I think this post was valuable for starting a conversation, but isn’t the canonical reference post on Frame Control I’d eventually like to see in the world. But re-reading the comments here, I am struck by the wealth of great analysis and ideas in the ensuing discussion
The most robust defense against abuse is to foster independence in the corresponding domain. [...] The most robust defense against financial abuse is to foster financial independence [...] if I am in not independent in some domain, then I am necessarily dependent on someone else in that domain, dependence creates an opportunity for abuse.
Applying that idea to frame control: the most robust defense is to build my own frames, pay attention to them, notice when they don’t match the frame someone else is using, etc. It’s “frame independence”: I independently maintain my own frames, and notice when other people set up frames which clash with them.
[...] When we can’t rely on “frame independence”, we want to have a variety of people around providing different frames, so that it’s easy to move between them
People coming to a teacher often are looking for someone to fix everything wrong with their life. Even if the seeker logically rejects this narrative it can often be an emotional reality that they are looking for a dharma daddy.
Bad teachers can encourage this dynamic. [...] They don’t undermine seeker’s tendency to look to them for all the answers. I’ve seen this first hand where everything the teacher in a space said was a corrective, with the underlying principles never clearly expounded. This lead to an evaporative cooling process whereby people not susceptible to this sort of attack simply left, leaving an environment where everyone is deferring to the person all the time.
Matt Goldenberg expresses a model about frame control and leadership:
Frame control is probably necessary for good leadership. A good leader is a Kegan 5 individual who can find the ontology that they can use to educate and motivate Kegan 4 and Kegan 3 underlings in an organization that will allow them to correctly respond to current conditions, and then help them to change that ontology as the conditions change.
But frame control is also the thing that Kegan 4.5 sociopaths use to control the narrative in cults and moral mazes. It allows them to get all of the credit, take none of the blame, and keep less powerful or sophiscated people in the dark about their games, and even happy to give them more control and power.
A well aligned Kegan 5 leader aware of the possiblity of capture by sociopaths, and skilled in frame control, is one of the best defenses against sociopaths, moreso than any specific communication rules, although rules like e.g. transparency of communication are helpful in this regard, as is Malcolm’s norm around honoring distrust.
Duncan Sabien notes:
often the frame controller is themselves stuck in the frame. They either don’t know another kind of frame could even exist, or rely on it for their own self-image or self-worth or something.
Which Kaj Sotala elaborates on:
Like there were moments when I said something, and they immediately claimed I had said something else, and I could tell their claim to be false because we were having a conversation in text form and I could see my own previous words right above their last message. But at times when our conversation was not in text form and I didn’t always remember what exactly had been said, the strength of their conviction would often make me doubt myself and wonder whether I really had told them some nasty thing they were claiming that I had said. (It did not help matters that my memory is often poor so there were occasions when they did genuinely point out something that I had misremembered.)
Lots of relationships and minor interactions have low-key frame control going on pretty frequently. I think it’s useful to be able to name that without implying that it’s (necessarily) that big a deal. I find myself wanting separate words for “social moves that control the frame”, “moves that control the frame in subtle ways”, “move that control the frame pervasively in a way that is unsettlingly unhealthy.”
This is harder because even the most pervasive frame control appears on a spectrum. A romantic partner or family member can consistently weave a frame that is slightly unhealthy, but that doesn’t hold a candle to a cult that systematically eliminates all your mental defenses.
[...] One of the most important, sad lessons I had to learn about this is that the person weaving a frame, or controlling, or abusing you, can be weak. Society taught me scripts for handling powerful, high status abusers who needed to be whistleblown. And society taught me scripts for handling predators who were… clearly villainanous. But it turned out the people I needed to be aware of were legitimately victims in their own right.
Anna Salamon’s top-voted comment essentially is a high level review of the post. If it hadn’t yet been written I’d have wanted someone to write it for the review.
I like this post fine for conversation-level discussion; it’s got some interesting examples and anecdotes and claims and hypotheses, seems worth reading and helpful-on-some-points. I don’t as much like it as a contribution to LW’s “vetted precedents that we get to cite when sorting through political cases”, because I think it doesn’t hit the fairly high and hard-to-hit standard required for such precedents to be on-net-not-too-confusing/“weaponizable”/something.
[...]
I am uneasy about the fact that many of the post’s examples are from a current conflict that is still being worked out (the rationalist community’s attempt to figure out how to relate to Geoff Anders). IMO, we are still in the process of evaluating both: a) Whether Geoff Anders is someone the rationalist community (or various folks in it) would do better to ostracize, in various senses; and b) Whether there really is a thing called “frame control”, what exactly it is, whether it’s bad, whether it should be “burned with fire,” etc.
I would much rather we try to prosecute conversation (a) and conversation (b) separately, rather than taking unvetted claims about what a new bad thing is and how to spot it, and relatively unvetted claims about Geoff, and using them to reinforce each other.
[...]
Hammering a bit more here, we get to my third source of unease: there are plenty of ways I can excerpt-and-paraphrase-uncharitably from the OP, that seem like kinds of things that ought not to be very compelling, and that I’d kind of expect would cause harm if a community found them compelling anyhow.
[...] I like that you’re writing about something early-stage! Particularly given that it seems interesting and important. But I will wish you would do it in a way that telegraphs the early-stage-ness and lends momentum toward having readers join you as fellow scientists/philosophers/naturalists who are squinting at the phenomena together.
I think this post was valuable for starting a conversation, but isn’t the canonical reference post on Frame Control I’d eventually like to see in the world. But re-reading the comments here, I am struck by the wealth of great analysis and ideas in the ensuing discussion
John Wentworth’s comment about Frame Independence:
Romeo Stevens on hungry ghost dynamics among teachers/spirtual-communities:
Matt Goldenberg expresses a model about frame control and leadership:
Duncan Sabien notes:
Which Kaj Sotala elaborates on:
Me, on minor vs major frame control and “abusers can also be victims”:
Anna Salamon’s top-voted comment essentially is a high level review of the post. If it hadn’t yet been written I’d have wanted someone to write it for the review.