The 48 Laws of Power

[munenori2]

What is going on here:

http://www2.tech.purdue.edu/cg/Cours...s_of_power.htm

Excerpt:

Law 13

When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest,

Never to their Mercy or Gratitude

If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you. Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him, that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will respond enthusiastically when he sees something to be gained for himself.

Law 14

Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy

Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.

Law 15

Crush your Enemy Totally

All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed completely. (Sometimes they have learned this the hard way.) If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation: The enemy will recover, and will seek revenge. Crush him, not only in body but in spirit.

Law 16

Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor

Too much circulation makes the price go down: The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear. If you are already established in a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked about, even more admired. You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity.

Law 17

Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability

Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.

Law 18

Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous

The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere – everyone has to protect themselves. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you from – it cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target. Better to circulate among people find allies, mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd.

[implied]

something i find very gross. we discussed this. were you there when we were discussing it?

[strrrng]

lol, the good old laws of power. I think the author is ISTj.

[implied]

lol, the good old laws of power. I think the author is ISTj.

i kind of would have thought ENFj as it's a bit like a new machiavelli. this is a bit like reading "the prince" only with a completely different author.

[munenori2]

something i find very gross. we discussed this. were you there when we were discussing it?

When was that? But no, someone just brought it up to me and I was like, eff the guy who wrote this!

[implied]

When was that? But no, someone just brought it up to me and I was like, eff the guy who wrote this!

udp sent it to me and we discussed it briefly at niffweed's house. i actually do not think you were there at the time that we were discussing this. well, my thoughts are generally the same on the 48 laws of power. oddly, i understand that he is sort of attempting to get at this like, "laws of supply and demand" sort of thing. but he's going about it in a really rotten sort of way. i mean, all of that applies to money/goods and not to people. that's actually, imo, what makes it rotten.

anyhow, my personal opinion is that these people generally die alone or their whole existence is so miserable and paranoid that whatever they profess is ultimately just going to kick them in the ass. basically i feel like if you walk in, attempting to treat people like objects, you can't run crying when they give you the same treatment. this is how i deal with the existence of such people.

[strrrng]

i kind of would have thought ENFj as it's a bit like a new machiavelli. this is a bit like reading "the prince" only with a completely different author.

Yeah. I see what you're referring to, and I'm not sure of machiavelli's type anyway. I'm just going off of pics and interviews.

anyhow, my personal opinion is that these people generally die alone or their whole existence is so miserable and paranoid that whatever they profess is ultimately just going to kick them in the ass. basically i feel like if you walk in, attempting to treat people like objects, you can't run crying when they give you the same treatment. this is how i deal with the existence of such people.

Many people can die alone, and I doubt someone who confidently believes in an idea will be miserable as a result; they wouldn't espouse it otherwise. The existence might be one that you would find miserable if in their position, but to make a claim about theirs seems presumptuous. But I definitely agree that they deserve whatever they get in return for their actions.

[Park]

http://174.132.148.217/~petrolfl/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=3931&highlight=laws+power

[07490]

udp sent it to me and we discussed it briefly at niffweed's house. i actually do not think you were there at the time that we were discussing this. well, my thoughts are generally the same on the 48 laws of power. oddly, i understand that he is sort of attempting to get at this like, "laws of supply and demand" sort of thing. but he's going about it in a really rotten sort of way. i mean, all of that applies to money/goods and not to people. that's actually, imo, what makes it rotten.

anyhow, my personal opinion is that these people generally die alone or their whole existence is so miserable and paranoid that whatever they profess is ultimately just going to kick them in the ass. basically i feel like if you walk in, attempting to treat people like objects, you can't run crying when they give you the same treatment. this is how i deal with the existence of such people.

YES, I agree that the author's view on how to achieve power and influence are somewhat going to bit him back in the ass. I asumme that the author may have seen how other highly influencial people might have gotten their power in that sort of way, and may attempt to Mimic it's behavior the same way as them. I, Happen to think that through it all the cycle of how you are suspose to behave to get respect in this world, is by Deep understand of others in their own shoes. This can come quite diffculty to do and overwhelming, But I think having the right view, motive and a good heart are the start to really getting the power and respect, by really helping people as the true underlying motive deep inside, and not a motive to be powerful.

[UDP]

It's something that is good to know of. You'll more likely than not encounter them being used against you/etc at some point in your life. Much more, depending on your situation.

[Park]

YES, I agree that the author's view on how to achieve power and influence are somewhat going to bit him back in the ass. I asumme that the author may have seen how other highly influencial people might have gotten their power in that sort of way, and may attempt to Mimic it's behavior the same way as them. I, Happen to think that through it all the cycle of how you are suspose to behave to get respect in this world, is by Deep understand of others in their own shoes. This can come quite diffculty to do and overwhelming, But I think having the right view, motive and a good heart are the start to really getting the power and respect, by really helping people as the true underlying motive deep inside, and not a motive to be powerful.

Come to Delta, Numbers.

[Creepy-Diana]

.

[duality is cringe]

After reading the first few laws (13-16), if not sooner, the letters "LSI" immediately popped into my head and stayed there until the end of the original quote.

In terms of achieving power, I agree with pretty much all of these in terms of effectiveness. Though I can't say I necessarily share the sentiment or interest in employing all of these techniques, they definitely seem useful and based on what I believe to be accurate knowledge of human interactions. I am not bothered by these "laws" nor do they repulse me in the way they seem to have others in this thread. Just not my priorities or natural inclinations.

Laws 16 and 18 are particularly interesting to me since I can imagine how many would find a balancing act between the two difficult to maintain.

Thanks for posting munenori. "Cool" indeed.

[Park]

Diana seems to have touched on some very good points.

[strrrng]

I think these rules are when Beta goes too far. It's all about how one appears and how to manipulate to support their own greed. I think they're the rules of power only for appearance sake... the person practicing them would be truly weak inside. They rest upon their "laws" for "strength," but the laws are a precarious house of cards, and if they fell the practitioner would be reduced to the fragile frightened person they really are inside.

I don't think it's all about appearance; the historical examples in the book prove that there is much more that can be gained than a popular image among your social group. Going based on reading most of the book, and seeing things in others through my experience, I can say that these laws do have effectiveness when utilized, although I have never taken the time to actually attempt to use them. See, people don't think about shit like this when they're competing in the social world and such; they may analyze things and naturally come to understand the dynamics of the situation solely through insight, but applying some general law to a specific situation is most often extremely difficult, if not impossible, due to contextual factors. Now, again, as I told Maria, you are making assumptions about what traits the person does or does not possess. Understanding and possibly using certain ideas that sum up recurring themes of humanity over history does not necessitate an inner weakness; the manner in which said thing is done, does however. I think a truly strong person can utilize effective social strategies without giving up integrity, or personal creativity in thought.

[strrrng]

@Diana: a few comments on your comments.

As far as the situation with law 13 goes, the term "self-interest" is not meant to be taken the same for everyone, as you have seen. In your situation, the "self-interest" for you was a genuine benefit of helping someone else; the selfish connotations of the term mislead people, I think. I suppose what the author intended was such: finding what gives the person gratification, and exploiting it. Oddly, a lot of these laws can seem contradictory, because of contextual subtleties. There is another law, find each man's thumbscrew, or something of the sort. How that could play out with the self-interest one, I don't know.

As for law 14 about being a spy, that seems very general and comes in many forms. The author would not necessarily encourage surreptitious behavior (there is another law about being the "perfect courtier"). In fact, quite the opposite: I would think that he would promote open, generous behavior, more or less, as a means to drop their guard. There is some law about using generosity and honesty to disarm the victim; again, it seems these laws overlap in many ways.

As far as law 15 about crushing the enemy totally goes, what you have described (curtailing contact) can very much be a means to "destroy them completely." The metaphor stands: as long as an ember is left burning, there is always a chance for a fire to start again. If leaving them for good (female runs away from abusive ex-boyfriend, never to be found again) is a means to do this, good. Other times, more direct action seems necessary (she hires a hitman to eliminate his pernicious influence).

As per law 16 about absence, I agree that such continual activity would be unnecessarily strenuous and probably pointless. I think the principle stands though: commonality depletes novelty. If people see that you are scarce, unique or just unattainable, your value naturally goes up. But lol, just imagine how their conception of you would change if they noticed that you were deliberately distancing yourself from them, as a means to look good.

Law 17, unpredictability. I think this sort of goes hand in hand with the aforementioned, and IME is most definitely a legitimate power tactic, used oh-so-commonly by teenage girls in high school social circles. She's a bitch today, she loves you tomorrow, you never know where she really stands. People need that certainty and predictability with others' behavior; the natural "chasing" attitude of men, combined with an attraction to a girl, will render some guys' perception of a girl who behaves in fairly erratic ways amplified, if only because she seems like a stronger "challenge." Other guys will see through a tactic and curtail contact. Just one example.