24 – Signaling

  Robin Hanson’s “What is Signaling?” Scott Alexander’s definition of signaling: a method of conveying information among not-necessarily-trustworthy parties by performing an action which is more likely or less costly if the information is true than if it is not true. A list of some blog posts about signaling courtesy of Less Wrong. Hanson on sitting in on classes at Stanford. *You usually need a degree for a job in academia 😛 The Logic of Stupid Poor People Alternative perspective: poor person with designer purse Brian Caplan on illegal IQ tests Venomous. We mean that the snakes are venomous, not poisonous. Batesian mimicry is parasitic in that one species (the most edible one) benefits to the detriment of the model species. It can only be maintained if the harm caused to the predator by eating the model outweighs the benefit of eating the mimic. –Sterns & Hoekstra. Evolution: An Introduction (5th ed.). p. 464. Katrina: To clarify, it’s hard for me to tell where the truth lies on the cost/benefit analysis of making a child. It isn’t hard to predict a child’s impact on carbon emissions. That’s clearly a cost.