. Ninety-five percent of the men are soft serve ice cream, but they still clog up lanes and interfere with avenues of attack.

Hordes of thirsty men also ensure that the absolute dregs of womankind can show up to most places and immediately bask in the attentions of desperate men. After a few drinks, a few hours in a beauty deprivation chamber, and a few ego-bruising rejections, even decent-looking men with a modicum of game see their standards evaporate. By last call, even male 8s act like they’re willing to swim in a needle exchange dumpster, just for a whiff of that sweet, sweet pussy.

A graphic, for your edification:

Most girls who go to clubs are mostly there for an ego-boosting infusion of male attention. In a vicious cycle, the masses of desperate and low-value men have driven quality women elsewhere: Restaurants, high-end clubs, online dating, and waiting patiently for serendipitous encounters in their daily lives. The club scene has been co-opted to serve the needs of female egos, at the expense of male boners.

3) The clubbing lifestyle is pathetic

I am a man. I have things to do. I’m not saying that I never stay out until six AM and consume mind-altering substances in unhealthy amounts, but when I do, it’s because I have a good reason. It’s because I’m with good friends, interesting new people, taking on an exciting new experience, or otherwise doing something that expands and adds value to my life. A night at the club means several hours spent tolerating an obnoxious environment, terrible music, mediocre people, and girls with terrible attitudes – and for what? A few flaky phone numbers and maybe a sloppy fuck with a girl that I probably won’t be too impressed with in the light of day?

No thanks. I have money to make. Plates to lift. Books to read. I have goals to achieve, and taking shots of liquid cocaine at two AM is not conducive to any of them.

4) Going to clubs is demeaning

Most men dislike clubs. This is because clubs are designed to appeal to women. The business model of clubs is to do what needs to be done to attract women to your spot, then sell access to horny men.

But the cost of the modern club isn’t the ten or twenty bucks you toss at the girl on your way in. The true price is the six hours of a man’s life that he spends punishing his brain with degenerate music, demeaning himself pursuing girls who don’t deserve his attention, and powering through a long night of fake interest in bullshit conversations, rather than doing something that is actually congruent with his goals and desires.

5) Quality women are elsewhere

The greatest challenge to high-value men today is simply finding top-tier girls. In a world of sloppy, chubby, unkempt, narcissistic, uninteresting, masculinized women, it is extraordinarily difficult to find women worth fucking, let alone dating, let alone settling down with. A typical club may have ten girls that pass the first criteria, one that passes the second, and E(v)=0.001 of the third.

Rather than play those long odds, go about your daily life as you would anyways, but grow a pair and introduce yourself to any cute girl who grabs your attention, who you feel is your type. Krauser and Roosh have the two best day game resources on the market right now. Buy them, read them, start approaching. If you’re used to generating the majority of your leads via club approaches, the girls you’ll meet on the street, in the coffee shop ,and in the grocery store will blow you away with how chill and unjaded they are.

Your average club prospect came home from her job at the mall and squeezed ten fleshy pounds into her spanx in her parents suburban basement in suburbia, before dragging her saggy 29-year old ass out for a night of beer, cigarettes and greasy post-bar food. You will not be the first to take her home. You may not even register in the first hundred.

* * *

There are caveats to my contention that Night Game Is Dead. The Drug and Dance scene remains target-rich, and top-end venues will always attract top-end talent. But mass-market venues, of the sort that 95% of North American club-going men habitually frequent, are as sexually and spiritually desolate as anything else on Earth.

Joe Rogan is a Man.

After watching this video, which we’ll give the working title: This Is What A Feminist Looks Like:

Rogan tweeted the following:

If you’re a man and you call yourself a feminist I hope you choke to death on vegan pizza while crying over a lady gaga song

— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) April 5, 2013

I’ve attracted the hate of a group that have one strong thing in common: no one wants to fuck them. Other than that they’re feminists.

— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) April 6, 2013

What other public figure has taken such a clear and unqualified stance against political correctness? Who else has stood up and so clearly called a shrike a shrike? In an age of cowardice, Joe Rogan, for two brief shining 160-character moments, spoke as a man.

I’m sure you could do a lot worse with five bucks than buying his new stand-up album.

Over the past month, I’ve used a variety of natural and easily obtainable supplements to significantly improve my focus, memory, mood, and cognition. I have turned my brain into a more effective machine.

The typical reader of this blog probably takes a half-dozen supplements to improve his physical appearance and athletic performance before breakfast, but the idea that you can take actions that will improve your mental performance is simply outside of most people’s reality. Today I invite you, dear reader, to apply the same hack-hungry attitude you use in most areas of your life, to  your brain function.

In the future, I will write about my experiences with “heavy” Nootropics. Today’s post is limited to entry-level Nootropics which are:

• Somewhat familiar to Joe Blow on the street
• Available at your local Whole Foods or GNC rather than sketchy online pharmacies
• Unintimidating to a rookie cognition hacker

If I didn’t hate the imprecise and much-abused word ‘natural’, I would have titled this post The All-Natural Nootropic Stack or something similarly gay.

But while the supplements I’m about to recommend are not at all scary or difficult to come by, they all have proven and remarkable effects on human brain function, and 99% of your peers are passing up on the opportunity to use them to gain an edge.

1) Caffeine + Theanine

Caffeine is the ultimate ubiquitous Nootropic. I slam a fat coffee full of cinnamon and raw cocoa every morning and feel great about it. Pill form is fine too.

Caffeine can be paired with L-Theanine for The People’s Stack:

This combination is well-known because it’s safe, effective, and has a very long history of use. This mini stack won’t cause unsafe reactions with any other food or drug you’re taking, and several studies show that it promotes health benefits like optimal lymphocyte function, neuronal cell protection, and my favorite: the reduction of psychological and physiological stress.

When combined, you’ll get the stimulant effects of caffeine without any irritating side effects like anxiety, increased blood pressure, and poor sleep. These common side effects of caffeine are neutralized by the L-theanine, which also serves to enhance attention (beyond what caffeine can normally provide).

Recommended Dose: 100mg or 200mg L-theanine three times per day for general nootropic benefits. For the best results, take 25-200mg caffeine with daytime doses a half hour before you lift.

For those who demand peer review – The combined effects of L-theanine and caffeine on cognitive performance and mood:

The aim of this study was to compare 50 mg caffeine, with and without 100 mg L-theanine, on cognition and mood in healthy volunteers. The effects of these treatments on word recognition, rapid visual information processing, critical flicker fusion threshold, attention switching and mood were compared to placebo in 27 participants. Performance was measured at baseline and again 60 min and 90 min after each treatment (separated by a 7-day washout). Caffeine improved subjective alertness at 60 min and accuracy on the attention-switching task at 90 min. The L-theanine and caffeine combination improved both speed and accuracy of performance of the attention-switching task at 60 min, and reduced susceptibility to distracting information in the memory task at both 60 min and 90 min. These results replicate previous evidence which suggests that L-theanine and caffeine in combination are beneficial for improving performance on cognitively demanding tasks.

Theanine + Caffeine is also the recommended beginner’s Nootropic stack at the excellent r/Nootropics community. It’s cheap, safe and easy. Pick up a bottle for less than twenty bucks at your local GNC, or order it from Amazon.

2) Juice

Juicing is the most efficient way to increase the quantity of fruits and vegetables in your diet. High fruit and vegetable intake is positively correlated with antioxidant status and cognitive performance in healthy subjects.

A higher daily intake of fruits and vegetables in healthy elderly is associated with an improved antioxidant status in comparison to subjects consuming diets poor in fruits and vegetables, but the impact on cognitive performance is unclear. Healthy community dwellers (45 to 102 years old, n=193) underwent cognitive testing and blood withdrawal for the measurement of antioxidant micronutrients and biomarkers of oxidative stress as well as administration of a food frequency questionnaire to assess the daily intake of fruits and vegetables (high intake HI, low intake LI). Ninety-four subjects of the HI group had significantly higher cognitive test scores, higher levels of carotenoids, alpha- and gamma-tocopherol as well as lower levels of F2 alpha isoprostanes than the 99 subjects of the LI group. Cognitive scores were directly correlated with blood levels of alpha-tocopherol and lycopene and negatively correlated with F2 alpha isoprostanes and protein carbonyls. The results were independent of age, gender, body mass index, education, total cholesterol, LDL- and HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and albumin. Healthy subjects of any age with a high daily intake of fruits and vegetables have higher antioxidant levels, lower levels of biomarkers of oxidative stress, and better cognitive performance than healthy subjects of any age consuming low amounts of fruits and vegetables. Modification of nutritional habits aimed at increasing intake of fruits and vegetables should be encouraged to lower prevalence of cognitive impairment in later life.

On the 1-2 days a week I have a few big glasses of fresh carrot/celery/beet/ginger juice, I tend to feel more calm, relaxed and focused. It’s a ‘clean’ energy.

As for a mechanism of action, fresh juice is a quickly-absorbed punch of nutrients that your omnivorous ancestors evolved to consume in large quantities, and of which we generally don’t get enough of today. Consumption of fresh vegetables, juiced or otherwise, will benefit numerous bodily functions, cognition included.

To get started, read this post on the health benefits of juicing, then head over to the Juicing For Men blog.

3) Green Tea

High-quality green tea is a natural delivery mechanism for the above-mentioned caffeine + Theanine stack. It’s a light jab compared to the  XL coffee with 300mg caffeine + 200mg Theanine roundhouse kick to face.

4) Dark Chocolate

Chocolate is delicious and scrumptious, and this is reason enough to eat it. But now you have an excuse to crush it on a daily basis:

Cognitive function in the elderly is improved by ingesting high levels of natural compounds found in cocoa called flavanols. The study included 90 individuals with mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease. Subjects who drank a cocoa beverage containing either moderate or high levels of flavanols daily for eight weeks demonstrated greater cognitive function than those who consumed low levels of flavanols on three separate tests that measured factors that included verbal fluency, visual searching and attention.

5) Omega 3

If you live in North America and pay less than twenty bucks for your steaks, you are almost certainly Omega-3 deficient. There are a dozen reasons to supplement with fish oil capsules, and high among them is this:

Omega-3 supplementation is associated with an improvement of attentional and physiological functions, particularly those involving complex cortical processing. These

findings are discussed in terms of the influence of Omega-3 on the central nervous system

6) Ginseng and Ginkgo Biloba

The mechanism and strength of these two inscrutable little Chinaman pills are in dispute, but they are inexpensive enough that they are worth a month or two of experimental addition to your daily pill cocktail.

Panax ginseng (G115) improves aspects of working memory performance and subjective ratings of calmness in healthy young adults.

We conclude that acute administration of Ginkgo biloba is capable of producing a sustained improvement in attention in healthy young volunteers.

Sauce 1 and Sauce 2. I will not claim to have experienced anything extremely obvious from the inclusion of either of these boys to my morning pill cocktail, but their low price plus my assessment of the evidence leads me to keep stocking them.

8) Creatine

Creatine Monohydrate has been used by bodybuilders for decades to get bigger and stronger. It has little or no adverse side effects, provided you aren’t an idiot, take a reasonable dose, cycle, and hydrate. It will make you jacked, but it’s also valuable as a cognitive enhancer:

Creatine supplementation is in widespread use to enhance sports-fitness performance, and has been trialled successfully in the treatment of neurological, neuromuscular and atherosclerotic disease. Creatine plays a pivotal role in brain energy homeostasis, being a temporal and spatial buffer for cytosolic and mitochondrial pools of the cellular energy currency, adenosine triphosphate and its regulator, adenosine diphosphate. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that oral creatine supplementation (5 g d(-1) for six weeks) would enhance intelligence test scores and working memory performance in 45 young adult, vegetarian subjects in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design. Creatine supplementation had a significant positive effect (p < 0.0001) on both working memory (backward digit span) and intelligence (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices), both tasks that require speed of processing. These findings underline a dynamic and significant role of brain energy capacity in influencing brain performance.

A follow-up study with a sample size of twenty found no effect, but in my experience, the addition of Creatine created the second greatest boost to my perceived mental clarity, after Theanine. Seeing as it’s also a valuable supplement for lifters to get pahmped and smash through plateaus, picking up a tub of Creatine is a no-brainer.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there you have it. A cheap and effective Nootropic stack that will make you noticeably smarter, quicker, and more focused within a week. It won’t scare your girlfriend. It won’t bankrupt you. It will expose you to little or no risk of adverse side effects. It’s just good, clean, cognitive enhancing fun.

Can you even imagine how much a 5-20 point increase in functional IQ will have on your life? in theory, we should be willing to pay our life savings for such an edge. In practice, we’re letting massive opportunities slip through our fingers because inertia and self-limiting beliefs are holding us back from the reality of easily available cognitive enhancement.

The decision is a complete no-brainer. You can have each of the above supplements in your cupboard within a week, for less than a few hundred dollars. I recommend phasing them in one at a time, with a week or two between new supplements to allow you to observe the effect of each.

Is there a placebo effect at play in all of this? Of course. But an effect is an effect, and there is enough peer-reviewed, double-blind research on the above Nootropics to convince me that it’s far more than that.

Some people will tell you that you should just be yourself and be happy with who you are. To them I say: Fine. You go ahead and be your average, sub-optimal self. But I am a man who seeks an edge. I am a man who will use whatever advantages are available to me. I am a man who believes that it is my responsibility to do all I can with what I have, and that failing to squeeze all available potential from my mind and body would be a dereliction of that duty.

All of the above supplements can be purchased at your friendly neighbourhood nutrition store, or ordered on Amazon:

Theanine

Creatine Monohydrate

Omega 3

Ginkgo Biloba

Ginseng

Green Tea and Dark Chocolate, I purvey at my local hippie grocery store.

I encourage you to take this article as your starting point in your journey deep into the rabbit hole of human cognitive enhancement. I have barely scratched the surface of this topic, and the next in the series – in which I review fun toys like Modafinil, Piracetam, and Lysergic acid diethylamide – will still leave a lot of ground uncovered. The human brain is a beautiful, remarkable machine. Let’s have some fun and see what this baby can do.

Here are a few sources to get you started:

Reddit: R/Nootropics

This thread on Bodybuilding.com

Bulletproof Executive: Upgrade Your Brain

Bold and Determined: How I Became Mighty With Modafinil

Serious and experienced commenters only please. What are your experiences with Nootropics? What products are you most interested in checking out? Artificially enhanced super-genius operators are standing by.