If it’s common knowledge that we’re in world 3, then we’re in world 4.
If it’s common knowledge that we’re in world 2, then we’re in world 4.
Yes
The key value to being in world n+1 is that you can outplay all the people in world n.
“Outplay” is a bit strong—you can parasitize them. Not obvious Charles Ponzi “outplayed” the system, or that actors that feel the need to use level-3 tactics are particularly dominant individually.
What happens seems to be that at a sufficient level of parasitism, the resources necessary to support a lower simulacrum-level become scarcer for people trying to do the earlier illegible stages, because they’re outcompeted by simulacra of them. Lower-level players may actually be able to outplay higher-level players in most direct contests, but find it much harder to reproduce themselves instead of getting internally metabolized by parasitic strategies into higher-level players.
To move back from world 2 into world 1, one can punish inaccurate job titles
Yes
To move back from world 3 into world 2, one can punish not treating workers according to their titles
You can’t move back from world 4 to world 3.
Once level 1 is no longer the majority, it’s not clear that there’s a natural coalition to want to do either of these. Interactions that aren’t just about producing good feelings will all seem zero-sum to players at level 2 and higher, so most level 2 players will see the most advantage in profiting by accommodating level 3, rather than trying to produce a world where they have more formidable adversaries, even if they’re happier and healthier in that world.
Mad Men is an interesting case study of all four simulacrum levels interacting in the same social setting. It suggests that level-2 players find it disgusting and dispiriting to be too involved with level-3 even if it’s profitable—like factory farming (or like being factory farmed) - the cattle get fat but aren’t happy to be there.
The main thing that seems to roll this back in practice is competition on some more fundamental substrate. Level-1 armies (with the capacity to map terrain, their enemies, and themselves accurately, and act based on those maps) can massively outperform higher-level armies. The leveraged buyout trend in the 1980s seems to have empowered, for a while, people with a modus operandi of acquiring level-3 businesses and cutting out everything not necessary for a level-1 or −2 business.
Yeah, I think the right language around this probably moves away from “world”. You also starve pretty soon after as you’re 100% in world 4 - they’re stereotyped worldviews, not literally evenly distributed worlds. [ETA: Not quite—Michael Vassar pointed out to me that selection pressures can be strong enough for stage 4 to be sustainable in sufficiently forgiving environments—you can do the things to sustain life as rituals within a power game rather than through understanding what they do.]
I think the main way to move back to world 1 in a world not dominated by it is to construct systems that internally coordinate according to world 1 and use their superior ability to build and use shared maps to outmaneuver more socially constrained systems and take territory from them.
The right way for world 1 to hold onto power is by (a) taking care of everyone involved unconditionally, so there’s no particular reason to manufacture a story where you’re useful, and (b) prioritizing maintaining shared maps about who’s faking.
Let me check I’m following with some simple claims:
If it’s common knowledge that we’re in world 3, then we’re in world 4.
If it’s common knowledge that we’re in world 2, then we’re in world 4.
The key value to being in world n+1 is that you can outplay all the people in world n.
To move back from world 2 into world 1, one can punish inaccurate job titles
To move back from world 3 into world 2, one can punish not treating workers according to their titles
You can’t move back from world 4 to world 3.
If it’s common knowledge that we’re in world 3, then we’re in world 4.
If it’s common knowledge that we’re in world 2, then we’re in world 4.
Yes
The key value to being in world n+1 is that you can outplay all the people in world n.
“Outplay” is a bit strong—you can parasitize them. Not obvious Charles Ponzi “outplayed” the system, or that actors that feel the need to use level-3 tactics are particularly dominant individually.
What happens seems to be that at a sufficient level of parasitism, the resources necessary to support a lower simulacrum-level become scarcer for people trying to do the earlier illegible stages, because they’re outcompeted by simulacra of them. Lower-level players may actually be able to outplay higher-level players in most direct contests, but find it much harder to reproduce themselves instead of getting internally metabolized by parasitic strategies into higher-level players.
To move back from world 2 into world 1, one can punish inaccurate job titles
Yes
To move back from world 3 into world 2, one can punish not treating workers according to their titles
You can’t move back from world 4 to world 3.
Once level 1 is no longer the majority, it’s not clear that there’s a natural coalition to want to do either of these. Interactions that aren’t just about producing good feelings will all seem zero-sum to players at level 2 and higher, so most level 2 players will see the most advantage in profiting by accommodating level 3, rather than trying to produce a world where they have more formidable adversaries, even if they’re happier and healthier in that world.
Mad Men is an interesting case study of all four simulacrum levels interacting in the same social setting. It suggests that level-2 players find it disgusting and dispiriting to be too involved with level-3 even if it’s profitable—like factory farming (or like being factory farmed) - the cattle get fat but aren’t happy to be there.
The main thing that seems to roll this back in practice is competition on some more fundamental substrate. Level-1 armies (with the capacity to map terrain, their enemies, and themselves accurately, and act based on those maps) can massively outperform higher-level armies. The leveraged buyout trend in the 1980s seems to have empowered, for a while, people with a modus operandi of acquiring level-3 businesses and cutting out everything not necessary for a level-1 or −2 business.
Yeah, I think the right language around this probably moves away from “world”. You also starve pretty soon after as you’re 100% in world 4 - they’re stereotyped worldviews, not literally evenly distributed worlds. [ETA: Not quite—Michael Vassar pointed out to me that selection pressures can be strong enough for stage 4 to be sustainable in sufficiently forgiving environments—you can do the things to sustain life as rituals within a power game rather than through understanding what they do.]
I think the main way to move back to world 1 in a world not dominated by it is to construct systems that internally coordinate according to world 1 and use their superior ability to build and use shared maps to outmaneuver more socially constrained systems and take territory from them.
The right way for world 1 to hold onto power is by (a) taking care of everyone involved unconditionally, so there’s no particular reason to manufacture a story where you’re useful, and (b) prioritizing maintaining shared maps about who’s faking.