HACKER Q&A
📣 chigwe01

Worst Luxury beliefs amongst tech workers?


I realized when working on a Youtube video that although alot of my tech friends were liberal, they lived conservative-ish lives. They got married, owned homes and investment properties. They were socially liberal and fiscally conservative. They also pushed luxury beliefs that they did not even follow. Who else has noticed this?


  👤 ZeroGravitas Accepted Answer ✓
I was going to ask if "luxury belief" was the new "virtue signalling" but looked it up and apparently it literally is:

> According to Henderson, luxury beliefs are ideas or values that confer status on the wealthy, but are not fully embraced or practiced by them. These beliefs are often expressed in a performative way, such as through social media posts or conspicuous consumption of products that signal virtue. The idea is that using luxury goods or positional goods to convey social status is no longer viable in an affluent society, and therefore certain beliefs are used instead.[3] These 'luxury beliefs' convey status for the rich at low costs, while maintaining a social hierarchy because those in lower classes will act out these beliefs, causing them to stay poor.[4]\

> Many examples of luxury beliefs have been proffered:

* That family stability doesn't matter, and therefore marriage doesn't matter.[5][1]

* That one should send their children to public schools.[4]

* Legalization of drugs.[3]

* Defunding police.[3][6]

* That individual decisions don't matter compared to random social forces or luck.[1]

* White privilege.[1]

* Wokeness.[6]

* Immigration policy.[6]

* Environmentalism.[7]

Well, that's a varied list.

I'd suggest that if a techbro says he wants to legalize drugs, it's more likely that he's a libertarian stoner than a part of whatever weird conspiracy theory this is suggesting. See for example that dude that got stabbed for doing lots of drugs with someone's sister.


👤 gregjor
Dispensing with the euphemism, people have noticed and commented on hypocrisy for millennia. Also on conspicuous consumption (Veblen et al), and virtue signaling. Nothing new, just expressed in different ways.

Nothing to do with "tech workers," just human nature.


👤 wmf
Somebody on Twitter recently mentioned "college doesn't matter".