Sh** tests

[Lady Jolanda]

Looks like negging and shit tests are both designed to make the other person defend their position and seek validation

Yeah. "The one who cares the least has the power" is often said.

Shittests make you care (cause your self esteem is 'under attack'), and hence the other 'has the power'.

 

[ClevelandINTP]

Maybe this is something like gaslighting. Most people who gaslight don't consciously do it as a 'technique,' but its a thing... and the ones who figured out that it can be useful and encourage using it are a special kind of psycho.

Honestly, why are there so many dating guides out there that preach being an asshole to win love and influence? Are we really that hooked on variable rewards?

(The answer, I do realize, is yes).

 

[ClevelandINTP]

Yeah. "The one who cares the least has the power" is often said.

Shittests make you care (cause your self esteem is 'under attack'), and hence the other 'has the power'.

A good read is the 48 Laws of Power. There’s a lot of truth to it, but basically all of the laws have to deal with manipulation and control

 

[ThomasJ79]

I think people have always been assholes to one another, but the internet just makes us more aware of it and the practice more efficient.

One thing I find interesting is the indirect connection between the alt-right and MBTI "thinkers".

'I'm not an a**hole, I am just processing information with my Ti(or Te). Why is everyone so offended?' They'll use phrases such as snowflake and sjw. It is easy to "justify" online behavior using(misusing) the MBTI. It is all attention seeking behavior.

I know MBTI has a lot of positive aspects, but using your type as an excuse for inconsiderate or rude behavior, is not acceptable. The internet makes this all too easy.

 

[ClevelandINTP]

One thing I find interesting is the indirect connection between the alt-right and MBTI "thinkers".

'I'm not an a**hole, I am just processing information with my Ti(or Te). Why is everyone so offended?' They'll use phrases such as snowflake and sjw. It is easy to "justify" online behavior using(misusing) the MBTI. It is all attention seeking behavior.

I know MBTI has a lot of positive aspects, but using your type as an excuse for inconsiderate or rude behavior, is not acceptable. The internet makes this all too easy.

We all justify why we are the way we are, [insert personality system here] or not

In other words, if we didn't have [insert personality system here], some other mechanism would be used or no mechanism at all (non-acknowledgement is still not taking ownership)

 

[ClevelandINTP]

LAWS OF POWER
(aka learn to be manipulative jerk)

Law 1: Never outshine the master

• Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power
• When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all.
• Never take your position for granted and never let any favors you receive go to your head.

Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies

• But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them
• Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels. Friends will say that they love your poetry, adore your music, envy your taste in clothes— maybe they mean it, often they do not.
• The key to power, then, is the ability to judge who is best able to further your interests in all situations. Keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent.

Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions

• Use decoyed objects and desires and red herrings to throw people off the scent
• Hide your intentions not by closing up (with the risk of appearing secretive, and making people suspicious) but by talking endlessly about your desires and goals— just not your real ones. You will kill three birds with one stone: You appear friendly, open, and trusting; you conceal your intentions; and you send your rivals on time-consuming wild-goose chases.
• Use smoke screens to disguise your actions. This derives from a simple truth: people can only focus on one thing at a time. It is really too difficult for them to imagine that the bland and harmless person they are dealing with is simultaneously setting up something else
• As Kierkegaard wrote, “The world wants to be deceived.”

Law 4: Always say less than necessary

• One oft-told tale about Kissinger… involved a report that Winston Lord had worked on for days. After giving it to Kissinger, he got it back with the notation, “Is this the best you can do?” Lord rewrote and polished and finally resubmitted it; back it came with the same curt question. After redrafting it one more time— and once again getting the same question from Kissinger-Lord snapped, “Damn it, yes, it’s the best I can do. ” To which Kissinger replied: “Fine, then I guess I’ll read it this time. ”
• Persons who cannot control his words shows that he cannot control himself, and is unworthy of respect. But the human tongue is a beast that few can master. It strains constantly to break out of its cage, and if it is not tamed, it will run wild and cause you grief. Power cannot accrue to those who squander their treasure of words.
• Power is in many ways a game of appearances, and when you say less than necessary, you inevitably appear greater and more powerful than you are.
• Learn the lesson: Once the words are out, you cannot take them back. Keep them under control. Be particularly careful with sarcasm: The momentary satisfaction you gain with your biting words will be outweighed by the price you pay.

Law 5: So much depends on reputation, guard it with your life

• Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.
• Doubt is a powerful weapon: Once you let it out of the bag with insidious rumors, your opponents are in a horrible dilemma.
• Once you have a solid base of respect, ridiculing your opponent both puts him on the defensive and draws more attention to you, enhancing your own reputation.

Law 6: Court attention at all costs

• Surround your name with the sensational and the scandalous.
• Better to be slandered and attacked than ignored.
• Every crowd has a silver lining.
• At the start of your career, you must attach your name and reputation to a quality, an image, that sets you apart from other people.
• Create an air of mystery.
• Remember: Most people are upfront, can be read like an open book, take little care to control their words or image, and are hopelessly predictable. By simply holding back, keeping silent, occasionally uttering ambiguous phrases, deliberately appearing inconsistent, and acting odd in the subtlest of ways, you will emanate an aura of mystery. The people around you will then magnify that aura by constantly trying to interpret you
• Do something that cannot be easily explained or interpreted

Law 7: Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit
No notes.

Law 8: Make other people come to you, use bait if necessary
For negotiations or meetings, it is always wise to lure others into your territory, or the territory of your choice. You have your bearings, while they see nothing familiar and are subtly placed on the defensive.

Law 9: Win through your actions, never through argument
No notes.

Law 10: Infection: Avoid the unhappy or the unlucky
When you suspect you are in the presence of an infector, don’t argue, don’t try to help, don’t pass the person on to your friends, or you will become enmeshed. Flee the infector’s presence or suffer the consequences.

Law 11: Learn to keep people dependent on you
No notes.

Law 12: Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim
No notes.

Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people’s self interest, never their mercy or gratitude
No notes.

Law 14: Pose as a friend, work as a spy
No notes.

Law 15: Crush your enemy totally
No notes.

Law 16: Use absence to increase strength and honor

• 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.
• At the start of an affair, you need to heighten your presence in the eyes of the other. If you absent yourself too early, you may be forgotten. But once your lover’s emotions are engaged, and the feeling of love has crystallized, absence inflames and excites. Giving no reason for your absence excites even more.

Law 17: Keep others in suspended terror, cultivate an air of unpredictability
Too much unpredictability will be seen as a sign of indecisiveness, or even of some more serious psychic problem. Patterns are powerful, and you can terrify people by disrupting them. Such power should only be used judiciously.

Law 18: Do not build a fortress to protect yourself, isolation is dangerous
No notes.

Law 19: Know who you’re dealing with, do not offend the wrong person
No notes.

Law 20: Do not commit to anyone

• Do not commit to anyone, but be courted by all.
• When you hold yourself back, you incur not anger but a kind of respect. You instantly seem powerful because you make yourself ungraspable, rather than succumbing to the group, or to the relationship, as most people do.
• People who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process, for their help is so easily obtained, while those who stand back find themselves besieged with supplicants.
• Do not commit to anyone, stay above the fray.
• Remember: You have only so much energy and so much time. Every moment wasted on the affairs of others subtracts from your strength.

Law 21: Play a sucker to catch a sucker, seem dumber than your mark
Given how important the idea of intelligence is to most people’s vanity, it is critical never inadvertently to insult or impugn a person’s brain power.

Law 22: Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power

• People trying to make a show of their authority are easily deceived by the surrender tactic.
• It is always our first instinct to react, to meet aggression with some other kind of aggression. But the next time someone pushes you and you find yourself starting to react, try this: Do not resist or fight back, but yield, turn the other cheek, bend.
• If you surrender instead, you have an opportunity to coil around your enemy and strike with your fangs from close up.

Law 23: Concentrate your forces
intensity defeats extensity every time.

Law 24: Play the perfect courtier
The laws of court politics:

• Avoid ostentation
• Practice nonchalance
• Be frugal with flattery
• Arrange to be noticed
• Alter your style and language according to the person you are dealing with
• Never be the bearer of bad news
• Never affect friendliness and intimacy with your master
• Never criticize those above you directly
• Be frugal in asking those above you for favors
• Never joke about appearances of tastes
• Do not be the court cynic
• Be self observantMaster your emotions
• Fit the spirits of the times
• Be the source of pleasure

Law 25: Re-Create Yourself

• Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you.
• The world wants to assign you a role in life. And once you accept that role you are doomed.
• Remake yourself into a character of power. Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks.
• The first step in the process of self-creation is self-consciousness— being aware of yourself as an actor and taking control of your appearance and emotions.
• The second step in the process of self-creation is a variation on the George Sand strategy: the creation of a memorable character, one that compels attention, that stands out above the other players on the stage.

Law 26: Keep your hands clean

• Conceal your mistakes, have a scapegoat around to blame.
• Make use of the cats paw.

Law 27: Play on people’s need to believe to create a cult like following

• Five rules of cult making
• Keep it vague, keep it simple
• Emphasize the visual and sensational over the intellectual
• Borrow the forms of organized religion to structure the group
• Disguise your source of incomeSet up an us vs them dynamic

Law 28: Enter action with boldness

• The bolder lie the better.
• Lions circle the hesitant prey.
• Boldness strikes fear, fear creates authority.
• Going halfway with half a heart digs a deeper grave.
• Hesitation creates gaps, boldness obliterates them.
• Audacity separates you from the herd.
• When you are as small and obscure as David was, you must find a Goliath to attack. The larger the target, the more attention you gain.

Law 29: Plan all the way to the end
No notes.

Law 30: Make your accomplishments seem effortless
No notes.

Law 31: Control the options, get others to play with the cards you deal

• You give people a sense of how things will fall apart without you, and you offer them a “choice”: I stay away and you suffer the consequences, or I return under circumstances that I dictate.
• Color the choices, propose three or four choices of action for each situation, and would present them in such a way that the one he preferred always seemed the best solution compared to the others.
• Force the resister, Push them to “choose” what you want them to do by appearing to advocate the opposite.
• Alter the playing field.
• The shrinking options: A variation on this technique is to raise the price every time the buyer hesitates and another day goes by. This is an excellent negotiating ploy to use on the chronically indecisive, who will fall for the idea that they are getting a better deal today than if they wait till tomorrow.
• The weak man on the precipice: This tactic is similar to “Color the Choices,” but with the weak you have to be more aggressive. Work on their emotions— use fear and terror to propel them into action. Try reason and they will always find a way to procrastinate.
• Brothers in Crime: You attract your victims to some criminal scheme, creating a bond of blood and guilt between you.
• The horns of a dilemma: The lawyer leads the witnesses to decide between two possible explanations of an event, both of which poke a hole in their story. They have to answer the lawyer’s questions, but whatever they say they hurt themselves. The key to this move is to strike quickly: Deny the victim the time to think of an escape. As they wriggle between the horns of the dilemma, they dig their own grave.

Law 32: Play to people’s fantasies

• People rarely believe that their problems arise from their own misdeeds and stupidity.
• Someone or something out there is to blame— the other, the world, the gods— and so salvation comes from the outside as well.

Law 33: Discover each man’s thumbscrew

• Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.
• Finding the thumbscrews
• Pay attention to gestures and unconscious signalsFind the helpless child, look to their childhoodLook for contrasts, an overt trait often reveals its oppositeFind the weak link,Fill their emotional voidFeed on their uncontrollable emotion
• Always look for passions and obsessions that cannot be controlled. What people cannot control, you can control for them.

Law 34: Be royal in your own fashion. Act like a king to be treated like one
No notes.

Law 35: Master the art of timing
No notes.

Law 36: Disdain things you cannot have, ignoring them is the best revenge

• Remember: You choose to let things bother you. You can just as easily choose not to notice the irritating offender, to consider the matter trivial and unworthy of your interest. That is the powerful move.
• Desire often creates paradoxical effects: The more you want something, the more you chase after it, the more it eludes you. The more interest you show, the more you repel the object of your desire. This is because your interest is too strong— it makes people awkward, even fearful. Uncontrollable desire makes you seem weak, unworthy, pathetic.

Law 37: Create compelling spectacles
No notes.

Law 38: Think as you like but behave like others
If Machiavelli had had a prince for disciple, the first thing he would have recommended him to do would have been to write a book against Machiavellism.

Law 39: Stir up waters to catch fish
Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage.

Law 40: Despise the free lunch
The worth of money is not in its possession, but in its use.

Law 41: Avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes
No notes.

Law 42: Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter
Within any group, trouble can most often be traced to a single source, the unhappy, chronically dissatisfied one who will always stir up dissension and infect the group with his or her ill ease. Before you know what hit you the dissatisfaction spreads. Act before it becomes impossible to disentangle

Once you recognize who the stirrer is, pointing it out to other people will accomplish a great deal.

43: Work on the hearts and minds of others
Remember: The key to persuasion is softening people up and breaking them down, gently. Seduce them with a two-pronged approach: Work on their emotions and play on their intellectual weaknesses.

44: Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect
When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out your strategy. The Mirror Effect mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion that you share their values; by holding up a mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson.

45: Preach the need to change, but never reform too much at once
If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.

Even while people understand the need for change, knowing how important it is for institutions and individuals to be occasionally renewed, they are also irritated and upset by changes that affect them personally.

46: Never appear too perfect
Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable.

Do not try to help or do favors for those who envy you; they will think you are condescending to them.

47: Do not go past the mark you aimed for. In victory, know when to stop
No notes.

48: Assume formlessness
By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes.

 

[Lady Jolanda]

^ The laws of power makes me want to vomit. No thank you.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

The Laws of Short-term Power.

Dictatorships tend to collapse. Authoritarian Arab states lose wars.

People forget that the democracies were victorious in both World Wars, in the context of an explicit confrontation between 'the democracies and the dictatorships' that was discussed in public and popular media throughout the 30s.

The 'Laws of Power' rarely work for long. Internal corruption and rampant disloyalty tend to undermine these systems, not to mention the fact that they generate genuine resentment which results in coups, &c.

I would wager that interpersonal relationships founded on the same principles suffer from similar weaknesses. These principles build-in a volatility, instability, and lack of endurance which tends to make them weak and out-competed by more affectively sensitive systems over the long-term.

 

[ThomasJ79]

^ The laws of power makes me want to vomit. No thank you.

The Game of Thrones. I was surprised(or not so really) at how many fans were rooting for one House or another, through war and violence. I thought the entire point was to drive home the many ways in which such a world would not be a good idea.

Our current world has a very short term memory. I hope we do not return to that direction. It has been in the air for many years, the rise and toleration of dictator-like personas.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

The Game of Thrones. I was surprised(or not so really) at how many fans were rooting for one House or another, through war and violence. I thought the entire point was to drive home the many ways in which such a world would not be a good idea.

Our current world has a very short term memory. I hope we do not return to that direction. It has been in the air for many years, the rise and toleration of dictator-like personas.

BoJo's prorogation of Parliament was just ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.

Rule of Law still exposes the methods of such characters when it's strong enough.

 

[ThomasJ79]

BoJo's prorogation of Parliament was just ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.

Rule of Law still exposes the methods of such characters when it's strong enough.

Let's hope this holds.

 

[sassafras]

I think those who lack natural confidence and who struggle with insecurity usually seek out material like 'the 48 Laws of Power' and tactics like 'shit testing' and 'negging' in order to take back control... and maybe for a while, things improve as they go through all the motions and project the right psychology. However, this isn't necessarily the road to self-mastery. It could be, but if the emphasis remains on how other people respond to you, if you continue implementing these techniques because you need people to fall in line around you and validate your own ego, if none of this independence is authentic but a new dependence in disguise, it's not going to work.

With the exception of sociopaths or those on any particular anti-social spectrum, the majority of people crave connection. This is why the average joe and jane goes out to date in the first place. If you're coming from a place of anxiety where you fear you're going to be rejected, where you fear you're going to lose something if you don't consciously follow x, y and z rules and try to be something other than you are, you are going to feel miserable. How can you connect with someone if you're constantly putting on airs? How can you be anything other than miserable if you're living in the constant fear of letting the mask slip and losing your ego supply?

And if you're constantly aware you're wearing a mask, if you hold these tactics in your conscious as tactics rather than a natural projection of your character, cracks will begin to show. And when cracks begin to show, that's usually when you get desperate and out of control and start making more questionable, ego-centric and short-sighted plays for power that reveal your hand. People are not stupid. Unless they are crazily insecure themselves, most people are able to sense something is not right and its natural for people to want to pull out threats by the roots. And stronger personalities, more naturally confident and authentic personalities, are those that do the pulling because they outlast those with projected masks.

The only people you're going to be left with are the ones like your insecure self... because like attracts like.

And you will end up resenting each other eventually.

Power for the sake of power and influence isn't the road to authenticity and self-actualization. You can dress up a dog like a monkey, you can train him to act like a monkey, but unless you change his DNA, other monkeys will be able to tell that this dog is NOT a monkey.

tl:dr; I think few people who study and attempt to employ manipulation tactics succeed. I think the chief benefit of things like these 'laws of power' is that they provide stepping stones to project confidence and in turn make one feel confident (and yes, there's credence to 'acting as if') However, the tricky part is making that confidence a genuine and permanent and *easy* fixture of character. And that still requires addressing one's self-limiting beliefs and insecurities which not many people are able to do successfully.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

I think those who lack natural confidence and who struggle with insecurity usually seek out material like 'the 48 Laws of Power' and tactics like 'shit testing' and 'negging' in order to take back control... and maybe for a while, things improve as they go through all the motions and project the right psychology. However, this isn't necessarily the road to self-mastery. It could be, but if the emphasis remains on how other people respond to you, if you continue implementing these techniques because you need people to fall in line around you and validate your own ego, if none of this independence is authentic but a new dependence in disguise, it's not going to work.

With the exception of sociopaths or those on any particular anti-social spectrum, the majority of people crave connection. This is why the average joe and jane goes out to date in the first place. If you're coming from a place of anxiety where you fear you're going to be rejected, where you fear you're going to lose something if you don't consciously follow x, y and z rules and try to be something other than you are, you are going to feel miserable. How can you connect with someone if you're constantly putting on airs? How can you be anything other than miserable if you're living in the constant fear of letting the mask slip and losing your ego supply?

And if you're constantly aware you're wearing a mask, if you hold these tactics in your conscious as tactics rather than a natural projection of your character, cracks will begin to show. And when cracks begin to show, that's usually when you get desperate and out of control and start making more questionable, ego-centric and short-sighted plays for power that reveal your hand. People are not stupid. Unless they are crazily insecure themselves, most people are able to sense something is not right and its natural for people to want to pull out threats by the roots. And stronger personalities, more naturally confident and authentic personalities, are those that do the pulling because they outlast those with projected masks.

The only people you're going to be left with are the ones like your insecure self... because like attracts like.

And you will end up resenting each other eventually.

Power for the sake of power and influence isn't the road to authenticity and self-actualization. You can dress up a dog like a monkey, you can train him to act like a monkey, but unless you change his DNA, other monkeys will be able to tell that this dog is NOT a monkey.

tl:dr; I think few people who study and attempt to employ manipulation tactics succeed. I think the chief benefit of things like these 'laws of power' is that they provide stepping stones to project confidence and in turn make one feel confident (and yes, there's credence to 'acting as if') However, the tricky part is making that confidence a genuine and permanent and *easy* fixture of character. And that still requires addressing one's self-limiting beliefs and insecurities which not many people are able to do successfully.

 

[Lady Jolanda]

+1 for Sas.

Of course, if you're only interested in short-term relationships, then those manipulation tactics will work for your goal. You're out of there before the the mask falls.

As with so many things, it's short-term success but long-term detriment.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

As with so many things, it's short-term success but long-term detriment.

Just like the unsustainable intensive farming practices in Pakistan *cough*

In-joke

 

[mintoots]

How can you connect with someone if you're constantly putting on airs?

 

[Reason]

As others have just about said here: if you develop personal autonomy and stop feeling like you 'need' to be in a relationship all the power of an abuser evaporates. You can just leave, you're a complete person if there's someone who is willing to be your equal and share in your life then that's great. If, on the other hand, they're just using and/or fucking with you kick them to the curb.

Life is a zero sum game and you don't need that baggage in your life. If you're sick of being single because there's nobody left after you kick the losers to the curb, fill your time with a hobby or a career or something- but whatever you do for god's sakes don't humor these crooked charlatans. You're valuable, your time is valuable, quit all the bullshit.

 

[Reason]

One thing I find interesting is the indirect connection between the alt-right and MBTI "thinkers".

'I'm not an a**hole, I am just processing information with my Ti(or Te). Why is everyone so offended?' They'll use phrases such as snowflake and sjw. It is easy to "justify" online behavior using(misusing) the MBTI. It is all attention seeking behavior.

I know MBTI has a lot of positive aspects, but using your type as an excuse for inconsiderate or rude behavior, is not acceptable. The internet makes this all too easy.

lol 'the alt-right'

 

[Pin]

^ The laws of power makes me want to vomit. No thank you.

Lick that vomit off the floor! I have news for you.

 

[Pin]

People forget that the democracies were victorious in both World Wars, in the context of an explicit confrontation between 'the democracies and the dictatorships' that was discussed in public and popular media throughout the 30s.

The 'Laws of Power' rarely work for long. Internal corruption and rampant disloyalty tend to undermine these systems, not to mention the fact that they generate genuine resentment which results in coups, &c.

I would wager that interpersonal relationships founded on the same principles suffer from similar weaknesses. These principles build-in a volatility, instability, and lack of endurance which tends to make them weak and out-competed by more affectively sensitive systems over the long-term.

For better or worse, the world is moving towards Marxian communism: common ownership of the means of production, the absence of social-classes, money, and the state. Why? Because there will be a post-scarcity economy.

For those of us who seek absolute power, our days are numbered. The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

I'm almost certain that the end of my lifetime will mark the last of the autocrats.

Reference:

http://edujob.gr/sites/default/files/epagg_prooptikes/The Post-Scarcity World of 2050-2075.pdf