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Choose your status game wisely

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Re: Choose your status game wisely

#321
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only person who thinks it’s very plausible that that was indeed a factor, and also that it’s crazy for that to be the case?

The suited look is usually common among management and that layer usually isn't highly respected by engineers. So that brings a bit of negative perception by association.

Screw that! For my interviews.i always wear a suit.

If they can't appreciate the effort. That's on them.

I have a bunch of nice clothes, life is too short to limit myself to just one style. Not extravagant of.course.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#322
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only person who thinks it’s very plausible that that was indeed a factor, and also that it’s crazy for that to be the case?

I've been directly and loudly laughed at by a room of engineers for wearing a suit to an interview. People often get their hackles up about it, but we have a dress code as strict as any 1960s office, it's just a different set of clothes.

Wow you're right! It's like an informal dress code.

As I get older I found the nicer fabrics and older style more fitting.

The ritual of steaming, prepping while listening to podcast is great.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#323

Not sure how this will sit with the HN crowd, but a couple of years back I got into menswear, and I derive some pleasure from being the "best dressed guy" at the office. Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those c…

I started into menswear last year and I find it deeply fascinating, but hard to fit into the very casual tech office culture. What's a typical outfit look like for you? Do you have a "uniform"?

Some guys pulled it off, by doing it "ironically"

Hoodie under a suit jacket.

1960s programmers : white shirt, black tie With yeezyz.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#324
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next question: why are you seeking being seen this way from a random person?

I'm not, but then again I don't wish to be the president of the United States. It just strikes me as silly that the traditional status game is so easily gamed (demonstrably effectively).

I'm surprised too (or was in the past). Nice looking clothes and saying that one's work is going great, wow. I didn't try this but I know others who do

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#325
post #48

Who is more cool? Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc... Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves? There's a minority of people who go by their own compass. The things that gratify status seekers don't do it for them. That's not to say they don't have needs. They need friends, stimulation, hobbies, achievements.…

On the other hand, if you don't signal your intelligence and connections, how is anyone supposed to know they can depend on your intelligence and connections? There's definitely a balance.

Instead, they can even come to think about you as incompetent and delusional, if you're, say, creating a startup, building tech, seemingly making no progress.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#326
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blank slatism and the ignorance of human nature has done far more harm for humans than those who acknowledge that our brains haven’t evolved much since our days as foraging tribes.

You caught me, I'm one of those blank slate extremists who say harmful and unreasonable things like "Individual humans are capable of overcoming biological tendencies." Hard to argue though that eugenics, forced sterilization, biological justification for slavery pale in comparison to the damage of various examples you've detailed

Hey, humans are wired for nice things, not just bad stuff.

Quoting @insickness above:

> Our minds are wired to get pleasure from working with others and being validated and appreciated for our work. That is part of status

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30883314

And for helping and being kind to others.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#327
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's absolutely not a straw man. The destroyed pensions are theft, which must appear on the balance sheet when you claim that vulture capitalism creates value. The loss of pension has direct impact on those owed: they are being deprived of money that they earned by providing value .

>No, it's absolutely not a straw man. I repeat: nobody was arguing that people losing their pensions was a good thing. Nobody. Absolutely nobody. Literally no-one. I don't even know what you're referencing, or how it's even possible for Private Equity to pilfer workers' pension funds. If anything, it's the funds themselves that own/invest in Private Equity. Yet still, you and the other poster have brought it up as if…

No, you claimed that wealth is proof of created value. I'm refuting that with counterexamples.

As for how pension heists are accomplished, read up: https://sandiegofreepress.org/2012/07/how-mitt-romney-drove-...

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#328
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Value that was created in the past is still value, is it not? That's your claim, not ours. Cotton plantation owners made obscene profits from the literal blood of slaves. Did the plantation owners create the value? No, the slaves did. Did the slaves enjoy multiple generations of exponential growth of their net worth? No, the plantation owners were paid reparations , and the slaves got nothing. Descendents of planta…

> Did the plantation owners create the value? No, the slaves did. I am 100% against slavery, period. Who invented the incandescent lightbulb and the iPhone? The mass market automobile? Who built the railroads? None of these things can be fully credited to the small number of people at the top of the corporations responsible, but we can say fairly confidently they wouldn't have happened without a visionary leader aggr…

Money can be used to measure value. If I offer you a billion dollars to chop off your arm and eat it raw, then your response to that offer indicates to me how much you value your health. But, if I'm a trillionaire, that billion dollars represents 0.1% of my total wealth, so the marginal cost to me is negligable. The perceived value of a dollar is proportional to the observer's wealth. Are they related? Sure, but it's way more complicated than that.

> Money is just score keeping for value created.

Yes and no. It's way more complicated than that. As demonstrated with the slavery example (nobody accused you of being pro-slavery, please chill), money is often score-keeping for handling money. People with power who participate in large transactions take a cut for themselves. In the case of slavery, the plantation owners got rich by what we consider outright theft today. Money and power follows their descendants, and for what? Did they create value? No, they're just rich off the proceeds of slavery.

Take Mozilla for example: developers are, by and large, the greatest value-creators at the company. So why does Mitchell Baker make $2.5M a year? What great value is she creating? Is she secretly an honest-to-goodness 10x developer? I see no evidence of such -- but because she's closest to the money, she makes decisions about the money, and folks at the board (who are, typically, CEOs at other orgs) agree that people who are closest to the money deserve to get the most money. In this example, the accumulation of wealth is not a record of created value but it's a record of power.

My definition of value is rather irrelevant. There is no universal definition, and I'd say that any precise definition is flawed. Especially one so simple as "value == money".

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#329
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did the plantation owners create the value? No, the slaves did. I am 100% against slavery, period. Who invented the incandescent lightbulb and the iPhone? The mass market automobile? Who built the railroads? None of these things can be fully credited to the small number of people at the top of the corporations responsible, but we can say fairly confidently they wouldn't have happened without a visionary leader aggr…

Money can be used to measure value. If I offer you a billion dollars to chop off your arm and eat it raw, then your response to that offer indicates to me how much you value your health. But, if I'm a trillionaire, that billion dollars represents 0.1% of my total wealth, so the marginal cost to me is negligable. The perceived value of a dollar is proportional to the observer's wealth. Are they related? Sure, but it's…

A flawed definition is superior to the absence of one.

You don't think the CEO of Mozilla is providing value?

I realize I'm sitting in idealistic terms, and it's to describe a point of view I'm not sure you fully understand. But at this point, I don't think it's that you don't understand it, you just don't care for the framework I'm describing. Perhaps you feel it's not important or useful to your life. I have found it to be a helpful lens, while certainly not all encompassing of the truth.

I had a more nuanced point I was going to make about slavery, hence the preface, but I realized it was probably not the right time or place.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#330
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Status is about what people think about you, with a special focus on what other people think other people think about you. And many things people want in life are dependent on what others think of them. If you're looking for a promotion what your boss thinks about you and how others will perceive your promotion matters, when you're looking to raise money, looking for a co-founder, convincing your co-founders you woul…

Let's agree that status is about what people think (other people think) about you. Are all people's opinions equal, or are some people's opinions worth more than others? Furthermore, does it matter how many people think you're high status vs low status? Is your status a scalar measure, and if so how is it calculated? If you accept all of this, you'll get the following surprising results: 1. If status is about what ot…

A lot of those unintuitive results are based on idealized modeling status.

And also having a quick status flip happens all the time. You see this when someone gets accused of racism or a sexist activity. Some of this status flip comes from the actually bad behavior. But most of the time the bad behavior occurred multiple times and was well known. What changes is what people think of what other people think of the person, which can change dramatically and quickly.

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