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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

#381

Post by nradov »

logifail wrote: post #281
steveBK123 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is a huge factor here for sure. Most people probably can't get their heads around a well equipped Toyota Corolla approaching $30k or Honda Accord hitting $40k. Mentally to me these are BMW 3-series prices, but that's not been true for some time! If you are in the market for a 3-row / 7 seater, you can spend $55k on a Toyota Highlander SUV or $40k on a Toyota Siena minivan. It's genuinely pretty challenging…

> outside fairly basic [...] vehicles in their base trim without options Nothing wrong with basic vehicles "in their base trim without options", we have two parked outside the house right now, and the vehicle we owned before them was similar.

Franchise dealers typically stock few if any vehicles in their base trim without options. Those vehicles often exist only in token numbers so that the manufacturer can advertise a low starting price, but they're not readily available to most consumers. Of course that varies by brand.

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

#382

Post by vba616 »

trasz2 wrote: post #133
cracrecry wrote: post #120

Earlier 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…

Somewhere I read that a Rolex has a very practical purpose - a real one is a commodity that can fairly easily be turned into cash or a bribe in an emergency, but as a watch, it's not susceptible to being seized by authorities in many circumstances where cash or gold might be.

I don't know if this is true, but it makes a good story.

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

#383

Post by HenryClerval »

killjoywashere wrote: post #167

I was at a small dinner party recently and one of the guests arrived in a three wheel golf cart kind of thing. His other car is an orange Lamborghini Huracan. He got a degree in poli sci or some other liberal arts thing, but played in tech sales and eventually sold a gaming company to Google and has now worked with Google for several years. The conversation turned toward advice to our kids (everyone is 45 to 55 and h…

I haven't heard "take a nap" before. What does it mean in that context?

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

#384

Post by vba616 »

moneywoes wrote: post #270
trasz2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Where can one get those similar Rolex’s? For science

Invicta has made some watches that are pretty similar for a long time. They aren't "high quality" replicas or counterfeits, but if you just like the look of a Submariner they seem to have similar watches for well under $100.

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

#385

Post by Alex3917 »

steveBK123 wrote: post #254
ipaddr wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ad…

> 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.

That’s empirically false. Toyota and Subaru both make 25k cars with vastly better active driver assistance features than Tesla, as shown by every independent test that’s ever been done.

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

#386

Post by NineStarPoint »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #299
pfisherman wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wearing a suit to a tech company will probably get you ostracized even if you just like wearing suits. Not true. If you are a menswear enthusiast who is genuinely into fine tailoring, then people will respect it and even show interest. Generally, having hobbies and interests adds to one’s character. Now wearing a suit because you think it will make people take you more seriously will get you some side eye.

Which is a shame. Someone wearing business casual is so much more pleasant to the eye than typical sloppy hacker wear. Especially once you start getting older and flabbier.

It’s more about the effort I think than the style. Well fitted suits and business casual looks good, but so does a well fitted shirt and jeans. On the flip side, a poorly fitted suit looks only marginally less sloppy than poorly fitted hacker wear. Comp-sci types who don’t put effort into their wardrobes don’t really look any better in business casual, at least in my experience from working in places where such clothes were required.

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

#387

Post by petercooper »

golemotron wrote: post #237
sanderjd wrote: post #212

> 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…

> 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, they are just doing things. This constant meta game mostly exists in the minds of this iamverysmart crowd. I think what you are missing is that they are signaling whether they realize it or not. A signal is just a discernible phenomenon that is given meaning by obse…

Agreed. He is just placing observations of real phenomena into a model. It's a bit like with economics. Prices "signal" all sorts of things that the entity setting the prices may not well be aware of.

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

#388

Post by whatshisface »

steveBK123 wrote: post #47

"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." This tidbit reminds me of a similar anecdote (that my experience aligns with) re: the modern upper class that wearing a $2k Rolex or driving a $70k BMW i…

Let's take a step back from the signalling perspective and recognize that hobbies (expensive or not) are a lot more fun than watches, which provide almost nothing but status. The same goes for remodeling, which is an extended form of decoration and also a hobby for some people.

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

#389

Post by depressedpanda »

ROTMetro wrote: post #291
trasz2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have a more obscure watch, but one that those that care recognize. It has signaled me as part of the 'correct' crowd more than once and definitely done it's purpose.

What purpose is this? What happens when your watch signals that you belong to the correct crowd?

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

#390

Post by brewdad »

JanSt wrote: post #306
abbadadda wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be in denial that this phenomenon exists. I’d suggest reading _The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are._ Quite insightful. Status matters more than you’re letting on, and the perception of it is subconscious. No one (hopefully) is actively making an effort to look down on someone for riding their bike to their job at Pizza Hut - but many subtle things get registered by humans around us every day wheth…

Thank god I‘m not living in a city with money as a first value. People would look down on you here for taking a car to your job if you can use a bike.

Which is the exact same phenomenon with the signals reversed.
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