Thread by @EpistemicHope

I woke up from a weird, horrifying, dream. My immediate thought on waking up was "Oh. That's what Michael Vassar's and Ben Hoffman's worldview is like from the inside."

I wish I could remember more of it, and understood more of it. As it is, what I have is somewhat confused, but I have a sense of more meaning behind it.

The following it a digression into Eli's subconscious.

There was a guy who I expected of being a murderer.

I think that multiple people had gone missing in his general social vicinity, but somehow he was above suspicion by most of the people people in the town we were in.

He was an apple-seller, and there was something going on where each of his employees seemed unreliable in some way, such that you might associate them with with being criminals, but it didn't actually make sense that any of them might be murderers.

But this guy (the apple-seller) freaked out my sister (who was a child in this dream, much like the younger version of my actual real life sister), and didn't want to be near him. He triggered something about her intuitions.

As the dream progressed, I more and more wanted to make sure that she was not in the same room with him, alone, and that any time she was with him, I was also there.

But at first, I think I thought this was fine. I thought he might be a murderer, but that he wouldn't do anything given the circumstances, so it was probably fine?

Which seems like some kind of crazy oversight

There was some kind of scavenger hunt going on? I don't know what was up with that. The apple-man was involved, I think.

I'm not sure if solving the scavenger hunt would have helped with untangling with was happening, or if it was all a red herring.

But I was working in small teams trying to solve puzzles that lead to different places?

The guy was involved with the scavenger hunt somehow. There was also a small building (or maybe the door of the building?) that was labbled "AGI."

I was trying to make progress on clarifying what was up with the apple-seller, but at every turn, the he seemed to be nearby.

I felt like I couldn't say very much because he would overhear, or others would tell him of my suspicions.

Which was bad because, well, he seemed like a sociopath that would literally murder me.

There was an I think __actually__ crazy guy, who was nevertheless...prosocial?

I think he was shouting about the problem of pedophiles preying on kids. He seemed enthusiastic about the fact that I subtlety signaled (by tapping on my thigh) that I thought he was on to something.

But it was still hard to communicate for concern of being overheard. I took a photo of some number on his phone so that we could coordinate (in the literal sense of find a way and time to talk).

There was a point late in the dream when I was talking with a camp counselor (or someone), and I was being more direct than I had been earlier, saying something like "I think there's someone around who wants to hurt the children, and we have to get them out of here."

The counselor seemed...kind of to be avoiding the hassle / awkwardness? He wasn't malicious, per se, but it would be really inconveint if the children in his care were actually unsafe, so he was rationalizing that it must be fine and/or it must be practically impossible to fix.

I said something like "we need to find the pedophile, and get him out."

In response he said something like "well, imagine if there were 5 people who were all screaming about how bad the others were. In that case, we [shouldn't do anything] because [it is too confusing to know who to exile]."

Which was startling. I was like "No. I that case, it's crucial that you figure out what's going on." It isn't like the situation being confusing changes the essential problem of keeping the kids safe.

He responded, indignantly "Oh, so you think we should burn down the [building] to find some guy."

I was like "obviously not, and that's not at all what I said." The actual costs of figuring out what's going on don't have anything to do with burning down buildings.

(There was another guy sitting in front of me, who was similarly put off by that straw-manning and took objection to it.)

And then the creepiest part:

The guy who I suspected was suddenly sitting right next to me (two chairs to my right).

First he said something about someone (Emperor Palatine?) being in your thoughts, which I took as a covert-to-others signal that he knew that I suspected him. Which was, of course, a threat.

Then he said something like, "I've been railing against symbolic victories in protecting children for years. There are much more important real things to focus on, like increasing fire engine size."

He was citing __specific__ symbolic victories as if they were examples of non-symbolic victories, to claim that he was against symbolic victories in general, to generally bolster his social credibility, and to support the status quo in which investigation was unnecessary.

I didn't see this directly, but in my mind, the audience (the camp councilor) had a "yeah!" supportive reaction to that.

He didn't bother to check whether the actual interventions the man commented on were symbolic or not, he just took the the claim "I support real victories instead of symbolic victories" as a kind of political signpost/slogan and felt...

...relived that that stance implied that the camp didn't have to do an embarrassing and inconvenient investigation.

As I write these words, I find it hard to express how creepy this was.

It's like saying that you've always been pro-choice, and citing a bunch of times when you supported restricting abortions, and other people taking that on face value as __inarguable__ pro-choice credentials.

Like, the important thing is that you __declare__ that you're in favor of non-symbolic victories, not that that has any basis in semantic meaning.

And when you've gerrymandered which things everyone knows are symbolic victories vs non-symbolic victories, you can't even point at the concept of "non-symbolic victories" anymore, because people will...

...complete the pattern, "yeah, non-symbolic victories like [a bunch of symbolic victories]."

In this case, the adversary outmaneuvered us on a meta-level. The sociopath in the room is corrupting our ability talk about doing a real thing instead of a fake thing.

I had a sense of helplessness, like my fingers scrabbling to get traction on smooth glass.

Then I woke up, with the thought of "oh, that's something like what Ben Hoffman's world feels like from the inside."

In that kind of context, I would be somewhat frantically trying to get people to see the problem, feeling despair and horror as they fail to see the problem __because__ of the problem.

And I would have not that much patience, for people who are perpetuating the problem, even if they are in some sense well-meaning (like the camp councilor).

And there is a real sense of threat. Regardless of how well-meaning people are, they're still acting out a pattern which is malicious, on behalf of forces that might __literally__ try to kill you if you try to reveal them.

@threadreaderapp unroll