This is a boilerplate redpill comment.
Don't like redpill? Make it stop working.
Redpill is ‘working’ as it always has, as an obvious red flag
https://theweek.com/culture-life/the-gender-education-gap-is...
https://www.the-independent.com/us/money/dating-struggles-wo...
https://edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai25-1199.pd...
https://mindingthecampus.org/2025/10/23/college-students-in-...
The PUA scene was about gamifying or exploiting dating - hacking how you go about it for your own gains (getting laid)
Approaching women in public with good intentions and to feel more comfortable talking to women is not PUA. It’s one of the suggested things to do, but I think intentions matter a lot.
After Neil Strauss "The Game" almost destroyed several of the early exploitative PUA companies, many of them survived by refocusing on "softer", more self-improvement focused material. You'd find "old school" PUA companies like Real Social Dynamic[1] suddenly pushing exercise, meditation, and other self-improvement focused programs alongside their old routine-based pickup bullshit.
The comment above fits into that era, I think - on one hand there's language that fit right into some of that eras PUA mindset, on the other hand it's mostly arguing for the "softer" self-improvement stuff.
I agree with you that the intentions matter a lot, though. But I think the comment above would've gone down a lot better if worded differently...
[1] RSD later totally imploded after a campaign targeting one of their trainers - Julien Blanc, who pushed the exploitative angle to dizzying new heights.
The crazy thing is RSD has resurfaced since I wrote that comment and they don't seem to have learned a thing since their last implosion (I was on their mailing list briefly around 15 years ago, until I realised how creepy a lot of their material was, and clearly I didn't manage to get off it, as I got an e-mail about their relaunch)
I'd recommend picking up Neil Strauss' "The Game" - it gives a first hand account of how Strauss embedded himself in that scene in general and RSD in particular, and it's bizarre. Strauss' actually started his own PUA business after the success of that book.
I'd also recommend "Nine Ball: Confessions of an Angst-Ridden Maniac Who Decided to Get Laid or Die Trying" by Jeff Allen. Jeff Allen was one of the RSD coaches that was described in The Game, so it's very much biased. But if you take it as the slightly self-delusional autobiography it is, it's quite fascinating.