Mastodawn

Nobody tells you "resistance is futile" unless they are desperately trying to talk you out of resisting

Long ago, as a kid, I read a book written by a defector from the Soviet Army. It's still an interesting book, I recommend it.

There's a chapter in it about leadership lessons he learned. One is that threats are a sign of weakness, not strength. Threats are what people resort to when they don't have the power to just act. Human beings don't threaten bugs; they just step on them.

So when someone comes at you with threats, keep that in mind. Often the threat is a tell, a sign that the person making it needs to scare you into complying because they can't just force you to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_the_Soviet_Army

Inside the Soviet Army - Wikipedia

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Will Deakin

@jalefkowit I put this down to arseholes internalising the Sun Tzu maxim "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak."

In my dotage I found a meta take: people generally who are aggressive are either in a hole (reactive) or are arseholes (systemic bullying).

I don't have a lot of time for either. Although if you can convince to former to stop digging*, then they can be improved.

* the first law of holes