I haven't taken a course, but have read (most of) "How to Win Friends and Influence People." While what you describe sounds creepy, there are good principles in there, and you don't have to take it so far.
For example, he points out that most people never accept blame for anything. From CEOs to convicts, we generally blame our failures on circumstances or other people. So with this in mind, he gives ways of steering people away from errors without raising their self-defense mechanisms or forcing them to admit that they're wrong. After all, do you want to defeat and humiliate them, or do you want to help them?
Indeed, the reason I liked the book was that generally, it DIDN'T seem fake. It encourages you to genuinely care about people. And says that, as it happens, this actually works better, too.
I think that there is a (strange, in my opinion) backlash against any 'hacking' of our personalities when it is presented directly as such. If the book had been named 'The Study of Social Intercourse' or something less "sleazy" I doubt it would be a controversial book.
My view is hacking your personality is no different then improving your coding skills. It is just another skill set and there are advantages that can be derived from improving it. And, as you point out, personality isn't something that can be directly changed.. Thats called 'faking it'. No, personality means changing deeper things, like learning to care for people (or learning to care for yourself). Plus... Compared to coding it is a skill set that is far more useful and influential (unless you get really lucky...)
For example, he points out that most people never accept blame for anything. From CEOs to convicts, we generally blame our failures on circumstances or other people. So with this in mind, he gives ways of steering people away from errors without raising their self-defense mechanisms or forcing them to admit that they're wrong. After all, do you want to defeat and humiliate them, or do you want to help them?
Indeed, the reason I liked the book was that generally, it DIDN'T seem fake. It encourages you to genuinely care about people. And says that, as it happens, this actually works better, too.