Thanks for sharing! I come from an art/design background too, and these all resonate with me as “nice outfits that I would love to wear” and I was even looking for similar clothing recently. However, this doesn’t mean that “making a statement with high quality, anrtistic, expensive clothes” passes my cost/benefit check, and I don’t think it would for most other rationalists. (Content warning for unabashed handwavy generalizations.) Let’s look at this in a few contexts: At work, people in this community usually add value with information/data and stakeholder management. Making a statement with clothing is neutral for the first, and could lean positive or negative depending on context for the second. In dating, this is signaling that you are an interesting or artistic person who cares about appearance. This definitely helps to widen the dating pool. I think this is a plus, but this can also be done with better hygiene and by getting some standard pieces that fit well. In social situations with other rats/friends/family, it seems neutral.
Overall, I think it makes the most sense to go to the pareto frontier here. You can spend 300-400 total getting some nice looking earth tone button-ups, well-fitting pants that aren’t blue jeans, trim your beard, get regular haircuts from an actual salon, shower daily, and make sure you smell decent. You can even ask Claude to help with shopping for your specific needs. After that, there’s not a lot of utility most people will get out of it.
That being said, I still got a lot of joy looking through the links you shared! You do have great taste.
Thanks for sharing! I come from an art/design background too, and these all resonate with me as “nice outfits that I would love to wear” and I was even looking for similar clothing recently. However, this doesn’t mean that “making a statement with high quality, anrtistic, expensive clothes” passes my cost/benefit check, and I don’t think it would for most other rationalists. (Content warning for unabashed handwavy generalizations.) Let’s look at this in a few contexts: At work, people in this community usually add value with information/data and stakeholder management. Making a statement with clothing is neutral for the first, and could lean positive or negative depending on context for the second. In dating, this is signaling that you are an interesting or artistic person who cares about appearance. This definitely helps to widen the dating pool. I think this is a plus, but this can also be done with better hygiene and by getting some standard pieces that fit well. In social situations with other rats/friends/family, it seems neutral.
Overall, I think it makes the most sense to go to the pareto frontier here. You can spend 300-400 total getting some nice looking earth tone button-ups, well-fitting pants that aren’t blue jeans, trim your beard, get regular haircuts from an actual salon, shower daily, and make sure you smell decent. You can even ask Claude to help with shopping for your specific needs. After that, there’s not a lot of utility most people will get out of it.
That being said, I still got a lot of joy looking through the links you shared! You do have great taste.