We think the ability to rattle off people you are grateful to and thankful to is often sort of a proxy for openness to learning from others.

We don't know how to identify intelligence over interstellar distances, so what we do instead is use technology for a proxy.

Urban conservationists may feel entitled to be unconcerned about food production because they are not farmers. But they can't be let off so easily, for they are all farming by proxy.