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Comment by leelin | Hacker News Reader

My undergrad was a super nerdy school grinding largely solo in the CS lab. Later I did an MBA program to take me completely out of my comfort zone.

I gravitated to those who were chill, and perplexed anyone who tried to play the Status Game by losing on purpose. If it was the chess equivalent, I fall into Fool's Mate on move 2.

Unfortunately, there ARE times when it helps to be able to quickly convey to new acquaintances that you are legitimate and worthwhile for further collaboration. But most of the time, best to turn it off.

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From the article:

> It is much easier to mock others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game than to acknowledge one is doing it.

If you think that playing 'to lose' is somehow opting out then you're fooling yourself. The point us that we are always playing.

nah, people like us just value different things.

I can tell you I grew up extremely poor, to the point of homelessness, and if you think for a second I give a shit what bob thinks of me, you're wrong. Those sorts of experiences give you a different perspective. It's one of the major reasons why I've situated my life in such a way that these same people's disapproval isn't going to affect me. In fact, I had a company inadvertently learn that lesson late last year, and it hurt them way more than it hurt me. They made the mistake of evaluating my worth by how I play that game.

We all value different things, but we all have the same core needs that make us value security. Food, water, shelter. In my head right now I cant think of one status signifier that doesn't also signify security. Gold toilets included.

absolutely not. You do not need to display security to have it, that's a large part of what I meant when I said people like us value different things.

https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Amer...

Well none of us have eternal security. Money is just a buffer. Network is a part of it. Health is apart of it. Education is a part of it. Network and health and education are hide things to hide when living your life, but they are signals of security and that one can afford to invest time, effort and money into them.

If you met these millionaires next door, they signal this security in many different ways outside of material wealth.

please stop moving the goalpost. I stated that people like us value different things, and that remains true whether or not you want to argue that people who don't display the typical social status behavior do display behaviors of some sort (of course, but it's not interesting).

> I gravitated to those who were chill, and perplexed anyone who tried to play the Status Game by losing on purpose.

I think this is also a sort of power play, but also an amusing one that I too enjoy - e.g., it's quite fun, when questioned about what I do by someone who obviously cares about social status, to not mention my well-paid job working at a FANG company but instead talk about working as a dance teacher.

Reminds me of how in high school, there are kids that are smart and want to show it off (raise their hands, answer teacher's questions), and there are those that are on the "next level" -- they don't even need to prove to everyone else that they know the answers, so they never raise their hands.

In personal conversations some are eager to share that they are doing something amazing, but those on the "next level" don't try to impress the others :P

lol. This comment is total projection

Yes, there has been some study of this phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersignaling

> there ARE times when it helps to be able to quickly convey to new acquaintances that you are legitimate

There was a thread on HN about shibboleths. It was kicked off by someone who pointed out that tech support took them seriously and skipped the basic "have you tried turning it off and on" steps when they saw XCode was installed.

https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1201003855770607618

That's a great way of describing it. I'm a lets focus in what matters style of worker, with status bit flips only when facing clients (the degree of bit flio is so drastic that it catches colleagues off guard).

Possibly related: Key & Peele "Code Switching"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXH5CD3O7Oc

Wikipedia: "In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation."

So you have a CS degree and an MBA... ;)

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