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MENTAL MODEL · M12246

The Gelded Boar's Tusk

The Gelded Boar's Tusk
CulturemediumChinese Philosophy
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Updated 2026-08-10

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

The image comes from the Book of Changes: facing a fierce boar, one does not wrestle it but gelds it, so that its tusks retain their shape while the aggression that drove them drains away. As a model it is source-level risk control: the superior answer to a threat is not a thicker wall but a change in the incentive that produces the threat in the first place. Applied to organizations, it means redesigning the reward structure so that the harmful behavior stops being the profitable one, and the aggression dissolves without anyone needing to fight it.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Ask whether the wall helps: before fortifying, check if the threat's motive can be removed instead. - Move the incentive: change what the harmful behavior pays, and the behavior fades without enforcement. - Treat the root, not the symptom: keep removing the cause until the symptom stops returning.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Threats are behavior driven by incentive, so a wall does not extinguish the motive, it only raises the cost of acting on it, and the motive keeps looking for gaps. Removing the incentive attacks the generator of the behavior: with nothing to gain, the aggression has nothing to run on, and no enforcement is needed to sustain the outcome. The cost is that incentive design is slower and less visible than a wall, which is why organizations under pressure usually build the wall first and wonder why the threat adapts.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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    zh.wikisource.orghttps://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%91%A8%E6%98%93/%E5%A4%A7%E7%95%9CZH · Explicit
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