I don’t think it’s inherently difficult to tell the difference between someone who is speaking N levels above you and someone who is speaking N+1 levels above you. The one speaking at a higher level is going to expand on all of the things they describe as errors, giving *more complex* explanations.
The difficulty is that it’s impossible to tell if someone who is higher level than you is wrong, or telling a sophisticated lie, or correct, or some other option. The only way to understand how they reached their conclusion is to level up to their level and understand it the hard way.
There’s a related problem, where it’s nigh impossible to tell if someone who is actually at level N but speaking at level N+X is making shit up completely unless you are above the level they are (and can spot errors in their reasoning).
Take a very simple case: A smart kid explaining kitchen appliances to a less smart kid. First he talks about the blender, and how there’s an electric motor inside the base that makes the gear thingy go spinny, and that goes through the pitcher and makes the blades go spinny and chop stuff up. Then he talks about the toaster, and talks about the hot wires making the toast go, and the dial controls the timer that pops the toast out.
Then he goes +x over his actual knowledge level, and says that the microwave beams heat radiation into the food, created by the electronics, and that the refrigerator uses an ‘electric cooler’ (the opposite of an electric heater) to make cold that it pumps into the inside, and the insulated sides keep it from making the entire house cold.
Half of those are true explanations, and half of those are bluffs, but someone who is barely has the understanding needed to verify the first two won’t have the understanding needed to refute the last two. If someone else corrects the wrong descriptions, said unsophisticated observer would have to use things other than the explanation to determine credibility (in the toy cases given, a good explanation could level up the observer enough to see the bluff, but in the case of +5 macroeconomics that is impractical). If the bluffing actor tries to refute the higher-level true explanation, they merely need to bluff more; people high enough level to see the bluff /already weren’t fooled/, and people of lower level see the argument see the higher level argument settle into an equilibrium or cycle isomorphic to all parties saying “That’s not how this works, that’s not how anything works; this is how that works”, and can only distinguish between them by things other than the content of what they say (bias, charisma, credentials, tribal affiliation, or verified track records are all within the Overton Window for how to select who to believe).
I don’t think it’s inherently difficult to tell the difference between someone who is speaking N levels above you and someone who is speaking N+1 levels above you. The one speaking at a higher level is going to expand on all of the things they describe as errors, giving *more complex* explanations.
The difficulty is that it’s impossible to tell if someone who is higher level than you is wrong, or telling a sophisticated lie, or correct, or some other option. The only way to understand how they reached their conclusion is to level up to their level and understand it the hard way.
There’s a related problem, where it’s nigh impossible to tell if someone who is actually at level N but speaking at level N+X is making shit up completely unless you are above the level they are (and can spot errors in their reasoning).
Take a very simple case: A smart kid explaining kitchen appliances to a less smart kid. First he talks about the blender, and how there’s an electric motor inside the base that makes the gear thingy go spinny, and that goes through the pitcher and makes the blades go spinny and chop stuff up. Then he talks about the toaster, and talks about the hot wires making the toast go, and the dial controls the timer that pops the toast out.
Then he goes +x over his actual knowledge level, and says that the microwave beams heat radiation into the food, created by the electronics, and that the refrigerator uses an ‘electric cooler’ (the opposite of an electric heater) to make cold that it pumps into the inside, and the insulated sides keep it from making the entire house cold.
Half of those are true explanations, and half of those are bluffs, but someone who is barely has the understanding needed to verify the first two won’t have the understanding needed to refute the last two. If someone else corrects the wrong descriptions, said unsophisticated observer would have to use things other than the explanation to determine credibility (in the toy cases given, a good explanation could level up the observer enough to see the bluff, but in the case of +5 macroeconomics that is impractical). If the bluffing actor tries to refute the higher-level true explanation, they merely need to bluff more; people high enough level to see the bluff /already weren’t fooled/, and people of lower level see the argument see the higher level argument settle into an equilibrium or cycle isomorphic to all parties saying “That’s not how this works, that’s not how anything works; this is how that works”, and can only distinguish between them by things other than the content of what they say (bias, charisma, credentials, tribal affiliation, or verified track records are all within the Overton Window for how to select who to believe).