This is talked about in left-leanong circles and there is even an idiom for it: "classy if you're rich and trashy if you're poor".
Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
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Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#142Wealth signaling and its effects are rather depressing. People going into debt to buy a Rolex and a sports car to create the illusion of success is bad enough. Someone falling for an individual mismanaging their own finances to create a lie is quite sad. I was listening to a pop station yesterday and a song was playing that was like a top 5 of fashion brands, they way the singer kept listing them off. So I think elem…
I saw this greatly affecting Eastern European youth, who have mostly no chance of ever wearing Balenciaga or LV. But they get this image blasted 24/7 on Instagram, so they are stuck forever in a sad feedback loop.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
>the modern upper class that wearing a $2k Rolex or driving a $70k BMW is frowned upon. There was a time, not that long time ago in which good clocks were expensive and expending 2ks on a good clock was similar to expending 2k on a laptop today, a functional, reasonable decision. My uncle earned a much more expensive Rolex than 2k in a Golf tournament and wearing it nobody believed it was genuine, even a watchmaker c…
Technically a Rolex, however expensive, will always be much worse as a watch than a 20$ Casio. But recently there's another aspect to this: there are now watches that are technically (mechanically) identical to rolexes. Same design, same mechanics, virtually impossible to tell the difference when you tear it apart. Rolex has always been more about marketing (artificial scarcity, waiting list etc) than mechanics, but…
Correct, a G-shock would get the job done better.
I always viewed watches as the only mainstream sociable acceptable form of male jewelry.
And regardless of which model, generally no more expensive than a woman's engagement or wedding ring, and actually usually cheaper.
Plus it does something other than look pretty - tells time & date!
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair point. My numbers are probably off on everything now. Before the 2020s era inflation you could definitely pick up a mens one used for $2k, like a Datejust model for example. Likewise a $70k car is neither particularly rare or exotic now with how much the average car price has been pushed up by big trucks and EVs.
It's pretty easy to add a few options and pay $70K or more for a Ford F-150 these days. At least here in Canada. People love their pickup trucks.
Isn’t the average price of a F150 is like 55-60k so that’s pretty damn close.
An F250 can easily run over 100
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#145> In contrast, children will copy every single action, including the unnecessary ones.
The example that immediately springs to mind, in the tech industry, is the "Steve Jobs Asshole" archetype.
Steve Jobs was a notorious manager, in that he made heavy-duty demands, did not suffer fools, and was blunt to the point of abusive.
But he was also able to filter for talent, cultivate it, and encourage excellence. He wasn't just an asshole. He was really smart, driven, and impatient with things that got in his way.
I have worked with two people, in my time, who worked directly with him at one time, or another, and they both hated him, but I have also worked with a number of folks like Steve Jobs, and have learned how to navigate them. It isn't pleasant, but it's generally worth it, to get on their good side.
Unfortunately, a lot of not-so-smart, and not-so-creative people have picked up on the "demanding asshole" part, without the "smart, selective, and creative" part, so they are just assholes. They honestly believe they are channeling Steve, but they don't get the same results (for the record, Steve Jobs had a lot more failures than successes, but his successes were off the charts).
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "luck" of many wealthy people is that they were born to wealthy parents (Walton family, Gates, etc).
Yes, this is generally underestimated. The closer I've worked with this class the more it becomes apparent in quiet anecdotes that don't always make the official bios or wikis. Most self-made billionaires came from at least millionaire families. Generally hard working, smart guys with a lot of skill & luck, but they start at a level we can only dream that maybe our children or grandchildren can start from. I once wor…
> Another firm managing ~$10B there was a guy who unbelievably made it to the C-suite in his 20s. It was never clear exactly what the connection was, but he was some sort of family friend of the founder and worked for him as a teen. He was also related to a big bank CEO.
Sounds like Matthew Grimes, lol
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-28/from-inte...
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really hard to underestimate how bad and old the doublespeak is. You ever thought about how a credit card is a debt card? Whereas, it's the debit card that actually spends your credits?
Credit cards create credits (a liability). Debit cards create debits (a nearly immediate transfer from your account). Seems accurate enough to me although I can see how debt and debit could be confused.
But no:
When your account is credited, that means you gain money. That's the definition of "credit."
So yes, you are creating credits for the credit card company, against you. What you are gaining is debt/liability. Which why it's weird for it to be "your" credit card.
If I have a Chuck E. Cheese game token card, that doesn't mean I owe Chuck E. Cheese tokens.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#148Wouldn’t the best advice simply be to avoid unproductive signaling and be authentic when possible? It’s one thing to signal by wearing nice clothes to a company outing where you make an impression on the person who can materially affect your future income. It’s another thing to consider every aspect of your life in the lens of “what would the wealthy do?” I really have no interest in allowing others to make decisions…
Transparent counter-signalling by claiming not to care about signalling. Careful, I don't think you have the status to pull it off. /s
Would this be counter-counter signalling then?
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#149I do like this type of reminder, it's a good and clearly communicated message. It's interesting to me because at some level what the author is communicating is metrics 101 - when comparing performance across products/features/content/etc, normalize the timeline to time since launch. This is a simple principle and one that I apply often to work specific settings, but can easily forget to apply in social settings like the author describes. There's a lot of value to applying a semantic layer to your life, which is obvious but challenging due to influence of emotions and the lack of clear goals.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 ca…
Really hard to underestimate how bad and old the doublespeak is. You ever thought about how a credit card is a debt card? Whereas, it's the debit card that actually spends your credits?
A 'debit card' is one where funds are debited from your account. A 'credit card' is one where you're buying on credit.