I understood the comment I was responding to as saying that Zack was helping Cade do a better job of disguising himself as someone who cared about good epistemics.
Yes, but disguising himself as someone who cares about good epistemics doesn’t require using good epistemics. Rather it means saying the right things to get the rationalist to let his guard down. There are plenty of ways to convince people about X that don’t involve doing X.
I agree that disguising one’s self as “someone who cares about X” doesn’t require being good at X, at least when you only have short contained contact with them.
I’m trying to emphasize that I don’t think Cade has made any progress in learning to “say the right things”. I think he has probably learned more individual words that are more frequent in a rationalist context than not (like the word “priors”), but it seems really unlikely that he’s gotten any better at even the grammar of rationalist communication.
Like, I’d be mediumly surprised if he, when talking to a rat, said something like “so what’s your priors on XYZ?” I’d be incredibly surprised if he said something like “there’s clearly a large inferential distance between your world model and the public’s world model, so maybe you could help point me towards what you think the cruxes might be for my next article?”
That last sentence seems like a v clear example of something that both doesn’t actually require understanding or caring about epistemology to utter, yet if I heard it I’d assume a certain orientation to epistemology and someone could falsely get me to “let my guard down”. I don’t think Cade can do things like that. And based on Zack’s convo and Vassar’s convo with him, and the amount of time and exposure he’s had to learn between the two convos, I don’t think that’s the sort of thing he’s capable of.
it seems really unlikely that he’s gotten any better at even the grammar of rationalist communication.
You don’t need to use rationalist grammar to convince rationalists that you like them. You just need to know what biases of theirs to play upon, what assumptions they’re making, how to reassure them, etc.
The skills for pretending to be someone’s friend are very different from the skills for acting like them.
Yes, but disguising himself as someone who cares about good epistemics doesn’t require using good epistemics. Rather it means saying the right things to get the rationalist to let his guard down. There are plenty of ways to convince people about X that don’t involve doing X.
I agree that disguising one’s self as “someone who cares about X” doesn’t require being good at X, at least when you only have short contained contact with them.
I’m trying to emphasize that I don’t think Cade has made any progress in learning to “say the right things”. I think he has probably learned more individual words that are more frequent in a rationalist context than not (like the word “priors”), but it seems really unlikely that he’s gotten any better at even the grammar of rationalist communication.
Like, I’d be mediumly surprised if he, when talking to a rat, said something like “so what’s your priors on XYZ?” I’d be incredibly surprised if he said something like “there’s clearly a large inferential distance between your world model and the public’s world model, so maybe you could help point me towards what you think the cruxes might be for my next article?”
That last sentence seems like a v clear example of something that both doesn’t actually require understanding or caring about epistemology to utter, yet if I heard it I’d assume a certain orientation to epistemology and someone could falsely get me to “let my guard down”. I don’t think Cade can do things like that. And based on Zack’s convo and Vassar’s convo with him, and the amount of time and exposure he’s had to learn between the two convos, I don’t think that’s the sort of thing he’s capable of.
You don’t need to use rationalist grammar to convince rationalists that you like them. You just need to know what biases of theirs to play upon, what assumptions they’re making, how to reassure them, etc.
The skills for pretending to be someone’s friend are very different from the skills for acting like them.