Think about being at a party that you hosted and 15 people are talking to you. You intrinsically will only hear those with the highest value proposition, a cute girl, an investor you invited, your friend. You might not be making a concious effort but your brain is.
Now if most interactions are value propositions from one party to another then it makes sense that your personal behavior will reflect your own power dynamics in order to increase your own value proposition to the other party. This includes things such as body language.
For years and years no one cared about this stuff, now its all coming out of the woodwork as a terrible thing to practice when its been practiced for years and written about by Machiavelli and Robert Greene.
You are pathetically capitalist. What if I believe that the best power in the world - is our society, and I would do anything in the world to make it a more powerful one? Even if that puts me in a less advantageous position?
Your “power dynamics” arument is now flawed - since I could argue both for the strengthening of my position or against (or even both, depending on the shape of the question).
What Machiavelly got right, on the other hand - was the fact that everyone is flawed. You could either take advantage of that or you could work with it.
He has nothing to do with the “winner takes it all” or “eat or be eaten” philosophy.
Saying nothing of this comment's contents, its tone is unnecessarily belligerent. For example, even something like, "This view is pathetically capitalist" is more of a discussion and less of a personal attack.
There are 0 humans who can fully comprehend taking he entirety of society into account. Way to many people and subgroups and conflicting opinions.
If you seek to lower your positioning temporarily for long term gain that falls under increasing your value prop. In fact, many Machiavellian writers recommend this strategy.
Think about being at a party that you hosted and 15 people are talking to you. You intrinsically will only hear those with the highest value proposition, a cute girl, an investor you invited, your friend. You might not be making a concious effort but your brain is.
Now if most interactions are value propositions from one party to another then it makes sense that your personal behavior will reflect your own power dynamics in order to increase your own value proposition to the other party. This includes things such as body language.
For years and years no one cared about this stuff, now its all coming out of the woodwork as a terrible thing to practice when its been practiced for years and written about by Machiavelli and Robert Greene.