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Eidein's avatar

> Finally, I have thought for a long time about a phenomenon I propose to christen the Incitement to Compatible Opposition. Specific regime doctrines have a way of calling forth opposition that is strangely compatible with orthodox premises.

I've been talking about this dynamic for years, however in a much less significant context. There's two main instances that I've noticed this in.

The first instance I noticed it in was back in 2016. The internet was a simpler time; we just complained about feminism going too far. I started to notice a common thread in a lot of the feminist op-eds that were written primarily by women as well as for women.

The dynamic was subtle and hard to identify, but it kind of went like this. A feminist would write some kind of op-ed superficially calling out some behaviour that she saw herself and other women doing. The surface-level reading of the article would be a straightforward "don't do this". So, for example, imagine a hypothetical op-ed entitled "Why do I keep hooking up with toxic men?". The article would take the surface-level position of "hooking up with toxic men is bad and we should all stop doing it".

However, the subtext of the article would always be something like "Well, we all know that we all do it, and we all know that we're all going to keep doing it, so don't worry too much about it". So even as the article would appear to be taking a position _against_ the activity, the article would simultaneously _normalize_ the activity. In this way, it would actually reinforce a superficial opposition that was, in fact, the point.

The second context in which I noticed this was discussions in the Rationalist communities that fell out of Scott Alexander's Conflict vs Mistake theory (https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/). The theory is simple and superficially compelling: different people are primed to interpret antagonism differently, with some people interpreting it as a conflict to be resolved, while others interpret it as a mistake or an information problem that, if only we all had the same information, we would find we don't actually disagree.

In practice, 'mistake theory' turned out to be a really insidious way of weaponizing framing games. You see, if we are in some kind of conflict or competition with each other, and we both see it as a conflict, then there's a certain honesty to that. We each have conflicting goals. One of us will win, one of us will lose. Nothing personal, kid.

But in practice, the mistake theory side always always always presumed that they were correct. After all, if you are mistaken and you believe you are mistaken, you would have already changed your opinion. In arguments, the mistake theory people would always take the woke progressive tone of the schoolteacher. "I am obviously correct, but you're not a bad guy. You're just _mistaken_. If only you saw things from my point of view, you'd see that I am obviously correct, and you'd change your mind". It functioned as a way of claiming victory by fiat, declaring your opponent not just the loser of a conflict, but fundamentally invalid.

Both of these dynamics share a very important trait with your Compatible Opposition thesis. In all three scenarios, the behaviour functions as a way to smuggle in hidden premises and trick your opponent into accepting them, as a way of declaring them not just wrong, but invalid. Of pulling rank and saying "your position is not allowed". It's a really insidious tactic, because the manipulation is very subtle and most people are still primed to interpret it as object-level conflict. In covid, the hidden premise was "it is reasonable to shut down society when The Science™ says so, we're just arguing over what The Science™ says". In the feminist example, the hidden premise was "Obviously we're all going to keep being hoes, we're just arguing about optics". In the rationalist example, the hidden premise is more abstract as well as more direct: "Obviously I'm correct, we're just nitpicking details".

In the face of this tactic, the only acceptable response is (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻. Rejecting the entire system of argument, rejecting the framing, and refusing to engage. To credibly pre-commit to irrationality in order to compel your opponent to stop being manipulative. This is why I take the 'extreme' position that global warming is fundamentally not real, and every environmental policy needs to be opposed. Obviously, industrialization has left a mark on the planet, and denying that eg atmospheric CO2 levels have changed substantially seems absurd. Nevertheless, my position is "it is more important to punish manipulators for manipulating discourse in this way than it is to achieve _any_ object-level position, and so as long as you all keep playing these frame games, I will live my life as if climate change is completely fake. If you want me to engage rationally, then engage me with respect instead of condescension"

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Danno's avatar

I knew from the very first paragraph that this would be epic, vintage eugyppius. A tour de force of insight, sarcasm, and humor. I wasn't disappointed.

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