[string]

Just a friendly heads up: I used to be a huge fan of this YT channel until I saw some pretty damning evidence that the guy is a predatory sex tourist/pick up artist. I really enjoyed the content (the editing is a breath of fresh air on YT), but ultimately unsubbed and stopped watching. I'd encourage others to look into it and make your own judgement, of course.

[sumedh]

What is the evidence?

[abyssin]

This post convinced me: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...

[Wouter33]

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...

[scanny]

Thanks for the pointer, and what I read here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm... from a child comment. Won't be watching anything out of that channel again.

[trainsplanes]

Whenever I see this man mentioned, I always see a comment saying, "This man travels AND has sex!"

It's about as surprising as someone visiting Amsterdam and having the audacity to smoke weed or single guys doing what single guys do when they visit SE Asia.

[cmrdporcupine]

Gross, man -- he actually brags about raping/coercing girls.

"Oh, you'd like a taster? Well how about the time when Vorkuta boasts of forcing a young hitchhiker to give him a blowjob in exchange for $6. On the threat that if she did not comply he might leave her in the middle of nowhere as they were travelling alone in a car on some deserted highway somewhere in the FSU. You can only imagine how scared she must have been."

From the previously linked: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...

[trainsplanes]

People post a lot of wild stories on forums and places like reddit. Oftentimes they exaggerate or make up crazy events. It's not enough to push me to go after them.

[dragonwriter]

There’s two possibilities:

(1) He’s a proud rapist who is actively legitimizing and normalizing rape.

(2) He thinks its cool to pretend to be a rapist and normalize rape, even though he isn’t himself a rapist.

While there’s a big difference if you are, say, prosecuting rape, both are reasonable grounds on which someone might decide not to support a creator’s output.

[slakrems]

I have a different definition of “rape” seeing it thrown around so often. If a man can talk a woman into sex without blackmail, that’s fair game and to be honest I respect him for it. It’s the main thing I want o do in life, sleep with as many women as possible.

[mettamage]

I know many pick up artists that are in a long-term relationship. The group that call themselves pick up artist is too heterogeneous to describe them as people that have ill intentions.

People that don’t know about hackers assign similar ill intentions to hackers, much in the same way as pick up artists.

But at HN we know that a hacker (criminal) is not a hacker (curious techie). The same goes for pick up artists (womanizers that are systematic about it with questionable ethics). You have a lot more pick up artists (men not being able to find relationships for years and deciding to fix that problem).

Both groups have members in them that do stupid and/or criminal things which is unfortunate.

[8fGTBjZxBcHq]

No dude they are not the same. PUA stuff came out of a deeply misogynist internet subculture with close ties and many overlaps with far right activists, "red pill" violence, and ethnonationalism.

Plus it's just inherently manipulative and gross. I know no one on HN likes to hear a value judgement but seriously go take a look. And I'm sure someone will jump in with like "but it's not manipulation just acknowledging reality/it's empowering for shy nerds/whatever" and ok sure sure sure but no.

[mettamage]

> I know no one on HN likes to hear a value judgement

I get it. When identity, sex and romance are concerned then emotions in oneself can run high. I definitely see it in my own comments. I feel closely to 3 groups which are: pick up artists, hackers and feminists. I am not alone in this, though definitely not a "majority". Whenever any of them are blanket statement attacked without any nuance, I offer a different perspective. I mostly have this with feminism since the idea of a pick up artist isn't used that often in Europe.

> Go take a look.

I did:

* Double Your Dating (the page on humor is cool, "attraction is not a choice", don't remember anything else)

* Juggler Method (learned about disqualification -- aka not taking things too seriously but then more methodically -- and statement of intent -- aka answering "why are you talking to me?" <-- and answering that truthfully and respectfully)

* Mystery Method (high level overview, peacocking and getting yourself in a sociable mood, discarded the rest -- no negging, no routines, Mystery Method is tricky, I had to read this very critically since he seems a bit deluded and IMO most people that read this book read it in the wrong way and start to become negging routine people. IMO, not a good thing. When I read this book I followed a course on ethics because being sharp on that subject is required.)

* Pickup 101 (lots of playfulness and improv)

* RSD (mostly Tim's stuff, which is high energy optimistic positivity, didn't connect with the rest, Tyler seems too "Cartman-like" to me)

Communities I've been part of:

* Almost all Dutch communities (had friendships with some of the members, mostly spiritual or super down to earth types)

* I've been to the 21 Convention in Stockholm (in 2008, which was the time where this was an active thing in my life)

That's the stuff I connected with. I read much more stuff that I didn't connect with. Some companies are deeply misogynist, but the participants aren't (well some are). The participants are the majority of the whole culture, a culture that's mostly silent (and a few loud people that then goes on to have all the media portrayals).

I've seen a few things happen in people their development path:

* Some people become misogynistic while they weren't at first

* Some people came in misogynistic and "sharpen their ways"

* Some people become spiritual (a subset even celibate), because they realize it's not about finding love and so on

* Some people develop a lot of hobbies and start to learn how to enjoy life (I love this group, you can tell they get a lot out of it)

* Some people find a relationship

* And finally there are some people that are still stuck with their old problem after years

I have no numbers, but to insinuate that most pick up artists are misogynistic requires that you've been in the seduction community and spoke to all kinds of people from all walks of life that did not take the center stage and did not appear in the media. Because it's those people that make up the 99% of the culture.

> many overlaps with far right activists, "red pill" violence, and ethnonationalism.

Another thing: US and EU differ. My perspective is EU, I make no claims about the US since I only know the "media side" from there. And yea, that's not a great side to see.

> Plus it's just inherently manipulative and gross.

No it's not. Before I did this, I was too serious with people. I still am. Now I am aware of it and can account for that. This means that people have more positive experiences with me. Moreover, it taught me more about empathy from an emotional point of view (through meditation, the most life changing thing I've experienced). Being optimistic, being positive, empathetic and doing meditation all came because I took a few pages from the pick up artist playbook. There's a lot in their playbook, these were the most important things that I took from it. I do agree that there are gross/manipulative ideas in there. I did my best to filter those out. I see a lot of men do that (and unfortunately also a sizeable group that didn't and straight up got culted into some pickup company's philosophy).

In other words: it depends, it's more nuanced, it's not inherently anything because reality is more complex than that.

[girvo]

Regardless of all that, the allegations (a rape trial, getting a hitchhiker to perform sex acts on him for $6 under the threat of being left in the middle of nowhere, among so many others) are pretty horrendous, no?

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldAndBaldrDossier/comments/judnlm...

[mettamage]

Yes they are. I wish no one would have to experience that. It scars people for life.

Slightly off topic, but this is even more so the case when children have to watch the abuse (due to living in a small house). Some kids will never be able to develop normally.

Source: I knew a lot of broken kids when I was their age.

[Quarrelsome]

also worth noting that some people go _well_ out of their way to express this point of view. There's even a subreddit dedicated to it (and at least once upon it was 'busy'). My issue is that it gives the impression that someone has a lot of free time and a serious axe to grind.

Nothing he is accused of is illegal, it may be reprehensible but I don't demand moral consistency of those that entertain me, just adherence to the social contract of law.

[abyssin]

I'm not too surprised people spend time to express this point of view. I loved his channel but there was always something that felt a little off for me. One evening I launched a Google search wondering if I was the only one and found the subreddit. I stopped watching afterwards.

[Quarrelsome]

> I stopped watching afterwards.

Do you realise if you want to be morally consistent like that then the only limiting factor is your ignorance? By that I mean its likely A LOT of the content you currently consume or products you use/buy are unethical in some way but you just don't know they are.

I'd like to suggest that if you're not trying to fog-bust your ignorance by personally auditing all your supply chains actively then that is also ethically inconsistent. To permit your own ignorance suggests that its more about how people perceive you to be supporting unethical brands (once the lack of ethics becomes clear) as opposed to one actually caring about the ethics. I'd suggest your phrasing here backs that up.

Idk, that's just too exhausting a mentality for me to handle tbh. I don't think its my job to force everyone in the world to conform to my precise standards, I think there's value in being able to trade with those I wouldn't consider friend.

I mean lets spin it another way, you think the people Bald meets in his videos are all "good people"? A lot of them likely have issues in one way or another but we can celebrate that they're friendly and hospitable and that Bald is going out there and showing us that part of the world which we typically wouldn't see. Lets not forget that its likely that Bald is probably one of the more progressive individuals in his videos. I think that context matters a bit.

[girvo]

How does choosing not to watch someone’s channel “force” people to conform to your beliefs? I don’t get it.

[Quarrelsome]

It doesn't sorry, I rather mean that one is forcing a personal sense of morality on one's supply chain, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. But what is bad is that one only drops what is advertised to them as being bad which makes one think it was never about the sense of morality in the first place.

The implication being that every single supply chain is bad (e.g. cobalt mining in DRC) but we conveniently just don't uncover everything because we'd have to drop too much. We're terrified (to an extent) to accept the negative impact our existence has in this world so pursue a dream of moral purity to escape that harrowing reality.

Bald is a sex tourist so we'll never watch his channel but where is our cobalt mined from? As long as we don't know (our ignorance gives us plausible deniability) we can keep buying products that indirectly kill children while still showing everyone how good we are by not watching Bald's content. I think there's a hypocrisy here because I think relatively speaking Bald is acceptable but to purge him and just permit the rest (because the subjects are more boring or more distant) I think is bullshit.

[string]

I readily accept that the reality is harrowing, but I don't agree that just sharing information about some potentially immoral thing is anything like the pursuit of some state of moral purity. Is it not better that individuals try to make supposed moral decisions where possible, even if they ultimately fall short?

It seems that in order to function one must come to terms with the fact that existence is a moral balancing act and that we all do immoral things. I accept that I own many things that likely caused others suffering. I have had a fascination with the DRC for a number of years and am acutely aware of what goes on there, yet I bought a new phone last year and a laptop the year before that. I accept the hypocrisy. But I am still glad people share information about what happens there. Whilst most of us will ignore it, some person or people better than me may be able to use that information to enact some positive change. At least the conversation can occur.

It is also a harsh reality that the less abstracted the situation, the easier it is for humans to face up to their own sense of morality. For whatever reason having intimate knowledge of a person is more impactful than hearing that an item you purchased was manufactured using some material that was mined by a nameless individual thousands of miles away. Right or wrong, we attach more weight to our judgements of others when a more direct connection can be made. It seems to me unrealistic to ignore that humans operate in this way.

Ultimately the intention of my original comment was not to tell people what to do, nor to judge, nor to demonstrate virtue. I was just sharing information so others could also make an informed decision. I chose not to watch his channel based on my own personal moral compass and my own boundaries of inconvenience.

[shigawire]

I pretty much have to use a phone.i don't have to watch a creepy sex tourist on YouTube - so I choose not to.

[dragonwriter]

> Nothing he is accused of is illegal

Sex in which “consent” is derived through a combination of cash payment and coercive threats is illegal on at least one and often two independent bases in most jurisdictions.

[nerdponx]

Pretty sure rape is illegal in most jurisdictions.

[Quarrelsome]

he isn't accused of rape, he's accused of sex tourism and general misogyny.

[cmrdporcupine]

No, he's accused of non-consensual sex.

[Quarrelsome]

well that's new. When I was reading the subreddit it was only about questionable posts he (allegedly) made in some pick up forum like a decade prior about offering women money for sex.

[slakrems]

He travels around the world to sleep with women. What exactly is wrong with that?

[pydry]

What specifically?