I'd recommend doing whatever the hell you want.
Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
251–260 of 651 posts
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#252It was at the "fashionably late" example where I started wondering if this chronicler of human behavior was themselves human, since arriving late to parties has very little to do with status and much more to do with not wanting to be one of the uncomfortable first or second guests. Late arrival is an expectation at ordinary parties, not a privilege.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#253> 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…
Your "for the record" doesn't work even for that. Failure does not offset success.
> Your "for the record" doesn't work even for that. Failure does not offset success.
I'm afraid that I don't understand the comment.
Sorry. I'm stupid that way.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. To me, a $500k unnecessary renovation throws more money away than a $70k vs $40k car. At least with the car you are likely getting safety features and extensive sensor suites for driver assist for the money, that have tangible impact on your driving experience. Or Spending 5-10x on a $10k appliance where a $1-2k one would do. These people tend to get the whole set, so it's a good $30-40k worth of kitchen app…
500k or 500m in renovations will increase the value of the property. A car is worth 20% less the day you drive it off of the lot and keeps losing value. Having freezer space can save you thousands of dollars in food.
Cars are absolutely depreciating assets.
However a $70k car generally has a much better set of class leading accident avoidance & safety features than a $25k car which will generally be minimum legally required for compliance. A new car has a much different safety profile than a 10 or 20 year old car. Watching crash videos on YouTube is very illuminating as to how far we've come even versus a car from 2000.
Modern advanced cars will warn you about rear & front cross traffic, actively keep you from driving off the road if you fall asleep, emergency brake for obstacles, keep you from changing lanes into a car in your blind spot, and many other things that were pretty unheard of 10-20 years ago. My car even flashes lights and beeps at me if I am opening the door and it detects oncoming cars or bikes.
A $500k renovation of a home is usually financed and adds less than the $500k of value to the resale price to the homes (lets say, $400k to be generous), while costing north of $750k by the time all the payments are made. So $100-350k of waste, conservatively.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not tiring at all, it’s just becoming acutely aware of the day-to-day socio-economic realities. Yes, a good friend of mine can afford to be a (rather poorly paid) journalist because said friend is in fact a millionaire when it comes to his inherited real-estate assets, but someone like me (my parents had to rely on subsistence agriculture until not that long ago) has to always have a decent-paying job available…
Your examples are not "signaling". A rich person being a poorly paid journalist because they want to and can afford to isn't signaling, they're just doing something they want to do and which they can afford to do. Very very few people do such things simply for the sake of appearances. You (and me, for what it's worth) always having to have a decent-paying job available or else is also not "signaling", it just is what…
I don’t think the author writes about the “in your face” signaling, because nobody does that anymore once a certain high socio-economic status is reached (mostly by birth-related accidents), but about the “implicit”, for lack of a better term, signaling. Which most of the people the OP talks about certainly do in abundance. In other words I think the author talks mostly about that “implicit” signaling.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the Land Cruiser will be passed down for many generations Wait, what sort of longevity are we taking about? 15 years? 20? I don't think we humans can reproduce quickly enough for that to span "many generations". :-)
We came close to that with a Camry my mother-in-law owns. She drove it, my sister-in-law drove it for a while, and then they tried to pawn it off on my oldest. At the end of the day, I didn’t want my kid driving a car missing out on 25 years of safety enhancements.
You made the right decision.
Watching YouTube crash test videos of a 2022 vs 2000 vs 1980 car is extremely illuminating.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would love to set a 10 year reminder to check in on how this life strategy has worked out.
Right. Wow, look at me, I now have a cushy (soul crushing) job at the city just like my slightly wealthier neighbour. All life goals checked off now.
I knew you were someone who could afford to "ignore" social cues. I used to think the tech-type was not like that until I observed some common threads, at lest in the Bay Area (driving an EV or planning to buy one - likely a Tesla, Patagonia vests, loves to hike, has an Apple watch)
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#258> An example from Ogilvy Vice Chairman Rory Sutherland: If you’re a top executive, turning up to work on a bicycle is a high-status activity because it was a choice and not a necessity. But if you work at Pizza Hut, turning up on a bike means you can’t afford a car. It must be so tedious to live having internalized this perspective on people. The vast vast majority of people are not "signaling" when they do things, t…
> The vast vast majority of people are not "signaling" when they do things, they are just doing things. This constant meta game mostly exists in the minds of this iamverysmart crowd
I was telling my dad that we were going to try a new restaurant. "They churn their own butter," I pointed out excitedly. And my dad--who grew up in a village in Bangladesh--is like "why would they churn their own butter? You can buy it in a store."
People convey all sorts of messages through subtle signaling. They have an image they try to cultivate, even if only unconsciously. For example, people on the west coast wear hoodies and T-shirts to signal a sort of casualness. Meanwhile, I don't wear hoodies or T-shirts because I'm worried people might mistake me for a day laborer.
I don't think most people who say they're above it all really are. Maybe they are. Or maybe they're not as self-aware of their own motivations. Or maybe they're in a cultural bubble where they can't recognize certain social currents as signaling.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#259This kind of signaling is the reason why I ended up voluntarily with no friends in my mid 30s, down from a pretty active social life in my 20s knowing hundreds of people and regularly hanging out with many dozens, mostly in the Bay Area but also in Europe, where I’m originally from.
As people get older, I noticed they just can’t stop flashing how successful they are, how they can afford this or that, and suddenly everything becomes a financial/status competition. People becoming small contract freelancers and flaunting to you how they are now “CEO and entrepreneur, what about you?”. One time, after a lucky IPO having been at the company for less than 2 years, I was told by a friend who was typically present in my weekly social life, and with whom I shared a lot of fun experiences in my 20s: “why do you work so hard rather than choosing a good pre IPO company and stay at the bottom and chill and retire in a couple years?”. No shit. That was the last straw. I voted with my feet and I am overall happier in a life of solitude.
Re: Be wary of imitating high-status people who can afford to countersignal
#260As always, context is everything.
Not all countersignals are that costly. For example, casual wear is common among devs. This signals that our skill set is valuable enough that we don't need to comply with corporate dress codes. Sometimes someone from a poor background turns up in a suit - for example, we had a QA guy who did, having converted from some previous career via a short course. Sometimes new grads come to interview in one, having been poorly informed by their parents or whatever. Continuing to wear different dress to your colleagues just makes them uncomfortable and doesn't help you, even if your skill set is not yet that valuable.
The more general piece of advice here is that you should take advice from those who have just succeeded at what you want to do, not someone who did so a decade or more ago (parental career advice is usually well out of date. For example, my parents imagined that an academic career was still the easier option)