tl;dr – I’d include Daniel Kokotajlo’s 2x2 grid model in the book, as an alternate take on Simulacra levels.
Two things feel important to me about this Question Post:
This post kicked off discussion of how the evolving Simulacra Level definitions related to the original Baudrillard example. Zvi followed up on that here. This feels “historically significant”, but not necessarily something that’s going to stand the test of time as important in its own right.
Daniel Kokotajlo wrote AFAICT the first instance of the alternate 2x2 Grid model of Simulacrum levels. This is meaningfully different from the direction Zvi has taken the concept, but I think it is a much crisper model that is going to be useful in a wider variety of contexts.
I endorse including Daniel’s comment here in the 2020 Books, most likely alongside some other Simulacra posts for contrast, and perhaps some commentary about how they relate.
I think Daniel’s model most likely should not be called “Simulacra”, because it’s no longer especially related to escalating simulacra.
Most of what I have to say about Daniel’s model is in contrast to Zvi’s model. I’ll most likely do a review of Simulacra Levels And Their Interactions, which I think is the most fleshed post of the Zvi model. Zvi’s model comes with some worldview embedded in it (about how the levels came to be, and about deeper nuances of What’s Up With Level 4). I think there are plausibly some important things going on in the embedded-worldmodel-version, but it’s useful to also have a model with fewer assumptions.
I think it’s fine for both models to continue existing, with some name-differentiation.
tl;dr – I’d include Daniel Kokotajlo’s 2x2 grid model in the book, as an alternate take on Simulacra levels.
Two things feel important to me about this Question Post:
This post kicked off discussion of how the evolving Simulacra Level definitions related to the original Baudrillard example. Zvi followed up on that here. This feels “historically significant”, but not necessarily something that’s going to stand the test of time as important in its own right.
Daniel Kokotajlo wrote AFAICT the first instance of the alternate 2x2 Grid model of Simulacrum levels. This is meaningfully different from the direction Zvi has taken the concept, but I think it is a much crisper model that is going to be useful in a wider variety of contexts.
I endorse including Daniel’s comment here in the 2020 Books, most likely alongside some other Simulacra posts for contrast, and perhaps some commentary about how they relate.
I think Daniel’s model most likely should not be called “Simulacra”, because it’s no longer especially related to escalating simulacra.
Most of what I have to say about Daniel’s model is in contrast to Zvi’s model. I’ll most likely do a review of Simulacra Levels And Their Interactions, which I think is the most fleshed post of the Zvi model. Zvi’s model comes with some worldview embedded in it (about how the levels came to be, and about deeper nuances of What’s Up With Level 4). I think there are plausibly some important things going on in the embedded-worldmodel-version, but it’s useful to also have a model with fewer assumptions.
I think it’s fine for both models to continue existing, with some name-differentiation.