This is an interesting discussion, because the PUA community seems to put a lot of emphasis on "being alpha", and in many ways most women in mainstream American society do seem to want this archetype. However, it seems like a lot of what are "alpha" and "beta" qualities are too black and white, like you always have to be alpha 24-7 and letting your guard down, being sympathetic, opening up, is beta and always the wrong thing to do.
Mark Manson aka "Entropy" who sometimes posts on these forums, has a great post on his site called "Butchering the Alpha Male",
http://www.practicalpickup.com/butcherin...alpha-male , I really like his whole take on what it means to be alpha, the article is very long and starts with a story (which you may want to skip), but it's definitely worth the read. Roosh and Mark are basically the only two guys that I even bother looking at for PUA advice these days.
Interestingly both guys seem to be kind of drifting in opposite directions as far as their views on women go and attitude towards the whole PUA culture. To me, I guess I kind of like being a more spiritual or philosophical guy, I kind of like to find a balance or a "yin and yang" kind of mentality when it comes to pick up and women in general. Roosh has great thoughts and is very blunt and to the point with his advice, while it can often maybe construed as "sexist, misogynistic, and hateful towards women", you all got to admit that most of what he says is right in this fucked up modern society and culture we live in. Meanwhile, Mark seems to be taken a softer more humanistic approach towards pick up and women, sex, relationships, etc., and to me this is healthy counter balance to many of Roosh's views/philosophies. I'm not trying to break this down into a dichotomy of Roosh vs. Mark, but I feel that both perspectives have a lot of value and merit, and sometimes it's not too good to go overboard with one idea, perspective, attitude, etc.
For me, personally, I spent most of my life being the archetype "beta" when dealing with women, and because of it my results with women were dismal. Once discovering Roosh and reading "Bang" I realized I was being waaay too passive, and was able to slowly tap into my "alphaness", which helped me boost my confidence, presence, and overcome a lot of fears/anxieties. However, like Mark points out in his article, like a lot of guys I overcompensated, and over did it if you will and in a lot of instances just acted like a total arrogant, prick or dick, which in a lot of ways gets you attention from girls, but can alienate your friends, and change your personality in a bad kind of way.
Now I am realizing that a lot of my personality contains traits that a lot of PUA guys might call "beta" (i.e. being honest, caring, wanting to be nice, etc.) Maybe a lot of stupid, hot, shallow sluts, aren't into that kind of guy, unfortunately these are the kind of women I normally sexually attracted to, but maybe I shouldn't be, or rather it might not be in my best self inetest to pursue those types of women. Also, I think a guy can be alpha in a lot of ways (lead a woman, stand up for himself, be confidenet, etc.), but at the same time still be honest, nice, caring, etc., it shouldn't be so cut and dry. So for now, I am going to try to take a Taoistic approach to this and incorporate the teaching of Roosh and Entropy into a kind of yin and yang unity, of the greater aspects of Alpha and Beta, some of the positive aspects of both approaches can surely co-exist...?