be a real person

the script readers are among us

mark pointed out to me that a big theme in my life seems to be about identifying if the people around me are real people or not. i guess my entire life is just a giant game of among us

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this started because i asked him: what are some other things that you find infuriating with my communication pattern.

he shared there’s something about the way i ask people questions when i’m pretty sure they didn’t think it through.

• instead of saying “ok we want to do things like {X principle}”

• i end up asking “why did you end up doing this like this?”

• that he doesn’t understand why i wouldn’t just clarify the right way to do things instead of first force them to justify the thing they did in the first place

to me, the problem isn’t that they aren’t in line with {X principle}. it’s that they didn’t put thought into it in the first place. i see a meaningful distinction between someone having put thought in and arriving at a different conclusion vs someone who put no thought into it.

also - people lie. most people in the world don’t have any original thoughts - but they seem to be perfectly capable of sounding intelligent, because they’re mimic’ing original thoughts by others and adding either an amplifier or dampener to it. ← this is not original

if you did something hastily, and i view it as violating a principle of measure twice cut once. there are two things that could be the case

1. you evaluated the principle and decided, thoughtfully, that in the current situation we should violate the rule of measure twice and cut once [i may or may not disagree, but that’s immaterial - the important part is that you thought about it]

2. you were on autopilot and didn’t consider it at all, and aren’t even aware that we care about “measuring twice / cutting once”

*this is not a real example - we very much do the opposite of measuring twice and cutting once

chances are, if #2 is the case and i asked “why did you violate the principle of measuring twice and cutting once” - someone for whom #1 is the case has been cued into the correct way to respond that mimics critical thinking. they wouldn’t own up to not knowing the answer in the first place.

this is the same effect as the multiple choice question effect: if i give you the template for a valid answer in favor of an argument - i’ve implicitly given you the template for arguing the reverse while only using pattern matching and engaging minimal brain activity yourself.

why do i do this? I guess I feel like the world is full of people who aren’t real humans, like imposters in the game among us, and they’re always trying to mimic real humans and trick me into thinking they’re real. and they’ll become highly offended if i ever point out they’re not real.

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what does it mean to be a real person?

after digging at it a lot, i think most of it rolls into a set of three tests that are really just different time-horizon tests for the same quality… which is the measure of how much a catalyst for things you are [and how much of a robot following environmental cues are you]

1. can you go off script? AKA. can you form original thoughts?

   • most conversations with people follow a specific note and pattern - and you’re taught to color within the lines of those conversations whenever possible. “hi how are you doing?” “oh cool where are you from?” etc. following the script is easy - an AI can follow a script and it doesn’t show

   • test: you’re asked something you’ve never thought about before

     • failure condition: you get uncomfortable with the new question [instead of excited and stimulated] and say something to the effect of “how can you ask me that?” or try to get out of the conversation

       • this behavior is actually super similar to the behavior of synths in sci fi

   • example: under what conditions would you set a bonfire in the middle of a schoolyard full of books from the library?

     • passing response: “hmm… obviously there’s the argument for safety and maybe as part of a movie… but as a symbol of anti-intellectualism i’d have to figure out how i’d be convinced that intellectualism is bad…“

     • failing response types:

       • brain shut down / outrage: “what kind of question is that?”

       • appeal to get back on script: “can’t we talk about something normal“

       • canned response: “never! burning books bad - don’t you know the script?”

2. have you ever not followed the instructions in your life? AKA. do you exercise any agency

   • most people travel a set of relatively deterministic paths based on the expectations they have in their station in life. hampton house → trinity exeter → harvard → mckinsey → GSB → VC. this might be optimal - but it’s unlikely that your optimal path has literally never deviated from social expectations. what’s an example of a time you deviated?

   • test: you’re asked if when you’ve deviated the most in the arc of your life from expectations of you

     • failure condition: you get uncomfortable… trigger various mid-life-crisis response patterns… cannot name anything more than “oh skipped class one day”… talk about how “that’s what everyone does“

   • example: what’s the weirdest thing you’ve done that you thought a ton about?

     • passing response: “so i really wanted to be a screenwriter… but <insert original analysis> it made me decide that i mostly just wanted to be at the focal point of a ton of attention, <insert original analysis> i started studying math in college and got really into programming….“

     • failing response types:

       • appeal to crowd: “doesn’t everyone just do XXX”

       • outrage… ok yea failing response types look the same for each quesiton nvm

3. do you exercise any ownership for yourself? AKA. do you blame your circumstances?

   • most people see themselves as a by product of their environment - and externalize decisions and identities to other factors. this could be blaming a family divorce for making you non-committal… or the reverse, where you say you over-corrected and are overly committal. real people own that everything that happened to them happened because of themselves, i.e. if you got fired, it wasn’t bc you had a bad boss, or market conditions, or “technically they were layoffs” - it was because you weren’t good enough, and made bad decisions

   • test: you’re asked why X bad thing happened to you and you did X bad thing

     • failure condition: you start talking about some externalized condition about yourself making you do it [oh… that’s just my <condition>] or [oh… that’s because i grew up <condition>] or [oh… that’s because <3rd party> did X to me so now i’m Y]

   • example: why do you think your startup failed?

     • passing response: “hmmm, i probably didnt want it enough. i made bad hires i didn’t let go of fast enough… i couldn’t raise another round… i didn’t communication effectively with my cofounder… i didn’t pivot out of the market after recognizing the trends soon enough”

     • failing response types:

       • blame world: “oh it’s because the market wasn’t ready… customers didn’t trust….”

       • blame people: “oh my cofounder/employees/investors/manager were horrible…”

test 1, 2, and 3 are really just tests of agency and ownership over the course of [a conversation], [a medium term decision in your life], and [how you view your entire life]. in case it isn’t obvious, i view these things are tautologically good - and if you don’t exhibit these traits, not only am i at a loss for how to deal with you - i probably don’t even think you’re real.

very rarely have i ever seen someone who is not real become real… but i’m sure it’s possible.

am i just loading people i like into the definition of real person?

no - as i’ve been made aware, there are actually lots of people i don’t like that i acknowledge are real people

someone who owns a manufacturing plant in china and cheats on his wife and abuses his teammates and undrestands all of it and believes might makes right…. if they could pass all 3 tests… i could conceive of such a person existing. but to me they would just feel… evil

someone who goes to burning man every year and does absurd amounts of drugs and leaches off their friends and family to fund their life style and doesn’t really care - but is self aware and just wants to “vibe” might be real… likewise i would consider them evil

someone else could just be real - and a giant asshole. maybe they like violence. maybe they are super super uptight and need everything incredibly organized. maybe they hate reading. there are plenty of people who are real but are bad vibes ← and i just really don’t like them

real just means a converastion with you doesnt’ feel like a videogame cutscene. but that doesn’t even mean i’ll learn something interesting or authentic