Epistemic status: one step of reasoning away from this LessWrong post. Very nervous about correctness of final conclusion, but can’t pin down very well if that’s actual uncertainty or just not liking where it leads.
Asymmetric and symmetric weapons are a notion popularized by Scott Alexander, via these two Slate Star Codex posts. To briefly summarize, an asymmetric weapon is a strategy that’s more effective for pursuing some goals than others. A symmetric weapon is equally effective for pursuing all goals. As an illustrative example, in the context of a debate with the goal of identifying the truth, evidence is asymmetric while fistfights are symmetric. If both sides use evidence-based debate, the side aligned with the truth will tend to win more often than not, since there should be better evidence for true things than for false things. If both sides used fistfight-based debate, it’s a coin flip whether the truth wins or not, since there’s no reason to think that having the correct answer would make you better at fistfights in general.
I was very excited about the notion of asymmetric weapons for a while – I thought that promoting systems that favor “the good guys” would be a robust solution to all sorts of problems. Frankly, at a psychological level, I think a large part of this was because a lot of the things that Traditional Rationality says are bad, like violence, deception, and demagoguery tend to be highly symmetric with respect to common human goals. I am very uncomfortable with those kinds of things because of the culture I was raised in, and so I jumped at an opportunity to think that the optimal strategy to pursue my goals did not involve any Dark Arts.
However, this notion very quickly runs into a few problems. First, in cases where the most effective weapons available are highly symmetric, this policy leads to unilateral disarmament and subsequent crushing defeat for our so-called “good guys”. This would be like if the folks promoting climate action abandoned the use of advertising, emotional appeals, and exaggeration on the basis of symmetry. They would just lose. There are some apparent counter-examples to this, like peaceful protest. However, peaceful protest isn’t a complete disavowal of symmetric weapons, just a tactical choice to sacrifice the use of violence in exchange for enhanced emotional appeals, both of which are powerful and symmetric.
The most promising way that asymmetry can be used to the advantage of “the good guys” is to set up norms that punish the use of strategies that are not symmetric towards “the good guys”. In a society where emotional appeals and exaggeration get a bad rap because of established norms, this unilateral disarmament problem doesn’t happen. This is the whole idea of spreading good epistemic hygiene. Once these norms are set up, the environment becomes asymmetric, and we should expect the “good guys” to naturally have the high ground more often than not. The problem is, setting up these norms in the first place is a completely symmetric strategy. Anyone can do it just as easily, “good guys” or not, and set up whatever norms they want. And there’s no way to set up norms that encourage setting up good norms without launching yourself down an infinite regress.
It’s starting to seem like using Dark Arts for the greater good at some point may be inevitable. And that’s really scary, because it means the Traditional Rationalist policy “people who use Dark Arts are Bad Guys” doesn’t hold. Everyone’s lightsabers are the same color.
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