I think that a person pretending to have a view X—if they are able to do it well—has a greater chance to become a leader than a person who really has the view X. The pretending person is more free to optimize for signalling. And the internet reduces some costs usually coming with real-life signalling, but our instincts are not calibrated to discount that.
If you learn to play the ideological turing test well, you know the “correct” (best for signalling) answers, and you can always use them. A real believer would at some moment diverge from the optimum path. Also a real believer would hesitate to lie to their own “tribe”, while for a pretender everything is just a game. So at some critical moment the real believer will show their weakness, and the pretender can chide them for their lack of faith, getting higher status within the group. (Even if the smartest members of the group can see through this move and become suspicious, there will be a huge peer pressure on them.)
In real life people could be judged by their actions, for example how they live, who are they friends with, etc. It could be costly to avoid everything that sends a bad signal to the group, and to spend time mostly with other tribe members. But on internet, nobody knows what you do in the real life. And you can use a new identity for your group membership.
On the other hand, merely understanding the positions and arguments of the group may be not enough to pass the ideological turing test. Because group members can be recognized by more than just having the right ideology. You need to understand the jargon; understand and be able to make references to knowledge shared by group, which could be very large. Especially if you want to become (or pretend to be) a high-status member.
For example, if you pretend to be a Christian in a debate about abortion, and somewhere during the debate it shows that you never heard about e.g. Jesus walking on water, it becomes evidence that you are a fake Christian. Although walking on water is technically unrelated to abortions. So you can fail the test for an unrelated piece of data. There can be thousands of such pieces, and the group may use them to recognize their members. Learning all those pieces, that is a cost you can’t completely avoid even online. (Good google skills may save the day sometimes, but won’t protect you against the unknown unknowns.)
I think that a person pretending to have a view X—if they are able to do it well—has a greater chance to become a leader than a person who really has the view X. The pretending person is more free to optimize for signalling. And the internet reduces some costs usually coming with real-life signalling, but our instincts are not calibrated to discount that.
If you learn to play the ideological turing test well, you know the “correct” (best for signalling) answers, and you can always use them. A real believer would at some moment diverge from the optimum path. Also a real believer would hesitate to lie to their own “tribe”, while for a pretender everything is just a game. So at some critical moment the real believer will show their weakness, and the pretender can chide them for their lack of faith, getting higher status within the group. (Even if the smartest members of the group can see through this move and become suspicious, there will be a huge peer pressure on them.)
In real life people could be judged by their actions, for example how they live, who are they friends with, etc. It could be costly to avoid everything that sends a bad signal to the group, and to spend time mostly with other tribe members. But on internet, nobody knows what you do in the real life. And you can use a new identity for your group membership.
On the other hand, merely understanding the positions and arguments of the group may be not enough to pass the ideological turing test. Because group members can be recognized by more than just having the right ideology. You need to understand the jargon; understand and be able to make references to knowledge shared by group, which could be very large. Especially if you want to become (or pretend to be) a high-status member.
For example, if you pretend to be a Christian in a debate about abortion, and somewhere during the debate it shows that you never heard about e.g. Jesus walking on water, it becomes evidence that you are a fake Christian. Although walking on water is technically unrelated to abortions. So you can fail the test for an unrelated piece of data. There can be thousands of such pieces, and the group may use them to recognize their members. Learning all those pieces, that is a cost you can’t completely avoid even online. (Good google skills may save the day sometimes, but won’t protect you against the unknown unknowns.)