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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

#411

Post by MandieD »

steveBK123 wrote: post #323
mlyle wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just showed the lack of understanding on marginal utility on commodity items. I think you're showing the lack of understanding of marginal utility. By the time you're spending $45k on doorknobs, $400 on socks might offer equal marginal utility per dollar.

I think a lot of what this thread shows is that everyone has a different utility function. That's kind of whats interesting about the modern economy is we can all express our preferences in how we spend. The bottom end has gotten much cheaper and the top end has gotten exponentially more expensive, and in many markets the middle has sort of disappeared. This contrasts a lot with the 1950s boom era where there was a b…

I have a t-shirt I bought at the Gap around 1996 that is still wearable, though a bit worn-looking where the collar meets the shoulder seams. Thick, sturdy cotton. It was probably around $15, which would be about $30 today.

There is no such plain ladies’ fit t-shirt consistently offered anymore. Either tissue-thin and less than $20, or involves a silly print and/or ruffles and lace.

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

#412

Post by nkurz »

bnralt wrote: post #300
dilap wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the song "No Scrubs" by TLC for another angle on the same topic. It's a real phenomenon, not just something made up by nerds on substack. Some people are blissfully checked out enough from social competition dynamics that they don't notice it.

Yeah. Off the top of my head I can think two pieces of popular media - The 40 Year Old Virgin and Cobra Kai - that had a scene where a guy lucks out and meets an attractive woman, asks her out on a date, the woman asks when he'll pick her up, he awkwardly tells her he has a bike and not a car, she makes a "what the hell?!" expression and then says how she guesses she'll be the one picking him up. We can say that soci…

Equally, it's possible to go even further in the "bicycle" direction to end up ahead of those with cars. Here's a delightful example: Rubberbandits "Horse Outside" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPFZrRD3J8 (NSFW at one point if you are listening closely and can understand the Irish accent, but unlikely to actually offend). The beginning might be boring, but it's short, so stick with it.

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

#413

Post by seattle_spring »

SoftTalker wrote: post #359
steveBK123 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is very well put, you really hit the nail on the head here on the sort of reverse bell curve of signaling.. For the very wealthy.. If you show enough interest in something to make signaling purchases, it's expected to be "up to snuff" .. this can mean very very high expense or high esotericness. So that might mean a $200k sports car, or it might mean some uncommon though inexpensive limited production vintag…

Very senior/wealthy people can get away with whatever they want. It's why Zuckerberg can look like a total slob at Facebook (notice he still wore a suit while testifying to Congress though). If a senior executive wore a $200 suit to work, nobody would say a word.

> Zuckerberg can look like a total slob at Facebook

Huh, custom tshirts and well fitting jeans counts as "looking like a total slob" now? Fwiw I'd rather work with / for someone that dresses like that over formal any day of the week.

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

#414

Post by thelittleone »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #274
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…

I think there's a bit of an idea now that you should be expressing yourself with your money, not expressing society's ideas. Around cars and watches, this creates a little bit of a "dead zone" for prestigious professionals. For example, if you aren't showing up in a $200k Maserati, your car had better be under $50k (maybe $70k with inflation). Only posers who aren't really into cars but want to show off their wealth…

I had a business associate point out once how my mont blanc watch didn't have its own movement.

Singapore is an interesting place in this regard. We had several young guys in our office who wore $10k plus watches while still living with their parents.

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

#415

Post by steveBK123 »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #401
steveBK123 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see this A LOT in food spend in US especially in rich urban areas. I have friends who would kind of scoff at a Rolex but proudly describe the latest $500-for-2 dinner they went to last week. Similarly I had a friend who only upgraded his iPhone with hand-me-downs from his teenage daughter, so he'd be like 3-4 years behind the curve. Meanwhile he owned like 4 homes and dined out similarly to my other friend.

> You see this A LOT in food spend in US especially in rich urban areas. This won't resonate withh you unless you are or were ever a cook, I fear we had so much more left to capture and were forced to leave on the table that was taken away because of COVID, but this transition in the US food culture was paid with lots of hard work and countless sacrifices that most will never get beyond watching an episode of The Bea…

Really really depends on areas.

In the US, there was clearly a consolidation where the big corporate run restaurant groups were able to weather the storm better nationally in the early COVID days.

However, pretty quickly in NYC by say summer 2021 the industry seems to be back and stronger than ever. Everyone was dining indoors again, they kept their expanded outdoor space, maintained their new more extensive to-go services, and did it all with reduced staff never seeming to re-hire their pre-pandemic staff levels.

NYC restaurants are once again annoyingly crowded and hard to get reservations to, with eye popping prices compared to 2019.

So great for restaurant owners but not great for employees.

That said, the wages being offered are crazy compared to 2019 and they are still unable to fill roles. So one would take it that they've found better employment prospects elsewhere, so good for them.

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

#416

Post by idlehand »

nightski wrote: post #192
tasty_freeze wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of 1%-ers who work hard and they ascribe their success to their hard work and intelligence. But it ignores that there are many people who work harder, are more intelligent, or both, who don't get to those heights. That is the luck aspect. If one is on top of the heap, it is convenient to believe in meritocracy, doubly so. On the one hand, it makes the person feel they earned what they have, and secon…

It's also because working "hard" isn't enough. You have to put your effort where it matters. That is so often overlooked.

Working hard implies the labor theory of value, which is that all work is interchangeable. While that might have been closer to the truth during the first industrial revolution, the variability in the value of labor has never been higher than today.

It's comforting to think that those that have achieved the best outcomes in life have simply sacrificed time spent on other things, and spent more time on work. There might be some truth in that, but often they have had better opportunities, due to both circumstance and luck, that they also have made better use of than average.

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

#417

Post by Reebz »

SoftTalker wrote: post #359
steveBK123 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is very well put, you really hit the nail on the head here on the sort of reverse bell curve of signaling.. For the very wealthy.. If you show enough interest in something to make signaling purchases, it's expected to be "up to snuff" .. this can mean very very high expense or high esotericness. So that might mean a $200k sports car, or it might mean some uncommon though inexpensive limited production vintag…

Very senior/wealthy people can get away with whatever they want. It's why Zuckerberg can look like a total slob at Facebook (notice he still wore a suit while testifying to Congress though). If a senior executive wore a $200 suit to work, nobody would say a word.

Zuckerberg wears $800 tshirts amongst other carefully selected pieces of his wardrobe. He isn’t rummaging through a local Target for a basic tee and jeans. I think this is a good example of countersignal interpretation!

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

#418

Post by 082349872349872 »

tablespoon wrote: post #398
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…

> In these scenarios I think it's because the $2k watch or $70k car is too easily attained by lower classes that they are no longer considered signals by the upper classes. Or it's about signaling that you're "in the know" with the in-group. I read some list from (I believe) the 1800s that listed the different vocabulary used by aristocratic vs. middle class English people. It wasn't anything fancy (e.g. graveyard =…

if you're thinking U vs non-U it was mid-XX, and a bit of a U joke[0] that non-U peeps took way too seriously.

I wonder: has anyone made a list of all the different ways we Sneetches have besides our bellies, to distinguish in- and out-groups?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

[0] when Jilly Cooper shows up in the References of a Wikipedia page it's all a bit of a lark

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

#419

Post by MandieD »

kelnos wrote: post #341
Gordonjcp wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> repairability narrative that is not much better than, “out of warranty and one accident away from into landfill” I have a couple of old Range Rovers. There are very few things you can't fix with a half-inch spanner and a hammer, and those you can fix with a 7/16th spanner and a bit of sticky tape. They run on propane, so they get cheap tax and can be registered as Low Emission Vehicles, which is pretty hilarious fo…

> They run on propane How does fueling work? Perhaps I just haven't noticed (because I have to reason to), but I have never seen a fueling station advertise propane, outside of tanks for grilling and similar.

LPG (liquified propane gas) stations are slowly on the wane but still common enough for practical use in Germany.

Common enough and cheap enough that I still feel a bit prescient for buying a 2017 Ford Focus wagon with about 30k km on the clock that was factory modified for LPG, in August 2021, for about half what the original owner paid.

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

#420

Post by chris_j »

ajb wrote: post #260

As 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…

Around ten years ago, I worked for IBM as a software engineer. The dress code at work was pretty casual, so I tended to wear jeans and a t-shirt in the office. One day, I was asked to speak at an event that would be attended by a lot of our customers. I asked my mentor, "Should I dress up? Should I wear my suit for the first time in years?" His response surprised me. He said, "These customers have come here to talk to engineers. Do you want them to think we've sent a salesman to talk to them." He made it perfectly clear that I should dress like an engineer. I confess I did get rid of the t-shirt; I wore a casual shirt with my jeans that day, and the folks that I talked to went away satisfied that they had indeed spoken with an engineer.
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