alt Hacker NewsWell, your instinct is right from the title. “influence” is a euphemism for “manipulate.”
Affecting influence is subtle manipulation. A compliment about someone’s hair is great if you genuinely admire their hair.
But if you read a book about influencing people and suddenly start complimenting people’s hair, time for some introspection.
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Manipulation is about trickery. Influence does not have to be manipulation. Persuasion through reason is influence.
> But if you read a book about influencing people and suddenly start complimenting people’s hair, time for some introspection.
The book's also apparently about winning friends, as well. And the excerpt above seems to be about getting better at being nice to people without an agenda.
I think this is a very subjective matter and depends on how negatively connoted someone's perception of the word 'manipulate' is. By your definition, I would consider 'studying/learning' also a form of manipulation.
I think the idea is to find things true to you to genuinely compliment?
> “influence” is a euphemism for “manipulate.”
This is exactly what he’s talking about.
The premise of the book is essentially, “what if you were a generally nice person who deserved friends”.
The whole “you could only possibly pretend to care about other people” response to the book is vaguely psychopathic.
> "influence is a euphemism for manipulate"
Strongly disagree with this sentiment. Influence can have a lot of sources, from institutional authority to simply being persuasive, which is distinct from manipulation.
In this context influence and persuasion are being used interchangeably, but persuasion is the act of winning someone over to your point of view, so they understand the topic as you do. It respects their autonomy and acknowledges that people can change their mind when presented with different perspectives. Oftentimes, being likeable (or at least respectable) is a prerequisite for getting someone to listen to you in the first place, so it's a central pillar to being influential.
Manipulation on the other hand, doesn't respect someone's autonomy. It might involve deception, threats, coercion, etc, but it ultimately aims to make someone do something that they don't want to do.
If you're getting a little kid to eat his dinner for instance, persuasion might appeal to his motivations (e.g. having more energy to run faster), while manipulation might look like saying not eating would make his mom sad (guilt tripping), or that he wouldn't get to play with his favorite toy (threat).