Human beings are like puppets.
Behind each one of us, there are strings that when pulled in the right direction, can guide our behavior.
I know some people refuse to accept this. I used to be one of them.
But I learned the hard way that believing you’re immune to manipulation tactics makes you an easy target.
As Machiavelli said in his book, The Prince
“A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not so good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use the knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case.”
So basically learning how Machiavellians think can help you prevent being exploited by them but you can use the same insights to influence people for good.
You know, it all depends on how you intend to use this information.
Let’s begin with a powerful strategy that is commonly used by conmen:
Manipulation Tactic #1 Ether
Let’s say you get into a conversation with a stranger and want them to do something against their interest…
You encourage them to talk about their life and listen attentively. You want to understand their greatest pains and desires. This can help you craft a narrative that promises a solution tailored to their needs.
Now, if you’ve followed this process properly, you can induce the ether state.
But what is ether?
Ether is a slang used by conmen to explain a situation where the target is overly excited about something.
Jimmy Edwards, a former conman says:
“Emotion is unpredictable. It peaks and valleys. Once you know where to take the person for the peak, and you can keep them up at that altitude, then you can control them. If you drop them back into the valley of logic, you’re going to lose them.”
So basically, when you put someone in a peak emotional state, they are more likely to act impulsively because their emotional brain has overridden logical thinking.
And you know you have them when they’re less irritated with you like they might have been at the beginning of the conversation and their tone of voice is calm, trusting, and somewhat submissive.
In other words, they have lowered their guard and are willing to listen to your idea.
Now, let’s dive deeper into how we can induce the ether state in people.
From what I have noticed, there are two primary conditions that we must consider:
First, there’s a financial need brought on by the loss of a job or other economic problems.
Second, there’s always a psychological need like the desire to feel superior, escape loneliness, escape boredom, grow, survive, etc.
Filling a psychological need is the main reason why someone behaves against their best interest. And they often don’t realize the underlying motivator behind their actions.
Let me give you a simple example…
Years ago, I got addicted to football betting. I used to spend almost every day analyzing the games.
Now I didn’t put all that effort into making money because what I won; I played once again.
But I was bored as hell, and betting increased my adrenaline levels.
It also increased my stress levels dramatically.
Here’s the thing… that’s “the beauty” of it. It was a combination of pain and pleasure.
You know, it’s like popcorn and M&Ms. On their own, they taste good but when combined they taste great.
So if you form this relationship of emphasized pain and pleasure with a person or a certain habit like I did with gambling, smoking, and gaming… then it will have a strong effect on you and you’re likely to form an addiction.
You’ll learn to live with that combination and even unconsciously seek it.
I think this might be one of the reasons why people who were scammed before, fall for the same scams again and again.
Or why people accept to be in a toxic relationship and even if they break up, they find someone who’s just as toxic. People are so fucking interesting. Aren’t they?
Alright, let me give you a quick overview of the entire process so it’s easier to understand.
Imagine the mind being controlled by invisible strings.
Each string represents powerful, hidden forces that guide our behavior often without our awareness.
It all begins when an authority figure influences our actions by tapping into our deepest needs.
As we said earlier, they identify our physical and psychological needs. And they craft a narrative that offers hope, relief, or an opportunity that feels too good to ignore
Once they have identified and pulled these strings, the next step is to tighten them.
This is done through a strategy known as intermittent reinforcement. They randomly offer rewards and punishments, keeping us engaged in their game.
Eventually, we become addicted to this game. You know, we constantly seek their approval and advice even though he/she has constantly let us down.
At this point, we have become so entangled in these strings that escaping feels nearly impossible.
And for many people, the idea of escape doesn’t even cross their minds; they’re too deeply bound to consider a way out.
We’ll talk more about dependency a bit later.
But it’s important to understand the concept of Intermittent Reinforcement because, for most of us, this is the root of most of our problems.
Manipulation Tactic #2 Intermittent Reinforcement
Skinner is one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. He conducted an experiment with pigeons that can reveal a lot about our behavior.
He created a box where the pigeon can peck a button and get rewarded with tasty food.
Now, he assumed that the more often the pigeon got the pellet of food, the more often it would peck the bar.
However, the experiment showed different results:
- When the pigeon never got food as a reinforcement, it stopped pecking the bar altogether. No surprise here.
- When the pigeon got the food reinforcement every time it pecked the bar, it only pecked moderately.
- But when the pigeon got the food reward randomly… sometimes it got food for pecking the bar, and sometimes it got no food… in this case, it pecked the bar like crazy.
Skinner concluded that giving rewards in a random manner is the strongest motivator for getting the behavior he wanted from the bird.
Now, pigeon behavior is very similar to humans.
Just like in the second case, when the pigeon pecked the bar moderately, we also respond moderately well to someone who treats us well.
The reason is that…
People take for granted what they know they can have.
In the third case, the pigeon never knew if it could have the pellets of food.
And this reveals an interesting tendency of human behavior:
People want what they feel they can’t have.
This desire causes people to want products they can’t afford. And pursue women/men they can’t have.
Toxic Relationships
It’s also important to know that Intermittent reinforcement is often used in toxic relationships.
How does it work?
The manipulator gives their partner positive reinforcement (attention, praise, affection, sex, declarations of love) only on a random basis.
When “the reward” is given, dopamine and other feel-good chemicals flow into their brain.
But then he/she becomes cold. And this creates a climate of doubt, fear and anxiety which pushes their partner to seek positive reinforcement.
If you are a victim of this trick, you will sense your partner is withdrawing.
He/she isn’t giving you attention like they used to, and you become anxious that there’s something wrong with you.
And when you ask them if there’s something wrong, they’ll deny it.
Eventually, they will repeat the cycle once again.
As I explained earlier, intermittent reinforcement keeps you hooked.
But there’s a final, more dangerous phase…
Dependency
As we explained earlier, they craft this narrative that draws us in, they create a pain and pleasure dynamic, and now we become hooked on this toxic relationship.
Now, we all have seen examples in real life… That someone is clearly in a toxic relationship but they don’t break up. They just stay there and take it all.
The reason is that they have become dependent on them.
Now, on top of what we have learned so far, three more psychological chains ensure they don’t escape:
The first chain is Sunk Cost Fallacy – The more time, energy, and money they invest in the con or relationship, the harder it becomes to walk away.
Because they hope that all this effort will pay off… that eventually they’ll make lots of money or have this happy relationship… So, they invest even more effort.
Then we have Cognitive Dissonance – The target will believe the narrative at first but later will notice evidence against it.
Despite how well the manipulator crafts the fake story, the target eventually sees inconsistencies.
But here’s where it gets more interesting…
If they admit the story is fake, they automatically admit they were tricked.
So to avoid this discomfort, they treat these pieces of evidence as nonsense. They’ll actively convince themselves that the story is in fact, true.
I know it sounds weird but we do it all the time, with toxic behavior or bad habits. Instead of admitting this is making us miserable, we justify its existence.
Finally, there’s Isolation – It’s when they’re constantly telling you that other people are liars and that they are the only ones you can trust.
They create an environment where you can’t trust others or even yourself.
This will decrease your confidence even more, making it much more difficult to escape their trap.
Manipulation Tactic #3 Exploiting Authority
In 1961, Stanley Milgram, a Yale University Psychologist conducted an experiment to see how willing were people to obey someone they perceived as an authority figure.
The participants were told that the experiment was about memory and learning; and that on the other side, there was a student and if he gave a wrong answer they needed to shock him.
Of course, the student was actually an actor who was instructed to give wrong answers from time to time and to scream when the voltage was high.
Now the participants gave gradually increasing shocks from 15 to 450 Volts.
And when they refused to give the shock, the man in the lab coat simply made some statements like:
- Please continue
- The experiment requires you to continue
- It is absolutely essential that you continue
- You have no other choice but to continue
The psychologists predicted that only a tiny percentage went to the highest shock level.
But they were wrong…
65% of participants continued to the highest level of 450 Volts.
And all the participants continued to 300 V which is a possibly lethal level for humans.
Think about it.
Many of us struggle to convince people to do something good for them. Yet, there’s this guy in a lab coat who suggested to a bunch of strangers to essentially kill someone, and they did it.
Now, we all have noticed that many individuals have a great deal of influence over others.
I’m talking about people like police officers, doctors, politicians, various experts, actors, signers… Anyone who has established themselves as an authority figure.
But why does this happen?
If we look at it from an evolutionary perspective, obeying authority was essential for our survival.
Every ancient tribe had a leader who kept the group united and ensured everyone had the necessary resources to survive. So those who followed the leader were more likely to get food, stay safe, and have children.
On the other hand, if someone disobeyed the leader, they would likely be expelled from the group and that was basically a death sentence.
So we are descendants of people who lived in groups and obeyed the leader.
In addition, if we consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we see that by staying in the group, we’re fulfilling three needs – Physiological, Safety, and Belonging. And then we might be able to climb higher and achieve self-actualization.
That’s why there’s a strong connection between authority and obedience.
Establishing Authority
Now, considering the benefits, how can we establish ourselves as an authority figure?
According to Chase Hughes, the author of Ellipsis Manual, 4 basic qualities dictate authority:
The first quality is Discipline – If you want to control others, you need to control yourself first.
The second quality is Leadership – It’s a combination of your behaviors, confidence, humility, and silent power that communicate unconscious messages to people and make them follow you.
Next, we have Gratitude. This is not about mindlessly repeating phrases about what you’re thankful for.
It’s when you truly understand the value of what you have, and you’ve learned to take full advantage of any resource or ability at your disposal, even if it’s very little.
This reminds me of a scene from Iron Man. If you haven’t watched it, it’s a minor spoiler.
So Tony Stark is kidnapped and held in a cave.
He didn’t whine and complain to himself like ‘Why did I come here; I should’ve done this differently; Why can’t I get a break’ and stuff like that.
Instead of wasting precious mental energy, he fully accepted the situation he was in, and immediately started thinking about how to exploit any tool, ability, and opportunity at his disposal.
Next, we have the fourth quality… Being Fun – We are naturally attracted to people who are having a good time.
A Quick Recap:
The idea is that when you have your life together; you are getting the job done; and you are transmitting positive energy, then you naturally put people in a mode where they feel they should follow you.
Now, I know that many authority figures in our society do not have these qualities. Not even close.
They have no discipline, they’re mediocre at their job, and if you got to know them personally, you’d realize that despite having a lot of money and power, they’re miserable.
So how is it that they’ve authority over people?
The reason is that they are very skilled at creating the perception they’re disciplined, resilient, consistent, reliable, or trustworthy.
They are like method actors. They create this persona that people want to see and are constantly in character. And that’s how they reap the benefits of authority without doing the heavy work of getting their shit together.
But there’s a major downside to this strategy…
Eventually, they’ll start believing they are capable people, that they’re truly great.
But since they’re operating on an illusion, what they are is… truly fucked.
So basically, Machiavellians can control people like puppets and that gives them a lot of influence, money, and power but once they start believing their own BS, it’s simply a countdown to their inevitable downfall.
You know, deviating from reality has serious consequences.
That’s why I recommend you use the insights to influence people for good. And don’t lie to others but most importantly don’t lie to yourself.
Manipulation Tactic #4 Exploiting Their Sense of Hope
People can tolerate many things, but a lack of hope isn’t one of them.
It’s a deep, unsettling experience that clouds our judgment.
You know, it’s like being lost in a dark forest.
You feel alone, powerless, hyper alert to danger – even small things can make you feel scared; you desperately seek a way out, but it seems like the more you try to get out the worse it gets.
That’s why if you can create a sense of hope in the face of hopelessness, you instantly become an authority figure in the eyes of those people and they’ll listen to your words.
If we look at it from a large scale. During a time of crisis – it can be a war, financial or natural disaster – a large number of people will feel hopeless.
And for a rational reason, right? It’s a truly difficult situation for them.
But it’s a great opportunity for demagogues to gain power. They grab people’s attention by correctly identifying their fears; they create a scapegoat for their problems – you know it’s the narrative if you’ve tried and failed it’s not your fault… it’s because this group of people made sure that you’ll stay down.
This creates a fine line between you and them, and it makes the group more united.
The fastest way to keep a group is by creating an enemy group.
But identifying their fears and the enemy is not enough. You also need a narrative of how you are going to help them.
In this case, you play into their fantasies. Because here’s an interesting tendency… People who feel hopeless or like they are a total failure, also have grandiose fantasies.
It’s a coping mechanism.
So this Machiavellian paints a compelling picture of the future where they’ll make their grandiose fantasies a reality.
Let’s stop here for a moment. Simply making huge promises isn’t going to cut it because there’s a subtle element to consider – Sure, you’re playing into their fantasies but this scenario needs to be believable. They must believe that what you’re promising can be accomplished, especially by them.
So wild promises work when there’s an element of possibility. Or to be more accurate, when they perceive that what you’re promising can be accomplished.
Now, look it’s important to understand that what you are learning in this video can be used for good purposes.
You can use the same template to convince someone to look at themselves differently. Like if someone is shy you can make them believe that they can become confident. You paint this future that they’ve already fantasized about and propose a solution that can help them achieve it.
Even if they don’t follow your guidance to the letter. Still, you can have a positive influence because you convinced them to do something about their problem.
In other words, it’s all about intent.
If your intentions are good, then what you’re doing is influence.
If your intentions are evil, then what you’re doing is manipulation.
I strongly believe that if you’re a truly capable person, you don’t need to manipulate people.
I mean, if you’re an expert at what you do combined with strong social skills then it’s enough to become successful and most importantly sleep well at night.
Now let’s continue with an example of how this strategy was used for evil purposes.
The Rise of Hitler
After the end of World War 1, Germany was on the losing side and faced harsh terms under the Treaty of Versailles.
They were forced to accept full responsibility for starting the war; they had to pay massive reparations which crippled their economy, and lost significant territories.
All of these terms made Germans feel deeply angry and humiliated.
Then the government tried to pay the reparations by printing more money so they made their currency worthless in 1923.
Then in 1929, the great depression in the US crippled the German economy. Because the Americans asked them to pay back their loans on very short notice which caused a downward spiral.
During all this time, the Nazi party was gaining ground but they didn’t have much support.
However, this crisis made people look for quick and simple solutions.
Nazis took full advantage of the situation. They promised to make Germany strong; to regain what they lost, to punish its enemies, and stuff like that.
So what brought the rise of Hitler was a decade of constant crisis, well-crafted propaganda, and a great miscalculation from Von Papen (the chancellor) and Hindenburg (the president)… They appointed Hitler as chancellor in 1932 because they thought they could control him.
Boy were they wrong.
Now, would a maniacal loser have risen to power if Germans had won WW1 or if the Treaty of Versailles wouldn’t ask so much from them?
Probably Not.
But I wouldn’t give a definitive no because we should never underestimate the stupidity of the masses, even when things are going well.
The main takeaways from this chapter are that:
If you are in a difficult situation and feel hopeless you should be extra careful about whom you trust because you can easily go from rain to storm.
And if you notice that many people in the country seem to have lost hope, and they are in a state of apathy, then that’s a huge sign that your country is fucked.
If you want to learn more about propaganda and manipulation, I’d suggest watching my documentaries on YouTube:
The Devil’s Charm: How Cult Leaders Enslave Your Mind
