How To Manipulate People

This was a good Lifehacker article on how to manipulate people (quick read, worth reading in its entirety). The following are the headings from the article along with my thoughts on each suggestion: * Emotion vs. Logic: Appealing to emotion rather than logic in manipulation is a little bit of a no brainer. Not only do most people respond better to emotion than logic, irrational people often best (only?) respond to fear. * Master Your Own Emotions: Mastering your emotions means essentially two things -- being able to divorce your emotions from what is happening externally (look at this article for helpful suggestions of how) and being able to project the right emotions in the right circumstances to create the desired illusions. * Be Charming and Flirt Often: I love to flirt. I flirt with everyone. I used to flirt only with people that I could see myself wanting to seduce, but then the person who first called me a sociopath famously told me that she flirts with everyone, gay or straight because everyone likes positive attention everyone wants to be seduced. * Overcome Trust Issues and Heal Doubt: Building trust with your target is often critical, see number 2 here (does Lifehacker read this blog? or have a sociopath on staff cluing them in?) * Conceal Evil in Altruism: This step means pretty much what it says and is super popular with celebrities, billionaires and politicians. * What to Do If You're Discovered: In addition to backpedaling and creating doubt in your target's mind as to whether you were actually manipulating them, I also suggest starting a counter insurgency campaign against them where you are spinning the message to favor you and disfavor them (Oliver North is a good example of this) if they're an enemy, or possibly proposing some sort of alliance if they're a friend or loved one (think Skyler White in Breaking Bad). Of course the best course of action is to prophylactically insure against this by building an actual, legitimate reputation for good (at least in certain areas) for people to cross-reference. Also, beware the anti-seducer, for they cannot be manipulated.