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Who wants to play the status game?

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Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#131

Post by asdfman123 »

kazagistar wrote: post #122
asdfman123 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 happ…

I'm not distinguishing artificial vs. natural -- I'm distinguishing conscious vs. subconscious. You should be careful about what you consciously try to be, and make sure if you go through the hard work of changing your personality, the changes are unambiguously positive. Your subconscious, your identity, and the cultural beliefs society has loaded you up with may be wiser than you think.

(There are lots of positive changes that you should consciously strive towards -- being more focused, more in control, kinder, less neurotic, etc. etc.)

If you tinker with your personality to gain more of what you think you want -- wealth, status, etc. -- it can bring you farther away from what you really want out of life, and it can be hard to undo your changes. Few of us in society today are actually in touch with what we want at the deepest level of our soul.

So when you try to "be" something new, make sure it's not conflicting with what your soul actually wants. That sounds hippie dippie as hell, but I think it's actually very real and it's a big problem, especially in fast paced, modern society.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#132

Post by bustedtin2017 »

I love to play this game by taking the oneupmanship to an absurd level. If someone is humble bragging about stressing over a speaking engagement, I’ll causally mention that the student organizations that book speakers at Yale can be difficult to work with. If they start talking about their Tesla, I’ll work in a mention about how tragic it is that Fedship isn’t committing enough resources to electric conversions. I was at a work function and a colleague was going on about Zenga suits, I then started complaining that Zilli hasn’t opened enough boutiques in North America.

I don’t even own a car or a suit, much less a superyacht or far-end men’s couture.

I don’t play in bad faith like this if I value the input of the people I’m talking to. I definitely smile and nod if I like or need something from someone playing this game. I suppose by displaying awareness of the brands I’m also engaging in the game on the same side of the spectrum as the folks who actually wear a Rolex/Patek watch.

Anywho, if you find yourself In a conversation with someone bitching about how the tax benefits of a third vacation home aren’t what they used to be, you might be talking to me.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#133

Post by robotresearcher »

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…

So you have a CS degree and an MBA... ;)

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#134

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

kristianc wrote: post #73
willemlabu wrote: post #63

I once attended a talk by a man who was head of a creative marketing agency. He also had a side gig of being a presentation consultant. I forget his name and agency, but I don't think I could forget what he said. He would lead his company's pitches to new clients, and would turn up to the presentation wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops; tattoos all over his arms and neck, and thereby set the expectations of th…

> 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.

Right, but -- if for example -- you're trying to raise VC money, you only need a couple of yeses.

There's definitely enough people that love to have their mind changed, that you could play specifically to this crowd, and do very well.

It would be dangerous if you needed a 50% nod of approval. But not so much if all you need is one yes. It's probably beneficial to optimize yourself for a small niche.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#135

Post by leftyted »

> There is a philosophical conundrum at the root of all this: morality requires we maintain a safety net at the bottom that catches everyone—the alternative is simply inhumane—but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. In other words, we need worth to come for free, and we also need it to be acquirable. 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.

Maybe it's true that no philosopher has adequately solved this problem. But that doesn't seem to matter. Most of us live in societies that provide a safety net while also providing hierarchies to climb. The fact that there's no clear philosophical grounding for this doesn't seem to bother us.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#136

Post by cousin_it »

leftyted wrote: post #125
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…

Trade is the opposite of a zero-sum status game: it creates gains and shares them among participants. (Gains from trade exist whenever Alice and Bob have different rates of exchange between good X and good Y.) Success in trade doesn't come from being better than others and making them less successful, it comes from trading with others and making them more successful.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#137

Post by anthonypasq »

yboris wrote: post #67
cpcallen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I gravitated to those who were chill, and perplexed anyone who tried to play the Status Game by losing on purpose. I think this is also a sort of power play, but also an amusing one that I too enjoy - e.g., it's quite fun, when questioned about what I do by someone who obviously cares about social status, to not mention my well-paid job working at a FANG company but instead talk about working as a dance teacher.

Reminds me of how in high school, there are kids that are smart and want to show it off (raise their hands, answer teacher's questions), and there are those that are on the "next level" -- they don't even need to prove to everyone else that they know the answers, so they never raise their hands. In personal conversations some are eager to share that they are doing something amazing, but those on the "next level" don'…

lol. This comment is total projection

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#138

Post by 09bjb »

leftyted wrote: post #135

> There is a philosophical conundrum at the root of all this: morality requires we maintain a safety net at the bottom that catches everyone—the alternative is simply inhumane—but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. In other words, we need worth to come for free, and we also need it to be acquirable. And no philosopher—not Kant, not Aristot…

> There is a philosophical conundrum at the root of all this: morality requires we maintain a safety net at the bottom that catches everyone—the alternative is simply inhumane—but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. In other words, we need worth to come for free, and we also need it to be acquirable. 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.

* When your worth is already infinite, you are free to aspire to whatever accomplishment you choose, knowing that it'll be the same in the end whether you get there or not.

* When your worth does not change when it is compared to another's "excellence, creativity, and accomplishment" at some superior "top", you don't have a moral conundrum (or an inferiority complex).

* The "conundrum" becomes non-sensical when you can celebrate the accomplishments of others with the same enthusiasm as your own.

* Worth is not "acquirable": it is something you always have but have to discover. Hoping that comparative excellence, creative output, and worldly accomplishment will provide it for you will simply cost you time.

So I would argue that the real game here is widening your sense of identification to include all players of the game. And once you're there, maybe you'll have a lighthearted, arbitrary aspiration to see that that point of view is spread...

Who wants to play the love game?

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#139

Post by CraigJPerry »

cousin_it wrote: post #136
leftyted wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Trade is the opposite of a zero-sum status game: it creates gains and shares them among participants. (Gains from trade exist whenever Alice and Bob have different rates of exchange between good X and good Y.) Success in trade doesn't come from being better than others and making them less successful, it comes from trading with others and making them more successful.

How do you reconcile corporate software sales with that world view?

Trade is entirely predicated upon status and status is only partially predicated upon trade.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#140

Post by bob33212 »

dahfizz wrote: post #82
bob33212 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 3d vector of 2m by 8m by .1m can be projected on to a plane in a wide range of scalars. When someone says that someone else is smart because they got a 100 on a test they are taking a multidimensional attribute and projecting it onto a single dimension.

I still think people understand that intelligence is multifaceted. Nobody past 3rd grade thinks that intelligence is entirely and directly measured by an exam. However, acing a tough exam does show that you have high ability in some skills which can be included in "intelligence". It is perfectly reasonable to say someone is smart after they do something to prove their cognitive ability, even if they haven't proven ev…

It is far easier to understand the dimensions of hotel measurements than the dimensions of human intelligence.
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