From my alma mater

First of all, please check my latest About.me page Karlo Tanodra. This is all part of my effort to make my work and thoughts be more digitally visible.

Now, a word from my Alma Mater:

Congratulations to Mr. Karlo Ray Tanodra for passing the 2018 Foreign Service Officer (FSO) Examinations!

We also congratulate the College of International Relations in consistently producing FSO passers. #TakeTheLead and aim at greater things, future diplomats!

When people always need something from you

Anyone who knows me knows that one of my favorite books is The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. It helped formulate how I see the world and how I respond to it. I'm proposing an additional law to this book, the 0th law of power:

 He who needs the least from an interaction has the most power within it.


When we try thinking this way, we can see arguments, negotiations, and power struggles in a whole new light.

If you view an argument as a clash between two opposing viewpoints, each armed with a set of factual allegations and some rhetoric, you can spend a lot of time trying to figure out whose argument is better, and who will “win”. But an argument is power struggle, and therefore it is a clash not between opposing viewpoints, but opposing people. And the winner will be whoever needs less from the interaction.

So the reason why some people have called my ideas “misogynist”, or “women-hating”  or even "immature" is that they need something from me. Especially since most of these people have no achievements in their personal lives, and when they see what I've achieved, they know they will need me someday.

Often I am doing something, saying something, living some way, and they want me to stop. Urgently… because if they did not want it urgently, they would simply have avoided me. But they did not.


They need something from me. They require my cooperation to get what they need.


What do I need from them? Not much. There is nothing they can give me. Then all the power belongs to me.

Sure, I can debate their small minds, but I wouldn’t be “losing” the argument, because their goal in arguing is to make me stop… and they don’t win unless they get me to stop.


This is relevant in my experience with women as well. Of getting a job. Of buying something from a business. Of responding to a request for help. Of having sex. Of… anything.

Think: what does each person need? Who needs it more? If you can figure this out, you know who will win the confrontation, or get the best of the deal.


And if one of those people is you, the less you need, and the more others need you, or need from you, the more you will win in conflict, and the more you can demand in a deal.


This is the secret behind agree and amplify; you do not need the insult contradicted. This is the secret behind social proof and abundance mentality; you do not need that woman, you have access to others. This is the secret behind everything.

• Be less needy.
• Know the weakness of others by identifying their needs.
• Know when your enemy has unwisely placed his needs upon you, and defeat him.
• Know when the stranger has placed his needs upon you, and demand a price for your effort.
• Know when your friend has a need, and inspire his gratitude and loyalty.
• Never need things from your enemies or those who wish to defeat you.
• Place your needs instead upon your friends and allies.
• Or upon those who need as much or more from you.

The newly restored Old Supreme Court En Banc Session Hall at the SC Old Main Building, now part of the Office of the Court Administrator. This will now be the new Memorabilia Room which will feature historical items and objects of the Judiciary.

Women are bored. Not just boring, bored.

In the past, I've often complained that the women I've met are boring. This doesn’t stop me from flirting with them or seducing them, of course, but it is still irritating. Because when a woman is boring, the man feels like he has to carry the entire conversation and put on an act to entertain her, all for a chance at sex. 

The root cause of this issue isn’t that women are boring, per se, but that women are bored.

Most men have hobbies. There are guys who can spout off basketball stats for hours. There are guys who will talk for hours about their online roleplaying game character or play video games for eight hours straight. I've often discussed foreign policy issues at length. Even when our hobbies are shitty, men are passionate about them.

Women aren’t like this. They don’t have hobbies. The day of an average woman who has a job involves working, eating, and sleeping. The high points of her day are what restaurant she stops at or orders from after work, who she talks to during her lunch break, and maybe watching Netflix, wasting time on social media. If she’s actively dating, maybe she meets a guy for drinks after work. If she’s close with her friends or officemates, maybe she meets some of them for drinks after work. She pretty much lives for the weekend, where her activities consist of eating at restaurants, drinking at bars, dancing at clubs, listening to music, and watching television. Eat, drink, consume media, and sometimes hang with friends who are doing the same things. This is the life of a woman.

Can you imagine if all you did was work, sleep, eat, and go out for food and drinks on the weekend and maybe hope you met a girl? How cripplingly bored you would be? How you would never have anything to talk about and how empty your life would feel?

Women aren’t much different. Women are bored, and they have no idea how to entertain themselves. They are dependent on consumption to be entertained. Constantly consuming food, drink, and media. This is why the government panders to women with women's month, maternity leave, and other female-only benefits, by the way. Happy women make good consumers. It’s good for the economy. Happy men save money and retire early. That’s less good for the economy.

When you meet a woman for a first date, she’s not just boring. She is bored. She is looking to you to entertain her, because without you, all she does is work, sleep, eat, drink, and consume media. She doesn’t have any hobbies. Going on dates with guys like you is her hobby. This is what she does for entertainment.

Some guys get very angry about this. They stamp their feet and scream that women aren’t worth it, and that no man should put any effort into entertaining women in exchange for sex. Not me.

Women are bored. All they do is drink and consume media. Their life is literally empty without you. How hard is it to be a little interesting, a little fun, and a little entertaining when you’re sitting next to some bored girl whose only hobbies are listening to music and watching Netflix?

She is a blank slate. This is your opportunity to lead the conversation, to show a woman a good time when she is incredibly bored and down for anything, and to literally get laid for having fun.

Remember, women are bored. When you see a girl in line at Starbucks staring at her cell phone, this is not an important message from overseas. She’s not closing a major business deal. She’s just bored. You walking up to her may be the most interesting thing that happens to her today. Even if you fuck it up and she laughs at you, you still may be the most interesting part of her day. How cool is that? By taking life by the reins and actually living it, you can be the most interesting part of any woman’s day.

Look decent, recognize when a woman is bored, and fix that for her, and getting girls can be easy.

From Ateneo PAIR

Thank you very much Ateneo Project for Asian and International Relations (PAIR) for this rare opportunity! Really had fun to be with you guys!

Feminism is just a tactic

Feminism isn’t a movement, and it isn’t a philosophy. It’s a tactic. 

A tactic doesn’t have a fixed overarching goal. It’s simply a means of getting whatever the individual user of that tactic happens to want. That’s why feminists keep telling you that feminism came in different “waves”. It’s simple. Different generations of women wanted different shit. They just used the same method to get it.

What, then, is the method?

Feminism is the act of using shame and guilt to evoke the male protective instinct.

That’s it. That’s all. Think about how it works:

1. Find something you think is a problem, that affects you (a woman), regardless of whether or not it affects mostly women, or affects you because you’re a woman, or has anything to do with being a woman at all.

2. Construct a narrative that frames this problem as unfairness to women.

3. Relate this narrative to any man who will listen, and tell them that they personally are oppressing women unless they change their behaviour to fix this problem for you.

4. Repeat until men give you whatever it is you wanted.

So now can we ask why feminism exists? How about why it is so prevalent? Sure. It’s easy to explain now.

Feminism is prevalent in the modern world because the most powerful demographic of men in history became especially vulnerable to appeals to guilt and shame.

So why isn’t feminism being used against the muslim world? Easy to see that now.

Feminists don’t go after muslims because the feminist tactic doesn’t work on them.

So why do feminists come to the (verbal) defense of third world peasants who treat women as cattle? Simple to understand now. Muslims aren’t a target for the feminist tactic, they are a weapon. The concept of them as poor oppressed brown people who are victims of the evil white man (instead of the armed rabble gathered at the gates of civilization)… this can be used to make first world men feel more guilt and shame, and to get those men in the habit of feeling guilt and shame.

So what can we do with this knowledge?

Well, we now know how to protect ourselves from feminism. Become immune to guilt and shame. You’ll still be vulnerable to attack by herds of manipulated men, but you won’t be one of them.

We also know to stop blaming feminism for our problems, whatever they might be. Feminism is a thing precisely because it works… and who has allowed it to work? Modern first world men. Too domesticated. Too ashamed. Too unselfish. Too weak.

Of course it was inevitable that women should discover that femininity (which offers submission in exchange for protectiveness) was more effort than applying shame and guilt (which requires women to give nothing). Women did it because men incentivized it.

Feminism is not new. It is not a game-changer. It is not an alteration in the terrain. The Great Game has always existed and always will. Everything is a move.

Learn to counter.

Foreign Service Officer Class IV, finally

Thank you Lord for all the blessings! It's now official, Foreign Service Officer, Class IV!