This doesn’t ring true with my intuition at all. I think that most people capable of easily manipulation would do it pretty readily, either through rationalization or even by accident, or just not do it. At least for myself, most of my social awkwardness seems to be status related, and not some sort of self imposed ethics.
BTW, does anyone know a reliable way to avoid manipulating people by accident? I generally use stuff to the effect ‘Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel obligated’, but I’m worried that in certain cases that may backfire.
Not revealing your own preferences and giving a balanced analysis that doesn’t make them too obvious usually works.
But I don’t think you can meaningfully manipulate people by accident. The nearest thing is probably having/developing a general approach that leads to you getting your way over other people, noticing it, and deciding that you like getting your way and not changing it.
What you really can do (and what almost everyone does) is manipulate people while maintaining plausible deniability (including sometimes to yourself). But I suspect most people can identify when they’re manipulating people and trying to trick themselves into thinking they’re not.
But I don’t think you can meaningfully manipulate people by accident.
I don’t think it’s impossible, though I agree that it normally only happens in unfavourable situations such as someone from an Ask culture talking to someone from a Guess culture.
Most people with natural skill in manipulation would use it.
Same with being smart, as it is another way to manipulate people. Being smarter, you can often win an argument and get your way even when you’re wrong because you’re just better at arguing the point.
But upon realizing the asymmetry of power, some people actually do make it a point to refrain from pressing their advantage. Moral preferences such as fairness and autonomy come into play,
Sure you can win arguments, but that doesn’t seem to translate into getting your way very often, unless you are also socially adept, in which case being smart doesn’t matter that much.
Intellectual bullies can often get their way in a committed relationship. Lots of joint decisions are made based on discussion, and if you argue better, you can routinely get your way. You’ll likely breed resentment as well, but you will get your way.
I’m not recommending it. To the contrary, I’m pointing it out to show the abusive nature of it.
No, but I doubt that’s what buybuydandavis was talking about.
One particular tactic is called “gaslighting,” in which you get your way by causing your partner to doubt their own sanity. I personally was argued into staying in an emotionally abusive relationship for three years after I tried to leave it. I just… couldn’t think of a good enough argument for why I should be allowed to leave. After all, I had already stayed for quite a while. Maybe I should trust my revealed preferences over the preferences I felt on introspection (which we all know is terribly unreliable, after all)...
Often in relationships things do not come down to “better” or “worse” decisions, but rather whose preferences count. If I want to cut my hair, and my partner wants me to keep it long, who gets their way? Whoever has the intellectual edge and can keep arguing until their opponent gives in.
Often in relationships things do not come down to “better” or “worse” decisions, but rather whose preferences count. If I want to cut my hair, and my partner wants me to keep it long, who gets their way? Whoever has the intellectual edge and can keep arguing until their opponent gives in.
This is why I prefer BDSM relationships, where “whose preferences count” becomes an explicit problem to discuss and solve. (The answer is never simply “mine, obviously”—but the BDSM community, for all its flaws, has come up with some pretty good contextual frameworks for negotiating / discovering an answer that satisfies everyone’s meta-preferences).
Often in relationships things do not come down to “better” or “worse” decisions, but rather whose preferences count.
Well said.
Life is about choices and preferences, not problems and solutions, but most people are so accustomed to rationalizing everything, and so mesmerized by language, that they think these choices are determined by logical analysis. And it is precisely in a situation of such conceptual confusion that the person with greater verbal agility has the greatest advantage, though as you add, the will to power and the determination to fight for it matters too.
Decius wrote:
Is it abusive to be smarter and to make better decisions and to have those decisions implemented because they are better?
Better, by whose values? And what makes you believe that the “better” decisions routinely win in joint decisions in a committed relationship? The excellence of the solution wins out over the dominance hierarchy? Not likely.
This doesn’t ring true with my intuition at all. I think that most people capable of easily manipulation would do it pretty readily, either through rationalization or even by accident, or just not do it. At least for myself, most of my social awkwardness seems to be status related, and not some sort of self imposed ethics.
BTW, does anyone know a reliable way to avoid manipulating people by accident? I generally use stuff to the effect ‘Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel obligated’, but I’m worried that in certain cases that may backfire.
Not revealing your own preferences and giving a balanced analysis that doesn’t make them too obvious usually works.
But I don’t think you can meaningfully manipulate people by accident. The nearest thing is probably having/developing a general approach that leads to you getting your way over other people, noticing it, and deciding that you like getting your way and not changing it.
What you really can do (and what almost everyone does) is manipulate people while maintaining plausible deniability (including sometimes to yourself). But I suspect most people can identify when they’re manipulating people and trying to trick themselves into thinking they’re not.
I don’t think it’s impossible, though I agree that it normally only happens in unfavourable situations such as someone from an Ask culture talking to someone from a Guess culture.
I’m not very good at hiding my feelings.
(Maybe I should start poker in meatspace on a regular basis again, or something like that.)
Most people with natural skill in manipulation would use it.
Same with being smart, as it is another way to manipulate people. Being smarter, you can often win an argument and get your way even when you’re wrong because you’re just better at arguing the point.
But upon realizing the asymmetry of power, some people actually do make it a point to refrain from pressing their advantage. Moral preferences such as fairness and autonomy come into play,
Sure you can win arguments, but that doesn’t seem to translate into getting your way very often, unless you are also socially adept, in which case being smart doesn’t matter that much.
Intellectual bullies can often get their way in a committed relationship. Lots of joint decisions are made based on discussion, and if you argue better, you can routinely get your way. You’ll likely breed resentment as well, but you will get your way.
I’m not recommending it. To the contrary, I’m pointing it out to show the abusive nature of it.
Isn’t this thought to be the reason why we evolved intelligence in the first place?
Is it abusive to be smarter and to make better decisions and to have those decisions implemented because they are better?
No, but I doubt that’s what buybuydandavis was talking about.
One particular tactic is called “gaslighting,” in which you get your way by causing your partner to doubt their own sanity. I personally was argued into staying in an emotionally abusive relationship for three years after I tried to leave it. I just… couldn’t think of a good enough argument for why I should be allowed to leave. After all, I had already stayed for quite a while. Maybe I should trust my revealed preferences over the preferences I felt on introspection (which we all know is terribly unreliable, after all)...
Often in relationships things do not come down to “better” or “worse” decisions, but rather whose preferences count. If I want to cut my hair, and my partner wants me to keep it long, who gets their way? Whoever has the intellectual edge and can keep arguing until their opponent gives in.
This is why I prefer BDSM relationships, where “whose preferences count” becomes an explicit problem to discuss and solve. (The answer is never simply “mine, obviously”—but the BDSM community, for all its flaws, has come up with some pretty good contextual frameworks for negotiating / discovering an answer that satisfies everyone’s meta-preferences).
Well said.
Life is about choices and preferences, not problems and solutions, but most people are so accustomed to rationalizing everything, and so mesmerized by language, that they think these choices are determined by logical analysis. And it is precisely in a situation of such conceptual confusion that the person with greater verbal agility has the greatest advantage, though as you add, the will to power and the determination to fight for it matters too.
Decius wrote:
Better, by whose values? And what makes you believe that the “better” decisions routinely win in joint decisions in a committed relationship? The excellence of the solution wins out over the dominance hierarchy? Not likely.