Addressing the full substance of this would be (at least) another long post, and things are really weird and I’m still trying to fully understand them, so this is at best a very quick sketch, but basically...
You’re not going to give a good gears-level understanding of the level-4 mindset, be able to predict the actions of those acting with level-4 orientation, or model the actions of a level-4 group/organization/civilization, if you view 4 simply as 4::3 as 2::1, start treating that reduction/abstraction as the thing, and deny the need to think about any of these other dynamics.
What you *can* do, I think (only 80% confident this actually works but 95%+ that it is a good quick heuristic?) is use “are they willing to mislead about *and/or take action to reshape meanings and associations in* level 3, and treat that as necessary and sufficient to identify someone operating at least partly at level 4. Iff they do that, they’re at least partly level 4. Note that you can’t ask whether they do this *on purpose* if you want the right answer, you only get to ask if they’re actually doing it (but same with identifying other levels of action too).
As I said throughout MM, these are things that our brains actively don’t want to look at or see. That’s true even if we ourselves are on level 4 - it is an instinct of level 4 players to prevent coherent models of all kinds, and in particular of level 4, until the *overall civilization’s level* reaches level 4 and then all hell breaks loose and predictions get very hard, before/while all literal hell actually does break loose and you get some form of collapse. So the instinct is constantly to round everything down.
That doesn’t mean you can’t carve reality very usefully using the 2x2. This post is doing its best to *not rely on* the progression order (beyond keeping the names 1, 2, 3 and 4) and to *not rely on* the True Form of level 4 or what not.
The thing where it looks like I/we are ascribing ‘good’ things to level 1, and ‘bad’ things to other levels, is probably not *entirely* objective, but it’s mostly because, well, that’s the way it is and I’m/we’re trying to tell it like it is best we can and understand best we can. If we treat levelism as an ism then that’s a good way to *not even look at* most of what Level 4 behavior actually is in any useful way, possibly 2 and/or 3 as well.
Progression is real too, in multiple ways/levels, but yes the system can be useful without them. Note that level 1 proceeded level 2 and level 3 even if all three (or four) pre-date language.
Addressing the full substance of this would be (at least) another long post, and things are really weird and I’m still trying to fully understand them, so this is at best a very quick sketch, but basically...
You’re not going to give a good gears-level understanding of the level-4 mindset, be able to predict the actions of those acting with level-4 orientation, or model the actions of a level-4 group/organization/civilization, if you view 4 simply as 4::3 as 2::1, start treating that reduction/abstraction as the thing, and deny the need to think about any of these other dynamics.
What you *can* do, I think (only 80% confident this actually works but 95%+ that it is a good quick heuristic?) is use “are they willing to mislead about *and/or take action to reshape meanings and associations in* level 3, and treat that as necessary and sufficient to identify someone operating at least partly at level 4. Iff they do that, they’re at least partly level 4. Note that you can’t ask whether they do this *on purpose* if you want the right answer, you only get to ask if they’re actually doing it (but same with identifying other levels of action too).
As I said throughout MM, these are things that our brains actively don’t want to look at or see. That’s true even if we ourselves are on level 4 - it is an instinct of level 4 players to prevent coherent models of all kinds, and in particular of level 4, until the *overall civilization’s level* reaches level 4 and then all hell breaks loose and predictions get very hard, before/while all literal hell actually does break loose and you get some form of collapse. So the instinct is constantly to round everything down.
That doesn’t mean you can’t carve reality very usefully using the 2x2. This post is doing its best to *not rely on* the progression order (beyond keeping the names 1, 2, 3 and 4) and to *not rely on* the True Form of level 4 or what not.
The thing where it looks like I/we are ascribing ‘good’ things to level 1, and ‘bad’ things to other levels, is probably not *entirely* objective, but it’s mostly because, well, that’s the way it is and I’m/we’re trying to tell it like it is best we can and understand best we can. If we treat levelism as an ism then that’s a good way to *not even look at* most of what Level 4 behavior actually is in any useful way, possibly 2 and/or 3 as well.
Progression is real too, in multiple ways/levels, but yes the system can be useful without them. Note that level 1 proceeded level 2 and level 3 even if all three (or four) pre-date language.