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Notes -
Robin Hanson’s importance to the early LessWrongers means that he shows up in a ton of related work. Scott essays and so on. Try reading this one about countersignaling.
Have you encountered the signaling theory of education? I want to say it’s Caplan’s work. The argument goes that almost all of the value in education is signaling compliance to employers. It doesn’t matter if one didn’t actually learn a technical skill; the point is looking like a good corporate drone. For obvious reasons, this is really appealing to people who were really bored in school and hated its structure.
Therein lies the problem, because the signaling lens is just too applicable. Take your hair-color example. It’s definitely used as a signal of blue-tribe allegiance. But so is “left-leaning politics.” So is valuing nonconformity. How far down do you have to go before you hit a real belief, rather than something intended as a signal?
The Hanson answer, as I understand it, is “all the way.” Signaling all the way down. This is tempting, because it preempts anyone trying to signal that they’re one layer deeper than you. It’s also prone to half-assed psychoanalysis! Sooner or later you end up like Freud, constructing a whole mythos to justify why someone might think blue hair is hot.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Thanks for sharing the link. I have encountered the signaling theory of education prior to reading the book and it is something I’ve felt intuitively for a long time.
Well the real belief should be whatever the person would do in the privacy of their own home if they knew nobody could ever find out that they did it. For instance, wearing sweatpants in their own home because sweatpants are comfortable.
But when 2 people interact then a person’s behavior falls into 3 buckets:
Then person B is interpreting the behavior and signals and trying to determine what is a real belief vs. signal. Then also using those observations to make predictions and assumptions about Person A.
If person A has a dog just because they like dogs (so a true belief) then person B might interpret that Person A is signaling that they are good with commitments and are good at raising kids. This interpretation happens even if Person A has a real belief that they don’t want kids.
If Person A wears sweatpants in public it will still get interpreted as having some meaning regardless of it is a true belief (Person A believes it is the most comfortable choice of attire) or signal (Person A intentionally did it to show they don’t care about appearance).
IIRC Hansen warns us against psychoanalysis. We can never be certain why another person behaves a certain way, it is always a guess.
It is also impossible to intentionally signal something and guarantee that other people interpret the signal in the way you intend.
To me the point of signals is:
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Easy. Until you hit the point where the person stating the belief will actually pay a significant personal cost for their stated belief turning out to be false.
This is one form of 'revealed preference.' If you say you believe something but you suffer no consequence for being incorrect, then you have no incentive to be truthful, and thus the signal is cheap and likely unreliable. Your REAL beliefs, on the other hand, will be reflected in how you behave when actual consequences, rewards, or punishment are on the line based on whether you get things right or not.
This is incidentally why Hanson strongly endorses prediction markets as a method of finding consensuses on 'truth' and why Caplan places bets on many of his own predictions.
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