That TLDR is great! I’ve read the NVC book through twice and taken half of an online audio course. I’ve also never directly benefitted from NVC communication suggestions because they’re framed awkwardly.
Your distillation rings true, but I have not made it or heard it. Thank you.
I’d just add to your TLDR something like:
Make requests but don’t pressure people to do things. Try to be clear about why you’re asking them to do things.
You do cover this but your TLDR is missing it. There’s probably a better formulation, that’s just a first random stab. That part is the nonviolent part.
It’s interesting to note that LW communication usually does seem to follow those NVC principles.
Thanks! Yeah, I don’t have that bit distilled down. I have a sense of the difference between making an ask of someone and making a demand. Thinking in Active Inference/predictive processing terms, I think it’s something like:
Top level statement: I would like X (because Y). vs Top level statement: X. (is the case, must be the case, or with less force, is probabilistically more the case)
In the first one, you can accept the statement into your predictive models even if the outcome is that you don’t do X, because the action-request is “quoted”. The latter statement, if incorporated into your cognitive stack, causes dissonance unless X.
Edit: Also, if you’re interested, the methodology for coming up with the distillation was learning NVC, being in situations where it did and didn’t get applied, then carefully introspecting on the load-bearing parts of the difference until the principle which had been encoded in experience popped out in a crystallized form.
This feels very related to a section I didn’t write for the post because it was getting too long about how to “quote” claims about the other person’s self-model in a way which defuse conflict while leaving you with a wider range of conversational motion. Basically by saying e.g.
“I have a story that you’re angry with me” rather than ”You’re angry with me”
The other person can accept your statement into their conversational stack safety, even if they’re not angry. Because another person thinking you’re angry while you’re not angry is totally compatible as a model, but you being angry while you’re not angry is not. So if you try and include their mental object it fires a crapton of error messages for colliding predictive models.
That TLDR is great! I’ve read the NVC book through twice and taken half of an online audio course. I’ve also never directly benefitted from NVC communication suggestions because they’re framed awkwardly.
Your distillation rings true, but I have not made it or heard it. Thank you.
I’d just add to your TLDR something like:
Make requests but don’t pressure people to do things. Try to be clear about why you’re asking them to do things.
You do cover this but your TLDR is missing it. There’s probably a better formulation, that’s just a first random stab. That part is the nonviolent part.
It’s interesting to note that LW communication usually does seem to follow those NVC principles.
Added something to the TL;DR footnote covering this.
Thanks! Yeah, I don’t have that bit distilled down. I have a sense of the difference between making an ask of someone and making a demand. Thinking in Active Inference/predictive processing terms, I think it’s something like:
Top level statement: I would like X (because Y).
vs
Top level statement: X. (is the case, must be the case, or with less force, is probabilistically more the case)
In the first one, you can accept the statement into your predictive models even if the outcome is that you don’t do X, because the action-request is “quoted”. The latter statement, if incorporated into your cognitive stack, causes dissonance unless X.
Edit: Also, if you’re interested, the methodology for coming up with the distillation was learning NVC, being in situations where it did and didn’t get applied, then carefully introspecting on the load-bearing parts of the difference until the principle which had been encoded in experience popped out in a crystallized form.
This feels very related to a section I didn’t write for the post because it was getting too long about how to “quote” claims about the other person’s self-model in a way which defuse conflict while leaving you with a wider range of conversational motion. Basically by saying e.g.
“I have a story that you’re angry with me”
rather than
”You’re angry with me”
The other person can accept your statement into their conversational stack safety, even if they’re not angry. Because another person thinking you’re angry while you’re not angry is totally compatible as a model, but you being angry while you’re not angry is not. So if you try and include their mental object it fires a crapton of error messages for colliding predictive models.