# Eight Heuristics of Anti-Epistemology

Here are eight *tools of anti-epistemology* that I think anyone can use to hide their norm-violating behavior from being noticed, and deceive people about their character.[^s61b0vpdepo]

| **Heuristic** |     | **Details** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **1.** **Maintain Plausible Innocence** Always provide and maintain a plausibly deniable account of your behavior that isn’t norm violating *Kim Kitsuragi: “You want to send someone a message that the police are working for you.”* *Evrart Claire: “I repeat, I’m a very, \\*very\\* busy man, Mr. Kitsuragi, and therefore I must occasionally enlist… outside help.” He turns back to you. “So what will it be, Harry?”* |     | **How: **Never *explicitly* offer or ask to do something that’s norm violating. Always communicate it in the subtext, while your explicit words are consistent with a narrative of good conduct / innocence. **Why: **Whenever a third party tries to verify what was communicated, you have a coherent and accurate account of the explicit text of your words that is not the same as what was actually communicated, making it harder to prosecute your crimes. (Spiritually: *"They've got nothing on me.")* It can also confuse the people you're actually talking to about the extent to which you intended what actually happened, and as to what your motives were in the situation. |
| **2.** **Dismiss Plausible Criticism** Never acknowledge criticism of you to be good-faith or reasonable. Never explicitly acknowledge a perspective whereby your negotiation partner would have *genuinely good reason* to question your behavior. |     | **How: **Never acknowledge an accurate, critical perspective about yourself. Do not give it any conversational space. Always strawman any reasonable criticisms of you into more unreasonable or bad faith accounts. **Why: **(1) The world is just much better for you if nobody has any reasonable criticisms. (2) If you portray this believably, it makes sense to others that you would then see your critics as acting in bad faith and unfairly trying to attack you. (3) It also makes it harder for people to think clearly about criticisms of you. Whenever someone honestly tries to give any weight to your perspective, they update that there is a world of unreasonable and bad-faith people being unfair to you. |
| **3.** **Don't discuss details** Avoid *discussing* details and checkable facts. *Harry: "Funny, Joyce didn't mention any casserole."* *Evrart Claire: "Harry, Harry, Harry!" He flicks his fingers. "Do not fixate on this little matter. Maybe it was a rabbit stew... or a hair dryer, or an iron. The point is, her heart wasn't in it. Mine \\*was\\*."* |     | **How:** Avoid getting into arguments about checkable facts. Insist that the details are unimportant, mustn’t be worried about, and you’re not interested in them. **Why: **It makes it easier for you to tell narratives that benefit your side when you are less constrained by anything that actually happened. It also makes it harder for people to check whether you are intentionally misleading them because you avoid making claims that can be checked. |
| **4.** **Don't know details** Avoid *knowing* details and checkable facts. *Evrart Claire: "Well done then, Harry. I like not knowing about it and I’m sure you made the right call. I spend the whole day delegating tasks, and it’s a great relief to see people taking initiative. I don’t even want to know what all of that means... I’m gonna let the world \\*surprise\\* me.”* |     | **How: **Encourage people who report to you or who otherwise carry out work to *avoid* giving you information. When this is brought up say that the details are not your purview/job, and say that you have great trust in the people whose job it is to know those details. **Why: **Not being aware of what’s going to happen means, by many simple heuristics, that you are not culpable for what happened. It also has a great effect whereby people who work for you *will feel more comfortable doing crimes on your behalf*, as you are well able to perform innocence and ignorance about what they’ve done, and they know that you will generally provide friction and pushback against anyone *checking details about what happened*. Related: [Power Buys You Distance From the Crime](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9fB4gvoooNYa4t56S/power-buys-you-distance-from-the-crime) |
| **5.** **Perform positive vibes** Make your vibe unanimously positive and complimentary toward those you interact with. Perform the role of a kind, generous, loyal and ultimately well-intentioned person, in all situations. |     | **How: **Commit yourself to always performing positive emotions toward your counterparties and always speaking glowingly of them to their face. Never show yourself to be acting out of negatively-valenced motives like spite or hatred or insecurity. Do not express intentions toward people other than the best ones. (Brief exceptions are allowed when someone does something unambiguously bad for you, though this should be performed as *righteous* anger, and should always be quickly followed by a return to positivity.) **Why: **People often predict others’ behavior with low-detail surface-level social modeling. (*“Yeah, Bob clearly likes Steve, he’d probably be supportive of his project and not backstab him.”*) So if you can play this role while actually being quite conniving, you can get away with bad behavior without people expecting or even considering that you did it. (Plus, if they do notice that your behavior hurt someone, they're more likely to assume *you didn’t intend it*.) It also means that any time a third-party asks about your reputation, they hear broadly positive things from many people who don't know you deeply, which greases the wheels of new interactions and relationships. |
| **6.** **Perform a Polished Self-Presentation** Figure out what the ideal character is that people hope someone in your position would have, and then figure out how to fake it really damn well. Constantly seek out opportunities to perform it, in order to convince people that that's who you are. |     | **How:** Most of your cognitive cycles should be spent on figuring out how to *present yourself* as the person that you want others to believe you are, and finding opportunities to perform those qualities that don't conflict with your other goals, or how to rationalize your corrupt actions as following good principles. If you want to be a corrupt police sergeant / judge / corporate executive / journalist / etc, it really helps to have figured out what it looks like to do play that role sincerely, and what principles and character traits everyone *wishes* you would have in that role, so that you can fake them well. **Why:** It's so much easier for people to trick themselves into thinking that's who you are when that's who you seem to be so often, and that's what everyone else knows you as. It's far easier for them to consider a clear mis-step to be a rare mistake or incongruous with your character and dismiss it, when they've seen you convincingly play the role of an upstanding individual. |
| **7.** **Reframe Their Behavior as About Your Relationship** Constantly build a narrative of having a loyal and strong relationship with people you have dealings with. Later, when someone does something not to your liking, defensively reframe people’s actions as being *about* your relationship, and *harming* your relationship. *Evrart Claire: “You've hurt me, Harry -- me! A friend!" The man rubs his temple and closes his eyes, in pain. "But you know what?" He perks up. "I trust you, like I trust all my friends. And I know you'll never talk to me about this again, because you don't want to \\*wound\\* me. So do what you want -- and let's change the subject."* |     | **How: **Repeatedly emphasize loyalty, trust, and friendship between you and your counterparty. Regularly frame all actions and interactions as showing this. Whenever a counterparty is doing something bad for you, deflect and redirect to reinforcing this as the primary narrative of what’s happening, and thus point out costs that their behavior is imposing on your relationship. **Why: **This reframes someone’s behavior in the narrative of your relationship with them. If they accept this frame, this will have a lot of limitations on what they will do relating to you that are very advantageous for you. Even if they don’t accept this frame, if you play the role well enough to be plausible to third-parties, then the person has to fear that others will believe them and that retaliatory action from you will seem plausibly justified. |
| **8.** **Reframe the Situation However Suits You** Not sure what to say? Not sure what's happening? Does something bad seem to be happening? Pick whatever narrative seems good to you and sell it! *Evrart Claire: "Now please, let's get back to the good stuff, the police stuff, Harry! I just see myself as one of you guys. Think of me as a sergeant or something." He smiles broadly. "Let's \\*crack\\* this, Harry."* |     | **How:** If there's an awkward spot in a conversation, or just a lull, or a topic comes up and you're not sure where to go with it, **Why:** Narratives are hugely consequential and often hard to pin down or disprove. So in this large space of possibilities, it helps to just act in order to optimize what people believe and think makes sense. There are a lot of parts of a person's world model, and the more of them you can control and that are favorable to you, the better. Tell them about something good you've done, or tell them how you have great faith in them, or tell them how you're on the same team, or tell them how you have nothing to hide. The more of these things the believe, the better the world is for you. |

In summary, the eight guides to anti-epistemology are

> *(1 & 2) Maintain Plausible Innocence / Dismiss Plausible Criticism*
> 
> *(3 & 4) Don't discuss details / Don't know details*
> 
> *(5 & 6) Perform positive vibes / Perform a Polished Self-Presentation*
> 
> *(7 & 8) Reframe Their Behavior as About Your Relationship / Reframe the Situation However Suits You*

How might one combat someone wielding these tools? I turn to that in my next post.

[^s61b0vpdepo]: These are inspired by Evrart Claire, but this post is standalone and can be understood without that context.