Game in the Brain

You give power to the people you deal with, simply because you approach them for your needs. This simple facts works in the same way when you approach unsavoury businesses for favors or “business”.

If you approach someone Illicit for a shady deal, you give them an incredible amount of leverage. You approached them, meaning you need something from them and by association they have something on you. This is speaking as a regular person resorting to nefarious means to gain an advantage.

Why people don’t normally “court” shady people is because shady people are not only dangerous because of what violent things they can do, but the many ways they can exploit such a simple act of approaching them – even if no deal has been reached.

Funny how this is a simple matter of proximity. In life there are problems that CAN be solved purely by proximity, so it actually is a viable strategy to just run away from one’s problems.

The lesson here is very simple – you weaken something by not entertaining it. One can have a policy of never entertaining shady deals, in certain countries and businesses this is basically removing a large majority of potential business and having to work with so much less.

the thing is that choosing to not to do business with companies or people you don’t like, is one of the most effective means of removing their negative influence in your life or strategy.

I got to thinking about this because of a game where we approached a Triad member for illicit goods. My character has no problem with that, BUT as a policy he avoids doing unless in desperate straights and no other option is available.

In real life, there are people who provide dangerous goods as a service, like drug dealers, the danger is not the drugs but the leverage and power these dealers have in the sphere they control. We all avoid drug dealers, but this lesson extends to relationship and work. We prevent dealings with certain people because they can form a dangerous advantage from the simple dealing they have with you.

One of the key skills in real life is discretion, and in the real world there will be people who will draw you into dangerous dealings because making a living is a hard thing and there are opportunities out there that take advantage of the system. Honest people don’t entertain it as a simple policy, but as a strategies one does not look at the world so black and white, it is important to know why such a policy works to the advantage of honest people.