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Jack comments on Seeking a "Seeking Whence 'Seek Whence'" Sequence - Less Wrong Discussion
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First, recursive statements (aka "going meta") are powerful. As the history of mathematics teaches, seeking to restrict the ability to make recursive statements has enormous difficulty.
Second, recursive analysis of society (aka sociology) can provide very interesting insights, despite the fact that there is substantial social resistance to engaging in meta-level analysis. Hansonian signalling theory is a valuable perspective that could not be created without meta-level analysis of social behavior. Thus, lowing the resistance of the general population to meta-level analysis is relatively low-hanging fruit in raising the sanity line.
Most importantly, going meta often a mistake when trying to solve real-world problems. Going meta again is almost always a mistake.
To be concrete, when I work as a lawyer, the actual meaning of the rules is usually the only important level of analysis. Sometimes, thinking about the policies that justify the rule is helpful. But thinking about the policies that justify having policies is pointless and unhelpful. In short, it is appropriate to be skeptical of assertions of the value of "going meta," particularly assertions about the value of going "meta-meta."
Is your only evidence for this:
This?
It seems very plausible that going meta would be particularly unhelpful in a field that's all about negotiating --and ensuring compliance with-- precedent and explicit rules. Compare to a field where the problem that needs to be solved is one caused by precedent and explicit rules.
My main point was that meta-meta level (the part you didn't quote) is very seldom useful in solving problems. My sense is that Will is too willing to go to that level.
I don't agree with your point about what the practice of law is like, but that isn't important. With certain types of problems, one level of meta is useful very frequently, with other types of problems much less so. It depends a lot on context. In particular circumstances, I think most thoughtful people could come to agreement on the usefulness of meta level analysis (i.e. policy arguments). But Will is particularly poorly calibrated on the usefulness of meta arguments. Most of society under-relies on meta-level analysis. Will seems to over-rely on it.
How would you know how well I'm calibrated?