Even after reading this post I still find it odd that the night club status racket functions. It sort of seems like everyone knows it’s not real status and it will collapse the second the money stops flowing, yet people (okay, in this case specifically rich men) are so desperate for social status that they’ll go to great lengths to buy just the simulation of social status to satisfy their desires. I wonder if this isn’t a legit time to appeal to simulacrum levels: the people pay to prop up the night club system are operating at level 3 or 4 and have lost all concern for 1 and 2.
I wouldn’t say it’s completely fake status as some of it can be converted into real status. For example, if you go to one of these ridiculously expensive clubs and you meet or even just see someone famous, then that gives you a story to tell. Also, if you heard that I’d been to one of these super expensive clubs you might be interested to know what it was like, plus the photos probably look pretty impressive on Instagram.
Seems like night club status works the same way that junk food or pornography do: you’re (often) not optimizing for status (or nutrition or sex) directly, instead part of your brain is optimizing for rewards that another part of your brain provides when it detects certain correlates of status (or nutrition or sex).
It reminds me of a statistic about binge drinking in college where most students said they personally didn’t enjoy binge drinking but if they did indulge it was only because they assumed everyone else enjoyed it (I think it’s called the bandwagon effect). So the rich men will continue to put on an outward display of happiness/satisfaction because it’s what they think their high status peers want and to mask the transactional nature.
I’m not convinced that they’ve lost all concern for levels 1 and 2, not if they truly believe the point of life is to maintain or accumulate wealth and win (or partake in) status competitions against other wealthy people. They achieve level 1 in their lives during the day and level 2 during such outings at night.
Even after reading this post I still find it odd that the night club status racket functions. It sort of seems like everyone knows it’s not real status and it will collapse the second the money stops flowing, yet people (okay, in this case specifically rich men) are so desperate for social status that they’ll go to great lengths to buy just the simulation of social status to satisfy their desires. I wonder if this isn’t a legit time to appeal to simulacrum levels: the people pay to prop up the night club system are operating at level 3 or 4 and have lost all concern for 1 and 2.
I wouldn’t say it’s completely fake status as some of it can be converted into real status. For example, if you go to one of these ridiculously expensive clubs and you meet or even just see someone famous, then that gives you a story to tell. Also, if you heard that I’d been to one of these super expensive clubs you might be interested to know what it was like, plus the photos probably look pretty impressive on Instagram.
Seems like night club status works the same way that junk food or pornography do: you’re (often) not optimizing for status (or nutrition or sex) directly, instead part of your brain is optimizing for rewards that another part of your brain provides when it detects certain correlates of status (or nutrition or sex).
It reminds me of a statistic about binge drinking in college where most students said they personally didn’t enjoy binge drinking but if they did indulge it was only because they assumed everyone else enjoyed it (I think it’s called the bandwagon effect). So the rich men will continue to put on an outward display of happiness/satisfaction because it’s what they think their high status peers want and to mask the transactional nature.
I’m not convinced that they’ve lost all concern for levels 1 and 2, not if they truly believe the point of life is to maintain or accumulate wealth and win (or partake in) status competitions against other wealthy people. They achieve level 1 in their lives during the day and level 2 during such outings at night.