Cute Beats Smart is an excellent curative to this horror.
Recent Bluessky Posts- DLCC sent me email asking me to "renew" my membership. I've never had one because I disapprove of them intervening in primaries against progressives and funneling money to bad candidates in the general. But is lying to your own voters a new low? March 9, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- Wisps from a smoking gun? www.thedailybeast.com/key-details-... "The woman who accused Donald Trump of sexually abusing her when she was 13 provided several verifiable details about her life in interviews with the FBI, according to a new report." #Epstein March 9, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- Jotwell Property: Shelley Ross Saxer, The Uncertainty of Water Rights for Tribal Communities, JOTWELL (March 9, 2026) (reviewing Alexander Pearl, Homelands Not Graveyards, 71 UCLA L. Rev. 1706 (2025)), property.jotwell.com/the-uncertai.... March 9, 2026 Jotwell
- FL Bar says it erred: "no such pending Bar investigation of Lindsey Halligan...The Florida Bar received a complaint against Lindsey Halligan and, consistent with standard practice, the Bar is monitoring the ongoing legal proceedings underlying the complaint.” news.bloomberglaw.com/product/blaw... March 6, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- Jotwell Legal Profession: Rebecca Roiphe, Be Careful What You Wish For: How Conservative Groups Learned from Liberal Cause Lawyers, JOTWELL (March 6, 2026), legalpro.jotwell.com/be-careful-w.... March 6, 2026 Jotwell
Not for those of us who are smart but not cute it doesn’t. I’d want, at least, buzzsaws and laser beams on my robot.
Oh please, professor. It’s obvious that the little, innocent-looking robot is using its cuteness to manipulate others into doing the work for it – and then, of course, it gets the credit at the end, not the 20-30 faceless people it duped into doing its navigation for it. It fooled everyone and came out on top.
Shoot, it probably WROTE the 48 laws!
Ha great comments all. I vote for at least one buzzsaw, just on principle. But buzzsaws tend to work against the cuteness factor…
Niccolo Machiavelli had better and more useful advice in the Prince than can be found in the 48 laws.
I got bored reading them (and I’m an avid reader with a pretty good attention-span); it seems like a lot of mental effort to be a scheming, lying, manipulating parasite. And there’s no guarantee that other people will be as dumb as you need them to be in order for the 48 laws to work for you.
Axelrod’s Evolution of Co-operation has a simpler strategy: Co-operate with others as your default strategy, retaliate against those who take advantage of your co-operation.
My own (derivative) theory is that there are two primary types of interaction possible, and two derivative types: The primary two are co-operating and competing, and the derivative two are competing-under the guise of co-operating and co-operating under the guise of competing. both derivative types of interactions can also be referred to as cheating. Cheating is almost impossible to avoid when trying to satisfy the needs of multiple parties, but the best strategy for happiness is to minimize the cheating.