Do we need individuals that are good at the game of power?

[Nilsi]

I've heard Daniel Schmachtenberger say this multiple times.

I noticed that I often use this to rationalise fucked up shit im thinking and doing.

I've gone through some rainy days in my life that made me quite cold and detached and so I figured I could use this to my advantage and becoming a powerful leader would be my way of doing good in the world. This obviously gets messy and corrupt quite quickly since so much egotism and trauma is entangled with the pursuit of power. 

Im part of a Nietzschean mens group and even though I never fully adopted this philosophy - power as virtue, divine right of kings, "truth is a woman"... - it has still shaped a lot of my decisions over the past few months.

I also massively fetishized Andrew Tate. 

In my mind this was always done with the overarching goal of doing good and sorting myself out (doing shadow work), but somewhere along the way I lost my good intentions -- its incredible how addictive power becomes, even after the tiniest taste of it.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Nilsi

[Eyowey]

People who are more powerful than you will notice your rise in power and they will either corrupt you or destroy you. The best thing you can do with power is hide it.

[Razard86]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

I've heard Daniel Schmachtenberger say this multiple times.

I noticed that I often use this to rationalise fucked up shit im thinking and doing.

I've gone through some rainy days in my life that made me quite cold and detached and so I figured I could use this to my advantage and becoming a powerful leader would be my way of doing good in the world. This obviously gets messy and corrupt quite quickly since so much egotism and trauma is entangled with the pursuit of power. 

Im part of a Nietzschean mens group and even though I never fully adopted this philosophy - power as virtue, divine right of kings, "truth is a woman"... - it has still shaped a lot of my decisions over the past few months.

I also massively fetishized Andrew Tate. 

In my mind this was always done with the overarching goal of doing good and sorting myself out (doing shadow work), but somewhere along the way I lost my good intentions -- its incredible how addictive power becomes, even after the tiniest taste of it.

I love your honesty, thank you for showing one of the highest virtues, honesty and vulnerability by being transparent. Yes power is a tricky thing, I'm glad you noticed how it works. I researched power acquisition for over a decade and I realized the reason power corrupts, is a result of the game itself! The higher in power you become, you have to become better at increasing power, leveraging it to get what you want, and it takes manipulation tactics! So basically you have to be better at doing it than the people you are trying to get usurp. What ends up happening...is you become WORSE OF A TYRANT THAN THEY ARE!!!

What is your character but a collection of thoughts, habits, and emotions? This path creates the slippery slope of justification for the greater good. What isn't know by much, is because of self-deception theoretically you can justify anything. In fact, the MORE INTELLIGENT YOU ARE, THE MORE CONVICING OF A JUSTIFICATION YOU CAN MAKE!! In fact, logic is your enemy when it comes to finding out if an action was just or not!! So you might ask what is the standard? The standard is love. Did this action benefit the most people on a collective scale? 

Our body, takes whatever we give it, and spread it equally to all parts of the body. When I say equally I mean according to its need. For example the Brain gets more nutrients and other important components in a larger degree than other organs but that is a result of it needing that much to function properly. If our organs could talk like us, we would say that's not fair but in actuality it is.

Fair isn't an equal numerical value, fair is according to what is sufficient! When this is understood, then we are getting it right. The only reason one has an issue with someone getting more is GREED!!! GREED creates comparison!!! If what you have is sufficient then why are you worried about what someone else has? Be glad your organs do not have self awareness, but are body realized and see all as one. 

[Nilsi]

23 minutes ago, Razard86 said:

Fair isn't an equal numerical value, fair is according to what is sufficient! When this is understood, then we are getting it right. 

Thats the point. I could easily use this to justify power as virtue and in fact thats what Im doing. 

Whats sufficient to be a serf is not whats sufficient to become the emperor.

This gives me two options: 1) become a good emperor 2) accept my serfdom and talk about how society should be run in an ideal world.

I could make the point that 2) is actually just cowardice and the avoidance of responsibility - and its a pretty damn compelling point.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

Have you ever contemplated the psychological significance of the progression: Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle -> Alexander ?

What does it mean that the most significant philosophical lineage in the western world progresses from oral philosophy to systematized philosophy to applied philosophy to emperordom?

[UnbornTao]

What is power in the first place? Usually it is held as a negative: ruthless manipulation, bullying, toxic competition, egotism. Still, your image of what a powerful person looks like may, as with any image, be limited and not representative of reality, in this case that of being powerful.

Currently, I'd describe power as the capacity to accomplish goals effectively. For the sake of the argument, based on this definition, power is not what we think it is since it can manifest in many different ways.

Words such as "empowering" are considered extremely positive. Why?

This may not help much since it doesn't deal directly with this thread but knowing what power is essential before going about pursuing it.

Edited January 15, 2023 by UnbornTao

[Nilsi]

3 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

In my mind, right now, I'd describe power as the ability to accomplish goals effectively. For the sake of argument, we can see that based on this definition, power isn't necessarily what we think it is -- it can manifest in many different ways.

Thats how Nietzsche defines power as well. But riddle me this: how do I accomplish the goal of creating a great civilization?

You can say its through decentralized distributed choicemaking, but then were back to fantasies and ideals.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Nilsi

[RedLine]

There are ways to express that thirst for power and masculine energy without becoming a sociopath like Tate.

 

Elliot Hulse is an example, he is a powerful guy but has moral standards.

 

 

Edited January 15, 2023 by RedLine

[Nilsi]

8 minutes ago, RedLine said:

There are ways to express that thirst for power and masculine energy without becoming a sociopath like Tate.

Just throwing the label "sociopath" around doesnt change the reality of how a dominance hierarchy works. 

Exploiting those below you is an asshole thing to do, but what do you do when your competition are sociopaths?

Is the west sociopathic for sending weapons to Ukraine? - its not so simple.

8 minutes ago, RedLine said:

Elliot Hulse is an example, he is a powerful guy but has moral standards.

Nice meme. 1) hes not powerful 2) hes a fundamentalist - not very high standards for "morality."

Edited January 15, 2023 by Nilsi

[RedLine]

22 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Just throwing the label "sociopath" around doesnt change the reality of how a dominance hierarchy works. 

Exploiting those below you is an asshole thing to do, but what do you do when your competition are sociopaths?

Is the west sociopathic for sending weapons to Ukraine? - its not so simple.

Nice meme. 1) hes not powerful 2) hes a fundamentalist - not very high standards for "morality."

You are mixing a lot of stuff.

 

1. If you are in a role of power you need to take some "inmoral" decisions to avoid big problem. Maybe a government has to kill 100 people to avoid that 100.000 die. So what?

2. Elliot Hulse is powerful from an "animalistic" pov, like Tate, you put him in a group and he probabliy fastly become leader and woman will turn towards him.

3. Everybody has a "fundamental" intepretation of reality, he is a chatolic; Leo Gura has spiral dynamics, etc. You need a bias over reailty to be funcional in the world, otherwise you will be vegetal or static in a cave like Ramana Mahasi. You cannot be in the Absolute all the time and need some Relative interpretation of reality. The most generous people I have meet were chatolic, so why do you say being a chatolic fundamentalist  has not very high standards for "morality? You and can find moral people in all religions. 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2023 by RedLine

[Nilsi]

Can you imagine how ruthless Obama had to be to become president of the USA?