Kaj forms the generalization "as soon as my brain adopted a cause, my subconscious reinterpreted it as the goal of giving the impression of doing prestigious work for the cause". I worry that our community has a tendency to explain as e.g. status signaling or "people really don't care about X", observations that can also be explained by less malice/selfishness and more "our brains have known malfunctions at linking goals to urges".

I actually agree with this, and have somewhat changed my mind about the explanation in my original post, but I just haven't had the time to write about it. Hopefully this week.

EDIT: Done.