Is there anything which involves both...
(1) lots of subtle and subjective judgement calls
(2) humans yearning to show off their wealth / sophistication / status
...which is NOT fake or widely-faked?
(1) lots of subtle and subjective judgement calls
(2) humans yearning to show off their wealth / sophistication / status
...which is NOT fake or widely-faked?
I might say "Cars and yachts are not so widely faked, but are both status symbols", but then you might say "ah, but those are less subjective. A yacht objectively does not sink, and a car objectively needs less maintenance or goes faster or has better ride quality"
I might say "having a subjectively defined set of books on your bookshelf is a sign of sophistication and status, and is not widely faked", but you might say "ah, but the books are objective, having 1984 and K&R C are objectively a sign of programmer status"
I might say "owning a 'nice house' in a big city is a status symbol, 'nice' is very subjective, but it's not widely faked", to which you will point out reality is fake and I cannot even prove houses are real in the first place.
Hello fellow spaces over tabs person
(2a) Is there a demographic that willingly/consciously/unconsciously wants to be deceived (2b) What are the classes of things which they normally want to be deceived by?
Connection between wine connoisseurs and notion of high-status is generally accepted and the connection between status, self esteem and serotonin is well established [1-3]. There is one interesting study (which unfortunately i cant access) on rationality (or rather suppression of) during blind wine testing [4] which i presume iterates this point in context of wine
Solomon et al expounded Terror Management Theory[5] based on Becker's Denial of Death[6] which suggests one experimental measure for ascertaining degree of irrational attachment (or degree of irrationality); given a threat or reminder of death, humans will strongly assert whatever symbolic attachment (eg religion, race, choice of text editor, wine vs non wine loving, wine choice, truffle choice) they have and discriminate anyone who belongs to the 'other' due to the serotonin triggering nature of asserting the value of your attachment/identity. What i do want to see is a social/fMRI study of technological workers and 'fashion' ie irrational/subjective choices made in supposedly rational/objective domains (choice of text editors etc), related [7]
[1] Sylwester, Robert. "Serotonin, students, and self-esteem." The Education Digest 63.2 (1997): 16. [2] Breuning, Loretta Graziano. Habits of a happy brain: retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, & endorphin levels. Simon and Schuster, 2015. [3] Pyszczynski, Tom, et al. "Why do people need self-esteem? A theoretical and empirical review." Psychological bulletin 130.3 (2004): 435. [4] Caltagirone, C., et al. "Rational versus emotional behavioral responses in wine tasting: a transcranial magnetic stimulation experiment." American association of wine economists annual conference. 2011. [5] Greenberg, Jeff, Tom Pyszczynski, and Sheldon Solomon. "The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory." Public self and private self. Springer, New York, NY, 1986. 189-212. [6] Becker, Ernest. The denial of death. Simon and Schuster, 1997. [7] Breuning, Loretta. "The neurochemistry of science bias." Groupthink in Science. Springer, Cham, 2020. 3-14.