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I have a hard time with assigning the label “loser” to someone who has achieved Aaronson’s level of success in life, both professional and personal.
Sure, I can deadlift a lot more than he can, but I’m not a world-class expert on any significant field of research.
There are several strategies men can pursue to achieve status and/or success with women, and “uber successful nerd” can work. Not everyone needs to be well-rounded or “classically masculine” to succeed.
Hoe_math actually has a very good chart where he describes male attractiveness for women as two dimensional matrix. The "nice guy" axis is how much resources is the guy willing to provide the "bad boy" axis is about physical attractiveness, assertiveness, dominance and confidence.
If you are ugly nerd like Aaronson, then you either literally not a person to any random woman, or if you attract attention by some lame attempt at niceness such as holding the door then you will only creep them out. It will take some grand gesture of generosity - such as a nice gift or some such - in order for a woman to suppress her disgust and keep you around in eternal friend zone. Also women do not give a shit about "success" such as solving Rubik's cube or winning MtG competition. Math and science is of similar significance. Women of course care about success such as athletic prowess, ability to exert one's will over other people such as being top salesman or politician and so forth. What matters is status, money, power and respect of other manly men and envy of other women. Math and science is good only in as much as it translates to these things. Grigori Perlman may be the most accomplished and important mathematician alive, but to any normal woman he is is nonexistent.
In a sense nerds like Aaronson are even more lame and pathetic as they feel their general niceness is supposed to humanize them in eyes of women. What they actually express is incredible lack of social awareness that they do not even understand their own deficiency and instead of being quiet in the corner and contemplating strategies of how to make themselves, they dare to creep them out. That is what I think @DaseindustriesLtd talks about.
That's a bit too strongly put. Life isn't all high school where jocks rule supreme; you can get away with achievement in obscure fields, adult women can appreciate you being a respected academic. That's part of what people seek (and find) in academia, actually.
No, my beef with Aaronson stems precisely from him having never left high school. From his generalized anxiety that got perfectly exposed in the Airport Episode, and his kvetching about Trumpian Jackbooted Thugs who'd have come for his family, and his indignation at anyone who finds his reactions excessive. He's not merely an unattractive "nice guy" in the toxic manosphere sense, he acts literally like a neurotic woman who's also an autist with a squeaky voice; and real women – in aggregate – are correct to not want him no matter how you slice it. But his wife is a fellow STEM nerd who doesn't mind it, and they are apparently good for each other. Whatever.
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Yes, people should play to their strengths, and it sure has worked out well for him. So now he can feel himself being a persecuted loser nerd who'll surely get crushed by jackbooted thugs one day, while he's a successful academic with a healthy family and significant following, insulated from most any threat in life.
In my opinion, this posture of his is more pathetic than that of actual uncontroversial losers, and in the dating market it'd have been rightly penalized (separately from his appearance).
Regardless, this dispute itself is pathetic wading through someone else's high school traumas. Low-class Russians getting conscripted are not like Aaronson, nor are they like Henry the Slayer from Scott's fable. They are losers on every dimension sans perhaps tactical operational. Unfortunately it seems like I have to disambiguate. Aaronsons of the world, at the peak of their sexual frustration, often tell themselves that women love Henrys, implying that there is some correspondence between losing at conventional milestones of being a full-fledged adult, masculinity, and popularity with the opposite sex. And oppositely, nerds can feel their loss diminish – dumdum broads chasing Chad Thundercock, who cares! – and their success become more substantial, by contrasting it to the animalistic condition of an imagined Henry. Hence the whole of PUA/Redpill doctrine. This is cope. Women love men, not dysfunctional deadbeats. Some deadbeats happen to be manly, or at least more manly than Aaronson, which is not a high bar to clear; but ceteris paribus, women prefer men who are also conventionally successful, powerful and respected. This is very trivial. Nerd-Tate discourse is confused and fueled by resentment.
Transient details (like the fact that high-IQ, often autistic nerds who go to places like MIT and stay virgins until graduation have been economically well rewarded over the last few decades, and so can be considered "winners" despite low initial success with women) do not change much in the overall picture.
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