Law# 2 - NEVER PUT TOO MUCH TRUST IN FRIENDS - Sociopathic, or not?

You were doing such a good job yourself, I thought I would leave you alone to finish the job.

As for expert references ... it takes a dedicated idiot to demand expert references from someone who has already declared (and explained in detail) the soft scientific nature of the discipline. Modern psychology is completely overrun by tribal interests seeking to explain the sundry messy states of minds arrived by their design (and duplicity) which includes seizing our educational institutions, our political institutions, our entertainment institutions, and our mental institutions ... and using these institutions to subvert the nontribal masses? FWIW, empathy and sociopathy are just new coinages to advertise the new company selling old patents (e.g. Mother Nature's patents on good seeds and bad seeds, respectively). There is nothing in modern psychology that was not already known by great writers a thousand years ago. So why should I refer to these modern quacks that arrive in a steady stream of elixir wagons into unsuspecting towns to peddle their bottles of pondwater ... when I my own experiences have shown me insights into the human condition? Just because you purchase from them doesn't mean we all must.

Carry on with your dialectic of duck noises, Chico. Makes no difference to me.

I'm content inspecting the arguments made on behalf of the corrupted system ... and dismantling them piece by piece. Are you threatened by my inspections?


Pax

 

You are beyond belief, Zook. Have you forgotten your plan? You're supposed to make me look like I know nothing about sociopathy! So now exercising caution is a characteristic of a sociopath? OK, link us to your expert references showing this to be the case. This I have to see...

Personally, I think you are exhibiting the risky behavior of a sociopath here, throwing caution to the wind in obsessive pursuit of "winning the game". But that might mean I know something about sociopaths, and we can't have that, can we.

 

IMO, Greene is not merely suggesting caution as warranted ... he is suggesting caution as a permanent fixture. Such advice robs the individual of free range experiences. Confines individuals to spaces filled with tentativeness, anxiety, fear, self-victimization, etc.

Even if such caution has classical benefits when dealing with certain individuals with suspect natures ... it also has classical deficits when relating with individuals that are genuinely good souls. Living on the fence and not committing to the grass on either side due to uncertainty about which side has snakes slithering in it ... is good advice for natural born fencesitters. For well-adjusted humans, however, such advice only has classical and quantum deficits, for it robs the human of the full dimension of human relationship which can only be experienced if one is willing to extend trust until the trust is betrayed. Those willing to face betrayal and then move on from the betrayer are much more complete as human beings ... than those unwilling to face betrayal by keeping a line which they will not cross (e.g. between themselves and the person they are having a human relationship with).

Therefore, IMO, caution counselled across the board - as Greene instructs - is, indeed, unwise and sociopathic.


Pax

 

That is their initial deception, yes. You may have noticed that Shezbeth did this to me when I joined the forum, almost greeting me like we were long-lost buddies. I certainly noticed, because I had no clue of who Shezbeth was. Stephen did the same thing to me when I joined Atticus1. Sociopaths are not genuine, though they pretend to be. Bill Clinton is also like this, as is Hillary, Obama, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and so many more. They start out just as charming and friendly as they can be, and most non-sociopaths take the bait along with hook, line, and sinker. They come on to you as friends, but they are not real friends. They are false friends.

 

That's an unfortunate ratio, Rose. Myself? I'm usually disappointed in about half the people that I meet and develop any prolonged relationship with. Perhaps your expectations are high and your friends are not able to meet them? Expectation seeds disappointment, as a rule. Great expectation seeds great disappointment. That said, I would hazard that only a small percentage of your friends are actual bad seeds (e.g. sociopaths). Most are probably selfish within the confines of normal selfish behavior.

I was using the metaphors of introductory physics to cut to the chase of what the human mind can resolve without a lot of overhead (e.g. akin to classical physics) and what is beyond immediate resolution (e.g. akin to quantum physics). When we say that we fully trust someone, we do so in the classical sense, without a lot of overhead. We just make a statement ... and expect not to be analyzed for it. That sorta thing. But the quantum reality of extending trust is that we're not ready to give full trust to anybody, not even to ourselves. There's always some anxiety involved with extending trust and this anxiety resides beyond the classical sense and communications (e.g. the extension of trust by fiat). That said, the act of extending trust is one of the founding stones of society. Without it, we would never have a society worth having.

Greene's law is axiomatic (because he uses the words "too much", which has no useful meaning). Greene's law is absolute (because he imposes the qualifier "never"). Greene's law is invalid because the value of the exceptions far outweigh the value of the rule in a putative ethical society (which requires a healthy dose of mutual trust - almost as an involuntary reflex of sorts; equally, the reduction of distrust). When the exceptions are greatly favored over the rule, then the rule is badly designed to begin with. Of course, for the putative unethical society, there is no distinction between rules and exceptions and anything goes including the seeding of distrust. Greene seeds distrust by creating a law that questions the scope of extending trust. Ergo, the law is sociopathic and has symmetry with the putative unethical society.

True enough, Rose. But the determination of too much is always made ex post-facto. One doesn't need a law to repair broken trust. Greene's law prescribes the adoption of general anxiety after specific breaks in trust had been experienced ... in doing so, Greene robs the individual of the ability to extend trust sans anxiety. He is essentially trying to bleach the human condition of the tools that Mother Nature has given us. Tools to handle circumstances as they happen ... as opposed to handling all circumstances under the same law.

IMO, Greene's 2nd law is part of the calculated slide of the putative empath into further and further sociopathic conditioning. Trust (and degree of trust) should not be extended under psychological conditioning laws, but on a per situation basis. There is no empathic law that would impose itself on an individual by extending that individual's anxiety sphere to swallow up perfectly good strangers. Of course, if one wants to create a fear-based society where everyone in it is never too far away from mistrusting their fellow society member, then Greene's law has practical application.

Anyways, that's the way I see it, Rose. I have no great hope for the remaining 46 laws either. Mind you, Greene's hypotheses which are being promoted as laws (more taste, less filling) are still invaluable as study material ... for they give us hints about the kind of society that will prevail when the scant few have the will to improve it, and the teeming many are content to abide it. And that is, a society designed in the mold of Machiavelli wherein the strong feed on the meek. The original jungle design having another go at the modern century. As it were.


Pax

 

Continuing The 48 Laws of Truth...

Law # 2 -- Don't trust sociopaths, ever!

This is a counter to the Power Law of "Don't trust friends too much." It's not your friends you shouldn't trust too much, it's the deceivers and manipulators among us. They are the ones who are disingenuous and most likely to betray your trust. They care little to nothing for you, they feel no shame about throwing you under the bus, and they take no responsibility for their actions. It's just a business for them, a game in which a selfish win takes precedence over any consideration for you. They have no empathy, so they only look out for #1, and that's not you. You cannot trust them ever.

 

"Too much."

What does that imply? It implies a state of being overburdened, e.g. holding more than can hold. But we would never burden our friends with more than they can hold; and if they are human, they will not be able to hold more than we are able to give, e.g. the infinite amount in us that there is to give. True friendship doesn't expect parity in containers; assumes disparity; and bonds with assumed disparity. That said, a friend is whom we give the greatest amount of trust. If we gave an ant's weight more, then this would break the friend's back, and subsequently the friendship. That said, when we say to a friend that we trust them with everything ... well, that is essentially an exchange in classical understandings. The fine detail of quantum understandings (of friendship) is beyond resolution. All mortal friendships are anchored in practical scope and scale; as such, true friends see infinite amounts of mutual trusts in normal circumstances. But if the circumstances were to change such that they induce suspicion, we will see a natural tapering of the mutual trusts, however infinite these trusts may be in normal circumstances. The best of empaths cannot carry trust bigger than their own capacity to carry it. That is the reality of the human condition.

That said, Greene appears illiterate to me. For he is presenting an axiom and circling the wagons with it. "Never give too much trust ..." is different from saying "Never give so/this/that much trust ...". The second statement is not axiomatic and is a valid starting point for discussion of its potential sociopathic/empathic content. By contrast, Greene's axiomatic statement is just legerdemain for it is anchored not in a starting point of discussion, but in the endpoint and predetermined conclusion. IMO.

Pax

ps: Society is glued together with classical understandings of trust, and may become unglued when the quantum reality asserts itself. To this, Greene offers no particular enlightenment. Rather, he shifts the classical understandings to an agenda of manipulation for self-interest (at any cost).

 

Once again, Rose, I am surprised that you can't see the deception and manipulation in this law.

It is basically saying, "Don't trust your friends." I know it says "too much", but that's just to disguise the basic message (deception again).

Who are the people non-sociopaths trust? Their real friends! Who are the people sociopaths trust? No one! They don't have any real friends, because they are emotionally impoverished and inherently distrustful. They are always deceiving and manipulating, remember? How can they trust anyone when they know what they themselves are like, always "gaming" other people? They can't trust anyone, and they don't. They will certainly play on your empathy when they need to manipulate you by saying things like "I thought you were my friend" or "I trust you. Don't you trust me?" But that's just part of their "game". If you can be convinced to not trust your friends ("too much" - how much is that?), then you will become a little bit more like the sociopaths that rule over you. And that's what they want!

If the 48 Laws of Power were for defensive purposes, this law would read "Don't trust sociopaths -- ever!"

I could de-construct this law a dozen different ways, but here is one quick example of the con being played here. At 3:25 in the video, they write, "Friends will not openly disagree with you in order to avoid arguments." Can you not see this is a false or deceptive premise? (Zook's favorite tactic, by the way.) Friends are the very people who care enough (empathy again) about what you think to argue with you. It is the more sociopathic people who will not disagree with you in order to better deceive and manipulate you, precisely because they don't care about you!

Every line that follows on the white board in the video is of the same deceptive nature. Can you see that?