Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [932]

Tomorrow I would have to try to bluff as much as possible. Most people wouldn’t insist on my shooting them just to test whether or not the gun was loaded. For the street poor, unable to afford medical care, even a minor wound might be fatal. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 932

Note

A whole economy of fear is built from one inference: the bluff works because the cost of testing it is disproportionate for the poor. The second sentence’s logic is quietly elegant — the threat is not death but the unaffordable wound — and it turns the unloaded gun into real leverage.