a few pieces of this advice seem to be about how to manipulate others in subtle ways.
You can talk about specific things while being pleasant, I dare say, agreeable [...] pragmatically, people will be much likely more susceptible to help you if they associate you with someone who is fun/agreeable [...] try to be as agreeable as possible
i interpret ‘try to be agreeable’ to mean ‘try to appear to agree more than you would if you were being fully honest’ - because, given this is advice i.e. meant to be actionable, it’s not just saying that people who (by coincidence) genuinely agree have a natural advantage. it’s saying, actually intentionally try to seem agreeable, to cause them to associate you with a positive feeling, to make them ‘more susceptible to help you’.
Adapt/mirror people’s behaviour. If someone has a very focused way of talking about things, speaking fast, being curt and concise, mirror this. If someone likes to expand on personal anecdotes, shows a slower pacing, comments on the food, do that too. They will feel more comfortable. [...] If the vibe is good, it means that you’ll be able to reach out later for more content.
i don’t know if others may not mind this, but at least personally, i would not want people to do this with me. if someone is trying to influence my mind in ways i am not aware of, i want to know they are doing this so i can try to account for the effect (or, realistically, ask them not to / not befriend them).
i’d guess that mirroring behavior causes the one being mirrored to subtly intuit that they are more similar than they really are, leading to feeling more comfortable around that person.
i think {the net effects we’d observe on how friendships/allyships form in worlds where all EAs try to subtly influence each other} are not good. i imagine it would lead to friendships/allyships being determined more (relative to before) by who’s good at applying these (and other) tactics, and so less by the substantive factors which should matter.
also, i think there is possibility for nuance about where the line is between {being kind and trying to create a positive environment} and manipulation. some forms of trying to influence how someone feels seem okay to me, like if someone is sad, and you want to make them feel less sad, (and they know you’ll be doing this and that’s why they’re talking to you). i guess the relevant line to me is whether it’s intended to help the person, like in that case, or whether it’s intended to influence how they perceive you to gain some sort of advantage from them. the two pieces of advice i quoted seem to be the latter kind.
(to be clear, this criticism doesn’t apply to most of the points, which are probably good advice; i write this because i know criticism can feel bad, and i don’t want to cause that.)
if someone told me they were doing it, i would actually ask them not to.
if it seemed like they were someone for whom this was just one thing in a wide arsenal of other such subtle tactics, i’d also probably want to not become friends with them.
a few pieces of this advice seem to be about how to manipulate others in subtle ways.
i interpret ‘try to be agreeable’ to mean ‘try to appear to agree more than you would if you were being fully honest’ - because, given this is advice i.e. meant to be actionable, it’s not just saying that people who (by coincidence) genuinely agree have a natural advantage. it’s saying, actually intentionally try to seem agreeable, to cause them to associate you with a positive feeling, to make them ‘more susceptible to help you’.
i don’t know if others may not mind this, but at least personally, i would not want people to do this with me. if someone is trying to influence my mind in ways i am not aware of, i want to know they are doing this so i can try to account for the effect (or, realistically, ask them not to / not befriend them).
i’d guess that mirroring behavior causes the one being mirrored to subtly intuit that they are more similar than they really are, leading to feeling more comfortable around that person.
i think {the net effects we’d observe on how friendships/allyships form in worlds where all EAs try to subtly influence each other} are not good. i imagine it would lead to friendships/allyships being determined more (relative to before) by who’s good at applying these (and other) tactics, and so less by the substantive factors which should matter.
also, i think there is possibility for nuance about where the line is between {being kind and trying to create a positive environment} and manipulation. some forms of trying to influence how someone feels seem okay to me, like if someone is sad, and you want to make them feel less sad, (and they know you’ll be doing this and that’s why they’re talking to you). i guess the relevant line to me is whether it’s intended to help the person, like in that case, or whether it’s intended to influence how they perceive you to gain some sort of advantage from them. the two pieces of advice i quoted seem to be the latter kind.
(to be clear, this criticism doesn’t apply to most of the points, which are probably good advice; i write this because i know criticism can feel bad, and i don’t want to cause that.)
if someone told me they were doing it, i would actually ask them not to.
if it seemed like they were someone for whom this was just one thing in a wide arsenal of other such subtle tactics, i’d also probably want to not become friends with them.