And to be fair, you could argue that this is a necessary prerequisite for seeking the truth. How can you understand anything from a position of weakness, from a slave mindset, pessimistic, resentful of the world, with disregulated dopamine, unable to see anything clearly? Maybe learning to activate that winner effect will bring much to light. And maybe success in material pursuits, found lacking in meaning, would propel a person forward into more spiritual development.
I see your point, the appeal is there, if you're in a better mindset, because you feel "successful" your demeanor towards life changes and you may be more receptive, and probably won't be inclined to take out your frustrations on someone else. I've actually met quite a few people who became less abrasive when they were in a relationship, and it's quite incredible the change, so I concur.. I think biologically, and energetically perhaps, having someone by your side or having.. let's call it, someone else validate your sense of self worth shows in your behavior in the world.
However, how can you understand anything from a position of making yourself believe that you're curing your weakness with dopamine? are you really overcoming trauma, turning weakness into awareness and hopefully strength? or are you masking the symptoms? Not that there isn't a path and a certain amount of work to go from feeling like a "loser" when it comes to girls, to someone who is confident enough to sleep around, there is indeed work in that direction, but for what purpose?
And I think the subtle difference is vanity.
What I mean is, you could work for a larger spiritual purpose which will reflect in material ways, and it may look superficially very similar to simple material pursuits. You can find order in your life, and through discipline and hygiene, get your life in order, your finances in order and your body in order.. you look healthy and strong and this shows, this is attractive. Or you could simply aim to be attractive and desirable, and train to seem so.
That's why I think vanity is this subtle difference, you could for instance, go to the gym to look for beauty or to look strength, and both look externally almost equal, but the goal is entirely different. One of them is tied to dopamine, and one of the is tied to endorphins. One of them is fleeting and one of the is long lasting, one of them burns you out and builds tolerance and the other doesn't.
And that's what I think Tate and so many others that have followed in his footsteps are offering, it's a vain, superficial approach as opposed to a deeper one. Which also explains, IMO, why there's a lot of reasonable bits in his message.
"If you look good, and successful girls will find you attractive, because they're wired to seek protection and providers, etc" well yes. But girls also look for intelligence, and loyalty, a healthy degree of emotional awareness at least, reliability.. and those traits reflect themselves in your life as success and attractiveness and as someone capable of providing, and reflect a decent long term outlook on your character.
And Tate and others really offer no solutions, or suggestions about how to keep the promises that the outside persona they suggest you build, makes.
IOW, you might say that Tate is therefore the Ultimate 'Beta'. He's alpha in appearance, but nothing else. His essence is weak at best or pathological at worst. He's sort of the epitome of the wrong application of (how to be a real man) information. Instead of generating knowledge, he takes that information and turns it into misery and suffering.
That is a really good way to put it, I remember a quote from a movie "the loudest one in the room, is the weakest one in the room". It always stuck with me. I never really understood, until recently, how men would brag about being with women, but in the same breath they would disparage them, it always felt discordant, "why would you be with someone of whom you think so little?" but... someone who needs to brag disparagingly about his conquests, is someone deeply insecure about said conquests.
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