The higher status strategy almost always ends up being countersignaling, where “trying too hard” is basically the opposite of counter signaling. The problem (this is something I am actively learning in my work) is that the way society is set up right now requires you to participate in the “attention economy” and build your brand/reputation in a group far larger than an ape-sized tribe. Because you’re not established in those circles a priori you have to start with signaling instead of counter signaling.

Basically, you have to have a PR team and win the hearts and minds of The Atlantic and Forbes before you can make a public spectacle of your ketamine habits. If you skip straight to that you’re just an insecure loser with a drug problem. But after everybody knows you and what you’ve done then you can establish yourself as a tortured artist, which is socially “better” than being just a regular artist.

But yeah, I would also like these two minutes of my life back.

Well, as someone who has also generated some text with LLMs, at least I learned that it's still possible to generate truly excruciating stuff with the "right" model and prompt.

Note the self-parodic humor in Claude quoting itself saying "you're absolutely right!". The author claims they didn't direct this, it truly is how Claude "sees" itself!