Since it is a holiday and this idea for many reasons is in my head today, let me explain my framework of how I evaluate the primary hurdle for judging between virtue signalling and actual belief. An epistemelogical proof of belief if you will. Follow me a minute. 1/n
I hold a pretty cynical view that no matter what political party, country, background you come from when you are telling me loudly about your belief, it's probably BS. Why? I have no way of verifying anything you are saying. How do you verify a belief? How do you forecast 2/n
How someone will behave on a stated belief? You really can't. So how can we test whether a belief has moved beyond the ephemeral and into the tangible? Beyond observing them in the specific situation, I would posit what risks/costs are they willing to absorb in furtherance 3/n
Of that belief. Now we need to be careful here, because way too many people confuse risks/costs with benefits/revenue. Taking a public stand on X issue really carries zero cost in almost all cases, especially as a politician/business. In fact in most cases, taking 4/n
a public stand is actually used as a selling point. Think environment/racial justice where products get higher margins and things like that. Again I'm not saying never but definitely most of the time. In fact, look at examples where people/firms/institutions need to take 5/n
A position where they have something at risk? Crickets. Absolute crickets. How many professors will criticize politicians/firms for dealing with China but how many will criticize other professors or say (gasp) their home university? It doesn't happen. This explains perfectly 6/n
Why sports teams/firms/politicians will get behind racial justice because they receive tangible/intangible benefits but will say nothing on China because they face tangible/financial risks to speaking up. Let me take it one step further about how to view policy steps. 7/n
I supported and still support Trump tariffs on China. Why? First, it attached a tangible cost to doing business with China. Words are nice but money changes behavior. Second, I draw a big circle for actions I accept as long as it recognizes the concept of a accepting cost of 8/n
Action. Third, there are other reasons like WTO being unable to do anything (many reasons for that). However, it attached a tangible cost to the behavior. This is also why I was able to say I was against the EU & Canadian tariffs and why I was able to say Trump's failure 9/n
On this specific issue was not following up the tariffs with a policy initiative to shift supply chains into other countries whether it was India, Mexico, and some to the US. The cost hurdle was cleared in that the US and the TRump administration had skin in the game 10/n
To change the policy environment but did not push it with related policy initiatives to the logical conclusion. This is my primary complaint about the Biden administration. They have basically signaled they are unwilling to accept the costs associated with policy of pushing 11/n
Good behavior. Other than hash tags and flowery press releases, there really has been little movement. This is probably a more business like approach than Trump in that they want all of the benefits and none of the costs just like Nike and Coke. How do we know what you value?
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
