I have an exercise for you—I often want to recommend it to people, so now I’ve given in and done it. It seems like you aren’t generating many ideas when you think “how could this be wrong?” If you aren’t asking “how could this be wrong” (or incomplete) in the first place, that’s easy to fix—start doing that. But if you already are and don’t find that ideas come easily, try this exercise:
Manfred’s magical exercise of power: Find an interesting-looking item nearby (for example, on my desk is a small tube of epoxy putty, which hardens when the two colors are molded together). Name, out loud, things it could be (It is a stick of high explosive. It is a dog treat. It is a piston for an engine. It is a meal in a can. It is sidewalk chalk.) until you can’t think of any more ideas, even silly ones, or maybe especially silly ones, within 20 seconds. Then stop and think until you find one last idea. Repeat with more objects.
This exercise comes from an improv game I’ve played that I found helpful to my idea-generating ability. In the improv game the object is passed around in a circle. (It is an ant monolith. It is frozen colored milk. It is the finger of an alien. It is a pawn in a chess set.)
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
Ah! I apologize! I thought that you were making a general statement about how the ‘Laws’ worked their ‘magic.’ I assumed you were treating them like they were horoscopes or something.
I have an exercise for you—I often want to recommend it to people, so now I’ve given in and done it. It seems like you aren’t generating many ideas when you think “how could this be wrong?” If you aren’t asking “how could this be wrong” (or incomplete) in the first place, that’s easy to fix—start doing that. But if you already are and don’t find that ideas come easily, try this exercise:
Manfred’s magical exercise of power: Find an interesting-looking item nearby (for example, on my desk is a small tube of epoxy putty, which hardens when the two colors are molded together). Name, out loud, things it could be (It is a stick of high explosive. It is a dog treat. It is a piston for an engine. It is a meal in a can. It is sidewalk chalk.) until you can’t think of any more ideas, even silly ones, or maybe especially silly ones, within 20 seconds. Then stop and think until you find one last idea. Repeat with more objects.
This exercise comes from an improv game I’ve played that I found helpful to my idea-generating ability. In the improv game the object is passed around in a circle. (It is an ant monolith. It is frozen colored milk. It is the finger of an alien. It is a pawn in a chess set.)
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.
...
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
Ah! I apologize! I thought that you were making a general statement about how the ‘Laws’ worked their ‘magic.’ I assumed you were treating them like they were horoscopes or something.
Now where would I get that idea?
Also, I am faced with the truly daunting task of asking myself if believing Robert Greene is really rational or not. It’s not looking pretty.