This just doesn't ring true to me. It sounds like you're projecting your own motivation on to others.
> Employment at a FAANG company.
I want to get paid more, and work on hard/interesting problems.
> Name on a research paper
I want credit for my work of course (why would you go out of your way to not have your name on a paper you contributed to), but impressing others is not the reason I would be in research (again - solving interesting/hard problems and hopefully making the world a little bit better would probably be the motivation if that was my career)
> False degree
I wouldn't want this.
> Membership at an exclusive club
Presumably this exclusive club does something together that I'm interested in, or at least has members that I want to talk to about something I'm interested in. (Or maybe we just go out to eat socially, that sounds fun).
Of course signalling status is useful as a means to an end. (E.g. I would want to appear as a competent/successful developer while applying for said FAANG job, or as a wealthy person while applying for a business loan). But I gain little joy from status in and of itself.
> Employment at a FAANG company.
I want to get paid more, and work on hard/interesting problems.
> Name on a research paper
I want credit for my work of course (why would you go out of your way to not have your name on a paper you contributed to), but impressing others is not the reason I would be in research (again - solving interesting/hard problems and hopefully making the world a little bit better would probably be the motivation if that was my career)
> False degree
I wouldn't want this.
> Membership at an exclusive club
Presumably this exclusive club does something together that I'm interested in, or at least has members that I want to talk to about something I'm interested in. (Or maybe we just go out to eat socially, that sounds fun).
Of course signalling status is useful as a means to an end. (E.g. I would want to appear as a competent/successful developer while applying for said FAANG job, or as a wealthy person while applying for a business loan). But I gain little joy from status in and of itself.