I can definitely see where you are going with this: That the 'laws' are really just vague descriptions of social situations designed not to outline a strategy, but to be a lightning rod for creative thinking. I identify with your sentiment. They are certainly vague, and I have struggled for years to define the borders between these so-called laws.
However I must ask you if you think our very own Sequences differ very much. For example, plenty of posts in Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions I find it hard to distinguish between. Each has one core idea that the post could be distilled to, but when read through they have nearly the same message.
One of the key strengths of the Sequences is that they are there good for reference. They can be used as a physical (ok, well virtual) touchstone to get a point across to someone else or to yourself. You can meditate on them. The same is true for all of Robert Greene's books about strategy.
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I've spent the better part of today trying to decide exactly how to react to the fact that someone posted the 48 Laws up on Less Wrong. I think this is going to be something I'll need to come back with a larger, more well thought out post for. The two main things I want to say about the books are these: One, if you're any kind of social awkward at all, after you read these books then you will realize just how far away from the 'other end of the spectrum' you really are and if you are a rationalist you will also realize that it is extremely hard to find evidence of the sort of power games described by Greene in the world around you. Two, I am convinced that the practices of seeking power and being rational can be reconciled (indeed they must be, or we're screwed) but it would likely take a smarter man than I to do it.
I actually wasn't talking about the "48 laws" in this comment - this was talking about RawPower's post about them, based on my suspicion that he found the idea that "real life works like this" plausible because he didn't think of things when he tried to think of things that didn't work like this. For what I think about the "48 laws," see here.
Feel free to use me to project onto though, if an interesting post comes out of it :D
This is not a thesis post, it's an open-question, discussion-provoking post. That's why I'm posting it as Discussion, since this is what appears to serve the function of forum on this site. I am not looking for ratings, but for answers. With everyone's collaboration, they should present themselves, at least in outline. Please don't hesitate to point it out if you think i have completely misunderstood the purpose of the Discussion section and if I should refrain from this sort of posting in the future.
So, here is a summary of the rules the book proposes. Here is a little more expanded text.
To be honest, my first reaction to reading this was visceral rejection ("Preposterous! Try to act by those rules and you'll be labeled a psychopath, people will know not to trust you or deal with you."). The second was consternated acceptance ("But people do seem to behave in the way this book suggests... wouldn't it be better to adapt to a reality we have no power to change?"). This is the result of the third approximation: confused questioning.
The question I'd like to ask is this: are they rational? As in, would everyone's lives improve or worsen from following this? Unlike riches and actual achievements, competition for power does seem to be a Zero Sum Game, at least in a society that isn't expanding (demographically or by conquest or otherwise). Not only that, it appears to be a resource-intensive game, one that even gets in the way of doing actual work.
What is remarkable is that, when I think of my experiences in hindsight, Real Life does appear to work this way, and these would explain many behaviors people demonstrate that are out of synch with what they profess. This is especially egregious if you compare it with fiction, in which such behavior isn't used except by the most magnificent bastards, and even then it is portrayed as extremely questionable, and common moral philosophy, that seems to preach the opposite.
However, everything seems to indicate that this is definitely not the optimum way for things to work, in a utilitarian sense. If everyone followed the rules of this book, would we ever get anything done?
So should these social, anti-productive tendencies, be fought with education, or should they be embraced? Is there a way to harness them into a motivation for productive work, the way Capitalism advocates harnessing human greed?¹
1.Remarkably enough, lust for power can and does get in the way of greed for riches and even welfare. As does pride in scrupulous, principled, but materialistically impoverishing behavior.