Comment by Aurornis
1 day ago
I read that book because it was on so many generic book recommendations lists.
It was less sleazy than I expected from the title. It actually had a lot of points about being genuine, being a good listener, showing respect to other people's opinions, admitting when you're wrong, being sincere, and so on. Decent advice, really.
A side benefit of reading it is you learn how to spot when other people are insincerely trying to use the tricks in the book against you. Once you see it, it's hard not to miss.
I read that book and I think it's terrible.
Though the "God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence" was funny and I can relate...
but otherwise, I wouldn't want to live in a society where people are secretly hating you but "speaking ill of no man" a.k.a. "not criticizing."
I liked the book Winning by Jack Welch more, which advocates for "candor," and is essentially the opposite of How to Win Friends.
Not criticizing is not for hiding fact you hate someone.
Not criticizing is about - you see someone slipping don’t call them stupid just move on.
Like if someone makes a typo in comment here on HN, no one writes how stupid they are because they might be on the phone having autocorrect breaking their typing. You don’t really show off how smart you are pointing out small mistakes.
Hating someone requires that they somehow wronged you. There was nothing in the book about being nice for someone who is swearing at you or punched you in the face.
Whether someone is swearing at me or punched me in the face is not a factor. I believe the point of the book is that criticism tends to be taken personally. I'm sure you can guess what that implies.
> Winning by Jack Welch
Why do I get the impression that this book is very much in line with Charlie Sheen's personal philosophy?
The sociopath who destroyed GE in the quest for more money is someone I would only take social advice from if I was done with humanity and had started to use society for entirely selfish ends.
He got away with “candor” because he was at the top and anyone who disagreed with him was removed.
Honestly any self help books from people in unique positions in society trying to tell the common man how to improve always read to me as “my top 10 tips for winning the lottery: tip one buy a winning lottery ticket”
Do you think you are a common man? Are you content with it?
4 replies →
> I liked the book Winning by Jack Welch more
Jack Welch the sociopath?? Or is there another author with that same name?
Mutual preferences is the best idea in the Dale Carnegie book. Resolving conflicts by being imaginative enough to suggest a win-win option.
Interesting, when I was reading it I got a real sociopathic vibe from many of the points and especially how the author was talking about them.
If I take a helicopter view of the main themes they make sense, but I will admit feeling a little sleazy by reading the book.
Reading is subjective however, so I’m glad it didn’t make you feel this way.
> and especially how the author was talking about them.
To really get the best out of this book, you need to realize that it was written in 1936.
I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much without regularly having this fact top of mind while reading it.
90 years ago, think about how different the world was then. This is before WWII!
Interesting, I felt the exact opposite. I used to be guarded and aggressive and was careful not to give other people too much else they might take advantage of me. My takeaway from that was... It's fine to be nice and caring and helping people out genuinely (I know, a shocker, but coming from a more... Uhh.. predatory... World it might not be something that crosses your mind.)
Disagree with your reading, respectfully. The majority of that book is putting into words the things we like about people. It helped me immensely, especially points like not criticizing people and thinking it’s helpful. I would say the title aged terribly and comes off as sociopathic.