I respect financial samurai a great deal and his posts give me a lot to think about, especially when I respectfully disagree with some of his points.
Some thoughts:
1)Life is hard and humans respond to that in a variety of ways, like desire for prestige. However prestige is one thing that can be given and received freely as well. Compliments are a great way to build a culture of cost-free prestige. It’s not always about climbing the stack rank.
2)
Consumption as prestige is a trap created by marketing, but at the same time a signal that works well in some cultures. Signaling you desire more let’s leaders know you are hungry to grow. You can think of this as unfortunate, but it’s very real.
3)
Sometimes it is just nice to have nice things.
I find the desire for external prestige dies when your internal sense of prestige grows. You see many wealthy people become unconcerned with showing off after achieving real goals in the world. That being said they still live in mansions and drive exotic vehicles.
Prestige is also "legible" in the sense introduced by "Seeing Like a State". It's valuable in eg. socially, if someone sees Harvard/Goldman, they can instantly bucket you in a particular social class, even if they're in a wildly different field and couldn't assess your actual merit. Whether you want to be perceived as a member of that particular social class is a mixed bag which I wont waste space on here, as if you're interested in reading more about it, I'd direct you to literally any issue of The New Yorker.
The article called it "cultural imprinting", but I've been calling it "prestige marketing" for decades. Humans seek prestige above all other things once their basic needs are met. Given alternatives, the choice will always be the option signaling to others the highest prestige the user can afford. And by "afford" I mean the combination of finances and social credit of the individual selecting between the options.
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