Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal

robkhenderson.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 651 posts

Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal

#11

Post by greggarious »

api wrote: post #7

I’m not sure it’s a deliberate form of counter signaling, but… I see a lot of people emulate the antisocial or neurotic traits of the highly successful based on the faulty premise that these are causal for their success. Will doing heroin make you a rock star? Might it be that Steve Jobs and Elon Musk succeeded not because of but in spite of some of their antisocial traits? Maybe you should emulate their work ethic a…

>Will doing heroin make you a rock star?

No but the trauma that makes you do heroin can produce beautiful lyrics. (Or so I'm told.)

Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal

#14

Post by GauntletWizard »

pavlov wrote: post #6

> “Some writers are so well known that, despite having millions of followers, they literally don’t promote anything they write on social media. That is some strong countersignaling.” This was every writer until about 13 years ago. That’s not a long time in a field where people can have 70 year long careers. It’s interesting to consider how “doing the thing I’ve always done” can quickly become seen as countersignallin…

"Tweeting, but not tweeting about your new book" is very different from "Not tweeting about your new book" when Twitter doesn't exist. One is lack of a signal channel, the other is spending time and effort on a signal channel and not transmitting your signal. Countersignaling relies on the SNR being biased against you; it's about noise floor vs signal and having no channel at all is very different.

Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal

#15

Post by 082349872349872 »

abecedarius wrote: post #3
082349872349872 wrote: post #2

An extreme example of affording to countersignal were the "smarter" british cavalry regiments, which purposefully set their mess dues significantly higher than the pay, thus keeping out the riffraff.

That's signaling, like wearing expensive clothes. Countersignaling means dressing like a bum in high-class circles and getting accepted anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)

Maybe I'd been overthinking it? I had been considering "I have a high-paying job" as signalling, and "My pay doesn't really cover the essentials, but I do it for our country, don't you know" as counter-.

Edit: and otoh I would consider "Boss is in shorts, t-shirt and sandals" as just plain signalling, because I grew up in a world (my favourite anecdote was working with a Hawai'ian VC who would classify meetings as "socks" or "no socks") where in any given business situation, those who have the gold dress down and those who pitch for it dress up.

Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal

#16

Post by xiphias2 »

api wrote: post #7

I’m not sure it’s a deliberate form of counter signaling, but… I see a lot of people emulate the antisocial or neurotic traits of the highly successful based on the faulty premise that these are causal for their success. Will doing heroin make you a rock star? Might it be that Steve Jobs and Elon Musk succeeded not because of but in spite of some of their antisocial traits? Maybe you should emulate their work ethic a…

Elon Musk was reading books all the time when he was young...of course it will lead to even less social skills than what he would have had as he was growing up.

Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal

#17

Post by jerrygenser »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #13

One of the best examples of counter-signaling was Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala. She wore a black dress that covered her from head to toe, including her face. It was kind of a statement that “even my silhouette is famous”.

Just looked this up. This is surprisingly similar to how Kanye (Ye?) appeared on the Lex Friedman podcast recently. Even though they are split, is Kim still taking hints or strategies they learned or developed together? I actually could barely recognize Ye in terms of silhouette, but could understand his voice on the podcast.

Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal

#18

Post by somrand0 »

abecedarius wrote: post #3
082349872349872 wrote: post #2

An extreme example of affording to countersignal were the "smarter" british cavalry regiments, which purposefully set their mess dues significantly higher than the pay, thus keeping out the riffraff.

That's signaling, like wearing expensive clothes. Countersignaling means dressing like a bum in high-class circles and getting accepted anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)

thanks for the succinct definition.

essentially, more status game plays

Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal

#19

Post by YurgenJurgensen »

pavlov wrote: post #6

> “Some writers are so well known that, despite having millions of followers, they literally don’t promote anything they write on social media. That is some strong countersignaling.” This was every writer until about 13 years ago. That’s not a long time in a field where people can have 70 year long careers. It’s interesting to consider how “doing the thing I’ve always done” can quickly become seen as countersignallin…

This could still be a conscious choice to counter-signal though. When society is changing, you can go with the flow or you can choose to stick to your guns, and if your position is solid enough, maybe you don't need to be on the front of every trend. Of course, like all the risky signals, you don't know if your position is actually strong enough until it's too late.
Post reply on HN