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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3668 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 23, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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I recently read The Elephant in the Brain and a review of it (https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/12/31/book-review-the-elephant-in-the-brain/)

One of the main ideas is that humans have competitive tendencies that helps them gain access to limited resources and mates. Humans need to signal that they are a good ally and mate in order to get some of the things that they desire. Instead of directly signaling (such as trying to impress people with our bank statement) people send indirect signals (such as wearing expensive clothes). Signaling indirectly gives us plausible deniability and even allows us to deceive ourselves (example: I wasn’t wearing expense clothes to show off my wealth, I just wore them because I like the way they look).

The book goes through Body Language, Laughter, Conversation, Consumption, Art, Charity, Education, Medicine, Religion and Politics to explain hidden motives. Examples:

  • Conversation isn’t just about exchanging information it is also about signaling intelligence and social skills.

  • Politics isn’t just about policy, it is also about alliances.

What are some hidden motives that you’ve noticed?

Some I’ve noticed is dancing is about signaling social confidence to potential mates. Brightly colored hair usually signals loyalty to left-leaning politics, the signal is costly because non-leftists may detect the signal and be biased against the signaler.

It’s interesting to think that the Muslim world might be onto something by banning the female appearance competition spiral. If the thesis of the book is correct, then it’s never enough for a religion to say “don’t entertain vanity” — instead the religion must actively punish vanity and reinforce less vain competition. The fundamentalist Muslim world just says “every woman wears this plain garb, period”, and in one fell swoop they have immediately restore six hours a week of labor to every woman, billions of dollars kept in middle class pockets, improved grades, etc. Because now the marriage-driven and reputation-driven competition over appearances is eliminated, and women now are forced to look for other ways to compete against each other. An entire % of brain activity is redirected to something that is, at least in theory, better for everyone’s happiness.

Another question: is virtue signaling bad, or is it only bad when the signal lacks substance? If moral action is induced by a person displaying his own morality, then why not support that? Our concern then should just be ensuring that the “moral competition” has the correct exemplars and rules, so that the substance lines up with the competition. So a person who is being “Christ-like” by practicing humility would be, counterintuitively, obtaining reinforcement by his community which all believe in such a moral exemplar — and this would be good, and not bad, because it’s making the most of human nature.

So a lot of moral implications hinge on the question of this book: is human behavior, pessimistically and ultimately, always decided by what gives the most ”primal” rewards?

The fundamentalist Muslim world just says “every woman wears this plain garb, period”, and in one fell swoop they have immediately restore six hours a week of labor to every woman, billions of dollars kept in middle class pockets, improved grades, etc.

The sorts of societies inclined to enforce this strongly don't seem like the sort that're squeezing every bit of (non-fertility) productivity from their women.

Counterpoint: Iran has iirc one of the highest levels of women in STEM

They have the highest level of women with STEM degrees, you mean. Many of these women are either not in the workforce or working in non-STEM positions, and Iran’s technology sector remains unimpressive.

Iran is sanctioned by the world, yet does have impressive scientific output: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20291-iran-is-top-of-the-world-in-science-growth.html

Another question: is virtue signaling bad

I think virtue signaling itself is neutral, it is just communicating a fact about your beliefs to the world. The problems related to virtue signaling are:

  • If someone has what they believe is a virtue, but it is actually something bad for society.

  • The virtue signaling competition where people need to come up with more extreme signals to stand out. Then the signal becomes ridiculing the out group in extreme hyperbole that some people can misinterpret as literal.

Per the OP’s book, virtue signaling would not just be communicating a belief but communicating a positive value of yourself to others. And if this is done implicitly, then perhaps we can say that all morality hinges on signaling virtue. If that’s the case, our priority should be fleshing out good competitive parameters and norms for how we judge virtue to maximize moral actions.

In other words, it may be a bad idea to ignore the idea of signaling virtue (as an inherently virtue-less activity), and instead accept it as underlying all morality, in spite of what certain Christian teachings posit, and if develop a great criteria for judging real virtue from false, we would increase sum total virtue.

So a person who is being “Christ-like” by practicing humility would be, counterintuitively, obtaining reinforcement by his community which all believe in such a moral exemplar — and this would be good, and not bad, because it’s making the most of human nature.

I am not sure what your last part re: human nature means there, but I would suggest that at least in the fundamentalist-leaning or fully fundamentalist circles I was raised in and around, practicing humility would only be seen as desirable in certain contexts (e.g. in church with peers or in-group.) Once dealing with out-group (whoever that happens to be) these behaviors, or, types of signaling to use the language of OP, no longer seem to have the same standing.

It's always been odd to me that in many fundamentalist groups (I won't say all or even most, as I am speaking only from experience here) qualities like aggressiveness, retribution, even strong-arm or violence (see: War, but not just war, also in other contexts such as self-defense) are nearly always heralded as the moral choice when dealing with public issues (e.g. not issues within the church itself), and the counterpart to these qualities (passivity, turning-the-other-cheek, non-violence) are often dismissed as weak, or misunderstanding the gospel, etc.

Edit: I am also doubtful that Muslim women wearing covering in public at all times so neatly redistributes their schedule as suggested by OP, but I have no data or personal experience here.

It’s interesting to think that the Muslim world might be onto something by banning the female appearance competition spiral.

Yeah, without endorsing or condemning, I would bet that the arrangement of "every woman keeps her appearance hidden from view at all times in public" is one of the few stable and self-sustaining norms one can implement if one's goals are to maintain a patriarchal social order.

is virtue signaling bad, or is it only bad when the signal lacks substance

I think the point is that a reliable signal is supposed to be costly to the sender in some way. Else they can simply manipulate the signal in whatever way they wish to get the recipient to do the thing they want.

So signalling one's morality should, in this view, be associated with some penalty/cost for falsifying the signal or breaching the morals they're signalling.

Take, for example, a vehemently pro-life politician who nonetheless makes his mistress get an abortion when he accidentally knocks her up. If their moral signalling goes out the window they second it would cost them something to uphold it, then the entire false edifice of their beliefs and behaviors is laid bare for all to see, which tends to... dilute the strength of their signalling.

Take, for example, a vehemently pro-life politician who nonetheless makes his mistress get an abortion when he accidentally knocks her up.

I know it’s a hypothetical, but if this was a scenario that happened then you would expect it to be a major scandal that’s prominent in the news, even if said politician is like a West Virginia state legislator or something equally irrelevant. As strong on family values politicians get in trouble for having mistresses regularly enough for nobody to be surprised, and occasionally have children with those mistresses, but there’s not a lot of news stories about their mistresses getting abortions, we can surmise that their commitment to pro-life values extends at least that far.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-10-04/pro-life-rep-tim-murphy-pressured-mistress-to-get-abortion

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/10/scott-desjarlais-recorded-abortion-call-with-mistress.html

Just reading the link gets you all the info you need in this case.

That's just the best examples from a quick Google. There's a few cattycorner examples mixed in there as well (campaign operatives, or having a girlfriend get an abortion as a teen) but these two are recent and on all fours with the hypothetical.

Now you can quibble with what this means: out of how many pro life politicians so maybe this isn't that many, or should we only count out of pro lifers who have affairs, or should we assume that this kind of thing happens 12 times in secret for every time it happens in public so this is only the tip of the iceberg, or whatever you want. But it's certainly not an absurdity.

Indeed, I included that as an example not to make a point about pro-life politicians or anything, but just because it is a handy example that has readily available real-world examples.

That's what virtue signalling is. You scream loudly about a moral position you claim to hold, but when the time comes to apply that position you back down instantly. So you get to feel good about 'supporting' the right thing but have no intention of behaving in accordance with it.

Your signal is unreliable, and you intend for others to believe it but you don't care to be bound by it nor incur the costs of enforcing it.

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