My hope is that this can become more feasible if we can provide accurate patterns for how the scissors-generating-process is trying to trick Susan(/Robert). And that if Susan is trying to figure out how she and Robert were tricked, by modeling the tricking process, this can somehow help undo the trick, without needing to empathize at any point with “what if candidate X is great.”
This is clarifying...
Does it actually have much to do with Robert? Maybe it would be more helpful to talk with Tusan and Vusan, who are also A-blind, B-seeing, candidate Y supporters. They’re the ones who would punish non-punishers of supporting candidate X / talking about A. (Which Susan would become, if she were talking to an A-seer without pushing back, let alone if she could see into her A-blindspot.) You could talk to Robert about how he’s embedded in threats of punishment for non-punishment of supporting candidate Y / talking about B, but that seems more confusing? IDK.
You raise a good point that Susan’s relationship to Tusan and Vusan is part of what keeps her opinions stuck/stable.
But I’m hopeful that if Susan tries to “put primary focal attention on where the scissors comes from, and how it is working to trick Susan and Robert at once”, this’ll help with her stuckness re: Tusan and Vusan. Like, it’ll still be hard, but it’ll be less hard than “what if Robert is right” would be.
Reasons I’m hopeful:
I’m partly working from a toy model in which (Susan and Tusan and Vusan) and (Robert and Sobert and Tobert) all used to be members of a common moral community, before it got scissored. And the norms and memories of that community haven’t faded all the way.
Also, in my model, Susan’s fear of Tusan’s and Vusan’s punishment isn’t mostly fear of e.g. losing her income or other material-world costs. It is mostly fear of not having a moral community she can be part of. Like, of there being nobody who upholds norms that make sense to her and sees her as a member-in-good-standing of that group of people-with-sensible-norms.
Contemplating the scissoring process… does risk her fellowship with Tusan and Vusan, and that is scary and costly for Susan.
But:
a) Tusan and Vusan are not *as* threatened by it as if Susan had e.g. been considering more directly whether Candidate X was good. I think.
b) Susan is at least partially compensated by her partial-risk-of-losing-Tusan-and-Vusan, by the hope/memory of the previous society that (Susan and Tusan and Vusan) and (Robert and Sobert and Tobert) all shared, which she has some hope of reaccessing here
b2) Tusan and Vusan are maybe also a bit tempted by this, which on their simpler models (since they’re engaging with Susan’s thoughts only very loosely / from a distance, as they complain about Susan) renders as “maybe she can change some of the candidate X supporters, since she’s discussing how they got tricked”
c) There are maybe some remnant-norms within the larger (pre-scissored) community that can appreciate/welcome Susan and her efforts.
I’m not sure I’m thinking about this well, or explicating it well. But I feel there should be some unscissoring process?
Susan could try to put focal attention on the scissor origins; but one way that would be difficult is that she’d get pushback from her community.
which I did say in a parenthetical, but I was mainly instead saying
Susan’s community is a key substrate for the scissor origins, maybe more than Susan’s interaction with Robert. Therefore, to put focal attention on the scissor origins, a good first step might be looking at her community—how it plays the role of one half of a scissor statement.
Your reasons for hope make sense.
hope/memory of the previous society that (Susan and Tusan and Vusan) and (Robert and Sobert and Tobert) all shared, which she has some hope of reaccessing here
Anecdata: In my case it would be mostly a hope, not a memory. E.g. I don’t remember a time when “I understand what you’re saying, but...” was a credible statement… Maybe it never was? E.g. I don’t remember a time when I would expect people to be sufficiently committed to computing “what would work for everyone to live together” that they kept doing so in political contexts.
This is clarifying...
Does it actually have much to do with Robert? Maybe it would be more helpful to talk with Tusan and Vusan, who are also A-blind, B-seeing, candidate Y supporters. They’re the ones who would punish non-punishers of supporting candidate X / talking about A. (Which Susan would become, if she were talking to an A-seer without pushing back, let alone if she could see into her A-blindspot.) You could talk to Robert about how he’s embedded in threats of punishment for non-punishment of supporting candidate Y / talking about B, but that seems more confusing? IDK.
You raise a good point that Susan’s relationship to Tusan and Vusan is part of what keeps her opinions stuck/stable.
But I’m hopeful that if Susan tries to “put primary focal attention on where the scissors comes from, and how it is working to trick Susan and Robert at once”, this’ll help with her stuckness re: Tusan and Vusan. Like, it’ll still be hard, but it’ll be less hard than “what if Robert is right” would be.
Reasons I’m hopeful:
I’m partly working from a toy model in which (Susan and Tusan and Vusan) and (Robert and Sobert and Tobert) all used to be members of a common moral community, before it got scissored. And the norms and memories of that community haven’t faded all the way.
Also, in my model, Susan’s fear of Tusan’s and Vusan’s punishment isn’t mostly fear of e.g. losing her income or other material-world costs. It is mostly fear of not having a moral community she can be part of. Like, of there being nobody who upholds norms that make sense to her and sees her as a member-in-good-standing of that group of people-with-sensible-norms.
Contemplating the scissoring process… does risk her fellowship with Tusan and Vusan, and that is scary and costly for Susan.
But:
a) Tusan and Vusan are not *as* threatened by it as if Susan had e.g. been considering more directly whether Candidate X was good. I think.
b) Susan is at least partially compensated by her partial-risk-of-losing-Tusan-and-Vusan, by the hope/memory of the previous society that (Susan and Tusan and Vusan) and (Robert and Sobert and Tobert) all shared, which she has some hope of reaccessing here
b2) Tusan and Vusan are maybe also a bit tempted by this, which on their simpler models (since they’re engaging with Susan’s thoughts only very loosely / from a distance, as they complain about Susan) renders as “maybe she can change some of the candidate X supporters, since she’s discussing how they got tricked”
c) There are maybe some remnant-norms within the larger (pre-scissored) community that can appreciate/welcome Susan and her efforts.
I’m not sure I’m thinking about this well, or explicating it well. But I feel there should be some unscissoring process?
I think you might have been responding to
which I did say in a parenthetical, but I was mainly instead saying
Your reasons for hope make sense.
Anecdata: In my case it would be mostly a hope, not a memory. E.g. I don’t remember a time when “I understand what you’re saying, but...” was a credible statement… Maybe it never was? E.g. I don’t remember a time when I would expect people to be sufficiently committed to computing “what would work for everyone to live together” that they kept doing so in political contexts.