The larger body of work here is called 'signaling theory' and you can see it apply equally between animal and human domains. Pineapples first started as honest signals because only the wealthy could afford them. But once people started renting pineapples they became a dishonest signal, until the economics finally made it crash into either a costly signal (you should know they're no longer in vogue) or a lack of information at all (today).
Not to discount your point, but there are a lot of very, very wealthy sneakerheads. It isn't low-income Americans that pick up 10k worth of limited designer run sneakers on launch day.
(Said as a fly fisherman)
Then I realised that just for one week a year!
Also, the statistics they provided suggest that each fish you caught would cost about the same as a cheap car.
You get folks who just do it as a hobby (because it's not that expensive), die hard folks who live it (but aren't that wealthy), plus ultra-wealthy folks (who are generally jealous of the former!). I think it's the peace and tranquillity that attracts.
Add to that, that at least in the US, Trout Unlimited is without a doubt the most politically-connected pure sportsperson lobbying organization.
What you described is also true for skiing, scuba diving, mountain diving and any number of other outdoor pursuits.
Fly fishing feels more like bird-watching to me though: in that it's relatively easy and cheap to do, but not a thing you would ever do accidentally.
[1] https://outdoorindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/2018-... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/376710/active-skiers-and... [3] https://www.dema.org/store/download.aspx?id=7811B097-8882-47... [4] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170315005391/en/Cam... [5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191240/participants-in-h...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47963208
NB Doesn't matter who owns it, we can still walk over it!
e.g.
What's the most efficient method of catching fish?
Explosives, hands down, by a wide margin. Most people aren't optimizing for pure efficiency though.
I do both: I trot bait when the river I fish is unsuitable for the fly.
Currently? Very large industrial fishing nets.
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/insight/understanding-bycatch...?
>Unwanted catch is an issue both ecologically and economically. Animals that are discarded often die and cannot reproduce, impacting marine ecosystems. Bycatch can slow the rebuilding of overfished stocks, and place protected species such as whales and sea turtles at further risk. Bycatch of species like corals and sponges can cause damage to protected corals and to important fish habitat.
I’m not sure this is limited to wealthy people. I see plenty of non-wealthy people taking 5-year car loans that they can’t afford in order to purchase a luxury car.
Pineapple as status symbol; car as status symbol.
It might just be a human trait not dependent on wealth, like ostentatious male peacocks showing off their plumage.
I think you mean 7-year car loans. Or a lease.
Have you heard of "luxury beliefs"? [1]
[1]: https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury-beliefs-are-the-latest-...
Wealthy people who want to signal wealth display conspicuously expensive things, which pineapples once were. That’s obvious enough. Luxury beliefs are about expressing class, which is distinct from wealth though somewhat correlated.
In fact, signaling wealth, or signaling it crudely enough, often signals lower class.
In my mind, they have yet to live down the "Headless body found in topless bar" front page article.
https://nypost.com/2015/06/09/new-york-post-editor-and-film-...
Absolutely agree with this. There are far better ways of flexing status on Earth than paying for a space trip.
Obligatory: "But you're leaving out women's historical involvement!"
"The Women of Fly Tying
OKAY BOYS, GET OVER IT: women have made some of the most important contributions in the fine art of fly tying.
By a Thread: A Retrospective on Women and Fly Tying (The Whitefish Press), by Erin Block, is a celebration of the critical impact women have made on tying flies. Erin includes the work and stories of Dame Juliana Berners, Mary Orvis Marbury, Elizabeth Greig, Winnie Dette, Mary Dette Clark, Elsie Darbee, Helen Shaw, Megan Boyd, and Frances Stearns, along with modern tiers Sharon E. Wright (Sharon is a regular contributor to Fly Tyer magazine), Cathy Beck, and April Vokey.
Do you like a good mystery? Erin solves one by uncovering what ever happened to Sara Jane McBride, the famed fly tier who was also America’s first entomological fly angler.
Erin’s flies have appeared in Fly Tyer magazine, and we will have fuller coverage of her new book in a future issue of our magazine. In the meantime, congratulations to Erin for making such an important contribution to the literature on fly tying!
To buy a copy of By a Thread: A Retrospective on Women and Fly Tying, go to www.whitefishpress.com."
Modern tiers are faced with a choice now that the birds that were rare then have become even rarer (or extinct): Tie with something else, or find a source of authentic feathers.
The segment was an interview with the author of The Feather Thief[0], who investigated the lengths one "enterprising" tier went to to acquire authentic feathers, destroying the historical scientific record for whole species in the process.
It seems insane that a fad of rich men from a long time ago becomes the obsession of a subculture of the larger fly tying community and that the result of that is a hole in the scientific record. It's enough to make you wish that folks would get obsessed with growing rare pineapples instead.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44153387-the-feather-thi...