Funny how these things can be interpreted. A rich submissive man could see giving a woman money as a submissive act (“she control’s my finances!”), while a dominant man could see it as a dominant act (“I take care of her!”)
What about the other cases? Like, say, a rich humanlike perfect-decision-theoretic agent? Or simply normal people that don’t think dominance or submission are inherent parts of their identities or interpersonal relationships?
I know that myself and a few other of my acquaintances often utterly confuse people who attempt to judge us on a “dominance vs submissiveness” axis, simply because we disregard any notion of “dominance status” and merely act according to some other system that doesn’t correlate well with either “trait”, which creates high variations of “dominant” or “submissive” behaviors in situations that seem strikingly similar to the evaluator.
I’ve been called (more than once) a very “incoherent” person on this basis.
My model is unfortunately not complete enough to reliably give good examples. I only observe those reactions, but I don’t myself understand how my behavior is “incoherent” or “confusing”. From inside, it feels like they’re the ones shackling their thoughts around binary axes and failing to think of things-as-things-are. Nevertheless, I can try.
In the basics, suppose a couple of colleagues and yourself (or schoolmates or somesuch, substitute as appropriate) are discussing a particular project. The D vs S axis seems (i.e. appears to me, though I don’t know if this passes i-turing) to predict that some people will be talking more, offering more ideas, while others will merely align with the dominant-type person/idea that fits their preference, and that these roles will tend to persist throughout instances (e.g. if you have multiple meetings) with people usually keeping their roles.
What does that axis make of people, like me and possibly other LW users, stay in the background analyzing the problem without affiliating with any of the dominant ideas, sometimes outright objecting to some ideas while denying the claim of being affiliated with its “opponent”, and sometimes offering a (presumed) better solution in some meetings when we feel more competent and able to provide one, but not otherwise?
Where, on the axis, do you classify these people?
Are they dominant? But they lack the characteristic trait of imposing their will—they have no followers, they do not grab for attention, they refuse to impose their solution (I used to only impose a solution when any of the alternatives under consideration would be catastrophic within context, but now in hopefully good instrumental rationality I attempt to signal myself as dominant in order to bring about somewhat more optimal outcomes), and only debate so far as to show the superiority of the idea/solution itself or the flaws of other ideas.
Are they submissive, then? Well, I would think not really, since they don’t align to any dominance, fail to signal dependence, and “The Laws of Physics, The Universe, And Everything” sounds like a pretty bad D vs S partner. Maybe they could be considered submissive to some “Logic” or “Physics” entity, but I doubt even D-S axis-minded people would go that far.
Of course, this example seems, even to me, quite contrived, but it’s basically an example of what I observe and experience.
I just act in certain manners which I consider completely natural, without conforming myself to any encompassing conception of self-personality or self-identity—merely acting the way I want to act, of which there is a subset of wanting to do things that I ought to do even when other parts of my brain don’t like it—as long as my memories and theories of my core self hold to the few principles I consider important (of which subsets, etc.). In reaction to my actions, people express (not always explicitly) some sort of confusion over what to expect of my behaviors, since I’m “all over the place” and “incoherent and unpredictable” (nowadays, this is another of those ambiguous comments which I personally take as a good compliment, since we can’t predict what a higher-than-human intelligence would do and all that).
In the context of “romantic” relationships, I’d pretty much be “the kind of people” that deliberately acts in a manner to please their partner (which in my model seems typically submissive), yet does so directly on their own impulse, without asking first, and does things the other might never have asked for or thought of (which in my model seems typical dominant behavior—just do stuff that brings the results and situations you want). All kinds of mixed signals get sent (or so I’ve been told), while from inside it’s basically just that I want to do something and I act on it.
Hopefully this helps understand what I’m saying. I’ve heard one hardcore qualify me as a “chameleon dominant”, where since I just do what I want (and subsets thereof), I’m fully dominant on the axis, but “disguise” myself into a submissive whenever I just happen to want to play such a role. I didn’t really have any problem with that or retorts / counterarguments at the time, and don’t care enough to think about it too much.
What kind of weird boundaries people want to draw around what and which one of those categories they put me in is usually not something I bother caring about unless the intellectual exercise is interesting or my life is on the line (the latter never happened so far, luckily).
What about the other cases? Like, say, a rich humanlike perfect-decision-theoretic agent? Or simply normal people that don’t think dominance or submission are inherent parts of their identities or interpersonal relationships?
I know that myself and a few other of my acquaintances often utterly confuse people who attempt to judge us on a “dominance vs submissiveness” axis, simply because we disregard any notion of “dominance status” and merely act according to some other system that doesn’t correlate well with either “trait”, which creates high variations of “dominant” or “submissive” behaviors in situations that seem strikingly similar to the evaluator.
I’ve been called (more than once) a very “incoherent” person on this basis.
Your behavior sounds interesting. Could you give some examples?
My model is unfortunately not complete enough to reliably give good examples. I only observe those reactions, but I don’t myself understand how my behavior is “incoherent” or “confusing”. From inside, it feels like they’re the ones shackling their thoughts around binary axes and failing to think of things-as-things-are. Nevertheless, I can try.
In the basics, suppose a couple of colleagues and yourself (or schoolmates or somesuch, substitute as appropriate) are discussing a particular project. The D vs S axis seems (i.e. appears to me, though I don’t know if this passes i-turing) to predict that some people will be talking more, offering more ideas, while others will merely align with the dominant-type person/idea that fits their preference, and that these roles will tend to persist throughout instances (e.g. if you have multiple meetings) with people usually keeping their roles.
What does that axis make of people, like me and possibly other LW users, stay in the background analyzing the problem without affiliating with any of the dominant ideas, sometimes outright objecting to some ideas while denying the claim of being affiliated with its “opponent”, and sometimes offering a (presumed) better solution in some meetings when we feel more competent and able to provide one, but not otherwise?
Where, on the axis, do you classify these people?
Are they dominant? But they lack the characteristic trait of imposing their will—they have no followers, they do not grab for attention, they refuse to impose their solution (I used to only impose a solution when any of the alternatives under consideration would be catastrophic within context, but now in hopefully good instrumental rationality I attempt to signal myself as dominant in order to bring about somewhat more optimal outcomes), and only debate so far as to show the superiority of the idea/solution itself or the flaws of other ideas.
Are they submissive, then? Well, I would think not really, since they don’t align to any dominance, fail to signal dependence, and “The Laws of Physics, The Universe, And Everything” sounds like a pretty bad D vs S partner. Maybe they could be considered submissive to some “Logic” or “Physics” entity, but I doubt even D-S axis-minded people would go that far.
Of course, this example seems, even to me, quite contrived, but it’s basically an example of what I observe and experience.
I just act in certain manners which I consider completely natural, without conforming myself to any encompassing conception of self-personality or self-identity—merely acting the way I want to act, of which there is a subset of wanting to do things that I ought to do even when other parts of my brain don’t like it—as long as my memories and theories of my core self hold to the few principles I consider important (of which subsets, etc.). In reaction to my actions, people express (not always explicitly) some sort of confusion over what to expect of my behaviors, since I’m “all over the place” and “incoherent and unpredictable” (nowadays, this is another of those ambiguous comments which I personally take as a good compliment, since we can’t predict what a higher-than-human intelligence would do and all that).
In the context of “romantic” relationships, I’d pretty much be “the kind of people” that deliberately acts in a manner to please their partner (which in my model seems typically submissive), yet does so directly on their own impulse, without asking first, and does things the other might never have asked for or thought of (which in my model seems typical dominant behavior—just do stuff that brings the results and situations you want). All kinds of mixed signals get sent (or so I’ve been told), while from inside it’s basically just that I want to do something and I act on it.
Hopefully this helps understand what I’m saying. I’ve heard one hardcore qualify me as a “chameleon dominant”, where since I just do what I want (and subsets thereof), I’m fully dominant on the axis, but “disguise” myself into a submissive whenever I just happen to want to play such a role. I didn’t really have any problem with that or retorts / counterarguments at the time, and don’t care enough to think about it too much.
What kind of weird boundaries people want to draw around what and which one of those categories they put me in is usually not something I bother caring about unless the intellectual exercise is interesting or my life is on the line (the latter never happened so far, luckily).