Overall, the feeling I get from this post is one of being asked to make a move in a game I don’t fully understand (or am being lied* to about to persuade me that my understanding of it is too cynical). I’m asked to believe that I’m not giving up anything important by making this move, but people seem to care a lot about it in a way that casts some suspicion on that claim.
The last time I agreed to a major request that felt like this, I ended up spending an extra year I shouldn’t have in a deeply toxic situation.
Here’s my impression of what’s going on. Most people socialize by playing a zero-sum coalitional game with a blame component. To conceal the adversarial nature of what’s going on—to confuse the victims and bystanders—coalition membership isn’t explicit or discrete. Instead, approval and disapproval mechanisms are used to single out people for exclusion and expropriation. Getting away with insulting someone is a way of singling them out in this way. Any criticism that challenges someone’s social narrative is going to have similar effects in this game, even if it’s not intended mainly as a move in the game.
I’m being asked, by someone who cares about their stakes in that game, to make sure to declare that I think the person I’m criticizing should still be in the coalition, rather than an expropriation target. I also see requests that others actually conceal information that’s valuable to me in the games I am trying to play, to accommodate this coalitional game. For instance, your request that Zack pretend he thought you were being more reasonable than he actually thought.
I am actually not trying to play this game. I don’t consent to this game. I don’t want to give it more power. I don’t think the person should be in the coalition because I don’t like or trust the coalition and think that the game it’s playing is harmful. This is not how I find or keep my friends. I’ve seen this kind of behavior pervert the course of justice. I find it deeply sketchy to be asked to make a move in this game on LessWrong in a way that keeps the game covert. I fled the Bay Area in part because I got sick and tired of this game.
*At the very least, in the the sense that people are dismissing my model because it sounds bad and they don’t feel like bad people, without checking whether it’s, well, true. The technical term for this might be bullshit but there’s no nonawkward passive verb form of that.
Overall, the feeling I get from this post is one of being asked to make a move in a game I don’t fully understand (or am being lied* to about to persuade me that my understanding of it is too cynical). I’m asked to believe that I’m not giving up anything important by making this move, but people seem to care a lot about it in a way that casts some suspicion on that claim.
The last time I agreed to a major request that felt like this, I ended up spending an extra year I shouldn’t have in a deeply toxic situation.
Here’s my impression of what’s going on. Most people socialize by playing a zero-sum coalitional game with a blame component. To conceal the adversarial nature of what’s going on—to confuse the victims and bystanders—coalition membership isn’t explicit or discrete. Instead, approval and disapproval mechanisms are used to single out people for exclusion and expropriation. Getting away with insulting someone is a way of singling them out in this way. Any criticism that challenges someone’s social narrative is going to have similar effects in this game, even if it’s not intended mainly as a move in the game.
I’m being asked, by someone who cares about their stakes in that game, to make sure to declare that I think the person I’m criticizing should still be in the coalition, rather than an expropriation target. I also see requests that others actually conceal information that’s valuable to me in the games I am trying to play, to accommodate this coalitional game. For instance, your request that Zack pretend he thought you were being more reasonable than he actually thought.
I am actually not trying to play this game. I don’t consent to this game. I don’t want to give it more power. I don’t think the person should be in the coalition because I don’t like or trust the coalition and think that the game it’s playing is harmful. This is not how I find or keep my friends. I’ve seen this kind of behavior pervert the course of justice. I find it deeply sketchy to be asked to make a move in this game on LessWrong in a way that keeps the game covert. I fled the Bay Area in part because I got sick and tired of this game.
*At the very least, in the the sense that people are dismissing my model because it sounds bad and they don’t feel like bad people, without checking whether it’s, well, true. The technical term for this might be bullshit but there’s no nonawkward passive verb form of that.
I’ve read your comments. I’m thinking through them. I might not have a response in the next few days, but I have read them.