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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?

#121

Post by b0rsuk »

asdfman123 wrote: post #99
kristianc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Setting expectations low, and then making them feel foolish for misjudging you. It's a risky game. People tend to make their first impressions within seconds, and then spend the rest of the time looking for evidence to validate that assumption.

Not really. As a shy person, I've been playing it my whole life. For some reason, people meet me and assume... I dunno, that I'm just someone who can be swept aside. I let them believe that. But I'm a lot more capable than people give me credit for being, and I'll be honest, a part of me enjoys it when that realization starts to set in. It's not really a machiavellian ploy on my part to optimize some kind of social o…

You may be interested in this article then: http://www.thedistilledman.com/how-introverted-men-attract-w... (How an introverted man can attract women naturally). I found it interesting but haven't tried it in practice yet. The article argues 99% of dating advice on the net is written for extroverts and people who want to be like extroverts.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#122

Post by kazagistar »

asdfman123 wrote: post #99
kristianc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Setting expectations low, and then making them feel foolish for misjudging you. It's a risky game. People tend to make their first impressions within seconds, and then spend the rest of the time looking for evidence to validate that assumption.

Not really. As a shy person, I've been playing it my whole life. For some reason, people meet me and assume... I dunno, that I'm just someone who can be swept aside. I let them believe that. But I'm a lot more capable than people give me credit for being, and I'll be honest, a part of me enjoys it when that realization starts to set in. It's not really a machiavellian ploy on my part to optimize some kind of social o…

I'm always sceptical of the artificial/natural distinction. Everything is artificial. Everything feels natural eventually. It feels more like learning one way to be, but then deciding not to learn more.

I think it's fine to be happy, but it's fine to have goals, and then change to better accomplish those goals. To pretend to be someone who you truly would rather be. It's not like the old you disappears when this happens... you just grow more nuanced.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#123

Post by mapcars »

czbond wrote: post #31
mapcars wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>fixing the whole system with an ideal person. How can non-ideal persons define what an ideas person is? This is just a mental game.

I don't see why non-ideal cannot define ideal, but within a small standard deviation is possible.

Because these non-ideal "definers" have their own limitations which they are not aware of, otherwise they would fix themselves and already be ideal. These limitations will inevitably get into the designing process and the result.

In other words you can not prepare for something you have no idea about.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#124

Post by celticmusic »

justzisguyuknow wrote: post #76
leelin wrote: post #43

My 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 acquainta…

From the article: > It is much easier to mock others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game than to acknowledge one is doing it. If you think that playing 'to lose' is somehow opting out then you're fooling yourself. The point us that we are always playing.

nah, people like us just value different things.

I can tell you I grew up extremely poor, to the point of homelessness, and if you think for a second I give a shit what bob thinks of me, you're wrong. Those sorts of experiences give you a different perspective. It's one of the major reasons why I've situated my life in such a way that these same people's disapproval isn't going to affect me. In fact, I had a company inadvertently learn that lesson late last year, and it hurt them way more than it hurt me. They made the mistake of evaluating my worth by how I play that game.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#125

Post by leftyted »

cousin_it wrote: post #114

Status sucks. The greatest invention of civilization is trade, which makes status obsolete. In a society that upholds property rights of everyone, even the lowest can get ahead without being seen as superior or excellent. Just offer something that other people want to have, and ask for a little money in return. The result of that process - that a low-status-looking, fat, filthy, cowardly trader ends up driving a BMW…

> The greatest invention of civilization is trade, which makes status obsolete. In a society that upholds property rights of everyone, even low-status "omegas" can get ahead without ever being seen as superior or excellent. Just offer something that other people want to have, and ask for a little money in return.

"Trade" doesn't let you escape status. "Omegas" who get ahead by being smart are competing for status and are "seen as superior or excellent".

Humans have built all this stuff because we have been able to invent arbitrary status games. If our status games were only about some combination of physical size and cunning, we'd still be living in a "state of nature".

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#126

Post by jb775 »

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."

I took it as her basically saying "The great philosophers couldn't figure it out, and I'm not gonna BS you acting like I figured it out"

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#127

Post by kerkeslager »

toasterlovin wrote: post #110
kerkeslager wrote: post #75

> It is much easier to mock others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game than to acknowledge one is doing it. And it's critical to realize: mocking others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game is just a way of engaging in the Importance Game. This is an even stranger game than Nuclear War: it sometimes seems that the only winning move is not to play, but not to play isn't reall…

> And it's critical to realize: mocking others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game is just a way of engaging in the Importance Game. I grew up in Los Angeles and now live in Portland, OR. People in LA play the status game rather brazenly and are roundly mocked for it. But the exact same game is played by everyone doing the mocking here in Portland. Except, instead of buying luxury automobiles an…

Honesty might seem like an escape from the Importance and Leveling Games: you say the truth, so you're not basing what you say on an attempt to get status, so you've exited the game, right?

Well, that doesn't quite work out in practice: First, you can only be as honest with others as you are with yourself, and being honest with yourself is hard: you just end up playing the games unintentionally. Second, honesty is never complete by the simple nature that you don't have time to say everything, so the things about yourself that you choose to be honest about create a picture that has implications for the Importance and Leveling Games. Third, lying isn't the only way to change what you say: you can change what you say about yourself by changing yourself. If you do different things, you can say different things about yourself without lying, and your actions can be motivated by the Importance/Leveling Games. And as a sub-point of that: being honest is a choice of actions that's usually geared toward winning the Importance Game.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#128

Post by noelwelsh »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #111
noelwelsh wrote: post #2

This has given me food for thought. My kids go to school in an area that has a mix of incomes. My average day might involve working from home, or it might involving traveling internationally to visit $PROMINENT_BRAND_NAME to deliver consulting. When I talk to the other parents I want to reveal some aspects of my life so we have something to talk about. However I can easily come across as boasting (and, to some extent…

> might involving traveling internationally to visit $PROMINENT_BRAND_NAME to deliver consulting Totally tangential and I apologize for that—but I read your profile and it made me curious what you're consulting on. Would you share [in some sense, even vauge] what kind of thing you consult on, or am I out of bounds? No names needed. I'm just very interested when software meets music, and in many facets of that meeting…

The companies I work for are https://www.inner-product.com/ (US) and https://underscore.io/ (UK). Scala is our main focus. I'm afraid it's not as exciting as software + music. Mostly web services or data engineering.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#129

Post by chrisweekly »

majos wrote: post #84
chrisweekly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points! Tangent: I wish more games were explicitly collaborative. Some competitive games can easily be adjusted, others not so much. Games like "Forbidden Island" represent, for many, a completely foreign paradigm where everyone's in it together. Shame that's not more common.

+1, I used to play random DotA pub games and got a huge kick out of the occasions when a team of strangers would click and work together. I sort of replicated that with pick-up basketball but topped out at below average. If anybody has team game recommendations like Forbidden Island I'd like to hear them.

DotA?

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#130

Post by 52-6F-62 »

noelwelsh wrote: post #128
52-6F-62 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> might involving traveling internationally to visit $PROMINENT_BRAND_NAME to deliver consulting Totally tangential and I apologize for that—but I read your profile and it made me curious what you're consulting on. Would you share [in some sense, even vauge] what kind of thing you consult on, or am I out of bounds? No names needed. I'm just very interested when software meets music, and in many facets of that meeting…

The companies I work for are https://www.inner-product.com/ (US) and https://underscore.io/ (UK). Scala is our main focus. I'm afraid it's not as exciting as software + music. Mostly web services or data engineering.

No that still completely answered my question! Many thanks.
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