Hm, maybe. I can see that frame control comes in handy when you’re a general in a war, or a CEO of a startup (and probably at least some generals or CEOs are good people with good effects on the world). However, in wartime, it feels like a necessary evil to have to convince your soldiers to march to the their death. And in startups – I don’t know, cultishness can have its advantages, but I feel like the best leadership is NOT turning your underlings into people who look cultish to outsiders. So, I think the good version of frame control is generally weaker than the bad version, for instance because good leaders don’t have anything to fear in terms of their followers becoming better at passing Ideological Turing tests for opposing views. But I guess that’s just expressing your point in different words: we can say that, if our frame is aligned with physical reality and avoids negative social outcomes, it shouldn’t look like the people who buy into it are cultists.
I also think it’s informative to think about the context of a romantic relationship. In that context, I’m not sure there’s a version of “good frame control” that’s necessary. Except maybe for frames like “good communication is important” – if one person so far struggled to express their needs because they weren’t taken seriously in their past life, it can be good for both individuals if the more securely attached person pushes that kind of frame. However, the way you would do that isn’t by repeating “good communication is important” as a mantra or weapon to shame the other person for not communicating the way you want! Instead, you try showing them the benefits of good communication, convincing them through evidence of how nice it feels when it works. That’s very different from the bad type of frame control in relationships. Also, let’s say you have two people who already understand that good communication is important. Then no one is exerting any frame control – you simply have two happy people who live in the same healthy frame. And insofar as they craft features of their personal “relationship frame,” it’s a mutual sort of thing, so no one is exactly exerting any sort of control.
These examples, and the fact that you can have relationships (not just romantic ones) where something feels mutual rather than “control exerted by one party,” makes me think that there’s more to it than “good frame control differs from bad frame control merely in terms of correspondence to physical reality (and social reality).” I guess it depends what we mean by “social reality.” I think bad frame control is primarily about a lack of empathy, and that happens to leave a very distinct pattern, which you simply can’t compare to “good leadership.”
Edit: I saw another commenter making a good point in reply to your comment. What you call “good frame control” is done out in the open. The merits of good frames are often self-evident or at least verifiable. By contrast, the OP discusses (bad) frame control as a type of sneak attack. It tries to overcome your epistemic defenses.
Hm, maybe. I can see that frame control comes in handy when you’re a general in a war, or a CEO of a startup (and probably at least some generals or CEOs are good people with good effects on the world). However, in wartime, it feels like a necessary evil to have to convince your soldiers to march to the their death. And in startups – I don’t know, cultishness can have its advantages, but I feel like the best leadership is NOT turning your underlings into people who look cultish to outsiders. So, I think the good version of frame control is generally weaker than the bad version, for instance because good leaders don’t have anything to fear in terms of their followers becoming better at passing Ideological Turing tests for opposing views. But I guess that’s just expressing your point in different words: we can say that, if our frame is aligned with physical reality and avoids negative social outcomes, it shouldn’t look like the people who buy into it are cultists.
I also think it’s informative to think about the context of a romantic relationship. In that context, I’m not sure there’s a version of “good frame control” that’s necessary. Except maybe for frames like “good communication is important” – if one person so far struggled to express their needs because they weren’t taken seriously in their past life, it can be good for both individuals if the more securely attached person pushes that kind of frame. However, the way you would do that isn’t by repeating “good communication is important” as a mantra or weapon to shame the other person for not communicating the way you want! Instead, you try showing them the benefits of good communication, convincing them through evidence of how nice it feels when it works. That’s very different from the bad type of frame control in relationships. Also, let’s say you have two people who already understand that good communication is important. Then no one is exerting any frame control – you simply have two happy people who live in the same healthy frame. And insofar as they craft features of their personal “relationship frame,” it’s a mutual sort of thing, so no one is exactly exerting any sort of control.
These examples, and the fact that you can have relationships (not just romantic ones) where something feels mutual rather than “control exerted by one party,” makes me think that there’s more to it than “good frame control differs from bad frame control merely in terms of correspondence to physical reality (and social reality).” I guess it depends what we mean by “social reality.” I think bad frame control is primarily about a lack of empathy, and that happens to leave a very distinct pattern, which you simply can’t compare to “good leadership.”
Edit: I saw another commenter making a good point in reply to your comment. What you call “good frame control” is done out in the open. The merits of good frames are often self-evident or at least verifiable. By contrast, the OP discusses (bad) frame control as a type of sneak attack. It tries to overcome your epistemic defenses.