In your view, is there an important difference between frame control, and the author having a particular frame that they use in a particular essay?
Yep!
Distinctions in Frame Control
I’m still working through this, which is part of why the post isn’t written up yet. I’m also not sure if I’m actually going to use the phrase ‘frame control’ because it might just be too easy to weaponize in a way that makes it more unhelpful than helpful. (i.e. the concept I have in mind here is something it makes to have the norm of ‘notice when you do it, and be careful with it’, not ‘don’t do it ever’)
But, here are my current thoughts on how I currently carve up the space here:
having a strongly held/presented frame, such as by speaking confidently/authoritatively (which many people who don’t hold their own frames very strongly sometimes find disorienting)
having an insistently held frame (where when someone tries to say/imply ‘hey, my frame is X’ you’re like ‘no, the frame is Y’ and if they’re like ‘no, it’s X’)
frame manipulation (where you change someone else’s frame in a subtle way without them noticing, i.e. presenting a set of assumptions in a way that aren’t natural to question, or equivocating on definitions of words in ways that change what sort of questions to think about without people noticing you’ve done so)
#2, #3 and #4 can be mixed and matched.
The places where people tend to use the word ‘frame control’ most often refer to #3 and #4, frame-manipulation and frame-insistence. I’m a bit confused about how to think about ‘strong frames’ – I think there’s nothing inherently wrong with them, but if Alice is ‘weaker willed’ than Bob, she may end up adopting his frame in ways that subtly hurt her. This isn’t that different from, like, some people being physically bigger and more likely to accidentally hurt a smaller person. I wouldn’t want society to punish people for happening-to-be-big, but it feels useful to at least notice ‘bigness privilege’ sometimes.
That said, strongly held frames that are also manipulative or insistent can be pretty hard for many people to be resilient against, and I think it’s worth noticing that.
Re: this particular post
This post felt like (mild) frame manipulation to me, here:
Contemplating these basics, it should be clear that there’s just not going to be anything like a unique style of “rationalist discourse”, any more than there is a unique “physicist motor.”
Where I think this objection only quite makes sense if you’re considering “rationalist discourse” to be “rationalist-as-scientist-studying-laws”, instead of “applied-rationalist”.
A thing that would have fixed it is noting “Duncan seems to be using a different definition of ‘rationalist’ and ‘basics’ here. But I think those definitions are less useful because [reasons].
(Note: I don’t think you actually need the ‘frame’ frame, or the ‘frame control’ frame, to object to your post on these grounds. Equivocation / changing definitions also just seems, like, ‘deceptive’)
I do want to flag: I also think Duncan’s ‘The Basics of Rationalist Discourse’ is also somewhat frame-manipulative while also being somewhat strongly held, by my definition here. I went out of my way to try and counter-the-frame-control in my curation notice. (I have some complicated thoughts on whether this was fine, whether it was more or less fine than my complaint here, but it’d take awhile more to put them into legible form)
I’m definitely doing #2. I can see your case that the paragraph starting with “But there’s a reason for that” is doing #4. But … I’m not convinced that this kind of “frame manipulation” is particularly bad?
If someone is unhappy with the post’s attempt to “grab the frame” (by acting as if my conception of rationalist is the correct one), I’m happy to explain why I did that in the comments. Do I have to disclaim it in the post? That just seems like it would be worse writing.
I think in isolation it wouldn’t be particularly bad, no. I think it’d rise to the level of ‘definitely better to avoid’ (given [probably?] shared assumptions about truthseeking and honesty), but, it’s within the set of mistakes I think are fairly normal to make.
I feel like it is part of a broader pattern that (I think probably) adds up to something noticeably bad, but it’d take me awhile of active effort to find all the things that felt off to me and figure out if I endorse criticizing it as a whole.
(So, like, for now I’m not trying to make a strong argument that there’s a particular thing that’s wrong, but, like, I think you have enough self-knowledge to notice ‘yeah something is off in a sticky way here’ and figure it out yourself. ((But, as previously stated, I don’t have a strong belief that this makes sense to be your priority atm)))
A thing that would have fixed it is noting “Duncan seems to be using a different definition of ‘rationalist’ and ‘basics’ here. But I think those definitions are less useful because [reasons].
Oh, also to clarify, in my current view, you don’t need to tack on the ‘because [reasons]’ to avoid it being frame manipulation. Simply noting that you think it makes more sense to use a different definition is enough to dispel the sleight of hand feeling. (Although listing reasons may make it more persuasive that people use this definition rather than another one)
Yep!
Distinctions in Frame Control
I’m still working through this, which is part of why the post isn’t written up yet. I’m also not sure if I’m actually going to use the phrase ‘frame control’ because it might just be too easy to weaponize in a way that makes it more unhelpful than helpful. (i.e. the concept I have in mind here is something it makes to have the norm of ‘notice when you do it, and be careful with it’, not ‘don’t do it ever’)
But, here are my current thoughts on how I currently carve up the space here:
having a frame, at all [i.e. set of ways to conceptualize a problem or solution-space or what questions to ask]
having a strongly held/presented frame, such as by speaking confidently/authoritatively (which many people who don’t hold their own frames very strongly sometimes find disorienting)
having an insistently held frame (where when someone tries to say/imply ‘hey, my frame is X’ you’re like ‘no, the frame is Y’ and if they’re like ‘no, it’s X’)
frame manipulation (where you change someone else’s frame in a subtle way without them noticing, i.e. presenting a set of assumptions in a way that aren’t natural to question, or equivocating on definitions of words in ways that change what sort of questions to think about without people noticing you’ve done so)
#2, #3 and #4 can be mixed and matched.
The places where people tend to use the word ‘frame control’ most often refer to #3 and #4, frame-manipulation and frame-insistence. I’m a bit confused about how to think about ‘strong frames’ – I think there’s nothing inherently wrong with them, but if Alice is ‘weaker willed’ than Bob, she may end up adopting his frame in ways that subtly hurt her. This isn’t that different from, like, some people being physically bigger and more likely to accidentally hurt a smaller person. I wouldn’t want society to punish people for happening-to-be-big, but it feels useful to at least notice ‘bigness privilege’ sometimes.
That said, strongly held frames that are also manipulative or insistent can be pretty hard for many people to be resilient against, and I think it’s worth noticing that.
Re: this particular post
This post felt like (mild) frame manipulation to me, here:
Where I think this objection only quite makes sense if you’re considering “rationalist discourse” to be “rationalist-as-scientist-studying-laws”, instead of “applied-rationalist”.
A thing that would have fixed it is noting “Duncan seems to be using a different definition of ‘rationalist’ and ‘basics’ here. But I think those definitions are less useful because [reasons].
(Note: I don’t think you actually need the ‘frame’ frame, or the ‘frame control’ frame, to object to your post on these grounds. Equivocation / changing definitions also just seems, like, ‘deceptive’)
I do want to flag: I also think Duncan’s ‘The Basics of Rationalist Discourse’ is also somewhat frame-manipulative while also being somewhat strongly held, by my definition here. I went out of my way to try and counter-the-frame-control in my curation notice. (I have some complicated thoughts on whether this was fine, whether it was more or less fine than my complaint here, but it’d take awhile more to put them into legible form)
I’m definitely doing #2. I can see your case that the paragraph starting with “But there’s a reason for that” is doing #4. But … I’m not convinced that this kind of “frame manipulation” is particularly bad?
If someone is unhappy with the post’s attempt to “grab the frame” (by acting as if my conception of rationalist is the correct one), I’m happy to explain why I did that in the comments. Do I have to disclaim it in the post? That just seems like it would be worse writing.
I think in isolation it wouldn’t be particularly bad, no. I think it’d rise to the level of ‘definitely better to avoid’ (given [probably?] shared assumptions about truthseeking and honesty), but, it’s within the set of mistakes I think are fairly normal to make.
I feel like it is part of a broader pattern that (I think probably) adds up to something noticeably bad, but it’d take me awhile of active effort to find all the things that felt off to me and figure out if I endorse criticizing it as a whole.
(So, like, for now I’m not trying to make a strong argument that there’s a particular thing that’s wrong, but, like, I think you have enough self-knowledge to notice ‘yeah something is off in a sticky way here’ and figure it out yourself. ((But, as previously stated, I don’t have a strong belief that this makes sense to be your priority atm)))
Oh, also to clarify, in my current view, you don’t need to tack on the ‘because [reasons]’ to avoid it being frame manipulation. Simply noting that you think it makes more sense to use a different definition is enough to dispel the sleight of hand feeling. (Although listing reasons may make it more persuasive that people use this definition rather than another one)