I recently finished reading William S. Lind‘s 4th Generation Warfare Handbook. “That has little to do with daygame. Why aren’t you out doing sets?” you may ask, “RSD just put another rambling video with an hour of goobledegook and rehashed ideas to draw in the spivs and no-hopers, surely that’s a better use of your time.”

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Well, not for me. I may happen to focus my blog on daygame but it’s only a small part of my life. My period of PUA Cognitive Capture has long since passed. [1] Evidently there is still some lingering cognitive capture because throughout Lind’s book I kept thinking this kinda relates to daygame. So, let the mindwank begin.

 

The concept of fourth generation war naturally presupposes the existence of a prior three generations [2] and Lind describes those as follows [roughly paraphrased]:

• First Gen – This began from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, in which the modern nation states of Europe were created, until the American Civil War in 1861. Think of it like the orderly lines and columns of the Napoleonic Era in which armies meet on a pre-defined battlefield aiming to win a decisive battle.
• Second Gen – This began with the French in World War 1 after trenches, barbed wire, artillery and fast firing guns made open orderly charges suicidal. Think now of the trench warfare of WW1 in which the artillery pounds a position for a week and then the infantry runs in to occupy the battered enemy lines. The goal is to kill enemy soldiers, destroy his equipment, and advance the line.
• Third Gen – This developed concurrently but developed by the Germans and is best embodied in the Blitzkrieg. Defensively, it sought not to hold a line but to instead draw enemies in and cut them off. Offensively it sought to bypass (rather than destroy) enemy strongholds then roll them up from the rear. This is “maneuver warfare”.
• Fourth Gen – This style existed before the Peace of Westphalia and has come back again now that the ordered nations are breaking down. Wars are no longer fought as one state army against another – they are fought by clans, gangs, tribes, and ideological fanatics. There is often no clear distinction between “military” and “civilian” participants. On the ground it resembles the hit and run of guerrilla warfare.

Lind suggests that the first two generations of war grew out of the orderliness of nation states. Having acquired a monopoly on war, states imposed their bureaucratic nature onto war itself. Thus a culture of orderliness was encouraged on the training ground (drills, salutes etc) and on the battlefield (field manuals, rigid chain of command, reliance on orders). The transition from first to second generation was driven by the increased mechanisation of war but the battlefield remained orderly and defined. The third generation sought to take advantage of disorder [3] by relying upon speed and tempo rather than firepower. This required a culture of looking outward at the scenario rather than looking inwards at orderly procedure. When 3rd gen met 2nd gen in the early days of WWII, the former won until it’s tactical and operational advantages were overwhelmed by strategic blunders [4].

So what on earth has this to do with daygame, you ask? Let’s ruminate…….

The key drivers determining war’s passage through the four generations has been linked to the orderliness and coherence of nation states. The Westphalian states were mostly ethnically homogenous, increasingly capitalist, high testosterone, and thus notable for their high social trust and strong sense of shared identity within the nation and also a competitive rivalry with the out-groups of other nations. A man’s primary identification was with his nation and thus he was willing to fight for his country. For the most part he’d be fighting other men from similar countries (i.e. Britain fighting France is closer to fratricide than Britain fighting Sri Lanka) and thus the rules of war took on a relatively honourable tone with many shared values.

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Then socialism, multiculturalism and feminism happened, in the West, and the colonial lid was lifted from the simmering conflicts in the second and third worlds. These undermined the pillars of order from which orderly war sprang. Nation states lost legitimacy from the ground up from trends such as diversity importing people who identified primarily with a different country and from the top down such as the surveillance state flourishing. Cultural Marxism destroyed the social fabric and now patriotism is a dirty word for many. Oh, and all the men became faggots.

The social collapse that led to Game as an adaptation to the sexual market place is the same as what led 4th Generation war as an adaptation to conflict. The improved technology that changed military strategy leaked into the civilian world to change sexual strategy [5]. Let’s do a rough mapping of the generations of war to dating.

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First Generation Dating – This is the strategy of your grandfather’s era. A highly ordered society with restrained K-selected social mores included a very specific narrow area in which men and women would be introduced. These includes church groups, Saturday night dance halls, and a Mad Men-esque work environment in which women take bullshit secretarial jobs as office flowers as a way to meet the office men who have the real jobs. Just as 1st Gen war relies upon orderly line and column formations on a defined battlefied, 1st Gen dating relies upon orderly etiquette on a defined space.

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Second Generation Dating – This is your dad’s strategy. The four sirens of the sexual apocalypse have hit (Contraception, No Fault Divorce, Workplace Equality, Welfare) like a breech-loading rifle fired from a trench but they apply to a generation raised the old way and thus haven’t yet wrought destruction upon the social order. There’s also no diversity, so social trust remains high. Think of it like a loosening of the ‘social corset’. Dating, as with much of social life, loses much of the defined etiquette which delineates acceptable behaviour but men and women haven’t changed much in what they want. Look at a 1960s or 1970s sitcom for a view how this dating works – beta provision still works and rather than put firepower on target as in 2nd Gen war, you are putting value on target through getting a good job, some social status, and following loosened rules of courtship.

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Third Generation Dating – This is the old school player’s strategy that ran concurrently with your dad’s 2nd gen version. Just as the squareheads [6] relied on speed and tempo to take advantage of battlefield disorder in a world where the cheese eating surrender monkeys [7] clung to more effectively unloading firepower onto target, the old school players relied on setting up an “in” and then milking it opportunistically. Think of your medallion-wearing disco dancers, your rock star, your hippy cult leader, or your racing driver. While the previous generation acts like there is an ordered hierarchy, a static world, and rewards accrue to those who pile up value (e.g. increased promotion prospects at work), the players are slipping past that Maginot Line with a fluid strategy.

So far, so mindwanky. What happens in the fourth generation?

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Just as modern war is now notable in its lack of structure, lack of uniforms, and lack of trust, the fourth generation of dating is equally guerrilla and it’s players frequently operate on the same shoot and scoot tactics. Urban anonymity combined with modern technology such as smart phones, Whatsapp and Tinder allow the sexual war to be conducted on smaller and smaller levels. No longer do massed armies of males and females meet in a disco hall to mark each other’s dance cards – that level of logistical planning is unnecessary. Instead a girl need only log onto Tinder, alone in the comfort of her own room, to engage the enemy. A player need only walk into a shopping mall to set off his daygame IED on a passing column of girls.

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In modern dating the battlefield is anywhere and no one is wearing a uniform. The fighters hit and run, often unseen by the passing population.

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[1] – Don’t take that to mean I’m “beyond daygame”. It’s still a hobby of mine.
[2] – It doesn’t mean you, your kid, your dad and your granddad are all at war simultaneously, thus having all four generations of your family at war. Maybe in Shitholeistan countries that is true.
[3] – I’m sure someone in the comments is going to mention Anti-Fragility.
[4] – Such as Hitler fighting a two-front war, and making a foolish alliance with Japan that drew USA into the war.
[5] – I’m looking at you, cell phones, Tinder, and budget airlines.
[6]- Sorry, Germans
[7] – Oops, slip of the pen

If you thought that was ill-thought out rambling that probably misunderstood the point of its original inspiration you should see my books. They were written with the same slapdash approach in between sessions of Dark Souls.