In my post on Wednesday (Paranoia: A Beginner's Guide), I talked at a high level about the experience of paranoia, and gave two models (the lemons market model and the OODA loop model) that try get us a bit closer to understanding its nature and purpose.

I then made a big claim that went largely unargued in the post, that there are exactly three kinds of strategies that make sense to pursue in adversarial information environments:

You blind yourself
You eliminate the sources of deception
You act unpredictably

Now, Unnamed brought up a very reasonable critique in the comments! Why would there be exactly three strategies that make sense? How can we have any confidence that there isn't a 4th kind of strategy that works?

And, in reality, there are totally other kinds of strategies. Many of the most effective strategies (like building networks of trust, hiring independent auditors, performing randomized experiments and "getting better at figuring out the truth on your own") don't neatly fit into the categories in that post. Maybe they can somehow be forced into this ontology, but IMO they are not a great fit.

But I argue that there [...]

The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
November 16th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rmkbneSMQHZJ5Svbk/diagonalization-a-slightly-more-rigorous-model-of-paranoia

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

With this strategy you are making it harder for your opponent to build a model of you (the smaller agent)

Diagram showing hierarchical agent system with sensory inputs and actuators.

Diagram showing nested agents with sensory inputs and actuators, illustrating control hierarchy.

Diagram showing hierarchical agent structure with sensory inputs and actuators connecting bigger and smaller agents.

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“Diagonalization: A (slightly) more rigorous model of paranoia” by habryka

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Diagonalization: A (slightly) more rigorous model of paranoia” by habryka