Remember remember remember, costly signaling is supposed to be about cost-to-fake, not cost-burnt-to-signal. It is not like Bitcoin. If you own an original Picasso, it is costless to show that you own it, but very costly for someone to fake owning it (have to commission an elaborate copy).
“Virtue signaling” should be thought of with this in mind. If you or someone else is frowning upon a virtue signal, that’s not because of the inherent structure of signaling. It means either it’s a corrupted signal, they’re being annoying with their signal, or it’s not a signal to begin with. For example, if someone can post a bunch of tweets about Latest Crisis
costlessly, that’s not really a costly signal to begin with. If someone volunteers for many hours at soup kitchens to be a politician even though they hate it, that’s a corrupted signal. If you casually drop all your volunteering accolades in conversation apropos of nothing, that’s a real signal but really annoying.
In many ways this structure mirrors force projection! Cf Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. In the same way that good force projection doesn’t require costly forces to be applied, good signaling doesn’t require cost to be burnt on a signal. The adept will signal perfectly fine through various proofs provided, without breaking social norms or splurging resources.
I think most of the opprobrium about virtue signaling (or at least the part I object to) is not about costliness of signal. It’s about the goodhearting of virtue. Caring about those topics and most public actions related to them is NOT a virtue in my book. This is annoying regardless of whether someone actually cares, or they expend effort to pretend to care.
I at least partially agree with this. I’m less interested in virtue signaling per se than I am in using it as a brief exploration to highlight a common misconception about how signaling works. Plausibly virtue signaling isn’t the clearest example of this, but I do think it’s a pretty good case of the broader point: people tend to talk about signals mostly when they are deficient in various ways, but then that tarnish rubs off onto all signaling universally. I think it’s really important that signals are extremely good in general, except ones that are dumb because they’re costly to implement or goodharted or what-have-you. This really does not come through when people talk about signaling.
Ah, I might use education vs IQ as an example—education is easier for smarter people to acquire. Of course, a lot of signaling examples are INTENTIONALLY focused on cost—the classic peacock tail is about signaling that the male is fit enough to spend that much energy on it’s tail. This is a perfect signal—the cost IS the signal, and the ability to undertake that cost is the value being signaled.
Remember remember remember, costly signaling is supposed to be about cost-to-fake, not cost-burnt-to-signal. It is not like Bitcoin. If you own an original Picasso, it is costless to show that you own it, but very costly for someone to fake owning it (have to commission an elaborate copy).
“Virtue signaling” should be thought of with this in mind. If you or someone else is frowning upon a virtue signal, that’s not because of the inherent structure of signaling. It means either it’s a corrupted signal, they’re being annoying with their signal, or it’s not a signal to begin with. For example, if someone can post a bunch of tweets about Latest Crisis
In many ways this structure mirrors force projection! Cf Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. In the same way that good force projection doesn’t require costly forces to be applied, good signaling doesn’t require cost to be burnt on a signal. The adept will signal perfectly fine through various proofs provided, without breaking social norms or splurging resources.
I think most of the opprobrium about virtue signaling (or at least the part I object to) is not about costliness of signal. It’s about the goodhearting of virtue. Caring about those topics and most public actions related to them is NOT a virtue in my book. This is annoying regardless of whether someone actually cares, or they expend effort to pretend to care.
I at least partially agree with this. I’m less interested in virtue signaling per se than I am in using it as a brief exploration to highlight a common misconception about how signaling works. Plausibly virtue signaling isn’t the clearest example of this, but I do think it’s a pretty good case of the broader point: people tend to talk about signals mostly when they are deficient in various ways, but then that tarnish rubs off onto all signaling universally. I think it’s really important that signals are extremely good in general, except ones that are dumb because they’re costly to implement or goodharted or what-have-you. This really does not come through when people talk about signaling.
Ah, I might use education vs IQ as an example—education is easier for smarter people to acquire. Of course, a lot of signaling examples are INTENTIONALLY focused on cost—the classic peacock tail is about signaling that the male is fit enough to spend that much energy on it’s tail. This is a perfect signal—the cost IS the signal, and the ability to undertake that cost is the value being signaled.