# Plea Bargaining

Author: Zack M. Davis
Originally published: 2022-05-30
Category: psychology
Canonical URL: https://zackmdavis.net/blog/2022/May/plea-bargaining/

I wish people were better at—plea bargaining, rather than pretending to be innocent. You accuse someone of [negative-valence description of trait or behavior that they're totally doing], and they say, "No, I'm not", and I'm just like ... really? How dumb do you think we are?

I think when people accuse _me_ of [negative-valence description of trait or behavior], I'm usually more like, "Okay, I can see what you're getting at, but I actually think it's more like [different negative-valence description of trait or behavior], which I claim is a pretty reasonable thing to do given my goals and incentives."

(Because I usually _can_ see what they're getting at! Even if their goal is just to attack me, attackers know to choose something _plausible_, because why would you attack someone with a charge that has no hope of sticking?)