 Responding to Steiner , Robert Stevens provides examples of what he categorises variously as offers , threats and throffers that fail to meet Steiner 's definitions . He gives an example of an intervention he considers a throffer , as opposed to a threat , but in which both compliance and noncompliance are less preferable to the norm . The example is that of someone who makes the demand " either you accept my offer of a handful of beans for your cow , or I kill you " . For the subject , keeping the cow is preferred to both compliance and noncompliance with the throffer . Using this and other examples , Stevens argued that Steiner 's account of differentiating the three kinds of interventions is incorrect . 
