The Means Come Before the Ends: Manipulation and Control Are Dumb-People's Tools

When people in business take big offense to an honest question or offer that is within reasonable requests, they are a bad actor who uses the power of fear of upsetting them to set the terms for how you will engage them, and to make you think twice and three times to make asks to them that they might not like. Everyone who reaches for control through invisible means is a bad actor: full stop. Every act for a greater good as they define it that reduces the awareness of a person of what is happening to them is a bad actor.

This is obviously not good for the more gullible party because it reduces the range of maneuvering they have with more cunning actor with power over them, and it makes the weaker party more controllable. Controllable is not good for price discovery in the markets as an independent actor. Control over actors in a free market (every business is a free actor) causes contentration and reduced price elasticity ahead of market force changes. This is bad at scale for economy and innovation.

Those who reach for control through psychological games or by force are low sophisticated people whose tools for success are limited to a few tools in the toolbox. It is our job to take away form them the psychological tools they have to maintain control fo those the invest in and partner with, to forever stay off balance and uncertain like markets should be. They are a net negative contribution to humanity. The means do not justify the ends. The ends are not important. The means are all that matters.

Low sophisticated people with short term goals want control. More sophisticated people do not have plans others cannot see that the guide them towards with slight control, because it always explodes once the pattern is discovered, and the person to blame is not the one who explodes, but the one who tried to get away with it.

Everything in life that reduces the agency of a person by guiding them in a direction they would not approve of if they were more aware of, is an unforgivable act. We must seek a world where all humanity is immune from it, full agency and full awareness for all people, making it harder for less sophisticated but powerful people to get what they want from them. Slowing everything down this way is a good thing, because humans and their intellectual awareness is more important than all the greater goods humans an gods can dream of, and I will die by this sword.