An authentic action is more meaningful than a performative one.
- An authentic action is more meaningful than a performative one.
- Performative actions are done for the "points."
- That is, for the social recognition it earns, not for the actual intrinsic value.
- If an action is always invisible to others, then it will be fully meaningful and authentic.
- If you can sum up people's individually invisible actions into a public distilled signal, it can be extremely powerful.
- This is why voting is anonymous!
- If an action is visible to start, then it may only have been done for the performative reason.
- You can't cleanly say how powerful the authentic motivation was.
- When a positive previously-hidden action is later revealed, it earns a ton of trust.
- "Wow, they did this even though I likely would have never realized they did it! They must really care!"
- Interestingly, this reveal then earns the actor many more points than if they would have done it visibly from the beginning.
- This leaves open a kind of cynical move to maximize points with someone: take positive actions that are hidden, but you can reasonably assume will be organically revealed by someone else later.
- For example, saying nice things about a friend to a mutual friend.
- This is a kind of "magic trick" for social trust building.