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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

#471

Post by sanderjd »

rayiner wrote: post #258
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…

> 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…

> For example, people on the west coast wear hoodies and T-shirts to signal a sort of casualness.

Again, no, they don't. I don't want to be too categorical here, I'm sure some people do this to signal something. But the vast majority of people wearing hoodies and t-shirts are just wearing comfortable clothes because they like to.

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

#472

Post by sanderjd »

petesergeant wrote: post #410
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" I can assure you that posting on a public forum that you think signaling is beneath you is signaling.

This is one of my main frustrations with the whole "signaling" discourse. It's self referential; nobody can point out that it's silly without it just being more evidence that it isn't silly. It's an emperor's new clothes situation.

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

#473

Post by sanderjd »

petercooper wrote: post #387
golemotron wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sure, and as in economics, some models are not good ones. I think the OP is a poor model.

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

#474

Post by sanderjd »

paganel wrote: post #255
sanderjd wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This "implicit signaling" sounds indistinguishable from people just doing the things they choose to do on the direct merits of those things. My whole point is that this whole meta game of signaling status is way overblown. I just don't think the vast majority of people live this way at all.

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

#475

Post by steveBK123 »

Alex3917 wrote: post #385
steveBK123 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah I’m not gonna put Tesla on a pedestal for class leading active driver assist by any measure lol.

Subaru specifically punches above their weight in terms of safety per dollar and given their close relationship with Toyota I could see them being similar.

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

#476

Post by wolverine876 »

cracrecry wrote: post #120
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…

>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…

> In places like Spain or France people do not admire you for having money, on the contrary they envy you, and you better not show off. Also gold diggers and interested parties like banks start to harass you all the time. And criminals what to take it from you by force.

You're saying that wealthy people in France and Spain don't show it, and if they do they are commonly robbed?

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

#477

Post by tptacek »

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…

Where is this place where showing up in a Porsche 911 outs you as a car dilettante because you didn't shell out an extra $90k for the Maserati? I think the status symbols there might be reversed.

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

#478

Post by projectazorian »

tptacek wrote: post #477
pclmulqdq wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Where is this place where showing up in a Porsche 911 outs you as a car dilettante because you didn't shell out an extra $90k for the Maserati? I think the status symbols there might be reversed.

If anything it's driving the Maserati that outs someone as a dilletante. Possibly the worst value for money of any luxury car brand.

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

#479

Post by tptacek »

projectazorian wrote: post #478
tptacek wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is this place where showing up in a Porsche 911 outs you as a car dilettante because you didn't shell out an extra $90k for the Maserati? I think the status symbols there might be reversed.

If anything it's driving the Maserati that outs someone as a dilletante. Possibly the worst value for money of any luxury car brand.

That's what I was thinking, too. (I'm not a car person and someone can easily school me here).

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

#480

Post by kashunstva »

vineyardmike wrote: post #427
pclmulqdq wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Clothing seems to be the same at many companies: you had better wear tailored suits and shirts or be less dressy than "business casual." There’s a running joke in my circle about the “dad professional class”. People who are older (40-60s) and go to the office in a remote-work-accepting world mostly because they seem to want to leave their family at home. They all dress like shit in ill-fitting clothes, but because…

> They don’t seem to know people don’t always take them seriously

Because of their clothing? All other things being equal, of what possible objective value could fashion conformity hold?

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