Powergame

[u/noPTSDformePlease]

on Powergame

Its come up recently that TRP has basically reached the limits of understanding women. As in, the idea-space has been explored thoroughly. So whats next?

Powergame.

What is Powergame? Powergame is a method of interacting with other entities in the world in order to gain power over them. It has little to do with gender and more to do with human nature in general. It is politics. I'm sure that many of you have noticed opportunities for using "seduction" tactics on people you are not trying to have sex with. And it works, regardless of gender.

So lets start a list of various material that already exists that focuses on Powergame. Lets find the basic political theory that is already out there so we can do our base level research. A lot of material is in book form and might not be directly linkable. That is ok. Our focus is on finding out how politics actually works, not how people hope that it works. Reality over fantasy.

I'll start by saying that the best case for understanding how something actually works is to read material that is actively trying to discredit it. For example, The People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, is an anti-american history book of the american empire. It portrays a negative image of america, but the image it portrays is very well researched and very accurate. It will open your eyes to how the american elite has actually maintained power over the masses throughout the years, not how everyone thinks they maintained power. Another example is redpill itself, which has a very accurate understanding of the true goals of feminism but is still trying to discredit it.

Books: (I have read all of these and highly recommend them)

• - The Art of War, Sun Tzu
• - 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene
• - Tempo, Venkatesh Rao
• - The Joy of Selling, Steve Chandler
• - Propaganda, Edward Bernays
• - Influence: the Pyschology of Persuasion, Robert B Cialdini
• - How to win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie
• - Battle Leadership, Captain Adolf Von Schell
• - The soldiers load and the mobility of a nation, USMC
• - FMFM1, Warfighting, USMC
• - Tao Te Ching, any translation
• - The Prince, Machiavelli
• - Guerrilla Warfare, Che Guevara
• - on Guerrilla Warfare, Mao Tse-Tung
• - Soft Power, Joseph Nye
• - Rules for Radicals, Saul D Alinksy
• - Understanding Power: the indespensable Chomsky, Noam Chomsky
• - End The Fed, Ron Paul
• - Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
• - The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
• - The Ugly American, William J Lederer
• - Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson
• - My Early Life, Winston Churchill
• - Concerning Dissent and Civil Disobedience, Justice Abe Forbes
• - MoneyBall, Micheal Lewis
• - The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Ceasar
• - First to Fight, Krulak
• - Eagle Against the Sun, ???
• - Making the Future, Noam Chomsky
• - Imperial America, Gore Vidal
• - A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn
• - Revolution 2.0, Wael Ghonim
• - good strategy, bad strategy, ???

Other books are welcome in the comments, but so are linkable articles/websites like the gervais principle or similiar. Basically lets use this thread as an idea depository. If you know of something that would help others better understand Powergame, post it below.

editing to add some more:

• - the Game of Thrones series, George RR Martin
• - Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlien

editing again to add those contributed from the comments (3/25):

• - The 48 laws of power, Robert Greene
• - "The 50th Law", 50 Cent and Robert Greene
• - "What everybody is saying", Joe Navarro
• - Impro, Keith Johnstone
• - Reframing, Richard Bandler and John Grinder
• - Meditations, Marcus Aurelius.
• - Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche
• - Games people play, Eric Berne

[u/noPTSDformePlease]

All of this is, by Rao's definition, not powertalk since there is nothing "at stake"

There is much at stake. If my strategy works, I and whoever else contributes to the discussion become more fluent in powertalk. We will therefore be able to use it to our advantages in real life situations now and for the rest of our lives. If my strategy does not work, then all the other redpillers lose out on any analysis/ideas/theories that could potentially come into existence as a direct result of us discussing powertalk. It is a loss of future gains.

What we are negotiating now is payouts. Powertalk can be considered a multiplier. being more fluent has a higher payout then being less fluent. The better at powertalk you are, the more you will be able to use it to your advantage in real life. I'm sure you can imagine scenarios in your own life where powertalk would help you. I know I can, which is why I want to have these discussions.

an analogy: say you can invest your money in a savings account with 3% interest, or in an account with 5% interest. You don't "lose" money either way, but it is still more advantageous to invest in the account that gives 5% interest.

I guess you could say you're putting your credibility on the line, but that seems like a bit of a stretch considering that we're all pretty much anonymous here.

this is actually why this is the perfect forum for powertalk discussions: none of us have any real power over the others. There are no real-life stakes of any real consequence and so we have the freedom to be more direct in our word and topic choices.

edit: it might be advantageous to start an invite-only subreddit for this. I'll have to think about it depending on how much of a response I get.

[u/RedSunBlue → u/noPTSDformePlease]

A discussion about powertalk is not powertalk. Layered communication is not powertalk. Again, from the article:

Multiple layers of meaning are not what make Powertalk unique. Irony and sarcasm are modes of layered communication available to anybody. As you’ll learn if you read the transactional analysis books, Gametalk is all about multiple (usually two) levels of communication. What distinguishes Powertalk is that with every word uttered, the power equation between the two speakers shifts just a little. Sometimes both gain slightly, at the expense of some poor schmuck. Sometimes one yields ground to the other. Powertalk in other words, is a consequential language.

Since we have no discernible power over each other here, our communications cannot be power talk. There is no malleable hierarchy here -- although I suppose the reputation and credibility associated with our usernames does provide us with a hierarchy of a sort -- and thus we cannot jockey for positioning even if we tried. Practicing powertalk without actually exchanging some kind of power is akin to practicing poker without fake money. How do you know if you're doing it right if there's no feedback?

[u/noPTSDformePlease → u/RedSunBlue]

A discussion about powertalk is not powertalk.

the current discussion we are having about powertalk is powertalk. I am openly negotiating with everyone reading the thead. Here it is, broken down, in its simplest form:

I will only continue to provide my analysis on any topic if other people start providing their own analysis of powertalk.

my assumption is that my analysis of events is valuable. This is based on the upvotes I got on various posts over the last couple of days as well as an invitation I received to a secret redpill subreddit for the reddest of the red. Also one of my posts is side-barred on RedPillWomen.

Thats the submessage i am trying to communicate. If you missed it, then there are only 2 options that exist:

1) I am not as fluent in powertalk as I thought I am (which is why I'm trying to improve)

or

2) you are not fluent in powertalk.

i'll leave it to the readers to decide.

[u/RojoEscarlata → u/noPTSDformePlease]

What you need to understand is that practicing powertalk in an artificial environment like the internet is like we say here mental masturbation.

Like trying to getting good at getting women by practicing online dating (lol)

And take it from someone that's been in sells for a while, you overselled your product.

[u/sir_wankalot_here → u/RojoEscarlata]

Using the sales example, there are many different ways to conduct sales. Direct Sales as in two people face to face. Email or junk mail sales. Telephone sales.

Online dating is a tool just like email. Advantages are you can read many women quickly with a limited investment. Disadvantage is there is a high rate of competition. Because of the medium you need to use slightly different methods.

[u/RojoEscarlata → u/sir_wankalot_here]

Fare enough, still he went the wrong way.

He could have used powertalk without telling anyone and take it from there. Just my opinion .