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Who wants to play the status game?

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Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#161

Post by pdonis »

leftyted wrote: post #157
pdonis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans have built all this stuff because we have been able to invent arbitrary status games. No, humans have built all this stuff because it provides value to more and more people. Time spent on status games is time not spent doing something productive.

"Productivity" grants status, which is why people care about it.

> "Productivity" grants status

Possibly, yes.

> which is why people care about it

No, people care about it because it produces valuable things. People would still care about productivity even if nobody had the slightest idea what status was.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#162

Post by cousin_it »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #154
cousin_it wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trade is entirely predicated upon status I think that's way overstated. As an outsourcer in Moscow working for Western companies, I got plenty of gains from trade, despite having lower status than Western folks. And remember how China took over world trade while being so low status that "made in China" was a joke?

Moscow has a relatively high status. Russia is nearer the top than it is to the bottom of the 196. To pick an aribtrary example WITHOUT casting aspertions because that’s not my goal - a Somalian company producing the best product X would struggle severely against a trashy X made in, again arbitrary choice, China.

Yes, competing on quality requires trust, which you call "status". If you don't have that, you must spend some time competing on price first. That's how China did it (and has now moved up to making iPhones) and how Somalia can do it as well. See also: Indian software outsourcing used to be a total joke, but it was cheap, and now look at the demographics of Google including the CEO.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#163

Post by toasterlovin »

kerkeslager wrote: post #127
toasterlovin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ne…

Part of my conflict is that I appreciate the restraint and subtlety of the Portland approach, but I also appreciate the honesty of the LA approach. The compromise I've come to is to acknowledge that I strive to be part of the elite class, but promise myself that I won't be a jerk in pursuit of my ambitions.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#164

Post by jdmichal »

yboris wrote: post #70
yboris wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard Temkin give talks attacking transitivity and I never buy it. Most of his examples involve infinity which is problematic. In the example you share, I think all it points out is that our ability to compare things (psychologically) is broken: we may think A Z. I strongly think this is a bias akin to scope insensitivity. By the time we get to Z we're likely talking about HUNDREDS OF YEARS of experience, and we…

Re: jonathanstrange's reply to my reply Thanks for more comments. You're right you can re-scale things to be (A) 30 minutes VS 10 years (Z) ... at which point, why would anyone prefer A > Z ??? Part of the argument relies on this very vague definition of the eventual state of things. Temkin talks about an experience "just above 'barely worth living'" (Life-Z-1) ... and that is _so_ vague, and it means something _so_…

I can certainly see a case. Let's make it about money.

A is a single payment of $10,000.

B is two monthly payments of $5250. Or, in other words, a 5% improvement over A in total payments.

C is three monthly payments of $3675. Again, 5% better than B in sum.

I could completely see someone doing a pairwise comparison between A and B, and picking B for the 5% increase, because the time difference is not that important. Same again for B and C; it's only one more month for an extra 5%.

However, I could also see that same person comparing A and Z and deciding that instantaneous vs a period of two years is not worth the wait.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#165

Post by majos »

chrisweekly wrote: post #129
majos wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+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?

Defense of the Ancients, originally a Warcraft custom map, now it's own game. Two teams of 5, you level up and train and try to kill the other team's base, a good game is maybe an hour. "Pub game" is short for public game, just groups of strangers matched to play online.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#166

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

toasterlovin wrote: post #160
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question whether the described Portland approach is actually subtler. Is it actually? It's definitely more meta. It's definitely less resource-intensive. But in my experience there's nothing subtle about sour grapes.

> I question whether the described Portland approach is actually subtler. Is it actually? I think it is, FWIW. Nothing about the game is actually spoken aloud; everything is inferred and gathered via subtle clues. In my experience, one major factor that separates the social classes is the ability to notice these subtleties and modify your behavior accordingly. > It's definitely less resource-intensive. I'm not sure t…

Sorry for the unclarity -- when I was referring to resources, I meant physical resources like oil, energy, and metal.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#167

Post by hndude »

pdonis wrote: post #161
leftyted wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Productivity" grants status, which is why people care about it.

> "Productivity" grants status Possibly, yes. > which is why people care about it No, people care about it because it produces valuable things . People would still care about productivity even if nobody had the slightest idea what status was.

Why do people care about "valuable things"? Status

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#168

Post by qnsi »

ahi wrote: post #147

Of course this is written by an academic. Most of the rewards and penalties of academia are status related. No one besides the football coach is making private sector money, and no one gets fired for anything less than a felony. There are large portions of the ivory tower that do nothing more than burnish the self-importance of other status seekers; armies of Associate Dean of Innovative Circle Jerks attending pointl…

so you like to play equality game?

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#169

Post by marcosdumay »

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.

It is risky on the part where a customer can dismiss him at first view and not interact further.

But if that's not the case, all he has to do is not give them any reason to validate the assumption. That's hard, but not risky.

Re: Who wants to play the status game?

#170

Post by CraigJPerry »

cousin_it wrote: post #162
CraigJPerry wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moscow has a relatively high status. Russia is nearer the top than it is to the bottom of the 196. To pick an aribtrary example WITHOUT casting aspertions because that’s not my goal - a Somalian company producing the best product X would struggle severely against a trashy X made in, again arbitrary choice, China.

Yes, competing on quality requires trust, which you call "status". If you don't have that, you must spend some time competing on price first. That's how China did it (and has now moved up to making iPhones) and how Somalia can do it as well. See also: Indian software outsourcing used to be a total joke, but it was cheap, and now look at the demographics of Google including the CEO.

Trust is different. I’m just talking about status which comes before trust can even begin.

Price is not enough.

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