Tag: strategic interaction
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Against “Self-Expression”
Information and emotion ripple across the social, transforming members’ attitudes and behaviors. Stress breeds stress; anger transfers; to paraphrase Buddha, the only moral imperative is spreading good vibes. This is the idea behind the phrase “all communication is manipulation“: to emphasize the effects of utterances—and similar symbolic gestures—on the social ecology within which they are…
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Strategic Conceptualization
When consequences are the result of categorization, people will perform categories to attain their desired consequences. Categories carry with them a mix of connotations (social reputations) and decision rules (conventions for associated practice). Decision rules, that is, are domain-specific actions conditionally undertaken on the basis of whether a object or event under consideration is ruled…
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Précis for an action-oriented theory of language
What is a word, or message, or utterance? It is a move by an agent (~superorganism) undertaken in order to transform the environmental state, in a desired direction, by means of altering another agent’s information state. This transformation may occur directly, if the targeted slice of environment happens to be that agent whose informational state…
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Detectives & Dramaturgy
1. There are two potential explanations for why Tana French’s “literary thriller” In The Woods portrays human interaction and detective work how it does. The first is that she read Erving Goffman’s microsociology work, internalizing its principles. Alternatively, she trained and worked for over a decade as an actor. Goffman is famous for the dramaturgical…
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Language Games: Work, Play, Simulacra
Our speech may not be rational, but it is motivated. When we choose to speak, we speak for reasons. Our perceptions alter our models, alter our decisions, alter our actions. Our actions alter others’ perceptions alter models alter decisions (ad infinitum). Advertising is communication with specific, narrow motivations: envisioned ends which, in conjunction with player…
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Girls S2: Lip Service
“How can I be manipulating you if I don’t even know I’m being manipulative?” This, out of Hannah Horvath’s mouth after asking her father for a loan. This is the question of the Girls S2 finale. What does interpersonal manipulation really look like? Can we manipulate in a way that appears to be denying our…
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Epistemic Strategies pt. 2
There is probably no contrast more striking, in the comparison of the mixed-motive and the pure-conflict (zero-sum) game, than the significance of having one’s own strategy found out and appreciated by the opponent. Hardly anything captures the spirit of the zero-sum game quite so much as the importance of “not being found out” and of…
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Short-term, long-term in selection games
Natural Hazard prompts in the Pfeilstorch server: “The biggest problem with misrepresenting who you are in dating is that you might succeed.” Generalized: “The biggest reason to not strategically misrepresent yourself in a selection game is that you might succeed.” What properties of a selection game determine if or when this is good advice? Selection…
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All Is Well E28: “My hands are tied”
Previously, on communication as manipulation: “Consensual and Non-Consensual Manipulation,” “All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation,” “All Communication is Manipulation,” “Linguistic Fit,” “Is strategic interaction Machiavellian?,” “A Landscape of Communication,” and “ACiM is a Natural Extension of Cybernetic Theory.” Timestamped link to clip under discussion, beginning 16:05 in. Su Mingyu has recently been released from the hospital…
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All Is Well E28: Functional Railroading
Previously, on communication as manipulation: “Consensual and Non-Consensual Manipulation,” “All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation,” “All Communication is Manipulation,” “Linguistic Fit,” “Is strategic interaction Machiavellian?,” “A Landscape of Communication,” and “ACiM is a Natural Extension of Cybernetic Theory.” Timestamped link to clip under discussion, beginning 5:30 in. Shi Tiandong, love interest of protagonist Su Mingyu, is…
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Baselines for the would-be strategist
There’s a set of strategy maxims that get passed around Pentagon powerpoints, Greek history textbooks, and business school seminars which can be considered platitudes of the field. I think they probably boil down to about a dozen guidelines—I’ve gotten them down to fifteen here, but think good synthetic work could manage single digits. Don’t tilt…
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Response to Simpolism on ACiM
Simpolism has kindly written two posts in response to my own recent barrage—the first, “Is Communication ‘Manipulation’?” investigates his gut reaction to the idea that in communicating, he might manipulate others; the second, “On Behavioral Hermeneutics,” tries to figure out what kind of claim ACiM is. The posts make good points, and introduce a number…
Suspended Reason 