class prostheses

beiser

Well-known member
I keep getting ads for a startup called "Grammarly," which promises to fix your bad prose and make you look like a respectable and well-educated member of society. An arbitrage for capitalizing on the intangible benefits accorded to the cultured classes, without having to go through the process yourself. Remarkable in that you rarely see appeals to a sense of injured dignity.

Are there other clear examples of class-augmenting prosthetics? Expensive clothing is obvious, no posting that.
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Cool thread idea.

Until I think of an example, I'll just put this question out to you and whoever else. What kind of distinctions do you see between augmenting a consumer's class appearance/aesthetic, and augmenting a consumer's identity, how they feel/think about themselves?

edit: specifically the class dimension of their identity, that is.
 

beiser

Well-known member
What kind of distinctions do you see between augmenting a consumer's class appearance/aesthetic, and augmenting a consumer's identity, how they feel/think about themselves?
A key (if pathological) case is the conman—they understand very well how to use class-positioning goods as capital goods
 

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Do you think advertising and marketing are, or are at least becoming, the primary means of influencing ideology? Seeing as all, or nearly all, values can be appealed to and coaxed into taking their wallet out.
 

sus

Well-known member
Two people, one highly intelligent, the other unintelligent, will work fields on the same slope, and both will farm well, keeping the ways that keep the land. You can look at a whole mountainside covered with these little farms and not see anything egregiously wasteful or stupid. Not so with us. With us, it grows harder and harder even for intelligent people to behave intelligently, and the unintelligent are condemned to a stupidity probably unknown in traditional cultures.
 

sus

Well-known member
Basically anything that gets leased out, or that is offered with a delayed payment plan is class augmentation
 

version

Well-known member
Podcasts.
They've convinced people they can speedrun learning like Neo learning Kung Fu in The Matrix. You just stick a bunch of history podcasts on double speed at the gym and suddenly you're a history expert as well as being in shape.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I just yelled "You bought non-premium Pampers?!" and then immediately thought of this thread.
 

sus

Well-known member
They've convinced people they can speedrun learning like Neo learning Kung Fu in The Matrix. You just stick a bunch of history podcasts on double speed at the gym and suddenly you're a history expert as well as being in shape.

This is why swimming is the ultimate sport.
 
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