Epistemic Viciousness

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Someone deserves a large hattip for this, but I'm having trouble remembering who; my records don't seem to show any email or OB comment which told me of this 12-page essay, "Epistemic Viciousness in the Martial Arts" by Gillian Russell. Maybe Anna Salamon?

      We all lined up in our ties and sensible shoes (this was England) and copied him—left, right, left, right—and afterwards he told us that if we practised in the air with sufficient devotion for three years, then we would be able to use our punches to kill a bull with one blow.
      I worshipped Mr Howard (though I would sooner have died than told him that) and so, as a skinny, eleven-year-old girl, I came to believe that if I practised, I would be able to kill a bull with one blow by the time I was fourteen.
      This essay is about epistemic viciousness in the martial arts, and this story illustrates just that. Though the word ‘viciousness’ normally suggests deliberate cruelty and violence, I will be using it here with the more old-fashioned meaning, possessing of vices.

It all generalizes amazingly. To summarize some of the key observations for how epistemic viciousness arises:

The art, the dojo, and the sensei are seen as sacred. "Having red toe-nails in the dojo is like going to church in a mini-skirt and halter-top... The students of other martial arts are talked about like they are practicing the wrong religion."
If your teacher takes you aside and teaches you a special move and you practice it for 20 years, you have a large emotional investment in it, and you'll want to discard any incoming evidence against the move.
Incoming students don't have much choice: a martial art can't be learned from a book, so they have to trust the teacher.
Deference to famous historical masters. "Runners think that the contemporary staff of Runner's World know more about running than than all the ancient Greeks put together. And it's not just running, or other physical activities, where history is kept in its place; the same is true in any well-developed area of study. It is not considered disrespectful for a physicist to say that Isaac Newton's theories are false..." (Sound familiar?)
"We martial artists struggle with a kind of poverty—data-poverty—which makes our beliefs hard to test... Unless you're unfortunate enough to be fighting a hand-to-hand war you cannot check to see how much force and exactly which angle a neck-break requires..."
"If you can't test the effectiveness of a technique, then it is hard to test methods for improving the technique. Should you practice your nukite in the air, or will that just encourage you to overextend? ... Our inability to test our fighting methods restricts our ability to test our training methods."
"But the real problem isn’t just that we live in data poverty—I think that’s true for some perfectly respectable disciplines, including theoretical physics—the problem is that we live in poverty but continue to act as though we live in luxury, as though we can safely afford to believe whatever we’re told..." (+10!)

One thing that I remembered being in this essay, but, on a second reading, wasn't actually there, was the degeneration of martial arts after the decline of real fights—by which I mean, fights where people were really trying to hurt each other and someone occasionally got killed.

In those days, you had some idea of who the real masters were, and which school could defeat others.

And then things got all civilized. And so things went downhill to the point that we have videos on Youtube of supposed Nth-dan black belts being pounded into the ground by someone with real fighting experience.

I had one case of this bookmarked somewhere (but now I can't find the bookmark) that was really sad; it was a master of a school who was convinced he could use ki techniques. His students would actually fall over when he used ki attacks, a strange and remarkable and frightening case of self-hypnosis or something... and the master goes up against a skeptic and of course gets pounded completely into the floor. Feel free to comment this link if you know where it is.

Truly is it said that "how to not lose" is more broadly applicable information than "how to win". Every single one of these risk factors transfers straight over to any attempt to start a "rationality dojo". I put to you the question: What can be done about it?

      We all lined up in our ties and sensible shoes (this was England) and copied him—left, right, left, right—and afterwards he told us that if we practised in the air with sufficient devotion for three years, then we would be able to use our punches to kill a bull with one blow.
      I worshipped Mr Howard (though I would sooner have died than told him that) and so, as a skinny, eleven-year-old girl, I came to believe that if I practised, I would be able to kill a bull with one blow by the time I was fourteen.
      This essay is about epistemic viciousness in the martial arts, and this story illustrates just that. Though the word ‘viciousness’ normally suggests deliberate cruelty and violence, I will be using it here with the more old-fashioned meaning, possessing of vices.

It all generalizes amazingly. To summarize some of the key observations for how epistemic viciousness arises:

The art, the dojo, and the sensei are seen as sacred. "Having red toe-nails in the dojo is like going to church in a mini-skirt and halter-top... The students of other martial arts are talked about like they are practicing the wrong religion."
If your teacher takes you aside and teaches you a special move and you practice it for 20 years, you have a large emotional investment in it, and you'll want to discard any incoming evidence against the move.
Incoming students don't have much choice: a martial art can't be learned from a book, so they have to trust the teacher.
Deference to famous historical masters. "Runners think that the contemporary staff of Runner's World know more about running than than all the ancient Greeks put together. And it's not just running, or other physical activities, where history is kept in its place; the same is true in any well-developed area of study. It is not considered disrespectful for a physicist to say that Isaac Newton's theories are false..." (Sound familiar?)
"We martial artists struggle with a kind of poverty—data-poverty—which makes our beliefs hard to test... Unless you're unfortunate enough to be fighting a hand-to-hand war you cannot check to see how much force and exactly which angle a neck-break requires..."
"If you can't test the effectiveness of a technique, then it is hard to test methods for improving the technique. Should you practice your nukite in the air, or will that just encourage you to overextend? ... Our inability to test our fighting methods restricts our ability to test our training methods."
"But the real problem isn’t just that we live in data poverty—I think that’s true for some perfectly respectable disciplines, including theoretical physics—the problem is that we live in poverty but continue to act as though we live in luxury, as though we can safely afford to believe whatever we’re told..." (+10!)

In those days, you had some idea of who the real masters were, and which school could defeat others.

I've been training in Aikido for about 20 years. I tend to agree with you, John.

On "ki," I think it's helpful to think of it as a description of a set of sensations one can learn to be conscious of. I think what's really going on is that we're subconsciously picking up on and sending subtle body cues, but that isn't what it feels like. It actually feels like a kind of flow between the attacker and defender. That flow has certain characteristics, and it's quite possible to learn to be very sensitive to those characteristics. As I've gained skill and awareness, I've found that it's often most helpful to frame that sensation as "the flow of intention" and relate it to the sense of anticipation that is physically felt when you decide to, say, reach for an object to pick it up but haven't yet physically moved.

I have to admit that the idea of teaching Aikido without any attention to it being effective in an actual fight sounds downright dangerous to me. Whatever we might say about philosophy, when someone trains hard and long enough, their reactions change. I've been training in Aikido for around two thirds of my life, so if someone pounces me I'm pretty likely to whip out my training and try to apply it before I even know what I'm doing. And this isn't just theory: when someone jumps at me and surprises me, I first jump (thanks to the startle reflex) and then while still in the process of jumping reach out in a circular movement to take down whatever startled me. I can usually gain conscious control of my reflexes before I grind my poor unsuspecting friend's face into the pavement, but the point remains: the reflexes are there. If I were to teach my students Aikido with the idea that it teaches them "principles of life" without attending to effectiveness, then I would feel personally responsible for the result of their attempts to defend themselves in, say, a knife attack.

One of the most beautiful things to me about Aikido is that you can go all-out, full-force, and if it's done well no one gets hurt. Sure, there might be some pain involved, but no lasting damage virtually ever. You can actually have five or so people all taking real, meaningful swings at an aikidoka, and the occasional blow that lands becomes a lesson that improves his or her skill. Not only does this mean that there's the potential for empirically testing real refinements in the effectiveness of Aikido techniques, but it also means that you can use the art in its full form in a civilized society. When Uncle Mortimer has a bit too much to drink and starts swinging around a kitchen knife as though conducting the drunken choir, you'd rather not whip out your well-honed striking skills and crush his larynx; instead, you want to disarm him safely without bringing harm to anyone. And if you get mugged but defend yourself by breaking someone's limbs or killing someone, you then have to answer to a judge; but if you can defuse the attack without hurting anyone, any police involvement will probably just recognize you as a good citizen attacked by thugs.

I'm very, very biased, though. I've only ever trained seriously in Aikido, so there's naturally a desire on my part to justify why it's the best martial art to choose.

But with all that said, I totally agree with Gillian Russel's main points. I see most Aikido dojos - in fact, virtually all American dojos I've ever encountered - saturated with this kind of "epistemic viciousness."

If I were to teach my students Aikido with the idea that it teaches them "principles of life" without attending to effectiveness, then I would feel personally responsible for the result of their attempts to defend themselves in, say, a knife attack.

I find my approach to martial arts somewhat different to my philosophy of life. My preferred defense by far after i have been attacked by a knife wielder is to run the @#%! away. In fact that is my preferred (but not only) response in any situation my martial arts apply to. There is a time for doing this in life too but it's not my preferred first choice in most cases.

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