To each his own. Personally, I think that unless you live in a community where most people have tattoos, the most rational decision is to have no tattoos. I believe they close more doors than they open. Maybe I am mistaken, maybe situations were tattoos help you are more common than I think. Please correct me then.
Tattoos that signal group membership are a costly signal of loyalty, and the cost is precisely closing those other doors. It’s just, with the “rationality tattoos”, I am not sure what exactly one gains in exchange for paying the cost.
I’d say that a truly rational tattoo is the one that can be easily removed. :D
I could imagine a specific situation where having a rationality tattoo could be the rational thing to do (for reasons other than impressing people who are easily impressed by tattoos), but those are quite unlikely situations. Having a rationality tattoo doesn’t reliably signal rationality—even a stupid person may decide to get one—so what exactly would be the purpose? Signalling hostility towards groups that openly identify as anti-rationality? Not sure there are many such groups.
The Economist published a fascinating blog entry where they use evidential decision theory to establish that tattoo removal results in savings to the prison system. See http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/08/tattoos-jobs-and-recidivism . Temporally, this blog entry corresponds roughly to the time I lost my respect for the Economist. You can draw your own causal conclusions from this.
To each his own. Personally, I think that unless you live in a community where most people have tattoos, the most rational decision is to have no tattoos. I believe they close more doors than they open. Maybe I am mistaken, maybe situations were tattoos help you are more common than I think. Please correct me then.
Tattoos that signal group membership are a costly signal of loyalty, and the cost is precisely closing those other doors. It’s just, with the “rationality tattoos”, I am not sure what exactly one gains in exchange for paying the cost.
I’d say that a truly rational tattoo is the one that can be easily removed. :D
I could imagine a specific situation where having a rationality tattoo could be the rational thing to do (for reasons other than impressing people who are easily impressed by tattoos), but those are quite unlikely situations. Having a rationality tattoo doesn’t reliably signal rationality—even a stupid person may decide to get one—so what exactly would be the purpose? Signalling hostility towards groups that openly identify as anti-rationality? Not sure there are many such groups.
whispers Voldemort, Voldemort...
Meh
I think there’s a benefit to signaling weirdness and commitment, and that’s what the tattoo does.
The Economist published a fascinating blog entry where they use evidential decision theory to establish that tattoo removal results in savings to the prison system. See http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/08/tattoos-jobs-and-recidivism . Temporally, this blog entry corresponds roughly to the time I lost my respect for the Economist. You can draw your own causal conclusions from this.