I think the 2 threads I did today, on knowledge vs situation awareness and on respect/disrespect are related and I’m sort of triangulating a potentially interesting alternative to thinking in terms of expert vs lay epistemologies. This is nerdy vs honor-based epistemologies.
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The “situation awareness without knowledge” quadrant is the interesting one in my first thread.
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If you think about it, certain kinds of bureaucrats are a special case: procedural awareness of protocol without understanding behind it. Frontline DMV staff for example have high situation awareness of driving related rules etc but not necessarily knowledge of transportation.
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Though their methods are different (triage rule books versus triage pattern recognition/imitation), petty bureaucrats and “chauffeur knowledge scenesters” do the same thing for the same reason: work with mostly situation awareness to hit 80% correct behavior.
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Both categories of people reap most of the benefits of having actual knowledge/understanding with a fraction of the effort. But the cost of that is that they MUST take respect/honor seriously. It’s their proxy signal for truth, via social proof.
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If you’re at a party and 2 knowledgeable people offer 2 different opinions on some current topic. One elicits applause and praise and the other elicits derision. Knowing *nothing* about the topic, you should choose to imitate/parrot the first person.
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80%of the time you’ll be right by proxy for that situation. Even if you’re wrong and the social proof truth is wrong and unpopular guy’s opinion is right, imitating the praises guy is smarter I’d all you care about is the immediate social reward.
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Ditto bureaucrats. Except instead of social proof, you deal in “technically correct” procedural truths. If you just go by the book, or follow precedent, 80% of the time you’ll be right for that context. And if not, be rewarded anyway.
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Here respect matters for solidarity+learning precedents by imitation. Meta-algorithm:
Apply rule, with respect/disrespect to enforce authority/compliance
If they are the “right” kind of people make easy exceptions learned by imitation
If they are disrespectful, stick to rules.
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Hence interactions like this in my respect thread
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Interaction I’ve occasionally had with petty bureaucrat types:
1: They disrespect me without consequences
2: I don’t react beyond, keep my end civil
3: They get mad and escalate to add hurdles
4: I address hurdles but still have no genuine reaction
5. Now they’re really mad...
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The fascinating thing is that these 2 types are otherwise polar opposites: ultimate insiders in belly of the beast, creatures of its rules, vs ultimate outsiders, pushing blackbox buttons on the outside to learn exploits. Rule following regardless of effects vs. trial and error.
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What they share is a) disinterest and/or incapability in acquiring knowledge and b) significant use of respect and social mechanisms (social proof or procedural technical correctness) to mitigate lack of knowledge
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People who put in more work to acquire actual knowledge on the other hand, tend to slowly wean themselves off respect-based social epistemology mechanisms. This is the nerd instinct. The drive to actually look inside blackbox. To learn how it works rather than just how to work it
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Nerds can of course have their own insecurities and internal respect competitions, but fundamentally actually wanting to know how something works regardless of whether it can be exploited without such knowledge: that’s the nerd instinct.
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Appreciative knowledge for its own sake, regardless of instrumental utility. 80% of the time, this means same outcomes at higher cost relative to bureaucrats or scenesters.
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20% of the time, you might be right and even then 80% of those cases it might not matter because rewards are tied to the social mechanisms like popular appeal or rules compliance. So nerdery might only be a winning posture 4% of the time net and you might never hit those cases.
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So to return to original question: there are 2 epistemologies here, and it’s not expert vs lay or insider vs outsider,
It is respect-based epistemology vs nerdery-based epistemology.
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let’s call those running on respect epistemology, whether insider bureaucrats or outsider button-pushers... Eloi. Surface [of knowledge] dwellers.
Those who work to understand and pay a cost 96% of time, and win 4% when others lose: Morlocks Interior [of knowledge] dwellers.
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In the short term the Eloi will generally win. In the long term, Morlocks will occasionally win big.
Not 4% of the time, that’s just being right when others are wrong and it mattering. It also has to matter in a big way to make up for steady costs. So about 0.32% maybe.
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By this it is not at all clear that Morlocks have long-term evolutionary advantage, contra both H. G. Wells and Neal Stephenson. The Eloi might prevail if things get lucky for them.
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