Hypothesis: We don’t much care about the good of society. Refinement: Love of the social good is not the main motivation for (i) political action, and (ii) political discourse. We don’t talk about what’s good for society because we want to help our fellow humans. We talk about society because we want to align ourselves with a chosen group, to signal that alignment to others, and to tell a story about who we are. There are AIDS activists because there are people who want to express sympathy for gays, to align themselves against conservatives, and thereby to express “who they are”. There are no nephritis activists, because there’s no salient group you align yourself with (kidney disease sufferers?) by advocating for nephritis research, there’s no group you thereby align yourself against, and you don’t tell any story about what kind of person you are.
He looks at causes of death compared with those that have political salience.
One of the reasons free markets are a hard sell is that they don’t provide an “other” to hate. In a free market, strangers are not enemies, they’re potential trading partners.
Nonsense. In any political reality, some political group coalitions will support free markets more than others, and free market ideology lets you pick sides in that dispute and “hate” the opposing side.
Tyler Cowen referenced this. To quite him, people get emotionally interested in politics when either “a) has implications for who should be raised and lowered in status, and b) has some framework in place which allows you to make analytical points, but points which ultimately translate into a conclusion about a)”. Free markets would be “b”. They are an analytical concept that gives you plausible deniability about weighing in on ugly zero sum group status politics.
How can you know this? If true, it calls into question your own beliefs about what drives society, and has me wondering which group(s) you’re trying to raise or lower your argument.
It’s impossible for reality to be rightly described as hidden group status coalitions all the way down, because that claim is itself subject to being dismissed as the same grounds.
Wow….this analysis is cold, but it, unfortunately, rings true. Could this be why one year politicians make speeches in favor of something, then vote for it, only to be against it a few years later and to use morality-based arguments?
Virtue/tribe signaling should be considered one of the deadly sins.
Empty virtue signalling is silly and ineffectual. But remember, true virtue signalling was an important social cue to improve group cohesion which led to the first organization of labor back when humans made the transition from hunter-gatherers to farming.
Oh, no. It was active much before that. Hunter-gatherers are very social people–and have to be. Which suggests that the desire to signal, “I’m one of the good us, not the bad them” is old and powerful.
I think the problem today is not so much the ancient desire to signal virtue, but the interplay between that and the way social media uses social status competition as a means to hook people.
Unfortunately the problem is broader. We’ve gotten rich enough that a large enough percentage of the population is able to compete for social status in ways that are disconnected from reality, injurious to the health of the overall system, or both.
It’s self-correcting, but in the ‘Heinlein bad luck’ sense.
There are of course activists for nephritis, and breast cancer, and diabetes who lobby for government money and services. I guess it depends on how you define activism, as being wholly political, or some blend of social and political. But the fact remains, that there are many activist groups who believe that they are making society better for everyone, like doctors without borders for instance.
“Love of the social good is not the main motivation for (i) political action, and (ii) political discourse.”
By “social good” I take it the author means that we can’t externalize what the “social good” is and we can only conceive of activism in ways that benefit us directly? I think that’s flat our wrong, and goes against much of the anthropological research of altruism. All you have to do to refute the piece is to list activist organizations which are non-partisan.
MADD(Mothers against drunk driving)
Flat Earth Organizations
Anti-vaccine groups
The list goes on and on…
I am highly skeptical of the “everything is a virtue signal!” position. No, when people say “I want to help group X” it’s probably because they actually want to help group X. This isn’t to say that virtue signalling doesn’t happen, but I think you need to take people at face value when they talk about their explicit goals.
Plus there are tons of anti-cancer activists, and for that matter pro-fitness (anti-heart disease) activists, and anti-Alzheimers activists, etc. His graph doesn’t really support his point
Hanson’ and Simler’s The Elephant in the Brain argues that people really do consciously want to do good. But the way they want to do good is the way that is approved by the group they want to be a part of. Thus, if global warming really bothers you, you will probably adopt the analysis of other people who conspicuously care. Which ironically means that you will probably be unalterably opposed to nuclear power, which has a much lower carbon footprint than fossil fuels.
This.
It’s a dead-end to go whole hog on the signaling group status thing because as Robin Hanson is finding out,* it just ends up creating more bad faith intellectual exchanges. It can’t only be secret status coalitions because that argument is itself subject to being undermined as an interested party.
*Hanson is being accused of harboring hidden motives with his controversial sexual inequality blog posts, despite his protestations that he’s just asking questions and floating theories.
It’s a dead end to say arguments are nothing but signalling and trying to belong, but it is also untrue to say they have nothing to do with that.
Similarly, it is ridiculous to say that reality is “socially constructed” without constraint. But it is useful to know that people have ulterior motives to see reality as they do.
So, feel some humility. Try to argue in good faith. Take people seriously but also notice where they’re coming from.
So adopt a tit-for-tat strategy where you assume good faith until credible evidence leads you to believe the other person is acting in bad faith, then punish their defection in escalating amounts until they either stop playing defect or not longer exist.
The question then is answering question like:
“is this person acting in bad faith?”
“what is the likelihood someone will act in bad faith going forward?”
“does acting in bad faith even need to be a conscious decision?”
“what are the causes of people acting in bad faith?”
Pessimists who say “it’s all about virtue signaling” might just mean things like “if you don’t punish virtue signaling harshly is tends to spiral” or “its really impossible for these different interests to get along in good faith, you need more fear or separation or whatever to make it work” or “our wayward coalition members need to realize the other coalition will never have them no matter how much they want to join.”
Kling posted this exact sentiment a while ago in a post titled “Playing the Status Game”, where he quotes Tyler Cowen saying, “So much of debate, including political and economic debate, is about which groups and individuals deserve higher or lower status”. Politics has always been like this, and I’m sure others noticed it before Tyler Cowen and Kling did.
nephritis is an odd reference because it’s less prevalent than other health issues. Nephritis is the ninth most prevalent cause of death depending on the list you choose. That’s serious and researchers are working on treatments, but the eight more prevalent causes of death, understandably get more attention, and they are generally non political.
My last post didn’t show up (because I had a url?), sorry if I am double posting.
I find that post to completely smug and useless. Low and behold what kills most human beings are a variety diseases that increase likelihood as one ages.
1) I would disagree that the government is not doing a lot on old age and diseases. We have government run Medicare that gives patients access to medicines that do mitigate a lot of deaths. Yes I do find it weird breast cancer is more of a movement than colon cancer. (AIDS and research were political issues in the 1980s and 1990s btw.)
2) There are plenty of anti-smoking and better eating government programs. Anti-smoking has been incredibly successful with smoking going from ~50% in 1970 to 16% in today. And deaths by lung cancer are diminishing.
3) It does seem reasonable for the government to focus attention on drug use, suicide and auto deaths. (Which has falling for most of the last 100 years.) These are much more avoidable than Heart Disease for someone 84.
We join with the group that protects our government goodie. Hence the libertarian dilemma, we have no government goodies to protect, no reason to join a group.
Hypothesis: We don’t much care about the good of society. Refinement: Love of the social good is not the main motivation for (i) political action, and (ii) political discourse.
The refinement is all about political action and discourse, and seems fairly true about most political activists and politicos. However, most normal people do care about the good of society. And “how much” is, in America, far more than in most other countries.
The amount of caring can be approximated by the amount donated shown; a related metric is how many people donate.
Gee, do you think?
It amazes me that a smart guy of your age would find this surprising enough to mention.
Interesting and provocative post.
It would be nice to see DALY figures, rather than just cause of death.
Until we see DALY or crude estimates of years of life, could it be that we are counting wrong?
off the top of my head and google, here is this.
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/know-burden-disease-u-s/#item-start
the 4th and 5th charts are useful at the above URL.
– = – = – =
The post and essay tends to confound two things: demographic analysis and political interpretation. Both are good topics–the author may not have combined them well.
Link goes to the National Kidney Foundation. (You would think that before someone would make such a claim they would at least google it.) A lot of people support these kinds of organization because they have family or friends who have been affected.
Is Huemer married? He probably doesn’t love his wife. Just wants to associate with people able to form long lasting relationships and project the image that he opposes people who engage in promiscuous sex.
Steve
https://www.kidney.org
Also
Organ Reform Group and Network, http://www.organreform.org
Waitlist Zero, waitlistzero.org
I’m in healthcare and can assure you that there are advocacy and fund-raising groups for kidney disease and nearly every other disease and condition. People start these groups because they or someone they love was affected by one of these diseases.
Very often, the founders are wealthy and influential people, who enlist their relatives, friends and business associates to contribute to, or join the boards of their groups. Other people join in order to please the wealthy and influential group founders, or to have their names associated with them.
Signaling inevitably plays a role. If you’ve ever been involved in any kind of non-profit, you know that it is critical to have wealthy or influential names on your board. Social signaling – or what used to be called social climbing – is the engine of the non-profit world.