It’s not entirely clear to me either. Here are a few quick related thoughts:
We shouldn’t assume it’s clear that higher-long-term QoL is the primary motivator for most people who do save. For most of them, it’s something their friends, family, co-workers… think is a good idea.
Evolutionary fitness doesn’t care (directly) about QoL.
There may be unhelpful game theory at work. If in some groups where people tend to spend X, there’s quite a bit to gain in spending [X + 1], and a significant loss in spending [X − 1], you’d expect group spending to increase.
Even if we’re talking about [what’s effective] rather than [our evolutionary programming], we’re still navigating other people’s evolutionary programming. Being slightly above/below average in spending may send a disproportionate signal.
The value of a faked signal is higher for people who don’t have other channels to signal something similar.
Other groups likely are sending similar signals in other ways. E.g. consider intellectuals sitting around having lengthy philosophical discussions that don’t lead to action. They’re often wasting time, simultaneously showing off skills that they could be using more productively, but aren’t. (this is also a problem where it’s a genuine waste—my point is only that very few people avoid doing this in some form)
Of course none of this makes it any less of a problem (to the extent it’s bringing down collective QoL) - but possibly a difficult problem that we’d expect to exist.
Solutions-wise, my main thought is that you’d want to find a way to channel signalling-waste efficiently into public goods—so that personal ‘waste’ becomes a collective advantage (hopefully).
It is also worth noting that not all ‘wasteful’ spending is bad for society. E.g. consider early adopters of new and expensive technology: without people willing to ‘waste’ money on the Tesla Roadster, getting electric cars off the ground may have been a much harder problem.
It’s not entirely clear to me either.
Here are a few quick related thoughts:
We shouldn’t assume it’s clear that higher-long-term QoL is the primary motivator for most people who do save. For most of them, it’s something their friends, family, co-workers… think is a good idea.
Evolutionary fitness doesn’t care (directly) about QoL.
There may be unhelpful game theory at work. If in some groups where people tend to spend X, there’s quite a bit to gain in spending [X + 1], and a significant loss in spending [X − 1], you’d expect group spending to increase.
Even if we’re talking about [what’s effective] rather than [our evolutionary programming], we’re still navigating other people’s evolutionary programming. Being slightly above/below average in spending may send a disproportionate signal.
The value of a faked signal is higher for people who don’t have other channels to signal something similar.
Other groups likely are sending similar signals in other ways. E.g. consider intellectuals sitting around having lengthy philosophical discussions that don’t lead to action. They’re often wasting time, simultaneously showing off skills that they could be using more productively, but aren’t. (this is also a problem where it’s a genuine waste—my point is only that very few people avoid doing this in some form)
Of course none of this makes it any less of a problem (to the extent it’s bringing down collective QoL) - but possibly a difficult problem that we’d expect to exist.
Solutions-wise, my main thought is that you’d want to find a way to channel signalling-waste efficiently into public goods—so that personal ‘waste’ becomes a collective advantage (hopefully).
It is also worth noting that not all ‘wasteful’ spending is bad for society. E.g. consider early adopters of new and expensive technology: without people willing to ‘waste’ money on the Tesla Roadster, getting electric cars off the ground may have been a much harder problem.