> Yep, it's a whole class of equating X thing with being "virtuous" (or similar). Your height, your sex, your weight, your hairline, your income/savings, etc. It's uncomfortable to talk about or admit but people regularly take controllable (or uncontrollable) traits and assign value to them even though it doesn't have any actual bearing.

Reality can be hallucinated in either direction.

What it actually "is" here, is unknown. But the mind seems to abhor a vacuum so secretly fills it with simulated data. Presumably this had some historic evolutionary benefit, but whether it is still a benefit in 2022 seems questionable.