-If good and evil aren't arbitrary, but our _understanding_ of good and evil depends on which books we read in what order, and which books we read in what order _does_ seem like a pretty arbitrary historical contingency, then how do we _know_ our sequence of books led us to actually being in the right, when we would have predictably thought otherwise had we encountered the villain's books instead?—how do we break the symmetry? If the villain is at all smart, she should be asking herself the same question.
+If good and evil aren't arbitrary, but our _understanding_ of good and evil depends on which books we read in what order, and which books we read in what order _does_ seem like an arbitrary historical contingency, then how do we _know_ our sequence of books led us to actually being in the right, when we would have predictably thought otherwise had we encountered the villain's books instead?—how do we break the symmetry? If the villain is at all smart, she should be asking herself the same question.
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+And that's how I break the symmetry: by acknowledging it when my counterparts don't. I _don't_ think I have fundamentally different _values_ from those whom I [happen to be fighting](/2020/Feb/if-in-some-smothering-dreams-you-too-could-pace/). I think I happen to _know_ some decision-relevant facts and philosophy that they don't, and I can [trace back the causal chain of what I think I know and how I think I know it](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6s3xABaXKPdFwA3FS/what-is-evidence). They see me as complicit with their oppressors, and mine; I see them as _not understanding what I'm trying to do_.
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+I'm trying to construct a map that reflects the territory. If this should entail some risk of self-fulfilling prophecies—if some corner of reality is all twisted up such that any attempt to describe that reality would thereby change it (for the map is _part_ of the territory)—then I want a map of how _that_ process works.
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+If the one should see this only as service to our oppressors, then I should happily taste the steel of her [beautiful weapons](https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/24/guided-by-the-beauty-of-our-weapons/), if she could only tell me in sufficient detail how describing me as the villain [shortens the length of the message needed to describe her observations](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mB95aqTSJLNR9YyjH/message-length). I'm _listening_.