I both agree and disagree

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A guy named MoxyHQ from the UK posted a 14:52 video about how everyone's getting the issues wrong on everything from male loneliness to female dating woes, he titles the discussion 'The Manosphere Is WRONG About Male Loneliness', which is a spicy lead-in but he pretty much goes on to say the read of dating apps throwing both most men and most women under the bus the benefit of a small amount of men is wrong and that's all about increased numbers of both men and women lacking social skills - but that lacking social skills specifically hits men while with women it's not a show-stopper. So he agrees with most of the technical elements of the red pill critique of dating apps but he's arguing that something else supersedes that in salience.

I'm starting to feel like I'm not up on the new-speak for what the term 'social skills' or 'socially awkward' means. To me social skills always meant reciprocity, understanding both your boundaries and other people's, being able to read other people's queues and actively determining whether the signal they're giving is in good faith, reasonable, and whether it should be reciprocated or mirrored. Whatever he's talking about or trying to hint at doesn't seem to point in that direction, it seems to be something over and above.

Does anyone here see a lot of their peers (AS or NT) lacking basic social skills? Have you been hit on (gay or straight) by guys who have no idea how to communicate and if so what does that looked like?

I'm curious to see - maybe diction and the ability to speak is falling apart in Gen-Z and Gen-A in which case he's talking past millennials but I'd tend to think that this is an evasion. Systemic sure but - as far as I've seen when I'm out in the world watching how people treat each other - everyone's maximally trying to get off on how much they can status-poach / status-mug other people and you can't play the 'Everyone whose not me is a loser' game at mass scale without externalities in areas of life that require trust. It shows us that 'individualism' as a sacred value has it's own pitfalls in that it gives narcissism, sociopathy, and psychopathy almost minor superpower attributes. At it's extreme it's a brain-dead system for brain-dead people, meaning if you value human life or interior values much you won't be dysfunctional enough to swim in it.

I noticed something in this paragraph that might be a bit confusing and I probably should have given it a proof-read, he wasn't saying that the structure of dating apps had no impact, rather that it was less important than lack or loss of social skills.

The entire human population lacks basic social skills, and this isn't a new phenomenon. It's an ancient problem. The human species has not yet reached a point in evolution where it has evolved genuine social skills that aren't anti-social, tribal, competitive, dishonest, misleading, and manipulative.

Even if we pick an example of a person who seems to have excellent social skills, after closer inspection, it can be observed that the person is behaving in a manipulative anti-social manner similar to the so-called "social skills" that are described in the famous best-selling book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.

Humans love to believe that they're an advanced species, but in reality, the "social" behavior of humans is shockingly similar to the social behavior of chimpanzees. This is described in multiple books. One of the most famous is "The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal" by Desmond Morris.

For the human population I'd phrase it differently - genes matter, people don't. The most useless, throwaway part of a person - per that ethos - is a person's values, interiority, even things that transfer out like competence, because all that's really supposed to matter is you're either strong or weak, look strong or weak, if you look weak you're supposed to be weak otherwise you'll offend people, and you're supposed to keep a junior high level of maturity for your entire life otherwise if you become a cognitive adult it means people could beat you up, discipline you, or dominate you in which case cognitive adults are genetically inferior while permachildren are genetically superior. Junior high and high school popularity are supposed to last forever and never be throttled because they're supposed to be the most perfect measure of genes while adaptations into adulthood mask genetic problems.

It's a set and setting abysmally below even a low-functioning NT's cognitive capacities and yet we're strapped to it because nature, Darwinian evolution, and the game of numbers (be more like other people and win, be less like other people and lose because there are fewer people like you).

For valid 'social skills' like I said earlier - reciprocity is important, knowing how not to insult people if you don't want to is important, being able to alter dress and behavior for various levels of formality is important, not trampling group leaders because their nice or walking into a place like a know-it-all where you've done no service for that organization but other people have - those are all consideration of others and showing respect. Skills like rimming bullies I'd place in a different category and, TBH, it's a category I'd much rather leave to 'normy conformies' because - I might genuinely be crazy on this point - my integrity matters too much to my happiness and my quality of life for me to twist myself in pretzel knots over dominance hierarchy concerns and I'd rather meet them outside (even if that ends with me in the hospital) than lick their boots because in the later case you're bending, breaking, and stomping out your own interior qualities and making yourself a worthless person - which is a deeper hell than just being physically threatened.

I think his intentions are good, but his assumptions and conclusions are largely erroneous.

I also think there's a bit too much cynicism here to result in any meaningful revelations. Society and people are both more complex than are being given credit. Some interesting assumptions about what social skills are, or aren't, which I'm not sure are helpful.

Worth note, Dale Carnegie was sort of the Mr. Rogers of his day, when it came to treating others with decency and respect. Authenticity and sincerity were critical components to his philosophy. Having a genuine concern and interest in those around you was a key element to his beliefs.

I think 'social skills' should have certain truisms about them if we mean to use the term in an explicit rather than covert or partially covert way.

First is that they're broadly pro-social with some caveats for verbal self-defense and dealing with bad faith situations (the key being - it's force applied when warranted, not for terrorizing or mugging random people). Individual or class Machiavellian beliefs or tactics shouldn't count as a social skill because the idea of a social skill implies that it has some positive Kantian imperative value when Machiavellianism applied to the Kantian imperative ends in rubble or, at best, some type of revolution or reform that removes said Machiavellian values from the center of society.

Second would be that they aren't designed to differentiate a lower / lesser class of followers from a superior psychopathic class who 'passed the sucker test' by discarding them. Similarly in the opposite direction the Rob Henderson 'luxury beliefs' model applies if people of a higher social station should adapt malware beliefs that they as high status or high wealth can endure that people without such station or wealth can't - believing in nonsense as a status or class badge shouldn't be considered a 'social skill'.

I also don't think the necessity of rote copying all thoughts, ideas, and pieces of personal identity as a system of shibboleths is a particularly positive development. I do get that people who wouldn't be able to spot anything from a predator to a neurodivergent by any other means than failed shibboleth are out there, it's the part of the populace who wouldn't be able to think these things through from first principles and they copy everything rote not out of malice or to create shibboleths necessarily but because it's the best they can muster and the shibboleth part is a kind of unintended benefit where they can tell whose like them vs. who'd help dissolve their script and in their case potentially damage their lives by giving them ideas or metrics that they can't work with. There probably should be protections from that effect and 'failing shibboleth' should not be considered necessarily a social skills failure, really anyone autistic or non-autistic who thinks from first principles is at risk of failing shibboleth.

He was a salesman. Many of his core tips/principles were sugarcoated ways of lying to people and misleading them, such as hiding your true opinion instead of criticizing someone who rightfully deserves to be criticized. Another one of his "great" tips was to show an interest in other people, and then convince yourself that your interest in the other person is a genuine interest, not a coldhearted attempt to win friends and influence people.

Another one of his tips was to smile regardless of whether you feel like smiling. Fake smiles! That's the opposite of "Authenticity and sincerity". He was a salesman.

Still a lot of interesting assumptions about social skills and the nature of society. Although interaction and the success thereof is based somewhat on expected responses, it is not a matter of adhering to perfectly reciting scripts, performing secret handshakes, or other such assumptions - usually when one feels like they're being ostracized for "not getting every little detail exactly right", the reality of the matter is, they simply don't realize just how disruptive their behaviors actually are. And broader scope, society is not that homogeneous - while some people do act in the manner described, it is hardly universal enough to portray as the absolute base line of behavior across all of society, let alone the multitude of societies which currently exist.

Social skills are just like any other skill.

I can learn the skill of picking locks. I can use this skill to be a locksmith, or I can use this skill to be a burglar. The skill itself is neither good nor bad, it's a matter of how it's used. The same sharp blade and knowledge of biology can be used to heal, or harm. The same psychology than can guide, can also manipulate. The skills are the same. It's the desired outcomes that make the difference.

Same for salesmanship. Despite the cynical belief that all salespeople are inherently dishonest, while it's true that "salesmanship" can be used to con people into rubbish, those same skills can also be used to actually help the customer buy exactly what they're looking for, or even avoid buying something unnecessary.

It's not a fake smile if you actually mean it. If I smile even though I'm having a horrible day and don't feel like being happy, it's not cos I'm being "fake", it's cos I genuinely feel that my horrible day is MY problem only, and shouldn't be inflicted upon others. My desire to prevent my bad mood from spilling over onto others is an authentic and sincere action.

Someone reading "cultivate a genuine interest in other people" and interpreting it as "pretend you like other people, and then convince yourself that it's true, and you're not just manipulating people" is more a reflection of the opinions of the reader than the author.