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

552 points by jger15 4y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
One of the best examples of counter-signaling was Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala. She wore a black dress that covered her from head to toe, including her face. It was kind of a statement that “even my silhouette is famous”.
- jerrygenser 4y ago
  Just looked this up. This is surprisingly similar to how Kanye (Ye?) appeared on the Lex Friedman podcast recently. Even though they are split, is Kim still taking hints or strategies they learned or developed together? I actually could barely recognize Ye in terms of silhouette, but could understand his voice on the podcast.
  - ealexhudson 4y ago
    Since the Met Gala is in May, the causality must be the other direction..?
    - jerrygenser 4y ago
      I also went to a Kanye concert where he was putting a diamond studded full face mask on 5+ years ago in Philly where you couldn't recognize him. Should incorporate that into context as well.
    - bikingbismuth 4y ago
      Kanye has been fully covering his body/face for years (since at least the Yeezus tour in 2013).
- sys_64738 4y ago
  For those wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian Even after reading that I don't actually know what this woman is well-known for.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    Originally this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian,_Superstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian,_Superstar
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    Her father was a very prominent lawyer (including for OJ Simpson) so she had entry into “socialite” circles through him. Her fame increased when a sex tape involving her and a singer was published, and since then she has been a TV personality.
  - devnullbrain 4y ago
    Trying too hard.
  - booleandilemma 4y ago
    She's one of those people who's famous for being famous.
082349872349872 4y ago
An extreme example of affording to countersignal were the "smarter" british cavalry regiments, which purposefully set their mess dues significantly higher than the pay, thus keeping out the riffraff.
- abecedarius 4y ago
  That's signaling, like wearing expensive clothes. Countersignaling means dressing like a bum in high-class circles and getting accepted anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    Maybe I'd been overthinking it? I had been considering "I have a high-paying job" as signalling, and "My pay doesn't really cover the essentials, but I do it for our country, don't you know" as counter-. Edit: and otoh I would consider "Boss is in shorts, t-shirt and sandals" as just plain signalling, because I grew up in a world (my favourite anecdote was working with a Hawai'ian VC who would classify meetings as "socks" or "no socks") where in any given business situation, those who have the gold dress down and those who pitch for it dress up.
    - ltbarcly3 4y ago
      You are under thinking it. Signalling is showing you have something high status (money, nice clothes, etc), countersignalling is refusing to show something to prove you don't need to.
    - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
      Presumably the signal is actually "I'm independently wealthy, so I can afford to take this job that loses me money".
    - abecedarius 4y ago
      I think we agree about the phenomena, it's just that the word "signaling" has a false lucidity -- it has an everyday meaning and a related technical meaning that's easy to overlook. The technical meaning is about an equilibrium in a game where "talk is cheap", so that your message would be discounted by observers unless some cost (not necessarily in money) is tied to it. With countersignaling there's an extra level to the game where your message has the form "I have this quality over and above merely affording the first-level cost" -- now the cost you're paying is the risk of being taken for riff-raff. Those with more of that quality, whatever it is, have to be better at pulling that gambit off, for it to work as a countersignal.
jonnycomputer 4y ago
Boss gives a dinner party at their home for their employees. All the guests show up in their best. Boss is in shorts, t-shirt and sandals.
- Obscurity4340 4y ago
  Top shelf power play. This guy Zooms
  - eternalban 4y ago
    You missed the part where the maid serves little burgers on buns as lunch.
    - Obscurity4340 4y ago
      Honestly prefer sliders. They're cute and you can gauge them easier than their club-sized counterparts.
    - blitzar 4y ago
      "They are just like those white castle ones you see people eating in mukbang challenges online"
  - brewdad 4y ago
    The real power play would be if the boss's t-shirt is the 3 for $10 variety from Target rather than a $200 bespoke one.
    - Obscurity4340 4y ago
      Not gonna lie, I'm nowhere near that "prestigious" and your comment already hits dangerously close to home, lol
    - Obscurity4340 4y ago
      Also, how could you ever know that for the purpose of the discussion? I feel like it would have to be pretty damn specifically made for a "generic" t-shirt fitting that specific example with "bespoke" brand indicia or something... Prolly overthinking this
pavlov 4y ago
> “Some writers are so well known that, despite having millions of followers, they literally don’t promote anything they write on social media. That is some strong countersignaling.” This was every writer until about 13 years ago. That’s not a long time in a field where people can have 70 year long careers. It’s interesting to consider how “doing the thing I’ve always done” can quickly become seen as countersignalling when society changes around you.
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  Yeah, and I don't think its counter-signalling either. Successful authors are likely to have people actively promoting their work for them; the one thing others can't do for them is write (unless they're willing to have other people perform the work they are known for).
  - tgv 4y ago
    It's seems to be hard for people to imagine there are more channels than Twitter. They are on twitter, everybody they know is on twitter, and by that they judge everything.
    - zach_garwood 4y ago
      And people on Twitter vastly overestimate Twitter's importance. That some people think it's a "public town square" is just laughable. It's the trash-laden alley behind an Arby's, at best.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  "Tweeting, but not tweeting about your new book" is very different from "Not tweeting about your new book" when Twitter doesn't exist. One is lack of a signal channel, the other is spending time and effort on a signal channel and not transmitting your signal. Countersignaling relies on the SNR being biased against you; it's about noise floor vs signal and having no channel at all is very different.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
api 4y ago
I’m not sure it’s a deliberate form of counter signaling, but… I see a lot of people emulate the antisocial or neurotic traits of the highly successful based on the faulty premise that these are causal for their success. Will doing heroin make you a rock star? Might it be that Steve Jobs and Elon Musk succeeded not because of but in spite of some of their antisocial traits? Maybe you should emulate their work ethic and skills instead.
- greggarious 4y ago
  >Will doing heroin make you a rock star? No but the trauma that makes you do heroin can produce beautiful lyrics. (Or so I'm told.)
- xiphias2 4y ago
  Elon Musk was reading books all the time when he was young...of course it will lead to even less social skills than what he would have had as he was growing up.
  - greggarious 4y ago
    If you don’t read books when young it’ll be difficult to go to uni, and “reading books” isn’t particularly unique among gifted kids.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > emulate the antisocial or neurotic traits of the highly successful based on the faulty premise that these are causal for their success I believe that’s “cargo cult”-ing.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
jonnycomputer 4y ago
Some interesting pearls in the article. Not sure I endorse non-nuanced extension of the idea to entire societies as the author does.
ramraj07 4y ago
Seems decently researched but I don’t know why the author felt compelled to add unsubstantiated and totally unnecessary hyperbole about humans only having succeeded because of imitating the whole shebang. It doesn’t even make sense!
- drooby 4y ago
  It makes sense to me. When an indigenous tribe has some intricate process for transforming a toxic plant into an edible food, and also has no knowledge of the chemistry, the only solution is to copy the entire process unquestioning. We see the same behavior for hunting strategies, building strategies… social control.. religion.
  - abc_lisper 4y ago
    Yep. Insecurity of being wrong and found out plays into it too
- eternauta3k 4y ago
  Imitating the whole thing is critical when you don't really understand what is important. For example, Manioc requires a seemingly arbitrary and elaborate series of steps to prepare so it's not (long-term) poisonous. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret-of-our-success/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret...
- usrusr 4y ago
  That part the author only skipped over, but I think it's likely true: we are the species that does not just learn how to open boxes by imitation, we are the species that starts a cargo cult hoping for boxes to arrive. In earlier days, we understood very little of the technology we had, even on the highest expert level. A chimpanzee that does not imitate but only watches to pick up the elements it understands would never be able to become bronze age, no matter the abundance of ore and fuel. The human on the other hand apparently has the ability to trust the unknown and try.
deleted 4y ago
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TrackerFF 4y ago
Maybe a bit OT: The other day I read an interview with a local guy in his 20s that struck gold with crypto, he'd invest something like $20k, and turned it into $40M. He basically went all in on one alt-coin before the marked exploded late last year, and the coin went up 2000x. When asked about it, he of course came up with a narrative that this wasn't just dumb luck. He had had worked hard for those $20k, and he had lost his shirt many times prior to this. But in the end, he was patting has own back and saying that it was his savviness which resulted in his newfound wealth. And if others were to follow his steps, they'd need to spend countless hours watching the charts and reading whitepapers. He had now mostly exited from crypto, retiring from his "old life", and being a full-time investor (VC for startups). Can you imagine if some newspaper interviewed a recent lottery winner, with the winner detailing how he'd planned it all along? But to the ignorant, it all sounds very impressive.
- sbarre 4y ago
  Rich people never want to acknowledge their luck, because it doesn't fit the "self-made" narrative. edit: to please the pedants, I should have said "many rich people", as to not imply "all". My fault.
  - corndoge 4y ago
    Cynical but doesn't match my experience, plenty of rich people acknowledge luck
    - deleted 4y ago
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    - deleted 4y ago
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    - jrm4 4y ago
      I bet there's a selection thing going on there. Most people, not being rich, aren't around rich people -- and so the rich people they "see" are exactly the type to not acknowledge luck, Trump perhaps being an extreme here.
bulbosaur123 4y ago
The poorer you are, the more you are interested in appearing rich. Higher EV in that play allowing increased chances to mingle with rich class. The richer you are, the more you are interested in appearing humble. Higher EV in signalling "money speaks, wealth whispers" message and appearing "down-to-earth" to win people over. Very often it pays to do the opposite of what is expected from you.
- throwaway98797 4y ago
  there’s this paper scissors rock thing with wealth & money poor: got to say you work hard when talking to middle class middle class: got to say you work smart if you’re talking to upper class upper class: got to say your work hard to peers, middle class, and poor, but reasons are different. for peers it’s because nihilism isn’t cool neither is being overly epicurean everyone says the right narrative to the right people, no one really knows the truth
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Oh I never lie about the fact that I don’t work hard. Literally never worked a hard day in my whole life. Yet I make bank for some reason that still eludes me. I am painfully aware of my privilege working in tech which is why I don’t hide it, and try my best to spread it around in ways that aren’t self-gratifying. I’ve paid my friends’ rent, car repairs, groceries, plane tickets so they could be home for the holidays, venmoed my struggling friends so they could go out with the group, hooked them up with jobs, bought concert and festival tickets. Literally no one in my social circle is allowed to say, “sorry I can’t money’s tight.” My only conditions are that they not thank me, never pay me back in any way whatsoever, and tell no one. One of the managers in my office does the same thing since he also grew up poor and hungry. When your out to dinner with him you not escape without being stuffed to the brim, and dessert, and leftovers.
- ricardobayes 4y ago
  "Dress for the job you want, not the one you have"
- themacguffinman 4y ago
matwood 4y ago
The one that always bugs me is when rich, successful people tell others to follow their heart or passion. It's easy to follow your heart once you're already rich. The other one is that rich people don't think about money, which is bullshit. It's all they think about, even if they don't show it.
- s3000 4y ago
  If you interpret it generously, those rich people may acknowledge that it takes luck to succeed. If you follow your heart you at least have enjoyed the ride if luck doesn't strike. Following your heart can also be a great filter. If you maintain some level of compassion and integrity, you will create a product that customers want.
- swayvil 4y ago
  Rich people are more dependent on their wealth than poor people. It's funny to think about. A poor person depends on a diverse array of skills, relationships and resources. A rich person depends on their account balance. They focus on that, basically in exclusion of all else. It makes the way they see and behave really different. It explains "wealthy miser" syndrome.
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    A rich person has people who focus on their account balance.
  - matwood 4y ago
    > diverse array of skills, relationships and resources IDK. The people I know who I would consider rich money wise also have the above in spades.
- teddyh 4y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSrd5od9lyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSrd5od9lyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Rid9cI6AI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Rid9cI6AI
- 4y ago
steveBK123 4y ago
"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 is frowned upon. But instead they have eccentric "hobbies" requiring $10ks of of equipment, inclusive of "needing" $10k viking stove/range, and $10k subzero fridge/freezer in your kitchen because you are a "foodie" and doing a $500k home Reno because you have good architectural taste and style. They probably still own a $70k Volvo (or now Tesla) anyway :-). 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. However blowing $500k renovating a perfectly livable home, or $10k on an appliance you could spend as little as $1k on.. is not. Another countersignal that the article points in the direction of is level of professional vs casual attire in the workplace. My friends and I are far enough in our careers that personally I've worn sneakers to work for the last 10 years, no business slacks, and sporadically tuck in my collared shirt. The last round of job searching doing zoom interviews, I wore my hoodie for half the calls. If I had done this while job searching out of college, during my internship, or at my first job.. I would not be where I am today.
- 331c8c71 4y ago
  >$2k Rolex I thought the cheapest Rolex is substantially more expensive. Am I wrong?
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    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.
    - doubled112 4y ago
jt2190 4y ago
> Successful people can afford to engage in countersignaling—doing things that signal high status because they are associated with low status. It is a form of self-handicapping, signaling that one is so well off that they can afford to engage in activities and behaviors that people typically associated with low status. This analysis assumes that the successful person who engages in an activity is doing so because they are “signaling”, not just because they like to do the activity. When they do something to signal, it’s almost certain that the successful person’s “success” is driven by their ability to get others to copy their behavior, or put another way, they’re selling the activity or things related to it. Edit: Examples are all over, but think of any product that a celebrity sells. (Heck, people even read HN because pg told them that smart, interesting people do it ;-) )
gus_massa 4y ago
> If a chimpanzee views a person perform a series of superfluous actions, along with one single necessary action, in order to obtain a piece of food, the chimpanzee will skip the superfluous action, and perform only the necessary one. > In contrast, children will copy every single action, including the unnecessary ones. I watched the video, but I'm unconvinced. They tell the kid the box is "magic". Children know the box is not magic. Children know how spells work in cartoon and books. So "magic" is a code word for "please copy all the silly steps as accurate as possible". The apes have no instruction, so they don't understand the must copy all the silly steps. I'll also blame school. Children are expected and trained to follow orders of adults even if they don't understand them, because it will be better for them in the future. Did you ever played basketball? Why should you put the ball in the basket if it has a hole in the bottom and the ball will fall down?
- blagie 4y ago
  Yeah. (1) It was presented as a game. It seemed like a game. (2) People like ritual. This was clearly ritual.
- Nemi 4y ago
  I agree. The nature of our verbal communication is that they were implying to the children that this is a game and that they must copy each step. In contrast, had they said “your goal is to get the gummy bear. Do only those things necessary to get the treat” it would have gone much differently. Even by not using ANY words and only having then children watch a person and then leaving them alone with the contraption would have gone differently. Some would likely have “played the game” because that is what we teach children. But at least some would have likely just gone for the treat. In any case, it is an interesting thing to ponder!
- burlesona 4y ago
  I also wondered about the difference between doing this with young children and adult chimps. I think it’s fairly obvious that if you gave the clear box test to a teenager or adult and said “get the treat out” they’d look at you funny and then many or most would just reach in and grab it. I think even in the black box, they’d probably look at it real hard and maybe try going straight for the treat after investigating the box a bit. By contrast very young humans operate in “game mode” almost all the time, and are basically “playing along” with whatever game you put them in. It’s a lot of fun, and often silly. So my question is, what about juvenile chimps? Do they also operate in game mode, or would they follow the adult chimp behavior of going straight for the reward?
User23 4y ago
I wonder how kids educated in the Montessori fashion would behave during the box experiment. Is this telling us about children or the educational system?
helen___keller 4y ago
Wouldn’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 for me, and I don’t understand the mindset
- theonemind 4y ago
  Transparent counter-signalling by claiming not to care about signalling. Careful, I don't think you have the status to pull it off. /s
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Would this be counter-counter signalling then?
- deleted 4y ago
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mmaunder 4y ago
Wealth 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 elements of our culture pressure people into doing this kind of painful signaling. I think signaling or counter signaling should be avoided if you want to preserve your sanity. Find something you’re passionate about and find others who feel the same. Hang out. Make best friends. Date. Get married. Be happy.
- ricardobayes 4y ago
  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.
  - rvba 4y ago
    In Soviet republics you could be murdered by the state every day, or declared an enemy of the pepople, or sent to gulag for a thing you didnt do - and all of those negative experiences ingrained a type of short-terminism among the society. The state could take away your apartment and make you lose everyrhing apart the clothes on your back - so why bother fixing the apartment, go and buy some nice clothes... at least you look good NOW and maybe you can keep them. This negative trainig (easy to lose everything) makes people care more about looks. With so many relatively poor people maybe it is some sort of a "lipstick effect" too - for everyone.
  - CyanBird 4y ago
    It happens everywhere, specially around lumpenproletariats around the world, it is a foul situation without an honest fix. It Latam it leads to horrible levels of asocial behaviors, theft, drug trading to acquire money and use it to purchase luxury items with which signal success It is heart breaking
  - 4y ago
indiogrindio 4y ago
I agree with the overall argument of the article, but some of it is confusing in the point it's trying to make: > In these studies, chimps are behaving more rationally than humans. There is no wasted motion to obtain the reward. > Humans haven’t been successful because we are innovators. Rather, we are successful because we don’t think for ourselves, and save time and energy by copying others. > In contrast, children will copy every single action, including the unnecessary ones. Isn't the chimpanzee the one saving time/energy in this case since it's not engaging in superfluous activities and only doing what it's necessary for its goal? I was expecting the article to state that the point of human superfluous activity is that it allows for a greater range of experimentation (a superfluous activity might lead to an adjacent innovative/novel solution for a new goal that was outside of the original scope).
bjornsing 4y ago
> One form of countersignaling is excess humility. It increases status for those who are already high status, but humility decreases status for those who are not high-status. Great to see a scientific reason for one of my long held opinions: “humility policing” is a social tactic, and a very efficient one if you’re high status. Don’t fall for it. Resist the humility police. Give and claim credit where credit is due.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  The problem with these online “status” discussions is that they discuss status as though it’s independent of the hard work and talent that typically results in success. I’m not saying that’s always present: some people just get lucky. But most of the people you probably want to emulate aren’t “just” lucky. They’re talented and worked hard to produce exceptional work over and over again, and then maybe also had some luck. Anyway, the point here is that I’ve been fortunate to meet a number of really talented people at various stages of their careers, and many of the most talented ones really are humble. They act that way because they don’t need to be boastful about their work in the first place, and lack of humility is a really good way to make people resent you instead of helping you, which is counterproductive when you’re good at what you do. It also signals that you aren’t confident in your work, or that you’re overconfident and not careful. Both can be red flags. Don’t know why I’m writing this. I just wish someone had explained these things to me when I was starting out in my career.
bluedays 4y ago
I live in a poor area of the country. If I were to dress according to my income I wouldn't be able to go anywhere. Does this count as a countersignal?
osigurdson 4y ago
Pure trash. Be yourself, emulate whoever you want (or no one). Do what feels right. If someone looks down on you for riding a bike to work (regardless of your current "status"), #1 they are idiots and their respect and admiration is worth zero and #2 choke them out :). Life is too short for such ridiculous minutia.
- speakfreely 4y ago
  Would love to set a 10 year reminder to check in on how this life strategy has worked out.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    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.
    - sangnoir 4y ago
      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)
      - osigurdson 4y ago
        Gorpcore
      - deleted 4y ago
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      - selfhoster11 4y ago
        I work in DevOps and check off literally none of the items you listed. I still get paid relatively well, and I don’t signal unless it’s required to maintain my job. I’m happy enough.
mpweiher 4y ago
"Don't be so humble - you're not that great" -- Golda Meir
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
In the same vein: - Don't hide your mistakes - Show that you are vulnerable - Be yourself Are all things that work best when you are (contextually) high-status. Yet we are still culturally promoting them as the things we should all strive for in any situation. However, it's way easier to be open about my professional mistakes now that I'm recognized by my peers and that I don't do too many of them. It's simple to expose my vulnerabilities now that I've built a social network that will not hurt me with it because they like and respect me. And it's certainly great to be able to be myself, now that people around me will say I'm eccentric, and not reject me. It's like the behavior of men in romantic comedy. If you were to be ugly and awkward, doing what they do would get you arrested. You don't get to play "50 shades" or "twilight" if you are the hunchback of Notredame. It's also why energy, humour and culture are such great assets, allowing you to somewhat help with social status. One day maybe we will stop selling to our children that life is about this one thing that works in all cases, and admit each life advice is highly contextual.
- justusw 4y ago
  Agreed. Admitting mistakes and showing vulnerability works best when you have nothing to lose, not because you have nothing but because you are untouchable. A good example would be a CEO who neither takes a pay cut nor resigns after laying off 20 % of their workforce. It is usually accompanied by a press release saying that they have seen the errors in their way, but as a consequence other heads have to roll, mine still stays attached (and then blame inflation or something). An upside down world, really.
viburnum 4y ago
On the other hand, don’t worry about reproducing the class system. Maybe join a union or something.
spencerchubb 4y ago
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".
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
> 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).
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  There's no excuse to tolerate bad behavior. It's like an abusive relationship. When such a situation happens, you should start thinking of an exit plan ASAP.
  - tenebrisalietum 4y ago
    I will tolerate W amount of X bad behavior for duration Y if I receive Z million dollars at the end of duration Y, for values of Z that equal or exceed 1.
  - taeric 4y ago
    There are also shockingly few areas where zero tolerance works. That is, don't silently tolerate bad behavior, but realize that many punishment oriented corrections are themselves bad behavior.
  - deleted 4y ago
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- 4y ago
cpsempek 4y ago
I 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.
nextlevelwizard 4y ago
Seen a lot of Substack stuff. Is it the new Medium?
killjoywashere 4y ago
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 has kids headed to college). At one point I said something to the effect of “The standard advise is that whenever you get to a fork in the road you should probably take the harder path.” Without missing a beat, the other guest quipped “Yeah, take a nap”.
- rakejake 4y ago
  Unrelated, but your username is genius!
- HenryClerval 4y ago
  I haven't heard "take a nap" before. What does it mean in that context?
  - abdabab 4y ago
    I read it as an advice to chill, as in the opposite of working too hard.
ngoilapites 4y ago
On the first place why is this title so evocative?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lqet 4y ago
> Humans are high-fidelity imitators. This is true in a very deep sense, and this human desire (let's even call it compulsion) to imitate others can be used to base an entire anthropology on, as René Girard did quite masterfully. For anyone interested, I strongly recommend reading "I See Satan Fall Like Lightning".
sanderjd 4y ago
> 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, they are just doing things. This constant meta game mostly exists in the minds of this iamverysmart crowd. Most people who ride bikes to work just like to ride bikes and find it to be a convenient way to get to work, they aren't giving a single thought to how it plays in some status game that nobody else they interact with is thinking about either. I find this whole genre incredibly unrelatable.
- paganel 4y ago
  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 or else. Again, for people on the other side of the fence is not tiring at all, we’re very much aware of it each and every day. It’s not a new thing either, reading Balzac means reading about people on each side of the has real money/has no real money fence.
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    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 it is, we have to work jobs because we have to work jobs, there isn't a status meta-game to it, it's just how we afford life. It's the mindset of looking at things like your poorly paid journalist example, and thinking "that person is signaling" rather than "that person wants to be a journalist" that I find tedious and unrelatable.
motohagiography 4y ago
Not going to university or dropping out of it is the most expensive countersignal of all, and it also knocks away the ladder for people who might try to follow you into your chosen endeavour. I've been articulating this dynamic for a long time and tell anyone who thinks I am an example that it's a terrible example to follow - mostly because the countersignals become the signal, as really, if you really want to prove how smart you are, go win a Fields medal, or perhaps you have a cancer cure to help my friend, or maybe you can make something somebody else actually wants for a change - and if you aren't that smart, then maybe you should work less on seeming smart and more on demonstrating you are good at something and use the opportunities that come from the respect of your competence and ability to share it with others, instead of affecting the aura of brilliance at being a failed or frustrated genius. These admonishments are as much to myself as anyone else who resembles them. Countersignals are vulgar artifacts of the 90s that a bunch of nouveau middle class people are just starting to figure out now, and they only fool rubes and are a way to figure out who to follow and how to climb socially, but never how to do something beautiful or great. I call them fart-connoisseurs because I know what it is like to be one. These days I use this quote a lot, which is, "Don't be so humble, you aren't that great." When I'm great, I will be humble. Until then, check out how awesome my effort that yielded something objectively crappy is, and even though it's not above criticism, it did the job, which is more than brilliance ever did. Maybe that is knocking the ladder away too, but that ladder went nowhere anyway. :) Big fan of Rob Hendersons newsletter. Recommend.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  > Not going to university or dropping out of it is the most expensive countersignal of all I think this was the worst mistake I’ve made to date.
  - motohagiography 4y ago
    Forgive your imagined mistakes. It was a handicap I chose and controlled, based on a very deep seated mistrust of authority, which led me to avoid taking on a small challenge that millions of other normal kids do all the time. Live and learn. The 90's counter signal trope of success without school was as misleading as the trope you had to get a degree to amount to anything, which was contemptuous of the generations of working class families who created the culture that produced those institutions. None of it means anything so long as you own it, but it is a different life, literally, a different trajectory by degree.
adventured 4y ago
> Humans haven’t been successful because we are innovators. Rather, we are successful because we don’t think for ourselves, and save time and energy by copying others. This is just plain incorrect. Humanity functions in three groups: creators, mimics and teachers. The creators are the less cautious types that strike out and build new things, attempt to invent or innovate. Their personalities and behaviors are quite often noticeably different from everyone else. Mimics copy, copy, copy. They're probably ~95-97% of the population. Their success depends on successfully copying other models that work. Teachers primarily exist to train mimics, to amplify knowledge out to humanity. They're mimics with bullhorns and a desire to pass on things that have worked and knowledge acquired broadly by the species (lessons learned, etc). This works, this is successful, initiate copy mode. And off it goes. Humans are exceptionally good at that for sure. We just got a remarkable, prominent, several decade demonstration of it at a global level in so called globalization. Creators are the ones that initiate the next things to be copied, the next things that get taught from a textbook in school, and so on (to be clear, most creators suffer terribly and never achieve much of anything; theirs is a low success rate, high reward path).
willmadden 4y ago
Every moment spent contriving and derisking a plan to virtue signal to born followers is better spent talking to leaders and figuring out which calculated risks to take.
bg4 4y ago
I'd recommend doing whatever the hell you want.
tptacek 4y ago
It 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.
- segmondy 4y ago
  Depends on culture. In some culture arriving late is a privilege, since everyone will be there to observe your entrance. Seats, food, entrance will be guaranteed for you. Heck, we see it in the US with the clubbing scene.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Fair enough, I'm just talking about parties in the US, and not dinner parties.
deanmoriarty 4y ago
This 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.
- deebosong 4y ago
  I'm kinda like this as well. I'm not a misanthrope, and still enjoy the company of people. But. I used to status-jockey and be unconsciously and consciously obsessed with all of that, no matter the arena/ context/ subculture, etc. But doing a lot of inner work and unearthing what my core drives/ motives/ needs were, a lot of that status-jockeying and wanting to be in the in-group to feel this existential sense of acceptance and security started to come into focus, and a lot of old friendships became revealed as insecurity/ fear based (on both parties). And trying to introduce new paradigms to old friends became sort of the last-ditch effort to try to salvage relationships that were built on shaky foundation. It also made me look back on when people tried to speak truth into my beliefs when I was still caught-up in wanting to be relevant and seen as high-status & outwardly respectable, and how I couldn't hear what people were saying. I still wanna give people a chance, though, but accept them for where they communicate they are at and leave em alone if they're deep in that status-chasing game, and have no desire to explore getting out of that mess. There are still people out there who want to enjoy life and find meaning on other terms than getting validation from an anonymous audience/ jury that they believe has the power to approve or reject them.
- bradlys 4y ago
  Confused on your last point. Joining a good pre IPO company is generally a good idea. The difficult part is to find the good company, IMO. Look at how many were considered good but still haven’t gone public.
ajb 4y ago
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 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)
- throw0101c 4y ago
  > 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 And then there's Vint Cerf.
  - tuukkah 4y ago
    His approach may be something best described as counter-countersignalling.
- borroka 4y ago
  Perhaps dressing poorly (very common) and not being in shape (bimodal distribution, there are many in very good shape and many in very bad shape, few in between) started out as a counter-signal, but today it is just sloppiness, or convenience, like it is more convenient to order fast food instead of grilling chicken. I work in the tech industry, and although I don't usually wear a suit, I often show up in a spezzato, a pair of pants and a jacket of a different fabric/color. Nothing too flashy, but well put together. And I think that's the counter signal nowadays: show up looking good, feeling good, being what we want to be.
  - 4y ago
lamontcg 4y ago
Wonder how many people who are treating all this seriously and talking in the comments about cars and watches as status symbols on another day would be shrieking about "woke virtue signalling".
possiblydrunk 4y ago
A key point in the article: >"...Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance.” >Hard work increases the likelihood of luck finding you, and hard work also prepares you for when it does. You can't reliably produce luck, even by imitating people that are "lucky"; all you can do is increase the likelihood that you might capitalize on luck.
intrasight 4y ago
Be even more wary of high-status people who cannot afford to countersignal ;)
ALittleLight 4y ago
The ape experiment seems like it's been misinterpreted badly - including by the linked video. The kids are told they are "playing a game" whereas the apes are trying to pull the treat from the box. The children aren't being outsmarted by the apes, they are doing a different thing. Many toys and children's games involve arbitrary and pointless actions. The kids have been taught to do something, are told to do something, and then do it. If you told the children their goal was to remove the gummy bear from the box with as few actions as possible they too would skip messing with the mechanism on top. The apes are playing one game (get the treat) and the kids are playing another (manipulate this box the way I show you). Comparing their actions and drawing conclusions is silly. It's like saying someone playing chess is missing a lot of moves that a checkers player made.
graderjs 4y ago
Or you could just not care what people think… and do what you want
imartin2k 4y ago
Paul Graham’s website design is a typical example of countersignaling.
est31 4y ago
See also: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tu0ozf/what_is_classy_of_youre_rich_but_trashy_if_youre/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tu0ozf/what_is_c... https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/myb9p4/whats_classy_if_youre_rich_but_trashy_if_youre/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/myb9p4/whats_cla... https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/bvdaci/whats_classy_if_youre_rich_but_trashy_if_youre/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/bvdaci/whats_cla...

552 points by jger15 4y ago

One of the best examples of counter-signaling was Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala. She wore a black dress that covered her from head to toe, including her face. It was kind of a statement that “even my silhouette is famous”.

jerrygenser 4y ago
Just looked this up. This is surprisingly similar to how Kanye (Ye?) appeared on the Lex Friedman podcast recently. Even though they are split, is Kim still taking hints or strategies they learned or developed together? I actually could barely recognize Ye in terms of silhouette, but could understand his voice on the podcast.
- ealexhudson 4y ago
  Since the Met Gala is in May, the causality must be the other direction..?
  - jerrygenser 4y ago
    I also went to a Kanye concert where he was putting a diamond studded full face mask on 5+ years ago in Philly where you couldn't recognize him. Should incorporate that into context as well.
  - bikingbismuth 4y ago
    Kanye has been fully covering his body/face for years (since at least the Yeezus tour in 2013).
sys_64738 4y ago
For those wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian Even after reading that I don't actually know what this woman is well-known for.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  Originally this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian,_Superstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian,_Superstar
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  Her father was a very prominent lawyer (including for OJ Simpson) so she had entry into “socialite” circles through him. Her fame increased when a sex tape involving her and a singer was published, and since then she has been a TV personality.
- devnullbrain 4y ago
  Trying too hard.
- booleandilemma 4y ago
  She's one of those people who's famous for being famous.

082349872349872 4y ago

An extreme example of affording to countersignal were the "smarter" british cavalry regiments, which purposefully set their mess dues significantly higher than the pay, thus keeping out the riffraff.

abecedarius 4y ago
That's signaling, like wearing expensive clothes. Countersignaling means dressing like a bum in high-class circles and getting accepted anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  Maybe I'd been overthinking it? I had been considering "I have a high-paying job" as signalling, and "My pay doesn't really cover the essentials, but I do it for our country, don't you know" as counter-. Edit: and otoh I would consider "Boss is in shorts, t-shirt and sandals" as just plain signalling, because I grew up in a world (my favourite anecdote was working with a Hawai'ian VC who would classify meetings as "socks" or "no socks") where in any given business situation, those who have the gold dress down and those who pitch for it dress up.
  - ltbarcly3 4y ago
    You are under thinking it. Signalling is showing you have something high status (money, nice clothes, etc), countersignalling is refusing to show something to prove you don't need to.
  - YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    Presumably the signal is actually "I'm independently wealthy, so I can afford to take this job that loses me money".
  - abecedarius 4y ago
    I think we agree about the phenomena, it's just that the word "signaling" has a false lucidity -- it has an everyday meaning and a related technical meaning that's easy to overlook. The technical meaning is about an equilibrium in a game where "talk is cheap", so that your message would be discounted by observers unless some cost (not necessarily in money) is tied to it. With countersignaling there's an extra level to the game where your message has the form "I have this quality over and above merely affording the first-level cost" -- now the cost you're paying is the risk of being taken for riff-raff. Those with more of that quality, whatever it is, have to be better at pulling that gambit off, for it to work as a countersignal.

jonnycomputer 4y ago

Boss gives a dinner party at their home for their employees. All the guests show up in their best. Boss is in shorts, t-shirt and sandals.

Obscurity4340 4y ago
Top shelf power play. This guy Zooms
- eternalban 4y ago
  You missed the part where the maid serves little burgers on buns as lunch.
  - Obscurity4340 4y ago
    Honestly prefer sliders. They're cute and you can gauge them easier than their club-sized counterparts.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    "They are just like those white castle ones you see people eating in mukbang challenges online"
- brewdad 4y ago
  The real power play would be if the boss's t-shirt is the 3 for $10 variety from Target rather than a $200 bespoke one.
  - Obscurity4340 4y ago
    Not gonna lie, I'm nowhere near that "prestigious" and your comment already hits dangerously close to home, lol
  - Obscurity4340 4y ago
    Also, how could you ever know that for the purpose of the discussion? I feel like it would have to be pretty damn specifically made for a "generic" t-shirt fitting that specific example with "bespoke" brand indicia or something... Prolly overthinking this

pavlov 4y ago

> “Some writers are so well known that, despite having millions of followers, they literally don’t promote anything they write on social media. That is some strong countersignaling.” This was every writer until about 13 years ago. That’s not a long time in a field where people can have 70 year long careers. It’s interesting to consider how “doing the thing I’ve always done” can quickly become seen as countersignalling when society changes around you.

jonnycomputer 4y ago
Yeah, and I don't think its counter-signalling either. Successful authors are likely to have people actively promoting their work for them; the one thing others can't do for them is write (unless they're willing to have other people perform the work they are known for).
- tgv 4y ago
  It's seems to be hard for people to imagine there are more channels than Twitter. They are on twitter, everybody they know is on twitter, and by that they judge everything.
  - zach_garwood 4y ago
    And people on Twitter vastly overestimate Twitter's importance. That some people think it's a "public town square" is just laughable. It's the trash-laden alley behind an Arby's, at best.
GauntletWizard 4y ago
"Tweeting, but not tweeting about your new book" is very different from "Not tweeting about your new book" when Twitter doesn't exist. One is lack of a signal channel, the other is spending time and effort on a signal channel and not transmitting your signal. Countersignaling relies on the SNR being biased against you; it's about noise floor vs signal and having no channel at all is very different.
YurgenJurgensen 4y ago

api 4y ago

I’m not sure it’s a deliberate form of counter signaling, but… I see a lot of people emulate the antisocial or neurotic traits of the highly successful based on the faulty premise that these are causal for their success. Will doing heroin make you a rock star? Might it be that Steve Jobs and Elon Musk succeeded not because of but in spite of some of their antisocial traits? Maybe you should emulate their work ethic and skills instead.

greggarious 4y ago
>Will doing heroin make you a rock star? No but the trauma that makes you do heroin can produce beautiful lyrics. (Or so I'm told.)
xiphias2 4y ago
Elon Musk was reading books all the time when he was young...of course it will lead to even less social skills than what he would have had as he was growing up.
- greggarious 4y ago
  If you don’t read books when young it’ll be difficult to go to uni, and “reading books” isn’t particularly unique among gifted kids.
andsoitis 4y ago
> emulate the antisocial or neurotic traits of the highly successful based on the faulty premise that these are causal for their success I believe that’s “cargo cult”-ing.
daniel-cussen 4y ago

jonnycomputer 4y ago

Some interesting pearls in the article. Not sure I endorse non-nuanced extension of the idea to entire societies as the author does.

ramraj07 4y ago

Seems decently researched but I don’t know why the author felt compelled to add unsubstantiated and totally unnecessary hyperbole about humans only having succeeded because of imitating the whole shebang. It doesn’t even make sense!

drooby 4y ago
It makes sense to me. When an indigenous tribe has some intricate process for transforming a toxic plant into an edible food, and also has no knowledge of the chemistry, the only solution is to copy the entire process unquestioning. We see the same behavior for hunting strategies, building strategies… social control.. religion.
- abc_lisper 4y ago
  Yep. Insecurity of being wrong and found out plays into it too
eternauta3k 4y ago
Imitating the whole thing is critical when you don't really understand what is important. For example, Manioc requires a seemingly arbitrary and elaborate series of steps to prepare so it's not (long-term) poisonous. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret-of-our-success/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret...
usrusr 4y ago
That part the author only skipped over, but I think it's likely true: we are the species that does not just learn how to open boxes by imitation, we are the species that starts a cargo cult hoping for boxes to arrive. In earlier days, we understood very little of the technology we had, even on the highest expert level. A chimpanzee that does not imitate but only watches to pick up the elements it understands would never be able to become bronze age, no matter the abundance of ore and fuel. The human on the other hand apparently has the ability to trust the unknown and try.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

TrackerFF 4y ago

Maybe a bit OT: The other day I read an interview with a local guy in his 20s that struck gold with crypto, he'd invest something like $20k, and turned it into $40M. He basically went all in on one alt-coin before the marked exploded late last year, and the coin went up 2000x. When asked about it, he of course came up with a narrative that this wasn't just dumb luck. He had had worked hard for those $20k, and he had lost his shirt many times prior to this. But in the end, he was patting has own back and saying that it was his savviness which resulted in his newfound wealth. And if others were to follow his steps, they'd need to spend countless hours watching the charts and reading whitepapers. He had now mostly exited from crypto, retiring from his "old life", and being a full-time investor (VC for startups). Can you imagine if some newspaper interviewed a recent lottery winner, with the winner detailing how he'd planned it all along? But to the ignorant, it all sounds very impressive.

sbarre 4y ago
Rich people never want to acknowledge their luck, because it doesn't fit the "self-made" narrative. edit: to please the pedants, I should have said "many rich people", as to not imply "all". My fault.
- corndoge 4y ago
  Cynical but doesn't match my experience, plenty of rich people acknowledge luck
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - jrm4 4y ago
    I bet there's a selection thing going on there. Most people, not being rich, aren't around rich people -- and so the rich people they "see" are exactly the type to not acknowledge luck, Trump perhaps being an extreme here.

bulbosaur123 4y ago

The poorer you are, the more you are interested in appearing rich. Higher EV in that play allowing increased chances to mingle with rich class. The richer you are, the more you are interested in appearing humble. Higher EV in signalling "money speaks, wealth whispers" message and appearing "down-to-earth" to win people over. Very often it pays to do the opposite of what is expected from you.

throwaway98797 4y ago
there’s this paper scissors rock thing with wealth & money poor: got to say you work hard when talking to middle class middle class: got to say you work smart if you’re talking to upper class upper class: got to say your work hard to peers, middle class, and poor, but reasons are different. for peers it’s because nihilism isn’t cool neither is being overly epicurean everyone says the right narrative to the right people, no one really knows the truth
- Spivak 4y ago
  Oh I never lie about the fact that I don’t work hard. Literally never worked a hard day in my whole life. Yet I make bank for some reason that still eludes me. I am painfully aware of my privilege working in tech which is why I don’t hide it, and try my best to spread it around in ways that aren’t self-gratifying. I’ve paid my friends’ rent, car repairs, groceries, plane tickets so they could be home for the holidays, venmoed my struggling friends so they could go out with the group, hooked them up with jobs, bought concert and festival tickets. Literally no one in my social circle is allowed to say, “sorry I can’t money’s tight.” My only conditions are that they not thank me, never pay me back in any way whatsoever, and tell no one. One of the managers in my office does the same thing since he also grew up poor and hungry. When your out to dinner with him you not escape without being stuffed to the brim, and dessert, and leftovers.
ricardobayes 4y ago
"Dress for the job you want, not the one you have"
themacguffinman 4y ago

matwood 4y ago

The one that always bugs me is when rich, successful people tell others to follow their heart or passion. It's easy to follow your heart once you're already rich. The other one is that rich people don't think about money, which is bullshit. It's all they think about, even if they don't show it.

s3000 4y ago
If you interpret it generously, those rich people may acknowledge that it takes luck to succeed. If you follow your heart you at least have enjoyed the ride if luck doesn't strike. Following your heart can also be a great filter. If you maintain some level of compassion and integrity, you will create a product that customers want.
swayvil 4y ago
Rich people are more dependent on their wealth than poor people. It's funny to think about. A poor person depends on a diverse array of skills, relationships and resources. A rich person depends on their account balance. They focus on that, basically in exclusion of all else. It makes the way they see and behave really different. It explains "wealthy miser" syndrome.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  A rich person has people who focus on their account balance.
- matwood 4y ago
  > diverse array of skills, relationships and resources IDK. The people I know who I would consider rich money wise also have the above in spades.
teddyh 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSrd5od9lyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSrd5od9lyk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Rid9cI6AI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Rid9cI6AI
4y ago

steveBK123 4y ago

"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 is frowned upon. But instead they have eccentric "hobbies" requiring $10ks of of equipment, inclusive of "needing" $10k viking stove/range, and $10k subzero fridge/freezer in your kitchen because you are a "foodie" and doing a $500k home Reno because you have good architectural taste and style. They probably still own a $70k Volvo (or now Tesla) anyway :-). 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. However blowing $500k renovating a perfectly livable home, or $10k on an appliance you could spend as little as $1k on.. is not. Another countersignal that the article points in the direction of is level of professional vs casual attire in the workplace. My friends and I are far enough in our careers that personally I've worn sneakers to work for the last 10 years, no business slacks, and sporadically tuck in my collared shirt. The last round of job searching doing zoom interviews, I wore my hoodie for half the calls. If I had done this while job searching out of college, during my internship, or at my first job.. I would not be where I am today.

331c8c71 4y ago
>$2k Rolex I thought the cheapest Rolex is substantially more expensive. Am I wrong?
- steveBK123 4y ago
  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.
  - doubled112 4y ago

jt2190 4y ago

> Successful people can afford to engage in countersignaling—doing things that signal high status because they are associated with low status. It is a form of self-handicapping, signaling that one is so well off that they can afford to engage in activities and behaviors that people typically associated with low status. This analysis assumes that the successful person who engages in an activity is doing so because they are “signaling”, not just because they like to do the activity. When they do something to signal, it’s almost certain that the successful person’s “success” is driven by their ability to get others to copy their behavior, or put another way, they’re selling the activity or things related to it. Edit: Examples are all over, but think of any product that a celebrity sells. (Heck, people even read HN because pg told them that smart, interesting people do it ;-) )

gus_massa 4y ago

> If a chimpanzee views a person perform a series of superfluous actions, along with one single necessary action, in order to obtain a piece of food, the chimpanzee will skip the superfluous action, and perform only the necessary one. > In contrast, children will copy every single action, including the unnecessary ones. I watched the video, but I'm unconvinced. They tell the kid the box is "magic". Children know the box is not magic. Children know how spells work in cartoon and books. So "magic" is a code word for "please copy all the silly steps as accurate as possible". The apes have no instruction, so they don't understand the must copy all the silly steps. I'll also blame school. Children are expected and trained to follow orders of adults even if they don't understand them, because it will be better for them in the future. Did you ever played basketball? Why should you put the ball in the basket if it has a hole in the bottom and the ball will fall down?

blagie 4y ago
Yeah. (1) It was presented as a game. It seemed like a game. (2) People like ritual. This was clearly ritual.
Nemi 4y ago
I agree. The nature of our verbal communication is that they were implying to the children that this is a game and that they must copy each step. In contrast, had they said “your goal is to get the gummy bear. Do only those things necessary to get the treat” it would have gone much differently. Even by not using ANY words and only having then children watch a person and then leaving them alone with the contraption would have gone differently. Some would likely have “played the game” because that is what we teach children. But at least some would have likely just gone for the treat. In any case, it is an interesting thing to ponder!
burlesona 4y ago
I also wondered about the difference between doing this with young children and adult chimps. I think it’s fairly obvious that if you gave the clear box test to a teenager or adult and said “get the treat out” they’d look at you funny and then many or most would just reach in and grab it. I think even in the black box, they’d probably look at it real hard and maybe try going straight for the treat after investigating the box a bit. By contrast very young humans operate in “game mode” almost all the time, and are basically “playing along” with whatever game you put them in. It’s a lot of fun, and often silly. So my question is, what about juvenile chimps? Do they also operate in game mode, or would they follow the adult chimp behavior of going straight for the reward?

User23 4y ago

I wonder how kids educated in the Montessori fashion would behave during the box experiment. Is this telling us about children or the educational system?

helen___keller 4y ago

Wouldn’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 for me, and I don’t understand the mindset

theonemind 4y ago
Transparent counter-signalling by claiming not to care about signalling. Careful, I don't think you have the status to pull it off. /s
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  Would this be counter-counter signalling then?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mmaunder 4y ago

Wealth 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 elements of our culture pressure people into doing this kind of painful signaling. I think signaling or counter signaling should be avoided if you want to preserve your sanity. Find something you’re passionate about and find others who feel the same. Hang out. Make best friends. Date. Get married. Be happy.

ricardobayes 4y ago
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.
- rvba 4y ago
  In Soviet republics you could be murdered by the state every day, or declared an enemy of the pepople, or sent to gulag for a thing you didnt do - and all of those negative experiences ingrained a type of short-terminism among the society. The state could take away your apartment and make you lose everyrhing apart the clothes on your back - so why bother fixing the apartment, go and buy some nice clothes... at least you look good NOW and maybe you can keep them. This negative trainig (easy to lose everything) makes people care more about looks. With so many relatively poor people maybe it is some sort of a "lipstick effect" too - for everyone.
- CyanBird 4y ago
  It happens everywhere, specially around lumpenproletariats around the world, it is a foul situation without an honest fix. It Latam it leads to horrible levels of asocial behaviors, theft, drug trading to acquire money and use it to purchase luxury items with which signal success It is heart breaking
- 4y ago

indiogrindio 4y ago

I agree with the overall argument of the article, but some of it is confusing in the point it's trying to make: > In these studies, chimps are behaving more rationally than humans. There is no wasted motion to obtain the reward. > Humans haven’t been successful because we are innovators. Rather, we are successful because we don’t think for ourselves, and save time and energy by copying others. > In contrast, children will copy every single action, including the unnecessary ones. Isn't the chimpanzee the one saving time/energy in this case since it's not engaging in superfluous activities and only doing what it's necessary for its goal? I was expecting the article to state that the point of human superfluous activity is that it allows for a greater range of experimentation (a superfluous activity might lead to an adjacent innovative/novel solution for a new goal that was outside of the original scope).

bjornsing 4y ago

> One form of countersignaling is excess humility. It increases status for those who are already high status, but humility decreases status for those who are not high-status. Great to see a scientific reason for one of my long held opinions: “humility policing” is a social tactic, and a very efficient one if you’re high status. Don’t fall for it. Resist the humility police. Give and claim credit where credit is due.

matthewdgreen 4y ago
The problem with these online “status” discussions is that they discuss status as though it’s independent of the hard work and talent that typically results in success. I’m not saying that’s always present: some people just get lucky. But most of the people you probably want to emulate aren’t “just” lucky. They’re talented and worked hard to produce exceptional work over and over again, and then maybe also had some luck. Anyway, the point here is that I’ve been fortunate to meet a number of really talented people at various stages of their careers, and many of the most talented ones really are humble. They act that way because they don’t need to be boastful about their work in the first place, and lack of humility is a really good way to make people resent you instead of helping you, which is counterproductive when you’re good at what you do. It also signals that you aren’t confident in your work, or that you’re overconfident and not careful. Both can be red flags. Don’t know why I’m writing this. I just wish someone had explained these things to me when I was starting out in my career.

bluedays 4y ago

I live in a poor area of the country. If I were to dress according to my income I wouldn't be able to go anywhere. Does this count as a countersignal?

osigurdson 4y ago

Pure trash. Be yourself, emulate whoever you want (or no one). Do what feels right. If someone looks down on you for riding a bike to work (regardless of your current "status"), #1 they are idiots and their respect and admiration is worth zero and #2 choke them out :). Life is too short for such ridiculous minutia.

speakfreely 4y ago
Would love to set a 10 year reminder to check in on how this life strategy has worked out.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  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.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    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)
    - osigurdson 4y ago
      Gorpcore
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - selfhoster11 4y ago
      I work in DevOps and check off literally none of the items you listed. I still get paid relatively well, and I don’t signal unless it’s required to maintain my job. I’m happy enough.

mpweiher 4y ago

"Don't be so humble - you're not that great" -- Golda Meir

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

In the same vein: - Don't hide your mistakes - Show that you are vulnerable - Be yourself Are all things that work best when you are (contextually) high-status. Yet we are still culturally promoting them as the things we should all strive for in any situation. However, it's way easier to be open about my professional mistakes now that I'm recognized by my peers and that I don't do too many of them. It's simple to expose my vulnerabilities now that I've built a social network that will not hurt me with it because they like and respect me. And it's certainly great to be able to be myself, now that people around me will say I'm eccentric, and not reject me. It's like the behavior of men in romantic comedy. If you were to be ugly and awkward, doing what they do would get you arrested. You don't get to play "50 shades" or "twilight" if you are the hunchback of Notredame. It's also why energy, humour and culture are such great assets, allowing you to somewhat help with social status. One day maybe we will stop selling to our children that life is about this one thing that works in all cases, and admit each life advice is highly contextual.

justusw 4y ago
Agreed. Admitting mistakes and showing vulnerability works best when you have nothing to lose, not because you have nothing but because you are untouchable. A good example would be a CEO who neither takes a pay cut nor resigns after laying off 20 % of their workforce. It is usually accompanied by a press release saying that they have seen the errors in their way, but as a consequence other heads have to roll, mine still stays attached (and then blame inflation or something). An upside down world, really.

viburnum 4y ago

On the other hand, don’t worry about reproducing the class system. Maybe join a union or something.

spencerchubb 4y ago

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".

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

> 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).

yodsanklai 4y ago
There's no excuse to tolerate bad behavior. It's like an abusive relationship. When such a situation happens, you should start thinking of an exit plan ASAP.
- tenebrisalietum 4y ago
  I will tolerate W amount of X bad behavior for duration Y if I receive Z million dollars at the end of duration Y, for values of Z that equal or exceed 1.
- taeric 4y ago
  There are also shockingly few areas where zero tolerance works. That is, don't silently tolerate bad behavior, but realize that many punishment oriented corrections are themselves bad behavior.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
4y ago

cpsempek 4y ago

I 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.

nextlevelwizard 4y ago

Seen a lot of Substack stuff. Is it the new Medium?

killjoywashere 4y ago

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 has kids headed to college). At one point I said something to the effect of “The standard advise is that whenever you get to a fork in the road you should probably take the harder path.” Without missing a beat, the other guest quipped “Yeah, take a nap”.

rakejake 4y ago
Unrelated, but your username is genius!
HenryClerval 4y ago
I haven't heard "take a nap" before. What does it mean in that context?
- abdabab 4y ago
  I read it as an advice to chill, as in the opposite of working too hard.

ngoilapites 4y ago

On the first place why is this title so evocative?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lqet 4y ago

> Humans are high-fidelity imitators. This is true in a very deep sense, and this human desire (let's even call it compulsion) to imitate others can be used to base an entire anthropology on, as René Girard did quite masterfully. For anyone interested, I strongly recommend reading "I See Satan Fall Like Lightning".

sanderjd 4y ago

> 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, they are just doing things. This constant meta game mostly exists in the minds of this iamverysmart crowd. Most people who ride bikes to work just like to ride bikes and find it to be a convenient way to get to work, they aren't giving a single thought to how it plays in some status game that nobody else they interact with is thinking about either. I find this whole genre incredibly unrelatable.

paganel 4y ago
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 or else. Again, for people on the other side of the fence is not tiring at all, we’re very much aware of it each and every day. It’s not a new thing either, reading Balzac means reading about people on each side of the has real money/has no real money fence.
- sanderjd 4y ago
  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 it is, we have to work jobs because we have to work jobs, there isn't a status meta-game to it, it's just how we afford life. It's the mindset of looking at things like your poorly paid journalist example, and thinking "that person is signaling" rather than "that person wants to be a journalist" that I find tedious and unrelatable.

motohagiography 4y ago

Not going to university or dropping out of it is the most expensive countersignal of all, and it also knocks away the ladder for people who might try to follow you into your chosen endeavour. I've been articulating this dynamic for a long time and tell anyone who thinks I am an example that it's a terrible example to follow - mostly because the countersignals become the signal, as really, if you really want to prove how smart you are, go win a Fields medal, or perhaps you have a cancer cure to help my friend, or maybe you can make something somebody else actually wants for a change - and if you aren't that smart, then maybe you should work less on seeming smart and more on demonstrating you are good at something and use the opportunities that come from the respect of your competence and ability to share it with others, instead of affecting the aura of brilliance at being a failed or frustrated genius. These admonishments are as much to myself as anyone else who resembles them. Countersignals are vulgar artifacts of the 90s that a bunch of nouveau middle class people are just starting to figure out now, and they only fool rubes and are a way to figure out who to follow and how to climb socially, but never how to do something beautiful or great. I call them fart-connoisseurs because I know what it is like to be one. These days I use this quote a lot, which is, "Don't be so humble, you aren't that great." When I'm great, I will be humble. Until then, check out how awesome my effort that yielded something objectively crappy is, and even though it's not above criticism, it did the job, which is more than brilliance ever did. Maybe that is knocking the ladder away too, but that ladder went nowhere anyway. :) Big fan of Rob Hendersons newsletter. Recommend.

the_only_law 4y ago
> Not going to university or dropping out of it is the most expensive countersignal of all I think this was the worst mistake I’ve made to date.
- motohagiography 4y ago
  Forgive your imagined mistakes. It was a handicap I chose and controlled, based on a very deep seated mistrust of authority, which led me to avoid taking on a small challenge that millions of other normal kids do all the time. Live and learn. The 90's counter signal trope of success without school was as misleading as the trope you had to get a degree to amount to anything, which was contemptuous of the generations of working class families who created the culture that produced those institutions. None of it means anything so long as you own it, but it is a different life, literally, a different trajectory by degree.

adventured 4y ago

> Humans haven’t been successful because we are innovators. Rather, we are successful because we don’t think for ourselves, and save time and energy by copying others. This is just plain incorrect. Humanity functions in three groups: creators, mimics and teachers. The creators are the less cautious types that strike out and build new things, attempt to invent or innovate. Their personalities and behaviors are quite often noticeably different from everyone else. Mimics copy, copy, copy. They're probably ~95-97% of the population. Their success depends on successfully copying other models that work. Teachers primarily exist to train mimics, to amplify knowledge out to humanity. They're mimics with bullhorns and a desire to pass on things that have worked and knowledge acquired broadly by the species (lessons learned, etc). This works, this is successful, initiate copy mode. And off it goes. Humans are exceptionally good at that for sure. We just got a remarkable, prominent, several decade demonstration of it at a global level in so called globalization. Creators are the ones that initiate the next things to be copied, the next things that get taught from a textbook in school, and so on (to be clear, most creators suffer terribly and never achieve much of anything; theirs is a low success rate, high reward path).

willmadden 4y ago

Every moment spent contriving and derisking a plan to virtue signal to born followers is better spent talking to leaders and figuring out which calculated risks to take.

bg4 4y ago

I'd recommend doing whatever the hell you want.

tptacek 4y ago

It 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.

segmondy 4y ago
Depends on culture. In some culture arriving late is a privilege, since everyone will be there to observe your entrance. Seats, food, entrance will be guaranteed for you. Heck, we see it in the US with the clubbing scene.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Fair enough, I'm just talking about parties in the US, and not dinner parties.

deanmoriarty 4y ago

This 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.

deebosong 4y ago
I'm kinda like this as well. I'm not a misanthrope, and still enjoy the company of people. But. I used to status-jockey and be unconsciously and consciously obsessed with all of that, no matter the arena/ context/ subculture, etc. But doing a lot of inner work and unearthing what my core drives/ motives/ needs were, a lot of that status-jockeying and wanting to be in the in-group to feel this existential sense of acceptance and security started to come into focus, and a lot of old friendships became revealed as insecurity/ fear based (on both parties). And trying to introduce new paradigms to old friends became sort of the last-ditch effort to try to salvage relationships that were built on shaky foundation. It also made me look back on when people tried to speak truth into my beliefs when I was still caught-up in wanting to be relevant and seen as high-status & outwardly respectable, and how I couldn't hear what people were saying. I still wanna give people a chance, though, but accept them for where they communicate they are at and leave em alone if they're deep in that status-chasing game, and have no desire to explore getting out of that mess. There are still people out there who want to enjoy life and find meaning on other terms than getting validation from an anonymous audience/ jury that they believe has the power to approve or reject them.
bradlys 4y ago
Confused on your last point. Joining a good pre IPO company is generally a good idea. The difficult part is to find the good company, IMO. Look at how many were considered good but still haven’t gone public.

ajb 4y ago

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 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)

throw0101c 4y ago
> 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 And then there's Vint Cerf.
- tuukkah 4y ago
  His approach may be something best described as counter-countersignalling.
borroka 4y ago
Perhaps dressing poorly (very common) and not being in shape (bimodal distribution, there are many in very good shape and many in very bad shape, few in between) started out as a counter-signal, but today it is just sloppiness, or convenience, like it is more convenient to order fast food instead of grilling chicken. I work in the tech industry, and although I don't usually wear a suit, I often show up in a spezzato, a pair of pants and a jacket of a different fabric/color. Nothing too flashy, but well put together. And I think that's the counter signal nowadays: show up looking good, feeling good, being what we want to be.
- 4y ago

lamontcg 4y ago

Wonder how many people who are treating all this seriously and talking in the comments about cars and watches as status symbols on another day would be shrieking about "woke virtue signalling".

possiblydrunk 4y ago

A key point in the article: >"...Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance.” >Hard work increases the likelihood of luck finding you, and hard work also prepares you for when it does. You can't reliably produce luck, even by imitating people that are "lucky"; all you can do is increase the likelihood that you might capitalize on luck.

intrasight 4y ago

Be even more wary of high-status people who cannot afford to countersignal ;)

ALittleLight 4y ago

The ape experiment seems like it's been misinterpreted badly - including by the linked video. The kids are told they are "playing a game" whereas the apes are trying to pull the treat from the box. The children aren't being outsmarted by the apes, they are doing a different thing. Many toys and children's games involve arbitrary and pointless actions. The kids have been taught to do something, are told to do something, and then do it. If you told the children their goal was to remove the gummy bear from the box with as few actions as possible they too would skip messing with the mechanism on top. The apes are playing one game (get the treat) and the kids are playing another (manipulate this box the way I show you). Comparing their actions and drawing conclusions is silly. It's like saying someone playing chess is missing a lot of moves that a checkers player made.

graderjs 4y ago

Or you could just not care what people think… and do what you want

imartin2k 4y ago

Paul Graham’s website design is a typical example of countersignaling.

est31 4y ago

See also: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tu0ozf/what_is_classy_of_youre_rich_but_trashy_if_youre/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tu0ozf/what_is_c... https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/myb9p4/whats_classy_if_youre_rich_but_trashy_if_youre/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/myb9p4/whats_cla... https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/bvdaci/whats_classy_if_youre_rich_but_trashy_if_youre/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/bvdaci/whats_cla...