They’re disempowering themselves. Describe themselves as a victim of circumstance, powerless and without responsibility. It’s a disempowering narrative. You’re shooting yourself in the foot. In this story that we live, you are casting yourself as an npc.
On the flip side, saying “I can’t” adds authority to your argument. You’re citing an unstoppable force as the root cause of your actions. So it’s a tradeoff that way.
In which case “I can’t” is not giving up agency but instead taking agency in a way that’s harder to dispute.
When one says “I can’t” instead of “I won’t”, it’s not a “I don’t know how to” but a “I will not do that and I won’t let you talk me into doing it”.
That’s exactly what the post says. A person may know but will say they can’t, pretending they dont know how or some other bigger reason that can’t be resolved just by bullying them into doing it.
But the post also says
And that part was what I was responding to. Because nothing in there is correct.
its correct from my point of view.