There is a difference between making a costly signal of the kind of person you are and actually being that kind of person.
If you are in a game-theoretic interaction with, say, John von Neumann, you have to think that you may well have overestimated the actual costs to them of sending the "costly signal", and hence they are grifting you.
Thus, somewhat paradoxically, in a real world where people know they do not have all the information, evidence of active thought on your part can be a big drawback in attempting to establish a signalling equilibrium of any sort.
By contrast, the very fact that Donald Trump is clearly a psychotic cruel asshole and cannot modulate lends you confidence, if for some reason your utility function puts you among the people who want to watch the world burn...
> Henry Farrell: "Classy" is the one adjective that has never been used to describe Donald Trump <https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/classy-is-the-one-adjective-that>: 'That's his strength and his weakness.... The more that decadent elites like myself sneer, say, at Trump’s penchant for putting marble everywhere, the more straightforward it is for Trump to signal that he is on the side of all the people who don’t like decadent elites. Like a bizarro-world FDR, he welcomes our hatred. Equally, there are serious drawbacks to Trump’s approach. Trump is visibly not a strategic thinker in the game theoretic sense of the word. He is incapable of modulating his signaling as circumstances suggest...
You have sparked a related thought in me. Trump has an obvious desire to be accepted by high society - to be a member of the "classy-type". It might seem that this would undermine his appeal to the "boor-type". But! Perversely, the manifest desire to defect makes his boor-signals all the more costly, and therefore credibly boorish!
From what I've seen, there are occasions where Trumpkopf utters strategic pronouncements, but that's actually rare. Mostly he just has no filter - and his ascendance to the throne has only emboldened his obnoxiousness. Dementia has no doubt exacerbated it.
"The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States...You’re the opposition party. Not the Democratic Party. You’re the opposition party."
-- Steve Bannon, interview with the New York Times, January 2017
It strikes me that the asymmetry of the situation you partly describe here -- that Trump can strategically attack the media to demonstrate he's not part of the intellectual class, whereas this tactic is largely ineffective coming from left-leaning politicians, because it rings hollow -- explains much of America's political dysfunction. Trump-Bannon see the media as the opposition party, but of course, the media does not see itself that way (for the most part). Add in the rocket fuel of algorithmic-driven division that you've so aptly described in previous essays, and well, here we are, living in a slow moving, information-driven civil war.
That Bannon quote is the essense of him. His definition of "opposition party" has nothing to do with governance and very little to do with politics. In the Bannon Cinematic Universe the battleground is social media, so "mainstream media" is an opposing force, which he condescendingly describes as a party to muddy his argument. This is the stuff he cranks out for crypto billionaires, techbros and the Republican party. Like his audience he's clever but not brilliant, amoral, and consumed with his own brilliance.
There's more to this than turning virtue signaling upside down to irritate the libs by signaling degeneracy and submission, I think. Trumpism is an evangelical movement and evangelicals are some serious anti-Catholic bigots. This is a swipe at a straw-man Catholic that thinks you can get into heaven through good works. So they not only love Trump and his supporters signaling their low character they love that they follow through with evil works. That's a plus to them. And they think money is a sign of God's favor so Trump comes in as an especially godly man because he's rich and he's never done a good deed in his life.
There is a difference between making a costly signal of the kind of person you are and actually being that kind of person.
If you are in a game-theoretic interaction with, say, John von Neumann, you have to think that you may well have overestimated the actual costs to them of sending the "costly signal", and hence they are grifting you.
Thus, somewhat paradoxically, in a real world where people know they do not have all the information, evidence of active thought on your part can be a big drawback in attempting to establish a signalling equilibrium of any sort.
By contrast, the very fact that Donald Trump is clearly a psychotic cruel asshole and cannot modulate lends you confidence, if for some reason your utility function puts you among the people who want to watch the world burn...
> Henry Farrell: "Classy" is the one adjective that has never been used to describe Donald Trump <https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/classy-is-the-one-adjective-that>: 'That's his strength and his weakness.... The more that decadent elites like myself sneer, say, at Trump’s penchant for putting marble everywhere, the more straightforward it is for Trump to signal that he is on the side of all the people who don’t like decadent elites. Like a bizarro-world FDR, he welcomes our hatred. Equally, there are serious drawbacks to Trump’s approach. Trump is visibly not a strategic thinker in the game theoretic sense of the word. He is incapable of modulating his signaling as circumstances suggest...
You have sparked a related thought in me. Trump has an obvious desire to be accepted by high society - to be a member of the "classy-type". It might seem that this would undermine his appeal to the "boor-type". But! Perversely, the manifest desire to defect makes his boor-signals all the more costly, and therefore credibly boorish!
Psychopaths admire other psychopaths.
I'm kind of interested in why he hates his mum.
I don't know, but his mum has a face tattoo that says "I did nothing wrong" on one cheek and "It's not my fault my son's a sick bastard" on the other.
Lengthy and genial narrative indirection: commitment, or more of a fun hobby?
From what I've seen, there are occasions where Trumpkopf utters strategic pronouncements, but that's actually rare. Mostly he just has no filter - and his ascendance to the throne has only emboldened his obnoxiousness. Dementia has no doubt exacerbated it.
"The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States...You’re the opposition party. Not the Democratic Party. You’re the opposition party."
-- Steve Bannon, interview with the New York Times, January 2017
It strikes me that the asymmetry of the situation you partly describe here -- that Trump can strategically attack the media to demonstrate he's not part of the intellectual class, whereas this tactic is largely ineffective coming from left-leaning politicians, because it rings hollow -- explains much of America's political dysfunction. Trump-Bannon see the media as the opposition party, but of course, the media does not see itself that way (for the most part). Add in the rocket fuel of algorithmic-driven division that you've so aptly described in previous essays, and well, here we are, living in a slow moving, information-driven civil war.
(Source for quote: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/media/stephen-bannon-trump-news-media.html)
That Bannon quote is the essense of him. His definition of "opposition party" has nothing to do with governance and very little to do with politics. In the Bannon Cinematic Universe the battleground is social media, so "mainstream media" is an opposing force, which he condescendingly describes as a party to muddy his argument. This is the stuff he cranks out for crypto billionaires, techbros and the Republican party. Like his audience he's clever but not brilliant, amoral, and consumed with his own brilliance.
There's more to this than turning virtue signaling upside down to irritate the libs by signaling degeneracy and submission, I think. Trumpism is an evangelical movement and evangelicals are some serious anti-Catholic bigots. This is a swipe at a straw-man Catholic that thinks you can get into heaven through good works. So they not only love Trump and his supporters signaling their low character they love that they follow through with evil works. That's a plus to them. And they think money is a sign of God's favor so Trump comes in as an especially godly man because he's rich and he's never done a good deed in his life.