Generally, signals for non-maziness often involve the willingness to create social tension with other people who are in the ingroup. That’s qualitatively different than requiring people to engage in costly signals like veganism or taking the giving pledge as EAs.
I disagree— I would call social tension a cost. Willingness to risk social tension is not as legible of a signal, though, because it’s harder to track that someone is living up to a pre-commitment.
Whether or not social tension is a cost is besides the point. Costly signals nearly always come with costs.
If you have an enviroment where status is gained by costly signals that are only valued within that group, it drives status competition in a way where the people who are on top likely will chose status over other ends.
That means that organizations are not honest about the impact that they are having but present themselves as creating more impact than they actually produce. It means that when high status organizations inflate their impact people avoid talking about it when it would cost them status.
If people optimize to gain status by donating and being vegan, you can’t trust people who donate and are vegan to do moves that cost them status but that would result in other positive ends.
> If people optimize to gain status by donating and being vegan, you can’t trust people who donate and are vegan to do moves that cost them status but that would result in other positive ends.
How are people supposed to know their moves are socially positive?
Also I’m not saying to make those things the only markers of status. You seem to want to optimize for costly signals of “honesty”, which I worry is being goodharted in this conversation.
I disagree— I would call social tension a cost. Willingness to risk social tension is not as legible of a signal, though, because it’s harder to track that someone is living up to a pre-commitment.
Whether or not social tension is a cost is besides the point. Costly signals nearly always come with costs.
If you have an enviroment where status is gained by costly signals that are only valued within that group, it drives status competition in a way where the people who are on top likely will chose status over other ends.
That means that organizations are not honest about the impact that they are having but present themselves as creating more impact than they actually produce. It means that when high status organizations inflate their impact people avoid talking about it when it would cost them status.
If people optimize to gain status by donating and being vegan, you can’t trust people who donate and are vegan to do moves that cost them status but that would result in other positive ends.
> If people optimize to gain status by donating and being vegan, you can’t trust people who donate and are vegan to do moves that cost them status but that would result in other positive ends.
How are people supposed to know their moves are socially positive?
Also I’m not saying to make those things the only markers of status. You seem to want to optimize for costly signals of “honesty”, which I worry is being goodharted in this conversation.