How much or how little does this cross over with the espionage-coded topic of Elicitation? I understand that you would prefer if these dynamics could be more transparent, but in the absence of that, what is the alternative?
Not that much crossover with Elicitation. I think of Elicitation as one of several useful tools for the normal sequence of somewhat adversarial information exchange. It’s fine! I’ve used it there and been okay with it. But ideally I’d sidestep that entirely.
Also, I enjoy the adversarial version recreationaly. I like playing Blood On The Clocktower, LARPs with secret enemies, poker, etc. For real projects I prefer being able to cooperate more, and I really dislike it when I wind up accidentally in the wrong mode, either me being adversarial and the other people aren’t or me being open and the other people aren’t.
In the absence of the kind of structured transparency I’m gesturing at, play like you’re playing to win. Keep track of who is telling the truth, mark what statements you can verify and what you can’t, make notes of who agrees with each other’s stories. Make positive EV bets on what the ground truth is (or what other people will think the truth is) and when all else fails play to your outs.
(That last paragraph is a pile of sazen and jargon, I don’t expect it’s very clear. I wanted to write this note because I’m not trying to score points via confusion and want to point out to any readers it’s very reasonable to be confused by that paragraph.)
How much or how little does this cross over with the espionage-coded topic of Elicitation? I understand that you would prefer if these dynamics could be more transparent, but in the absence of that, what is the alternative?
Not that much crossover with Elicitation. I think of Elicitation as one of several useful tools for the normal sequence of somewhat adversarial information exchange. It’s fine! I’ve used it there and been okay with it. But ideally I’d sidestep that entirely.
Also, I enjoy the adversarial version recreationaly. I like playing Blood On The Clocktower, LARPs with secret enemies, poker, etc. For real projects I prefer being able to cooperate more, and I really dislike it when I wind up accidentally in the wrong mode, either me being adversarial and the other people aren’t or me being open and the other people aren’t.
In the absence of the kind of structured transparency I’m gesturing at, play like you’re playing to win. Keep track of who is telling the truth, mark what statements you can verify and what you can’t, make notes of who agrees with each other’s stories. Make positive EV bets on what the ground truth is (or what other people will think the truth is) and when all else fails play to your outs.
(That last paragraph is a pile of sazen and jargon, I don’t expect it’s very clear. I wanted to write this note because I’m not trying to score points via confusion and want to point out to any readers it’s very reasonable to be confused by that paragraph.)