If you don’t signal the expected way then you are, if not being dishonest, at least misleading people — in many cases it is less honest.
Everyone knows your job application is written to puff you up, and they price it in. If you don’t have the correct amount of puffery, you’re misleading people into thinking you’re worse than you are.
It’s a bad way to communicate and a bad race-to-the-bottom equilibrium but not actually dishonest.
You can write “Dear X” on a letter to a person you don’t know. People used to sign off letters “Your obedient servant”. It evolves for weird signaling reasons but is not taken literally.
If you don’t signal the expected way then you are, if not being dishonest, at least misleading people — in many cases it is less honest.
Everyone knows your job application is written to puff you up, and they price it in. If you don’t have the correct amount of puffery, you’re misleading people into thinking you’re worse than you are.
It’s a bad way to communicate and a bad race-to-the-bottom equilibrium but not actually dishonest.
You can write “Dear X” on a letter to a person you don’t know. People used to sign off letters “Your obedient servant”. It evolves for weird signaling reasons but is not taken literally.