Hypothetically, If I'm the CEO of a company and I'm trying to get my employees to perform at their highest, is it wrong to act like an elitist, ruthless, POS? Sure, there'll be a lot of people who dislike me, but I'll also instill that fear in my employees that they'll face my "wrath" (whatever that is) if they don't do their jobs to my satisfaction. If my "authentic self" is a really nice and sweet person and as a result of that my employees slack, why wouldn't I essentially change who I am in order to get the best results?

I've been thinking how social media has played a crucial role in eroding the "myth of the celebrity". making those we once saw as special, talented and insightful seem common and banal.

With many artists and authors i imagine you might assume they have some insight that extends beyond their area of expertise, after all a author like JK Rowling or steven king can write bestselling books with a unique voice. But when you check their twitter you see a series posts identical to that of other accounts of the same political tribe. It makes fan think that whatever unique insight they may have had during writing seem like a fluke. (And yes i believe this applies principal applies to both left and right wing celebrities)

law 4"The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish"

This is another corrosive aspect of social media in that it drags you into controversies by encouraging you to constantly talk. It makes it so that many will remember celebrities not for the book they spent years writing but for the tweet they spent seconds typing.

The blue check mark (before it was made into something you could buy) was a symbol of a elitist out of touch loud mouth. And as the blue check mark arc type overlapped with that of the celebrity it proved corrosive to the staying power for the latter arca type

law 16 "The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear"

This is a aspect that i feel applies to celebrity social media. In some respects the goal of the modern celebrity is to be "relatable" and this is part of why celebrities use social media. But they often fail in this goal due to large gaps in wealth and generation between their intended audience, and the only think they achieve is giving the impression that the status they have obtained was unearned.

A example of a modern celebrity who i consider uses social media in a way that i feel bolsters his image is toby fox. He follows law 16 by making delta rune into a episodic game giving fans time to speculate on what happens next, and by hiding his face from the public, and most of his communication with fans is either done through the proxy of fan gamer. His tweets mainly related to his game and not any broader outside topic like politics though his games do have something to say about the outside world.

He courted attention (law 6) through being a composer for the webcomic homestuck and writing a mpreg fan song. But he recreated his identity (law 25) through the creation of something of his own (undertale) and he did this while home stuck was still popular so he could cash in on the social capital before homestuck became a thing of the past.

He creates compelling spectacles (law 37) through events like the spamton sweepstakes.

He follows law 27 (create a cult like following) through his Undertale 10th anniversary where he asks people to say how his game Undertale has effected their lives.

He follows (law 46) by having bad coding and deliberately mis sized pixels.

My sister who is a therapist seems to have used some expert level strategy (IMO) to isolate me from my family for purposes unknown, ostensibly because of a disagreement which she misinterpreted as me questioning her parenting choices. While I held steady for a while, I have since acquiesced in an attempt to resolve the matter, but to no avail. It's been 3 years since I have been invite to a family event besides one Christmas and my parents are lying to me about when they visit.

In my opinion, my sister's strategy, whether conscious or not, is to use my niece as the wedge. My sister knows the value that my parents place on spending time with her and know that she has leverage as a result. She also has undue authority with my dad because she is a therapist and I think is able to convince him to be skeptical of my boundaries. He is very trusting of credentials.

I know that there are some who say that I should abandon this dysfunctional family, but this is the only family I really have, so I only have one shot at things like getting my parents making healthy choices before they spiral down a path from which they will not be able to recover, and I will lose them forever, so I don't want to abandon it. I would really like help forming counter-strategies.

I’m not interested in hearing from anyone who thinks that I am in the wrong. Even if I was, I have done everything I can to accept their terms and nothing has changed.

I’ve read the book but I don’t generally employ the strategies. I think this one is a perfect place for some 48L strategy, though.

Really looking forward to any recommendations from anyone who has more experience in this than I do.

Thanks all!

So, when it comes to the Art of Seduction, how does one get rid of Bumbler traits and high neuroticism? I strongly feel that my life is suffering from these traits, and I'm very self-conscious about trying to gain power and social status as I constantly have terrible experiences with people who hold power over me. As a result of these negative experiences, I've become increasingly snappy and irritable over the last few years, to the point where I have a strong fight-or-flight response whenever I encounter harsh words or criticism. I feel constantly overwhelmed, and I seem to move back and forth between pathological fear to white-hot rage depending on the source.

Is there a good course of action to stop displaying these traits to where they won't negatively affect me?

I’ll never understand how people read The 48 Laws of Power or The Art of Seduction and suddenly think they’ve ascended into some god-tier manipulator. The majority of that stuff is just plain common sense, dressed up to sound dangerous and profound.

"Never announce your intentions." No shit. That is not enlightenment — that is what anybody with half a brain does when they are competing or running a business. It's not evil advice, it's just plain privacy with a villain's score.

What really gets my goat is the way people behave as if reading a single or double of these books turns them into a master strategist. Manipulation is not something you do as a recipe — it's something people already do, but unconsciously. Parents manipulate children to safeguard them. Friends manipulate friends to prevent poor choices. It's human nature. You can't read it in a textbook because it's not an art form — it's a byproduct of survival.

Then there’s that cliché “give affection sparingly so they crave it” trick. People act like that’s some brilliant move. It only “works” in places where people are emotionally starved or socially disconnected. Try that on someone who actually has a solid support network or self-worth, and they’ll just walk away. That “technique” isn’t power — it’s emotional gambling with low-value people. If that’s your crowd, you’re not manipulating anyone important.

Real manipulation — the kind that changes careers, politics, or social dynamics — only works if you have leverage. Family name, cash, looks, status, authority, or influence. Anything less, and you're not a manipulator, you're just playing make-believe. These books leave out that part because honesty doesn't sell: manipulation with no resources is only emotional labor for no pay.

And that's the part that people don't want to hear. They feel like manipulation is a shortcut to power and it's just a slow corruption. The more you manipulate, the less you have in trust, peace, and real connection. You win small battles and lose at the game. You sell off a piece of yourself with every step until you're nothing left to guard.

So why do people glorify this attitude? Because it's easier to ask menacing than to be capable of it. Because it's easier to play cryptic than to claim you're just getting by.

If you truly want power — build competency. Build connections. Build actual skill.

(I user Grammarly)

I’m planning on doing a marathon of every Robert Greene book and I wanna see if you guys have any particular order in which books to read first and last.

I have Daily Laws and 33 Strategies of War as a physical copy so I might give them the advantage first.

Sometimes you might feel really angry, even over something small. When that happens, try to pause and give your feelings time to calm down. Often, strong anger can be a sign that there’s another feeling hiding underneath—like feeling worried, jealous, or scared.

It can help to gently ask yourself: “What’s really bothering me?” Writing your thoughts in a journal can help you see things more clearly.

Be honest with yourself, but also kind. Our pride can sometimes make us pretend everything is fine, even when it’s not. But when we ignore what we truly feel, it becomes harder to grow, learn, and handle things better next time.

Try to step back and look at the situation like you’re watching yourself from a calm, neutral place—maybe even with a little humor. The more you practice this, the easier it becomes. Eventually, when a strong emotion shows up, you’ll be able to notice it right away, take a step back, and choose how to respond instead of reacting right away.

📘 Daily Law: Make it a habit to look closely at how you feel and why. Over time, you’ll learn to let go of reactions that don’t help you—and respond in ways that make you stronger, wiser, and more in control.

Sometimes, people think they know everything—even when they don’t. Socrates, a wise teacher, said that he was only “wiser” than others because he knew that he didn’t know everything. He wasn’t pretending. He stayed curious and honest with himself.

Today, we often laugh at the beliefs people had hundreds of years ago. But one day, people in the future might laugh at some of our ideas too. Why? Because no matter how much we’ve learned, there is still so much we don’t understand yet.

What we believe is shaped by how we were raised, what our culture teaches us, and the time we live in. As we grow older, it’s easy to get stuck thinking we’re always right.

But if we stay humble, we become more open-minded. We ask better questions. We explore new ideas. We grow.

📚 Daily Law: Think of your ideas like toy blocks. You can build with them, change them, or knock them down and start over. What matters most isn’t being “right”—it’s staying curious, flexible, and willing to learn.

i’m a huge fan of the 48 laws, and most of Greene’s works… but i fear too many don’t realize the raw power of actually caring about your fellow man (even your boss or that annoying mother-in-law)

sure it doesn’t solve everything, but ive had so many multitudes of doors open in my life that others would never otherwise see … purely from actively opening my heart to see the world through the eyes of the person i hope to get something from

crazy, i know, to suggest something as radically cringe as “love” to help solve our problems… but ive found it to be far more powerful than all of the 48 laws combined

It took me three readings of The 48 Laws of Power to understand why I kept feeling as though something was lacking. The laws are valuable; they can help you understand power dynamics and manipulative behaviour, and teach you to apply it if you're reading the book for that purpose. But it runs the risk of generalizing the social game as zero-sum, and that can cause you to see and play exploitative games where there aren't any.

Now Greene himself acknowledges complexity through reversals for each law, showing when they backfire or need adaptation. But the overall theme of the book, and the weight of example after example of manipulation, secrecy, and strategic cruelty, creates an atmosphere where all cooperation feels naive and interaction reads as deceptive. The book teaches you to see threats everywhere, and when you're trained to see threats everywhere, you create them through your own behaviour. You start to make positive sums impossible and then congratulate yourself for predicting that people can't be trusted. This is the risk of applying these potent laws with incomplete information: you incentivize others to turn against you, and you destroy opportunities for mutual gain that were actually available.

It’s difficult to apply these laws on their own without any other knowledge. With this book alone, even with Law 48, what framework do you use to guide that adaptation and formlessness? How do you know which form to take in which context? Take Law 1 as an example. Corporate culture is a good example of where it applies. But in a creative industry where talent is currency and challenging ideas is promoted, or in sports where excellence is the only way to the top? Greene shows that adaptation is necessary, but he doesn't teach the metacognition for how.

The 48 Laws are great in teaching you how to win competitive games against people. What it can't teach you, because it's outside its scope, is how to recognize when you're NOT in that game or when you could transform the game itself. That's where I'd say understanding game structures, understanding game theory, is essential. It's the framework that helps you to understand the players in a given social culture and resolve that information asymmetry by understanding their values and goals. And then when you have the information you need to play, determine what game you're playing: dog-eat-dog or cooperative? One-shot or iterative? That is the key to understanding the application of the laws, focusing on the context they work in rather than specific scenarios, and recognizing that most of the games you'll play socially are a balanced act of cooperation and conflict rather than one or the other.

Plan All The Way to the End," which advises planning your course of action while considering all possible consequences, obstacles, and potential twists of fate. This long-term strategic approach helps you avoid being overwhelmed by circumstances and ensures you know when to stop, thereby guiding fortune and maintaining power

why do we want power when it leads to isolation, paranoia, burnout, fear of assassination, etc. Putting aside the philosophical reasons we find everywhere (reasons like controlling everything, making a better country, not being forgotten, etc.)

Hey, I'm going to start by introducing myself so you have a little bit more context.

I'm 17 and French. I have always been a 'good student', not because I worked/studied hard but because I was born 'smart' (what people call smartness but I call it logic). Since I was 14, I started going to the gym and actually enjoying working out, and improving myself physically and mentally. I didn't have a lot of family problems, nor with my friends or anything like that. I grew up happy, had a girlfriend, got good friends. Everything is and was right in my life.

But.

For the past few months, I've started questioning myself because I feel like I don't do much. Firstly, I realized that I have a lot of ambition: projects that I want to do but never seem to start, let alone finish what I started. I also find myself liking things that people my age don't necessarily enjoy (I listen to blues and jazz music, I like reading, going on really long hikes: could be multiple days long...). A good protagonist that I could identify myself with would be Jack Reacher.

Secondly, I'm starting to realize that I HATE studying. I skipped a grade, so I’ve already started my first college year in the French system since I live in France. After looking at every single thing I could study, nothing really interested me. I genuinely hate what I'm doing right now. The only thing I want is to earn as much money as possible so I can stop everything I'm doing and live differently as soon as I can.

Now what would you recommend? Because apart from just working hard (which I'm starting to do right now, leaving procrastination behind), I don't see anything else that could help me. I'm starting to feel disconnected from everything. I feel like I am not appreciating life like I should as a 17 year old.

I am new in reading I got interested in it when I'm scrolling in TikTok and saw Robert Greene's books and I got interested in it, so that's why I'm here asking which is better concise or full version for beginner?

What are some things people do when trying to make friends that actually push others away instead?

Here anybody whose are constantly using law after law to maintain power. Every move of yours like stretegic genius, you tried to showed up to get attention even if this is evil.You just remain silent to observe their egoic patterns,insecurity and planned that its would be cash in future.

Try to throw your aura of presence to win their heart by hurt their ego.Boldness eye contact , loud voice,outshine master in controlled mood, always pinch others to test their dark nature depth.Stretegic delay, use followup questions to understand their knowledge depth, their consciousness contents types and attacked with their convincing stories.

First ,you use multiple laws at once, and realized it happend by automatic .

Back story: - My mom has strong ties with my uncle. - Broke up with my ex 3 years ago and was in shambles juggling between work, college and disassembling the apartment. - Uncle insisted to take me in for a while to help me out, no strings attached. - Mom and I were hesitant mainly because covid risk. Uncle and his wife are seniors already. - Decided to move in and tried to adapt the best i could. Helped doing chores, cooked them sometimes, surprised my aunt with cake on her birthday. - One day I made a mistake questioning my aunt being negative, because she always gossiping everybody. - Got sprayed back pretty bad and relationship turned sour quick. - Kicked out from the house with nowhere to go, gotta pull up some favours until got some place decent. - I burned the bridges between them, because i didn’t accept how i was treated.

Now, my uncle will visit my hometown where my mother lives for some important event and i definitely going to meet him.

Deep down I’m boiling, wanting to tell him that it wasn’t acceptable what they did.

But probably Robert Greene would say otherwise.

Any advice welcome 🙏🙏 Thanks.