Contrast a math textbook to a poster that just has Euler’s Identity. One is useful for teaching you about math, the other is just to show off that you’re a fan of math to other people in your in-group. This poster is for people that want to point to a box during an argument and feel smug. There’s nothing terribly wrong with that, but it’s still basically just saying “yay math”.
I have friends who admit they fill their shelves with math textbooks partially to signal that they’re intellectual. It’s possible to have both an educational payload and a signaling payload.
Contrast a math textbook to a poster that just has Euler’s Identity. One is useful for teaching you about math, the other is just to show off that you’re a fan of math to other people in your in-group. This poster is for people that want to point to a box during an argument and feel smug. There’s nothing terribly wrong with that, but it’s still basically just saying “yay math”.
I have friends who admit they fill their shelves with math textbooks partially to signal that they’re intellectual. It’s possible to have both an educational payload and a signaling payload.