With the exception of a Nootropics arms race, I don’t think runaway IQ signalling looks like anything that was mentioned. Runaway IQ signalling might start off like that, but as time goes on, peoples views on all of the above will start to flipflop as they try to distinguish themselves from their peers at a similar level of IQ. Leaning too hard on any of the above mentioned signalling mechanisms exposes you to arguments against them, allowing someone to signal that they’re smarter than you. But then if you over-correct, then you become exposed to counter arguments, allowing someone else to signal that they’re smarter than you. I think EY captured the basic idea in this post on meta-contrarianism.
I think a better model might be that it looks a lot more like old school internet arguments. Several people trying really hard to out-manoeuvre each other in a long series of comments in a thread, mailing list, or debate. With each of them saying some version of, “Ah this is true, but you’ve forgotten to account for...” in order to prove that they are Right and everyone else is Wrong. Or mathematicians trying to to prove difficult and well recognized theorems, since those are solid benchmarks for demonstrating intelligence.
If you want to see what runaway intelligence signaling looks like, go to grad school in analytic philosophy. You will find amazingly creative counterexamples, papers full symbolic logic, speakers who get attacked with refutations from the audience in mid-talk, and then, sometimes, deftly parry the killing blow with a clever metaphor, taking the questioner down a peg...
It’s not too much of a stretch to see philosophers as IQ signaling athletes. Tennis has its ATP ladder, and everybody gets a rank. In philosophy it’s slightly less blatant, partly because even the task of scorekeeping in the IQ signaling game requires you to be very smart. Nonetheless, there is always a broad consensus about who the top players players are and which departments employ them.
Unlike tennis players, though, philosophers play their game without a real audience, apart from themselves. The winners get comfortable jobs and some worldly esteem, but their main achievement is just winning. Some have huge impact inside the game, but because nobody else is watching, that impact is almost never transmitted to the world outside the game. They’re not using their intelligence to improve the world. They’re using their intelligence to demonstrate their intelligence.
With the exception of a Nootropics arms race, I don’t think runaway IQ signalling looks like anything that was mentioned. Runaway IQ signalling might start off like that, but as time goes on, peoples views on all of the above will start to flipflop as they try to distinguish themselves from their peers at a similar level of IQ. Leaning too hard on any of the above mentioned signalling mechanisms exposes you to arguments against them, allowing someone to signal that they’re smarter than you. But then if you over-correct, then you become exposed to counter arguments, allowing someone else to signal that they’re smarter than you. I think EY captured the basic idea in this post on meta-contrarianism. I think a better model might be that it looks a lot more like old school internet arguments. Several people trying really hard to out-manoeuvre each other in a long series of comments in a thread, mailing list, or debate. With each of them saying some version of, “Ah this is true, but you’ve forgotten to account for...” in order to prove that they are Right and everyone else is Wrong. Or mathematicians trying to to prove difficult and well recognized theorems, since those are solid benchmarks for demonstrating intelligence.
If you want to see what runaway intelligence signaling looks like, go to grad school in analytic philosophy. You will find amazingly creative counterexamples, papers full symbolic logic, speakers who get attacked with refutations from the audience in mid-talk, and then, sometimes, deftly parry the killing blow with a clever metaphor, taking the questioner down a peg...
It’s not too much of a stretch to see philosophers as IQ signaling athletes. Tennis has its ATP ladder, and everybody gets a rank. In philosophy it’s slightly less blatant, partly because even the task of scorekeeping in the IQ signaling game requires you to be very smart. Nonetheless, there is always a broad consensus about who the top players players are and which departments employ them.
Unlike tennis players, though, philosophers play their game without a real audience, apart from themselves. The winners get comfortable jobs and some worldly esteem, but their main achievement is just winning. Some have huge impact inside the game, but because nobody else is watching, that impact is almost never transmitted to the world outside the game. They’re not using their intelligence to improve the world. They’re using their intelligence to demonstrate their intelligence.