48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene—instrumental rationality in the social arena.
Greene appears to assume worst-possible social equilibrium to justify the book, unnecessarily IMO. Clearly there are societies where people are more altruistic and trustworthy than others, but in a fairly decent society they are still useful for defense at the very least. On the other hand he’s more honest than Cialdini, who pretended all of his methods are defensive, while greatly benefiting from booksales to manipulators.
Greene appears to assume worst-possible social equilibrium to justify the book, unnecessarily IMO. Clearly there are societies where people are more altruistic and trustworthy than others, but in a fairly decent society they are still useful for defense at the very least. On the other hand he’s more honest than Cialdini, who pretended all of his methods are defensive, while greatly benefiting from booksales to manipulators.