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2026-01-18

When to escalate aggression?

Disclaimer

• Quick Note
• Weak opinion. This is me trying to figure out a bunch of stuff. I'm not prescribing strong view of what I should do or what you should do.
• trigger warning - violence

When to escalate aggression

• Nowadays, I often start by thinking about the most violent solution.
  • Whenever I approach a problem that involves interpersonal conflict, I seem to always start by thinking of the most violent possible solution.
  • For example if govt is doing something, can we just mass murder everyone there. Can we threaten mass suicide. If family member is doing something, can we just murder then.
  • Can we just threaten suicide. If some other group in society is doing something, can we just mass murder them.
• Once the most violent solution is worked out in my head, then I think of less violent solutions. Which are basically money and status.
  • Can I publicly humiliate someone and solve this? Can I publicly praise someone and solve this? Can I cut off someone's income or funds and solve this? Can I pay someone and solve this?
• Once this solution is worked out in my head, then I think of the least violent solution. Which is persuasion.
  • Can I just explain my beliefs and values to someone? Can someone end up converging with my values or my beliefs, if I explained them better or persuaded them better?
• Once I have worked everything out in my head, then I actually act in the real world.
• Everything is ultimately backed by violence, in my view.
  • Your words are worth nothing if you can't back them up with money or status, when words alone fail.
  • If the other person in the conflict realises your words are backed by nothing, they can just ignore your words or use them against you.
  • Your money and status is worth nothing if you can't back it up with physical violence.
  • If the other person in the conflict realises they can use violence to take away your money or status, they might just do that.
• We live under a (somewhat) democratic and capitalist society.
  • This means that often someone else has figured out the system of violence and the system of money and status. And hence you can get very far in life using words and persuasion alone.
  • But these systems are not perfect and they often fail. And when they fail, you do need to go back to first principles.
  • This means thinking about money and status yourself, and thinking about violence yourself.
• Lots of people seem to approach this completely backwards.
  • They start with persuasion as the solution, and then when that fails, they might reluctantly agree to a more aggressive solution. Or maybe they won't agree to more aggression even then.
  • I seem to start with the most violent solution first, and then figure out if there's a less aggressive way of solving it.
• And like I said, often persuasion is actually the right approach.
  • We live in systems where it often works.
  • But it's important to ask what you'll do if persuasion fails.
• l agree that it's often bad to use a more aggressive solution when a less aggressive solution will work.
  • Some people think it's bad to think of the more aggressive solution first, because if other person knows this, then maybe they will escalate to the more aggressive solution in response. Self-fulfilling prophecy and whatnot.
  • I think it's good to think of the more aggressive solution first, because if the other person knows this, they will take you more seriously when you propose the less aggressive solution. Otherwise they can just ignore you.
• I've deliberately kept it very general and avoided specific examples.
• I realised that I seem to be using the same principles across all the conflicts I notice in life.
  • So far I don't think I've faced a major conflict where I needed to use actual physical violence to resolve it.
  • But l've obviously considered it many times against many different people.
  • ASI risk is the first problem where I'm starting to realise, if I don't fix this, many people will be killed, and if I fix this, many people will be killed that way too.
  • Just persuasion alone is likely not enough to go against forces pushing for ASI.
• I think you have to search seriously for both violent and non-violent solutions. Don't half-ass either search.
  • If you don't take the prospect of searching for violent solutions seriously enough, you often won't find them.
  • If you don't take the prospect of searching for non-violent solutions seriously enough, you often won't find them.
  • If after searching hard, you find only violent solutions, then you execute a violent solution in the real world. If after searching hard, you find both violent and non-violent solutions, then you execute the non-violent solution in the real world. If you don't find either, what to do next is a whole separate discussion.
  • If, however, you avoiding searching for violent solutions because "violence feels bad" or something equally stupid, you're probably not going to find those violent solutions in the first place.
  • Likewise, if you avoid searching for non-violent solutions because "all the other people around me are too non-violent and hence stupid", you're probably not going non-violent solutions in the first place. (I should avoid falling into this trap)

Why do non-violent mass movements work?

• I don't actually understand some things about why non-violent mass movements have succeeded.
• In my head, I tend to assume that the whole reason non-violence succeeded is because it was understood that the crowd could escalate to violence if they didn't get what they wanted non-violently.
• Examples
  • The US civil rights movement had leaders and followers who were clearly capable of violence. They did economic boycotts and worker strikes. They succeeded largely non-violently.
  • The Indian independence movement against the British probably had atleast some leaders or followers capable of violence. They too did economic boycotts and worker strikes. They succeeded largely non-violently. (More aggressive than just persuasion. Less aggresive than war.)
  • The Tibetan Buddhist protests protesting China didn't have enough leaders or followers capable of violence. They failed, and still remain colonised of China.
  • (I'm spitballing btw. I'm still not sure about a lot of this stuff. Trying to figure it out.)

Does escalation level required depend on the commitment of your opponent?

• Lmao, ChatGPT says Gandhian approach wouldn't have worked against Stalin. No idea if this is true.
  • Britishers were interested in India for mainly economic reasons. So mass economic boycotts was sufficient to disrupt what they wanted.
  • Stalin was interested in mass violence for ideological reasons. So maybe just economic boycotts wouldn't have been enough to counter that?
  • It's an interesting thought experiment but I don't know the answer.
• It's definitely true that enemies driven by ideology can be more dangerous than enemies driven by just money or political power.
  • And vice versa you become more dangerous to others if driven by ideology not money/ political power.
  • I want to be driven by ideology. This makes me maximally dangerous.
  • People building ASI also - atleast some of them - are driven by ideology. They're the most dangerous. They will take economic and political losses too, if they get to win at the end.

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