My instinct is that the model proves too much. Same way evopsych just-so stories were able to "explain" everything. Once you have a theory that purports to explain every single thing, maybe your theory is actually too vague to be useful, or you're just telling yourself stories.
For instance, while most donations aren't anonymous, I'd wager most people don't know how much their friends donate and who to. Sure, the organization knows, but unless you go out of your way to tell people that you gave $50 or $500 or $5000 to MSF last year, nobody will know. It's not an anonymous donation, but you're not signalling to anyone unless you stick a bumper sticker on your car or whatever.
floatrock 1474 days ago [-]
Thing is, this model doesn't explain "everything". All it explains is how the successful consumer-facing software companies of the last 1.5-ish decades became so successful:
They unlocked the attention economy.
We consumers pay for facebook with our eyeballs, not our wallets (facebook then is really good at selling specific eyeballs to specific wallets on the backend).
In the limited scope of the attention economy, then sure, social signaling could be the key metric of engagement. Facebook monetizes it by matching your signaling with specific advertisers, and Fortnite monetizes it by letting you customize the means of your signaling.
However, in the broader scope of the human experience, signaling explains very little...
Sure, you have a nice coffee table book, but you read Dickens to get lost in the story. Or you read a physics textbook to understand the universe.
You might go to church to show your neighbors you're a good god-fearing churchgoer, but you also do it to get closer to god or however you understand the universe.
You might go on a vacation to a far-off land to get a selfie, but you also do it to ponder how this park bench is older than your country and contemplate the lives and cultures of the people who have sat there since.
Yoga pants signal you do yoga, but you also do yoga to quiet your brain or meditate.
So sure, signaling theory is useful to explain all the cynical, vapid, and narcissistic tendencies we have (as well as the software companies that have become successful by industrializing the exploitation of those tendencies -- not saying they're not real!), but it certainly doesn't prove "too much". Rather, all the things it doesn't explain are the parts of the human experience that are not tied to the attention economy.
michaelt 1474 days ago [-]
> Thing is, this model doesn't explain "everything".
To use an example: If I go to work wearing a nice shirt that is cleaned and ironed, signalling theory would say I'm showing I can afford nice clothes, and to keep them looking nice. But if I go to work wearing a worn out tee-shirt I got for free from a vendor, signalling theory would say I'm signalling tech worker group membership, and that I have a modern trendy employer, or even that I'm so confident in my skills that trivial matters like clothes are inconsequential.
Likewise, I travel to work by nice car? Signalling wealth. By economical car? Signalling good financial sense. By running or bicycle? Signalling fitness and free time. By public transport? Signalling virtue and environmentalism.
If no matter the input, signalling theory would say "aha, exactly as expected" then can signalling theory ever be disproven?
pm90 1474 days ago [-]
The only thing I object to your otherwise excellent comment is the characterization of the attention economy as being driven primarily by "cynical, vapid, and narcissistic tendencies". Seeking status is also a part of the human experience, although perhaps one that many find distasteful.
teraku 1474 days ago [-]
Well, he is not wrong. The words he chose were morally charged, but at least the "narcisstic tendencies" I think you can just take it as it is.
And it's not bad to sometimes just think about yourself. It's just when it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy "I need status/affirmation in order to feel fulfilled" that it's shifts towards being obnoxious.
nabla9 1474 days ago [-]
Hanson's theory is not trying to explain everything. He is puts limits to this theory. He also explains how signalling component helps to get real progress outside signalling. Even this article uses the words 'most' and 'a lot' because that's the message you get from the book.
Signalling explains a lot. Since we are social animals where the survival and status of the group is important, it should explain a lot.
SiempreViernes 1474 days ago [-]
Using words like "most" and "a lot" certainly signals that there is very little limit to the applicability of the theory.
But the commenter points out that most charity is in practice anonymous, which is a serious challenge to any framework that presupposes one's actions are publicly know by others.
It's like the creators of this theory only consider the charity of celebrities, which indeed do it mostly for signalling, and forgot the vast majority of humanity that doesn't get their actions described in the papers...
nabla9 1474 days ago [-]
Charity is very small percentage of our life. We can also internalize our signalling.
If you look at how people act in work, family and love life, signalling explains 90% of it.
Hanson became interested in signalling because his work in prediction markets. Prediction market well implemented seems to work and produce good actionable information. Companies were eager to adopt them. In practice they are catastrophe because they reveal how the choices being made are based on other things than what is said. The whole social structure in workplace is destroyed if the positions and knowledge people signal is revealed to be not true.
roywiggins 1474 days ago [-]
> If you look at how people act in work, family and love life, signalling explains 90% of it.
But it equally explains why I don't buy a car (because I want to signal that I'm not the sort of person who would) as much as explains why I do by a car (ditto). So of course it "explains" 90% of how people behave, but only after the fact. Which is suspicious.
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cpcallen 1474 days ago [-]
I should be interested in reading some examples of catastrophes causes by adoption of prediction markets.
wst_ 1474 days ago [-]
But this is exactly what people do. Donating is not about helping others (in many cases) but to feel better for themselves. And people like to share when they feel better. I'd say we are, not so rarely, being nudged to donate, either by friends or coworkers who did this. I'm observing the change, in some circles, that makes you feel bad if you don't donate. Donating is something people talk about, bragging about, advocating for - it may not be signal per se but people are making it a signal.
p1necone 1474 days ago [-]
With the charities I've donated to afaik providing at least your name and email is the default - you'd have to go out of your way to be anonymous. So it doesn't really tell you much.
_bxg1 1473 days ago [-]
I think there's also something to be said for "signaling to yourself".
Sophistifunk 1474 days ago [-]
Just because nobody knows you gave $50 to wikipedia, doesn't mean the reason you gave $50 isn't because you were asked to, and you've evolved to act as if it were a public face-to-face transaction, your post-hoc rationalisation of it notwithstanding.
didericis 1474 days ago [-]
Am I alone in finding a lot of signaling transparent and kind of repellant? I realize I'm signaling to a certain crowd by saying that and am not denying that I participate, but it's never seemed hidden to me.
I want to live in a world in which more time is spent increasing merit and competency rather than advertising some sort of proxy. I understand that both merit and competency are impractical to judge without any sort of easily identifiable signal, but the inaccuracy of a lot of those signals and the amount of time, money, and effort wasted on them is kind of mind numbing.
p1necone 1474 days ago [-]
On the other hand I find a lot of people seem to see signalling where there is none, or use "they're just virtue signalling" as a way to dismiss peoples legitimate concerns. Make sure you think about whether you're actually seeing signalling, or if it's just someone with a different worldview and different priorities than you.
There's also going to be a lot of bias in what is visible to you here - you're only going to see the people who loudly boast on Instagram about say donating to charity or using eco friendly cups or whatever - because of course the people that just do it quietly because they care and don't boast aren't going to be noticeable.
Maybe there's 10 people who aren't signalling for every one you see, but you have no way of knowing because they're not signalling.
pm90 1474 days ago [-]
> Maybe there's 10 people who aren't signalling for every one you see, but you have no way of knowing because they're not signalling.
The non-signalling 10 others are then cast as "following" the trends set by a signalling one.
whalesalad 1474 days ago [-]
It’s a meta signal. You can observe the “shallow” signaling of others (for lack of a better word) and it becomes a signal in and of itself.
floatrock 1474 days ago [-]
The only winning move is not to play.
But even by quoting that, I'm still playing (albeit by attempting to jump out into the meta game).
So the only ones who are actually not playing are the ones who are clicking away from this vapid comment page and moving on with their lives.
pm90 1474 days ago [-]
You're right. Every form of communication indicates signalling, you're literally sending signals from one entity to another. The only way to stop signalling is to stop communication between entities.
postsantum 1474 days ago [-]
Deleting facebook is a signal. Abandoning social life altogether is a signal too.
I believe the only way to stop is to generate white noise - by sending signals so mixed that those who observe stop trusting them
mosburger 1474 days ago [-]
I'm sorta reminded of the Onion article from years ago, "Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own a Television":
> Am I alone in finding a lot of signaling transparent and kind of repellant?
^ And this one isn't?
didericis 1474 days ago [-]
Fair enough; I tried to acknowledge that in my original comment. Specifically I find signaling that's prioritized over increasing competency or without true interest in whatever is being used as a signal repellant. The opinion I expressed was genuine, and not put out there solely in search of validation or increasing my social standing, but I don't deny the fact that I was engaging in a form of signaling.
I was asking in part because I was skeptical about the claim that most are deluded and unaware of their own signaling. I think more people are aware of it than this article would suggest, and that they just don't talk about it. But I don't have any evidence either way.
1474 days ago [-]
wilg 1474 days ago [-]
Definitely not, this article is targeted specifically at people with your worldview.
didericis 1474 days ago [-]
I wonder if signaling is really something our brains deliberately hide from ourselves, as the article describes, or if it's visible to beyond just the people in this article's target audience. I'd prefer to think people are aware of what they're doing and just don't like to talk about it. I haven't read the book he's referencing, so I'm not sure what the evidence is in regards to the extent to which people are actually deluding themselves vs just being private about their underlying motivations.
wilg 1474 days ago [-]
Yeah, my intuition is that the person evaluating the behavior is misunderstanding it, and the person doing it could tell you if they were comfortable.
The idea of "hiding it" seems way too loaded, because it's usually in a context with an implicit value judgement.
I suspect that there are multiple factors of various importance going into every decision, and the observer is reducing, reprioritizing, and judging it against their own opinions.
Perhaps that book or some other source offers a more rigorous analysis.
thanatropism 1474 days ago [-]
As someone else said, Hanson is an economist.
Signaling is taught in Game Theory 101 in undergrad econ. Varian, Pyndick etc probably have plenty of "more rigorous analysis".
roywiggins 1474 days ago [-]
The authors of the book are an economist and a software developer... I am not convinced they have any particular insight into how actual human minds work.
I feel like signaling only works in groups that signal. We've got plenty of signaling here on HN - open source projects, GitHub/CodePen account links, algorithm skill, fancy words, and people who choose to criticize whatever news is trending at the time (not directed at this comment). I've seen people screenshot their HN accounts together with karma score.
Someone on the outside looks at these signals and shakes their head, but it's just a bug in human nature.
asfarley 1474 days ago [-]
What’s wrong with it being transparent?
Sounds to me like you object to false signalling, rather than signalling in general. Just think of all the positive forms of signalling like giving someone a gift to indicate that you’re thinking about them. Is that repellant?
didericis 1474 days ago [-]
You are correct. I was a bit too general. I said “most signaling”, not all, but that probably goes too far. I clarified in another comment that I specifically dislike disingenuous signaling, as well as excessive effort spent on signaling alone rather than whatever substantive thing it is you’re trying to advertise.
I regret my original wording. I think I should have jumped directly to my main question about whether or not people are as unaware of signaling as the article suggests.
rubyfan 1474 days ago [-]
> I want to live in a world in which more time is spent increasing merit and competency rather than advertising some sort of proxy.
does such a world exist?
op03 1474 days ago [-]
Signaling does not explain 90% of human behavior. Stopped reading right there.
That kind of talk only an Economist can come up with, and sell to folks who have never heard about a subject called Psychology.
Economists are a bunch of people, who only recently discovered human behavior needed to be taken into account, to explain everything inexplicable about the economy. That mistake is how we end up with Alan Greenspan standing around expressing "shock and disbelief" at the 2008 meltdown.
If Signaling explains everything about human behavior what are the 418 books ranked above (the one in the article) in Amazon's Psychology category talking about?
anonytrary 1474 days ago [-]
This is a misleading comment. You're saying you disagree with the author and stopped reading here:
> In fact, Hanson believes that “well over 90 percent” of human behavior can be explained by signaling. Whether or not you agree with that exact number, I think it’s an interesting thought experiment to look at a specific behavior and think about what the hidden signaling subtext of that behavior might be.
You do realize the author is citing someone else making the assertion you disagree with? The next sentence validates this interpretation. Your comment is a textbook straw man against the author.
Also, your bit about economists sounds incredibly inaccurate. No, economists didn't randomly realize human behavior needed to be taken into account one day. Since the beginning, the people studying economics already knew that it emerged out of the intricacies of human behavior. Simplifying a phenomenon for the purposes of modeling it is how we study things initially. We iterate on those solutions as we go.
ummonk 1474 days ago [-]
If anything, economists are the ones less likely to understand this (and focus on some abstract utility independent of signaling). As for the top books in Amazon's psychology category, they're likely there for people to purchase so they can signal how well read they are about diverse psychological topics.
hellotomyrars 1474 days ago [-]
Agree. This is incredibly cynical. Maybe the author is writing in this way of almost absolutes to get their point across but people are perfectly capable of making consumer choices based on reasons other than or even primarily other than signalling.
(Though in this two-part theory I'm obviously hiding them from myself)
wilg 1474 days ago [-]
"Signaling" has never struck me as a particularly useful model of human behavior. It feels like just a repackaging of cynicism in more "objective" language.
This article doesn't seem to have a lot of real insight, other than to loosely (and half incorrectly) justify various beliefs and misunderstandings the author has about selected social interactions. I guess that's fine, but doesn't seem particularly useful.
lukifer 1474 days ago [-]
I don't think signaling need be cast through a cynical lens. A great deal of signaling is explicitly honest signaling, expending resources to demonstrate integrity and form stable trust bonds.
franciscop 1474 days ago [-]
This is amazing and perfectly explains something that I didn't understand until now: in Japan there are A LOT of sock shops. The tall socks that show above the shoes sure I get it, but I didn't understand about the normal/small ones and just attributed it to the normal over-consumerism of Japan. But in fact there are a lot of situations (restaurants, some offices, etc) where you take your shoes off and socks become visible clothing.
> So how are you going to distribute the signal message of your sneakers? You simply wear them where other people can see them. The obvious constraint here is that your signal distribution is limited to things you can display in public. This is why people are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on shoes but not on socks.
si1entstill 1474 days ago [-]
I found this a good read, but I don't feel that Fortnight's business model is really as novel as the author suggests. Free to play games (MMOs in particular) had been leveraging this consumer behavior for quite a while. I think it is the audience and their perception that have changed.
(This is largely anecdotal, but) 7-10 years ago, a game having a cash shop of _any_ kind caused it to be shunned by a large portion of the (US) gaming community. However, the model proved so effective (particularly with the "non-traditional gamer"), that it eventually became the norm. The market shifted that way as it grew and now the community is resigned to it. Don't get me wrong, there are still a multitude of games that follow the traditional model, but those aren't the cash cows of the industry because the market is simply smaller.
With Fortnight, I feel that Epic succeeded because they took a known formula, applied it to a budding, ultra-competitive genre, gave it an unassuming art style that had mass appeal, and made the game play simple and approachable.
golergka 1474 days ago [-]
Free2play games with in-game shops became popular in Asia in 00s - mostly because piracy prevented traditional offline titles from taking off in many second world countries at all. But Fortnite and the latest breed of western free2play games is very significantly different, because they are not pay2win.
The shift hapenned in 2010s, at the same time as free2play gmaes moved west. For example, World of Tanks had some pay2win shop mechanics, but the core of monetization was on purchasing faster progress: you would spend less time grinding or new gear, but once you got into battle with other players matched to you, you wouldn't get any advantage. Such game design focus was already pretty risky and revolutionary at the time when other free2play developers considered non-paying users as cannon fodder for paying ones, and it paid back with a much higher % of paying users and user loyalty, although the game did have a significantly lower ARPPU, relying on the mass of paying subscribers instead of a tiny amount of whales.
si1entstill 1473 days ago [-]
Yeah, I agree - I think that shift is a part of what prompted the change I mentioned. I just feel like there were already a smattering of other games that followed the "convenience" or "vanity" based cash shop model and Fortnite isn't that novel.
Procrastes 1474 days ago [-]
> charitable behavior is heavily driven by visibility (hardly any donations are anonymous)
That doesn't bear out with what I see. Looking at a dataset of 2.8 million donations through our site, roughly 20% are anonymous. That's not the majority, but it's much more than "hardly any."
roywiggins 1474 days ago [-]
And of all the ones that aren't anonymous, many many of them are only known to the recipient and the giver. If I give $30 to someone, just because I haven't anonymized it doesn't mean I think the world at large will know. I'm not sharing a list of my charitable giving with my friends, and I don't know many people who do trumpet their small-dollar donations.
hirundo 1474 days ago [-]
A primary consumer of signaling is the signaller. We do things to convince ourselves of our qualities, which isn't necessarily bad.
roywiggins 1474 days ago [-]
Once you add that in, no wonder someone could find a way to tie 90% of human behavior to "signalling." Why did you do something? To convince yourself that you are the sort of person who would do that thing. This story works with a large majority of things people do. That seems too clever by half.
satanspastaroll 1474 days ago [-]
>We do things to convince ourselves of our qualities
This just seems like basic logic though? If you want to be X and Y provides the means, then it makes sense to do it right? There can't be a hidden agenda if you're actively pursuing it
KarlKemp 1474 days ago [-]
Well that’s a convenient tautology, then.
Spivak 1474 days ago [-]
I don't want to detract too much from the author's main point because Tinder's super likes are a form of signaling but they have the opposite effect the that the author (and Tinder themselves) makes it seem and it's a lot more interesting. Using super likes or paying for Tinder Plus/Gold is a signal of desperation and so people don't readily admit to it. The status signal on Tinder is not needing to pay and ultimately not needing to use Tinder at all.
It's such an odd dynamic but I'm thankful for it since it gives me more information about a guy.
apdar 1474 days ago [-]
The author used Tinder as an example of “signal amplification”, in that, a method to reach more people.
So the signalling on Tinder is your profile - pictures and description, they monetise the ability to signal to more people. And, as you alluded to, they absolutely don’t make that action public since amplifying your signal on a dating app reeks of desperation.
lifeisstillgood 1474 days ago [-]
Presumably Tinder would benefit then from a rating system (it may already have one - I am not in that social milieu).
If one wants to have Tinder Hot badge you need to go on five dates and be rated 5 stars for each. You would be signalling you are attractive and others think so. (I expect this is already done through some count or left / right swipe
ratio)
(I can see that leading to some horrible coercion issues so I would oppose it but you get this idea)
luckylion 1474 days ago [-]
> Using super likes or paying for Tinder Plus/Gold is a signal of desperation and so people don't readily admit to it.
This sounds like a random interpretation, it might just as well be seen as "dating is important enough for me that I'm happy to spend money on it".
People apparently get perceived value from super likes etc, so I have some doubts it actually hurts their chances.
sneak 1474 days ago [-]
> Using super likes or paying for Tinder Plus/Gold is a signal of desperation and so people don't readily admit to it.
My personal experience (more than a few data points) suggests that that's not true. Tinder is full of boring, commodity thirst, and differentiation matters a lot.
Timpy 1474 days ago [-]
I don't agree that signaling can explain 90% of human behavior, however I think you can find signals (intentional or otherwise) in about 90% of human behavior.
When I became aware of my signaling habits I tried to reduce my signals, only to find that there's no "opt out". If you need a car, no matter what car you drive it will send a signal. No car sends a signal. If I want to wear the same plain clothes every day like a uniform, this is still participating in signalling. It's like mistaking 0 for null, I've signaled that I care more about pragmatism than fashion, but it's still a signal. While I'm sure the book recommended in the article is fascinating, I think I shouldn't read it because I won't be able to get outside my own head for a long time if I do.
saagarjha 1474 days ago [-]
> Another point of evidence is the lack of luxury software products. People spend absurd amounts of money on jewellery, handbags and cars, but I can’t think of a piece of software with an even remotely similar price tag.
The author isn't looking hard enough: professional software frequently goes for many thousands of dollars.
airstrike 1474 days ago [-]
It's also a bit of a silly point, even if no expensive software existed. Cars will always be more expensive than, say, bakery items...
julian_digital 1474 days ago [-]
Author here:
There's a difference between a high price tag and a high price tag for the sake of signaling wealth / social status. I wouldn't classify professional software as luxury goods (such as jewelry, watches, etc).
But agree that I should have phrased that sentence differently.
totetsu 1474 days ago [-]
Neat blog.
julian_digital 1474 days ago [-]
:)
paulryanrogers 1474 days ago [-]
> The author isn't looking hard enough: professional software frequently goes for many thousands of dollars.
One cannot usually show off software like hardware. In this WFH world that could change. But for now I don't see people paying top dollar for B2C software until there is some visibility.
An app can be expensive not because is a luxury software but because the complexity and the market size, this determines the development cost and the expected revenues per copy.
1474 days ago [-]
satanspastaroll 1474 days ago [-]
You don't even have to look that hard; micro-transaction and in-app purchases are mostly all about bragging and showing success
mud_dauber 1474 days ago [-]
I didn't get the same negative reaction as many readers have, maybe because I felt this is how humans do behave, not how they should behave.
It would be interesting to see a dataset of people's t-shirt collections mapped against their consumer preferences. My two cents.
motohagiography 1474 days ago [-]
I used to write about fashion, and the reason I took it seriously was because it was how people signalled their beliefs about power every morning when they got dressed. Luxury goods are just one very narrow dimension. The only question is what you perceive to represent power, and who you intend to signal that to.
Linux was a great example, where originally you could signal your technical skill by just having it installed at home. Today the equivalent would probably be having a functional language on your CV. It's a costly signal in that you need to make a non-trivial investment in learning it to be able to claim it. It also says that what you perceive to be power is esoteric knowledge with intelligence, and you are looking for people who meet that level. Signals are also tells.
What fashion companies did is recognized powerful people, and watched how they signalled to one another, and then sold that to everyone else, while flattering the powerful ones enough to adopt them. Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger made billions on that.
Luxury goods like say, a handbag or a BMW 3-Series, are things you can pay enough for to show that you have money, or in the latter case, credit. If you think money and credit represents power, you will signal that to other people who think the same. Some people think an Ivy education or an advanced degree is power, which it can be in political and finance circles, but not in say, car racing or sailing circles.
Facebook really was the original online luxury good, as it showed you believed in ivy schools, fame, technology, and gossip, but now it's the same as a hollowed out haute couture fashion house owned by a conglomerate that makes its money selling perfume in big box drug stores and airports.
Apple is a luxury company that sells tech, as their real product is privacy and a unified brand experience, and not selling users to advertisers like almost every other platform out there. I think they have risk under Cook's vision as he's just not sexy enough to carry the brand much further. You can see it with his whole push with old celebrities and wholesomeness, I think the lack of eros makes them vulnerable.
Twitter seems to be trying to upgrade its brand to a luxury product, with the opportunity to be a channel for infinite minor status upgrades beyond the blue check. If you can persuade hundreds of millions of people to put up with the character limit and whole culture of the place, it's like the indignity of economy class in airlines, where people will pay stupid amounts of money for small mercies.
Signalling is a rich enough metaphor to capture dynamics in pretty much any human endeavour. Such an interesting area.
lifeisstillgood 1474 days ago [-]
Completely agree about tech signalling - and it is probably the only useful way to sift CVs. I certainly used Python as that signal from 90s through to 2008 ish.
please link to your old fashion writing - if they are as good as this Inwoukd love to read some.
motohagiography 1474 days ago [-]
Thanks! I compartmentalize my writing a fair bit, so the fashion stuff I did in the early '00's was commercial writing aimed at getting work, with this kind of direct analysis only as a leitmotif. Lately, seems my best stuff is here.
I'd also argue that one can't simultaneously write well, not be pseudonymous, and work for a living, because what you hold in reserve to remain employable accumulates as pulled punches in your writing, and while nobody else may know, for an artist the shame can become unbearable. :)
Weak pseudonymity mitigates that somewhat.
lifeisstillgood 1472 days ago [-]
Well in that case I definitely want to read the stuff you have been holding back :-)
pipework 1474 days ago [-]
The title of this has nothing to do with webrtc or the type of signaling I was expecting here on HN.
ummonk 1474 days ago [-]
Funny, I saw the title and was hoping this article was about social signaling rather than signaling in software infra.
airstrike 1474 days ago [-]
I expected a joke project dressed as the latter but poking fun at the former
narag 1474 days ago [-]
I expected some kind of luxury service to impress neighbors, maybe delivering huge empty boxes to your door, but I wasn't disappointed anyway.
charlieflowers 1474 days ago [-]
There's a transcript of an interview with the book author here [1].
Personally, I'm impressed. There's depth and insight here. I plan to buy and read the book.
`I would say if you have a project with a deadline today, quite often, that goes badly. That is, you’ll have reviews of the project, and people will say, “Yes, of course we’re going to make the deadline.” Then finally the deadline comes, and you don’t make the deadline, and you’ve failed.
This happens a lot, and if you ask people, “Why does that happen?” they often say, “It was because they wouldn’t listen to us about the problems with the project and all the things going wrong, and they kept saying it would work.”
If you turn it around and look at it from the guy running the project’s point of view, they’re thinking, “I might fail on this project. It might not make the deadline. What will my excuse be? I need a good excuse.”
Their favorite excuse is usually, “Everything was going fine until all of the sudden, something came out of left field. No one could have seen it coming. It’ll never happen again. It knocked us flat, but you don’t need to hold anybody accountable or prepare or change it in any way because this was a one-time event.”
In order to make that excuse work, you need everybody to say “It’s going fine” until all of a sudden, it doesn’t.`
davidgl 1474 days ago [-]
The book is brilliant, highly recommended
mud_dauber 1474 days ago [-]
It's definitely a good read. I rec it.
peter_d_sherman 1474 days ago [-]
Excerpts:
"Fortnite has seen even greater levels of financial success: In the last two years combined, the game has brought in more than $4 billion in revenue – and like Tinder, it too monetizes primarily with signal amplification."
[...]
"In contrast to mobile games however, Fortnite is also free to win. None of the in-app purchases available impact the core gameplay. You can’t buy more powerful weapons or stronger armor that give you an advantage over other players."
[...]
"Fortnite’s monetization model is based on cosmetics: The skin your character wears; the looks of your glider and the tools you use; the way your character dances (emotes) – all of these are signaling amplifiers with different signal messages to uniquely express yourself in the game. And you have to purchase them."
postsantum 1474 days ago [-]
I disagree with the Tinder bit. Tinder is full of games and signalling, but displaying that you have to pay to boost your visibility comes off as desperate and thirsty at worst and that you're punching above your league at best
ro00776aas 1474 days ago [-]
As a "watch person" I generally tune out when someone brings up the "Rolex vs Casio" example.
I do not care what people think of me. To wit, I choose to live in a place (for various reasons) where I deal with racism on a daily basis. It's hard to care about status when the average person around you is ignorant enough to believe they're on the winning side of some kind of race math.
I do care what is attached to my body or inhabits my personal space. I use a Mac mostly because it looks good. I drive a BMW because of the level of trim inside. Ditto various designer clothing brands.
My Submariner is almost never off my wrist and is honestly one of my favorite (non-human) things. It's built like a tank, is appropriate for any occasion and yes, is more accurate than I need.
As a watch person I also see the value of a Casio (as do collectors) or an Apple Watch. But I only have one watch slot on my body and my favorite happens to be a Sub.
I do not evaluate people by their watches. I know lots of people don't value the things I do, may not like watches or may not care. All I learn by looking at someone's watch is whether or not they're also watch people.
Often, if someone is wearing a watch that costs 4+ digits, there's an interesting story behind it. They may have bought it to celebrate something or it may be one of a collection. I recently made a friend after asking him about his AP. Turned out he bought it towards the end of his first career, which was in the same area as my first career.
There was a time when a mechanical watch was near the pinnacle of technology. Watchmakers were the "rocket scientists" of their day. A lot of iconic watches have really interesting histories that can go back over 100 years.
They're still at the pinnacle of craftsmanship and aesthetics. They're the opposite of general, disposable consumer culture. They're built to last decades, hold their value well and are often multi-generational. They're green.
Investing in a mechanical watch today helps keep that tradition alive. If your reaction to a Rolex is eye rolling cynicism, you're poorer for it.
anonytrary 1474 days ago [-]
A person may buy sneakers to run, or a person may buy sneakers to cause other people to think that he runs. Regardless, the person bought the sneakers and why he bought it was baked into the price.
This is why popular things cost more money. It's almost like the mere fact that an active market exists increases my probability of participating in it.
narag 1474 days ago [-]
Also, and more specifically HN relevant: how it's exploited in SaaS environments.
Sophistifunk 1474 days ago [-]
How could this theory be applied to fund dev tools, I wonder?
mprovost 1474 days ago [-]
I remember for a while it seemed like every conference talk on Ruby (and/or Rails) involved someone dropping into Textmate and showing off something cool. I'm sure people weren't using it just to show off - but it was good marketing for a product in a space where most folks use free editors. Now I'm looking back and seeing it through the lens of signalling. I suppose they were sending a message that it's worth spending something for your tools.
satanspastaroll 1474 days ago [-]
As signaling is the opposite of practical, it's like asking how kryptonite could best help superman
Sophistifunk 1473 days ago [-]
Nice in theory, but the people who write dev tools still need to pay the rent.
satanspastaroll 1473 days ago [-]
I'm not sure I get what you mean. It's just that it's incredibly difficult to signal anything with a tool that exists for the sole purpose of utility. It's like trying to sell cotton with signaling; it doesen't really raise any kinds of emotion
esseti 1474 days ago [-]
Does someone knows how the images/pictures are made? is it by hand or is it a tool to do that kind of drawing?
scott_paul 1474 days ago [-]
The projection in this article is strong. This is the product of a very alien mind, to me. Intentional signaling is irritating to others, and often self-destructive. I really doubt most people's actions are driven by signaling, except in particularly mentally ill clumps of humanity.
In other words: what do you mean "we", weirdo?
roywiggins 1474 days ago [-]
Ah, you see, it's supposed to be largely unconscious. So it can explain nearly anything, by saying that you didn't realize you were signalling, but actually, deep down, that's why you did it. Like Freudian theories, or evo-psych theories, or whatever. It's all deep somewhere in your brain cells, you just don't know about it. Allegedly.
It sure seems to be able to prove way too much. Once a theory is flexible enough to explain nearly anything that happens, then maybe it's not actually a useful theory.
It can explain things you buy, but it can explain things you don't buy (you're signalling that you're not the sort of person who would spend $X for Y), it can even "explain" things you do that nobody ever sees- because your brain still considers what signals you might be sending even when nobody's watching. Marvelous.
chrisdirkis 1474 days ago [-]
For something to be a useful hypothesis, it must both match historical data and be good at predicting future data. Given that the signalling explanation is usually used post fact, and when used to predict is wrong as often as not (in my experience), it seems like a pretty useless hypothesis when used broadly.
Possible that there's a narrower hypothesis, or someone that uses it to accurately predict systems and behaviours. Would like to see it in that case.
aabeshou 1474 days ago [-]
absolutely agree. I think this explains a large narcissistic segment of society (and the narcissistic parts that everyone has, to an extent). But to say that's "all" there is is, for lack of a better word, insane
patcon 1474 days ago [-]
This article makes a ton of sense to me.
Also, it aligns with my guilty belief/fear that this paper is onto something:
Basically, the paper hypothesizes that all of conscious experience is just an artifact of the messaging layer between the real players -- our subconsciouses -- aka the geometry of our neural connectomes. (my spin)
tl;dr - Consciousness is pretty much just CapnProto or TCP/IP, which we happen to perceive as meaningful, when it's really just the chatter of subconsciouses shaking the air between themselves in complex ways, to signal things about the structures within.
And the next question: Communicate about what? Maybe just finding and gathering and converting structures with high degrees of symmetry out in the milieu. Like attracts like. Similar structures self-persist and reinforce one another. If similar enough, they can be merged and together sustained with the least energetic
bigbird-media 1474 days ago [-]
Summary:
Most of our everyday actions can be traced back to some form of signaling or status seeking. Almost everything has a signaling component – we are just not aware of it. “well over 90 percent” of human behavior can be explained by signaling.
bigbird-media 1474 days ago [-]
A little more specific:
The elephant in the brain by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler argues that most of our everyday actions can be traced back to some form of signaling or status seeking . this is not a new theory, but Simler and Hanson argue that a lot more human behavior can be explained by signaling .
Rendered at 08:49:25 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
For instance, while most donations aren't anonymous, I'd wager most people don't know how much their friends donate and who to. Sure, the organization knows, but unless you go out of your way to tell people that you gave $50 or $500 or $5000 to MSF last year, nobody will know. It's not an anonymous donation, but you're not signalling to anyone unless you stick a bumper sticker on your car or whatever.
They unlocked the attention economy.
We consumers pay for facebook with our eyeballs, not our wallets (facebook then is really good at selling specific eyeballs to specific wallets on the backend).
In the limited scope of the attention economy, then sure, social signaling could be the key metric of engagement. Facebook monetizes it by matching your signaling with specific advertisers, and Fortnite monetizes it by letting you customize the means of your signaling.
However, in the broader scope of the human experience, signaling explains very little...
Sure, you have a nice coffee table book, but you read Dickens to get lost in the story. Or you read a physics textbook to understand the universe.
You might go to church to show your neighbors you're a good god-fearing churchgoer, but you also do it to get closer to god or however you understand the universe.
You might go on a vacation to a far-off land to get a selfie, but you also do it to ponder how this park bench is older than your country and contemplate the lives and cultures of the people who have sat there since.
Yoga pants signal you do yoga, but you also do yoga to quiet your brain or meditate.
So sure, signaling theory is useful to explain all the cynical, vapid, and narcissistic tendencies we have (as well as the software companies that have become successful by industrializing the exploitation of those tendencies -- not saying they're not real!), but it certainly doesn't prove "too much". Rather, all the things it doesn't explain are the parts of the human experience that are not tied to the attention economy.
To use an example: If I go to work wearing a nice shirt that is cleaned and ironed, signalling theory would say I'm showing I can afford nice clothes, and to keep them looking nice. But if I go to work wearing a worn out tee-shirt I got for free from a vendor, signalling theory would say I'm signalling tech worker group membership, and that I have a modern trendy employer, or even that I'm so confident in my skills that trivial matters like clothes are inconsequential.
Likewise, I travel to work by nice car? Signalling wealth. By economical car? Signalling good financial sense. By running or bicycle? Signalling fitness and free time. By public transport? Signalling virtue and environmentalism.
If no matter the input, signalling theory would say "aha, exactly as expected" then can signalling theory ever be disproven?
And it's not bad to sometimes just think about yourself. It's just when it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy "I need status/affirmation in order to feel fulfilled" that it's shifts towards being obnoxious.
Signalling explains a lot. Since we are social animals where the survival and status of the group is important, it should explain a lot.
But the commenter points out that most charity is in practice anonymous, which is a serious challenge to any framework that presupposes one's actions are publicly know by others.
It's like the creators of this theory only consider the charity of celebrities, which indeed do it mostly for signalling, and forgot the vast majority of humanity that doesn't get their actions described in the papers...
If you look at how people act in work, family and love life, signalling explains 90% of it.
Hanson became interested in signalling because his work in prediction markets. Prediction market well implemented seems to work and produce good actionable information. Companies were eager to adopt them. In practice they are catastrophe because they reveal how the choices being made are based on other things than what is said. The whole social structure in workplace is destroyed if the positions and knowledge people signal is revealed to be not true.
But it equally explains why I don't buy a car (because I want to signal that I'm not the sort of person who would) as much as explains why I do by a car (ditto). So of course it "explains" 90% of how people behave, but only after the fact. Which is suspicious.
I want to live in a world in which more time is spent increasing merit and competency rather than advertising some sort of proxy. I understand that both merit and competency are impractical to judge without any sort of easily identifiable signal, but the inaccuracy of a lot of those signals and the amount of time, money, and effort wasted on them is kind of mind numbing.
There's also going to be a lot of bias in what is visible to you here - you're only going to see the people who loudly boast on Instagram about say donating to charity or using eco friendly cups or whatever - because of course the people that just do it quietly because they care and don't boast aren't going to be noticeable.
Maybe there's 10 people who aren't signalling for every one you see, but you have no way of knowing because they're not signalling.
The non-signalling 10 others are then cast as "following" the trends set by a signalling one.
But even by quoting that, I'm still playing (albeit by attempting to jump out into the meta game).
So the only ones who are actually not playing are the ones who are clicking away from this vapid comment page and moving on with their lives.
I believe the only way to stop is to generate white noise - by sending signals so mixed that those who observe stop trusting them
https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...
Area man doesn't signal.
^ And this one isn't?
I was asking in part because I was skeptical about the claim that most are deluded and unaware of their own signaling. I think more people are aware of it than this article would suggest, and that they just don't talk about it. But I don't have any evidence either way.
The idea of "hiding it" seems way too loaded, because it's usually in a context with an implicit value judgement.
I suspect that there are multiple factors of various importance going into every decision, and the observer is reducing, reprioritizing, and judging it against their own opinions.
Perhaps that book or some other source offers a more rigorous analysis.
Signaling is taught in Game Theory 101 in undergrad econ. Varian, Pyndick etc probably have plenty of "more rigorous analysis".
Furthermore, one of the authors of the book also authored this blog post, which I hesitate to summarize, but yeesh: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/04/two-types-of-envy.html
Someone on the outside looks at these signals and shakes their head, but it's just a bug in human nature.
Sounds to me like you object to false signalling, rather than signalling in general. Just think of all the positive forms of signalling like giving someone a gift to indicate that you’re thinking about them. Is that repellant?
I regret my original wording. I think I should have jumped directly to my main question about whether or not people are as unaware of signaling as the article suggests.
does such a world exist?
That kind of talk only an Economist can come up with, and sell to folks who have never heard about a subject called Psychology.
Economists are a bunch of people, who only recently discovered human behavior needed to be taken into account, to explain everything inexplicable about the economy. That mistake is how we end up with Alan Greenspan standing around expressing "shock and disbelief" at the 2008 meltdown.
If Signaling explains everything about human behavior what are the 418 books ranked above (the one in the article) in Amazon's Psychology category talking about?
> In fact, Hanson believes that “well over 90 percent” of human behavior can be explained by signaling. Whether or not you agree with that exact number, I think it’s an interesting thought experiment to look at a specific behavior and think about what the hidden signaling subtext of that behavior might be.
You do realize the author is citing someone else making the assertion you disagree with? The next sentence validates this interpretation. Your comment is a textbook straw man against the author.
Also, your bit about economists sounds incredibly inaccurate. No, economists didn't randomly realize human behavior needed to be taken into account one day. Since the beginning, the people studying economics already knew that it emerged out of the intricacies of human behavior. Simplifying a phenomenon for the purposes of modeling it is how we study things initially. We iterate on those solutions as we go.
(Though in this two-part theory I'm obviously hiding them from myself)
This article doesn't seem to have a lot of real insight, other than to loosely (and half incorrectly) justify various beliefs and misunderstandings the author has about selected social interactions. I guess that's fine, but doesn't seem particularly useful.
> So how are you going to distribute the signal message of your sneakers? You simply wear them where other people can see them. The obvious constraint here is that your signal distribution is limited to things you can display in public. This is why people are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on shoes but not on socks.
(This is largely anecdotal, but) 7-10 years ago, a game having a cash shop of _any_ kind caused it to be shunned by a large portion of the (US) gaming community. However, the model proved so effective (particularly with the "non-traditional gamer"), that it eventually became the norm. The market shifted that way as it grew and now the community is resigned to it. Don't get me wrong, there are still a multitude of games that follow the traditional model, but those aren't the cash cows of the industry because the market is simply smaller.
With Fortnight, I feel that Epic succeeded because they took a known formula, applied it to a budding, ultra-competitive genre, gave it an unassuming art style that had mass appeal, and made the game play simple and approachable.
The shift hapenned in 2010s, at the same time as free2play gmaes moved west. For example, World of Tanks had some pay2win shop mechanics, but the core of monetization was on purchasing faster progress: you would spend less time grinding or new gear, but once you got into battle with other players matched to you, you wouldn't get any advantage. Such game design focus was already pretty risky and revolutionary at the time when other free2play developers considered non-paying users as cannon fodder for paying ones, and it paid back with a much higher % of paying users and user loyalty, although the game did have a significantly lower ARPPU, relying on the mass of paying subscribers instead of a tiny amount of whales.
That doesn't bear out with what I see. Looking at a dataset of 2.8 million donations through our site, roughly 20% are anonymous. That's not the majority, but it's much more than "hardly any."
This just seems like basic logic though? If you want to be X and Y provides the means, then it makes sense to do it right? There can't be a hidden agenda if you're actively pursuing it
It's such an odd dynamic but I'm thankful for it since it gives me more information about a guy.
So the signalling on Tinder is your profile - pictures and description, they monetise the ability to signal to more people. And, as you alluded to, they absolutely don’t make that action public since amplifying your signal on a dating app reeks of desperation.
If one wants to have Tinder Hot badge you need to go on five dates and be rated 5 stars for each. You would be signalling you are attractive and others think so. (I expect this is already done through some count or left / right swipe ratio)
(I can see that leading to some horrible coercion issues so I would oppose it but you get this idea)
This sounds like a random interpretation, it might just as well be seen as "dating is important enough for me that I'm happy to spend money on it".
People apparently get perceived value from super likes etc, so I have some doubts it actually hurts their chances.
My personal experience (more than a few data points) suggests that that's not true. Tinder is full of boring, commodity thirst, and differentiation matters a lot.
When I became aware of my signaling habits I tried to reduce my signals, only to find that there's no "opt out". If you need a car, no matter what car you drive it will send a signal. No car sends a signal. If I want to wear the same plain clothes every day like a uniform, this is still participating in signalling. It's like mistaking 0 for null, I've signaled that I care more about pragmatism than fashion, but it's still a signal. While I'm sure the book recommended in the article is fascinating, I think I shouldn't read it because I won't be able to get outside my own head for a long time if I do.
The author isn't looking hard enough: professional software frequently goes for many thousands of dollars.
There's a difference between a high price tag and a high price tag for the sake of signaling wealth / social status. I wouldn't classify professional software as luxury goods (such as jewelry, watches, etc).
But agree that I should have phrased that sentence differently.
One cannot usually show off software like hardware. In this WFH world that could change. But for now I don't see people paying top dollar for B2C software until there is some visibility.
It would be interesting to see a dataset of people's t-shirt collections mapped against their consumer preferences. My two cents.
Linux was a great example, where originally you could signal your technical skill by just having it installed at home. Today the equivalent would probably be having a functional language on your CV. It's a costly signal in that you need to make a non-trivial investment in learning it to be able to claim it. It also says that what you perceive to be power is esoteric knowledge with intelligence, and you are looking for people who meet that level. Signals are also tells.
What fashion companies did is recognized powerful people, and watched how they signalled to one another, and then sold that to everyone else, while flattering the powerful ones enough to adopt them. Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger made billions on that.
Luxury goods like say, a handbag or a BMW 3-Series, are things you can pay enough for to show that you have money, or in the latter case, credit. If you think money and credit represents power, you will signal that to other people who think the same. Some people think an Ivy education or an advanced degree is power, which it can be in political and finance circles, but not in say, car racing or sailing circles.
Facebook really was the original online luxury good, as it showed you believed in ivy schools, fame, technology, and gossip, but now it's the same as a hollowed out haute couture fashion house owned by a conglomerate that makes its money selling perfume in big box drug stores and airports.
Apple is a luxury company that sells tech, as their real product is privacy and a unified brand experience, and not selling users to advertisers like almost every other platform out there. I think they have risk under Cook's vision as he's just not sexy enough to carry the brand much further. You can see it with his whole push with old celebrities and wholesomeness, I think the lack of eros makes them vulnerable.
Twitter seems to be trying to upgrade its brand to a luxury product, with the opportunity to be a channel for infinite minor status upgrades beyond the blue check. If you can persuade hundreds of millions of people to put up with the character limit and whole culture of the place, it's like the indignity of economy class in airlines, where people will pay stupid amounts of money for small mercies.
Signalling is a rich enough metaphor to capture dynamics in pretty much any human endeavour. Such an interesting area.
please link to your old fashion writing - if they are as good as this Inwoukd love to read some.
I'd also argue that one can't simultaneously write well, not be pseudonymous, and work for a living, because what you hold in reserve to remain employable accumulates as pulled punches in your writing, and while nobody else may know, for an artist the shame can become unbearable. :)
Weak pseudonymity mitigates that somewhat.
Personally, I'm impressed. There's depth and insight here. I plan to buy and read the book.
[1] https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/robin-hanson-tyl...
`I would say if you have a project with a deadline today, quite often, that goes badly. That is, you’ll have reviews of the project, and people will say, “Yes, of course we’re going to make the deadline.” Then finally the deadline comes, and you don’t make the deadline, and you’ve failed.
This happens a lot, and if you ask people, “Why does that happen?” they often say, “It was because they wouldn’t listen to us about the problems with the project and all the things going wrong, and they kept saying it would work.”
If you turn it around and look at it from the guy running the project’s point of view, they’re thinking, “I might fail on this project. It might not make the deadline. What will my excuse be? I need a good excuse.”
Their favorite excuse is usually, “Everything was going fine until all of the sudden, something came out of left field. No one could have seen it coming. It’ll never happen again. It knocked us flat, but you don’t need to hold anybody accountable or prepare or change it in any way because this was a one-time event.”
In order to make that excuse work, you need everybody to say “It’s going fine” until all of a sudden, it doesn’t.`
"Fortnite has seen even greater levels of financial success: In the last two years combined, the game has brought in more than $4 billion in revenue – and like Tinder, it too monetizes primarily with signal amplification."
[...]
"In contrast to mobile games however, Fortnite is also free to win. None of the in-app purchases available impact the core gameplay. You can’t buy more powerful weapons or stronger armor that give you an advantage over other players."
[...]
"Fortnite’s monetization model is based on cosmetics: The skin your character wears; the looks of your glider and the tools you use; the way your character dances (emotes) – all of these are signaling amplifiers with different signal messages to uniquely express yourself in the game. And you have to purchase them."
I do not care what people think of me. To wit, I choose to live in a place (for various reasons) where I deal with racism on a daily basis. It's hard to care about status when the average person around you is ignorant enough to believe they're on the winning side of some kind of race math.
I do care what is attached to my body or inhabits my personal space. I use a Mac mostly because it looks good. I drive a BMW because of the level of trim inside. Ditto various designer clothing brands.
My Submariner is almost never off my wrist and is honestly one of my favorite (non-human) things. It's built like a tank, is appropriate for any occasion and yes, is more accurate than I need.
As a watch person I also see the value of a Casio (as do collectors) or an Apple Watch. But I only have one watch slot on my body and my favorite happens to be a Sub.
I do not evaluate people by their watches. I know lots of people don't value the things I do, may not like watches or may not care. All I learn by looking at someone's watch is whether or not they're also watch people.
Often, if someone is wearing a watch that costs 4+ digits, there's an interesting story behind it. They may have bought it to celebrate something or it may be one of a collection. I recently made a friend after asking him about his AP. Turned out he bought it towards the end of his first career, which was in the same area as my first career.
There was a time when a mechanical watch was near the pinnacle of technology. Watchmakers were the "rocket scientists" of their day. A lot of iconic watches have really interesting histories that can go back over 100 years.
They're still at the pinnacle of craftsmanship and aesthetics. They're the opposite of general, disposable consumer culture. They're built to last decades, hold their value well and are often multi-generational. They're green.
Investing in a mechanical watch today helps keep that tradition alive. If your reaction to a Rolex is eye rolling cynicism, you're poorer for it.
This is why popular things cost more money. It's almost like the mere fact that an active market exists increases my probability of participating in it.
In other words: what do you mean "we", weirdo?
It sure seems to be able to prove way too much. Once a theory is flexible enough to explain nearly anything that happens, then maybe it's not actually a useful theory.
It can explain things you buy, but it can explain things you don't buy (you're signalling that you're not the sort of person who would spend $X for Y), it can even "explain" things you do that nobody ever sees- because your brain still considers what signals you might be sending even when nobody's watching. Marvelous.
Possible that there's a narrower hypothesis, or someone that uses it to accurately predict systems and behaviours. Would like to see it in that case.
Also, it aligns with my guilty belief/fear that this paper is onto something:
Chasing the Rainbow: The Non-conscious Nature of Being https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.0192...
Basically, the paper hypothesizes that all of conscious experience is just an artifact of the messaging layer between the real players -- our subconsciouses -- aka the geometry of our neural connectomes. (my spin)
tl;dr - Consciousness is pretty much just CapnProto or TCP/IP, which we happen to perceive as meaningful, when it's really just the chatter of subconsciouses shaking the air between themselves in complex ways, to signal things about the structures within.
And the next question: Communicate about what? Maybe just finding and gathering and converting structures with high degrees of symmetry out in the milieu. Like attracts like. Similar structures self-persist and reinforce one another. If similar enough, they can be merged and together sustained with the least energetic
Most of our everyday actions can be traced back to some form of signaling or status seeking. Almost everything has a signaling component – we are just not aware of it. “well over 90 percent” of human behavior can be explained by signaling.
The elephant in the brain by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler argues that most of our everyday actions can be traced back to some form of signaling or status seeking . this is not a new theory, but Simler and Hanson argue that a lot more human behavior can be explained by signaling .