Its extremely hard to effectively argue against your post by its very definition, because doing so would invariably force the commenter to either accept your frame, or fight back with their own attempt at frame control, and doing either simply proves your point. For all its worth, it is a brilliant piece of memetics.
So I will reduce my response to two points:
I notice I cannot think of a way to resist the Frame Control attempts you listed (1-16) without either forcing the other person into your frame, and thus performing rather robust Frame Control in return, or running for the hills. And since most people cannot survive as monadic hermits, and have to interact with others, this feels like we inevitably end up Frame Controlling one another. I cannot recall knowing any people who did not do any Frame Control, overt or hidden. In fact, just about ever person I know, no matter how empathic or rationalist, FCs most of the the time, and only desists if the wrestling for Frame becomes obviously inconclusive. The difference is not in how much they try to Control, but rather how precise their Frame is.
I notice I cannot think of a way your points on Non-Controlling (1-5) could be effectively used in a realistic context, other than extremely rare particular examples in 1on1 interactions with a SO or your child. If we did this, and only this, I cannot think of a way how we could prepare a child to exist in the Society and physical Reality (both of which have rigid and controlled frames that the child cannot resist without deadly consequences). I also do not see a way to have a romantic relationship with no Frame Control, unless it is a very, very loose definition of an open relationship in which people just accidentally align in their needs from time to time.
DISCLAIMER: Im also a person likely prone to Frame Control (masculine identity , ADHD, extrovert, emotionally robust), and come from a culture in which strong Frame Control is considered valuable/high status. This might, or might not be biasing my views.
Going Durden
I have exactly the same feelings about it as You do, and I think this makes us the Frame Controllers as well. In both of the examples you gave, your reaction would be a purposeful wrestling the Frame Control away from the abuser, and blatantly presenting your Frame.
From the OG post and your comment, I cannot think of a way out of such problems without the “victim” doing a stronger version of Frame Control than the abuser, because trying to solve such issues with nonFC means just means playing into the abuser’s hands.
More importantly, I do not agree with Aella’s implied assertion that people differ much in how much they Control the Frame. Everybody, or near everybody tries to Control it as much as they can. The bigger difference is in the robustness of the Frame they hold. If the Frame is strong (internally consistent, close to objective reality, high-status) then it is relatively easy to Control it, resist the control from others, and even control them in return.
I assume that in the examples you gave, your response would not be caused by you being particularly cantankerous, but simply your Frame being strong enough that you can “get away with” either blatant or subtle Frame Control Jujitsu against the assailant, without losing social status yourself or even feeling particular anxiety.
I see no reason why Kegan 2s cannot be frame controllers as well, if, rather blatant ones due to messy Frame.
In fact, Kegan 1s are supreme Frame Controllers, except their Frame is completely messy (ask any parent of a baby/toddler/preschooler).
In my humble opinion, the only difference between “bad” Frame Control and “good” Frame Control is in how much the Frame corresponds with objective reality, and hopefully, social reality as well.
Good leadership could be then explained as Frame Controlling the group towards alignment with positive outcomes in objective physical reality while avoiding negative social outcomes.
Frame can also be aligned with objective physical reality, but misaligned with the social reality, and with the needs or wants of other people. This often leads to the situation well known to academics and teachers worldwide, in which one has to Frame Control people to accept 2+2=4, because they adamantly refuse to acknowledge this on evidence alone.
I think the OG post insufficiently touched on whether or not the Frame is objectively correct, rather than its social and emotional aspect.
Question: how do you know whether the second man had a salient frame, rather than a frame you simply agree with?
Or to put that question in a different way: how do you tell genuine interaction with no Frame Control from perfect manipulation that simply clicked well with your Frame?
I would not call this post terrible; it is a brilliant example of the author trying to Control The Frame and paint detractors as Frame Controllers themselves. Whether you call her out on this or agree with her you fall into her Frame. It would be both a clever memetic trap and a nice meta-post that exemplifies what it is referencing, if not for the audience being made of holders of equal or stronger Frames.
I agree, but the term “Frame Control” has been in use for at least 30 years now, just about every book and website about Social Engineering, Seduction, Manipulation, Sales etc uses it. It might be a “fuzzy” term, based on post factum pop-sci explanations of already used techniques, but it is well known and not invented by OP.
Im almost certain Aella purposely did not mention the fact that Frame Control is a well developed NLP/PUA/Power Sales term, because it would detract from their point. The problem of course, is that Frame Control is a googlable term.
There is plenty to be argued against malicious FC, but this post is akin to suddenly discovering that entropy exists, and warning LW about it.
Situations like these are why i tend to prescribe to a notion of “Social Ninjitsu”, that is: throwing things like compliments, invitations, etc and then ejecting yourself out of the situation so that the other person cannot effectively respond, and does not feel it is expected of them on the spot. The only way for them to respond is to pretty much chase you down and stop you, which only happens if they have more than socially required desire to do so. In effect, those who do not chase you/try to find you, are emotionally and socially excused, and those who do chase you are already pres-elected as highly motivated to interact with you, AKA potential friends.
https://www.unstoppablerise.com/frame-control-psychology/
random Google match, though of course this is all pop-sci mush of debatable value. My point was not that Frame Control is a well established scientific term, but rather that it is popular, regardless of its usefulness or lack thereof.
I’ll risk sounding a bit crass, but is it not often an issue of the intelligence/knowledge of the recipient?
I mean it in two ways:
1. Sometimes Frame Control only feels tricky or non-explicit, because the recipient is unobservant, or lacking in social tools to recognize explicit but gentle Frame Control. Basically, mistaking politeness and verbosity for manipulation. To use that metaphor: the man was not stalking you silently, you were just wearing headphones and daydreaming instead of paying attention to your surroundings.2. The recipient could not be convinced that objectively true facts are true, because they lack the knowledge or mental skills to understand them, and Frame Control is pretty much the only way they can be led to accept the facts. I, for one, do not know jack about Quantum Physics, and the holes in my understanding go back to HS science and math. It is literally impossible to teach me to accept say, String Theory on objective principles (“I know it makes sense!”), only to Frame Control me into agreeing with it on subjective principles (“This Hawking guy sure sounds smart!”).
Because of points 1 and 2, a “Frameless” discussion is very hard and unlikely, unless both people are intellectually adept and introspective rationalists, who only slightly differ in their knowledge of the facts on the subject. Any other human interaction by necessity runs on Appeal to Authority (which is basically Frame Control), otherwise nothing would ever get accomplished.
problematic does not differentiate between “bad”, “harmful” and “difficult”. Replacing the carbouretor in Honda Civic with only a spatula and a corksrew for tools is problematic, but not necessarily harmful or bad.
I think “toxic” is more narrow: it hints at indirect, social, and emotional damage, and does not work well as term in situations that are just pragmatic in nature.
We should also consider the proportions. Your examples of I, V and VII, make the vast, vast majority of cases, and in a way, VII exists due to the joint effort of I and V.
I think this is non-trivial, and if we somehow managed to put numbers on it, it would turn out that the Is and the Vs collectively do much more harm to society and each other than all the Manipulative Cult Leader Masterminds combined. In fact, I doubt the Supervillain Frame Controllers would even exist if not for the fertile ground of Option Is as their lackeys and Option Vs as their prey.
Maybe not terribly relevant to LessWrong, and is not really a textbook per se, but considering that a lot of Yous are aspiring authors:
How to NOT write a novel by Mittelmark and Newman
What I also read:
Writing a Novel in 30 days
Writing the Novel from Plot to Print
On Becoming a Novelist—Gardner, John
Why? HtNWaN condenses all the good advice similar books have into extremely memorable snippets that stay with you. It will not make you a great writer, but it prevents you from being a terrible one, by instilling in you certain useful “taboos” against typical bad writing pitfalls. Its less of a guide and more of a crude memetic tool to bludgeon your own imagination with until a readable novel emerges.
These memes push people who host them (all of us, to be clear) towards behaviors which are not in the best interests of humanity, because Orthogonality Thesis
Im not entirely convinced. Memes are parasites, and thus, aim for equilibrium with its host. Hence why memeplexes that are truly evil and omnicidal never stick, memeplexes that are relatively evil peter out, and what we are left with are memeplexes that “kinda suck I guess” at worst. Succesful memeplex is one that ensures the host’s survival while forcing the host to spend maximum energy and resources spreading the memeplex without harming themselves too badly.
but the memeplexes can, at times, resist the growth of more accurate memeplexes which would ensure host survival better,
Of course, but IMHO they cannot do it for long, at least not on civilizational time scales. Memeplexes that ensure host survival better, and atop of that, empower the hosts, ultimately always win.
As of yet, we do not have any Deus Ex Machina to help the memeplexes exist without a host, or spread without the host being more powerful (physically, politically, socially, scientifically, technologically etc) than the hosts of other memeplexes. Over time, the memetic landscape tends to average out to begrudgingly positive and progressive, because memeplexes that fail to push the hosts forward are outcompeted.
One of the best examples of that is the memeplex of Far Right/Nazi/Fascist ideology, which, while memetically robust, tends to shoot itself in the foot and lose the memetic warfare without much coherent opposition from the liberal memeplexes. It resurfaces all the time, but never accomplishes much, because it is more host-detrimental than it is virulent. Meanwhile, memeplexes tht are kinda-sorta wishy-washy slightly Left of center, egalitarian-ish but not too much, vaguely pro-science and mildly technological, progressive-ish but unobtrusively, tend to always win, and had been winning since the times of Babylon. They struck the perfect balance between memetic frugality, virulence, and benefiting the hosts.
Im pretty sure, though I cannot find data on it, that cooking in salt water simply causes salt to interact chemically with the pasta, “tenderizing” it, the same way salt tenderizes meat, vegetables etc.
I assume we could perform an experiment in which we submerge identical amounts of pasta in cold tap water, and in an equal volume of salt water, and wait until it becomes soft enough to eat. My assumption is that waterlogging pasta in salt water would soften it much faster.
My assumption is that such boycott would create selective pressure against the Boycotters, and in favor of LLM enthusiasts, thus, making the Boycotters first irrelevant Luddites, then culturally extinct.
This is similar to how people who boycott social media for valid reasons essentially became outcasts and took these valid reasons with them, weakening their movement.
Boycotting AI is essentially a self-terminating meme, the harder you boycott, the less likely is the Boycott Meme to spread. Its the equivalent to trying to boycott literacy with newspaper articles decrying the danger of the written word.