Ordinary Banana

I tried to formulate a question about transformation vs selection but all the practices I thought of seemed like both

i’m not sure I understand, are you talking about the selection bias?

I was wondering how much the Bryan Caplan critique of education applies (signaling/selection theory of monasteries, say) - but it seems sillier in this context!

vows, meditation, asceticism, etc. seem to both produce and certify a trustworthy person in a pretty complex manner

i'm not familiar with Caplan, i'll have to look this up! am i understanding you that you think these things /do/ produce trustworthy people, but that from your perspective the mechanisms are not obvious / simple?

yes! summary of his theory - https://quillette.com/2018/06/03/bryan-caplans-case-education-review/ … so given that we trust people from monasteries (I think we do)...

the question is, do they take untrustworthy people and make them good, or simply prove who was trustworthy to begin with?

interesting! ok! my sense is - take people and make them more trustworthy. some people will be "untrustworthy," some won't but should be /more/ trustworthy by the way out.