What is value? What is money! What is energy...
Who wants to play the status game?
41–50 of 209 posts
Re: Who wants to play the status game?
#42Alternatively, opt out of the status game and try to construct and pursue your own definition of excellence, rather than simply defining it in terms of your position in the social hierarchy. " Main deficiency of active people. Active men are usually lacking in higher activity-I mean individual activity. They are active as officials, businessmen, scholars, that is, as generic beings, but not as quite particular, singl…
Moneygathering is highly rational for essentially anyone but especially for the banker whose entire social sphere is structured around his skills as a moneygatherer.
Active men are active because they know and enjoy activity. The thrill of the pursuit and all that.
Re: Who wants to play the status game?
#43My undergrad was a super nerdy school grinding largely solo in the CS lab. Later I did an MBA program to take me completely out of my comfort zone.
I gravitated to those who were chill, and perplexed anyone who tried to play the Status Game by losing on purpose. If it was the chess equivalent, I fall into Fool's Mate on move 2.
Unfortunately, there ARE times when it helps to be able to quickly convey to new acquaintances that you are legitimate and worthwhile for further collaboration. But most of the time, best to turn it off.
Re: Who wants to play the status game?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Single dimension fallacy might be a good alternative name. I'd add that often things don't have a single ordering of goodness at all. Like a tomato sauce: some people like it thick, others watery, others chunky; so it actually has at least 3 orderings.
A scalar is a single dimension
I love that this is both technically correct, and at the same time is a "move" in the "status game".
Re: Who wants to play the status game?
#45Thank 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…
"we get to choose which ones, if any, matter to us."
Definitely!
It can be amusing (and awkward) when the game is played by people who have wildly different things they value. Someone (politely, of course) reveals they're a wealthy executive and you react by looking on them with pity because they have to sell their time to others to work on dumb things that don't matter while you get to be footloose and backpack around Europe. Or you dress well and have the right accent so everyone assumes you're powerful when you're not (when I first moved to Ireland I was startled how many people assumed I was the boss and just visiting for a few days because I had an American accent). Or maybe you farm - and people look down on you - but wait! You quit the rat race to start an organic farm selling high end niche-goods to upscale restaurants - and suddenly you're the shrewd individual who made the right decisions in life to be able to do that.
It can be useful to remember that everyone wakes up and goes to the toilet in the morning, no matter their status. Years ago I read a quote from someone who liked naturism (nudity) because it stripped away most of the immediate signifiers of class from people.
Re: Who wants to play the status game?
#46Alternatively, opt out of the status game and try to construct and pursue your own definition of excellence, rather than simply defining it in terms of your position in the social hierarchy. " Main deficiency of active people. Active men are usually lacking in higher activity-I mean individual activity. They are active as officials, businessmen, scholars, that is, as generic beings, but not as quite particular, singl…
Nietzsche famously didn't understand one thing: women / mating strategies. The banker's purpose isn't meaningless, it's a means to an end (even if not always consciously pursued that way) and generally works very well.
Re: Who wants to play the status game?
#47This feels so empty, what the article thinks is the status game just sounds like normal meeting new people stuff. Obviously there are always status indicators tied to interests, but I feel like I’m playing the make a new friend game not some philosophical keeping up with the Joneses
But that's exactly what it is. When you meet people who may be in your social sphere, inherently these people may have connections to your professional sphere.
Therefore, your status indicators and signals may have an impact on both your personal and professional life.
As a concrete example: I was recently passed over for a promotion, for which I am supremely qualified. The reason being, the person selected plays the status game better. They network better. They have the connections to people who are in places of power.
And I refuse to play the status or any other social games. I believe merit, in and of itself, is the way to achieve. And I am wrong, often.
Anyway, I digress. The reason that it may just feel like the 'make a new friend game' is because you 'fit' already. You may not have to think about the keeping up with the Joneses bit, because you are the Joneses. This way of interacting with new people may just be how you were raised and a part of your culture, so ingrained that it seems just a part of natural society. Do you think that's the case?
Re: Who wants to play the status game?
#48> but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment.
Why do we need this? Is the author suggesting that without an externally provided target, none shall be inspired?
The status game is inherent to all socially cooperative creatures. It's not a morality thing; it's an evolutionary thing. It's nothing we can legislate or moralize or shame away; all you can do is push it underground (as in, "I'm so important that I don't even need to play" or "I disdain all who play, and am therefore superior to the rabble who do"), which doesn't solve anything.
In truth, we've already reached a pretty decent point in countering the game's worst effects. When someone demands "just who do you think you are?", I can simply respond "I am a free man." And that's that. They'll usually have no recourse to harm me for such insolence, and their bruised ego is of little concern in the majority of cases. Long gone are the days where insulting a Lord would get you run through.
Of course, if you want to enlist the work of others by means other than coercion or bribes, the status game (i.e. charisma, popularity, respect) is the only way to do it. So for some occupations, it is essential.
Re: Who wants to play the status game?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-dimensiona…
Single dimension fallacy might be a good alternative name. I'd add that often things don't have a single ordering of goodness at all. Like a tomato sauce: some people like it thick, others watery, others chunky; so it actually has at least 3 orderings.
If I don't care, it doesn't exist?
And in all 3 cases you have putrid to fresh to masterfully made in terms of composition, quality of ingredients, age, etc...valuation can't be the composite of 'goodness', or we'd all become utility monsters chasing bitcoin.
Re: Who wants to play the status game?
#50I dug the assessment of the "advanced games" while reading this (and questioning the degree of my own participation in said games), but felt a little hard pressed with the soggy take that the 'right' is the party of populism whereas leftism is for the elite. The left has hsitroically been a well for a lot of pro-public/populist ideas, like shorter work days, ending child labor, unionizing, supporting public transit, and rent control, to name a few. I guess it's kind of a modern American 'democrat' ≠ left thing.