In my humble opinion, the only difference between “bad” Frame Control and “good” Frame Control is in how much the Frame corresponds with objective reality, and hopefully, social reality as well.
Good leadership could be then explained as Frame Controlling the group towards alignment with positive outcomes in objective physical reality while avoiding negative social outcomes.
In my humble opinion, the only difference between “bad” Frame Control and “good” Frame Control is in how much the Frame corresponds with objective reality, and hopefully, social reality as well.
Hmm. I would guess that, if someone is using a wrong frame (let’s say it depends on assumptions that are demonstrably false), and you have a better frame in mind, there are still better ways and worse ways to go about communicating this and going from the one to the other. Like, explicitly saying “It looks like you’re assuming X, which is wrong because …” seems like the most educational and intellectually legible approach, probably best in a good-faith discussion with an intelligent counterpart; whereas e.g. just saying new stuff from a different set of assumptions that doesn’t directly engage with what they’ve said—but initially looks like it does, and takes long enough / goes through enough distracting stuff before it reaches a mismatch that they’ve forgotten that they’d said something different—is potentially bad.
Now, er, the original post says it uses “frame control” to mean the non-explicit, tricky approach. It mentions “Trying to demonstrate, through reason and facts, how their box is better”, and says “These are all attempts to control your frame, but none of these is what I mean by frame control”, and “No; frame control is the “man doesn’t announce his presence, he just stalks you silently” of the communication world.”
This is unfortunate, because the bare phrase “frame control” will inevitably be interpreted as “actions that control the frame” without further qualifiers (I’d forgotten that the post had the above definition). Something like “silent frame control”, “frame manipulation”, or “frame fuckery” would probably fit better.
I’ll risk sounding a bit crass, but is it not often an issue of the intelligence/knowledge of the recipient?
I mean it in two ways:
1. Sometimes Frame Control only feels tricky or non-explicit, because the recipient is unobservant, or lacking in social tools to recognize explicit but gentle Frame Control. Basically, mistaking politeness and verbosity for manipulation. To use that metaphor: the man was not stalking you silently, you were just wearing headphones and daydreaming instead of paying attention to your surroundings.
2. The recipient could not be convinced that objectively true facts are true, because they lack the knowledge or mental skills to understand them, and Frame Control is pretty much the only way they can be led to accept the facts. I, for one, do not know jack about Quantum Physics, and the holes in my understanding go back to HS science and math. It is literally impossible to teach me to accept say, String Theory on objective principles (“I know it makes sense!”), only to Frame Control me into agreeing with it on subjective principles (“This Hawking guy sure sounds smart!”).
Because of points 1 and 2, a “Frameless” discussion is very hard and unlikely, unless both people are intellectually adept and introspective rationalists, who only slightly differ in their knowledge of the facts on the subject. Any other human interaction by necessity runs on Appeal to Authority (which is basically Frame Control), otherwise nothing would ever get accomplished.
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.
In my humble opinion, the only difference between “bad” Frame Control and “good” Frame Control is in how much the Frame corresponds with objective reality, and hopefully, social reality as well.
Good leadership could be then explained as Frame Controlling the group towards alignment with positive outcomes in objective physical reality while avoiding negative social outcomes.
Hmm. I would guess that, if someone is using a wrong frame (let’s say it depends on assumptions that are demonstrably false), and you have a better frame in mind, there are still better ways and worse ways to go about communicating this and going from the one to the other. Like, explicitly saying “It looks like you’re assuming X, which is wrong because …” seems like the most educational and intellectually legible approach, probably best in a good-faith discussion with an intelligent counterpart; whereas e.g. just saying new stuff from a different set of assumptions that doesn’t directly engage with what they’ve said—but initially looks like it does, and takes long enough / goes through enough distracting stuff before it reaches a mismatch that they’ve forgotten that they’d said something different—is potentially bad.
Now, er, the original post says it uses “frame control” to mean the non-explicit, tricky approach. It mentions “Trying to demonstrate, through reason and facts, how their box is better”, and says “These are all attempts to control your frame, but none of these is what I mean by frame control”, and “No; frame control is the “man doesn’t announce his presence, he just stalks you silently” of the communication world.”
This is unfortunate, because the bare phrase “frame control” will inevitably be interpreted as “actions that control the frame” without further qualifiers (I’d forgotten that the post had the above definition). Something like “silent frame control”, “frame manipulation”, or “frame fuckery” would probably fit better.
I’ll risk sounding a bit crass, but is it not often an issue of the intelligence/knowledge of the recipient?
I mean it in two ways:
1. Sometimes Frame Control only feels tricky or non-explicit, because the recipient is unobservant, or lacking in social tools to recognize explicit but gentle Frame Control. Basically, mistaking politeness and verbosity for manipulation. To use that metaphor: the man was not stalking you silently, you were just wearing headphones and daydreaming instead of paying attention to your surroundings.
2. The recipient could not be convinced that objectively true facts are true, because they lack the knowledge or mental skills to understand them, and Frame Control is pretty much the only way they can be led to accept the facts. I, for one, do not know jack about Quantum Physics, and the holes in my understanding go back to HS science and math. It is literally impossible to teach me to accept say, String Theory on objective principles (“I know it makes sense!”), only to Frame Control me into agreeing with it on subjective principles (“This Hawking guy sure sounds smart!”).
Because of points 1 and 2, a “Frameless” discussion is very hard and unlikely, unless both people are intellectually adept and introspective rationalists, who only slightly differ in their knowledge of the facts on the subject. Any other human interaction by necessity runs on Appeal to Authority (which is basically Frame Control), otherwise nothing would ever get accomplished.
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.