No, definitely not dark arts. The exact opposite, actually—though the latter probably won’t come across in this comment.
Again, I’m going to have to point at some distinctions which might feel like nits but which actually change the story completely. In this case, it’s the difference between focusing on “coming off as sane”—which I would not advocate—and “coming off as obviously sane”. Or perhaps more clearly worded “being visibly sane”.
If you focus on coming across as sane, then you are Goodharting on appearing sane even if you aren’t. “Reality doesn’t matter, just [other] people’s perceptions” does indeed lead to dark arts, and it has a ceiling. This is politician shit, and comes off as politician shit to anyone who is more perceptive than you take them for.
At the same time, the wise alternative is not “Other people’s perceptions don’t matter, just reality”. Because our perception can never be reality, so what this means in practice is “Other people’s perceptions don’t matter, just [my own perception of] reality”, while losing track of the conflation hiding in the presupposition. This conflation leads to not only shutting out error signals of less-than-perfect sanity, but also to blinding ourselves to the extent to which we’ve become blind. Us aspiring rationalists tend to be much more prone to this failure mode, partly for reasons that are flattering to us, and partly for reasons that are less so. People often pick up on signs that we’re doing this subtle flinching, and it’s perfectly rational for people to discount our arguments in such cases even if the arguments appear to be solid—because how are they to know they’re competent to judge? It’s not like people can’t be tricked with sophistry.
What I’m talking about is critically different than either. When it’s just obvious that you’re sane, it’s not “seduced into a perception that could be believable”. It’s that the alternative visibly doesn’t fit. Like, it’s not true, and clearly so.
“Being visibly sane” requires both that you’re actually sane, and that it’s visible to others. The focus is still on actually being sane, while taking care to notice that if you can’t get others to see you as sane this is evidence against your sanity. Not “proof”, not “the only thing that matters”, but evidence—and something that will therefore soften your perceived certainty, if you allow your beliefs to update with the evidence.
It’s true that if you don’t provide receipts, this opens a window to deceive. It’s also true that there’s no rule saying that you have to abuse the trust people place in you. Do you trust yourself not to abuse it?
It’s a hell of a question, actually. The moment people start trusting you too much and putting their wellbeing at risk because they didn’t demand the receipts you expected them to demand, you tend to get a reality check about how sure you are of your own words and arguments. It’s a very sobering experience, and one that is worth working towards with appropriate caution.
It’s also an uncomfortable one. And if we’re not extremely careful we’re likely to flinch and fail to notice.
No, definitely not dark arts. The exact opposite, actually—though the latter probably won’t come across in this comment.
Again, I’m going to have to point at some distinctions which might feel like nits but which actually change the story completely. In this case, it’s the difference between focusing on “coming off as sane”—which I would not advocate—and “coming off as obviously sane”. Or perhaps more clearly worded “being visibly sane”.
If you focus on coming across as sane, then you are Goodharting on appearing sane even if you aren’t. “Reality doesn’t matter, just [other] people’s perceptions” does indeed lead to dark arts, and it has a ceiling. This is politician shit, and comes off as politician shit to anyone who is more perceptive than you take them for.
At the same time, the wise alternative is not “Other people’s perceptions don’t matter, just reality”. Because our perception can never be reality, so what this means in practice is “Other people’s perceptions don’t matter, just [my own perception of] reality”, while losing track of the conflation hiding in the presupposition. This conflation leads to not only shutting out error signals of less-than-perfect sanity, but also to blinding ourselves to the extent to which we’ve become blind. Us aspiring rationalists tend to be much more prone to this failure mode, partly for reasons that are flattering to us, and partly for reasons that are less so. People often pick up on signs that we’re doing this subtle flinching, and it’s perfectly rational for people to discount our arguments in such cases even if the arguments appear to be solid—because how are they to know they’re competent to judge? It’s not like people can’t be tricked with sophistry.
What I’m talking about is critically different than either. When it’s just obvious that you’re sane, it’s not “seduced into a perception that could be believable”. It’s that the alternative visibly doesn’t fit. Like, it’s not true, and clearly so.
“Being visibly sane” requires both that you’re actually sane, and that it’s visible to others. The focus is still on actually being sane, while taking care to notice that if you can’t get others to see you as sane this is evidence against your sanity. Not “proof”, not “the only thing that matters”, but evidence—and something that will therefore soften your perceived certainty, if you allow your beliefs to update with the evidence.
It’s true that if you don’t provide receipts, this opens a window to deceive. It’s also true that there’s no rule saying that you have to abuse the trust people place in you. Do you trust yourself not to abuse it?
It’s a hell of a question, actually. The moment people start trusting you too much and putting their wellbeing at risk because they didn’t demand the receipts you expected them to demand, you tend to get a reality check about how sure you are of your own words and arguments. It’s a very sobering experience, and one that is worth working towards with appropriate caution.
It’s also an uncomfortable one. And if we’re not extremely careful we’re likely to flinch and fail to notice.