Sure, costly signaling has to be a big part of any analysis, but isn’t sports also a costly and unproductive way of signaling one’s physical and genetic fitness? Sports can also be a fun way of exercising, but some kids find ballet fun and it can also be good exercise. People have claimed various (non-signaling) benefits of learning to play an instrument as well, and that can also be an enjoyable activity for some.
Apparently some parents make their kids take lessons to increase the chances of getting into private school, and eventually an elite college, so another big part of the analysis might be the costs/benefits of private vs public school and elite vs non-elite colleges. (I personally went to public school and a state university.) Another big part is, if you leave a kid a lot of free time, how likely is it they’ll eventually find something valuable to do with it? Or alternatively, what are some more valuable activities we should try to guide a child into instead of the standard ones?
Elite colleges generally students who are “genuinely” (insert adjectives here), not yet another honor roll student with a boring essay about how their voluntourism trip to Africa changed their life. In a competitive field like that, you want to stand out, and you stand out a lot more by doing something that both clearly signals being good at things and is different from the signals that other students are sending.
Therefore, doing whatever other students of your socio-economic status do is a bad strategy. Much better to do something impressive and different.
It’s not like your kid can opt out of signalling. There’s lots of aspects of the value of these activities, and demonstration of talent, conscientiousness, and the right kind of conforming excellence can be a large part of what you and the kid gets out of it.
Bonus if they also get some excercise, practice and encouragement of good habits along the way.
Sure, but are the standard activities actually optimal even for this purpose? For example I learned to program as a kid, then in college wrote one of the first open source cryptography libraries, after which I had my pick of job offers. I probably put less total hours into this than someone who practiced piano for an hour a day from age 5, and got more out of it. But I’m not sure if that was luck, or if I can expect my own kid to duplicate this.
Also, now that learning to program has become a standard activity that parents push kids into (just look at how many tablet games there are that purport to teach kids how to program), it probably doesn’t have as much signaling or practical value due to competition, and I’m wondering what is the modern equivalent of learning to program as a kid in the 80s.
what is the modern equivalent of learning to program as a kid in the 80s.
Cryptocurrency investment. Imagine how your kid’s peers will be impressed to hear “when I was at elementary school, I put my pocket money in various altcoins, and… long story short, I am a billionaire now”. :D
But maybe learning to program is the modern equivalent of learning to program. Just because there are many tablet games teaching kids how to build “a loop in a loop” programs from predefined blocks, doesn’t mean that kids will bother to play the games, and will move to further stages of programming.
Sure, costly signaling has to be a big part of any analysis, but isn’t sports also a costly and unproductive way of signaling one’s physical and genetic fitness? Sports can also be a fun way of exercising, but some kids find ballet fun and it can also be good exercise. People have claimed various (non-signaling) benefits of learning to play an instrument as well, and that can also be an enjoyable activity for some.
Apparently some parents make their kids take lessons to increase the chances of getting into private school, and eventually an elite college, so another big part of the analysis might be the costs/benefits of private vs public school and elite vs non-elite colleges. (I personally went to public school and a state university.) Another big part is, if you leave a kid a lot of free time, how likely is it they’ll eventually find something valuable to do with it? Or alternatively, what are some more valuable activities we should try to guide a child into instead of the standard ones?
Disclaimer: US-centric perspective
Elite colleges generally students who are “genuinely” (insert adjectives here), not yet another honor roll student with a boring essay about how their voluntourism trip to Africa changed their life. In a competitive field like that, you want to stand out, and you stand out a lot more by doing something that both clearly signals being good at things and is different from the signals that other students are sending.
Therefore, doing whatever other students of your socio-economic status do is a bad strategy. Much better to do something impressive and different.
It’s not like your kid can opt out of signalling. There’s lots of aspects of the value of these activities, and demonstration of talent, conscientiousness, and the right kind of conforming excellence can be a large part of what you and the kid gets out of it.
Bonus if they also get some excercise, practice and encouragement of good habits along the way.
Sure, but are the standard activities actually optimal even for this purpose? For example I learned to program as a kid, then in college wrote one of the first open source cryptography libraries, after which I had my pick of job offers. I probably put less total hours into this than someone who practiced piano for an hour a day from age 5, and got more out of it. But I’m not sure if that was luck, or if I can expect my own kid to duplicate this.
Also, now that learning to program has become a standard activity that parents push kids into (just look at how many tablet games there are that purport to teach kids how to program), it probably doesn’t have as much signaling or practical value due to competition, and I’m wondering what is the modern equivalent of learning to program as a kid in the 80s.
Superforcasting might be an area that will be very useful in the future.
Cryptocurrency investment. Imagine how your kid’s peers will be impressed to hear “when I was at elementary school, I put my pocket money in various altcoins, and… long story short, I am a billionaire now”. :D
But maybe learning to program is the modern equivalent of learning to program. Just because there are many tablet games teaching kids how to build “a loop in a loop” programs from predefined blocks, doesn’t mean that kids will bother to play the games, and will move to further stages of programming.
Markets are anti-inductive; why do you think there’s future money lying on the street in buying some of many altcoins?