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

robkhenderson.substack.com

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

#31

Post by andsoitis »

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…

> emulate the antisocial or neurotic traits of the highly successful based on the faulty premise that these are causal for their success

I believe that’s “cargo cult”-ing.

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

#32

Post by jerrygenser »

ealexhudson wrote: post #29
jerrygenser wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since the Met Gala is in May, the causality must be the other direction..?

I also went to a Kanye concert where he was putting a diamond studded full face mask on 5+ years ago in Philly where you couldn't recognize him. Should incorporate that into context as well.

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

#33

Post by etherael »

TrackerFF wrote: post #27

Maybe a bit OT: The other day I read an interview with a local guy in his 20s that struck gold with crypto, he'd invest something like $20k, and turned it into $40M. He basically went all in on one alt-coin before the marked exploded late last year, and the coin went up 2000x. When asked about it, he of course came up with a narrative that this wasn't just dumb luck. He had had worked hard for those $20k, and he had…

Granted that based on probability alone he just got lucky but from the details of the story it's not possible to be certain of that. If he can offer a narrative about why and how he knew such a move would have such a result and the narrative fits with reality, then how is he not correct? Yes you can get both lucky and tragically unlucky when it comes to investments, but that doesnt mean there's no such thing as a rational investment with a high payoff. It's not impossible that's what he did, people do it, it does happen.

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

#34

Post by 082349872349872 »

abecedarius wrote: post #26
082349872349872 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "s…

I think we agree about the phenomena, it's just that the word "signaling" has a false lucidity -- it has an everyday meaning and a related technical meaning that's easy to overlook. The technical meaning is about an equilibrium in a game where "talk is cheap", so that your message would be discounted by observers unless some cost (not necessarily in money) is tied to it. With countersignaling there's an extra level t…

Thanks for the clarification! Sprezzatura might be the quality?

conjugation: "They are riffraff. You are sloppy. I am sprezzatura incarnate."

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

#35

Post by B8MGHCBekDuRi »

TrackerFF wrote: post #27

Maybe a bit OT: The other day I read an interview with a local guy in his 20s that struck gold with crypto, he'd invest something like $20k, and turned it into $40M. He basically went all in on one alt-coin before the marked exploded late last year, and the coin went up 2000x. When asked about it, he of course came up with a narrative that this wasn't just dumb luck. He had had worked hard for those $20k, and he had…

> Can you imagine if some newspaper interviewed a recent lottery winner [...] But to the ignorant, it all sounds very impressive

the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect described by Crichton comes to mind here.

It is quite potent when media talk about crypto and usually involves evident logical fallacies that are not dissimilar to Orwellian double-speak.

Like the idea that cash is freedom so crypto supporters also support no cash limits, even though you can't buy crypto with cash and crypto cannot be converted directly to cash and people who won the crypto lottery keep their money in a good old bank when a good old investment manager handles them to buy good old banking products using good old FIAT money taxed by the good old government, because "freedom propaganda" is the best tool to sell a fraud to the ignorant.

But media don't write about it, I don't know why.

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

#36

Post by usrusr »

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…

But how is "I can get by very well without that newfangled thing" not countersignaling? Even if it's completely devoid of deliberation it still is. And from the upstart's perspective this is written for, they can certainly try to cosplay grey eminence from the start, but that sure has its price. If they succeed nonetheless, good for them, but telling them to try would be bad advice.

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

#37

Post by drooby »

ramraj07 wrote: post #20

Seems decently researched but I don’t know why the author felt compelled to add unsubstantiated and totally unnecessary hyperbole about humans only having succeeded because of imitating the whole shebang. It doesn’t even make sense!

It makes sense to me. When an indigenous tribe has some intricate process for transforming a toxic plant into an edible food, and also has no knowledge of the chemistry, the only solution is to copy the entire process unquestioning. We see the same behavior for hunting strategies, building strategies… social control.. religion.

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

#38

Post by corndoge »

sbarre wrote: post #30
TrackerFF wrote: post #27

Maybe a bit OT: The other day I read an interview with a local guy in his 20s that struck gold with crypto, he'd invest something like $20k, and turned it into $40M. He basically went all in on one alt-coin before the marked exploded late last year, and the coin went up 2000x. When asked about it, he of course came up with a narrative that this wasn't just dumb luck. He had had worked hard for those $20k, and he had…

Rich people never want to acknowledge their luck, because it doesn't fit the "self-made" narrative. edit: to please the pedants, I should have said "many rich people", as to not imply "all". My fault.

Cynical but doesn't match my experience, plenty of rich people acknowledge luck

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

#39

Post by bikingbismuth »

ealexhudson wrote: post #29
jerrygenser wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since the Met Gala is in May, the causality must be the other direction..?

Kanye has been fully covering his body/face for years (since at least the Yeezus tour in 2013).

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

#40

Post by throwaway98797 »

bulbosaur123 wrote: post #28

The poorer you are, the more you are interested in appearing rich. Higher EV in that play allowing increased chances to mingle with rich class. The richer you are, the more you are interested in appearing humble. Higher EV in signalling "money speaks, wealth whispers" message and appearing "down-to-earth" to win people over. Very often it pays to do the opposite of what is expected from you.

there’s this paper scissors rock thing with wealth & money

poor: got to say you work hard when talking to middle class

middle class: got to say you work smart if you’re talking to upper class

upper class: got to say your work hard to peers, middle class, and poor, but reasons are different. for peers it’s because nihilism isn’t cool neither is being overly epicurean

everyone says the right narrative to the right people, no one really knows the truth

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