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AndyWood comments on The 48 Rules of Power; Viable? - Less Wrong
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A common effect for all sorts of things. However, to the extent that we manage to create any wealth at all, to the extent that the nouveau riche these days have made their money by starting companies rather than by parasitizing "the master," etc, real life doesn't work this way.
I would agree that manipulation, market norms and ruthlessness can sometimes help, but specifically these 48 vague dictums are not a complete theory of how to get ahead, and calling them the "laws of power" is needless - it's as if they were written by a self-help author just trying to sell books. Oh wait.
Writing a comprehensive theory of how to get ahead would be a titanic task, don't you think? Anyway, the intent with which the book was written doesn't invalidate the content, and at least you should agree this isn't the usual self-help book, which tend to advocate Lawful Good attitudes..
I agree, it would. I just don't think someone should go around calling what is at best a tiny part of being powerful the "laws of power," and I think that doing so is evidence that these guys are trying to sell books before trying to actually find laws of power.
I prefer the term "evidence" :D The percentage of self-help books (even unusual ones, I'd bet) that get things right in a big-picture way is pretty low. Being right can be tested the same regardless of origin, but when strong tests are impractical and we have to reason with the information we've got, we can't ignore that whether something is true is correlated with how reliable its source is.