Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

I really don’t like this article. I think this article reflects more our desire to categorize things into neatly numbered lists, and reflects less any thorough understanding of influence. Big lists of aphorisms. Less in the way of concrete detail. Words are used the wrong way. Concepts are broken up into incoherent lists.

“Ratianolising” is the word used in the most wrong way. The word normally describes inventing post-hoc reasons for some decision or behavior.

“Negotiating” is a big list of aphorisms which pull in different directions. Some of the advice sounds like amateurish art-of-the-deal tips which encourage you to extract as many concessions as you can from the other side. Some of the advice pulls in the opposite direction. And then, to mix everything up, the advice to compromise and meet half-way rears its ugly head.

The more I read in this article, the worse my opinion gets. I’m stopping.

:-(

It's from a "professional coach", not a philosopher. He's selling a product to corporations, not trying to find some truth...

You make a good point and I agree mostly to the point being made i.e. it is more fluid than categorical. However, I think it is not being made in good faith. I found the article highly insightful because it provides a solid starting point to those that have not started or don't know much about negotiations and how they happen. It should be safe to assume that there are plenty that have not started yet. It is also true that the more frameworks one reads and learns about, the more they realize that there are gaps in each one of them, and it is indeed fluid, not categorical, and hence reaching the same conclusion.

I can see that some of the categories are a stretch semantically; however, I didn't see the specific categories and their names as central to the point of the article. I think the goal is to demonstrate that 1) everyone engages in persuasion in some form; 2) there are various different styles of persuasion with different strengths and weaknesses, and it's useful to be self-aware about what style(s) you tend to use and whether there are other styles you might want to try out in certain situations. I think breaking it down into 5 somewhat artificial categories is a good framework for making this topic approachable and providing good examples to think about.

I think if you already have well-developed thoughts about persuasion and social interaction, it might not add much, but it was useful for me.

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