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Don't steer with guilt

mindingourway.com · 1,339 words · saved by 1 readers

I've spoken at length about shifting guilt or dispelling guilt. What I haven't talked about, yet, is guilt itself. So let's talk about guilt. Guilt is one of those strange tools that works by not occurring. You place guilt on the branches of possibility that you don't want to happen,

I've spoken at length about shifting guilt or dispelling guilt. What I haven't talked about, yet, is guilt itself. So let's talk about guilt. Guilt is one of those strange tools that works by not occurring. You place guilt on the branches of possibility that you don't want to happen, and then, if all goes well, those futures don't occur. Guilt is supposed to steer the future towards non-guilty futures; it's never supposed to be instantiated in reality. Guilt works by the same mechanism as threats: imagine the tribesperson who precommits to breaking the legs of anyone who steals their food. If

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