2026-02-13
Explain your mind simulations
Disclaimer
Main
- I don't actually know if this will work but I atleast want to experiment with some writing like this.
- The problem
- Richard Ngo is right that LW discourse norms actually are not that effective a method of persuasion, even among self-described rationalists.
- He says worldviews clash as a whole with each other, not just individual datapoints and cruxes. I agree, especially on political discussions.
- On political discussions, almost everyone has incomplete information. Almost everyone is also operating from a position of having a pessimistic prior, on whether there's any utility to talking across the political divide. Most people's experience of most political divides seem to be that they talk to a few members of that group, it goes poorly, they form a mind simulation of this person, and then run this mind simulation internally when new members of that group approach them, and then they stop interacting, and eventually everyone ends up with pessimistic priors on the utility of talking to them.
- Also, worldviews can fall apart on first contact with reality. Some pieces of my worldview have immdiately fallen apart because I rammed them against reality. Nate Soares (and many others) are right on this. Worldviews of people who sit in a basement and just think, are very different from the worldviews of people who actually go out there and achieve stuff. It is rare to find people who do both (maybe I am one of these people? I don't know).
- It seems increasingly like in order to explain to people big picture things like "why I am so pessimistic on X" or "why I am so judgmental of Y" I need to sound to them like a raving lunatic who explains 10 different world models, and 20 different previous interactions, and 10 different things I tried, before they have any idea where I am coming from.
- Atleast some people literally ain't got time for that, and I also ain't got time to summarise this in a way that makes sense to them given limited time.
- The solution
- I don't yet have a general solution to this problem.
- One solution I want to experiment with, is to explicitly state at the top of many posts, whose mind simulation am I running while writing this post, and what are the most recent observations I have had (on making contact with reality) that are motivating this post in the first place.
- Often this will be someone's identity I have to anonymise atleast a little.
- Other possible solutions
- Paul Graham says in order to do great work, fuck what most people think, just care about what your immediate friends think and get their input. It's not yet obvious to me this is the answer. (Long list of recent observations prompting this.)
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