This is why people can sometimes see criticism/feedback as an attack. Literally *all* criticism, if untranslated, is a commandment to do the literally impossible.
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But why would you ever fail to translate feedback? Most people, if they ask you to take out the garbage, don’t mean to say “do it literally instantaneously in a physically impossible fashion.” So why get defensive as *if* they meant that?
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One hypothesis: we have bad memories of people who expected obedience faster than we literally could obey at the time, or of demands that were literally impossible to fulfill even *after* simulating them.
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I usually use religious commandments as what feel like clear cut examples of instructions that are definitely impossible to obey and yet intended to be obeyed; but other people claim that’s not true, so I’m not sure.
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I’m very confident that the Talmud (which i’m trying to learn cover to cover) describes behaviors as admirable which would be impossible or unwise to attempt (like sleeping 0 hours per night)
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Anyhow, I’m inclined to believe that there are, or have been, *any* people who demand the impossible, and actually meant that, not something more reasonable.
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But okay, if there *are* people who ask the impossible or unreasonable, why should that cause suffering? Why not just reject all impossible demands?
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To explain this, I have to posit some inherent limitation in what thoughts are possible, and that makes my model more complicated & so less credible, for occam’s razor reasons. Hmm. I’m stuck.
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“Some people demand the impossible” should lead to the update “demanding the impossible is a thing people sometimes do”, but I don’t see why it overcorrects to “all feedback should be interpreted as a demand to do the impossible.”
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
They’re not receiving it as an instruction, they’re receiving it as an insult. Computation is the wrong metaphor, it’s more like emotional allergies, which people have in different directions in order to mediate between different strengths. Example from politics:pic.twitter.com/C176wxmWaX
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That's a description of what it *looks* like, on a coarser level. I'm trying to go more mechanistic, more micro-foundations-y, and ask "WHY do some people sometimes receive criticism as insult?" "Because they have [character flaw]" is a label, not an answer to the why question.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
1/ I appreciate that distinction! Mere labeling is indeed useless. Seems to be the same reason people flinch when you pretend you’re about to punch them.
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Replying to @harmonylion1 @s_r_constantin
2/2 The difference to flinch is it’s a reflex of physical survival, whereas to take offense is a reflex of psychological survival (ego defense), and these so differences are reflected in different approaches to psychological survival. The diagram just e.g.’s “diff approaches”
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