🚀 go-pugleaf

[From Bruce Nevin (990507.0858 EDT)]

I've stayed out of this because I have nothing to say that is grounded in a
model.

This discussion is mired in the fallacy of (unintended) equivocation.
Equivocation is when a discussion slithers among different meanings of a
word, so that conclusions that are warranted for one meaning are assumed to
apply to other meanings.

Here's one technical PCT definition of "coercion": a special case of
conflict between two autonomous control systems, such that only one of them
is unsuccessful at controlling the physical variable that is the focus of
conflict, due to the superior physical strength (output capacity) of the
other being applied to that variable. (We'll get to threats in a moment.)

We have a spreadsheet simulation of this. The superior output capacity of
the coercer determines the state of the victim's input quantity qi' or the
victim's output quantity qo'. The simulation is oversimplified even for
this most basic form of coercion because when the victim loop reaches its
maximum output it sustains it indefinitely, which a living control system
does not do. There is also a demo in which the human user of the demo
experiences the frustration of being unable to control a variable. Here,
there is the opportunity to observe what the victim does and to introspect
what is going on when one plays this role. Data for the actions (cursor
movements) of the software and the user are recorded. However, no model has
been attempted that replicates these data, and no consideration has been
given to a model that behaves as the human victim does when interacting
with the demo.

This definition does bear some relation to usage as represented in
dictionaries, but it is safe to say that it is not the way most speakers of
English define it. Dictionary definitions do not reflect understandings of
PCT.

More important, usage and the dictionary definition of "coercion" are more
inclusive than this. They include the rapist, the extortionist, the
torturer in the Spanish Inquisition, the Nazi executioner, and so on. The
core disagreements in this discussion hinge on whether scenarios such as
these are or are not covered by the PCT definition of coercion. It is
suggested that they are covered if we add the words "or the threat of
force" to the definition. But just adding words is not science. If we add
these words it is no longer a PCT definition, because we haven't modelled a
threat or the response to a threat. So far as I know we have no data to
model.

Just because it is the same word, "coercion," is no guarantee that it is
the same phenomenon.

Coercion in the narrow sense technically defined above and (sort of)
modelled in PCT almost always has merely the purpose of making the threats
credible. The bully who forces open your hand to take the money is largely
an experience of childhood; the robber usually holds a gun, etc. The
physical variable that is the focus of conflict typically has not much if
anything to do with the perceptions that the coercer is demanding the
victim to control on his behalf: give me the money or I'll break your
thumb. The coercer does something that causes pain or distress, and offers
to make the pain (or the threat of it) go away in exchange for what he
wants. Thus, coercion in all but its most rudimentary sense is identical in
form to bribery, where the coercer offers to make the lack of some desired
thing go away. First, the briber evokes imaginings of the desired state of
affairs, until the victim feels the pain of lacking that; then the briber
makes the offer. Same process.

Just because they are different words, "coercion" and "bribery," is no
guarantee that they are different phenomena.

In both kinds of coercion, the bully unfolding your fist and taking the
money, or saying "give me the money in that safe or I'll break your thumb,"
or for that matter saying "you can have sex with this person if you open
your employer's safe for me," emotional reactiveness is surely involved
(anger, fear, desire), and that's something we know squat about modelling.
Though there's plenty of evidence to observe on this net.

Absolutely nothing can be firmly concluded about coercion in general on the
basis of the very narrow, specific form of coercion that has actually been
modelled. Until we have more adequate models, any generalizations about
threats and so on are so much hot air. Exchanging hot air can be fun, and
we can even learn useful things, but it's not science, and it is demeaning
to ourselves and to PCT to pretend that it is.

        Bruce Nevin