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.
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.