Comments on: Spent = Gold + Schlock

By: Overcoming Bias : Signals Are Forever

Overcoming Bias : Signals Are Forever — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:58:36 +0000

[...] to know each other, but now that they know each other well there is no need for such things. In Spent, Geoffrey Miller also didn’t think it made sense to signal to your close friends and [...]

By: Overcoming Bias : Why Signals Are Shallow

Overcoming Bias : Why Signals Are Shallow — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:01:25 +0000

[...] A comment on Tierney’s NYT blog post on Miller’s Spent: [...]

By: Consommation ostentatoire, signalement et évolution culturelle « Rationalité Limitée

Thu, 28 May 2009 12:03:19 +0000

[...] en discutant des ouvrages de Geoffrey Miller et Robert Frank sur le sujet (voir notamment ici et là - j’en avais déjà un peu parlé ici). En bon lecteur de l’oeuvre de Thorstein [...]

By: matt

matt — Thu, 21 May 2009 21:30:48 +0000

I think the problem is not in HOW we signal but in WHAT we signal. The consumer culture makes us emphasize signaling for wealth, individuality, status, etc. Signaling for these things doesn’t help build are relationship with people – something that gives us more happiness. We would be better off if we signaled for more “natural” things that Miller delineates. More natural signals would me more efficient in the sense that they give more happiness.

Does this mean that we should tax conspicuous consumer products? Not necessarily. We need to discourage products that signal for things that won’t make us as happy and encourage those that do.

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:38:52 +0000

Eric, my goal is not just to have a convenient belief; I need to ask if I have any evidence for that belief.

Yvian, money is obtained from time spent; so ultimately money and discussion signaling are spending the same resource. The question is how much you get out of the process aside from jockeying for rank. In the quote you cite, I interpret Frank as making an incidental comment which doesn’t fit in his main argument.

By: Jerome Thomas

Jerome Thomas — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:56:22 +0000

I don’t think signalling through money is purely a competition to see who can waste the most money. Wasting your money well is critically important in this game. Even among people deeply immersed in the game of signalling status through consumption there is often a dislike of vulgarity. Accusations of vulgarity can pretty much negate attempts to gain status through excessive consumption particularly among more sophisticated players of the game.
What are the right things to waste your money on? I think you are judged by how you balance conformity to the social trends and pressures around you with expressing your individuality within those parameters.

In my opinion people who claim that status signalling with expensive stuff is just about shoving your net worth in peoples faces are misunderstanding it.

By: HH

HH — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:28:40 +0000

Yvain

“Signaling through discussion is not a competition to see who can waste the most time in the same way that signaling through money is a competition to see who can waste the most money. … Compare this to money, where it only becomes possible to compare our wealth once we have both wasted a large amount of it.”

Actually, the goal isn’t to waste the most money. It’s to appear to have wasted the most money. You don’t have to actually spend $100,000 on a sports car – buy it at a police auction for $18K and drive it around. You’ll send the same signal as long as no one knows your dirty secret.

“If you are a more interesting and charming person than I am, you are likely to come out ahead with only minimal effect from the amount of time each of us puts in.”

We’re clearly not after the same women…

By: Yvain

Yvain — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:38:28 +0000

“Yvian, signaling through discussions can waste the same total amount, via wasted time.”

Do you have any evidence for this statement? It doesn’t seem obvious at all to me that signaling through discussion or personality must necessarily waste resources the same as signaling through money. Signaling through discussion is not a competition to see who can waste the most time in the same way that signaling through money is a competition to see who can waste the most money. If you are a more interesting and charming person than I am, you are likely to come out ahead with only minimal effect from the amount of time each of us puts in. Compare this to money, where it only becomes possible to compare our wealth once we have both wasted a large amount of it.

“Proposing that we just subsidize anything that happiness studies suggest make folks more happy than average is a very different proposal, and would require a very different response.”

In your post “Luxury Fever”, you quote Frank as saying that “What … I call ‘inconspicuous consumption’ – freedom from traffic congestion, time with family and friends, vacation time, and a variety of favorable job characteristics. In each of the examples discussed, the evidence suggests that subjective well-being will be higher in the society with a greater balance of inconspicuous consumption.” Isn’t he making exactly that proposal? Or do you interpret it differently?

By: Eric Falkenstein

Eric Falkenstein — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:00:18 +0000

Isn’t it rational to think your status orientation is not merely a game, but should be the focus of others? That is, you aren’t just maximizing an arbitrary status but about insights and skills closest to Truth, Beauty and Good? If you didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t be very good within the group you chose to signal among. If you think, “different strokes for different folks”, aren’t you conceding your group is no better than a bunch of Trekies or Esperanto speakers, people with skills to be sure, but irrelevant if not socially obtuse?

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:32:41 +0000

Dagon, he’s claiming signaling could be more effective. Miller is trying to minimize the demand for fancy cellphones by making it socially shameful to buy them.

Jerome and Eric, Frank and Miller have set their sights on changing your world, not just theirs. They want us all to adopt more of the signaling style of their status group.

George, Miller is not proposing to reduce signaling, but to change what is used to signal. So the level of deception would remain similar.