[Link] How Signaling Ossifies Behavior

Jayson_Virissimo

Here is a new post at EconLog in which Bryan Caplan discusses how signalling contributes to the status quo bias.

The lesson: In the real world, signaling naturally tends to ossify behavior - to lock in whatever the status quo happens to be. If you're an optimist, you can protest, "It's only a tendency." But even an optimist should admit that this tendency leads to atypically slow and unreliable progress.

Here is a new post at EconLog in which Bryan Caplan discusses how signalling contributes to the status quo bias.

The lesson: In the real world, signaling naturally tends to ossify behavior - to lock in whatever the status quo happens to be. If you're an optimist, you can protest, "It's only a tendency." But even an optimist should admit that this tendency leads to atypically slow and unreliable progress.

more people join cults

Hm. I see conformity as a factor that causes cults, not the other way around.

refuse to pay their taxes

If lots of people stopped paying their taxes, we'd develop effective enforcement mechanisms.

become terrorists

I could see this. Related.

It's a good point overall, in some cases conformity could be good. Probably for high-IQ "nerds", conformity is more frequently bad, because we're often smarter than the people we're considering whether to conform with, and therefore better equipped to make decisions.

Hm. I see conformity as a factor that causes cults, not the other way around.

Most people don't join cults because their friends, family, etc. would look at them funny (assuming their friends, family, etc. are not currently in cults). Conformity keeps people in cults, but I don't think it causes people to join them. We might see people bouncing between a larger number of smaller cults.

Probably for high-IQ "nerds", conformity is more frequently bad, because we're often smarter than the people we're considering whether to conform with, and the

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[Link] How Signaling Ossifies Behavior

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[Link] How Signaling Ossifies Behavior

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