nonviolence - by vincent huang - a slice of my mind

for most of my life i thought you could minimize pain through a combination of two strategies, both of which i’ll invent names for. the first is deterrence - projecting competence and confidence, being very explicit about intentions and consequences, and other ways of discouraging people from taking advantage of you. the second is desensitization - putting up barriers, decreasing the surface area of things you’re insecure about or vulnerable on, and generally making yourself less sensitive to actions other people might take nowadays i don’t think that deterrence and desensitization are incorrect ideas, but i do think they’re incomplete, especially because pain often comes from well-intentioned friends rather than bad actors. what if there was another way of doing things - deterrence not by intimidating other people but by addressing their needs, desensitization not by shielding yourself but by understanding the intent behind other peoples’ actions? i always found this scene from infini

for most of my life i thought you could minimize pain through a combination of two strategies, both of which i’ll invent names for. the first is deterrence - projecting competence and confidence, being very explicit about intentions and consequences, and other ways of discouraging people from taking advantage of you. the second is desensitization - putting up barriers, decreasing the surface area of things you’re insecure about or vulnerable on, and generally making yourself less sensitive to actions other people might take nowadays i don’t think that deterrence and desensitization are incorre