Let's discuss systematization, using the "DiCarlo Escalation Ladder" as a useful/important example. (However, let's also discuss systematization more broadly and not limit discussion to ONLY the Ladder.)

Consider this post on /r/askTRP.

People make fun of DiCarlo's "escalation ladder" for being too rigid/detailed, like a cake-recipe.

That post presents a condensed version of the original ladder that might be less likely to be ridiculed by skeptical people.

There is a tendency to try to break social/sexual interaction down into its components and systematize them.

u/oihaoerhg made this comment about systematizing interaction:

What are social SKILLS though really? I talk to my friends and genuinely listen to the things they have to say, and I can understand when they're being genuine with me or playing a game. Are there really social SKILLS involved in socializing? To me the concept of social SKILLS sounds autistic by itself because you're dissecting every little thing you're doing and "oh, now I have to utilize this social skill to make this person feel a certain way, computing..." The way I see socializing, social SKILL seems like a manipulative scheme, and social STRENGTH seems like an oxymoron because I see socializing as cooperative and not a constant battle where we're all smiling at each other but testing each other for social SKILLS.

u/melonsle also offered comments here and here and here about how systematization is bad:

My pov is that it has to do with an understanding of the self as a machine, which performs functions, vs. the understanding of self as an essence, that expresses. Someone who breaks down the behaviors necessary to socializing misses the core trait which is anti-mechanistic: emotional connection to others. There is nothing to "do" there, much as we try with our outside-in based understandings and verbal/mental checklists which name the fvck out of everything we can observe. There is an irreducible core reality to the Self which is larger than its functions, when it expresses freely, it will tend to have a social expression, it will tend to be social. The outward behaviors are no guarantee of this state actually being achieved. The focus on them itself indicates neuroses and a mind divided and in self-judgment, which tends to be co-morbid with all these western machine metaphors and scientific approaches to self-knowledge.

The desire to systematize springs from anxiety and worthlessness. Figure out the emotional reservoirs from which that anxiety and worthlessness arises, then dive into them, absorb them, by feeling the feelings lovingly and without condition - they will move to a natural point of resolution, and your mind and mental process will move on from where they are presently land-locked.

Right now you're exploring the mental world by asking questions, typing comments, and endlessly pinging Atlas_B_Shruggin.

There's an emotional world that exists inside you. You can explore it via silence, stillness, meditation, and diving deep into feelings. Maybe watch a sad movie and see how it makes you feel. Think about your last painful moment, and explore that pain. Dive deep into the felt experience of these emotions, they resonate in the body with a feeling that can be like a hum, like heat, or like cold, or like electric energy - and they are feelings, they are energy. All the keys to our deeper mind are locked in the vaults of feeling, for the most part.

As fertile as the world of ideas appears to be, the world of emotions is far more fertile and impactful. It rewards investigations more. The exercise I gave you is one way of beginning that exploration.

So these are my questions:

1: What do you think of the DiCarlo Escalation Ladder?

2: What CAN/CANNOT be systematized in human interaction?

3: What SHOULD/SHOULDN'T be systematized in human interaction?

4: Which books do you recommend on becoming better at social/sexual interaction?