The Art of Seduction
This mesmerizing exploration of the most subtle, elusive, and effective form of power is a masterful analysis of civilization's greatest seducers, from Cleopatra to JFK, as well as the classic literature of seduction from Freud to Kierkegaard and Ovid to Casanova. Robert Greene once again identifies the rules of a timeless, amoral game and explores how to cast a spell, break down resistance, and, ultimately, compel a target to surrender. Presenting the timeless profiles of each type of seducer and the twenty-four maneuvers that will guide you step by step in the game of seduction, The Art of Seduction is an indispensable primer of persuasion that reveals the timeless power of this age-old art.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
8mentions
7people
2010–2025years
50% recommend38% neutral13% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Robert Greene’s books, in particular 48 Laws of Power and Art of Seduction.
- Personally I think evolutionary psychology is a bunch of BS in particular it falls down pretty hard in many areas of human sexuality such as ‘why do women have orgasms?’ That won’t stop it from being popular with so-called rationalists and blackpill incels.
Taking the opposite perspective (fiction is a valid means of knowing) I would refer the OP to Robert Greene’s Art of Seduction which was a jumping off point for me studying the subject, the references in that book are really worth reading even if using it as a self-help book can be outright dangerous.
Also there is Stendahl’s classic On Love which I find charming.
- Yes, all of Robert Greene's books are superb. Whether you buy into his philosophy and interpretations or not, there are many excellent, mind-expanding historical vignettes to learn.
My favorite book by him is The Art of Seduction, because it chronicles human motive in its most direct, unfiltered form. All influence is really thinly-veiled seduction.
To the grandparent, because I'm throttled on HN and probably won't be allowed to post much more, if this even goes through: the key to a successful career is the same as any other interpersonal success. Learn psychology and influence. Understand how other people see the world. However you see it, it's not how most other people see it. Resist the temptation to assume that your assumptions and defaults are valid for others.
You have to accept the existence of the game to really have success, but you don't necessarily have to embrace it. Indeed, many successful entrepreneurs are successful entrepreneurs because their personal tolerance for the game is sufficient to make sales, but not sufficient to suck up to a cadre of bosses for years on end.
Whatever you do, you will not be reasonably free until you get a baseline of "fuck you" money established and invested in a diverse set of safe, reliable instruments and institutions. Once this happens, take heed not to become too ostentatious and comfortable, or you will become Martin Shkreli; someone who didn't do anything actually wrong, but allowed himself to become the subject of the public's contempt. It is probably best to keep a low profile and live an unassuming lifestyle, grateful to be one of the few with freedom.
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P.S., tried to post, and yep, throttled. I can't post for some more time now; this is because I was politically imprudent and criticized YC darlings, including some companies they've invested in, on HN. I will save this and repost later.
Egalitarian facades from BigCo or PowerfulPerson are just that: a facade. And the people in power, no matter where their power lies, will be happy and cooperative as long as your conduct is biasing people in a direction that is favorable for them. But never expect them to sit idly by while you threaten or criticize them, even if the ultimate impact is small or indirect. They know that big collapses start out as small cracks, and they proactively and subtly work to stop these.
Never mistake the cooperation, praise, or accolades of a group or establishment as representing anything other than their satisfaction that your conduct is helpful to them in the immediate moment. One of the most common and simultaneously most fatal mistakes I see is the assumption that satisfaction with one's conduct is implicit or automatic. That past positive responses guarantee future positive responses. The truth is, no one cares about you personally. They like your thing because it gave them what they wanted. If you disregard that for your next thing, they will have no qualms whatsoever about dismissing or disregarding you.
Human response is a "hits business"; there is a formula that makes people happy. Meet that formula, and you will be rewarded. Deviate, and you won't. It is fickle, timing is important. Music, movies, and video games are all optimized "hits" businesses with billions of dollars at stake, and even they have misses more often than not.
Everyone is irrevocably and intrinsically self-interested, as a biologically-dictated matter of individual survival. Do not expect anything else. Do not try to fight this -- you can't. You cannot undo the eons of evolution that have dictated it. Good system design understands and incorporates this unchangeable reality by triggering psychological phenomena that are biologically interpreted as pro-survival when they're acting in concert with the system, and not doing so when they aren't.
Please note that despite the acknowledgment of this reality, this is not necessarily a nihilistic or pessimistic worldview. These things are not automatically bad. They are just components of the human psychological system that enables our survival. They can be used or abused, for good or for evil.
An insistence on remaining ignorant of human action and motive based on the religious tenet that "people are nice" only leaves one liable to more manipulation. That is exactly what the worst, most ravenous predators want, because it allows them to operate virtually undetected. All the better if they can get the duped to engage in a hostile charge against those who are finding enlightenment (and they usually can).
Anyone who wants to operate effectively within the system must know and understand it. Don't shy away from this reality. Accept it and use it for good. We have way too many timid people who have been programmed to take what they're given and shut up, and not to inquire into how the system works. It doesn't have to be that way.
- I am the same 'greenlander' that is referred to in the article. LOL, it's a small world.
The only thing I can suggest to all you of guys out there (and I know that 90%-95% of the readership here is 'guys' and not 'chicks') is to get educated.
Go read these blogs: http://dalrock.wordpress.com/ http://therationalmale.com/ http://heartiste.wordpress.com/ http://www.rooshv.com/
And why not some books: http://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Through-Honesty-ebook/d... http://www.amazon.com/The-Rational-Male-ebook/dp/B00FK901R8/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-of-Seduction-ebook/dp/B0032BW5...
And why not a Reddit too: http://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill
The problem is that you must have the confidence to write your own rules in life. If you speak with confidence, move with confidence, dress with confidence, and act with confidence, you'll have your choice among women.
The irony of it is that you only get confidence from past success. You must move beyond your nerd persona from high school. If you adopt the mantra "I AM the prize" and actually truly believe it, women will believe it too.
I cleaned up my act. I was just a cubicle nerd in Silicon Valley. (Although I must have had something going for me: I became a manager.) I hired a personal trainer and started to hit the gym like a wild animal. My abs came out: I hadn’t seem them since high school. I changed my diet. (Hint: The Paleo/Atkins diet works.) I started a relationship with a tailor and ordered a lot of made-to-measure clothing. I subscribed to GQ.
I read HN every day. The technical articles are fascinating, and the writing brilliant. Yesterday I spent a large section of my day reading a set of about 450 slides about subtleties in the C language that was linked from this site. Today I spent a good fraction of my morning reading about elliptical-curve cryptography. I am a nerd at heart.
Yet, I’m not a nerd in the sense that you think of. When I meet a new girl, my frame is “I’m going to bend you over my kitchen table and fuck you like the dirty ho that you are.” She knows it just by my speech, my body language, and how I act. Obviously, some women won’t step into that “frame”. It doesn’t matter: the thing you have to realize is that men display, and women select. The key to catching women is approaching more women. Depending on your perceived status, a certain fraction of women will ‘select’ you. Don’t waste time with women who don’t ‘select’ you. Focus on the ones who do.
I can already hear the shrill cries of “oh, no GOOD girls would select a guy like that.” It’s a fallacy. Women are emotional, and when they step into the strong frame of a man with whom they resonate, all bets are off. The nice HR girl you took to dinner at a fashionable restaurant on University Ave. in Palo Alto will screw a guy in the back seat of a car if he has high enough status. Give up your good girl/bad girl dichotomy.
The problem I have now is described as the “players’ curse.” The sheer numbers of women riding the “cock carousel” (i.e., slut it up in your 20s, find the beta provider in your early 30s) has distorted the market. (If you don’t believe me, shut the fuck up and go read the reference sources I cited above.) In my 20s I dreamed of children and family in my 20s. Lots of men are simply dropping out of the “mating market” and simply jerking off and not dating because women in their 20s don’t select their twentysomething equivalents. A man in that situation has two choices: to kick up his game a notice, or just to retreat into porn and World of Warcraft. The paradox is that a man of willpower and clarity that can put effort into cleaning up his act can break into the side of “the selected” and score plenty of vj. Once you understand that, you can see modern-day feminism for the hoax that it is. It is a pox on the civilized world.
I can already foresee that somebody out there is going to some ‘white knight’ jerkoffs who are going to call me a ‘misogynist’. For the record, a misogynist is someone that HATES women. I’m not a misogynist. Roissy/Heartist is not a misogynist. Roosh is not a misogynist. Usually, the ‘misogynist’ stick is used to say, “you’re not being politically correct.” If you want to say, “greenlander, you’re not being politically correct,” I’ll accept that. I’ll accept it even if you want to say, “greenlander, you’re a self-absorbed, narcissistic, self-deluded dickhead.” It’s the truth. But don’t call me a misogynist: I love women. One must simply see them for what they are.
The great thing is that it doesn’t matter how many people out there slander me with politically-correct ad-homonyms. A man who is ready to see the truth will follow the path if even a tiny morsel of the truth is laid before him. And if I even help one nerd change his life for the better by nudging him in the right direction, the past hour I’ve spent writing this post will not have been in vain.
- Although I enjoyed reading her book and found most of the information plausible, I always found it strange that the author herself seems so uncharismatic, especially given her claim that charisma can be learned.
The same goes for Robert Greene, author of "The 48 Laws of Power," "The Art of Seduction," and several other books. I've watched a few interviews with him, and he strikes me as completely unremarkable, uncharismatic, and rather unconvincing, which makes me doubt the validity of his books' promises.
- This book describes a scenario for falling in love with somebody by transforming feelings of envy into feelings of admiration:
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Lust-Psychoanalysis-Romantic-Emo...
Robert Greene in his Art of Seduction suggests you can get somebody else to fall in love with you via this scenario but I've applied it to myself and found it elicited strong emotions in me that I was able to transmit to other people. It also came apart just as Reik says it does once I read something that provoked envy that I rapidly attached to my object of infatuation and the infatuation shriveled up and blew away in about 48 hours, like the scene where the crust blows off "Pink" in The Wall after they shoot him up with anti-psychotic drugs.
Personally envy is the limiting factor of my reading program right now.
