I notice that many of these examples involve something like vice signalling—the person is destroying value in order to demonstrate that they have a quality which I (and most LWers) consider to be undesirable. It seems bad for the middle manager, politician, and start-up founder to aim for the shallow thing that they’re prioritizing. And then they take the extra step of destroying something I do value in order to accentuate that. It’s a combination that feels real icky.
The romantic dinner and the handmade gift examples don’t have that feature. And those two cases feel more ambiguous—I can imagine versions of these where it seems good that the person is doing these things, and versions where it seems bad. I can picture a friend telling me “I took my partner out for their birthday to a restaurant that I don’t really care for, but they just adore” and it being a heartwarming story, where it seems like something good is happening for my friend and their relationship.
Katja’s recent post on Opposite Attractions points to one thing that seems good about taking your spouse to a restaurant that only they love—your spouse’s life is full of things that you both like, and perhaps starved of certain styles of things that they like and you don’t, and they could be getting something out of drawing from that latter category even if there’s some sense in which they don’t like it any more than a thing in the “youboth like it” category. And there’s something good about them getting some of those things within the relationship, of having the ground that the relationship covers not be limited to the intersection of “the things you like” and “the things your spouse likes”—your relationship mostly takes advantage of that part of the territory but sometimes it’s good to explore other parts of it together. And I could imagine you bringing an attitude to the meal where you’re tuned in to your spouse’s experience, trying to take pleasure in how much they enjoy the meal, rather than being focused on your own food. And (this is the part where paying a cost to resolve motive ambiguity comes in directly) going to a restaurant that they love and you don’t like seems like it can help set the context for this kind of thing—putting the information in common knowledge between you two that this is a special occasion, and what sort of special occasion it’s trying to be. It seems harder to hit some of these notes in a context where both people love the food.
(There are also versions the one-sided romantic dinner which seem worse, and good relationships where this version doesn’t fit or isn’t necessary.)
I notice that many of these examples involve something like vice signalling—the person is destroying value in order to demonstrate that they have a quality which I (and most LWers) consider to be undesirable. It seems bad for the middle manager, politician, and start-up founder to aim for the shallow thing that they’re prioritizing. And then they take the extra step of destroying something I do value in order to accentuate that. It’s a combination that feels real icky.
The romantic dinner and the handmade gift examples don’t have that feature. And those two cases feel more ambiguous—I can imagine versions of these where it seems good that the person is doing these things, and versions where it seems bad. I can picture a friend telling me “I took my partner out for their birthday to a restaurant that I don’t really care for, but they just adore” and it being a heartwarming story, where it seems like something good is happening for my friend and their relationship.
Katja’s recent post on Opposite Attractions points to one thing that seems good about taking your spouse to a restaurant that only they love—your spouse’s life is full of things that you both like, and perhaps starved of certain styles of things that they like and you don’t, and they could be getting something out of drawing from that latter category even if there’s some sense in which they don’t like it any more than a thing in the “youboth like it” category. And there’s something good about them getting some of those things within the relationship, of having the ground that the relationship covers not be limited to the intersection of “the things you like” and “the things your spouse likes”—your relationship mostly takes advantage of that part of the territory but sometimes it’s good to explore other parts of it together. And I could imagine you bringing an attitude to the meal where you’re tuned in to your spouse’s experience, trying to take pleasure in how much they enjoy the meal, rather than being focused on your own food. And (this is the part where paying a cost to resolve motive ambiguity comes in directly) going to a restaurant that they love and you don’t like seems like it can help set the context for this kind of thing—putting the information in common knowledge between you two that this is a special occasion, and what sort of special occasion it’s trying to be. It seems harder to hit some of these notes in a context where both people love the food.
(There are also versions the one-sided romantic dinner which seem worse, and good relationships where this version doesn’t fit or isn’t necessary.)