Having been of a few cruises, I'd like to point out a few things:
1) Listed prices generally DO NOT include gratuities. Low level cruise employees like the cleaning crew, cabin stewards, waiters, cooks, etc. are paid ridiculously low wages, because cruise ships are registered to countries like Panama and the companies do not need to adhere to U.S. standards. I don't recall offhand, but for a 7-day cruise the "automatic" gratuity is, I believe, around $100 or so per person, so take that into consideration. You can remove the charge if you want to, but you'd have to be a pretty big asshole to do that :) Also, prices are based on double-occupancy, so if you go by yourself, double the fares.
2) Internet is expensive, slow, and charges by the minute). However, if you do this a lot, some cruise loyalty programs will give you free internet. I know Princess does this. Also, you're cell phone my work in certain locations. I'm a U.S. AT&T subscriber and I have full service in U.S. ports like San Juan and the U.S. Virgin Islands. If you can tether your phone, you'll get much faster and cheaper service that way than on the boat internet.
3) Don't get sick / injured. My wife stepped on broken glass while wearing open-toed shoes and got cut up pretty bad. The doctor on board used strips instead of stitches, and the cut reopened in two days, by which time we were already off the ship. The crew handled the incident terribly. The problem with the glass was not resolved quickly, my wife had to wait a fair amount of time for someone to show up with a wheelchair to take her to the doctor and the crew went into "don't get sued" mode really quickly. They gave us pushback when we refused to sign a liability waiver before getting treatment and we had some security guy who kept insisting to come into our room to photograph the shoes my wife was wearing at the time. When we complained the next day about the process, a nice woman sat down with us to hear out our complaint, but never really did anything. We were adamant about NOT paying for the care and it never showed up on our bill, so we let well enough alone. Three months later, they sent us a bill for $300 for the care. After we sent their HQ a letter in response, they ended up waiving the fee and giving us $100 credit towards our next cruise. Nice, but it was ridiculous in the first place since.
4) In regards to the above, had something worse happened, or they had refused to waive the fee, good luck fighting the cruise company in court. You're not only bound by typical consumer-crushing stuff like forced arbitration, but you're also getting into international legal difficulties. For big cases like the cruise that tipped over, it's worth the hassle, but for smaller claims, you're pretty limited in what you can realistically do.
All that said, I think this is a pretty cool idea and had always thought about how cruises could be a cool little work/vacation thing.
He says room service is "free", which suggests that he's not tipping. Someone pointed out down thread that this guy's a pickup artist (http://www.pualingo.com/pua-profiles/herbal-tynan/), which is empirically correlated with "asshole", which in turn is correlated with "does not tip".
You realize that this "tipping culture" is not that prevalent outside the US? In many countries, especially in Europe, service and stuff is paid market wages, and there's no reason to tip by default, just when you are extremely satisfied with the service.
Does the fact that I didn't know about "tipping culture" when I was first time in the US makes me an asshole?
Tipping and basic etiquette (particularly involving dining) is one of the fundamental bits of culture everyone should research when traveling to another country.
If you are in the US and received good service, but left crappy or zero tips then yes, you definitely leave a negative impression of yourself. Nobody will understand why you left a bad tip or just think "oh, he's a foreigner, he doesn't understand." They will just think you stiffed them. Or they will perhaps think - "oh he's from country X - they must all be cheap assholes there. I hope I don't get any more tables with people from that country."
Would it not be the same if I visited your country and was rude or insulting regarding some very basic and obvious part of your culture?
Would it not be the same if I visited your country and was rude or insulting regarding some very basic and obvious part of your culture?
People may differ about what is "obvious." Something that doesn't exist in my country and that I've never heard of ... is not going to be "obvious" to me.
If only there were some way people going to new countries could learn the basics about where they're going. I was thinking maybe an app, but connectivity is hard when traveling, so I'm thinking maybe a book. Sort of like a FAQ or a new user's guide. Maybe we could call it a guide-book?
Bullet point #1. I would consider that fairly obvious.
If you can't manage to stumble across #1 cultural tip then you obviously have not done much research. You shouldn't expect people to excuse your ignorance of their culture. That goes for any country - not just the US.
Sorry on behalf of them! I knew about the tipping culture because my grandfather was a general manager for a branch of a US based multinational company and had to travel there a lot, and my father had traveled a bit to use scientific instruments there (like synchrotrons).
But to the average Australian - we have a very decent minimum wage and ridiculously good penalty rates (like, work a public holiday and you get double time or double time and a half). Tipping is just something that is non-existent, and I think people just don't expect that the US would treat people so much worse than we do...
"...I think people just don't expect that the US would treat people so much worse than we do..." The US would be in much better shape if your expectation was correct. Sadly, many Americans [1] think that tipping is a good thing for servers because if they work hard then they'll get good tips.
[1] I've lived in the USA almost my entire life, and have never understood why "we" are "Americans" when there are many, many other countries on both American continents that aren't "Americans". Why is there not a term for us that is more accurate and less Americentric (wait, really?).
Well, we call ourselves Americans too :) (here in South America), and we call people from the USA "Estadounidenses".
You might see on many left-wing president's speeches, they start with "Hermanos Americanos" ("American Brothers"), which definitely does NOT include the USA :P .
Scare quotes are unnecessary; nobody would confuse you with a cultural imperialist.
The country is called "The United States of America," so its people are "Americans." Similarly, people from "The United States of Mexico" (yes, that's its real full name) are called "Mexicans."
Languages evolve as an emergent property of people who speak them. Language usage is not subject to revision or control by self-appointed intellectual fairness monitors who unilaterally arrogate to themselves such an authority. Linguists call this practice "prescriptivism," and it is widely denigrated as (ironically) an imperialist tactic used by the power class to enforce their social position.
However, the principle itself is not limited to any particular political orientation; leftist prescriptivism is just as unsupportable in a linguistic sense as imperialist prescriptivism is.
Tipping etiquette is far from basic and almost downright intimidating. Even when I thought I had tipping at restaurants under control, I then lived in fear of embarrassing myself not tipping people in hotels and I'd stayed in a dozen hotels before I suspected that the maid cleaning the room expected a tip! Once got caught without change in a bathroom in a club in Hollywood and was so embarrassed that I handed over $10 foreign currency to a guy who handed me a towel - insane on every level.
Restaurant tipping in the US is fairly standard and shouldn't be too confusing or stressful. But I know exactly what you are talking about with other situations. For what it's worth, Americans are sometimes uncomfortable and don't know what the heck to do either! Hotels can be especially confusing.
Basically restaurants are the only place where tips are absolutely expected and you can make yourself look bad by not tipping. For anything else, if I'm not sure I usually just check a travel guide or go on forums and ask other people what they do.
I would do this if I travel to any country, just ask around at how you should behave if you want to fit in.
I've been to 30+ countries and the US is the only one where you'd need to research tipping beforehand. The notion that you'd need to hit up a forum to learn how to supplement certain wages in very specific situations in a hotel is pretty silly!
You even admit that locals barely know what's expected in some situations!
I grew up reading Richard Feynman, and was particularly impressed by his dislike for tipping (both giving and receiving), because it matched my thoughts on it.
He was from the US, and I don't think he was being an ass-hole.
You answered your own question tho, didn't you? No, it makes you someone who comes from a different culture, and I think it would be safe to assume that the person to whom you're responding would agree.
(1) I have personally met Tynan, and he's not an asshole. In fact, he's quite sweet in person. Even if you read his blog, there's nothing assholish about it. He doesn't lie. He does his own thing.
(2) People who generalize about an entire class of people being "assholes" ... maybe should look in the mirror.
Generalizing about groups can be problematic. However, not so when you're generalizing based on what the group has in common.
The whole PUA thing is about manipulating vulnerable people so you can have sex with them. It's definitionally assholish. Assuming that a given PUA is an asshole is like assuming an Englishman speaks English. It's not a perfect correlation, but it's certainly the way to bet.
Or, perhaps the whole PUA thing is about offering a list of techniques of social interaction that some people intuitively aren't born with, and need actual coaching. Neil Strauss documents this pretty well in his "The Game" books about how he fell into pickup culture.
Such techniques of course can be abused by assholes against the vulnerable as well.
Nobody's buying it, man. PUA techniques are for the socially awkward the same way blown glass pipes are for tobacco smokers. What people claim and what the vast majority use it for are two different things.
All you have to do is look at the OP's profile to find this picture.[0] That sure doesn't look like some poor bloke who has trouble talking to people.
Yeah. A fine example is this article about how a well-known pick-up artist upset that a country with good social welfare programs makes it harder for him to manipulate women into letting him fuck them: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/cockblocked-by-redist...
> But the book never stated that the pussy flow was blocked in Denmark, just that there was low quality, masculine pussy.
He sure isn't helping his case. All of the random claims of "socialism" and "left-leaning" don't help, either.
In fact, none of his clarifications actually prove she misquoted him, and each time he quoted his book in that post, it fit exactly with the original review.
From his language (referring to women as "the pussy" instead of as, you know, actual people) to his extreme generalizations of women and cultures, it's apparent the original review was spot-on for both Roosh's book and PUA culture in general.
I don't look like a "poor bloke who has trouble talking to people" because I learned pickup and learned how to talk to people. I was very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time and be taken under the wings of the best PUAs. As a result I went from being a VERY shy socially awkward guy to being generally comfortable around people. Pickup changed my life for the better-- one of the best things that happened to me.
This echoes my experience with myself and acquaintances who learned pickup (though I only read a couple books). My fiancé even respects and uses PUA techniques for gaining social power as a female executive in a male-dominated industry.
The point is that at its best this stuff is about learning to evolve how you handle yourself with others to have more success in social endeavors. Ie. most things that don't involve staring at a screen.
What people claim and what the vast majority use it for are two different things.
True, but your implication has it backwards. Tynan is not part of the vast majority. He is an outlier, one degree of separation from Mystery(Erik von Markovik) and Neil Strauss.
The vast majority of people are unable or unwilling to be so ruthlessly selfish and sacrifice healthy, stable relationships on the altar of hedonistic sex-- even if they think that's all they want (and most will admit otherwise).
The dilemma is that guys who write about attraction and having sex with women tend to benefit a great deal by having a lot of experience with women. That's not very compatible with traditional monogamous relationships, so it will always be easy to attack them from this angle however irrelevant that angle may be.
I know some awkward nerdy guys who took up DJing partly so that people in clubs open to casual sex would find them interesting and choose them over others. Does this make them assholes?
PUA strikes me as a "sales and marketing" technique to advertise yourself as an interesting casual sex partner. There are some asshats who manipulate, but then there are also high-pressure salespeople who manipulate; that doesn't make all sales and marketing unethical.
> I know some awkward nerdy guys who took up DJing partly so that people in clubs open to casual sex would find them interesting and choose them over others. Does this make them assholes?
I dunno if I'd call them assholes, but I do feel sorry for them.
Yeah! It's about empowering socially awkward people who just have trouble holding conversations! That's why it's called "pick up artistry": because you're picking up conversations!
Wait...
---
I honestly wonder how far up your ass your head has to be to completely ignore just how saturated the PUA community is with terms designed to objectify, marginalize, belittle, and disparage specifically women, and just how many of the highest regarded figureheads of the community are throbbing dickholes whose only goal in life is to find a modicum of self worth by pandering to the most cliche stereotype of traditional, toxic masculinity.
> Yeah! It's about empowering socially awkward people who just have trouble holding conversations! That's why it's called "pick up artistry": because you're picking up conversations!
He didn't say the end goal is "picking up conversations". Mindcrime was almost certainly taking offense to the infantilizing attitudes expressed in the quote he included, not to its reference to sex.
For the most part, the end goal is sex, and sometimes it's long-term companionship. There's nothing wrong with either of those.
---
I honestly wonder how far up your _ss your head has to be to completely ignore just how saturated the feminist community is with terms designed to objectify, marginalize, belittle, and disparage specifically men, and just how many of the highest regarded figureheads of the community are throbbing c_nts whose only goal in life is to find a modicum of self worth by pandering to the most cliche stereotype of fragile, vulnerable femininity.
I love how you automatically assume I'm a feminist or have some connection to the feminist community, despite me never proclaiming that. Is this another PUA technique? To fall flat on your face in an argument?
Women aren't adults who can be held responsible for their own actions and decisions; they're vulnerable children who need to be protected at every turn.
If you (as a man) visit an Apple Store just to look around, and you walk out with a brand new laptop, you're a customer. You made a decision. Yes, Apple works very hard to maximize conversions, but you're an adult, and it's silly to shame and vilify Apple for "manipulating" a "vulnerable" man into buying their products.
However, if you (as a woman) choose to have sex with a man who reads tips about how to increase his chances of having sex, you're a vulnerable victim of manipulation. That mean, bad predator who took advantage of you needs to be shamed!
Western media is overflowing with tips for women to get what they want from men. And that's okay. :)
But if you're a man, don't you dare read tips about how to get what you want from women. That would be misogynist. You don't hate women, do you, mindcrime?
We are all adults responsible for our decisions. We also are all adults, responsible for how we treat others, and how it shapes their decisions. Responsibility is not zero sum.
The common name for the system in which men and women manipulate one another is called "patriarchy". (When you look beyond men and women, it's called "kyriarchy".) It's bullshit on both sides.
There are two reason it's seen as worse for men, both historical. One is the men have had way more power and are still substantially advantaged. The more power you have, the more responsible you are for a fucked-up situation.
The other is that people with less power are forced to be manipulative to survive. E.g., 100-200 years ago, when professional women were very rare, women focused a lot marrying well, because they didn't have a lot of other options. So there's a bunch of cultural hangover from that.
This thread is not the place for a debate about whether life has historically been (or currently is) easier on men than on women.
So I'll simply say that it shows a remarkable lack of empathy and understanding for you to call those desperate men who resort to PUA tactics "powerful". Almost by definition, they are acting from a position of weakness.
I realize it's currently trendy to break the world down into large, tidy, digestible traits (maleness and femaleness in this case), labeling one as "privileged" and the other as "oppressed".
The "let's not argue, so let me argue just a little" is bullshit.
As to your non-argument argument, I have plenty of empathy for the desperate. But I can still condemn them using what power they have to manipulate other desperate people.
> Many are quick to label casual sex as misogynistic, but this implies that women are inferior to men and can't be trusted to make their own decisions and must be protected from themselves.
A community dedicated to developing, sharing, and applying methods to manipulate women into sex being considered misogynistic is not the same as casual sex being considered misogynistic.
Wow, this is a pretty strong attack, for something that is likely just a miswording. Cruise passengers pay an automatic gratuity at the end of a trip. Much of this goes to your room attendant. So it's "free" in the sense that it's essentially included in the total price.
I am annoyed with this comment. You do not seem to realise that there are many parallels between the "PUA" community and the startup community. Both are about people striving to meet their goals.
You should read "The Game", by Neil Strauss. He documents the process of becoming a pickup artist, the people he met, the stages he went through. And as you read it, you will realise something - the only surefire way to becoming a successful PUA is to improve yourself, to become the best version of yourself, and at the end of it all, that's what these guys were trying to do.
Yeah, there are assholes. There's always assholes. But at the end of the day, this so-called "PUA" culture is about turning yourself into the best version of yourself you can be. And isn't that what all us startup types are trying to do? Rising to a challenge? Stepping into those shoes? Pushing ourselves beyond what we thought possible? Closing the deal?
There are more parallels than you think. Read that book. And don't be so eager to judge people. They're more like you than you realise.
>I am annoyed with this comment. You do not seem to realise that there are many parallels between the "PUA" community and the startup community. Both are about people striving to meet their goals
That also happens to describe the mob and the serial killers community.
Let me know when you are as equally hard on women for learning all the PUA tip-equivalents (for their gender) from age 5 onwards, through to the Vogue Teen and then the Cosmo years.
EVERY SINGLE women's magazine you see on the shelves at the supermarket, has the equivalent of "PUA tips and tricks" in every issue. Such as "how to make him ..." or "What he likes in bed" or whatever. It is so prevalent, women aren't even aware of it, like a fish doesn't notice the water.
Let a guy start learning some evo-psych, learn how to dress better, work on his conversation skills, and quit being a supplicative schlub ... and the Holy Hand Grenade of Guilt and Shaming gets tossed.
> Let me know when you are as equally hard on women for learning all the PUA tip-equivalents (for their gender) from age 5 onwards, through to the Vogue Teen and then the Cosmo years.
See, here, where you gender stereotype "women" (and not a subset of them) as equivalent to "the PUA community", that's a good illustration of the problem right there.
> EVERY SINGLE women's magazine you see on the shelves at the supermarket, has the equivalent of "PUA tips and tricks" in every issue. Such as "how to make him ..." or "What he likes in bed" or whatever.
Lots do, but, no, not every single one does. (Leaving aside for the moment whether the things you describe are actually PUA-equivalent.)
> It is so prevalent, women aren't even aware of it, like a fish doesn't notice the water.
Actually, they do notice it. For some women, its part of the reason they buy the magazines (though, usually -- unlike for self-proclaimed members of the "PUA community" -- not usually a point of pride.) For other women, its a source of entertainment, something to laugh about (either among each other or with male friends.)
For other women, its part of the reason they object to many mainstream women's fashion & lifestyle magazines as reinforces of patriarchy and traditional gender roles.
But what is certainly not true is that they don't notice it.
> Let a guy start learning some evo-psych, learn how to dress better, work on his conversation skills, and quit being a supplicative schlub ... and the Holy Hand Grenade of Guilt and Shaming gets tossed.
No, only when they proudly label themselves as members of a community whose very name is about using whatever knowledge or skills they have to manipulate women into sex.
You can't really be surprised that people react to the labels you choose for yourself.
Congratulations on discovering human psychology. I don't have a blog post at hand exemplifying how bosses "neg" potential hires to get them at a lower rate, but I assure you, it is a Thing.
"Negging" is a negotiating tactic and you have failed to show how it is linked to misogyny in any way, shape or form.
You're fedorable. For such an expert on human psychology, you are having an awfully hard time understanding why you are not being well received here. You don't seem to be able to figure out how to get a bunch of nerds like us to like you, which should be easier than women since you are like us, right? And you're doing a great job at digging a deeper hole.
All I'm doing is pointing out that being "negged" just seems to be making him quite defensive and angry. I thought that having his self-esteem be reduced should make him more sexually appealing and available - but that doesn't seem to be happening.
Negging a man is supposed to make him angry. To a man, a neg is effectively a taunt. Which demonstrates that you all fail to understand what a neg is and what it's supposed to be used for.
A neg is more or less exclusively meant to be used on women who are exceptionally attractive AND who have an enormous ego because of that. It's meant for women who are always surrounded by fawning men who cater to her every whim because she is beautiful. Especially in an environment, such as a nightclub, where come-ons are frequent. And even then, it usually needs to be very subtle, used in context with as light a touch as possible.
enko claimed that "negging" is merely a universal, gender-neutral negotiating tactic. You're merely reinforcing the point that it is in actuality a deliberate tactic to undermine a woman's self esteem--to take her down a peg because she is perceived as seeing herself as superior to a man.
You're merely reinforcing the point that it is in actuality a deliberate tactic to undermine a woman's self esteem--to take her down a peg because she is perceived as seeing herself as superior to a man.
Right, but in practice it doesn't work like you seem to imagine it does.
The only reason you don't want to sound "anti-woman" is...professional advice against it. You may not understand exactly how that makes you sound like you're barely holding back the pent up misogyny.
A handful of feminists are accusing him of hating women for wanting to be more attractive to women. Nothing's new.
Just because people aren't standing up to a handful of feminist bullies ("fedorable"?) doesn't mean the community here doesn't like him. It just means that don't want to pick a fight.
Welp, congratulations! If you fail to see the misogyny in that blog post that means you're another venerable member of the PUA community who is proud of its misogyny.
If somebody harms people's self esteem to get something out of them, that person is an asshole. If that person is a boss, they are an asshole boss. If they are carefully studying how to be an asshole to women, I'm ok calling them misogynist.
I accept their rationalization might be different. But it always is. Everybody thinks they wear a white hat.
> On what bizarro world do you live where guys striving and taking efforts to improve themselves so that can appeal more to women counts as "misogyny"?
Its called Earth, where using ability to sexually manipulate women as the yardstick to measure your personal development is, for reasons which should be quite obvious, seen as misogyny (or, more precisely, objectification of women.)
Is it impossible for there to be such a thing as pick-up artistry amongst members of the homosexual community? I bet it's just a magical thing that happens in the LGBT community, where courtship is preternaturally effortless. Perhaps, it's not even a learned behavior, to attract sexual partners?
Are heterosexual women incapable of manipulative behavior? Is there no such thing? ...but if that's true, wouldn't that damage any purported premise of equality?
Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women.[1]
misogyny
n. hatred of or hostility toward women.[2, emphasis added]
The climax of the book was when Neil realized that indoctrinating yourself into the PUA community creates strange, robot like humans incapable of real connections and that lasting relationships are based on having real substance behind the facade and tricks of the PUA community.
It's strange how half the people who read this book ended up infatuated with the over-glamorized lifestyle of the "pickup artist" and missed the tale of the value of being yourself.
I think we interpreted the book in different ways.
Yes, he realised that the culture of trying to trick women into bed via tricks or routines was wrong, and the people who went down that path had flawed, weak personalities. It's interesting that on HN we tend to laud people who try to "hack the system" - but it's a shortcut, it's not real, and even if you succeed you can't handle it when you get there.
He realised that the real way to "win" women was to be yourself, the very best version of yourself you could manage. That is the central truth to which I was trying to refer. If you want to get the girls, be cool and confident and popular and successful. If that doesn't drive at least 50% of the startup community then I don't know what does.
I think we actually agree, except you have picked up a negative bias somewhere that I don't have. I liked that book very much. I have never been, nor want to be, a "PUA" but by god do I understand the sentiment.
For me that book shone a really bright light on a community, and its two types of citizens - the "wantrepreneurs" who would try to trick their way to success, and the really serious guys who changed their whole lives to succeed.
I saw obvious parallels between them and the startup community. And, yes, I suppose, serial killers and any other community who wants to succeed.
Curious as to what you found was negative and why.
There's just not a lot redeeming about most "pick-up artist" type characters. They practice their craft by relying on automatic human behavior using borrowed stories, magic tricks, or flat-out lies to establish trust.
In my opinion, diluting a relationship down to scientific behaviors and applying that to your relationships is dehumanizing and disingenuous. I don't want to associate with people like that.
Isn't your conclusion a bit of a stretch? Anyone who is a pickup artist is an asshole, and every asshole doesn't tip? Tynan is actually a pretty nice guy if you meet him in person.
If I found an asshole that does tip, would that destroy your theory?
I'd wager that the most manipulative people in social settings are people with the most neediness but least experience, self-esteem, and emotional stability. And those are things most people wrestle with to some degree.
Since I imagine most guys come to the PUA community because those traits relegate them to a life of loneliness and zero ass, I would think that their real goal is to transcend those traits altogether and to become better people. It's what PUA nirvana must be.
An interesting reply. But doesn't seem to address anything about the question I posed and more an attempt to throw a positive spin on PUA.
I mean, what you suggest here is that people are manipulative and sad before they become involved in the PUA community, and that the joining of said community is an attempt to free them of these negative traits?
I get confused by this logic because as far as I can tell the PUA community endorses manipulative and dishonest behavior, so what you're suggesting is that these lonely, manipulative, people, can transcend their manipulative behavior through more manipulative behavior.
I get confused by this logic because as far as I can tell the PUA community endorses manipulative and dishonest behavior, so
A subset of "the PUA community" do that, but there is nothing inherent about "learning PUA" that implies any dishonesty or manipulation. More than anything, it's about gaining confidence, learning some basic etiquette, grooming essentials, and a little bit of other stuff. It's Pareto's Law in action... 80% of your improvement at meeting women comes from 20% of the "stuff" that could potentially learn from PUAs. Better posture, better clothes, a fresh haircut, smiling more, and not being scared of, or intimidated by, beautiful women, is the heart of PUA-dom.
And to be quite frank, these days, the "PUA community" has really outgrown it's roots and become the "male self-help and improvement community". Lurk on many "PUA" forums and you'll find guys talking more about how to start businesses and make more money, than the ones swapping "routines" or whatever.
as I can tell the PUA community endorses manipulative and dishonest behavior
I haven't seen anything "manipulative and dishonest" on Tynan's blog, nor in his books. Well, at some level everything we do to influence another person is "manipulative," but that's such a broad definition as to be useless.
Picking up girls, and selling are very similar, and you can often cross use the techniques you learn.
Is selling dishonest? It is if you lie and shit.
Is it manipulative? What the hell does that really mean? When we interact with the world and people, we are by definition manipulating it.
If you show up to a party and act retarded, you are manipulating people into thinking you're a retard.
If you show up to a party and act cool, interesting, fun, you are manipulating people into thinking you're that.
Is the latter form of manipulation considered "bad" because you aren't cool, interesting, and fun all the time? No one is 100% of the time, we all have different emotional states, at different times.
Why is selling yourself wrong then? There's pretty much nothing wrong with that as long as you don't have STDs (and even that's ok if you mention it) or are a serial killer or something.
It could just mean communicating effectively. An untrained person would do terribly if they tried to plead a case in court, even if they knew all the relevant facts, because they don't know how to phrase their arguments in the way lawyers want them. But learning to "speak legalese" isn't learning dishonesty or manipulation - it's just about phrasing things the right way.
If you're a pickup artist doesn't this imply a certain degree of dishonesty and manipulation?
No, it doesn't. More than any single other thing, "being a PUA" is about learning not to be scared of / intimidated by, women. And about learning not to supplicate and do stupid shit, in order to try to manipulate women into having sex with you. The thing is, most so called "nice guys" are far more manipulative than a PUA! They just aren't as honest with themselves, OR the person they're trying to connect with.
1. That first statement isn't true, and you will never come close to proving it is. It's a broad generalization.
2. The comment you're responding to says, "Anyone who is a pickup artist is an asshole", which is synonymous with "All PUAs are assholes", so you haven't contradicted his point.
Probably the same way, but being a female pickup artist doesn't carry all of that "constantly objectified in media" and "the subject of a steady stream of slut-shaming (but if she doesn't put out she's totally a bitch)" baggage that's there when a man is trying to manipulate a woman into having sex with him.
I think you tip essentially a constant amount t on cruises. Room service is about as free as dining in the main room. The only time I would tip exceptionally is if someone went really above and beyond, or did something against policy, and in a lot of customer support cases, a cash tip separately is a better solution there. Or, if it is just exceptional service , calling the employee out by name to management a few layers above.
"2) Internet is expensive, slow, and charges by the minute). "
When I've been on cruises (this dates back to as early as 2002 iirc) I've always been concerned with this.
And there are times as well (when sailing) that you are out of reach by satellite and have no connectivity at all. Unless things have changed you aren't going to be streaming video or doing anything that requires bandwidth. Once again, from my experience, things could have changed as I haven't cruised in at least 4 years.
With respect to internet on cruises it's a totally YMMV. I was concerned enough about access that I actually tracked down and contacted the operator of the service [1] for the particular ship I was on (and they do this for many cruise lines) and spoke to an engineer to ask questions before taking a particular cruise. I wasn't going to rely on what the cruise ship customer service told me. One of the questions I had was "do you block any ports"? The engineer (quite knowledgeable not customer service but engineering) said they didn't but it turned out that (at the time) they blocked anything that carried voice or obviously video (like ichat, skype etc.). Have no idea if that is still the case.
But here is the strangest thing. Back in perhaps 2004 on a particular ship you couldn't (get this) connect by wifi with a Mac!.
That's right you had to have a windows machine to connect to the ships wifi. Made no sense. But true. Nobody on the ship with a mac could connect only PC laptops. Ended up having to use the crap in the "Internet Cafe" which made 1996 using AOL seem quick. Literally couldn't even get email during certain times since all ship traffic went through one pipe.
For the next cruise I also brought a PC laptop. (But on that ship I didn't need it).
Have been cruising with them for over 15 years. Have a love/hate relationship with them (also, several of my friends work onboard a variety of their ships in the entertainment tech department).
> Low level cruise employees like the cleaning crew, cabin stewards, waiters, cooks, etc. are paid ridiculously low wages, because cruise ships are registered to countries like Panama and the companies do not need to adhere to U.S. standards.
On most major lines, the cleaning, etc. staff get reprimanded if they receive reviews from their passengers that are less than 5 stars. Even if it's only 4/5 (or the equivalent), they are expected to keep "perfect" ratings and are punished if they don't.
Cruises end up being a convenient way for my family to take vacations for a number of reasons (not the least being that my grandmother has limited mobility and cannot enjoy other vacation destinations as easily), but I always feel very guilty every time I go, because I see firsthand how badly the staff are exploited.
(Also, if you never want to go on a cruise line again, read the chapter in Tina Fey's "Bossypants" about her experience the one and only time she took a cruise.)
As for the (lack of) connectivity, I actually like this feature. When I go on a vacation, I enjoy being completely disconnected from the "real world". I find that, after a week of this, I wind up completely refreshed and come back to work more productive than if my attention had been split. But YMMV.
but I always feel very guilty every time I go, because I see firsthand how badly the staff are exploited
You have to consider any situation holistically. What you call exploitation is often a tremendous improvement over the alternatives those folks have in their countries of origin.
Go on the cruise, tip well, and be polite to staff.
> You have to consider any situation holistically. What you call exploitation is often a tremendous improvement over the alternatives those folks have in their countries of origin.
To consider the situation holistically would mean to look at the global system of capitalism bootstrapped by years of outright colonization and exploitation that lead to the situation where doing low-skilled manual labour is considered an improvement in lifestyle for otherwise healthy and able individuals -- rather than (say) getting free, high-quality education or vocational training and a reasonable share of the improvements in life style industrialization and science have enabled.
I'm not buying into the idea that not going on a cruise would improve things, and I'm not even saying don't go on cruises -- but why delude yourself that exploiting people is ok, just because someone else have set the stage for doing so? It doesn't stop being exploitation just because someone comes from a worse situation than they're in now. That just makes participating in the exploitation is a rational choice by the one being exploited -- it doesn't make it a moral choice by the exploiter...
This is Armenian Radio. Caller asks us, what is difference between capitalism and socialism? We reply, under capitalism, man exploits man; under socialism, it's just the opposite.
Once, there was a peaceful anarchic village, where everybody was perfectly equal and there were no laws or rules. People shared everything freely and never fought. Then, one day, the neighboring village invaded, killed all the men, raped all the women, and enslaved all the children. That was the end of that.
Even if somehow the whole world were to switch instantaneously to the state of anarchy, it would be a very short matter of time before someone internally decided to take over and enforce rules with the threat of violence. This person would then be the "government."
As for Communism, Armenian radio listener calls in and says, "We are told that true Communism is just on the horizon now. I ask, what is horizon?" We reply, "Horizon is imaginary line that always recedes as you approach it."
The fundamental misapprehension at work here is confusing two meanings of the word "system." There are systems created by humans, such as "the justice system of Japan." We can change those, since they derive entirely from human control. Then, there are emergent or natural systems, such as gravity. These cannot be changed simply because people decide they don't like them.
Capitalism is of the latter category. It is not a human-created system; it did not emerge from colonialism. It is merely the natural emergent behavior of actors under resource scarcity. As long as there are not enough resources for everyone to have what they want, there will be some variant of a market and capitalistic trade. It is not possible to alter this scenario simply because it doesn't seem pleasant; that's wishful thinking. All that can be done is to make the market more or less efficient.
The Soviet Union and North Korea, for example, have always had internal capitalist black markets, despite massive penalties. Prisons have internal black markets. Countries that try to control their currency's value have massive internal black markets for hard currency. Cocaine is readily available for a price almost everywhere in the world, despite massive and coordinated efforts to suppress that market.
The reverse also applies; in the absence of actual scarcity, it is impossible to enforce a market, since that is an emergent property of scarcity rather than a human-chosen system. Illegal music and movie trading online, for example, continue to grow despite massive efforts to prop up the market, because there is no actual scarcity.
I like the Communism on the horizon concept. I'm always suspicious of any government types who have a "better new way". They always have some new plan to get us to nirvana. That new plan always take a lot of funding, has no real scientific basis, no benchmarks, no accountability for the implementers, and no way to undo the damage once the plan fails. Despite the failures of similar masterminds in the past, the next plan will be the one that really fixes things and solves all our problems... always on the horizon.
it would be a very short matter of time before someone internally decided to take over and enforce rules with the threat of violence
Maybe, but then again that's what the conventional wisdom said about the Americans a couple hundred years ago. It was thought by intellectuals that so much individual freedom couldn't last very long. Yes, we've shifted pretty far toward socialism for the past hundred years. But I'd argue that if it weren't for the evil seed of slavery, we would never have had the Civil War and we wouldn't be dealing with the steady advance of the state.
> Capitalism is (...) not a human-created system; it did not emerge from
> colonialism. It is merely the natural emergent behavior of actors
> under resource scarcity.
1) I didn't mean to imply that capitalism emerged from colonialism, but
that the current distribution of wealth an power within capitalism is
connected to colonialism (among other things).
2) I don't think you're assertion of capitalism being "an emergent system"
is correct -- capitalism is defined by having capital and private
ownership over means of production. There are many other systems for
regulating scarcity (artificial or otherwise) (eg: feudalism).
> As long as there are not enough resources for everyone to have what
> they want, there will be some variant of a market and capitalistic
> trade. The reverse also applies; in the absence of actual scarcity,
> it is impossible to enforce a market, since that is an emergent
> property of scarcity rather than a human-chosen system.
3) You imply that there aren't enough resources. While that may be
true, I think the issue is more one of uneven distribution. This
obviously also depend on your clause "for everyone to have what they
want". I think the current system encourages aggregation without much
regard for what individuals actually want (Who "wants" Foxxconn to
dominate in certain areas of industrial production?).
4) Not all markets and trade systems define a capitalist system.
Note also that I specifically said modern anarchism. That doesn't
necessarily define away the right to self defence. Communism certainly
doesn't.
The main difference between the two, is that communism seeks to
maintain a form of government, highly localized and highly democratic
-- but with the option to retain such things as a police force and a
justice system (reserve the right of the government to use violence such
as detaining and investigation of crimes for the common good) while
anarchism is generally more sceptical of any power structure and any
use of force against the individual.
I don't accept your interpretation of "exploiting".
They have jobs. They get paid for their jobs. They're getting paid more by doing their jobs than whatever alternatives they had since this isn't slave labor.
You're redefining what "exploiting" means and you're casually throwing concepts around like the perpetual victim status of entire societies due to colonialization.
Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the USA were colonies too... we got over it.
If there's an evil in the whole colonial relationship, it's do-gooder Westerners who think they should care for and dictate to other societies rather than just letting them get jobs, sell their products, sell services, compete on the worlds stage, learn lessons, improve their lot, etc.
Less people suing would reduce that. The problem is that people sue over everything, so why deal with the hassle when you can go into defense mode early and stave off frivolous court proceedings? I agree, it sucks.
3) I'd recommend anyone to watch Hot Coffee [1] which documents the lobbying and spin that encourages American citizens to think there is a problem with "frivolous lawsuits"
With language barriers, the people we initially had to deal with had no real capability to determine fault. I think the security people who took down the incident report weren't even the same security who had to deal with the actual incident. I'd have to imagine their practices are standard and are along the lines of "don't admit fault; make sure passenger signs what we want her to sign". They acted as investigators and signing coercers and little more. Any decisions that were made were made later on.
I was more upset with them trying to bill us three months later. We had filed a formal complaint on our last day of the trip over the poor response and had spoken with one of the guest services managers for close to 30 minutes. So when a letter from the cruise line came three months later, I was expecting an apology, not a bill.
When this happened, my wife was in the final year of law school, so our response to the bill was probably atypical of a normal customer response, but even when they told us we wouldn't be responsible for the money and that they'd give us a credit for a future cruise, they still made sure to dismiss their liability and deny that they breached any duties.
One of the gross things with the incident was that another passenger started cleaning up the blood because no crew was doing it. Another passenger was a doctor and stepped in to help stop the bleeding while we waited for a wheelchair to take us to the doctor.
Is there a movie based on the notion that anything that happens when you carry a cup of hot coffee in a motor vehicle is automatically your fault, and that 1000 burn injuries is no big deal when n >> 1000000000 cups served? I'd be more interested in watching that one, I think.
It would probably be more amusing for you to watch the movie where a guy gets handed a 190 degree cup of coffee (30 more than normal) in a flimsy paper cup.
The part where the cup disintegrates and leaves the person with 3rd degree burns on their crotch would be the highlight. The punch line would be the owner of the store saving $10 on coffee costs per month because he keeps the coffee too hot.
The problem is that people sue over everything, so why deal with the hassle when you can go into defense mode early and stave off frivolous court proceedings?
I suspect that going into "don't get sued" mode actually encourages lawsuits.
I read an article a while back that indicated the doctors with the highest rate of malpractice suits were not the ones who made the most errors but the ones who were the least empathetic. There has been at least one study that concluded insensitivity and poor communication after the incident was a major factor in the decision to sue.
One potential solution could be to adopt a UK-esque legal process whereby the loser of a tort suit pays the legal fees. If you risk paying huge legal bills by filing a lawsuit, you'll be less likely to do so unless the case is a slam dunk.
My wife is from the Philippines and her friend works for Princess cruises and he loves it (he is a bartender). He gets to travel, meet interesting people, and he makes several times what he would make at home. I doubt the experience of the staff is much different from the experience of those working the same jobs back home, or possibly better.
That their working conditions are only mostly terrible is sufficient for me to act on my values.
I'll give analogy. WalMart screws their workers, their suppliers, and their host governments (and by extension us tax payers). Not in every case. But enough to piss me off.
So, yea, I'm not shopping at WalMart. Maybe they're not all bad. Sorting it all out is too much work. Especially when I have plenty of options that are mostly good.
2) Internet is expensive, slow, and charges by the minute).
I worked remotely from a cruise ship that went around Hawaii for a week in 2007 (long story). I had a small Verizon cellular router that I set up in my room. It worked well enough, and I didn't have to use the ship's (presumably) crappy wi-fi, or pay by the minute or whatever.
Plus, when I'm coding, my bandwidth needs aren't that great.
I'd assume that using your phone as a hotspot today would work equally well in that scenario.
Now that T-Mobile has unlimited international roaming I can't wait to try this out on my next trip. It is only 2G but that is faster than ship internet.
1) Listed prices generally DO NOT include gratuities. Low level cruise employees like the cleaning crew, cabin stewards, waiters, cooks, etc. are paid ridiculously low wages, because cruise ships are registered to countries like Panama and the companies do not need to adhere to U.S. standards. I don't recall offhand, but for a 7-day cruise the "automatic" gratuity is, I believe, around $100 or so per person, so take that into consideration. You can remove the charge if you want to, but you'd have to be a pretty big asshole to do that :) Also, prices are based on double-occupancy, so if you go by yourself, double the fares.
2) Internet is expensive, slow, and charges by the minute). However, if you do this a lot, some cruise loyalty programs will give you free internet. I know Princess does this. Also, you're cell phone my work in certain locations. I'm a U.S. AT&T subscriber and I have full service in U.S. ports like San Juan and the U.S. Virgin Islands. If you can tether your phone, you'll get much faster and cheaper service that way than on the boat internet.
3) Don't get sick / injured. My wife stepped on broken glass while wearing open-toed shoes and got cut up pretty bad. The doctor on board used strips instead of stitches, and the cut reopened in two days, by which time we were already off the ship. The crew handled the incident terribly. The problem with the glass was not resolved quickly, my wife had to wait a fair amount of time for someone to show up with a wheelchair to take her to the doctor and the crew went into "don't get sued" mode really quickly. They gave us pushback when we refused to sign a liability waiver before getting treatment and we had some security guy who kept insisting to come into our room to photograph the shoes my wife was wearing at the time. When we complained the next day about the process, a nice woman sat down with us to hear out our complaint, but never really did anything. We were adamant about NOT paying for the care and it never showed up on our bill, so we let well enough alone. Three months later, they sent us a bill for $300 for the care. After we sent their HQ a letter in response, they ended up waiving the fee and giving us $100 credit towards our next cruise. Nice, but it was ridiculous in the first place since.
4) In regards to the above, had something worse happened, or they had refused to waive the fee, good luck fighting the cruise company in court. You're not only bound by typical consumer-crushing stuff like forced arbitration, but you're also getting into international legal difficulties. For big cases like the cruise that tipped over, it's worth the hassle, but for smaller claims, you're pretty limited in what you can realistically do.
All that said, I think this is a pretty cool idea and had always thought about how cruises could be a cool little work/vacation thing.