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Who wants to play the status game?

thepointmag.com

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Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#11

Post by stared »

zxcmx wrote: post #9

Thank goodness for status ambiguity. It's possible to be rich, yet a terrific bore; a talented golfer who is a mean drunk; a world class programmer who can't weld for beans; or a respected judge who nonetheless commits a faux pas at a society event. We can all be switching statuses all the time and (to an extent) we get to choose which ones, if any, matter to us. I think this makes life immensely more rich and tolera…

It is closely related to the "scalar fallacy" (see http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2011/01/scalar...; the quotation from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8132525):

> The scalar fallacy is the false but pervasive assumption that real-world things (hotels, sandwiches, people, mutual funds, chemo drugs, whatever) have some single-dimension ordering of "goodness".

> When you project a multi-dimensional space down to one dimension, you are involving a lot of context and preferences in the act of projecting.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#12

Post by tonyedgecombe »

roenxi wrote: post #8

Part of what this is getting to is that the elites are, in a sense, unmoored. I can't speak for what they individually feel but there must be some acceptance that Facebook and Google just don't measure up to Standard Oil or Toyota in terms of real world impact. The electronic companies can measure up, but they are becoming more of an Asian phenomenon. Maybe the drug companies. I have a half-formed view that many of s…

It's interesting you compared to Standard Oil and Toyota, to me the founders of those two organisations couldn't be more different in terms of their status seeking.

There might be something to what you say though, my gut feeling is Google and Facebook are yet to show any longevity. They could disapear as quickly as they arrived.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#13

Post by SuoDuanDao »

roenxi wrote: post #8

Part of what this is getting to is that the elites are, in a sense, unmoored. I can't speak for what they individually feel but there must be some acceptance that Facebook and Google just don't measure up to Standard Oil or Toyota in terms of real world impact. The electronic companies can measure up, but they are becoming more of an Asian phenomenon. Maybe the drug companies. I have a half-formed view that many of s…

I suspect that to the elites, the world today is as scary and uncertain as it is for the rest of us. I always get a kick out of watching the Davos videos - this convention of world leaders reminds me of nothing so much as my small-town elementary school, what with all the fads, cliques, and isolation from the wider world. I'd be scared too.

I suspect for example that most of the Davos set truly believes in and is worried about climate change, but also knows that anything they try to do in response will be ineffectual within one election cycle. I imagine a scene where some respected member of their inner circle admonishes them that they need a populist of their own to sell their solutions, and they quietly agree but can't get along with anyone who would actually be popular.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#15

Post by SQueeeeeL »

yunusabd wrote: post #10

I love how the author casually puts herself up there with Kant, Aristotle and Nietzsche. I guess she's playing the importance game too :) "And no philosopher — not Kant, not Aristotle, not Nietzsche, not I — has yet figured out how to construct a moral theory that allows us to say both of those things."

Also like how they completely ignore Marx/philosophers who actually study societial inequality, with those who studied logic.

Also the whole Ubermensch thing is basically a solution to this, by essentially fixing the whole system with an ideal person.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#17

Post by ath0 »

The trade in status - what this article calls “the importance game” and “the leveling game” - are a core part of what makes conversation hard. If you want to learn more - or are having trouble getting the feel for examples of why this is so important in practice and how to use it - a book recommendation:

A previous gig gave us Keith Johnstone’s book for theater actors and writers _Impro_ as part of our onboarding. Chapter 2, “Status”, is entirely on this concept, and how status exchanges are a key part of what makes scenes interesting and relatable for viewers. At the time it felt like an odd choice for an engineering role, but after reading the detailed examples of status exchanges and how they work, they became impossible to unsee.

And that was great, because I gotta tell you, HN: applying this skill has made me a much more effective technical leader.

Wishing for status exchanges not to happen isn’t helpful - they’re happening whether you see and intend them or not, so learning how to spot and use (or avoid them) effectively made it, maybe paradoxically, much easier to have difficult, important, multi-layered conversations with people - other engineers, other departments, customers - about hard problems and get them to a good resolution.

As the industry does some soul-searching about the way power is perceived and used differently by different groups, understanding this topic should be seen as core to leveling up.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#18

Post by goatinaboat »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #12
roenxi wrote: post #8

Part of what this is getting to is that the elites are, in a sense, unmoored. I can't speak for what they individually feel but there must be some acceptance that Facebook and Google just don't measure up to Standard Oil or Toyota in terms of real world impact. The electronic companies can measure up, but they are becoming more of an Asian phenomenon. Maybe the drug companies. I have a half-formed view that many of s…

It's interesting you compared to Standard Oil and Toyota, to me the founders of those two organisations couldn't be more different in terms of their status seeking. There might be something to what you say though, my gut feeling is Google and Facebook are yet to show any longevity. They could disapear as quickly as they arrived.

They could disapear as quickly as they arrived.

Let’s hope so anyway.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#19

Post by afpx »

Another "more advanced game" is the collaboration game. In this game, the players determine their common ground. The players evaluate each other and think, "Hey this person seems to be good at X and knows a lot about Y. I know a lot about Z. Maybe we can join forces." They then identify common goals that they can work on together.

I don't know about most people, but I'm definitely more interested in playing the collaboration game. And, I tend to overlook people who aren't into it.

Also, it's unfortunate if many people are influenced by Aristotle and "see human political organization as fundamentally hierarchical." Anthropologically, Humans tend to follow those whom they respect, not those they are told to follow.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#20

Post by listenallyall »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #13
roenxi wrote: post #8

Part of what this is getting to is that the elites are, in a sense, unmoored. I can't speak for what they individually feel but there must be some acceptance that Facebook and Google just don't measure up to Standard Oil or Toyota in terms of real world impact. The electronic companies can measure up, but they are becoming more of an Asian phenomenon. Maybe the drug companies. I have a half-formed view that many of s…

I suspect that to the elites, the world today is as scary and uncertain as it is for the rest of us. I always get a kick out of watching the Davos videos - this convention of world leaders reminds me of nothing so much as my small-town elementary school, what with all the fads, cliques, and isolation from the wider world. I'd be scared too. I suspect for example that most of the Davos set truly believes in and is wor…

>> most of the Davos set truly believes in and is worried about climate change

Over a thousand private jets would indicate the opposite. Perhaps one owner could offer to fly Greta to her next destination, surely one of them must be going to the same place?

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