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Comment by benhoyt | Hacker News Reader

I was interested to see the section, "A lawyer's physical attractiveness" -- it reminded me of a few years ago when my wife was supporting a friend during a messy divorce by being present in court with her. Both parties' lawyers were women, but the husband (who had a lot more money) had hired a very sharp, very expensive, dressed-to-the-nines Manhattan lawyer. But the wife's lawyer was a relatively inexpensive lawyer from Long Island, comparatively unattractive and frumpily dressed. Obviously it helped that the Manhattan lawyer was very quick on her feet, but my wife commented at the time that "even from the way she was dressed, the Long Island lawyer didn't have a chance". It makes me sad how much of an influence money and appearances are in the justice system. Maybe all the lawyers and jurors should be literally blindfolded, like Lady Justice.

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> Obviously it helped that the Manhattan lawyer was very quick on her feet, but my wife commented at the time that "even from the way she was dressed, the Long Island lawyer didn't have a chance".

This is one of those veeery subtle class things. People don't realise how much they signal to establishment institutions that they don't belong through through things like how they dress. And because they don't realise it they don't even know they're being disadvantaged.

I've seen people turn up to social events with what is very clearly to an insider the 'wrong type' of suit (wrong fabric, wrong cut, buttoned incorrectly, wrong shirt, wrong tie, wrong type of shoes), with people silently judging them, but they would have absolutely no idea how much they stand out and how they're being disadvantaged by it.

Hard to tackle because it's all silent, the victims are oblivious, and there's not really any concrete action you can point to and criticise.

This happens in all human tribes to different extents

If you try to fit in as just another member of the group then you need to pick up on the group norms, but I fell like people react positively when you pull off something well.

Indeed. I always remember that when GW Bush nominated Harriet Meyers to the Supreme Court, there was quite a bit of sniggering in the media about how her outfits looked like they’re out of a Talbot’s catalog. Of course she was also woefully under-qualified for a SCOTUS appointment, but the way she dressed certainly further made her stand out as an outsider, even though she was working in the WH at the time and not exactly some random lawyer from podunk.

How is that even a thing. I'm trying to wrap my head around how someone would even make those observations, let alone justify changing how they interact with someone because of it.

I mean, like, you would think the substance bro brings to the table would matter more than his duds 'n' presentation.

If you spend every day meeting strangers in a certain context, then I imagine you can learn to notice things like that over time. I suspect an insider explaining these things to a relatively young entrant also happens.

it's relatively easy to imagine though,

tech is somewhat famously informal; so replace the black hoodie or conference t-shirt with: a shirt, tie and button-down vest.

Despite perhaps looking nice, it would undoubtedly look very out of place, you might even not trust the person as much.

As a counter example one of the best developers I've worked with wore a business suit/formal clothes regularly. But he was in his 40s and it felt appropriate with his demeanor - it didn't feel out of place at all despite the office being rather casual (I remember more than a few people wearing sweatpants around the office since they would cycle/run to work)

Oh, there are certainly exceptions to this, Gary Bernhardt (whom I highly respect for giving excellent talks) wears exactly the attire I'm describing.

But we all have implicit biases, and it wouldn't be my gut feeling to trust a person who does not present as 'one of my group' like this.. even though I'm aware of the bias.

When I worked in Windows I always loved seeing Raymond Chen in his suit amid a sea of t-shirts and flip-flops.

Or replace the $80+ "tech" climbing pants or selvedge jeans, expensive trail runners or toe shoes or whatever, tech company t-shirt, and American Giant (on the cheap end, it goes up from there) hoodie with: $25 Lee jeans or Target cargo pants, cheap big box store sneakers or cheap work boots—not, say, Redwing Heritage or you'll accidentally start fitting in with the hipster-tech variant of tech fashion, because they're kinda impractical and expensive-for-their-features compared to other work boot options, and yes of course I own some—a Nascar shirt and a wal-mart hoodie that's missing its plastic aglets because it's been washed once.

You can definitely dress in a way that doesn't look that much "lower" to an outsider but looks very wrong, and, gasp, poor to someone in-tune with tech worker fashion. So it's not just dressing too nice that does it, and hell, for that matter you can spend about as much as the cost of an on-sale Brooks Brothers suit buying a "tech shabby" outfit[0], with results that will definitely be appreciated by many your fellow tech workers, or simply overlooked by others in a way that Red-State-Working-Class or suit-and-a-tie won't.

[0] The aforementioned Red Wing Heritage boots are north of $300 for most models, full retail, and check out Arc'teryx and such for how expensive trail shoes can get ($150+, and they're not the most expensive brand), but even something like Danners are pretty pricey compared to what normal people buy for shoes; dropping $200 on a hoodie and rain layer is easy (again, go for expedition-clothing sorts of products to run up the price tag but also the tech worker cred—$300 just for a paper-thin rain jacket isn't even the top of the range); $80 merino wool hiking shirt ("I just love how it keeps me dry, but also I love talking about merino wool with other people who know how expensive it is"); and shit, jeans, sky's the limit, you can hit $200 on those while still just "buying more quality" and not even in just-paying-for-the-label territory yet.

When first starting out I wore a suit to a job interview (not a tech company, but a Fortune 100 where you could literally wear a bikini to work (man or woman) and nobody would say anything). After I was hired they pulled me aside and told me to never do that again.

I really want to know what this company is now

One of the first companies I worked at, the motto of the boss was - if they have a suit they're there to get you

At first reading this comment felt like it was going to a story of a guy going to work in a bikini - but alas.

I once went to lunch with two colleagues. One was the son of wealthy parents, the other came from the poor side of the tracks. The first was dressed in a casual t-shirt and shorts, the second in an Armani suit.

The first ordered lunch and wine, in the most unconsciously casual, elegant way. The second then tried to imitate that manner, failing pathetically. I.e. the clothes didn't take away the upper class manner, nor bestow upper class mannerisms.

It's hard to fight your upbringing.

I think this is what The Great Gatsby was about. It is also possible to spend nearly (same O() but maybe different constant factor) as much on t-shirt and shorts as an Armani suit. Plus the fit of the clothes matter almost more than the brand. But I think the biggest difference is that people who grow up rich often have this ineffable sense of ease with the world.

They're at ease in their environment, not with the world in general.

Put them on the floor of a blacksmith shop and you will see them get nervous.

In the modern west, actual blacksmithing is comparatively rare and niche. "Check out my bespoke wrought iron cuff-links", etc.

Put them on the floor of a McDonalds in a questionable neighborhood -- that's where they'll get nervous.

> The second then tried to imitate that manner, failing pathetically.

Your comment reminded me of a similar experience of mine, but in reverse.

I was washing my hands in the restrooms at work, and decided to drink some water. I bent over, cupped my hand and started drinking.

At this moment, a guy went out of another stall and walked up to the sink next to me. He was some sort of manager, I guess, because he'd always be in a suit when I've seen him around the office before. When I got up, I saw him drinking water the same way I did, only he was failing to get much of it into his mouth. :-) Obviously, this was his first time.

I'm trying to understand how ordering lunch can ever be described as "elegant." It's a mundane task. I'm largely convinced that it's not the manner, but the body it's done in or the credit card on the person.

People are really good at convincing themselves that things are just so.

Surely you remember being a teenager and acutely aware of subtle signals like that. You could identify a "try-hard" who are often disliked for pretending to be part of a culture they're not in. It's a kind of dishonesty.

Nope. I was an anime and video game geek in the mid-2000s. People talk about gatekeeping at the time, but I honestly don't remember it.

Pretty simple to notice when it's stuff that your parents drilled into your head every day of your life until you moved out.

I've been to quite a few meetings where it's widely assumed that the people in suit know nothing technical, and the ones in button-down shirts know nothing financial.

Part of why I always used to try to dress significantly different than whoever I'm going to be around. I know I'm not part of the group, so I'd rather not have the uncanny valley

Inside the Mirrotocracy http://carlos.bueno.org/2014/06/mirrortocracy.html

I wonder with covid how this is being impacted?

I would have called this "Mirrortocracy". More clear that you're referring to mirrors, rolls off the tongue just about as easily, and still sounds like meritocracy.

Agreed. That's what it's called in the URL

> I've seen people turn up to social events with what is very clearly to an insider the 'wrong type' of suit (wrong fabric, wrong cut, buttoned incorrectly, wrong shirt, wrong tie, wrong type of shoes)

I’ve been on one side of this, making half-conscious assumptions about other guests based on subtle sartorial faux-pas I’d have a tough time articulating, but this made me realize that I could just as easily be on the other side, and probably have been.

I used to wear a lot of button-down shirts because I think they look great. But for engineering interviews I'd always put on a t-shirt.

Nowadays I wear mostly t-shirts. The tech environment beat the button-down shirt out of me.

That rings strangely to me. I don't think I've worn anything other than a button-down shirt to a tech company (interview or otherwise) in the last...decade?

Somehow, I keep getting handed principal and director gigs and my peers are fine with me. I'm pretty sure it's OK, tbh.

I wear a shirt one/two days a month, but my default dress has been jeans+t-shirt for 20+ years working in the UK, and now Finland.

I'd "dress up" for an interview, but that's really what I think of it as. I think I average wearing a suit once a year, and that's usually for a wedding, funeral, or similar formal occasion.

I sometimes wear a button down shirt in winter, it's a surprisingly versatile piece of clothing. I tend to prefer ones that are a bit more practical than dressy.

Other than that, I've replaced t-shirts with polo shirts. Maybe it's just the t-shirts I buy, but they usually shrink weirdly and I prefer the pique fabric used in most polos. I also appreciate the collar (for protecting my neck from sun) and being able to unbutton to cool off a bit in summer. They also tend to last longer.

The great thing about dressing one or two steps above a hobo is that if anyone cares you know they're an asshole.

It's not that simple though. I see it can help us cope better if we label them as assholes, but the fact remains that the filter is there and it is silent. Nobody will tell you these things to your face, you just go through life and never get told the insider infos that people with the right background get access to. And as others have written, faking it is almost impossible anyway. Even if you have your clothes perfectly, you won't have all the right manners and mannerisms, tone etc. As someone coming from Eastern European village folk I know I will most likely never be an insider to those circles in Wester Europe or America (lawyers, doctors, professors, intellectuals etc). I feel it in every little bit fancier dinner event (academia or industry) or other similar stuff that I'm a bumbling outsider. It's not just "assholes", normal people to whom these things come naturally judge you too.

But it's ok. I did learn in my upbringing that my only value will come from studying and skills and being useful. While rich upper class people are seen to have intrinsic value by belonging to the elite tribe, through a deep web of generation-bridging connections, us plebs must deliver and are only valuable as long as we produce.

Software development and CS are good areas for this, as it requires a lot of effort beyond theatricals and signaling and there is a lot of demand so the elite does pay us through their teeth because they have to, even if they resent our nature in their bones. Although there are definitely restrictive interpretations of "cultural fit" at certain tech companies. But even as an immigrant, work in tech is one of the best ways to a comfortable life. It can be materially comfortable, but integrating to the high circles is practically impossible. We must learn to embrace and find pride in who we are I guess and stop pretending. Being authentic may be a better choice even if it goes with sacrifices.

But overall, dismissing it as just assholes does not reach deep enough. It is an issue to grapple with and process. There is a silent glass ceiling for most of us and it's definitely even a lot lower than mine for many others.

Yeah, the elite pay us through their teeth because they have to, and they inject billions into AI research aiming to automate everything, coding included.

Just as an aside, I think the phrase is “pay through the nose”. There is another phrase to “lie through your teeth” though, so maybe a it’s a “rocket surgery” type thing (I.e it’s not rocket science/brain surgery)

A quick google seems to indicate that it has been used, but my gut tells me it’s not right.

Slightly ironic given the subject of parent’s comments.

You're right, I did confuse the two and I actually know both. (I will admit I mostly read non-fiction and these phrases rarely come up). Perhaps I should read more proper literature to become an insider, haha.

Nah your writing is great, don’t worry. Language is fluid and I think it’s more fun to see it used differently in various places. If it makes sense to you, why not use these words?

Imagine if the person who said the phrase is ‘not right’ told you instead that you poop in the 'wrong' way?

Is there really a ‘wrong’ way to live or wrong way to do things? Or are there just different or alternative ways?

> Is there really a ‘wrong’ way to live or wrong way to do things? Or are there just different or alternative ways?

Yes to the former, some people go around murdering and stealing. I’m not being facetious, there’s a whole philosophy bent on subjectivism which is super interesting.

I think the English idiom OP was aiming for is "pay through gritted teeth" (ie, reluctantly).

I think 'pay through the nose' means pay a lot. Whereas 'pay through the teeth' means pay even through you don't want to.

Upon re-reading my post I think I have add that the concept of "elite" is tiered. I myself am part of a circle of white collar workers and get at least sometimes to fancy dinners where I'm not quite confused with the janitor etc. And even if I was born into the next higher class, there would be next higher circles I couldn't reach. Being, say,in a lawyer dynasty doesn't may not be enough for certain things, but I have to admit I don't know the distinguishing signals at those levels.

The point is that it may feel frustrating to feel excluded, but everyone feels that except multi-billionaires. I'd say therefore that after ensuring a Western middle-class level of comfort, the rest is mostly a mental game of accepting one's place, as there's always something higher that you can frustrate yourself over.

The point is that even a Western middle class level of comfort is beyond the reach of most of the population.

It would be interesting and possibly revealing to research the source class of tech workers to see how many don't come from a middle class background.

The only research I could find at short notice was this from the UK:

https://www.bcs.org/media/1652/social-mobility-report.pdf

The UK and the US both have poorer social mobility than Europe, so the figures in the US are likely to be even lower than here.

> The point is that even a Western middle class level of comfort is beyond the reach of most of the population

Depends on the country, and I'm not sure it's the same effect, ie not being able to pass culturally due to upbringing mismatch. Probably true for those growing up in very poor, crime ridden places where they can't learn the basic hygiene, punctuality etc needed for work.

As for social mobility, anecdotally, from who went where in my circles, tech and engineering are definitely higher in this than law and economics. Whatever is more concrete and harder to muddle the waters, is better suited for outsiders as a ladder. But the really big money is always in softer things but they a better gate-kept. I don't really think anyone tries to gatekeep the hard fields or trades too much. It's also why "the Polish plumber" is a meme. Easter European immigrants can take up such jobs and often reach a middle class income. I know many simple hardworking people who couldn't progress much due to cultural fit, but do make decent money in England/Germany etc. with physical work (like transporting stuff, setting up stages, cutting trees). Their kids do have a chance to enter the cultural middle class then.

Dressing as if you don't care what other people think is also communication.

Our choice of clothes communicates a great deal even if we don't want it to - there is no escape from this game.

Instead of merely dressing as if you don't care, you can just not care what other people think.

You are right that you still cannot escape potential consequences of this particular game, but at least you can escape being actively involved in the game itself.

Of course, there are always consequences to everything in life, but you don't have to be an active participant in everyone else's games. Just play the games you want to play.

Now, the consequences to this game do seems to be quite real. My wife is more successful in certain respects than I am, I believe, in part because she is good at playing that particular game while I just can't be bothered to give a damn.

Except it turns out that everyone's an asshole.

Why not exactly like a hobo then. Wouldn't that make you an asshole too to make the distinction?

The only difference is your level of steps is just smaller.

There are many non-asshole people who might care if your clothes had never been washed & were full of gaping holes. For example, if they were trapped in an elevator with you.

But to be generous, maybe you know relatively well-dressed hobos.

Counterpoint: dressing that way says "I don't care" and is an indication of who you are as a person. First dates, interviews, just walking on the same sidewalk... all situations where we should be making judgement calls about how close we choose to get to you.

I'm curious if I can short-circuit it somehow - by maybe wearing a really fancy watch or something.

For that sort of crowd, you wouldn't really cancel a major clothing faux pas by excelling in your choice of accessory.

That being said, it is also important to not look like you're trying too hard. Rolex and Omega are typically loud in the same way an "improper" suit is. They might hurt more than help, whereas Patek, Vacheron or Lange would be more impressive. Socialites who care enough about these things tend to have a certain affected air about them -- they (ostensibly, if not actually) appreciate them for fine craftsmanship rather signaling, which becomes a signal of its own. It would be an easy outsider error to assume that signal is about how expensive the watch is rather than which expensive watch it is.

Subtlety is everything. It is important not to look as though you're exerting effort to fit in. And you can afford to break from the ingroup convention if your mannerisms are otherwise "correct" and everyone in the group is aware of your status.

The mannerisms matter much more than the clothing. Personal looks too, especially face, body shape and posture. Manner of speaking completes the picture.

You can pick up old money relatively easily even if they're in a frumpy grandma sweater, even from a distance.

I wonder if all that just comes naturally to them or it feels like the "prison" it seems to me as an outsider. Constantly caring about this stuff, buying new clothes, looking out for fashion trends etc seems exhausting. I'm the typical nerdy wrinkly T-shirt and jeans guy and I know I'll not get into high circles anyway, and subjectively it feels quite freeing not to care. I spend my time immersing in stuff I'm actually interested in, not any required stuff like watches and suits and fine wines and whatever else. Or perhaps to these people it's not a burden, they naturally care about watches and fine wine... I honestly have no idea but would love to once speak honestly about such things with insiders...

Edit: upon some reflection, perhaps my stereotypes are outdated and it's not really necessary for even old-money-rich young people to care about fancy watches and wines any more. I mean some base level knowledge is needed, but I have to remind myself that when I think they may have it worse in some respects I'm probably wrong. Why would they restrict themselves to rigid bullshit, if it's not pleasant? Probably the rules are more flexible today. Probably I'm totally blind to whatever the current actual class markers are as they are invisible to us.

I think your understanding of this is backwards.

The point is that these people don't care about fashion or watches or how much you spend on your clothes. They dress conventionally instead, which is a standard that only changes over the scale of a decade or so. The mistake outsiders make is to think that the point is to follow fashion and buy an expensive watch. That's why they don't fit in - they wear something fashionable.

Also, to defend the idea a bit, the idea of a dress code is exactly that purpose - so that you don't need to worry about what you're wearing or how much it cost or wether someone thinks it's fashionable or not.

I always come back to the cinema image of the rich guy casually tossing the keys of his supercar to the valet. The reason it's "cool" is the effortless balance. He has fun with the car, but he is no petrol-head. To you & I it's an unobtainable thing, to him it's just another car.

That's how I've come to understand it. These wealthy types are not horophiles or sommeliers. They just casually appreciate beautiful craftsmanship & the taste of high quality alcohol- and who doesn't? Just look at how techies love machined metal laptop bodies, and the popularity of craft beer. The reason out-groups are quickly identified is because they cargo-cult the material things.

> It would be an easy outsider error to assume that signal is about how expensive the watch is rather than which expensive watch it is.

Right, although Patek, Vacheron or Lange are significantly more expensive than Rolex and Omega.

I know maybe you’re trying to give advice, but all I think when reading your comment is: “what a pretentious prick, what a great example of saying nothing and adding nothing to the conversation“ - your comment made me cringe. For me you’ve illustrated the point well that many in the existing elite - with inherited privilege, knowledge, and position in hierarchy - are ruined by money and obsessed with status signaling through 'elite consumerism' as a form of identity.

I mean, there are human beings who are making these ridiculously overpriced vanity watches day in, day out, in a miserable factory somewhere. All I see when I see these ads for Patek Phillippe, or similar, is a hopeless human doing work that they won't benefit from.

I wish rentier capitalism would end now, so we’d all live in a Commons-based peer production life where everyone was fed, instead of this ‘some people will buy a Ferrari and a rolex today, and some children will die from malnutrition’-world.

Luxury is a scam. The ultra rich (read: dominators) are just as anxious as the Precariat, scared to lose it all. Not to mention their kids are often ruined and unbearable people. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maWdDl_OjlQ

Edit: when I write "Patek or similar" I am really talking about any type of 'luxury good', like a Prada bag, or a cheaper-than-Rolex Michael Kors watch etc.

The people 'defending' Patek are missing my point (or I am missing them?) My point is that living in a world with artificial scarcity-creating systems is disturbing to me (Rentier Capitalism by Prof Guy Standing)[1]. It constantly surprises me how our priorities became the way they are with many of us in chains, and a few rolling around in a pool of blood-stained gold and diamonds. [2],[3]

[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...

[2] https://vimeo.com/242569435

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7iv1fef6qo

I'd be surprised if those people making Patek watches are not extremely well paid craftsmen who really love what they are doing.

> well paid craftsmen

As opposed to "a sweatshop in a low cost geography by some human drones", like another person who replied wrote?

You do know that the Global North is hoarding IP, and that another world of Commons-based peer production is possible, right? We could all be 'well paid craftsmen' if we shifted to that. In my eyes, you're showing an incredible privilege here, being aware of, and talking about, Patek watches.

Uppppper class. [1]

[1] https://vimeo.com/242569435

I think you are underestimating the skill and craft involved in making some of these watches. Have you actually seen a movement? They're not made in a sweatshop in a low cost geography by some human drones. A watch maker is a high status craftsman and can be influential in their own right (look up the story of FP Journe if you doubt that). If you come to Switzerland you can see the actual factories for many of the producers in the area around Geneva and they are more like pharma manufacturing plants than fast fashion warehouses.

It's very uncharitable to assume that because you can't see the craft in something that it doesn't exist or is a scam. I couldn't taste the difference between two kinds of whisky if you put a gun to my head but it doesn't mean other people can't or that it's some kind of status game in disguise.

> They're not made in a sweatshop in a low cost geography by some human drones.

What the hell does that mean? 'human drones'

> It's very uncharitable to assume that because you can't see the craft in something that it doesn't exist or is a scam.

“I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.”

― Eduardo Galeano

What are you blaberring about? I agree that these luxury watches are mere status symbols and not a necessity, but no one's selling them at 90% margin. A considerable amount of highly skilled exclusively first world labor goes into these watches, and these devices are probably the single best type of objects where the labor that went into it is patently obvious right in front of your eyes. In fact, that exactly IS the symbol here for the most part, the fact that it's a human creation whose value is purely of the labor (the good kind) more than something that came out of the earth, and something, all considered, that holds its value over time instead of being ephemeral. I understand the angst and anger against the plutocracy but logic needn't go out the window in pursuit of an outlet for that anger.

> whose value is purely of the labor (the good kind)

What's the 'bad' kind?

> logic needn't go out the window in pursuit of an outlet for that anger

Many of these watches are Swiss. Switzerland is (or was) a known tax-haven...

It's our inability to connect the dots that baffles me sometimes. Where else do the wealthy elites get the kind of cash needed to buy these watches?

The good kind of labor is where the people doing it are free, compensated and satisfied.

If we are going to avoid Switzerland because it's a tax haven then we should probably avoid doing any commerce with any country, including the one you probably are in now (unless you're in NZ or something).

And with regards to your update - no one is talking about faux luxury consumer goods here; in fact an argument can be made that the _only_ sustainable mode of consumerism is the kind practiced by these luxury watch makers if antrhung.

High quality watches were coming out of Switzerland long before it was a tax haven. [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/style/international/what-...

The US (a country without a wealth tax, and an income tax that only applies to realised, non-loopholed, income) can be a more effective tax haven than switzerland. I believe various ex-british islands may also part of the reason we get this particular bit of anglophone[1] two minute hate[2].

Yes, we're part of the Global North. We have a relatively high standard of living now, due to not having blown ourselves up twice last century, before which we were considered poor in relation to our neighbours. Compare Heidi. (Iodine in salt may have helped immensely, too.)

[1] the brits may still be salty that our bankers did to them what Soros did to thailand. Someone's gotta make sure The Market stays efficient, innit?

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23975900

How are worker protections in your jurisdiction? Solidarity is an ideal invoked here even by the pro-free trade pro-small business centre-right party.

(One way our rich flex amongst themselves is on the Züri equivalent of Groundhog Day: they ride horses around a giant wooden snowman with explosives in its head after it's been set on fire. The faster it goes boom, the better the summer will be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reuJ8yVCgSM&t=58

One can tell the Zürchers are a bunch of capitalist pigs who'll be against the wall when the revolution comes[3] because although the holiday is celebrated on a Monday evening, some of them don't even get the day off.)

[3] at the end of Cold War I, we learned we'd had a secret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay-behind unit active on our soil. This was a scandal, because we are not a Nato member. Thank you, UK!

Luxury watches - maybe. Although the fact that these rare and unique precision-made craft pieces are incredibly bad at basic timekeeping compared to a $5 Casio, which is in turn pretty average compared to a $50 World Time Wave Ceptor, is both hilarious and sad.

But luxury handbags and other "fashion" items are inexcusable, because they are literally assembled in sweat shops by slave labour and then sold for four/five/six/seven figure price tags to vulgar stupid people.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90279693/did-a-slave-make-your-s...

The point of this kind of luxury isn't utility or quality - it's pure status display, combined with narcissistic indifference to the fate of the unfortunates whose work is being displayed so ostentatiously.

... incredibly bad at basic timekeeping ...

A modern minivan is faster than a classic Porsche in virtually every metric. That doesn't lessen the appeal of the Porsche; speed isn't the point.

Sorry, I should clarify that my comment wasn't intended to be advice or endorsement of the situation. I was being descriptive, not prescriptive.

I don't really have a dog in the race when it comes to whether or not such veblen goods should exist. I agree they are often only sought after as status objects, but I also can't discount the possibility that some people really do appreciate their craftsmanship.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14261887

> I can tell you that the cost of a Rolex is well worth it, from the particular point of view of 'access' to the guys with watches and hey let's talk about them . The watch club. The $40 fake I had was good enough, because who is going to unwind someone else's winder at a social gathering? Similarly other Veblen goods like a Lamborghini (rent one!) that a guy talked about as a conversation piece on a Reddit AMA a day or two ago. Whatever someone is deeply interested in, they will glom onto you if you show anything like authentic interest.

I find the "short-circuit" is confidently rejecting the notion of "socially imposed norms" but appreciating the subtle ones. A funky dress shirt at an event when most are suit and tie (not required but socially imposed) without giving a wink about it - rejection of the norms. Strong handshake with a suit, mentioning their watch, speaking their lingo - appreciating the subtle ones. That short-circuits people's expectations and the rejection of the "socially imposed norms" seems to be perceived as more of a status symbol then following them is. Humans both love patterns and anomalies, so an anomaly that fits in the pattern seizes their interest.

There's nothing that signals 'lower-class' more than buying luxury goods to try to look wealthy.

A fancy watch might earn you some respect from the tiny subset of rich folks that are themselves watch affectionados, but the respect will come from your depth of knowledge about watch construction, brands and history. The fact that you own one is largely inconsequential.

If you really want to cheat the system, skip buying the watch yourself. If you study the fancy watches, you can compliment folks on their watch, and get the benefits of appearing both knowledgable and friendly.

The wealthy don't value things you can buy with money. Spending money will not impress them.

That very much depends on the power dynamic. Dressing appropriately is - among other things - also a statement that you want to belong to this group. But if you're a startup founder meeting with lawyers, it might pay off to be "that super nerdy tech guy" instead of "the cool just-like-us banker doing tech".

Over the years, I've read a lot about social stuff, including clothes. Your comment makes me think of a piece I read about some guy trying to do all the power dressing, take control of the situation with body language stuff and it didn't work at all on the self made man in jeans he was meeting with. The guy either didn't recognize any of it or flat out didn't care -- and didn't need to.

>This is one of those veeery subtle class things.

I saw Americans seriously arguing that ads are a legit means of brainwashing. My bet would be that she was a walking advertisement and any rentable image would fly.

I have had the pleasure of bamboozling Americans with my ‘posh’ English accent and own style, making them make all kinds of wrong guesses about my level of privilege and background. Of course my accent isn’t what an English person would consider posh, my schooling was normal and my “style” is actually clueless tinged with apathy. Snap judgments can be really wrong.

There's a much greater leeway given to people from a different background, which is why moving to another country is a great way to reset your class and immigrants often make massive jumps in class compared to where they come from.

Except Americans in Europe don’t seem to have that advantage.

A) You can dress to the nines without spending a fortune

B) Dressing to the nines can work against you as a lawyer or litigant

Source: I study jurors and coach trial lawyers for a living, among other things.

Since you study this stuff, do you mind sharing a description of the kinds of situations in which the 'sharp appearance' or related type of tactic has a negative effect?

You don’t want to be a dressed to the nines Manhattan lawyer in a Texas courtroom (or really, anywhere but maybe Manhattan and Los Angeles).

https://abovethelaw.com/2017/05/at-lunch-with-david-boies-20...

Re: David Boies (who is a prominent Manhattan attorney):

> Part of the David Boies legend is his rejection of high fashion. He’s a millionaire many times over, and many aspects of his lifestyle reflect what I’m guessing is a nine-figure net worth — his primary residence, an 8,000-square-foot mansion on almost 10 acres; an $8 million pied-à-terre here in New York City, at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel; and a racing yacht, because you’re nobody until you have a yacht. But his wealth doesn’t go into his wardrobe. He eschews Prada and Patek Philippe in favor of navy blue suits from Sears or Lands’ End, inexpensive plastic wristwatches (worn over his sleeve), and what look like black sneakers (but are actually walking shoes by Merrell).

To people who think the point of fashion is to imitate people with higher status, fashion loses its value if your name carries status for you.

Nobody on a jury knows David Boies, or any other lawyer, by reputation.

But they can sure as hell read subtle social cues that occur between the lawyers and the judge. I'd reason that those cues have an outsized impact on how the jury rules.

I have been on a jury, and I do, so it's possible.

He did represent Al Gore before the Supreme Court, although I suppose that's ancient history now. And he was involved in the SCO vs. Linux stuff.

I'm not even American and I know him for his role in the Theranos affair...

I mean... David Boies is a pretty famous lawyer! There is likely a huge amount of people who recognize the name, even if they don't know anything about the person. The guy has been on cover of magazines!

Maybe _everyone_ on a jury is filtered out to only take people completely disconnected from society but.... probably not.

(case in point: many people on this website are not in legal professions yet recognize the name)

talk about disconnected from society. a lot of people have seen him on a magazine or heard the name on the news. along with about 20 other names. every day. for decades. and the name is forgotten an hour later, with a thousand other names.

as far as your point, the 1% of people here reading recognized the name. didn't know why, then googled and remembered. the jury is not here. it's '12 random people from the dmv,' and they don't recognize it, nor will they care to google it. they don't even know who steve jobs is, and won't google it on their iphone.

I’ll provide an opposite anecdote from the other responses. I have no idea who David Boies is.

Relevant:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2000/03/microsoft-200003

After he was Bill Clinton's attorney in televised impeachment hearings? You have to remember that the jurors' office casts a wide net. With the worst will in the world, the attorneys can't strike everyone who has heard of someone.

>fashion loses its value

Value to who ?

The wearer.

People who think that a little bit off. The point of fashion is so people don't mistake you for being a little lower status than you are. So high status people can afford to wear clothes with holes in them, because nobody is going to mistake them for people who are poor (royalty can wear what they want, Queen Elizabeth looks like she just picks a colour to me). That can't be imitated by ordinary people, because they would just look poor.

Also, fashion isn't for strangers. I mean, I don't know anything about what is fashionable. Nearly nothing at all. So obviously stranger can't impress me with expensive clothes because I can't detect it. The situation is similar with most fashions which are signals for inside an in crowd.

It is like a developer putting "Haskell" or "Scheme" on a resume. The goal isn't to impress randoms in HR who don't know what a Haskell is and are suspicious of scheming programmers. It is to signal within a group of semi-peers who don't specifically know who you are.

I refuse to believe he wears sneaker-looking things in court...there are some very strict judges out there.

At that point you're just showing off how many norms you can ignore.

I feel like humans are good in identifying privileged person and would like to think them different. If someone is dressing up perfectly but it is clear that the person is not rich/confident it will have negative effect than them dressing moderately. Some non rich born people are able to get in high societies but for most of us, it will be how you are born and raised.

I’ve served on many juries.

Defense attorneys usually put on a show to relate to you in some way. The prosecution usually looks like undertakers and usually appeal to the institution of justice, sacred duty as a citizen, etc.

Just different flavors of bullshit.

Why have you been on many juries?

Just guessing, but in some places there used to be automatic exemptions and substantially fewer people were eligible to be called so they had to serve more.

Reforms expanded the pool, for instance in NY.

From a 1996 NY Times article:

"As of Jan. 1, all 27 former exemptions and disqualifications for jury duty in New York State have been repealed"

"...as many as one-third of Long Island's residents have been exempt from jury duty because of their white-collar professions, particularly doctors, dentists and lawyers"

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/07/nyregion/exemptions-for-j...

Jury duty nornally happens randomly

I live in New York, which has no exemptions. I suspect that having a last name early in the alphabet has some significance in my county as well, I’m called about every 4.5 years, starting the week after my 18th birthday. I’ve been selected about half of the time.

Also, I’m fortunate to have a job where there is no financial penalty for service, I find it interesting, and I’m not comfortable hamming up some nonsense to avoid it. I’m always surprised I’m picked because of my job (lawyers don’t like engineers on juries), and I am friends or relatives with a bunch of attorneys and policemen.

Why don’t lawyers like engineers?

Engineers have an often-times pedantic fascination with debugging deeply detailed problems.

Consider a legal trial to be a giant machine executing a huge set of detailed and arcane and sometimes arbitrary instructions. Either the machine does the right thing (one side arguing there was no crime) or the wrong thing (the other side arguing there was a crime). What engineer doesn't love figuring out why the machine's behaviour is correct or incorrect?

Overly logical. They want a jury that’s easily swayed by their narrative.

To expand on this, the engineering type is going to work their way through problems and situations systematically. More likely to try to dissect and analyze what they're being presented.

That's not universal -- two of the most religious people I've met were some flavor of engineer; they never bother to challenge their own biases -- but in aggregate they're a riskier jury pick than a teamster or housewife or cashier.

I'm pretty sure that this is a bit of a myth, mostly repeated by engineers who want to feel important and superior to lawyers, who are often hotter, richer, and higher-status.

Trial lawyers present a narrative to the jury, and thus prefer jurors who are more likely to believe the presented narrative. Your typical engineer believes themselves to be capable of discerning truth independent of expert opinion. This could be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on how the trial lawyer plans to present their narrative.

Maybe the clothes aren't there for the judge or jury, but for the clients.

If a lawyer dresses to the nines and wins the case, the client will feel justified in paying their fees.

Much of what attorneys do is for their client(s): win or lose, the client pays the bills. One of the attorneys I work against is extremely loud in court but seldom wins. Even so, all their clients love them, despite the fact that they are incompetent as a trial attorney. Because they present themselves as the belligerent television attorney that does always win, every time the lose they can just blame the court for getting it wrong. People are easily fooled.

Law is as much about settling grievances, taking moral stands, and slinging "fuck you's" as much as it is about actual damages and money.

Even if loud, angry lawyer guy doesn't win, dragging them to court and making them pay for a lawyer -- and then slinging vitriol at them in court -- has more emotional satisfaction than a dispassionate, slow, boring, go-nowhere hearing that ends with a moderate settlement.

(note: in some places the loser pays all of the fees for the winner, so locality matters here)

Oh for sure. I consider myself lucky to be a salaried attorney with one government agency as a client since I don’t have to sing and dance to impress people. I can just do good work and achieve consistent results and everyone is happy. Really, what my comment should have said, is that much of what attorneys do is done to impress their clients and has very little to do with actually litigating whatever the issues are in a case.

Who cares? It's not right!

A hobo who hasn't showered in a decade should be able to argue his case, be heard and receive justice. Anything less, you're using rules to enforce a social order, the legal system has no relationship with justice if this is acceptable.

>>A hobo who hasn't showered in a decade should be able to argue his case, be heard and receive justice. Anything less, you're using rules to enforce a social order, the legal system has no relationship with justice if this is acceptable.

Should is they keyword and maybe one day we'll reach that point. Meanwhile, looks and appearance can make a huge difference, so why take the chance?

I agree, it's should. I am not saying take a chance but let's emphasize should, the way things are is wrong, period. Not worse, but wrong and incorrect and it should not be tolerated much like racism and msiogyny shouldn't have been tolerated in the past.

This is what unconscious bias is. People don't even know they're making these kinds of judgements.

Yes, same thing with racial disparities. Something needs to be done about both issues, perhaps technology can help by using deepfake audio/video to repeat what the defendant is saying and avoid judge/jury/prosecutor visual contact.

To put it the most callous way I can, that's not very baseyian of you.

How someone looks informs your prior probability of who they are. What they say informs your posterior probability, but you gotta take that prior into account when forming the posterior. At least, if you want 'accurate' statistics.

(Bias - variance trade-off not withstanding, nor second-order effects of doing the 'correct' thing being possibly more detrimental than the advantage given by the 'correct' thing)

But how strong is the effect? It's not just a binary judgement. People can heavily bias based on features that are borderline irrelevant. Also, you may end up hurting a lot of innocent people by generalizing too much based on some feature that is not causally associated with the actual crime, even if it predicts well overall.

Are you comfortable applying this same bayesian logic to other factors like race?

There are 2 separate issues. Firstly, are people correctly estimating their priors, or are their priors unfounded.

Secondly, and more importantly I think, what effects does a 'correct' bias have when it starts interacting with other people. It might be the optimal choice in isolation. But that doesn't make it a good idea game-theoretically if everyone starts doing it.

The end result can be difficult to explain though. Because it means that not taking certain useful information into account leads to better decisions.

I think that, sometimes, we argue that a systemic bias is stronger than the statistics warrant. When sometimes the argument should be that sysyemic bias, statistically warranted or not is harmful.

(Note, my original comment was me making the mistake I argue against in this post)

It doesn't matter,your opinions of them does not matter to justice. The facts of the case is all that matters for justice.

It doesn't get a ton of attention in the article, but I think this starts to explain a little of it:

"Finally, it may be possible that a third variable affects the relationship of attractiveness and criminal accusations/activities. Socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and developmental advantages (e.g., nutrition, schooling) might be such factors.[29]"

Your physical attractiveness and the way you dress can both signal information about you. Rich & powerful men with status tend to marry attractive women, even if the men are not always attractive themselves. After a couple generations, rich & powerful families with status tend to have more attractive families. They can also afford better nutrition and educational opportunities. Dressing nice and fashionably indicates that you care about your appearance. While a few people can pull off the idea of someone being such a genius that they can't be bothered to care about their appearance, the general trend is that people that can't be bothered to care about their appearance also can't be bothered to care as much about other things, like preparing for work.

It would be nice if we could get rid of any attractiveness biases. I sure would be angry if I was disadvantaged in a court case because I'm not attractive. I would be extra angry if I was disadvantaged because my lawyer wasn't attractive. I have a feeling that just blindfolding the jurors or blocking their view would cause them to miss out on other important things like being able to see faces and reactions during testimony. At least if we know about the bias we can work to fight it in other ways. Getting people to "think slow" sounds like some Malcom Gladwell popular B.S. that has probably been debunked, but it's probably better than nothing, and any lawyer can probably work at getting juries to think a little harder.

Very rarely does one find someone else commenting in a way that so perfectly mirrors one's thoughts. This is one of those instances, so thank you for posting that most eloquent insight.

"Liking what you see: A documentary" is a short story by Ted Chiang published along side Story of your life (Arrival) that talks just about this topic. Sci-fi story about what could happen if we had the technology to remove beauty bias entirely. Well worth a read: https://afuzzyrants.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/liking-what-you...

>After a couple generations, rich & powerful families with status tend to have more attractive families.

IIRC this is a common misconception. The son of a traditionally handsome man isn't necessarily going to get all of the traditionally handsome male features from his dad; he might get some of his traditionally beautiful mother's traditionally beautiful female features. Genetics is a crapshoot like that.

Nutrition and personal care go a long way as well. I'm (self-assessed) of around average appearance and my wife is, according to most sighted people, better looking than I am. Our kids are better looking than either of us (at least so far), in part from genetics, but substantially from having a healthy diet, healthy lifestyle, excellent medical, skin, and dental care, etc. (And we're just upper-middle class vs middle-middle class where we were raised.)

Even if genetics are a crapshoot, I'd expect offspring of rich and powerful families to be, on average, more attractive than the median for their area from these environmental factors.

> After a couple generations, rich & powerful families with status tend to have more attractive families.

...unless they inbreed (which a lot of european royalty did), in which case it works in reverse. Also, income mobility probably prevents this from having significant effects. According to [1] if your father is in the top pentile, you only have a 36% chance of remaining in the top pentile. Repeat this over 5 generations, and you only have a 0.6% chance of staying in the top pentile.

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_econ... page 4, table 1

Is each generation independent though? In other words, if the past three generations were in the top N-ile, do you have a better chance to also be in that bracket?

> I have a feeling that just blindfolding the jurors or blocking their view would cause them to miss out on other important things like being able to see faces and reactions during testimony

Honestly, that might be an advantage too. Humans think they’re good at these things, but this sort of judgement gives plenty of opportunity for more bias to creep in.

> Maybe all the lawyers and jurors should be literally blindfolded, like Lady Justice.

This should be doable by requiring the entire process be done remotely. Seems like a perfect time to try it out too! Even regional accent bias[1] can be removed by requiring unformatted text responses.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accent_perception

> Even regional accent bias[1] can be removed by requiring unformatted text responses.

I'm not sure replacing accent bias with spelling and grammar and familiarity-with-IM-tools bias is an improvement. And we might overestimate our ability to spot lying in person, but it's a damn sight better than our ability to gauge it based on speed and coherence in typing responses...

Are you sure? Being overconfident isn't more right than not knowing.

25 years of online communities provides a great testbed for this hypothesis.

Language becomes the new class marker. Even in strictly text-based media, people make snap judgments about who is worth listening to. It's based on spelling, complete sentences, punctuation, 1337speak or other dialects, even things as subtle as paragraph structure and who (and how) you cite. Back before Tinder became a thing, I knew several women (my now-wife among them) who would instantly ignore a man if he had spelling errors or improper grammar in his online dating profile.

Daniel Kahneman wrote once that if you really want an unbiased decision, you need to have a computer make it, because all humans are biased. Even then, the software ends up biased in the same way as its creators.

If we're doing that, we might as well conduct all trials by email.

I have a funny story of the opposite happening to me. This is when I was leading a small team that developed specialized Machine Learning modules for clients. So we have this in-person client meeting (they had decided to travel down to our office), where someone from project management decided to represent the technical crowd i.e. us and the other devs. Since he has done this before he is dressed impeccably in formals, is his charming self, etc. While the meeting is on, and we backstage folks are at work, I suddenly get a ping from him asking to walk into the meeting to explain a specific module. I'm not cleanly shaved, and frankly, shabbily dressed - because well, I had been told I would not be needed in the meeting. So I walk in, describe what they wanted to know in about 2 min, which was no different from what the other guy had said, and they were suddenly convinced!

The phenomena might be general - looking good is one big part of it, but people in certain roles/work functions are expected to have a certain appearance.

Good on you, but this doesn't prove anything imo. People are almost always positively biased toward attractive faces due to the halo effect. Biologically/psychologically this is a result of one's facial bone structure, skin, and bodyfat levels.

So being shabbily dressed and having stubble is mostly irrelevant here. Maybe you were just much better looking than the other (poor) bloke.

Maybe I wasn't being clear in the last line of my response. I agree with this "People are almost always positively biased toward attractive faces due to the halo effect."

The point I'm trying to make is in addition to that there might be other forms of appearance-based biases: for ex maybe a scientist is expected to project an image of being nerdy, or detached-ly pensive, etc

Growing up the software dev son of a trial defense attorney, he was always pushing all these tips, tricks, and dogmas about how this-and-that needs polished and what kind of saddle soap to use and collar stays and these brands of shoes and shirts and how much starch and tie colors and what different cuff styles signal. I could never drive it into his head/make-him-believe that in my field "yeah, presentation counts, but like 3% of how much it counts in yours".

Do you think that all of his tricks actually worked, or was he pushing what he wanted to be right? To really know if specific brands of shoes or shirts really worked, you'd need to do some pretty advanced blind testing, that also might be unethical (would you want your lawyer to wear a pair of shoes he thinks might impact your case negatively?)

It's a good question. It depends on the end goals of your field. In programming the end goal is that your systems work as described. The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and whether or not an engineer did a good job is fairly/objectively evident in whether or not the systems work as spec'd. No one really cares that you spun up your cluster in the nude.

In trial law, the end goal is to win the hearts and minds of a jury to believe you. Your end deliverable is a set of speeches and presentations to a group of strangers making decisions about ethics. In programming, your tools are your IDE, terminal, manuals, libs, etc. In law, your tools are all the different flavors of rhetoric. Some of these are pure logic-based rhetoric, but many appeal to human emotion and establishing trust and proving character. In the end, the jury needs to trust the evidence and arguments presented by the attorney are real and honest. He always explained to me that humans make lots of inferences about people based on their personal presentation--which is true. E.g. "he put a lot of care into polishing those shoes--I can infer that he did the same when collecting and investigating the evidence" Or, "that lawyer dresses really flashy with cheap clothes and fake gold watches to make it appear he's something he's not--maybe he's bullshitting his arguments too."

He explained it even extended to courthouse design. He'd say "There's a reason courthouses are big, imposing, and serious-looking. It's important that people behave themselves seriously and thoughtfully here; decisions are being made every day that can dispense justice to lives of the wronged and potentially ruin people's lives too."

He was right--when it comes to law, for absolute certain. Most of his trials were defending Fortune 500 companies (for good stuff--stuff he believed in--protecting them against other parties defrauding and legitimately wronging them). His record was something like 300-2. He was a legend and I miss him.

But I'm still going to spin up clusters with barbecue sauce on my shorts.

When I was involved in a lawsuit, my lawyer commented that both parties were the same race, sex, and socioeconomic status, so the judge would most likely rule on the actual merits of the case.

I had kind of the opposite experience. I showed up to a court date where dozens of other people were being charged with the same thing. Their lawyers all had Brioni suits and haircuts that looked like they cost more than my smartphone. Every single one of them was just pleading guilty to the original charges! Shit dawg, you coulda done that for free!

Meanwhile, my own attorney looked not too far from what you'd expect to see if someone had entered a garbage dumpster circa 1969, and emerged the mourning of the court date. And to this day, I have never been convicted of any crimes.

Maybe the difference was that they did the crimes and you didn't.

Maybe, but I doubt it.

I would imagine there's a strong causal link between competence and being "dressed-to-the-nines"/"very sharp". Maybe signals of fitness and fitness here are to an extent the same thing.

I have seen a strong inverse correlation in my (anecdotal and quite brief) professional life :|

I imagine it's probably fairly dependent on the expectations of the people you interact with. If there's no or very little expectation to dress professionally, those doing so might be doing it because they want to, or are trying to compensate for something else, or are trying to signal some other group (e.g. management). If the expectation of everyone is that you will put effort into it (even if it's because it's self-perpetuating by them making negative assumptions about you if you don't), then it can actually mean people that don't either are trying to make a statement, or can't make that happen, which can signal something all its own.

Collider, happens with lots of good things that correlate. To put it rather bluntly, if they were both competent and sharply dressed, they'd have a better job.

This will vary enormously by field, and countersignaling is a thing. All bankers wear suits. If you see someone wearing a scruffy ill fitting suit maybe they’re just incapable of buying a well fitting suit and keeping it in good nick or maybe they are awesome and know they’re awesome and know everybody else knows it so they can get away with it. You saw the same thing at IBM when they started going casual. If everyone else is wearing a suit, is normal, and there’s one person with blue hair and full sleeve tattoos they’re getting special dispensation because they’re awesome. But the blue hair didn’t make them awesome.

Correct. Counter signaling is typically done by extremely competent people which balances out their eccentricity

Or by people imitating the appearance of extremely competent people.

I'm pretty sure the transition of "tech fashion" from something early computer nerds did at least somewhat authentically to its modern form was, at first, an example of exactly that (by people who "don't care about their appearance", naturally, wink wink). Of course these days there's a bunch of other stuff it's mixed with, like hipster fashion and outdoor-lifestyle-but-only-the-expensive-stuff clothing, but originally it seems to me to have grown out of exactly that aping-authentic-countersignaling thing.

Highly dependent on the profession. In programming, I agree with you. In my experience, there's a nearly perfect inverse correlation between how much they care about their looks and how talented they seem. But not in other fields, seemingly. I basically stopped hiring slovenly people in many things because of terrible experiences (real estate agents, plumber, house inspector). I guess the difference are things that can be done solely with the brain vs things that require some amount of physical activity. We programmers have it easy in that respect.

There's pressure the other way.

When I was in grad school (physics) the female grad students used to talk about how you couldn't wear makeup or do your hair and be taken seriously.

Fair point. Do you think that's because of the observed correlation in the past, or some other reason? Biases are strong, and I'd admittedly not have a high first impression of the skills of someone who spent a lot of time on looks, male or female, just based on my own past experiences.

How do you know your current biases aren't informed by your past misjudgements?

Oh, I'm sure they have been, and I remember distinctly once. Lady on my new team(we were all new) had bleached blonde hair, heavy blue eye shadow, tanned, lipstick, in honest way overboard. My first impression was 'oh boy'. She ended up being a super smart lady from Russia and I thoroughly enjoyed working alongside her. So biases exist, but you(I) have to admit when wrong and adjust accordingly.

Me as well - those who overinvest (as opposed to adequately invest) in their appearance seem to underinvest in their competence. Not always true, but a correlation.

This could be because of (anti-)selection bias. If you have a test of skill that can be overridden because someone happens to be very attractive, than the only really incompetent people who will make it past the skill filter are those who are really attractive. If both the skill filter and the attractiveness filter are very selective, then incompetent people will be overrepresented among attractive people by the inverse of the selectivity factor of the skill filter.

I love seeing this phenomenon appear in the wild:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox

In short: people can be correct when they notice an inverse correlation, because their world consists of people who got into the same university, or workplace, or club, as them. But the correlation is exactly the opposite in society as a whole.

Perhaps that's why it was brief :-)

This discussion is reminding me of the Japanese judge who posted his "fitness" underpants selfies to twitter. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/06/28/national/tokyo-...

Horsehair wigs and gowns might help mask some of that "physical attractiveness". The US chose to abandon that tradition but it's still alive in some jurisdictions.

> Maybe all the lawyers and jurors should be literally blindfolded, like Lady Justice.

I bet lawyers would get biased depending on their voice then.

You could have their sentences read by a computer though (you could do it today too and not let the lawyer be visible)

That's why most of the Europe has a dress code in court rooms.

Just copy blind auditions orchestras do.

Everything is done by typed text, with no humans visible. Jurors just sit isolated in a booth reading the text, or have the same person read out all the text to them.

Lawyers would be against it, but everyone would benefit from a society that decides guilt based on how convincing an argument is and not how convincing the person saying the argument is.

"Look at that man, he is guilty." Is not very convincing when the person who is supposedly guilty has never been seen.

The conversion of {speech, body language} to {text, nothing} is pretty severe when you're on a jury trying to establish if the person on the stand is credible.

I have a dream, that one day I will live in a country where peoples credibility will be decided by the strengths of their argument and not the sound of their accent.

Yes, lets take the already limited bandwidth of conversation and hack out more parts of it.

Why not test and see if it leads to better outcomes.

In this case being attractive makes you more credible so I see this as a feature.

Sounds nice in theory, but the whole idea behind the right to face your accuser is that people depend on their senses to judge if someone's lying or not by how he/she reacts to the confrontation.

That depends on what you think the point of justice is.

Is it to make you feel better or to improve society?

Personally I'd go for improving society because as fun as lynchings are we probably shouldn't kill minorities we don't like.

Perhaps, but "I can tell if someone is lying or not by [their manner]" sounds like exactly the kind of situation where people wildly overestimate their own abilities, doesn't it?

Tonal variation, speech cadence, hand gestures, and facial expressions sometimes communicate as much as what you actually say. That is probably important in a court environment. I would love to see your idea tested though.

> Maybe all the lawyers and jurors should be literally blindfolded, like Lady Justice.

People are generally quick to complain about bias, for whatever reason, while hypocritically guilty of bias just the same. As a result most people would be incredibly unhappy in institutional conventions with bias objectively removed because the resultant outcome would be wildly different than they intuitively anticipate. The most interesting part about that is that it’s identifiable and measurable.

If blindfolded, people would probably judge a bit based on the voice instead.

Maybe we should try anonymous remote court?

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