-> You might think of all this as cold, but it’s built into your behavior so deeply that you likely don’t even see it.
I think status is often depicted as/sold as "things that make you happy", rather than "things that other people want". You are not encouraged to seek a high-paying career because it raises your status, but because being highly-paid supposedly makes one more happy (which is true to some degree, but hedonic treadmill and logarithmic increases in happiness only, so it probably feels untrue for a decent amount of people).
If it were more explicit "this will raise your status", some people probably would not attempt that. I think the majority of people genuinely do care more about being happy than about having a high status, and are status-seeking because the two things are conflated and society does not do a good job at disentangling them.
If the high status thing they are vying for doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would make them, it feels hollow - and after such an experience, they look for something different to make them happy, which probably also is status-increasing, because of that conflation.
For example, Kayleigh from your story might realize that her local frienships are a lot more meaningful to her and invest in those. This might come with an increase in status (as somebody who invests in their friendships is something other people want), but that's incidental and not the motivation for doing it.
So I'd think most people are very aware that they are happiness-seeking, and only lack awareness that they are doing so by incidentally also improving the odds of being higher-status.
I think most people in highly compensated roles (say $1m+) are in it for the status/competition and are aware of that. The lifestyle difference between $500k and $1m is pretty small, but the status difference is huge.
As Janeane Garofalo says in West Wing. Money is about “Scorekeeping. Quantitative evidence that I’m smarter than you.”
Possible. I'm from Germany, both compensation and status work slightly differently here. I don't think I know anybody who is mostly in it for status, even at highly compensated (top 1% income) roles (but my sample size is also small, I don't know that many 1-percenters).
He does look a little like a young Robin Williams. But it's clearly someone big in the heterodox, young millennial, silicon valley, circles that match this blog audience.
“My favorite way to conceive of status is having what other people want. The more you have what other people want, the higher status you are.”
However, this definition misses the status that comes with being able to impose on people something they don’t want (dominance status). My definition of status - the potential to influence the behavior of others - includes both of these ways:
“Fitness is determined by the ability to attract quality mates, to form alliances and coalitions, and to gain deference from non-allies. Key to all of this is the individual’s potential to influence the behavior of others. is how I define status. Status in human societies can be obtained in two ways. Dominance – by subduing others – using force or the threat of force – and prestige – by changing the behavior of others through awe, and the expectation of benefits to be gained by deferring... Prestige and dominance are two different strategies with the same goal – to maximize status. In economics, individuals maximize their ability to influence the behavior of others who are valuable to their goals.“ https://www.jurajkarpis.com/moneyisstatusmemory/
"Status in human societies can be obtained in two ways. Dominance – by subduing others – using force or the threat of force – and prestige – by changing the behavior of others through awe, and the expectation of benefits to be gained by deferring"
I like the dominance side of this definition. However, I think that the category of prestige ought to be split into two subcategories. One category, still retaining the label of prestige, covers scenarios where status is gained via awe, social connections and stated capabilities. The other is respect, which covers scenarios where status is gained by being reliable, consistently providing good advice and preforming good work. I make this delineation because a society with a status hierarchy defined solely by what I call "prestige" will be quite different compared to a society where status is solely defined by what I call "respect".
I would lump them together, because both of them ("awe" and "respect") work similarly - they are pull strategies = create followers. Dominance is a push strategy and creates subordinates.
"Prestige status is the newer form of status acquisition strategy.
Prestige status is based on a person’s competence, ingenuity, and superior characteristics: such as size (height and muscularity), beauty, skills, knowledge, bravery, social and networking skills, verbal ability, entertaining ability, entrepreneurship, leadership.
The behavior of others is altered by awe, admiration, and expectation of benefits to be gained by deferring. These can take many forms such as access to mates, goods, services, knowledge & information (Henrich, Gil-White, 2001), coordination, leadership, and gaining status through association.
The resulting cooperation from prestige is based on voluntarily conferred deference."
I'm an old man. If/when I'm given opportunities to be useful to a pretty young woman, I might just take them. It's not out of any expectation of reward, it's enjoyable to help someone, especially someone with a nice smile.
The men who helped your career would likely also have pulled over to help you change a flat tire on the interstate. The smile and thank you they get for that isn't nothing, but it's dwarfed by being able to spend the rest of the week looking in the mirror and thinking 'I'm the kind of person who helps people with no thought of material reward.'
One thing I kept thinking is that can it be the fruit alone that gives status? What if you make it known you've got so much fruit you can eat it every day but they're all yours to eat. Do you still get high status? In the story the status seems to come from the expectation of partaking in the fruit riches. What about money. You have enough money to not work ever again. You got it, though, because you're thrifty and planned well. Sharing it isn't part of the plan. Do you still get status if you make it known?
This resonates with something I’ve been sitting with lately. I wrote about it in a recent reflection while traveling alone: how the most beautiful moments often feel fuller when they’re shared, not for status, but for presence.
Sure, we post the beach photo or the stunning sunset. Is that status? Sometimes. But I wonder how often it’s something else.
Sometimes I send a photo not to say “Look where I am,” but more like “I wish you were here with me.” It’s less about broadcasting my access to something desirable, and more about filling a quiet ache for connection, about being witnessed, not admired.
Maybe the real difference is internal. If I’m grounded and whole, I don’t need you to want what I have, I just want to feel close while I have it.
This article is a little odd to me. I definitely like attractive, intelligent, and interesting people. However, my liking attractive, intelligent, and interesting people is definitely not contingent on them being viewed as 'high status' or cool by others. If anything, someone I like being low status is preferable to me, because then it is easier for me to get social access to them. I have also never felt much of a desire to become super rich or 'high status' in any conventional sense. This article probably describes a way that many people think, but it is a mentality that is pretty foreign to me specifically.
Both of these past posts I have intuited as "mostly right" or "not wrong". But in both instances, it has felt like they are missing consideration of an X factor or overweighting some element.
It has created an itch that I need to scratch. This is the rambling which resulted from me trying to reconcile the instinct.
I think the crux of where the discordance is felt the most is in letting others know about the talisman. It feels like it is overweighting "fame" on the money-power-fame triad. If "power" includes inherent talent and abilities, then most of your thought process maps well to that more traditional status framing.
However, while being loud and well-known is intrinsic to status based on fame, it does not always map so cleanly to status based on "power". In absolute terms, you are correct that one must project their status in order to be able to wield it. But I feel some friction with the statement, "...display is required for them to have power."
This is very true for fame, but for certain kinds of power, part of its status value is in its concealment. This kind of status would be rooted in tropes such as the power behind the throne; the fixer; and, the illuminati. No denying those positions have status. And it is true that someone needs to know. But, part of the prestige of such status is in fewer people knowing, not more.
Grugg knows about the oasis, because his close confidant Durgg whispered its location in his ear. For whatever reason, Durgg is a caveman of simple needs and he is content to let Grugg publicly reap the majority of the rewards of this knowledge. He freely shares further secrets and counsel with Grugg, in exchange for Gruug bearing the brunt of the irritation managing the social interactions and threats which come from being a public facing figure.
Most in the tribe do not know who Durgg is. Only that he often sits quietly in the back corner while Grugg holds court. A few of the sharper cavepeople vaguely sense there is more to Durgg, but most overlook his presence. Attempts to glean what talisman he holds which allows him a place in court are brushed off as nothing more than an old friendship with Grugg. But nothing Grugg does happens without input from Durgg. And in those rare instances where Durgg needs to quietly exercise his true status, Grugg is more than happy to surreptitiously place his hand on the appropriate scale.
In the status hierarchy of the tribe, Durgg quietly sits as a dotted line to the left of Grugg under a mutually beneficial understanding which keeps them both at the top of the status hierarchy to their respective satisfactions.
Is Durgg putting all his status providing eggs in one basket? Yes. But it is a basket of eggs he gathered himself. Is it critical that Grugg understand the nature of their status dynamic for Durgg to have status? Yes. And to that extent, Durgg's importance to Grugg maintaining his status must be known to Grugg.
However, the balance of this status dynamic relies on others not knowing that Durgg knows just as much (if not more) than Grugg. For if the other cavepeople knew of Durgg's importance to Grugg, they would begin to pester Durgg for fruit directly. This would shatter the illusion that Grugg has a monopoly on his source of fruit and, in turn, diminish the benefits of high status secretly shared between Grugg and Durgg. As an additional irritant to their relationship, Durgg would become a perceived threat to Grugg's status were his talisman more publicly revealed.
None of this is to say this dynamic does not map to the spirit of your framing. However, it feels like there is an accent in your expression of it which is somewhat fame-coded (e.g. an implication that the talisman needs to be widely known for high status to exist). This accent may not be intentional. And my perception of it may be due to my own biases in preferred sources of status.
Whatever the root, it leaves me with the impression that this framing is accented to be just a few degrees off course. It captures most of the status market, but is missing (by inherent design) an easy to overlook segment.
We desire what we attach meaning to, and we find more meaning in those things we desire- its a circuit of desire and meaning that seems to sit right at the heart of what makes us human. AND drives a lot of forces in our world....where would we be without stories of desire?
The tribe dynamics thing has always been my best understanding of status also I think it has insight for AGI.
If someone is strong, or clever, or knows a trick, they might help the tribe survive. Or being close to them might be your key to surviving within the tribe.
And since you don't know what threat the tribe may face next, you are on some sense amalgamating all varieties of usefulness, power, and social clout.
Now think about the fact that humans are not relentless maximizers of narrowly defined utility, but part if what we chase is vaguely defined meaning/purpose/status. I think this is a very important feature of our general intelligence, that we seek to understand, master, l communicate about nearly everything and anything.
If we have any hope of an AGI whose actions we will believe are meaningful, we will have to teach it to pursue status along the lines we would recognize.
If someone sees that Grugg has a ton of fruit and instead of trying to become their friend ends up kidnapping and beating the answer out of them, does it count as an example of Grugg being high status? If Grugg is so strong and has such a highly organized group of friends that it’s not possible, is it really the fruit that made them high status or the fact that no one can beat the answer out of them?
That's why commodification is so powerful. Make everything you possibly can so abundant and replaceable that is strips people posessing them of their power. In a sense our caveman that monopolizes access to fruits is a hindrance to progress. Modernity has incredible tools to disrupt these ancient status mechanics.
I guess I'm hung up on "have what other people want". The first post (in the series) pointed out that Trump is very rich and yet many people would dump beer on his face at a party. He has what other people want (money), but you could argue he isn't high status in some circles
-> You might think of all this as cold, but it’s built into your behavior so deeply that you likely don’t even see it.
I think status is often depicted as/sold as "things that make you happy", rather than "things that other people want". You are not encouraged to seek a high-paying career because it raises your status, but because being highly-paid supposedly makes one more happy (which is true to some degree, but hedonic treadmill and logarithmic increases in happiness only, so it probably feels untrue for a decent amount of people).
If it were more explicit "this will raise your status", some people probably would not attempt that. I think the majority of people genuinely do care more about being happy than about having a high status, and are status-seeking because the two things are conflated and society does not do a good job at disentangling them.
If the high status thing they are vying for doesn't make them as happy as they thought it would make them, it feels hollow - and after such an experience, they look for something different to make them happy, which probably also is status-increasing, because of that conflation.
For example, Kayleigh from your story might realize that her local frienships are a lot more meaningful to her and invest in those. This might come with an increase in status (as somebody who invests in their friendships is something other people want), but that's incidental and not the motivation for doing it.
So I'd think most people are very aware that they are happiness-seeking, and only lack awareness that they are doing so by incidentally also improving the odds of being higher-status.
I think most people in highly compensated roles (say $1m+) are in it for the status/competition and are aware of that. The lifestyle difference between $500k and $1m is pretty small, but the status difference is huge.
As Janeane Garofalo says in West Wing. Money is about “Scorekeeping. Quantitative evidence that I’m smarter than you.”
Possible. I'm from Germany, both compensation and status work slightly differently here. I don't think I know anybody who is mostly in it for status, even at highly compensated (top 1% income) roles (but my sample size is also small, I don't know that many 1-percenters).
Agreed still enjoying life being happy and not manipulated towards ones dreams sounds great.
I'm not sure if this runs counter to your assertion or not but...
I don't know who the guy posing with Lauren is.
Me neither, who is he?
HA. take That Lauren! Your status farming doesn't work on us.
My first thought was Robin Williams, but I'm not sure.
He does look a little like a young Robin Williams. But it's clearly someone big in the heterodox, young millennial, silicon valley, circles that match this blog audience.
“My favorite way to conceive of status is having what other people want. The more you have what other people want, the higher status you are.”
However, this definition misses the status that comes with being able to impose on people something they don’t want (dominance status). My definition of status - the potential to influence the behavior of others - includes both of these ways:
“Fitness is determined by the ability to attract quality mates, to form alliances and coalitions, and to gain deference from non-allies. Key to all of this is the individual’s potential to influence the behavior of others. is how I define status. Status in human societies can be obtained in two ways. Dominance – by subduing others – using force or the threat of force – and prestige – by changing the behavior of others through awe, and the expectation of benefits to be gained by deferring... Prestige and dominance are two different strategies with the same goal – to maximize status. In economics, individuals maximize their ability to influence the behavior of others who are valuable to their goals.“ https://www.jurajkarpis.com/moneyisstatusmemory/
"Status in human societies can be obtained in two ways. Dominance – by subduing others – using force or the threat of force – and prestige – by changing the behavior of others through awe, and the expectation of benefits to be gained by deferring"
I like the dominance side of this definition. However, I think that the category of prestige ought to be split into two subcategories. One category, still retaining the label of prestige, covers scenarios where status is gained via awe, social connections and stated capabilities. The other is respect, which covers scenarios where status is gained by being reliable, consistently providing good advice and preforming good work. I make this delineation because a society with a status hierarchy defined solely by what I call "prestige" will be quite different compared to a society where status is solely defined by what I call "respect".
I would lump them together, because both of them ("awe" and "respect") work similarly - they are pull strategies = create followers. Dominance is a push strategy and creates subordinates.
"Prestige status is the newer form of status acquisition strategy.
Prestige status is based on a person’s competence, ingenuity, and superior characteristics: such as size (height and muscularity), beauty, skills, knowledge, bravery, social and networking skills, verbal ability, entertaining ability, entrepreneurship, leadership.
The behavior of others is altered by awe, admiration, and expectation of benefits to be gained by deferring. These can take many forms such as access to mates, goods, services, knowledge & information (Henrich, Gil-White, 2001), coordination, leadership, and gaining status through association.
The resulting cooperation from prestige is based on voluntarily conferred deference."
I'm an old man. If/when I'm given opportunities to be useful to a pretty young woman, I might just take them. It's not out of any expectation of reward, it's enjoyable to help someone, especially someone with a nice smile.
The men who helped your career would likely also have pulled over to help you change a flat tire on the interstate. The smile and thank you they get for that isn't nothing, but it's dwarfed by being able to spend the rest of the week looking in the mirror and thinking 'I'm the kind of person who helps people with no thought of material reward.'
Or just to be liked. It's interesting to what extent the post dismisses that as a motivation.
One thing I kept thinking is that can it be the fruit alone that gives status? What if you make it known you've got so much fruit you can eat it every day but they're all yours to eat. Do you still get high status? In the story the status seems to come from the expectation of partaking in the fruit riches. What about money. You have enough money to not work ever again. You got it, though, because you're thrifty and planned well. Sharing it isn't part of the plan. Do you still get status if you make it known?
Less so. You can't really have that much if you don't have enough to give some of it away.
This resonates with something I’ve been sitting with lately. I wrote about it in a recent reflection while traveling alone: how the most beautiful moments often feel fuller when they’re shared, not for status, but for presence.
Sure, we post the beach photo or the stunning sunset. Is that status? Sometimes. But I wonder how often it’s something else.
Sometimes I send a photo not to say “Look where I am,” but more like “I wish you were here with me.” It’s less about broadcasting my access to something desirable, and more about filling a quiet ache for connection, about being witnessed, not admired.
Maybe the real difference is internal. If I’m grounded and whole, I don’t need you to want what I have, I just want to feel close while I have it.
Status may be about what others desire.
But joy, I think, is what we desire to share.
This article is a little odd to me. I definitely like attractive, intelligent, and interesting people. However, my liking attractive, intelligent, and interesting people is definitely not contingent on them being viewed as 'high status' or cool by others. If anything, someone I like being low status is preferable to me, because then it is easier for me to get social access to them. I have also never felt much of a desire to become super rich or 'high status' in any conventional sense. This article probably describes a way that many people think, but it is a mentality that is pretty foreign to me specifically.
Both of these past posts I have intuited as "mostly right" or "not wrong". But in both instances, it has felt like they are missing consideration of an X factor or overweighting some element.
It has created an itch that I need to scratch. This is the rambling which resulted from me trying to reconcile the instinct.
I think the crux of where the discordance is felt the most is in letting others know about the talisman. It feels like it is overweighting "fame" on the money-power-fame triad. If "power" includes inherent talent and abilities, then most of your thought process maps well to that more traditional status framing.
However, while being loud and well-known is intrinsic to status based on fame, it does not always map so cleanly to status based on "power". In absolute terms, you are correct that one must project their status in order to be able to wield it. But I feel some friction with the statement, "...display is required for them to have power."
This is very true for fame, but for certain kinds of power, part of its status value is in its concealment. This kind of status would be rooted in tropes such as the power behind the throne; the fixer; and, the illuminati. No denying those positions have status. And it is true that someone needs to know. But, part of the prestige of such status is in fewer people knowing, not more.
Grugg knows about the oasis, because his close confidant Durgg whispered its location in his ear. For whatever reason, Durgg is a caveman of simple needs and he is content to let Grugg publicly reap the majority of the rewards of this knowledge. He freely shares further secrets and counsel with Grugg, in exchange for Gruug bearing the brunt of the irritation managing the social interactions and threats which come from being a public facing figure.
Most in the tribe do not know who Durgg is. Only that he often sits quietly in the back corner while Grugg holds court. A few of the sharper cavepeople vaguely sense there is more to Durgg, but most overlook his presence. Attempts to glean what talisman he holds which allows him a place in court are brushed off as nothing more than an old friendship with Grugg. But nothing Grugg does happens without input from Durgg. And in those rare instances where Durgg needs to quietly exercise his true status, Grugg is more than happy to surreptitiously place his hand on the appropriate scale.
In the status hierarchy of the tribe, Durgg quietly sits as a dotted line to the left of Grugg under a mutually beneficial understanding which keeps them both at the top of the status hierarchy to their respective satisfactions.
Is Durgg putting all his status providing eggs in one basket? Yes. But it is a basket of eggs he gathered himself. Is it critical that Grugg understand the nature of their status dynamic for Durgg to have status? Yes. And to that extent, Durgg's importance to Grugg maintaining his status must be known to Grugg.
However, the balance of this status dynamic relies on others not knowing that Durgg knows just as much (if not more) than Grugg. For if the other cavepeople knew of Durgg's importance to Grugg, they would begin to pester Durgg for fruit directly. This would shatter the illusion that Grugg has a monopoly on his source of fruit and, in turn, diminish the benefits of high status secretly shared between Grugg and Durgg. As an additional irritant to their relationship, Durgg would become a perceived threat to Grugg's status were his talisman more publicly revealed.
None of this is to say this dynamic does not map to the spirit of your framing. However, it feels like there is an accent in your expression of it which is somewhat fame-coded (e.g. an implication that the talisman needs to be widely known for high status to exist). This accent may not be intentional. And my perception of it may be due to my own biases in preferred sources of status.
Whatever the root, it leaves me with the impression that this framing is accented to be just a few degrees off course. It captures most of the status market, but is missing (by inherent design) an easy to overlook segment.
Nicely put!
What you describe is typically considered as power. Power tends to increase status. Status does not necessarily increase power.
reminds of mimetic desire theory: "wanting", from luke burgis, talks a good deal about this
We desire what we attach meaning to, and we find more meaning in those things we desire- its a circuit of desire and meaning that seems to sit right at the heart of what makes us human. AND drives a lot of forces in our world....where would we be without stories of desire?
I understand now. Thank you.
Fun to see a woman dance around status in such a utilitarian way. Masculine even.
So...can we make mirrors taboo now?
The tribe dynamics thing has always been my best understanding of status also I think it has insight for AGI.
If someone is strong, or clever, or knows a trick, they might help the tribe survive. Or being close to them might be your key to surviving within the tribe.
And since you don't know what threat the tribe may face next, you are on some sense amalgamating all varieties of usefulness, power, and social clout.
Now think about the fact that humans are not relentless maximizers of narrowly defined utility, but part if what we chase is vaguely defined meaning/purpose/status. I think this is a very important feature of our general intelligence, that we seek to understand, master, l communicate about nearly everything and anything.
If we have any hope of an AGI whose actions we will believe are meaningful, we will have to teach it to pursue status along the lines we would recognize.
If someone sees that Grugg has a ton of fruit and instead of trying to become their friend ends up kidnapping and beating the answer out of them, does it count as an example of Grugg being high status? If Grugg is so strong and has such a highly organized group of friends that it’s not possible, is it really the fruit that made them high status or the fact that no one can beat the answer out of them?
That's why commodification is so powerful. Make everything you possibly can so abundant and replaceable that is strips people posessing them of their power. In a sense our caveman that monopolizes access to fruits is a hindrance to progress. Modernity has incredible tools to disrupt these ancient status mechanics.
I guess I'm hung up on "have what other people want". The first post (in the series) pointed out that Trump is very rich and yet many people would dump beer on his face at a party. He has what other people want (money), but you could argue he isn't high status in some circles