Almost all cultures have the idea of “qualified content”. Content that is esoteric, superior, and for the lack of a better term, elite. The attachment of emotional affect to these pieces of content must come from two groups of people. The consumers (henceforth referred to as “coomers”) of “qualified content” and the non-consumers (henceforth referred to as “non-coomers”) . For this phenomenon to occur, the coomers must showcase pride in their consumption of qualified content, and/or, the non-coomers must express shame in not consuming it. Now the question has been reduced to identifying what exactly is it, about qualified content, that inspires such emotions in these two groups of people. If one must attach qualities of a piece of content to themselves and feel pride/shame to it, it must mean that the content “says” something about the one who consumes it. This would mean that the content is but a vehicle for the signals one wishes to broadcast to everyone else, and these qualities are a by-product of our culture. “Desire is for, and of, the Other”. Commonly appreciated signals in our culture are virtues, wit, empathy, etc. and any content that expresses this is appreciated, not for its innate quality (whatever that is), but for its ability to broadcast favorable signals. But, for the non-erudite among us, the content that signals erudition, is indistinguishable from content that signals pedantry. Similarly, for the unempathetic amongst us the content that signals empathy, is indistinguishable from content that signals pity. The problem dissolves into a matter of cheap vs. costly signaling. It is costlier to inculcate a nuanced view than it is to merely signal a nuanced view. In a system of rational agents who wish to maximize their payoffs, the Nash Equilibrium would be to cheap signal, and not only that, in recurring games, the outcome is a complete phasing out of all forms of inculcation of a nuanced view by the mere signaling of it. The coomers take pride in signaling virtuous characteristics and the non-coomers are ashamed by their inability to do so, and members of both groups receive a very twisted sense of enjoyment from this. The Sadist and the Masochist. Interesting how most of our content heirarchy are a by-product of the sexual tension between these two groups. But where does this pride come from? What initial benefit was promised to those who costly signal? It has been a recurring theme of humanity, the urge to settle oneself as an Individual. One apart from the herd and yet, loved by the herd for his individuality. This is perhaps the most common fantasy, and the most commonly unfulfilled one at that. The question of where this fetish comes from is a question that would require its own piece of analysis but my intuition suggests that it is a remnant of the drive that first bestowed consciousness upon our species. Nietzsche suggested that the myth of consciousness is but an evolutionary aid for more complex social dynamics. Be that as it may, the urge to become Individual, is self-evident. So what really makes one, an Individual? What is the narrow path that leads one to the Kingdom of Heaven? “You higher men, the worst about you is that you have not learned to dance as one must dance – dancing away over yourselves! What does it matter that you are failures? How much is still possible!” Self-overcoming, turns out, is the costly signal. And an excessively costly one at that. To self-immolate, to trigger an ego-death at every chance one gets, in as life-affirming a way as possible, is characteristic only of the higher man. "The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death; the modern man's worst fear is just death." If our culture is but a flux that floods the space between you and I, then not only is this flux filled with cheap signaling, but it is also one that floods our olfactory nerves with pheromones. This understanding helps us classify people into two kinds, the ones who are comfortable being in the midst of this cloud, and the ones who find it so repulsive that the aversion starts not at the olfactory nerves, but much earlier, from the very singeing of their nostril hairs due to the corrosive gas that envelopes them. For the latter kind of man, I suggest an antidote. Invert the signals. Create meaning and value from within, and let it spill out of you. This inversion is the only way to escape the coomer-noncoomer polarization. Garner your tastes, develop them through the traditional route but you must descend into the “non-coomer” end of the pool. “I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself.” Human consciousness, is akin to capitalism, inasmuch that on a long enough timeline it absorbs all that it touches and is shaped by the things it engulfs. If one was to consider the goal to self-overcoming, then the abstract thing that holds our whole world together demands a good meal. But for the naïve amongst us who just do not know any better and are trapped in the coomer-noncoomer dichotomy, how must they rise above? Their coomer-palette is not their own doing, they just don’t know any better. For this subset of people, salvation lies in an improved decision framework for content consumption, parameterized around maximizing breadth. “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” If maximizing breadth was the sole criterion, then it is impossible to achieve that goal if entire spectrums are not consumed. If an n-dimensional space was considered to be a representation of our consciousness, a spectrum is but a single axis in that space. If all axes are orthogonal to each other, this implies that breadth in one spectrum is depth in another. But an important characteristic of reality that does not neatly map onto our Cartesian analogy is that, not all axes are created equal. Some spectrums are capable of encapsulating more than others. Now, a rational move would be to arrange these spectrums in an order of priority. They would be ordered by the breadth of the spectrum, and the least overlap with other broader spectrums. The combination of these two factors for this ordering exercise makes things immensely complicated. If we must get anywhere with this, we must rely on heuristics and our intuition. “There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.” The two central drives within man are the drive to power and drive to meaning. These drives lie at the center of everything, including the most important aspect of existence that orients us a species, our values. This implies that the most alien territory lies not in the physical, but in the psychological. If one’s sole goal was to self-overcome and exploration of the unknown, then it would require actions that sublate these drives with their inverse. To trigger creation, the drive to power must be shaken and the drive to meaning, stirred. If content consumption is social signaling, then it has entered the realm of social hierarchies. To break free from the fetters of the value hierarchies we inherit, we must draw inspiration from a recent historical movement. The reason Christianity was a revolutionary force of nature, despite its incorrectness, was its simple but vehement inversion of all life-oriented values. By no means do I suggest a blind following of this kind of philosophy. Similarly, nor do I suggest the consumption of ONLY NPC content. But a well-timed, conscious effort taken to invert current value structures is like a value-dance, between the flux both within and outside you. This anti-thesis of a value-system is the penultimate step in the formation of a third, qualitatively different from the first two, a synthesis. The heuristic we have chosen, a bottom up consideration for what we hold most dear, seems to give us a satisfactory ordering, but one must bear in mind. The difficulty of spectrum expansion is higher the higher you go on the priority list. The reason why is obvious. To signal ones own downfall is more often than not a self-fulfilling prophecy. But perhaps the new value system we must orient ourselves to, is bravery. A mandated humiliation, a thickening of the skin, and most importantly, ascension from the sexual interplay within the coomer-noncoomer flux.