Rob Henderson's theory of "Luxury Beliefs". People buy luxury goods in order to showcase how rich they are. It's precisely b/c they're useless that it brings high status, b/c only wealthy can afford them. The message is: "I'm so rich I can afford to waste money on this."
- Luxury goods much more attainable than before.
- Elites use luxury beliefs to signal status.
- Cycle: Elites adopt luxury belief, non-elites copy. Elites drop belief.
- Sad because elites have better safety net to experiment with potentially harmful luxury beliefs. Non-elites don't, so disproportionate harm can be caused.
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