How to teach the Survivalist* a new behavior

The following is going to sound crazy to you. In fact, I wouldn’t treat a dog this way, and yet, it seems to be the only way to teach the Survivalist* a new trick: To train them with the same principles as you’d train a dog:

1. Teach one new thing at a time. Pick your primary goal. If you ignore them completely, they think you’re generally angry with them, and they won’t learn a new trick. They’ll just wait until you talk to them again and commence normal behavior.
2. When applicable, reinforce the message with a verbal cue: “I want you to stop X, and instead, do Y.” Then, ignore behavior that contradicts your new instructions.
3. Ignore bad behavior. (ANY attention, even angry and violent attention is a positive reinforcement to the Survivalist*. When programming tutorials, give no feedback for bad command if possible. The Survivalist* may find computers difficult to learn because whatever button they press they get feedback, something happens, right? On the other hand, computers are completely systematic, which makes them an intelligent the Survivalist* best friend.)
4. If you must react, emotionlessly remove the person from the room or remove yourself from their presence, similar to taking a dog to another room. (Think of women who remove themselves from the presence of a man whose advances they don’t approve of.)
5. Reward good behavior and the correct conclusion with attention. (ANY attention, even anger will work, but pleased, squealing voices akin to “good girl, good boy!” are actually just as good. It sounds completely condescending to a Idealists*, which is why we have trouble teaching the Survivalist*, but if you observe them teaching each other, THEY ACTUALLY DO THIS.)
6. You can super-reward the Survivalist* good behavior with gifts. Name the thing they did well, and what the reward is for. You can train the Survivalist* to accept infidelity, even. Give them gifts for being “so understanding”, and ignore complaints about you sleeping with other people… If you want to be an asshole about things.

I have even contemplated the possibility that humans and dogs have been mixing for so long, that we reincarnate across species (which I do think is a fact) and that some people are actually dogs in human body, and behave that way. At the same time, I know there are dogs that learn like humans, you can even reason with some dogs, and simply successfully have a conversation about their behavior to change it – I kid you not.

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