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Re:What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know not... by HardCodedBias on Sunday May 18, 2025 @03:39PM (#44023820)
Not to be trite, but signaling status is only complicated due to animals/humans making it complex. These are games and they are zero sum games.

We should strive to remove ourselves from these games as much as possible and not to lean into them as LVMH would like.

Rejecting such superficial signaling only enhances one's life, IMO.

Re:What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know not... by JohnBooty on Monday May 19, 2025 @12:16AM (#44026473)
I think status signaling is fascinating.

Veblen goods are the most simplistic and superficial form of intentional status signaling and yes, the world would be much better off without them.

Other kinds of status signaling are more interesting and more subtle. If I talk about my weekend softball team, I'm not doing it to impress anybody, but it unavoidably does convey some things about my status.

It tells you I almost certainly have a car, I have leisure time, people like me enough to at least tolerate me on their team, that I have a few hundred dollars to spend on gear/fees, and that I have some basic level of physical coordination/strength/ability. It also strongly hints that I grew up middle class or higher because those are the kids who were most likely taught to play baseball and continue with that as a leisure activity into adulthood.

Re:What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know not... by lotsofpulp on Monday May 19, 2025 @02:22AM (#44026947)
There are only 24 hours in a day. Signaling (or looking for others' signaling) is inevitable if one wants to curate their interactions. There are uncountable types of signaling, other than the LVMH style.

Not sure how any individual or society could function otherwise, due to the limits physics places upon us.