Could you expand a bit on why you expect a trade-off between intelligence/virtue signalling, as opposed to two independent axes? I can sort of see a case where intelligence is the “cost” part of “costly virtue signalling”, and virtue is the “cost” part of “costly intelligence signalling”, like the examples in toxoplasma of rage. On the other hand, looking at those examples of the dangers of runaway IQ signalling, they generally don’t seem to trade-off against virtue.
Could you expand a bit on why you expect a trade-off between intelligence/virtue signalling, as opposed to two independent axes?
They are two independent axes, but when you’re at the Pareto frontier (which I think a lot of people are at), doing more of one requires doing less of the other. For virtue signaling in particular, to signal effectively you often have to parrot a very narrow party line or orthodoxy, which leaves very few degrees of freedom to do intelligence signaling. For example, if there are errors in the party line or orthodoxy, which you’d ordinarily get “intelligence points” for finding and pointing them out, in a virtue-signaling environment you’d get shamed/censored/punished.
What started this whole line of thought was this statement (linked to in the OP), which I saw someone quote in a completely serious way.
It seems like a lot of examples of virtue signalling require sacrificing intelligence, but sacrificing virtue seems like a less common requirement to signal intelligence. So one possible model would be that, rather than a pareto frontier on which the two trade off symmetrically, intelligent decisions are an input which are destructively consumed to produce virtue signals—like trees are consumed to produce paper.
Sometimes you can sacrifice a bit of virtue to signal intelligence. For example, when people talk in real life, interrupting other people may give you an opportunity to say something clever first. Or you can make a funny joke that shows how smart and quick you are, even if you know that this will derail the debate.
Then there is contrarianism for signalling sake. You disagree with people not because you truly believe they are wrong, but to show that they are unthinking sheep and you are the brave one who dares to oppose the popular opinion (even if you actually believe the popular opinion to be correct, and the thing you said is just an exercise in finding clever excuses for what is most likely the wrong answer). This can cause actual harm, when people convinced by your speech do the wrong thing instead of the right one.
Could you expand a bit on why you expect a trade-off between intelligence/virtue signalling, as opposed to two independent axes? I can sort of see a case where intelligence is the “cost” part of “costly virtue signalling”, and virtue is the “cost” part of “costly intelligence signalling”, like the examples in toxoplasma of rage. On the other hand, looking at those examples of the dangers of runaway IQ signalling, they generally don’t seem to trade-off against virtue.
They are two independent axes, but when you’re at the Pareto frontier (which I think a lot of people are at), doing more of one requires doing less of the other. For virtue signaling in particular, to signal effectively you often have to parrot a very narrow party line or orthodoxy, which leaves very few degrees of freedom to do intelligence signaling. For example, if there are errors in the party line or orthodoxy, which you’d ordinarily get “intelligence points” for finding and pointing them out, in a virtue-signaling environment you’d get shamed/censored/punished.
What started this whole line of thought was this statement (linked to in the OP), which I saw someone quote in a completely serious way.
It seems like a lot of examples of virtue signalling require sacrificing intelligence, but sacrificing virtue seems like a less common requirement to signal intelligence. So one possible model would be that, rather than a pareto frontier on which the two trade off symmetrically, intelligent decisions are an input which are destructively consumed to produce virtue signals—like trees are consumed to produce paper.
Sometimes you can sacrifice a bit of virtue to signal intelligence. For example, when people talk in real life, interrupting other people may give you an opportunity to say something clever first. Or you can make a funny joke that shows how smart and quick you are, even if you know that this will derail the debate.
Then there is contrarianism for signalling sake. You disagree with people not because you truly believe they are wrong, but to show that they are unthinking sheep and you are the brave one who dares to oppose the popular opinion (even if you actually believe the popular opinion to be correct, and the thing you said is just an exercise in finding clever excuses for what is most likely the wrong answer). This can cause actual harm, when people convinced by your speech do the wrong thing instead of the right one.