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ChristianKl comments on Dark Arts: Defense in Reputational Warfare - Less Wrong Discussion
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That's not really true. Julian Blanc is a good example. He made the decision that it's useful to be world famous and it doesn't matter much what you are famous for. Then he did provocative things and contacted reporters. Afterwards he got attacked. He became world famous and his sales increased.
In Antifragile Nassim Taleb claims that one of the reasons Ayn Rand has the influence she has on US culture because she managed to get viciously attacked by a lot of people.
I'm not seeing a point of that advice. In a public controversy it means that journalists can write articles about how you admited to a weak version but didn't fully admit to the wrong doing and call on you to admit to a stronger version.
I don't think this advice was aimed at people who immerse themselves in the dark arts.
I don't think you need to engage actively in dark arts to be antifragile against a reputational attack. Believing that both sides always lose isn't useful.
"Do not stand out." is advice that often does reduce the capability to defend yourself. The Chinese government doesn't disappear Ai Weiwei because he has a public profile and stands out. Less public dissidents have a worse fate in China.
I would probably formulate Rule #1 as "Do not be an identifiable target" ("the ideal form is to be formless").
That isn't what I wrote.
Ai Weiwei followed rule #2; he made himself a dangerous person to target. [ETA]He'll be in serious trouble, however, if somebody decides they want to make a very public example, because he's exceptionally public.[/ETA] The less public dissidents both stand out, and aren't dangerous to target. The least public dissidents aren't recognized enough to target in the first place.
You wrote:
If you don't mean both parties lose, what does "Nobody wins" mean?
It's much easier to attack a homosexual who's in the closet for his homosexuality than to attack a homosexual that's open about his sexuality. The same goes for many domains. Openness is often useful for having a defensible position and it does mean standing out.
He backed down and issued public apologies, and has gone considerably quieter since then. Doesn't seem to me that he ended up where he wanted to.
You might want to observe how she responded to attacks, as well.
They wouldn't, for three reasons. First, by admitting to a weak version, you cut off the central controversy, making it no longer newsworthy. Second, by attacking somebody with an admitted problem, they look like aggressors going after a victim. Third, they feel like they've already won.
They will and have. Look what happened to Larry Summers, Brendan Eich, or James Watson. In all cases issuing an apology didn't help them and lead directly to resignations. Heck look at the reaction of the University protestors to admissions of guild and apologies on the part of university administrators. Heck look who Christakis's apology failed to stop the events.
Ah. I see.
I'm not advocating an apology; that is playing the game according to the rules your opponents have set. I'm advocating -redefining- the game by changing what it is you have to apologize for. An example that is now recognized as such, and thus is no longer useful, is apologizing for the way what you said was received.
The problem is that any apology is now recognized as such.
While I disagree, I still don't advocate apologizing.
It was advantagous for him to issue a public apology but that doesn't mean that the affair damaged him and that he isn't better of them at the start.
You ignore a few things about the press:
(1) People like reading stories that evolve. Journalists like to provide those stories to them. The desire to read how a story progresses makes people buy a new newspaper. With online media it's a bit different but even there jouranlists want to advance stories.
(2) Most of the time the actors in the interaction care but many issues besides the actual conflict.
I wouldn't regard him as better off, and I have serious doubts he regards himself as better off, but we can disagree there. At any rate, he's not actually a useful counterexample, since he wasn't defending against attacks, but provoking them, and then responding... pretty much exactly according to the script. (Violated the hell out of Rule 1, though.)
That might have been true twenty years ago. People's attention spans don't support that now. Even when it was true, however, the quick capitulation prevents evolution of the story. That's why that particular rule calls for -immediate- surrender; if you take a week to respond, you're dragging the story out and sustaining interest.
Yes. That's one of the other critical reasons for immediate capitulation; you prevent your own side from needing to throw in on your side and -create- a controversy. If nobody is arguing about it, everybody's attention moves on.
Capitulation and admitting to a weak version of the charge aren't the same thing.
No, they aren't, but most people won't be able to tell the difference.
I think in most cases your opponent is able to tell that you didn't capitulated to them. There's the saying that if you give someone a finger they take the whole hand.
Your opponent doesn't matter. Your audience matters.