I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around.
I grew up in one of the last WASP strongholds in the US and the more money you had, the smaller the house you lived in (up to a point). People could afford insanely expensive cars, but would buy tasteful ones instead (excepting kids).
Most people wouldn't be caught dead in a Ralph Lauren polo, but would happily wear a bleach-stained, rumpled Brooks Brothers shirt. Outside of special occasions, people didn't dress nice at all - they dressed like they just came back from sailing.
Engineering, medicine, and law were not considered high-status. Well, if you wanted to work a job, I guess they were - but they were considered ordinary. It was better to own something (but not work), run a non-profit, or have a PhD (in the classics, or whatever). Most parents told their children "I don't care what you do - but do something interesting!". Being an artist was considered good, too.
Fame, and appearing in the media, were about the worst things you could achieve.
The biggest status indicator was how well read you were. It is so deeply ingrained in me, that I still find myself more impressed by well read people than almost anything else, and I haven't lived there in over a decade.
There are a couple of these strongholds remaining, where even the wealthiest people are not allowed to move to because they don't have the right last name, or can't trace their lineage to the Mayflower.
If you removed these people and put them anywhere else, you'd think of them as low status and strange.
> I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around.
This is counter-signalling. "I don't have to dress like a high-status individual, because I'm so high status that my high status is clear either way." It's why somewhat intelligent people use big words, but very intelligent people speak plainly: they are so intelligent their intelligence is clear even without the big words, and they want you to know that.
Intelligence is generally correlated with the size of their vocabulary thought.
This is obliviously just a rule of thumb but if you take a pool of 100 well spoken individuals and 100 ... Not well spoken and then give them all some kind of intelligence test, the first group will definitely score significantly higher then the latter.
Yes, I'm aware that non native speaker (I am one of these), but they'd be statistically irrelevant in the context of the general population
Maybe I need to stop using “tautological”, “orthogonal”, etc in my speech… they are so ingrained into me from academic settings but in hindsight and in a professional context there are definitely people politely nodding and either thinking “I’ll look that up later” - or more commonly they’ll know the words just fine and instead it’s “why not just say ‘obvious’ / ‘unrelated’ / etc”.
I like trying to be precise but I think it’s coming at the cost of actual understanding/conveying the wrong status-signal (I don’t want an elitist vibe at work either!)
That's old money. they have had money in their family so long, it is like the air. They display their status by rejecting conspicuous consumption in all but a few instances. The families tend to be extremely protective. In social settings the conversation can appear like active college professors debating, their educations being really what the spend their time honing.
It’s not just old money that this affects - I’ve noticed that new money, once it achieves a certain degree of security (i.e. enough that you don’t have to work, you won’t lose it or find your needs not met bar some catastrophic world-ending or life-ending circumstance), adopts much the same values. I’ve spent most of my life surrounded by wealth and privilege of various different flavours, and you can practically smell the haves and the have-nots - the latter tend to really care, and conspicuously so, about conventional status ladders. The former… give the appearance of not caring about status at all. It isn’t that they don’t, it’s just that they know they’re at the top of the economic tree, and don’t feel the need to compete in that dimension. The well-read/educated thing is more of a status derived from demonstrating how little you care about conventional status ladders, and the less you care, the higher your status, as if you care so little you must be very secure indeed.
I don't know, I don't think they would appear low status. Your whole description screams wealth and aristocracy, just not the in your face kind. They probably wouldn't be liked, but I doubt they would appear low status elsewhere.
Some people born with money don't like to think that the only thing that makes them special is the money they have, but didn't earn. Avoiding common endeavors, getting an engineering degree instead of being an artist or running a profitable company instead of a non-profit is a good way of not confronting the reality that in a competitive setting they would be crushed.
I know it's a generalization as there are plenty of hard working people born in wealthy families that take advantage of it, as they should, without deluding themselves.
Many homes are never sold, but are passed from one generation to the next. When homes are sold, they are first offered informally to other members of the community before being listed, so they are sold before ever being listed. If people locally have enough money (able to do an all-cash deal quickly) and if it's a nice enough place to live that local demand exceeds supply, the majority of homes might be sold without ever being listed.
If the home is listed, it is listed with one of a few local realtors, who can very subtly steer certain buyers towards and away from certain properties. Even if legal lines are crossed, it's very difficult to prove that laws were broken. It happens less often than it used to, but it still happens. US Senator Corey Booker has at various times shared this story about his family that sheds a bit of light on the phenomenon:
I'm reasonably sure the author is just making this up. As a US citizen you have wide discretion on where you live, even extending to several other small nations that have signed agreements with the US.
If you're renting or selling property, most of the discretion that used to be afforded to buyer's is now outlawed. But it would require someone willing to pursue a case if they felt they were not sold a home because of their race or whatever.
> people are not allowed to move to because they don't have the right last name, or can't trace their lineage to the Mayflower… If you removed these people and put them anywhere else, you'd think of them as low status and strange.
I’ve gotta say, an attitude that someone can’t be your neighbor because their ancestors didn’t have a ticket on some boat is definitely strange, and imo low status, no matter how well read they are.
> Choose money and you’ll end up working all the time. Choose beauty and you’ll always want to look better. Choose fame and you’ll constantly be seeking attention.
This is straight-up paraphrasing David Foster Wallace in This Is Water, just that DFW was talking about these things as de-facto personal religions that we're usually unconscious of. So the "choose" part isn't nearly that explicit in his view.
The bit in This Is Water:
> If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you... Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.
> Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.
I wonder if this is an explanation for impostor syndrome. Every time I read about it, it comes from people working in intellectual professions. Those people probably value their intellect a lot, possibly more than money, status or things like that. Thus their insecurities manifest themselves as impostor syndrome.
I think the impostor syndrome is more related to fear of failing the others trust, regardless of what field we have in mind.
Let's say your friends want you in their ... volleyball team. They think you're good.
And now you start worrying about making them disappointed.
Although you're the best they know, for real.
That'd be the impostor syndrome, but in this case unrelated to intelligence. Instead, a social thing, related to ... Fear of losing some of one's status? (Whatever that status is about.)
So don't be an idiot and "worship", be a rational balanced human and as the OP says diversify your interests. DFW tends to exaggerate to make his points, and this is an example. Nice prose, be it describes idiots and implies to the reader that everyone are such idiots.
DFW concluded that if you don’t choose what to worship it gets chosen for you. What he’s saying is that one should be conscious and deliberate, self aware. Like much of DFW there’s a strong christian undercurrent to ‘this is water’. Far from being an argument against religion and worship the message i take is that the value of religion can be that it focuses one outward, towards community and so on.
Not sure how this will sit with the HN crowd, but a couple of years back I got into menswear, and I derive some pleasure from being the "best dressed guy" at the office.
Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those categories, but bringing both together makes you stand out more.
I actually feel pressure to dress down in my role as a SWE: hoodies and jeans seem like the norm, and forget about wearing a suit (lol!) or even a dress shirt.
I've found black/grey turtlenecks to be a nice middle ground, and apart from the occasional "one more thing" (Steve Jobs) or Elizabeth Holmes comment, those tend to work well.
> I actually feel pressure to dress down in my role as a SWE: hoodies and jeans seem like the norm, and forget about wearing a suit (lol!) or even a dress shirt.
If Vint Cerf can wear a three-piece suit, so can you!
You can always go hipster. 'Finance-bro' well dressed may be harder to pull off in tech. But, 'thrift store cashier' well dressed is very doable. East-Asian fashionable is also totally fine.
Knitwear in general (sweatshirts, cardigans, sweaters, even t-shirts) is a good fit for the tech office because it is the quintessential casual-yet-refined garment. I've experimented with different types.
Dark jeans can be fairly dressed up, but chinos are also a good option.
This is quite common for women in tech (particularly engineering), I've heard. If you look "too attractive" as a female engineer, you'd more likely not be taken seriously, not to mention attract unwanted attention by being a woman in a male-dominated field.
At the end of the day, every group of people -- all the way from ethno-national levels to your particular niche in industry -- have their social signalling implements, and clothing/appearance happens to be a very common implement.
Well the flip side is that when we want to dress nice, it's because we like to be dandy going to a concert, and aren't trying to compete with coworkers or anyone else.
My career advice to nearly everyone starting out these days is to bring different professional interests together if they have more than one.
There's thousands of specialists in most fields, but not nearly as many generalists or people who can walk in two interconnected worlds.
Finding a niche can be very valuable to oneself and others.
One way to carve that out is by going deeper than one's peers in a specialization, but another (sometimes more often overlooked) way is bridging the gap between two different ones.
"There's thousands of specialists in most fields, but not nearly as many generalists or people who can walk in two interconnected worlds."
Ugh, my advice is the opposite. You'll never really fit in if you're in two worlds. Most places don't want generalists. They want specialists who can crank out code quickly without asking too many questions.
In my experience, if you have too much business acumen, you end up asking questions that the business people can't answer, or don't want to answer. Things about business process flow, legal review, corporate strategy, and general process efficiency/improvement. Then they hate you for it, or at least think you're too "head in the clouds".
I have a fair chunk of knowledge in many diverse domains. Besides people occasionally finding one interesting (like people at work finding it interesting that I forage for mushrooms), they don't benefit me at all. In fact, I believe it hurts me (career wise).
I'm at the point where people (managers mostly) are starting to view me negatively. "What's this guy doing as a midlevel after 10 years here and a masters degree?", type of stuff.
As someone who has been trying to convince hiring managers of this very thing (dual major in electrical and mechanical engineering) it's harder than it sounds to find a job that crosses the bridges. Just my two cents.
Please readers following this advice: make one of those multiple professional interests you cultivate be better communication skills and public speaking. The number of developers that can only explain weakly, or one way, or get confrontational when questioned is far far too many. Learn how to communicate and doors open, as far too many developers simply cannot explain to others such that they can then duplicate or follow or want to.
Worked with a guy who wore a suit to the office as a 2-year experience dev and he was always taken into client meetings last minute when they needed someone. Helped his career a fair bit I think!
Opposite here. My office had people wearing dress pants and dress or polo shirts. I decided to add a tie. I was taken aside and told not to do that since it made me seem out of touch with the culture. Seemed like a pretty small step up from the based line to me. So much for dress for the job you want, or next job up BS...
I go with a " spezzato", which is pants and blazer of different fabric and/or color. Less formal than a suit and allows for more creativity. Neapolitan blazers look especially good on fit people. If tailored or made to measure, don't forget to unbutton the last button on the sleeve, a top player move.
Most, if not all, of my colleagues dress in sweatshirts and ill-fitting jeans. I'm sure some of them see me as "eccentric" or "aloof" or someone who wants to stand out. And they would be right (not aloof though).
I have observed multiple times if I 'suit up' at work it's like I'm wearing a shield, it's a strange game. It has to be a good suit though, naturally enough.
Edit: this is when dealing with the business folk that is, techies don't care.
How did you get started? I've never been able to figure out how to break into wearing nice clothes that mesh well with my age. I have tried the typical fashion-in-a-box things, but the clothes always seem (to me) to skew too young. I don't want to be a well-dressed college kid or entry-level professional...
Find good lookbooks to derive a sense of good fit and what range of styles exist, how you personally like them, and how the fit in different social contexts. The Permanent Style blog has a bunch on this; the Sartorialist has pictures from a very broad range of styles.
Peruse clothing from high-quality shops and try out a _lot_ of things to get a feel for how clothes fit you and what fabrics you like. Clothing look good because it fits you and goes well with your style and palette and makes you feel comfortable. You'll likely find soon enough that expensive clothes are generally expensive for good reason.
Find a good tailor (or a couple) and develop a simple wardrobe that can be combined easily. From then on be willing to experiment a bit and spend some money trying out a few things a bit further outside your comfort zone.
Sometimes you see articles like this that insist that you have to play a status game of some kind etc etc. The hacker in me sees that as even more reason to look for examples of ways alleviate myself of such nonsense.
If you read books like "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" you run across stories of him playing with Status games and poking fun at them. Though I'm sure one could argue Feynman had status games he played in his own way.
In any case thats always the attitude I've preferred to take towards status. I just don't know how anyone can take themselves so seriously in a world where the highest paid and smartest among us wear rainbow hats with propellers.
Don't take life so seriously and goof around a little more. Thats how you turn up interesting ideas anyway, not by playing status games.
Somewhat ironically, refusing to acknowledge or honor conventional status games is itself a status increasing play among hackers, which invalidates the spirit of the advice if not the advice itself! This is also probably terrible advice for a different milieu.
As you get older, you find that the active refusal of status games as a countercultural ploy just gets tired and makes you seen a someone hard to deal with. Learn to dress well and talk well to play the game, then be able to revert to your own self with no shame.
Feynman's secret is that he was a legitimate super-genius with the charisma of a normal guy who happened to luck into all his achievements. In reality it couldn't be farther from the truth, but there's nothing more appealing to an average person than an exceptional person who gives the impression that being like him is achievable.
This is a very interesting comment. At first I found myself in strong agreement with GP (believing people chasing status are probably misguided), but after reading your comment I realized that it might have to do with my current status (independently wealthy in a first world country).
In places like China or India, there is indeed a very big difference in QoL between those who have status and/or social power and those who do not.
That being said, it might be better to change your environment (and the people who you surround yourself with), because that will change your status as TFA outlines — without you having to go out of your way to change who you are and what you do.
Easier said than done when this involves changing countries, but it's a long-term strat.
IMO the point of the article is you're playing a status game either way.
> the highest paid and smartest among us wear rainbow hats with propellers.
It works because they enjoy status from performance and accomplishments. Also suiting up often becomes a negative sign in our circles, and getting away with rough presentation can be a sign of status.
Dressing down and/or breaking social norms is another type of status flex - it's because you're a high paid engineer working at a top tech company that you can more or less do whatever you want in a way a more typical employee couldn't, or couldn't without being taken seriously.
I agree. I can understand that the article is focused on pointing out that everyone seems status in some way or another, but I think it is fair to say that somethings shouldn’t really be considered status. Working for money, fame, influence. Those are pursuits some people have no interest in, I don’t think it’s fair to say someone who cares about their family, or hanging out with friends view those activities with the same lust people chasing money, power, etc, do. Maybe there is more to be said about how individuals view their “status” pursuits then labeling everyone as animals pursuing status.
Would you call such a thing a status symbol? Something glorified in certain circles and disregarded in others?
The author clearly explained that removing yourself from status games just ends up putting you in a different status game (his metalhead days).
The reality is that you have many statuses irrespective of whether you want it or not merely as a function of being in a group. I suppose by not being in any groups you would accrue status among people that value that too.
Status usually represents having done some social good. The more good you do, the higher your status. If you look at it as a measure of how much good a person has done, then it might not seem so contemptable. Who did more good for more people - a hermit or Bill Gates?
> Status usually represents having done some social good.
For whatever value of "good" applies in that particular social network, yes. But that value of "good" might not be anything we would call "good" in ordinary language.
For example, Bill Gates does have high status, but he has it because he is rich, not because of the particular things he did that made him rich. Those things happened to be reasonably beneficial (how much so depends on your opinion of Windows and Microsoft, and opinions on that can...vary), but many other rich people got that way by doing things that were not. Yet they still get status according to their wealth.
No way. Status is a proxy for access to resources. It has NOTHING to do with doing good by it’s nature. The doing good thing is a VERY recent phenomenon (like within living memory).
For sure. But have you worked at any non-profits? Most of the folks I know who do have a hard time, to put it mildly.
I've done my share of social-good tech companies, as well as engineer's dream-job stuff. After reflecting on this article, I realized that:
1. I finally enjoy my tech job after I stopped chasing the status game in tech.
2. I finally enjoy my hobbies after I stopped chasing the status game in those hobbies too!
I wish things were different on the social-good front. I just try to do good whenever I can in the regular day-to-day world, plus some donations here and there.
"status games" might be in the same class of things as "don't think about x". Even by not playing... You're just playing on a different level (lower or higher).
Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc...
Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves?
There's a minority of people who go by their own compass. The things that gratify status seekers don't do it for them. That's not to say they don't have needs. They need friends, stimulation, hobbies, achievements. But they recognize it as a personal thing.
There's also people who are so far down the status chain that they don't relate to it any more, and have stopped trying.
I view the reliance upon the idea of status as a low-status activity. Low status or high status only emanate when you're playing the status game, but it's not a game that you necessarily need to play.
And if you're not playing the game, low-status or high-status doesn't matter; they're just different colors.
> Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves?
Just because a person isn't outwardly status-seeking doesn't mean they don't display anything about themselves. They may seem like they don't care what anyone thinks about them, but if everyone thought they were a pedophile, they would hate it, regardless of the legal ramifications. It's human nature to care about what others think about us. We all 'display' in some sense or another, whether it's how we dress, what we accomplish or how we want others to perceive us. Humans are extremely social creatures.
My face when I realized that a combover, power tie, fake tan, and trophy wife is really all it takes to sell a median person on it (oh, and millions of dollars).
The parent comment hints at another interpretation of status, which is also used in improv. The status you “play” in your interaction with others, which can be different from your social status (https://www.respect4acting.com/status1.html)
This kind of status is much more dynamic and it’s also something you can choose to give or take, balance or clutch (although the latter might end up having the opposite effect).
It’s more uplifting to me to think of a “status game” this way. It’s a bit of a competition but we’re also the judges. Status doesn’t just manifest, it has to be granted by someone who is also playing the game.
The second one, but this is a false dichotomy. If you are smart, educated, wealthy, or have a prestigious job you have claim to high status, no matter how humble or boastful you are about it. If you don't, you are faking it until (and if) you make it.
True status doesn't rely on how much you flaunt it.
This is the problem with the dreaded humblebrag - it's usually when people try to combine the two - complain about their expensive vacations, how much their dream job sucks etc. - they try to appear down to earth while at the same time rubbing in others' faces how much better they are.
On the other hand, if you don't signal your intelligence and connections, how is anyone supposed to know they can depend on your intelligence and connections? There's definitely a balance.
Instead, they can even come to think about you as incompetent and delusional, if you're, say, creating a startup, building tech, seemingly making no progress.
These groups are not mutually exclusive. Is the wealthy person an asshole? Is the upbeat person poor? How poor? How much of an asshole? It's a silly example.
> I know some of you will say “Just ignore the status game altogether,” but this is easier said than done. Like many other animals, we are biologically wired to respond to status. Ignorance is not the way out.
It's not ignorance to overcome our biology. It is possible to control our desire for status and to live better lives and be happier as a result.
Also different cultures are much more competitive about status: America is pretty extreme in this respect.
I always find that people who claim that they or a geography have fewer/no status sports are only referring to the “popular” games. There is always an alternative game.
People in Europe claim it. I have lived in Africa, Europe, US and the Middle East. The only difference I saw is the type of games people generally engage in.
Geeks claim it, because they don’t engage in the typical meat world status game. But again, we just usually play a different game.
This is a narrow view of status. In many ways, any type of validation you get from working with others can be considered status. Most animals achieve status through physical aggression, while humans (and chimps) achieve status through cooperation and contributing to the group. Our minds are wired to get pleasure from working with others and being validated and appreciated for our work. That is part of status. If you enjoy doing the work you do and it makes you happy, that's because your brain is wired for status. Nothing wrong with it. There are of course negative sides of status like conspicuous consumption, social media addiction, etc. But just because you learn to avoid the pitfalls of status doesn't mean you aren't playing the game.
I have come to read any statement like "we are biologically wired to X" as a declaration of nihilism and misanthropy. Wired is what a light bulb is to a switch. Individual humans are complex, beautiful and capable of overcoming pretty much anything, including biological tendencies.
Blank slatism and the ignorance of human nature has done far more harm for humans than those who acknowledge that our brains haven’t evolved much since our days as foraging tribes.
It's a false dichotomy. There is a lot of space between 'clout whore' and 'rugged contrarian' and you don't have to commit your life to either. People who aren't trying to dominate in some status jockeying game aren't ignorant.
this reminded me of the "This is Water" commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. Key graf:
"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."
That's making the broad assumption that religion won't "eat you alive".
My personal experience deeply contradicts that.
My perspective is that atheism is not a lack of worship, but a lack of faith.
Faith requires you suspend critical thinking on a predetermined set of claims. Atheism, to me, is the rejection of faith; to direct critical thought to all claims.
Taking that to its conclusion, I worship critical thinking. I can't think of a better way to avoid being eaten.
The devils greatest achievement is taking God's one true gift, our rational mind, and convincing people they need to use faith, a direct rejection of our rational capabilities, do be close to God. So beautiful in its sublime deception. So powerful, it insidiously destroys the most intelligent minds.
Yeah, this part of TFA sounded like it might almost be a reference to the DFW speech:
> This is why you have to choose your status game wisely. Because whatever status game you choose in life ultimately determines what you optimize for. Choose money and you’ll end up working all the time. Choose beauty and you’ll always want to look better. Choose fame and you’ll constantly be seeking attention.
Wallace offered an appropriate antidote to a model for entrepreneurial motivation that aspires to make enough money to do whatever you want. He outlines some of the risks in failing to align your life with a higher spiritual purpose.
(Saint) Thomas Aquinas several hundred years considered the main Earthly goods that many people hold up as the Highest Good as: wealth, honour, glory/fame, power, pleasure.
Ah yes, the long history of religious worship definitely having no negative consequences whatsoever to individuals, their communities and wider geopolitics.
No one ever has been sacrificed or convinced they just sacrifice in the name of their god. Never.
Wallace also offers "an infrangible set of ethical principles" as an option. His point is to avoid feeding your ego. Which is the same point that Maggiulli is making.
The thing I do is I keep many social circles. Family groups, friends from different language groups, work groups, educational groups, interest groups, kids' friends' parents, and so on.
That way there's really no hierarchy, it's like being a contractor at a business or an acquaintance at a party. People will still find you interesting but not threatening. Weirdly they also find you familiar despite you not being there all the time. I guess it's decreasing marginal returns.
If you have some time to waste, look at one of those Real Housewives of X shows. They love having rivalries, but they're only fighting each other because it's such a closed group.
Having lots of groups also lets you take off some of the intensity of your relationships. You don't have a sole provider of entertainment or warmth or intellectual stimulation, so you don't have to do everything their way. You can take a break from any particular person. And you get a lot of invitations.
I'm even a bit suspicious of people who seem to have exactly one group of friends that they're always with and have always been in. Often I find there's some sort of blockage there in their maturation, making it hard for them to communicate.
Interestingly, I kind of do the opposite. I have one tiny social circle, basically my immediate family (wife and two kids). I work to make money, then spend that money on my family and my hobbies, which are all solo endeavors. I don’t socialize outside of that, really. I play video games once a week with my high school friends online.
My hobbies aren’t involved in my status because I don’t really talk to anyone about them. I build things for myself, I create things that I never show anyone, just because I enjoy doing it. I play with my kids, and talk with my wife. Don’t really have a desire to do much else.
I'm a huge fan of the Real Housewives of X for two reasons - first, like you say, they're fantastic petri dishes of relationships and status games.
But even beyond intellectual curiosity, they also give you a useful topic of conversation when you take your advice and socialize beyond the Hacker News / Silicon Valley bubble.
Readit News
I grew up in one of the last WASP strongholds in the US and the more money you had, the smaller the house you lived in (up to a point). People could afford insanely expensive cars, but would buy tasteful ones instead (excepting kids).
Most people wouldn't be caught dead in a Ralph Lauren polo, but would happily wear a bleach-stained, rumpled Brooks Brothers shirt. Outside of special occasions, people didn't dress nice at all - they dressed like they just came back from sailing.
Engineering, medicine, and law were not considered high-status. Well, if you wanted to work a job, I guess they were - but they were considered ordinary. It was better to own something (but not work), run a non-profit, or have a PhD (in the classics, or whatever). Most parents told their children "I don't care what you do - but do something interesting!". Being an artist was considered good, too.
Fame, and appearing in the media, were about the worst things you could achieve.
The biggest status indicator was how well read you were. It is so deeply ingrained in me, that I still find myself more impressed by well read people than almost anything else, and I haven't lived there in over a decade.
There are a couple of these strongholds remaining, where even the wealthiest people are not allowed to move to because they don't have the right last name, or can't trace their lineage to the Mayflower.
If you removed these people and put them anywhere else, you'd think of them as low status and strange.
This is counter-signalling. "I don't have to dress like a high-status individual, because I'm so high status that my high status is clear either way." It's why somewhat intelligent people use big words, but very intelligent people speak plainly: they are so intelligent their intelligence is clear even without the big words, and they want you to know that.
This is obliviously just a rule of thumb but if you take a pool of 100 well spoken individuals and 100 ... Not well spoken and then give them all some kind of intelligence test, the first group will definitely score significantly higher then the latter.
Yes, I'm aware that non native speaker (I am one of these), but they'd be statistically irrelevant in the context of the general population
I like trying to be precise but I think it’s coming at the cost of actual understanding/conveying the wrong status-signal (I don’t want an elitist vibe at work either!)
What are some big words? I'm not a native speaker
But just for a short while, maybe they'd give an unusual impression?
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How is this carried out in practice?
If the home is listed, it is listed with one of a few local realtors, who can very subtly steer certain buyers towards and away from certain properties. Even if legal lines are crossed, it's very difficult to prove that laws were broken. It happens less often than it used to, but it still happens. US Senator Corey Booker has at various times shared this story about his family that sheds a bit of light on the phenomenon:
https://www.facebook.com/corybooker/photos/id-like-to-share-...
If you're renting or selling property, most of the discretion that used to be afforded to buyer's is now outlawed. But it would require someone willing to pursue a case if they felt they were not sold a home because of their race or whatever.
I’ve gotta say, an attitude that someone can’t be your neighbor because their ancestors didn’t have a ticket on some boat is definitely strange, and imo low status, no matter how well read they are.
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This is straight-up paraphrasing David Foster Wallace in This Is Water, just that DFW was talking about these things as de-facto personal religions that we're usually unconscious of. So the "choose" part isn't nearly that explicit in his view.
The bit in This Is Water:
> If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you... Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.
I wonder if this is an explanation for impostor syndrome. Every time I read about it, it comes from people working in intellectual professions. Those people probably value their intellect a lot, possibly more than money, status or things like that. Thus their insecurities manifest themselves as impostor syndrome.
I think the impostor syndrome is more related to fear of failing the others trust, regardless of what field we have in mind.
Let's say your friends want you in their ... volleyball team. They think you're good.
And now you start worrying about making them disappointed.
Although you're the best they know, for real.
That'd be the impostor syndrome, but in this case unrelated to intelligence. Instead, a social thing, related to ... Fear of losing some of one's status? (Whatever that status is about.)
Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those categories, but bringing both together makes you stand out more.
I've found black/grey turtlenecks to be a nice middle ground, and apart from the occasional "one more thing" (Steve Jobs) or Elizabeth Holmes comment, those tend to work well.
If Vint Cerf can wear a three-piece suit, so can you!
:)
I feel like if I wore that to a software engineering interview I’d run the risk of being judged as just not really getting the culture.
Jobs bought lots of them for everyone at Apple to wear, nobody accepted, and he kept them for himself.
Dark jeans can be fairly dressed up, but chinos are also a good option.
At the end of the day, every group of people -- all the way from ethno-national levels to your particular niche in industry -- have their social signalling implements, and clothing/appearance happens to be a very common implement.
There's thousands of specialists in most fields, but not nearly as many generalists or people who can walk in two interconnected worlds.
Finding a niche can be very valuable to oneself and others.
One way to carve that out is by going deeper than one's peers in a specialization, but another (sometimes more often overlooked) way is bridging the gap between two different ones.
Ugh, my advice is the opposite. You'll never really fit in if you're in two worlds. Most places don't want generalists. They want specialists who can crank out code quickly without asking too many questions.
In my experience, if you have too much business acumen, you end up asking questions that the business people can't answer, or don't want to answer. Things about business process flow, legal review, corporate strategy, and general process efficiency/improvement. Then they hate you for it, or at least think you're too "head in the clouds".
I have a fair chunk of knowledge in many diverse domains. Besides people occasionally finding one interesting (like people at work finding it interesting that I forage for mushrooms), they don't benefit me at all. In fact, I believe it hurts me (career wise).
I'm at the point where people (managers mostly) are starting to view me negatively. "What's this guy doing as a midlevel after 10 years here and a masters degree?", type of stuff.
What's a typical outfit look like for you? Do you have a "uniform"?
Hoodie under a suit jacket.
1960s programmers : white shirt, black tie With yeezyz.
Edit: this is when dealing with the business folk that is, techies don't care.
If they want to keep you, you'll get a raise.
You'll probably also want to make sure your Linked In profile has been updated recently.
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Peruse clothing from high-quality shops and try out a _lot_ of things to get a feel for how clothes fit you and what fabrics you like. Clothing look good because it fits you and goes well with your style and palette and makes you feel comfortable. You'll likely find soon enough that expensive clothes are generally expensive for good reason.
Find a good tailor (or a couple) and develop a simple wardrobe that can be combined easily. From then on be willing to experiment a bit and spend some money trying out a few things a bit further outside your comfort zone.
If you read books like "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" you run across stories of him playing with Status games and poking fun at them. Though I'm sure one could argue Feynman had status games he played in his own way.
In any case thats always the attitude I've preferred to take towards status. I just don't know how anyone can take themselves so seriously in a world where the highest paid and smartest among us wear rainbow hats with propellers.
Don't take life so seriously and goof around a little more. Thats how you turn up interesting ideas anyway, not by playing status games.
But I’m sure he secretly enjoyed the praise somewhat.
Reading your comment, it sounds like you've got a decent amount of social status without needing to explicitly pursue it.
While that's great for you, don't forget that for others, increased status can mean:
- No longer being treated like shit by people who get away with it
- A social circle that doesn't constantly try to take advantage of you
- Security in your job, as well as greater opportunities for promotion
- Positive attention from the opposite sex
- Peer acceptance for your children
In places like China or India, there is indeed a very big difference in QoL between those who have status and/or social power and those who do not.
That being said, it might be better to change your environment (and the people who you surround yourself with), because that will change your status as TFA outlines — without you having to go out of your way to change who you are and what you do.
Easier said than done when this involves changing countries, but it's a long-term strat.
> the highest paid and smartest among us wear rainbow hats with propellers.
It works because they enjoy status from performance and accomplishments. Also suiting up often becomes a negative sign in our circles, and getting away with rough presentation can be a sign of status.
Would you call such a thing a status symbol? Something glorified in certain circles and disregarded in others?
The author clearly explained that removing yourself from status games just ends up putting you in a different status game (his metalhead days).
The reality is that you have many statuses irrespective of whether you want it or not merely as a function of being in a group. I suppose by not being in any groups you would accrue status among people that value that too.
For whatever value of "good" applies in that particular social network, yes. But that value of "good" might not be anything we would call "good" in ordinary language.
For example, Bill Gates does have high status, but he has it because he is rich, not because of the particular things he did that made him rich. Those things happened to be reasonably beneficial (how much so depends on your opinion of Windows and Microsoft, and opinions on that can...vary), but many other rich people got that way by doing things that were not. Yet they still get status according to their wealth.
I've done my share of social-good tech companies, as well as engineer's dream-job stuff. After reflecting on this article, I realized that:
1. I finally enjoy my tech job after I stopped chasing the status game in tech.
2. I finally enjoy my hobbies after I stopped chasing the status game in those hobbies too!
I wish things were different on the social-good front. I just try to do good whenever I can in the regular day-to-day world, plus some donations here and there.
Are you sure about this though? It seems like you are referring to a bunch of Software Engineers. That's nowhere near wealthiest.
Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc...
Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves?
There's a minority of people who go by their own compass. The things that gratify status seekers don't do it for them. That's not to say they don't have needs. They need friends, stimulation, hobbies, achievements. But they recognize it as a personal thing.
There's also people who are so far down the status chain that they don't relate to it any more, and have stopped trying.
People I know who actually go by their own compass are seen as weird and don't have much status.
People I know who have cultivated a person of someone who goes by their own compass do tend to have a lot of status.
And if you're not playing the game, low-status or high-status doesn't matter; they're just different colors.
Nothing wrong with playing the game either.
Just because a person isn't outwardly status-seeking doesn't mean they don't display anything about themselves. They may seem like they don't care what anyone thinks about them, but if everyone thought they were a pedophile, they would hate it, regardless of the legal ramifications. It's human nature to care about what others think about us. We all 'display' in some sense or another, whether it's how we dress, what we accomplish or how we want others to perceive us. Humans are extremely social creatures.
> Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc...
> Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves?
The first one. It's the first one.
This kind of status is much more dynamic and it’s also something you can choose to give or take, balance or clutch (although the latter might end up having the opposite effect).
It’s more uplifting to me to think of a “status game” this way. It’s a bit of a competition but we’re also the judges. Status doesn’t just manifest, it has to be granted by someone who is also playing the game.
True status doesn't rely on how much you flaunt it.
This is the problem with the dreaded humblebrag - it's usually when people try to combine the two - complain about their expensive vacations, how much their dream job sucks etc. - they try to appear down to earth while at the same time rubbing in others' faces how much better they are.
> Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves?
It's the one who can run the faster mile, if you ask the people at my running club.
It's not ignorance to overcome our biology. It is possible to control our desire for status and to live better lives and be happier as a result.
Also different cultures are much more competitive about status: America is pretty extreme in this respect.
People in Europe claim it. I have lived in Africa, Europe, US and the Middle East. The only difference I saw is the type of games people generally engage in.
Geeks claim it, because they don’t engage in the typical meat world status game. But again, we just usually play a different game.
…
And if none of the games are for you, dear reader, perhaps invent your own game.
This is a narrow view of status. In many ways, any type of validation you get from working with others can be considered status. Most animals achieve status through physical aggression, while humans (and chimps) achieve status through cooperation and contributing to the group. Our minds are wired to get pleasure from working with others and being validated and appreciated for our work. That is part of status. If you enjoy doing the work you do and it makes you happy, that's because your brain is wired for status. Nothing wrong with it. There are of course negative sides of status like conspicuous consumption, social media addiction, etc. But just because you learn to avoid the pitfalls of status doesn't mean you aren't playing the game.
lol this is a good one. might have to steal it ;)
Among the better ways to "win" this game is to seek status in the metaphysical. In a way, this is "winning" through "not playing".
By some measures, I'm doing OK at it, if money is the scoring basis.
OTOH, I've lived with the same house/car/wardrobe for a couple of decades.
Do these oligarchs/celebrities really have more joy than I?
Maybe.
"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."
Full talk available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMIhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.htmlhttps://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
My personal experience deeply contradicts that.
My perspective is that atheism is not a lack of worship, but a lack of faith.
Faith requires you suspend critical thinking on a predetermined set of claims. Atheism, to me, is the rejection of faith; to direct critical thought to all claims.
Taking that to its conclusion, I worship critical thinking. I can't think of a better way to avoid being eaten.
Can you define what you mean by "faith"?
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z4wKCsD59Q
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_4PSgFjtvI
> Faith requires you suspend critical thinking on a predetermined set of claims.
People like Thomas Aquinas would disagree.
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6963088-aquinas
* https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/07/first-way-some-backgrou...
> This is why you have to choose your status game wisely. Because whatever status game you choose in life ultimately determines what you optimize for. Choose money and you’ll end up working all the time. Choose beauty and you’ll always want to look better. Choose fame and you’ll constantly be seeking attention.
Alex Hardy commented two days ago https://twitter.com/CantHardyWait/status/1508789463664709646 “There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”
I did not see this when I left my comment here. But Maggiulli responded https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/150881548046684979... DFW is a major influence [I am inferring DFW = David Foster Wallace].
Bryce Thornton https://twitter.com/brycethornton/status/1508788922624716802 pointed to the YouTube video and Maggiulli replied https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/150881551953269966... "It's so good"
I would have thought he would have done more to credit Wallace as an influence.
I had blogged about the Foster commencement speech at https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2012/05/27/david-foster-wallac... which is why I saw the resonance.
Wallace offered an appropriate antidote to a model for entrepreneurial motivation that aspires to make enough money to do whatever you want. He outlines some of the risks in failing to align your life with a higher spiritual purpose.
If you want to see what someone values, look at where they spend their time, money, resources, etc.
* https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm
See also Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
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No one ever has been sacrificed or convinced they just sacrifice in the name of their god. Never.
That way there's really no hierarchy, it's like being a contractor at a business or an acquaintance at a party. People will still find you interesting but not threatening. Weirdly they also find you familiar despite you not being there all the time. I guess it's decreasing marginal returns.
If you have some time to waste, look at one of those Real Housewives of X shows. They love having rivalries, but they're only fighting each other because it's such a closed group.
Having lots of groups also lets you take off some of the intensity of your relationships. You don't have a sole provider of entertainment or warmth or intellectual stimulation, so you don't have to do everything their way. You can take a break from any particular person. And you get a lot of invitations.
I'm even a bit suspicious of people who seem to have exactly one group of friends that they're always with and have always been in. Often I find there's some sort of blockage there in their maturation, making it hard for them to communicate.
My hobbies aren’t involved in my status because I don’t really talk to anyone about them. I build things for myself, I create things that I never show anyone, just because I enjoy doing it. I play with my kids, and talk with my wife. Don’t really have a desire to do much else.
But even beyond intellectual curiosity, they also give you a useful topic of conversation when you take your advice and socialize beyond the Hacker News / Silicon Valley bubble.
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