Not having to care is often part of the countersignaling. An honest signal doesn't always take effort. In fact it's the tryhard imitators that have to expend effort emulating this. The real deal is effortless and comes naturally.

The silverback gorilla can come across as scary and formidable even when its just lazing around not trying to look intimidating. It's just big, without spending thought cycles on having to appear big, but the others still recognize it.

> Not having to care is often part of the countersignaling

If it’s used to signal, yes. The absence of a signal can be a signal. Or it can blend into the background. My point is wealthy folks wearing ordinary, loved clothes can be either, and in many cases it’s honestly just not giving a fuck and blending in with everyone else by happenstance.

A signal is a two way street. It remains a signal even if the signaler is oblivious to it but the observers still draw conclusions.

That's called projecting. If someone doesn't send a signal, but you believe you received it, that's on you, not them. You may _think_ the color of their skin or hair or the way they talk or dress or whatever "means/says something" (and, in some cases, it might) but it might just as well say something about you, not them.

You can call it whatever you want but people make inferences. Also there is no bright line between intentional and unintentional signaling. The brain is capable of hiding plenty of stuff from its own other parts. See the book "The elephant in the brain".

> You can call it whatever you want but people make inferences

This is an incorrect definition of a signal.

I agree that intention is irrelevant. But a powerful person blending in with their dress isn’t actually sending a signal. There is nothing to perceive because they look like everyone else.

The signal is only in if they’re recognized. Your definition of signal is congruous with any trait someone thinks a powerful person has whether it’s real or imagined.

I've met a few celebrities. When they wear worn, ordinary street clothes, they often go unrecognized. That may be a strong reason why they do that.

> When they wear worn, ordinary street clothes, they often go unrecognized. That may be a strong reason why they do that

Yup. Camouflage isn’t a signal.

If you dress down in a context where formal attire is expected, it's a signal. What it signals depends on what happens. If you're shunned and avoided, then you're just a loser or a hobo. If you're clearly valued, listened to with interest etc, despite that mismatch, it is a countersignal. You could only afford to do this by having high status and importance in the community that outweighs such expectations. It doesn't matter if you simply don't care and never think about how you dress and this just comes naturally. The signal is still picked. The person to whom general expectations and rules don't quite apply the same way as to the average person is the one of higher status.

In other words, it's not enough to flaunt the rules, you also have to get away with it for it to count.

Reminds me of how Nassim Taleb (famous for Black Swan among other books) says that he wants his surgeon to look like a butcher. The thinking goes that if despite all that roughness and sticking out, he’s a surgeon, he must be a pretty damned good surgeon.

> You can call it whatever you want but people make inferences.

This isn't about what it's called, it's about who's doing it. If people make inferences, that's something being done by the people making the inference, not by the people they are making the inferences about.

This is a pretty fundamental point, and grasping it is essential to having healthy interactions with others.

There is the "I don't (have to) give a fuck" counter-signaling. But also what about people that really don't care too much, out of ignorance even, or just fatigue.

Sure there is intentionality in there, but do we really call that _counter-signaling_?

They can try it and sometimes it works, but generally it's hard to imitate well. You have to not give a fuck about the right things. The imitators who just don't give a fuck about anything will stumble on something genuinely important.

Like the cool guy at school who doesn't give a fuck about what the teachers say will have to give a fuck about his friends and the community around him, to the skills that he gets his coolness from to preserve his status.

A boss who sends informal messages should still give a fuck about the overall state of the team, on being timely to respond to actually important matters even if just giving a quick ok sent from my iPhone.

The countersignaling is more about "I care about/provide more important things that are more valuable or impactful for you than getting caught up in bullshit insignificant superficial matters"

Well I agree and support that! Everyone cares about something. That's good and healthy.

There is a ton of value in intentionality. I realize I'm defending against this idea that if you don't do a given thing it must mean you really, really care about signaling that you'd never be caught doing that thing. You want to be caught signaling that you aren't doing it!

Of course that's true for some, many even. It's also true that someone just thought and lived and experienced and through intentionality, they come to opt-out of more and more of the fuss, in either direction.

Yes, overthinking this is also possible. I've had bosses who type correctly capitalized, with punctuation and paragraphs, and it's simply their style, not much else to read into it. But sometimes it can indicate a certain pedantic busybody personality who misses the forest for the trees and can be a pain in the ass to interact with.

That’s why there are entire books based on the joke that you can’t tell a homeless guy from a hippie with a trust fund.

And of course you can, at latest after one or two sentences.

100%. The homeless guy will sound way more coherent and less sociopathic.

> An honest signal doesn't always take effort.

I would guess that the non-effort signals instead involve risk tolerance.

It's a statement that they could easily withstand the consequences of an adverse judgement in ways regular people can't.

If I get turned away from Le Foie Heureux for failing to meet the restaurant dress-code, there's not much I can do. If the sommelier thinks that a billionaire looks like a vagrant, well, the billionaire will make a phone call...

"Signaling" is just the information that your visible choices send to those around you, including strangers. That's why it's called "signaling" -- your choices are broadcasting an information signal about you to others.

To not signal, you must make choices that carry little or no information in the context in which they exist. If you make choices in a context in which they are abnormal (e.g., dressing very casually in a context that others can't access in similar clothing), they inherently broadcast unique information about you. In some cases, that information can create a complex side effect in how people perceive you, even if you don't intend it (e.g., "this person put in the absolute bare minimum effort, because they knew we'd have to be nice to them no matter what, which feels disrespectful to me; their lack of optional effort for others signals that they only care about themselves, not us").

> "Signaling" is just the information that your visible choices send to those around you, including strangers. That's why it's called "signaling" -- your choices are broadcasting an information signal about you to others.

Where the theory falls flat re- signaling to strangers is that there are people that do dress very differently, use different cars, sometimes shave, sometimes not, on different days of the week.

And it's also very well known that many people simply do not pay attention to others. They mind their own business and that's it.

When I'm driving a random car and I'm dressed casually and not shaven, what signal am I sending to the strangers I'll see once during the day and who are anyway only minding their own business?

And the next day when I put on fancy shoes, an expensive watch, and I take out one of my Porsche and then go out and cross path with strangers, what signal am I sending? I'll only ever see them during that other day. Strangers who, also, only mind their own business.

The funny thing is: just like I don't give a flying fuck about other people, other people don't give a flying fuck about me.

But anyway how can I be signaling one thing to strangers on monday and another thing tuesday to other strangers?

Where it gets better: some days my wife prepares the clothes she wants me to wear (maybe because people shall come to the house later on or whatever), some days she doesn't and I just change underwear after my shower and put the same jeans I had the day before. Then I go to the garage: we both have several car keys. Maybe she decided to take my Porsche, maybe not.

So basically: I don't always pick the clothes I wear and my wife loves to sometimes take my Porsche.

What am I "signaling" to strangers? Not only I'm not totally in control of my outfit and my car but also simply don't care.

"Grug hungry. Grug grabs money or credit card. Grub puts whatever clothes on. Grug goes to whatever car is in the garage. Grub drives to groceries store to buy atoms to stay alive".

That's literally me.

Now maybe people in this thread meant to say: "signaling in the workplace towards people you see every day at work" but that's way different than "signaling to strangers".

To put it simply: I think a lot of people in this thread are way overestimating the level of caring other people exhibit.

I guarantee you that on the caring continuum most people by very far are on the "I couldn't care less" extreme.

There is such a thing as people who simply don't give a fuck and nobody is signaling anything to people who aren't even paying attention to you.

Grug goes to the groceries store to buy atoms to survive, not to look at other people's clothes/watch/car.

Signaling to people who aren't strangers: OK, that one I can buy. But to strangers I call horse load of shit because many people can "signal" two entire different things on two different days of the week. The only signal people see is the same as what people see reading tea leaves.

>and I don’t need to use dress anymore to get the access I want and need.

The privilege in that, contrasted with the lack of privilege for those in the inverse situation, is what's sinister.

Being a tourist is different to being poor or underpriveleged, in precisely that it's a privileged thing.

Agree, the parent comment leaves no room for nuance so people end up damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I do think thinking through the extremes and motivations and intentions of behavior is worth it. But confident conclusions less so.

When it comes to writing and fashion, definitely people over-correct to project a status, in both directions. But also there's just the aged realization that people will think what they will think, and you kinda just opt-out of the game.

You can't really opt out, just choose better suited minigames.

Generally when you don't (have to) care, you either have to back that up with some other accumulated reputation/value, or sacrifice some things. Like you can opt out of the job market game and being bossed around either by founding your own company, going self employed with clients (the hard part), or just sacrifice and downsize your life standard, become homeless or similar. But someone who needs a steady income in lieu of a big inheritance can't just opt out of caring.

> My best guess is that comfortable clothes are necessary but you also need something high value in addition

I’m just a regular. The point is I’m not signaling anything, I’m just not bothering with a signal because I have other things (namely, being recognized) that will e.g. ensure I get a table even if it’s a busy night.

If I go to Vegas I may grab a silk shirt because, yes, my service experience absolutely varies based on that, and I don’t want to have to wait until they see what I order or get to the check-in counter to start being paid attention to. (Which is annoying. And I prefer my t-shirts with cat holes in them. But I don’t like waiting in lines more than I dislike having to do my hair.)

(I do maybe counter signal in Palo Alto, where I refuse to wear a blazer or a Palo-Alto-grey hoodie. But that’s less of a power move than me inviting attention as a now outsider.)

> I’m just a regular. The point is I’m not signaling anything, I’m just not bothering with a signal because I have other things (namely, being recognized) that will e.g. ensure I get a table even if it’s a busy night.

it might not be on purpose, but you are signalling that you have status such that you dont need to play by whatever rules other people do to get said table.

to signal like a regular person, you would be doing all the same stuff other people do to get the table

> it might not be on purpose, but you are signalling that you have status

Not really. I’m relying on another signal, the recognizance of my person in a small town. If a tourist walked in wearing what I’m wearing they wouldn’t get that treatment. The signal is my face. Not the dress. (I could dress up for the evening and the same thing would happen.)

> to signal like a regular person, you would be doing all the same stuff other people do to get the table

Sure. That’s the point. I’m not signaling “like a regular person.” I’m just not sending a signal with dress. I’m dressing ordinarily.

If I were actually trying to camouflage I’d do other things. And that would constitute false signaling. (And sure, with my friends, I am signaling something. But it’s still not a counter signal unless we expand the terms signal and counter signal to mean literally anything, information and noise alike.)