I’m naming it after the character from 1984, it’s a way of disentangling social reality / reality buckets errors in system 1, by holding two different contradicting verbal statements in your head, “2+2=4”, “2+2=5“, and contrasting them and their uses and anticipations until they split apart into not seeming to be talking about the same thing. (Use “2+2=5” to anticipate social reality, use “2+2=4” to anticipate reality.) Try guiding the “that’s inconsistent” processes it spins up to focus their efforts along two separate planes, or something like that.
It should not end in doublethink. I.E., when you get the S1 shift, then you are done with verbal contradictions, and can just think “2+2=5” in quotes with an implicit “this is a lie” tag. Sort of it’s a way of getting your S1 to feel the quotes.
Practice it a bunch and you may build up immunity to social reality.
This was a helpful encapsulation of a concept, thanks. (I have a vague feeling I might be missing something subtle about in, more due to priors than any specific information about this example)
Oh shit, I was gonna write that up before I published this and then I forgot. Will fix later. (Edit: posted with slightly more detail [here](https://www.lesserwrong.com/posts/XYzKEic8CovkWNwtb/the-o-brien-technique))
I’m naming it after the character from 1984, it’s a way of disentangling social reality / reality buckets errors in system 1, by holding two different contradicting verbal statements in your head, “2+2=4”, “2+2=5“, and contrasting them and their uses and anticipations until they split apart into not seeming to be talking about the same thing. (Use “2+2=5” to anticipate social reality, use “2+2=4” to anticipate reality.) Try guiding the “that’s inconsistent” processes it spins up to focus their efforts along two separate planes, or something like that.
It should not end in doublethink. I.E., when you get the S1 shift, then you are done with verbal contradictions, and can just think “2+2=5” in quotes with an implicit “this is a lie” tag. Sort of it’s a way of getting your S1 to feel the quotes.
Practice it a bunch and you may build up immunity to social reality.
This was a helpful encapsulation of a concept, thanks. (I have a vague feeling I might be missing something subtle about in, more due to priors than any specific information about this example)