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Low social status 'can damage immune system'

bbc.com

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Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'

#31

Post by platz »

reflexive wrote: post #18
daodedickinson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nietszche says to measure one's strength by the number of parasites one can support.

"It is not impossible to imagine society so conscious of its power that it could allow itself the noblest luxury available to it, – that of letting its malefactors go unpunished. ‘What do I care about my parasites’, it could say, ‘let them live and flourish: I am strong enough for all that!’ . . . Justice, which began by saying ‘Everything can be paid off, everything must be paid off ’, ends by turning a blind eye an…

He's talking about Basic Income y'all.

Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'

#36

Post by saganus »

AnthonyNagid wrote: post #25
drakenot wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a brief summary of the points he makes about social status? I'm curious but my reading backlog is already out of hand.

Yes but I'll need to borrow Kahneman's system1 system2 model of human behavior. System1 impulsive default mode of the great average human intelligence. System2 the more resource intensive and introspective mode. Essentially the day to day activity of your average patch of humans is made mostly System1 behavior. Unfortunately when actors seek to emulate or broadcast average culture via System2 it leads to an unrealist…

Aha! This makes lots of sense to me.

Whenever I'm watching a movie with good actors, even though I know they are acting it's easy to let myself go and be absorbed by the story. They make it seem so easy (as most top professionals do) that sometimes I even start to think "acting can't be that hard!, I mean, you just have to reeeeally believe you are the character".

However in a low-budget movie, which usually has less skilled actors, you can definitely see this "System2-trying-to-fake-System1" behavior. This is also quite probably what would happen if someone filmed me trying to act, but I never found an explanation for why this happened.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely give it a go. It does look like a very interesting insight into human behavior.

Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'

#37

Post by akkartik »

drakenot wrote: post #20
AnthonyNagid wrote: post #16

Has anyone else here ever read Keith Johnstone's 'Impro'? Coming from the world of theater, Johnstone has a facinating perspective on the malleability of social status.

Can you give a brief summary of the points he makes about social status? I'm curious but my reading backlog is already out of hand.

Let me try to move it up your backlog. Impro is one of 10 books I keep around on a permanent basis. I've been reading it for a couple of years now, and I'm not done yet. This isn't because it's a large book. Indeed, it weighs in at a slim 200 pages. I'm not done yet because after I read a chapter I can't bear to move forward, and I spend the next few months looking at the world around me with new eyes.

Other commenters here allude to the value of status in improvisational comedy. This isn't all the book is about. It is a window into human nature in general.

Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'

#39

Post by drawnwren »

bunchofdweebs wrote: post #38

But is it necessarily a bad thing? It seems like a way for nature to filter out less competitive genetic material. There are always going to be hierarchies and there will always be people at the bottom. It's an inherent part of how matter organises itself.

The human side of your comment aside, it isn't absolute. So it may 'filter out more competitive genetic material,' from the bottom of more competitive pools than the 'less competitive material' at the top of worse performing pools.

Re: Low social status 'can damage immune system'

#40

Post by cyrusshepard »

bunchofdweebs wrote: post #38

But is it necessarily a bad thing? It seems like a way for nature to filter out less competitive genetic material. There are always going to be hierarchies and there will always be people at the bottom. It's an inherent part of how matter organises itself.

Logical fallacy. Social status ≠ genetics. Social status is unfortunately often determined by income, race, religion, and a host of other nonlogical designations.

In this experiment, social status was determined by "newness" to the group. Nothing to do with genetics.

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