I suppose I would cave to a threat if it was sufficiently strong and credible, but on the whole threats have always made me dramatically less likely to comply. I might try to justify it by arguing that it reduces people’s incentive to threaten me in future, and hopefully I’ve reached a point now where I could reasonably weigh the expected utility of that in making my decision, but for most of my life the bottom line is that I’ve done it out of sheer contrariness. I would frequently sabotage my own interests in order to defy others’ demands or expectations of me.
This applied not only to threats and bribes, but even acts that were meant to be purely to my benefit, to punish people for trying to anticipate my desires.
Since I never rebelled in typical teenage ways, I had to find my own original ways to be difficult.
This applied not only to threats and bribes, but even acts that were meant to be purely to my benefit, to punish people for trying to anticipate my desires.
Is it the anticipation of your desires that you try to punish or something more specific to trying to force their anticipations onto you? I ask because most people spend significant social effort to train others into anticipating their desires.
I suppose it was really more the latter than the former that I was reacting to, but my conscious interpretation of it was as a backlash against having my desires be understandable to others, and therefore manipulable.
I suppose I would cave to a threat if it was sufficiently strong and credible, but on the whole threats have always made me dramatically less likely to comply. I might try to justify it by arguing that it reduces people’s incentive to threaten me in future, and hopefully I’ve reached a point now where I could reasonably weigh the expected utility of that in making my decision, but for most of my life the bottom line is that I’ve done it out of sheer contrariness. I would frequently sabotage my own interests in order to defy others’ demands or expectations of me.
This applied not only to threats and bribes, but even acts that were meant to be purely to my benefit, to punish people for trying to anticipate my desires.
Since I never rebelled in typical teenage ways, I had to find my own original ways to be difficult.
Is it the anticipation of your desires that you try to punish or something more specific to trying to force their anticipations onto you? I ask because most people spend significant social effort to train others into anticipating their desires.
I suppose it was really more the latter than the former that I was reacting to, but my conscious interpretation of it was as a backlash against having my desires be understandable to others, and therefore manipulable.
Intriguing.