Rationally Speaking #135 - Robin Hanson on: "Most human behavior is signaling"

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2015

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

In this episode, economist Robin Hanson explains the signaling theory of human behavior: That our motivations for our choices, about school, shopping, medical care, and so on, evolved primarily to shape other people's perceptions of us. In the process Robin and Julia discuss what makes a good theory: How to decide what you should (a priori) expect to see, and why simplicity is a virtue.

Robin Dale Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He is known as an expert on idea futures and markets, and he was involved in the creation of the Foresight Exchange and DARPA's Future MAP project. he blogs at Overcomng Bias.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Want to read rationally speaking and not just listen to it?
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0:08.2	That's rationally speakingpodcast.org.
0:28.8	Music Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City Skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.
0:34.0	For more information, please visit us at NYC Skeptics.org.
0:46.5	Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.
0:53.6	With me today is special guest, Professor
0:55.9	Robin Hansen, who is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He's published
1:02.7	extensively in the field of economics, but also in fields like artificial intelligence,
1:07.6	cosmology, evolutionary biology, physics, politics, and more. Robin is also the author of
1:13.9	the popular blog, Overcoming Bias. Robin, welcome to the show. I'm great to be here. Let's hope we're
1:20.1	closer to rationality than nonsense, but I guess we'll find out. It's always a toss-up, really.
1:25.2	Yeah, yeah, well, I want to know what the vote is at the end.
1:28.7	So the topic I was really hoping to focus on today is something that you've written a lot about on overcoming bias.
1:36.4	In fact, there's a whole tag devoted to it on your blog.
1:39.2	That's the idea of signaling.
1:41.6	And I think, I'm going to ask you to sort of explain what that is in a sec, but I think
1:45.8	that the best way to sort of communicate to our listeners who aren't already familiar, just how
1:53.1	linked the concepts of Robin Hanson and signaling are in the minds of your audience is to tell them of the existence of this meme,
2:03.7	which Robin, hopefully you are aware of. It will be hilarious if you're not. Okay, so there's this
2:07.8	meme that was going around some corners of the internet, at least, which has a photo of you
2:14.6	and various words, you know, transposed or juxtapose with the image.
	...

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