LESSWRONG
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All of ortho's Comments + Replies

Frame Control
ortho*30

(Still gathering my thoughts. Thanks for the response.)

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Frame Control
ortho90

I wrote out a whole response here but didn't end up posting it. My read is that your interpretation of what Aella wrote is pretty different from the thing she was trying to communicate, but the aggressiveness I read in your comment makes me hesitant to try to clarify.

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Said Achmiz100

By all means clarify!

What’s the worst that could happen? I write a response that you read as “aggressive”?

I’m just, like, some guy on the Internet, man. My opinion of you doesn’t really matter. Go for it!

If it helps, consider that you’re not writing the response for me, but for other people reading this discussion. Even if I’m extremely stubborn and disagreeable, and learn nothing from your comment, other people might. That’s worth the effort, I think.

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Frame Control
ortho40

Also, fwiw, I kind of wish I'd left that first sentence out, because it feels like the least important part of my comment but it's what you responded to. I am much more invested in the rest of what I wrote.

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Frame Control
ortho90

She didn’t say “we should exile the frame controllers”, she said things like “I will try to remove you from the power you might use to hurt anybody else”. Surely the post could have been phrased even more as a first-person-owned-experience thing, but IMO it’s pretty much like that as is. It reads to me much more as “my experience and attitude is X” than as “we (or you) should do X”.

(Also, I agree with you that it makes sense to deliberate seriously on decisions like “declaring war”. I just didn’t take the post as proposing war, I took it as Aella expressing her stance. I’m not sure what a better way to phrase what she was trying to say would have been?)

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Frame Control
ortho*140

The comments here seem less charitable have more pushback than I would have expected, especially given the post’s score. Maybe because the thing being named is kind of “high stakes” or dangerous/scary or could potentially lead to witch hunts, etc. Personally, I have experienced “frame control”-type dynamics (at unfortunately high personal cost), and there is a truth being pointed to here that I feel is important to validate. The purpose of the post, it seems to me, is to help people be more able to protect themselves and others.

“Frame control”[1], or whate... (read more)

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4Vaniver
I think another difficulty in the epistemics is "where to place the focus" is potentially a political question. For example, choosing between Aella's father "was an abuser" and their relationship "was an abusive dynamic" seems like it could have consequences (both for what happens, how your relationships shift, and how you understand the situation). [The situation wherein both statements are clearly associated with perspectives, instead of reified truths, seems like it's most conducive to understanding.] As you point out, different people will be affected differently by the 'same thing', but an otherwise-laudable commitment to avoid victim-blaming can move focus away from those differences and obscure part of what's happening. [But also perhaps we are well-served by an allergy to attempts to move focus, as suggested by the example of the student pointing out the teacher's error and the teacher redirecting attention.]
4TekhneMakre
A relevant aspect of in-person interactions is that I think they involve a lot more "plasticity" of the people. In terms of how much B "is given write access" to C's soul, it tends (with variance) to be something like (abstracting over content): C reads B's writing < C listens to B speaking < C listens to B and watches B acting < C is physically present with B < C is physically present with B and is speaking with B < C is physically present with B and is acting in concert with B An example of what I mean by B having written to C's soul is that C can "hear B's voice" even when B isn't there; e.g. C reflexively imagines what B would say about what C is doing. Or more abstractly, a proposition B said might bounce around in C's head, being chewed on and propagated. B has somewhat literally made an impression on C. C might adopt mannerisms of B. C might do to D actions that imitate "deepening" (hence correlatedly subtly invasive or coercive or deceptive) actions done to C by B (because, oh, that's how connection works, apparently). (Obviously in general there's huge mutual benefits to this soul-writing thing, which explains why people do it, which explains why it's vulnerable to exploitation.)
Vaniver220

The comments here seem less charitable than I would have expected, especially given the post’s score.

I think one of the important sources of pushback is this:

And this is why my general philosophy for people who frame control is “burn it with fire.” ... In this, I am a conflict theorist; this is not a mistake, this is war.

If someone wants to declare war, it seems good for people to double-check the casus belli, and point out the gaps instead of silently filling them in. ("Frame control is a thing to watch out for" and "we should exile the frame controllers"... (read more)

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