The "Machiavellian Reality" -- speech by Robert Greene | Hacker News Reader

The "Machiavellian Reality" -- speech by Robert Greene

powerseductionandwar.com

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"The other thing that primates have that is so bizarre and interesting is that they are the only animal we know that practice deception and games of manipulation among each other. There is no other animal on the planet that we can say that about."

Some male cuttlefish will pretend to be female in order to sneak past the alpha male and mate with the female he is guarding. I am sure there are many, many other examples of non-primates using deception/manipulation.

There are plenty of deceptive bugs and other critters. Like stick insects, frog fish, chameleons, etc.

Camouflage to avoid being eaten isn't quite the same thing. It is the difference between gaining an advantage as distinct from avoiding a disadvantage.

Pitcher plant

This seems like a different kind of deception, the kind that one could stumble upon by random chance. Evolution could be responsible for a specific trait leading male cuttlefish to be inclined to pretend to be female. The way to test that would be to determine if the cuttlefish is deceptive in other, completely unrelated ways.

Primates, on the other hand, can use manipulation in a broad range of circumstances, in a way that is indicative of a higher level of thinking.

If you haven't read Greene's Yale Speech <http://www.powerseductionandwar.com/archives/robert_greene_y..., it's worth it.

"There are three types of people in this world in dealing with this social reality. There are, what I call, the deniers, the people who deny this reality exists. They almost want to pretend that we are descended from angels and not from primates."

"Among these deniers, you will find two types. You will find people who are genuinely disturbed by the politicking aspect of human nature. They don't want any kind of job in which they have to do that. You will find that they are slowly marginalized. They can be happy that way. They are never going to assume a position of great responsibility because it involves all of this."

"The other branch of the deniers are the people that are the passive-aggressors. ... People who consciously don't want to admit that there is any kind of manipulation involved, but unconsciously are playing all kinds of games."

"The second type of person besides the deniers are those who love this Machiavellian part of our nature and revel in it and are master manipulators, and con artists, and connivers and are very aggressive."

The third type is what I am calling the radical realist. It is what I am proposing that you adopt."

Really enjoyed the article. I've skimmed Greene's book and thought it was just a modernisation of Machiavelli's "The Prince". This article really shows how passionate he is about understanding and accepting human nature. Because Greene's book is prescriptive in that it lists 48 laws, I had thought there wasn't that much depth to it. I'm pleasantly surprised by Greene's insight.

I own the three bestsellers (48 laws, 33 strategies, art of seduction). Calling it modernization of The Prince is wrong (I also own The Prince AND Discourses on Livy) - it is more a condensate of the works of people he refers to and cites: Niccolo Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Baltasar Gracian, Otto Von Bismarck, Carl Von Clausevitz, Napoleon, Platon, Aristoteles, Friedrich Nietzche...

All the great classics - as such Greene's work is an excellent intro into the world of classic political and strategic theory... What I have realized after reading some of these classic writer's works is that many of philosophers that are so popular today were nothing short of charlatans - this field (strategy and politics) has been so well researched that classics are indeed the best reference.

I particularly love Sun Tzu and Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy (you won't understand prince unless you have read Discourses - Prince on its own is a dangerous book. For me it is more a satirical piece and if you fail to grasp sarcasm in it you might get burned).

Is it a mistake that I'm reading Prince before Discourse on Livy? What should I know...

No mistake. A mistake would be to only read The Prince.

The key point I have taken from the Prince - notice how Niccolo keeps bringing about examples of successful tyrants? Have you noticed that none of this tyrants has died of old age?

I know, I know. A gross over-generalisation which I conceded in the original comment. But clicking around on his blog, I found a quote from his interview by Tucker Max which shows that his inspiration was definitely Machiavelli.

"I pitched to him an idea about the timelessness of Machiavelli which ended up turning into the 48 Laws of Power."

http://www.powerseductionandwar.com/archives/the_robert_gree...

When I looked through the "48 laws" I found a lot of Talmudic references (though maybe that is because the person who recommended it to me mentioned that); I don't recall that being in the translation of "The Prince" that I read..

This article really shows how passionate he is about understanding and accepting human nature.

OK I must be weird! I am a software engineer (I know you are shocked, SHOCKED that there's are hackers/engineers/programmers on HN!) and I am an introvert and a bit of a misanthrope.

But all of this Machiavellian/Human nature/How to make friends and influence people stuff just seems SO obvious to me! Yes, even the real deep parts of it!

I distinctly recall first confronting it on the school yard, like grade 1, basically as soon as I interacted with anyone who wasn't my parents.

And I remember the second big point of confusion at puberty, but by my mid teens ALL of this was just so old and so obvious. And I've done it and decided not to do any more then necessary because it can be intellectually and emotionally draining.

And I'm happy to trudge along as a well paid big co. software engineer while thinking about what kind of startup I might create some day.

But then there all these people, and not the typical aspie folks, or people who were home schooled (pardon my stereotype strawmen), no like happy social folks and to them this explicitly written down stuff is like this huge revelation! But you're all already doing it!? Are you that oblivious of what you're doing on auto-pilot?

Am I just weird? Do I just think I know more then I actually do? Or are there A LOT of people who are consciously oblivious to what they are subconsciously masters of?

I man Robert Greene had to really think why his boss might have something against him? Really? I mean really! You can find his bos' behavior in fairy tales, complete with background for why it's happening! Who's the prettiest in all the land, anyone?

I agree that Greene seemed overly naive having to put that much thought into why the woman disliked him.

For the most part I think people are (or have the capability, or have been) very aware of it all, but as Greene says, just not accepting of it. The habit of not accepting it becomes so ingrained to a point of it only existing subconsciously. Bringing this back into the conscious can be very difficult, and perhaps may be what Greene went through.

If you grew up in full acceptance of the reality, complete with the wisdom, necessary experience, and knowledge of how to make use of it and act and respond in the proper circumstances, then I would say you are very much in the minority.

Hmmm, I am quite a pessimist so perhaps that means I have quite the acceptance of reality.

After having worked in the 'real world' for the past couple of months (back in school to finish up my degree now), I can only agree that this is the unfortunate reality of the world. However, I wish that Greene didn't choose such a left-hand path interpretation of influence.

A word and concept, that only showed up once in the entire article, empathy, seems to be a much more reasonable way to deal with the social politics that we all face.

"I make the point that you are not going to get far unless you are the kind of person that knows how to think inside the other person's mind."

The difference between that and empathy, the difference between the left-hand and right-hand path to power and influence, seems to be how genuine the intent is. Thinking inside the other person's mind is one thing, but putting yourself in their shoes, understanding and validating their feelings has a completely different intention. One is to manipulate, the other, to understand.

Robert's profiling Paul Graham (along with a dozen or so other people) in his next book.

Any hint on the topic?

No idea, sorry ...

He briefly mentions the next book in the speech (quoted below) and I'm sure more will come, but the concept of mastery which is a theme in all Robert's books is the common thread between the people he interviewed

In the book that I'm writing now, I can talk about it later, if you'd like, I'm interviewing eight of the most eminent people in the world today in different fields -- In neuroscience, in architecture, in music. All of them are inherently non-conformists. All of them are inherently bucking the trend and taking their field in a completely novel direction by bringing out more of that uniqueness that I was talking about."

Thanks Ryan. By the way, I'm happy to see you're on HN. I'm a fan of your writing.

Having first read jdp's comment, then the linked doc, this seemed pertinent -

"In the book that I'm writing now, I can talk about it later, if you'd like, I'm interviewing eight of the most eminent people in the world today in different fields -- In neuroscience, in architecture, in music. All of them are inherently non-conformists. All of them are inherently bucking the trend and taking their field in a completely novel direction by bringing out more of that uniqueness that I was talking about."

i.e. Innovation in funding and development of startups. (I would guess)

Rare people of integrity?

Indeed - I find it fascinating how people nowadays are short on integrity. But they forget that ultimate deceiver is a person who does not deceive.

I'm quite sad how everything is so short term nowadays.

I'm confused as to what you mean. Why do you think that it's just nowadays that people are short on integrity or that everything has become short-term?

Like you I also suspect that people haven't been any different in the past.

But there are two key points I'd like out:

1. I have only seen nowadays, 2. I have met (maybe most?) really smart, able and ambitious people who tend to get little but important details wrong. They view power struggle as zero sum game. They fail to see that to make it you need not only look after your own best interest but of those people around you also. That top is not a singular point, but it is an area of larger structure - a pyramid if you will. And to get to the top of a pyramid you need a strong fundament and if you want to stay at the top you absolutely must hone and take care of your wider base.

Nowadays it's way easier to check the validity of your strategy. It is easier to check historical references for similar contexts as ones own. And these smart people just decide that they will replay the history. And this is the ultimate risk in my opinion - repeating same thing over and over (definition of insanity by Einstein I believe?) and expecting different results. While believing that alternative strategies that are counterintuitive at first are too risky.

Robert gave Andrew Warner of Mixergy some more details about his interview of pg in a 12/30/09 interview: http://mixergy.com/robert-greene-power-interview/

You can click through to read more, but the highlight for me was: "So, Paul Graham, what I liked about him was he’s always been a complete non-conformist and has gotten away with it, not because his parents had money or he was privileged, but because he didn’t care and he took risks and he just followed what he wanted to do. And that’s sort of the end of this book. That’s like the ultimate thing."

Did anybody happen to download the mp3 of the speech before the 4shared host got swamped? I would be in your debt if you were to throw up a mirror of it.

There is a comment dated Dec 3 saying the link doesn't work. So seems unlikely anyone from hn got it.

4shared seems to be a bit shaky; it worked in Firefox on Windows, but not on Linux.

I posted a mirror on Dropbox, & I can post it on S3 if that doesn't hold up.

I got it. Here's a mirror:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3102685/cache/robertgreene/WS710007....

Edit: Skip to 4:20.

Worked perfectly, thanks. I was going around in circles on that MP3 site.

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