I’m annoyed at the bit about people polishing up their social media posts being mere useless signalling—a net with more intelligent, wittier posts is presumably actually giving pleasure and possibly usefulness.
Occasionally signalling leads to the production of long-term value. Sometimes rich people showing off produces art that people continue to enjoy. I don’t have a feeling for when a signalling competition is about totally useless things and when it’s about soemwhat useful things, especially those with enduring value.
I think only in a few cases do the signaling externalities consume 100% of the benefits of some activity. (Really I don’t think it’s true even for the swiss watch example.)
Polishing up social media posts can have both useful components, since better posts are better for the reader, and a zero-sum component. In this case the positive effects are also external to the post-writer, so I agree that it’s actually unclear whether you end up with too much or too little polish.
I’m annoyed at the bit about people polishing up their social media posts being mere useless signalling—a net with more intelligent, wittier posts is presumably actually giving pleasure and possibly usefulness.
Occasionally signalling leads to the production of long-term value. Sometimes rich people showing off produces art that people continue to enjoy. I don’t have a feeling for when a signalling competition is about totally useless things and when it’s about soemwhat useful things, especially those with enduring value.
I think only in a few cases do the signaling externalities consume 100% of the benefits of some activity. (Really I don’t think it’s true even for the swiss watch example.)
Polishing up social media posts can have both useful components, since better posts are better for the reader, and a zero-sum component. In this case the positive effects are also external to the post-writer, so I agree that it’s actually unclear whether you end up with too much or too little polish.