For millennia, we humans have shown off our intelligence via complicated arguments and large vocabularies, health via sport achievement, heavy drink, and long hours, and wealth via expensive clothes, houses, trips, etc. Today we appear to have the more efficient signaling substitutes, such as IQ tests, medical health tests, and bank statements. Yet we continue to show off in the old ways, and rarely substitute such new ways. Why?
People don;'t just signal status, they also signal which status game they are playing and tribal membership generally. What kind of education you have, and what you spend money on give rich information about those things. IQ and bank balance may be accurate, but they are semantically thin.
Tyler seems to interpret Bryan as saying that we attend college because we are conformists, conforming to the standard way of signaling X (= whatever it is that educational credentials signal) (and that such a strong conformist motivation would "subvert economics as a science"). I don't think he meant that online-education-cum-test-performance is a more efficient way of signaling X. You say, "I don't see it," but I don't think anybody else does, either, which makes it quite implausible as an interpretation of Tyler's comment on Bryan's book.
It's also worth pointing out that adeptness at "signaling" is itself a signal. We call it "social IQ" or "charm" or whatever, but it is a desirable quality. Displaying it is trickier than one might think, and doing it wrong is a serious flaw. Therefore it seems reasonable for people to be conservative in their signaling, because it's better to show adeptness at customary signaling methods. A few people have the knack of adeptly using new methods -- we call them "trend-setters" (but we also sometimes call them "clowns" or "nutjobs").
Apparently exceptional workplaces like yours aren't numerous enough to induce students to seek to attend a new kind of school specializing in preparing students for such workplaces.
"Yes, such variations may let one better show initiative, independence, creativity, and self-actualization. And yes, we give lip service to admiring such features. But employers are not usually that eager to see such features in their employees."
I'm biased because I work at a tech startup, but the features you describe are exactly what we look for in hires. None of us have time to manage our employees: we need them to do a job with a very loosely defined parameters and figure out many unspecified details of achieving the company's overall goals. This suggests that even if most employers don't want these features there is a market desperate to find people who have them, given how hard staffing generally is at startups.
It's not just the inertia. You're acting as if we loved the signaled trait instead of the signal itself. But I don't think we do. Just like peahens, we aren't turned on by the health of potential mates. We're turned on by the traditional correlates of health, like plumage. So it goes for all the other traits. What *explains* the pattern of turn-ons is underlying quality, but the object of the turn-on isn't that quality. It's the plumage. If you've got the quality but not the plumage, sorry, not interested. If it's vice versa, it's on. Liking, approving, being impressed, and the like, are not optimizing functions tuned for qualities. They're kneejerk reactions to signals.
I'll add that I think Clayton Christensen et al's model of blended learning will probably be what wins out, where schools remain important institutions, but shift towards incorporating the efficiencies and signals of competence-based online learning with on-site value adds. They'll also become much more fluid and generic, which means the differences from one school to the next will diminish, and value will shift towards individual "superstar" instructors and learning networks forming around them.
"But employers are not usually that eager to see such features in their employees. The usual learning plan, in contrast, is much more like a typical workplace, where workers have less freedom to choose their projects, must coordinate plans closely, and must deal with office politics and conformity pressures. It seems to me that success in the usual schooling plans work better as a signal of future workplace performance, "
You're assuming that the "employers" will stay the same as they are now, that the current bureaucratic structure of firms will remain relatively unscathed by the same distributed knowledge systems which are enabling educational disruption. Won't organizational structures continue to move towards the trend of smaller autonomous teams, where the employees self-organize from open talent pools not limited to the firm, with continual learning and ongoing performance measures on the job are more important than a 4+ year artificial signal? There are already companies providing competency-based recruiting which are gaining traction, and competency-based education will fit right into that pipeline.
"Today we appear to have the more efficient signaling substitutes, such as IQ tests, medical tests, and bank statements. Yet we continue to show off in the old ways, and rarely substitute such new ways. "
I was at a fashionable bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This guy who who was in the mating game, kept telling people his score on the SAT.
It sounds like having a conscientiousness test that is very difficult to fake in the same way that you can have fluid intelligence or working memory tests that are very hard to fake would solve part of the matching problem here. Currently that is 'higher education' since you can't fake the time horizons needed for multiyear planning. Who has tried to do better?
People don;'t just signal status, they also signal which status game they are playing and tribal membership generally. What kind of education you have, and what you spend money on give rich information about those things. IQ and bank balance may be accurate, but they are semantically thin.
Tyler seems to interpret Bryan as saying that we attend college because we are conformists, conforming to the standard way of signaling X (= whatever it is that educational credentials signal) (and that such a strong conformist motivation would "subvert economics as a science"). I don't think he meant that online-education-cum-test-performance is a more efficient way of signaling X. You say, "I don't see it," but I don't think anybody else does, either, which makes it quite implausible as an interpretation of Tyler's comment on Bryan's book.
It's also worth pointing out that adeptness at "signaling" is itself a signal. We call it "social IQ" or "charm" or whatever, but it is a desirable quality. Displaying it is trickier than one might think, and doing it wrong is a serious flaw. Therefore it seems reasonable for people to be conservative in their signaling, because it's better to show adeptness at customary signaling methods. A few people have the knack of adeptly using new methods -- we call them "trend-setters" (but we also sometimes call them "clowns" or "nutjobs").
Apparently exceptional workplaces like yours aren't numerous enough to induce students to seek to attend a new kind of school specializing in preparing students for such workplaces.
"Yes, such variations may let one better show initiative, independence, creativity, and self-actualization. And yes, we give lip service to admiring such features. But employers are not usually that eager to see such features in their employees."
I'm biased because I work at a tech startup, but the features you describe are exactly what we look for in hires. None of us have time to manage our employees: we need them to do a job with a very loosely defined parameters and figure out many unspecified details of achieving the company's overall goals. This suggests that even if most employers don't want these features there is a market desperate to find people who have them, given how hard staffing generally is at startups.
It's not just the inertia. You're acting as if we loved the signaled trait instead of the signal itself. But I don't think we do. Just like peahens, we aren't turned on by the health of potential mates. We're turned on by the traditional correlates of health, like plumage. So it goes for all the other traits. What *explains* the pattern of turn-ons is underlying quality, but the object of the turn-on isn't that quality. It's the plumage. If you've got the quality but not the plumage, sorry, not interested. If it's vice versa, it's on. Liking, approving, being impressed, and the like, are not optimizing functions tuned for qualities. They're kneejerk reactions to signals.
I'll add that I think Clayton Christensen et al's model of blended learning will probably be what wins out, where schools remain important institutions, but shift towards incorporating the efficiencies and signals of competence-based online learning with on-site value adds. They'll also become much more fluid and generic, which means the differences from one school to the next will diminish, and value will shift towards individual "superstar" instructors and learning networks forming around them.
"But employers are not usually that eager to see such features in their employees. The usual learning plan, in contrast, is much more like a typical workplace, where workers have less freedom to choose their projects, must coordinate plans closely, and must deal with office politics and conformity pressures. It seems to me that success in the usual schooling plans work better as a signal of future workplace performance, "
You're assuming that the "employers" will stay the same as they are now, that the current bureaucratic structure of firms will remain relatively unscathed by the same distributed knowledge systems which are enabling educational disruption. Won't organizational structures continue to move towards the trend of smaller autonomous teams, where the employees self-organize from open talent pools not limited to the firm, with continual learning and ongoing performance measures on the job are more important than a 4+ year artificial signal? There are already companies providing competency-based recruiting which are gaining traction, and competency-based education will fit right into that pipeline.
"Today we appear to have the more efficient signaling substitutes, such as IQ tests, medical tests, and bank statements. Yet we continue to show off in the old ways, and rarely substitute such new ways. "
I was at a fashionable bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This guy who who was in the mating game, kept telling people his score on the SAT.
Evolution is fast.
It sounds like having a conscientiousness test that is very difficult to fake in the same way that you can have fluid intelligence or working memory tests that are very hard to fake would solve part of the matching problem here. Currently that is 'higher education' since you can't fake the time horizons needed for multiyear planning. Who has tried to do better?