[Poll] Who looks better in your eyes?

This is thread where I'm trying to figure out a few things about signalling on LessWrong and need some information, so please immediately after reading about the two individuals please answer the poll. The two individuals:

A. Sees that an interpretation of reality shared by others is not correct, but tries to pretend otherwise for personal gain and/or safety.

B. Fails to see that an interpretation of reality is shared by others is flawed. He is therefore perfectly honest in sharing the interpretation of reality with others. The reward regime for outward behaviour is the same as with A.

To add a trivial inconvenience that matches the inconvenience of answering the poll before reading on, comments on what I think the two individuals signal,what the trade off is and what I speculate the results might be here versus the general population, is behind this link.

A. Sees that an interpretation of reality shared by others is not correct, but tries to pretend otherwise for personal gain and/or safety.

Your question naturally leads to a more general one -- what is it in fact that causes people to develop beliefs that are closer to reality than the respectable consensus (which often makes them seriously disreputable)?

It is certainly not superior intelligence or knowledge. The normal modus operandi for smart people is to acquire practically useful knowledge and act on it, but at the same time, when it comes to any issues that are of more signaling than practical interest, to figure out instinctively what the respectable opinion is and converge on it, no matter how remote from reality it might be. (Of course, if there is a conflict between signaling and instrumental implications of some issue, then hypocrisy and rationalizations are called for.) On the whole, smarter people tend to be more in line with the respectable opinion, since they are able to figure out how to optimize their views for maximum signaling value.

Most instances of people who have disreputable beliefs are those who have picked them up in various low-status social circles and who are too stupid to realize their status implications, or are for some reason doomed to low status anyway so they don't have to bother. Ironically, this means that in cases where respectable beliefs are delusional, most people who instead hold more accurate beliefs belong to these categories, and just happen to be right in a stopped-clock sort of way. Therefore, as a statistical implication, respectable beliefs signal smarts and high status even when they're in fact delusional, while disreputable ones signal stupidity and low status even when they're actually correct!

Now, what about people who are smart and who have actually applied sound thinking to move their beliefs closer to reality than the respectable opinion? If you belong to this category, it can mean one of several things:

Your brain is wired in some non-standard manner, so that it doesn't deal with status signaling and social conformity in the usual way. This clearly sends off bad signals, since it increases the probability that you might be weird, dysfunctional, or even dangerous in all sorts of ways.
Your brain is wired in a way that makes it hard to acquire those beliefs that happen to be respectable here and now. (But you would conform easily, perhaps exceptionally so, in a different society with different respectable beliefs.)
You've belonged, or still belong simultaneously, to non-mainstream social circles (or alien societies) that have different status criteria for beliefs.
You've noticed a clash of respectable beliefs with reality that was too severe to rationalize away.
(Are there perhaps other possibilities I'm missing?)

Clearly, each of these possibilities has different implications, which may further depend on the context. In particular, the ability to hide problematic beliefs doesn't by itself signal general antisocial traits. People are expected to be able to hide what they know and believe in some situations -- for example, when being fully upfront would mean revealing some business secret. This ability is in fact a required part of a functional personality.

I would however take it as evidence of antisocial traits if someone goes out of his way to assert respectable beliefs loudly and piously (for example, by taking up a political career), and who does it convincingly with conscious duplicity.

If one is in no position to act on a delusional belief, then optimal behavior is to believe in the delusional but socially desirable belief with full sincerity. But unless one is aware of reality, one cannot reliably judge which delusion is safe. For example, one of my politically correct Australian nieces assumed it would be safe to walk down a street named Martin Luther King Boulevard. My seemingly equally politically correct American niece would be unlikely to do so.

3sam034515y

Someone who sincerely believes is dangerous to himself and everyone around him, classic recent examples being Washington Mutual’s Kerry Killinger, and Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo. They conned everyone of gigantic amounts of money, but their biggest victims were themselves and their banks. On the other hand, had they not sincerely believed, it is unlikely that they would have been helicoptered up to such wealth and power. If their belief had been feigned and cynical, a lot more of the disappeared money would have stuck to them. But perhaps had their belief been feigned and cynical, they would not have been the beneficiaries of such great regulatory favor. Note that Kerry Killinger and Angelo Mozilo did not come from elite universities, and by all indications, are not very bright. Goldman and Sach bailed out later than they should have, indicating some degree of unfeigned sincerity, but bailed out soon enough, indicating some degree of feigned sincerity and cynical pretense. This suggests that true believers are to be found in both elite and second ranking universities, but more easily found in second ranking universities.

2[anonymous]15y

Perhaps this as well: * Strategically it seems a different set point for respectable opinion would be the best way to raise your own status This seems very useful in times of revolutionary change and might explain why large groups of people update so rapidly when the old set point seems to be loosing but still has the upper hand. Trying to change a respectable opinion to a different setting seems a viable way dislodge and disrupt older alliances (as the members will not update simultaneously) allowing new actors to gain power and status rapidly. This may be particularly useful for anyone who "belonged, or still belongs simultaneously, to non-mainstream social circles (or alien societies) that have different status criteria for beliefs".

7

[Poll] Who looks better in your eyes?

7

7

7

[Poll] Who looks better in your eyes?

7

7