Nominull comments on What Is Signaling, Really? - Less Wrong

74 Post author: Yvain 12 July 2012 05:43PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 10 July 2012 06:39:30PM *  17 points [-]

Be warned! Signaling that you understand signaling is a terrible signal, because it throws all your other signals into doubt.

This is the opposite of true. People want allies that are competent signalers. Explicitly talking about signalling is in most cases a bad idea and usually a signal that you don't understand signalling or respect it sufficiently.

Revealing that you are optimizing your signaling separately (for example, talking about "PUA") is among the worst signals of all.

To the extent that there are "worst signals of all" rather than signals being dependent on context and goals, talking about PUA wouldn't be near the top. There are more than enough cases where it is either neutral or positive---especially when that ridiculous acronym isn't used.

Comment author: Nominull 15 July 2012 10:37:15PM 1 point [-]

Yes, in a world of shifting coalitions and subcontrancting, a lot of signaling consists of not signaling our abilities directly, but rather signaling our ability to signal our willingness to signal our abilities.