First of all, I really appreciate this article! It helps me conceptualize cleanly some vocabulary that’s flying around in the rationalist community that I previously didn’t really understand.
To me, the most obvious missing archetype is The Truth-Giver or perhaps The Teacher.
The Teacher is concerned with only conveying truthful messages. She will usually tell the truth, but she may occasionally omit truthful things, or even (rarely) tell half-truths if she thinks it’s easier to convey truthful messages via half-truth. Importantly, she’s different from the Sage or the Pragmatist in that she’s not concerned with other object-level consequences, only in conveying truthful messages.
Consider the claim:
There’s a pandemic headed our way from China
Suppose that The Teacher believes that the following is more correct:
There’s a pandemic headed our way from Italy.
The Teacher will choose usually to clarify and say the full message, however if she only has one bit of response, she’ll say “yes” to “Is there a pandemic headed our way from China?” Importantly (unlike the Pragmatist) she’ll do this even if the perceived consequences are negative, as long as the subject gets more truthful information than they otherwise would have.
Against Level 1 and Level 2 players, The Teacher will never see a need to resort to Level 3. However, against a fully Level 3 player, she will (begrudgingly) issue utterances correctly conveying the ideological faction she’s on, as that’s the most relevant/only bit to transfer to fully Level 3 players.
I think Teacher roles are incredibly important in practical everyday communication, since all information is lossy, inferential gaps are common, attention and text is limited, etc. Indeed, I would go so far as argue that Teacher roles are often preferable to Oracle roles in murky situations if the purpose is to collectively seek truth.
First of all, I really appreciate this article! It helps me conceptualize cleanly some vocabulary that’s flying around in the rationalist community that I previously didn’t really understand.
To me, the most obvious missing archetype is The Truth-Giver or perhaps The Teacher.
The Teacher is concerned with only conveying truthful messages. She will usually tell the truth, but she may occasionally omit truthful things, or even (rarely) tell half-truths if she thinks it’s easier to convey truthful messages via half-truth. Importantly, she’s different from the Sage or the Pragmatist in that she’s not concerned with other object-level consequences, only in conveying truthful messages.
Consider the claim:
Suppose that The Teacher believes that the following is more correct:
The Teacher will choose usually to clarify and say the full message, however if she only has one bit of response, she’ll say “yes” to “Is there a pandemic headed our way from China?” Importantly (unlike the Pragmatist) she’ll do this even if the perceived consequences are negative, as long as the subject gets more truthful information than they otherwise would have.
Against Level 1 and Level 2 players, The Teacher will never see a need to resort to Level 3. However, against a fully Level 3 player, she will (begrudgingly) issue utterances correctly conveying the ideological faction she’s on, as that’s the most relevant/only bit to transfer to fully Level 3 players.
I think Teacher roles are incredibly important in practical everyday communication, since all information is lossy, inferential gaps are common, attention and text is limited, etc. Indeed, I would go so far as argue that Teacher roles are often preferable to Oracle roles in murky situations if the purpose is to collectively seek truth.