[Dig1t]

Anything sounds bad if you take sentences out of context. Read the rest of chapter and pages leading up to this part.

He talks about how he struggled getting back into dating after his wife died and initially he tried dating very chivalrously, being kind and buying drinks for ladies. He found that most women would take his free drinks and ditch him.

The lines you quoted from his book are about his mental shift, and after he started doing that it actually worked! He was successful with that tactic, women wanted to sleep with him after he started thinking and acting like that.

He didn't break any laws, force anyone to do anything against their will, or hurt anyone. If that's the case, and the women actually responded to it, then what's wrong with it?

That's why I think everyone is being puritanical about it. Yes our cultural sensibilities don't like it, but nobody was hurt and he's being honest about something that actually worked, why is that bad?

[reducesuffering]

> but nobody was hurt

You actually have zero idea who or how people were hurt because this is one side from Feynman. It's bad for the same reason that a goal of making lots of new friends and then backstabbing them is bad. Sure, it can be highly successful to making new friends. Not so long term beneficial, friendly, or moral though...

[Dig1t]

He said that he would get verbal agreement to sleep together before buying drinks.

How is getting consent to have sex and then later having sex equivalent to stabbing a friend in the back? I don’t understand the analogy.

Unless you think one-night stands are morally wrong, I don’t really see any problems with his actions.

[jacquesm]

> He found that most women would take his free drinks and ditch him.

If the option to ditch him wasn't there then the drinks weren't really free, were they? It sounds more like him buying someone a drink came with expectations attached.

[Dig1t]

He specifically says in the paragraph OP is quoting from that he would ask them outright for verbal agreement that they would sleep with him later before he bought them drinks. If he got consent before anyone drank anything, what exactly is the problem?

[jacquesm]

And you actually believe that (1) this one sided story is the truth and that (2) even if it is that verbal agreement is enough in a case like this? I'd expect the vast majority of the people that you made such an offer to to treat it as a joke and if it wasn't to teach you an object lesson in what is and what isn't a binding offer. To treat this as a study in contract law is weirding me out on multiple levels at once, Feynman's, and those that think this is a normal interaction between people. Revolting, really.