Relationships, Machiavellian Perspective
Corporate Machiavelli | October 22, 2020 | by machiavellicorporate
-------------------------
CONTENTS:

1) EXCHANGE OF VALUE
2) HIGH VALUE NARCISSISTS
3) ENDING RELATIONSHIPS
4) PEOPLE AS TOOLS
5) KNOW WHAT YOU WANT
6) POWER IMBALANCES
            6A) FINANCIAL DEPENDENCY
7) LOYALTY
            7A) LOYALTY TESTING, SIMULATE YOUR
DOWNFALL
8) PARETO DISTRIBUTED CONTACTS
9) NO LOSERS
10) FURTHER REFLECTIONS
           10A) ILLIMITABLE MAN
           10B) BALTASAR GRACIAN

1) EXCHANGE OF VALUE:

Every relationship is nothing more than an exchange of value. In every
relationship, each party gives certain benefits and inflicts certain
costs upon the other.

One cost that both parties inevitably impose on the other is lost time
and energy. Other possible costs include annoyance (cortisol/stress),
lost money, and risk of negative events occurring. Possible benefits
include money gained, information, and favors or assistance that could
range from trivial to life saving. For non-psychopathic readers,
enjoyment of the other person’s company or affection also counts as
a benefit.

With every relationship in your life, mentally map out the benefits
you derive from it and the costs you incur because of it. End any
relationship where the cost exceeds the benefit. Yes this sounds
obvious, yet many people waste decades of their life maintaining
relationships they’d be better off without.

Some people are easily satisfied; the standards you must meet and the
costs you must incur for the sake of keeping them satisfied are
reasonable. Others are difficult to satisfy; the standards that must
be met to satisfy them are rigorous, and ever more numerous, and ever
more not straightforward.

Generally speaking, those who are difficult to satisfy are more
trouble than they are worth; you’d be better off without them.

Beware of exceptions; occasionally there will be someone who is
difficult to satisfy, but who is worth it. The costs they impose are
immense, but the benefit they give is even more immense.

You will likely find that the person who yields the most benefit to
your life and the person who imposes the greatest cost upon your life
are the same person.

Keep the costs you impose upon others (the time you take from them and
the headache you inflict upon them) to a bare minimum. If you subject
a person to unnecessary annoyance, it is inevitable that sooner or
later they will end their relationship with you because they sense you
are more trouble than you’re worth.

If they are vengeful, their annoyance and resentment will fester.
Sooner or later they will explode in rage, or even worse they will
passive aggressively sabotage you. If they are calm and rational (a
rare type), they will simply cease association with you.

2) HIGH VALUE NARCISSISTS:

Very few people can handle being in a position of very high status
without becoming an annoying narcissist. This is more than just a
philosophical musing; the practical consequence is that the most
powerful people in your contact list (your most valuable contacts) are
going to disproportionately be annoying narcissists.

This minor annoyance is simply something you must tolerate; refusing
to associate with any man who has narcissistic tendencies would mean
giving up a majority of your most powerful contacts, an unacceptable
sacrifice.

3) ENDING RELATIONSHIPS:

When you end a relationship with someone, do so as gently and as
politely as possible. If logistically doable, don’t formally end the
relationship; simply cease contacting them. Never end a relationship
rudely or harshly; there’s no reason to make enemies unnecessarily.

Beware of closing costs. When you end a relationship, there may be
costs you get hit with _because_ you ended the relationship. A common
closing cost is ill will motivating the party you are ceasing
association with to seek revenge.

Every person in your life should have a clear purpose; if they have no
clear purpose, eliminate them from your schedule; as a person on the
quest to seize power you can’t afford to waste time on people who
don’t matter.

4) PEOPLE AS TOOLS:

People are like tools; you must use them for their correct purpose. If
you use a tool for the wrong purpose you will experience disaster.
Similarly, if you use a person for the wrong purpose you will also
experience disaster.

EXAMPLES:

The correct purpose for your co-workers, bosses, subordinates, and all
business contacts: making money

The wrong purpose of your business contacts: friendship and
’emotional support’, romance

If you look for emotional support from your business contacts they
will at best think you are awkward, and most likely think you are
pathetic.

If you become romantically involved with one of your business contacts
you are headed for disaster (see the ‘MeToo Movement’).

The correct purpose for your girlfriend/wife:

Romance

The wrong purpose for your girlfriend/wife:

Rigorous Logical Reasoning. Talking about controversial topics.

If you talk to your girlfriend/wife about controversial topics, or
even an intellectual topic that isn’t all that controversial, you
will find that she has no interest in it and considers you bringing up
the topic to be weird and annoying.

On the off chance she is smart enough to understand what you are
talking about, she will be enamored with whatever the dominant
ideology of your society is, and if you say anything against the
dominant ideology of the society you live in she will be disgusted by
you.

If you live in a society where Christianity is the dominant ideology,
and you point out that believing there is a god with a son named Jesus
is as delusional as believing that Santa Clause will climb down your
chimney on Christmas, she will dislike and ostracize you.

Business contacts and girlfriends/wives are used as examples for a
simple reason; they are the two groups that most men will screwup
with. Many foolishly go to their business contacts looking for
emotional support when times are tough, causing their contacts to view
them as pathetic (see the essay ‘Life as a Man’). Others will
attempt to engage their girlfriend/wife in deep intellectual
conversation, only to find she is too dumb to understand what
they’re saying, or smart enough to understand what they’re saying
but enraged whenever they say something politically incorrect
(something that contradicts the dominant ideology of the society they
live in).

5) KNOW WHAT YOU WANT:

Consciously calculating what it is you want from someone, what the
purpose of your relationship with them is, makes it immensely easier
to know how to interact with them and what precise words to say.

6) POWER IMBALANCES:

In most relationships, the power dynamic is governed by dependency;
whichever party needs the other less is the party that wields power.

If you need them more than they need you, they wield power over you.
If they need you more than you need them, you wield power over them.
If you both need each other intensely, or you both have little or no
need for each other, your power levels are equal.

The power dynamic being governed by dependency is true of almost all
types of relationships; business, romantic, even friendship (see Law
11 for details).

Do what you can to minimize the degree to which you are dependent on
others, and maximize the degree to which they are dependent on you.

6A) FINANCIAL DEPENDENCY:

Financial dependency (one party needing another for money or other
financial resources) keeps together far more relationships than anyone
would care to admit.

Most employees hate their employers, but continue to associate with
them because they need their wages in order to survive.

Many women throughout history have despised their husbands, but
continued their marriages because they were economically dependent on
their husbands (in America from 1970 – 2020, this has no longer been
the case since the legal system has allowed women to divorce their
husbands and continue extracting money from them via alimony and child
support).

Financial dependency keeps many parent-child relationships together;
it seems to be the case that children who have plenty of money are far
more likely to become estranged from their parents than children who
are poor, because financial necessity does not compel them to continue
association.

Perhaps the most bitter pill is this; the game of power never stops,
and indeed there are power struggles even between those who love each
other.

7) LOYALTY:

“€¦BESIDES YOUR CLOSEST FRIENDS AND LOVED ONE’S, IT’S EVERY
MAN FOR HIMSELF IN THIS WORLD.” -FELIX DENNIS

Most contacts have zero loyalty to you; if they calculate that the
benefits you deliver to them is less than the cost you impose upon
them, they will abandon you without hesitation. They care about their
own interests, not your well being.

The number of people who will stay loyal to you and continue helping
you even when they have nothing to potentially gain from doing so is
less than 5; if you were to carry out suicide tomorrow, there are less
than 5 people on the planet who would actually care.

Be good to these people; they are worth more than any worldly wealth
you might ever gain. There are many things money can buy, but real
loyalty is not one of them.

You might think the only way to find out who is truly loyal to you is
to experience catastrophe and see who continues to stand by you, but
you would be wrong.

7A) LOYALTY TESTING, SIMULATE YOUR DOWNFALL:

€œSIMULATE YOUR DOWNFALL TO SEE WHO FOLDS AND SELLS YOU OUT.
LOYALTY IS GAUGED IN THE FACE OF FAILURE, NOT SUCCESS.€
-ILLIMITABLE MAN

It is often possible to _simulate_ your downfall; make it look like
everything is falling apart, when in reality everything is perfectly
fine.

Do this, see who stays loyal, and who abandons you.

The appearance of catastrophe has to last for at least a few months.
With most of the mercenaries surrounding you, it is unlikely that they
will abandon you the day after your downfall comes; for most it will
take at least a few weeks.

If a person stays loyal even after 3 months of you appearing to have
been destroyed, you can safely assume their loyalty is real.

This may sound like a drastic and unnecessary exercise in deception in
return for nothing. In reality, it is a deception that serves a
critical purpose; finding out who the real loyalists are.

You cannot build an empire on the backs of mercenaries. History is
filled with kings who were destroyed by their closest allies
abandoning or outright backstabbing them.

Betrayal from your allies is far more dangerous than any attack from
an enemy. In the case of backstabbing, the closer someone is to you
the easier it will be for them to destroy you since they are more
familiar with your vulnerabilities than anyone else. In the case of
abandonment, the closer someone is to you the more you depend on them,
and so it is all the more damage that their disappearance will cause.

It may be a hassle, but it is necessary; simulate your downfall to
test and verify the loyalty of those closest to you. A man seeking
power who doesn’t know who the loyalists in his contact list are is
like a man building a house without first ensuring the foundation is
secure.

There is one limiting factor; the downfall you simulate must be
_easily reversible_, so that you can make everything appear normal
(good) after you are done with the simulation. Make sure that when
initiating a simulation of your downfall, you don’t inadvertently
cause your _actual_ downfall.

Until you have done a thorough simulation (or experience an actual
downfall), assume that everyone is disloyal unless proven otherwise.
Continuing association with them is perfectly fine (practical
necessity will always demand it), however you must always be
consciously aware of their disloyalty; don’t trust them too much,
and tactically prepare yourself as much as possible for the
possibility of them suddenly abandoning you.

In the event you attain incredibly high status and simulating your own
downfall without making it an actuality would be practically
impossible, then the only people you can consider loyalists are those
who were loyal to you _before_ you attained high status. If you go
from rags to riches, the only people you can fully trust are those who
were loyal to you even when you were wearing rags.

If you have verified that a person is loyal to you then keep them
around forever, even if they’re completely useless. Incredibly few
people are trustworthy; if a person _is _trustworthy that alone makes
them very valuable, even if they have no other notable skills or
assets.

Note that when someone abandons you, they usually won’t give the
real reason why; instead, they will give a manufactured reason that
makes them look good, or at least not as bad as a selfish mercenary.
For example, if you suddenly lose your job or business, your
girlfriend/wife is likely to leave you since your status in the
hierarchy has dramatically dropped (you no longer appeal to her
hypergamy). She won’t say “I am leaving you because I am convinced
I can find another man with higher status than you.” Instead, she
will say something like “The ‘spark’ isn’t there anymore. I
just don’t think we’re right for each other.”

8) PARETO DISTRIBUTED IMPORTANCE OF CONTACTS:

Within your contact list, there will be a pareto distribution of how
useful people are. Say you have 1,000 contacts. You will find that
over the course of a lifetime, 10 of them will be absolutely critical,
90 will be somewhat useful, and 900 of them will give very little
benefit.

How much time you are willing to allocate to maintain a relationship
with a person should be proportional to how useful they are likely to
be. Obviously there is the risk of spending too little time with a
person, them forgetting your existence, and then thinking it weird
when you ask them for a favor. On the other hand, if you spend too
much time with a person it may annoy them.

There is a delicate balance to maintain; the more powerful the person,
the greater the danger is that you will annoy them by spending too
much time with them.

How much energy you spend on analyzing a person’s psychological
profile should be proportionate to how important they are to your
life. Cold reading is enough for people who are inconsequential to
your life, however for your most critical contacts (say the top 10)
you must do _extensive_ warm reading.

For your boss or a potential spouse, spend hours listing out on paper
aspects of their personality that are unusual. For the janitor who
cleans the floors of your office, spend zero energy analyzing their
personality; they don’t matter.

9) NO LOSERS:

As a man on a quest for power, you cannot afford to waste time
maintaining relationships with people who are useless; do not allow
losers to occupy space in your contact list or schedule.

The only exception is if you know a loser who is loyal to you; someone
who you can trust. This alone makes them exceptionally valuable (see
the ‘Loyalty’ section above).

Disclaimer: You are likely to drastically overestimate how much you
should trust a person who has far less worldly wealth (money, power,
status) than you. That ‘trustworthy loser’ in your contact
list may put a knife in your back. They will be prone to envy you, and
may actually be more likely to harm you than a stranger who knows
nothing about you. Joe Orton learned this the hard way (see Law 46 for
details).

10) FURTHER REFLECTIONS:

10A) ILLIMITABLE MAN:

“Give people plenty of opportunities to betray you. Extend trust
they haven’t earned over not so trivial but tolerable losses, and
wait to see if they honor your trust, or dishonor it.

If they cut and run and betray, what you lost was the price paid to
ascertain who they are.”

10B) BALTASAR GRACIAN:

“Few are the friends of a man’s self, most are merely the friends
of his circumstances.”

-------------------------
Archived from https://theredarchive.com/blog/Corporate-Machiavelli/relationships-machiavellian-perspective.29199