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by napoleond 56 days ago
Each of those examples varies widely, and I don't think most people would treat each of them the same way.

In general when the stakes are higher and the ambiguity of outcome is less clear, secondary signals become more important.

Concretely: I don't give a shit if my housecleaner doesn't make their own bed as long as they make mine; the outcome I need is easy to verify and the stakes are fairly low so the secondary signal doesn't matter very much. Conversely, I care a lot if the therapist I'm relying on to help me manage my depression is visibly unable to manage their own; the outcome I need has a slow feedback loop and the stakes are high so I'm much more likely to rely on secondary signals like "is this person able to manage their own mood successfully?"

1 comments

In your version of the therapist example, you don't trust them to do their job because they are failing to do their job. This is fine by me. My issue is with punishing people at their job over actions taken outside of their job, as in the example under discussion.