Well, there are things this works for and things it doesn’t.
For instance, you generally shouldn’t decide whether to say God exists or not, or how to vote (beyond strategically), based on popularity. If enough people do that then we act collectively non-rationally and may end up in locally optimal but absolutely bad equilibria.
However, you should decide what side of the street to drive on, or what language to speak in your everyday life, based on popularity. These are simple coordination games.
What is music taste—or whatever else we have under discussion—more like? That’s an empirical question. The fact that we seem to like popularity in and of itself may suggest elements of a coordination game—and certainly the ability to discuss music with friends and so on displays that quality—but there’s also a status treadmill as well, as with anything else that displays “fashions.” The latter effect means that by switching to Radiohead you’re decreasing the status enjoyment others gain from it, as you’re diluting its coolness-signaling.
Musical taste is so low-stakes that you should probably just listen to whatever you enjoy without worrying too much about why you enjoy it, unless you enjoy doing that sort of analysis—which obviously anyone writing a post about it does, but even if it does, you shouldn’t feel the need to switch to a less enjoyable set of tunes.
Your views coincide heavily with mine on this topic.
I would only object that e.g. driving on the same side of the street as everyone else [1] because everyone else drives on that side is not a case of engaging in a practise “simply on the basis that others” engage in the practise, but to avoid catastrophic failure. If the street system’s usage factor were on the order of parts per billion, and agents had a preference for not being confined to one side, it would be “okay” [2] to drive as one pleases and simply adjust in the rare case of seeing another user.
[1] assuming I correctly understand this to be a reference to two-way conveyance-transmission systems in which changing chirality is impractical on short notice, and opposite chirality for two coincident conveyances is catastrophic
[2] i.e., non-detrimental to their terminal values
Well, there are things this works for and things it doesn’t.
For instance, you generally shouldn’t decide whether to say God exists or not, or how to vote (beyond strategically), based on popularity. If enough people do that then we act collectively non-rationally and may end up in locally optimal but absolutely bad equilibria.
However, you should decide what side of the street to drive on, or what language to speak in your everyday life, based on popularity. These are simple coordination games.
What is music taste—or whatever else we have under discussion—more like? That’s an empirical question. The fact that we seem to like popularity in and of itself may suggest elements of a coordination game—and certainly the ability to discuss music with friends and so on displays that quality—but there’s also a status treadmill as well, as with anything else that displays “fashions.” The latter effect means that by switching to Radiohead you’re decreasing the status enjoyment others gain from it, as you’re diluting its coolness-signaling.
Musical taste is so low-stakes that you should probably just listen to whatever you enjoy without worrying too much about why you enjoy it, unless you enjoy doing that sort of analysis—which obviously anyone writing a post about it does, but even if it does, you shouldn’t feel the need to switch to a less enjoyable set of tunes.
Your views coincide heavily with mine on this topic.
I would only object that e.g. driving on the same side of the street as everyone else [1] because everyone else drives on that side is not a case of engaging in a practise “simply on the basis that others” engage in the practise, but to avoid catastrophic failure. If the street system’s usage factor were on the order of parts per billion, and agents had a preference for not being confined to one side, it would be “okay” [2] to drive as one pleases and simply adjust in the rare case of seeing another user.
[1] assuming I correctly understand this to be a reference to two-way conveyance-transmission systems in which changing chirality is impractical on short notice, and opposite chirality for two coincident conveyances is catastrophic
[2] i.e., non-detrimental to their terminal values