[leobg]

My reading of the article is an application of Chesterton’s Fence to so-called cognitive biases. Not to see them as a mere defect, or proof of our fallibility. But to instead look for the objective for which they perhaps truly are the most reasonable solution.

Example from the article:

> Many costly signals are inherently wasteful. Money, time, or other resources are burnt. And wasteful acts are the types of things that we often call irrational. A fancy car may be a logical choice if you are seeking to signal wealth, despite the harm it does to your retirement savings. Do you need help to overcome your error in not saving for retirement, or an alternative way to signal your wealth to your intended audience? You can only understand this if you understand the objective.

[hirundo]

For instance we have a neural-cognitive "bias" toward recognizing moving versus stationary objects. Our attention is prejudiced in favor of things-that-move. This is useful when it comes to detecting potential predators, prey, mates, etc. So a lack of a bias can be a defect to the economic actor.

[nine_k]

Conspicuous consumption can be rational, or at least beneficial in the evolutionary sense.

If you are a lawyer with a good practice, you are expected to drive a nice large car. If you drove a battered old economy-class car, your clients might see it as a sign that something is wrong with you (there are several plausible ideas) and shun dealing with you. There go fat fees and investment savings.

[rdw]

Yes, I've heard this said many times about sales people. If they're not visibly wasting money, people are reluctant to hire them because they either aren't good (and thus have no money to waste), or won't be hungry (because they've saved the money they earned by not wasting it). So conspicuous consumption becomes a way to signal that the sales person is capable of reliably generating large incomes.