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We moderns are status-drunk

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Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#31

Post by ansible »

ElViajero wrote: post #13

> evolution had humans use their absolute income/wealth to judge their relative status This is false thru history. A noble man could be higher status than a rich merchant, to not talk about race. The article gets what could be some reasonable conclusion from wrong data. It seems that the author started from an opinion, and then build a case around it. > low level workers are often well advised to “keep * their* head…

> Also, from the article I have an strong feeling that the author thinks of himself as high-status.

It is Robin Hanson, so... yeah, that's exactly the thought process.

Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#32

Post by insickness »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #24

Evolutionary psychology just smells of "making shit up". There's no way of proving any of these conjectures. They don't make any predictions that could be falsified. And they're not that useful - this doesn't explain anything in any way that we could actually use.

While this article contains a lot of hypothesis, evolutionary psychology does have ways of proving conjectures. This includes ethology, the study of animal behavior, and comparison of modern-age cultures to more primitive ones.

For example, he's right that higher status individuals experience less stress. In chimpanzees, lower status animals have higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. They are more often attacked by higher status individuals and need to remain on guard. Lower status chimps are attacked more often by higher status chimps because their hierarchy is party based on physical power (agonic) and partly based on their ability contribute (hedonic).

Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#33

Post by tgv »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #24

Evolutionary psychology just smells of "making shit up". There's no way of proving any of these conjectures. They don't make any predictions that could be falsified. And they're not that useful - this doesn't explain anything in any way that we could actually use.

It's nearly impossible to verify evolutionary psychology, indeed. I see it more as a way to provide a reason for the existence of certain traits. Because the other options are: it appears out of nowhere or it's an accidental property.

It's not rigorous enough to be useful, but then again, psychology almost never is.

Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#34

Post by jerrre »

kqr wrote: post #7
lmm wrote: post #6

The idea that higher-status people would be more status-chasing seems dubious. In the evolutionary environment there would have been diminishing returns to status, and in any environment social climbers are noticeably lower status than those with real "old money" status.

Do you have a source for either of those claims? The little historical anthropology I've read suggests the opposite: status is a constant struggle. You don't get it and then have it, you work to show it off every day or you lose it, because in a sense it's like Santa Claus; something that only exists when others believe in it. For others to believe in it, they have to be reminded of it. If anything, people are natura…

is the last book you mention "The Savage Truth on Money - Terry Savage"?

The first is by Pink?

Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#35

Post by streamofdigits »

there is criticism of the post on the basis that is not substantiated by research but if we step back a bit this seems like another example of a new social science trying to burst into a scene (that has been heretofore thoroughly dominated by mainstream economics). we might call it "the economic organization of real people", behavioral economics++ or maybe economic anthropology[0]

to be sure its not likely to have an easier time proving things compared to any other social science but going back to the raw material and piecing together more informed hypotheses, hopefully less ideologically biased, should be a good thing

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_anthropology

Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#36

Post by marcus_holmes »

insickness wrote: post #32
marcus_holmes wrote: post #24

Evolutionary psychology just smells of "making shit up". There's no way of proving any of these conjectures. They don't make any predictions that could be falsified. And they're not that useful - this doesn't explain anything in any way that we could actually use.

While this article contains a lot of hypothesis, evolutionary psychology does have ways of proving conjectures. This includes ethology, the study of animal behavior, and comparison of modern-age cultures to more primitive ones. For example, he's right that higher status individuals experience less stress. In chimpanzees, lower status animals have higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. They are more often atta…

We are not chimps. Our society does not resemble that of chimps.

Chimps don't go to work. They don't marry. They don't have mortgages. They don't have churches, or governments, or human rights, or school, or police forces. Chimps don't find themselves awake at 4am worrying about whether they can make next month's rent because a freelance client just dropped them.

I can perfectly well believe that lower-status chimps have more stress because they are attacked by higher-status chimps. But in my experience, the person most likely to attack me is not a successful startup entrepreneur, it's some drunk dude at 2am who didn't manage to pull.

I've been stressed and not stressed at different times in my life. Being CEO was pretty stressful. Being really poor was really stressful. Being comfortably employed and owning a house was probably the least stressful. There's not even any correlation with my status, let alone causation.

Why do we think that chimpanzee psychology has anything to do with human psychology? Do we have any evidence to support that? Saying that "we can prove evolutionary psychology conjectures about complex human behaviours because we can observe simple behaviour in chimps" is circular reasoning. The only thing we have in common with chimps is a relatively recent common evolutionary ancestor.

Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#37

Post by ArnoVW »

If you found this article interesting, I can highly recommend the book (and documentary) "Status Anxiety", by modern philosopher Alain de Botton.

The video has a couple of gems, such as the comparisson between an english country-side vicar, and an american TV preacher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1MqJPHxy6g

Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#38

Post by insickness »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #36
insickness wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this article contains a lot of hypothesis, evolutionary psychology does have ways of proving conjectures. This includes ethology, the study of animal behavior, and comparison of modern-age cultures to more primitive ones. For example, he's right that higher status individuals experience less stress. In chimpanzees, lower status animals have higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. They are more often atta…

We are not chimps. Our society does not resemble that of chimps. Chimps don't go to work. They don't marry. They don't have mortgages. They don't have churches, or governments, or human rights, or school, or police forces. Chimps don't find themselves awake at 4am worrying about whether they can make next month's rent because a freelance client just dropped them. I can perfectly well believe that lower-status chimps…

Indigenous people don't have mortgages. They may not have churches, governments or police forces. They don't find themselves awake at 4am worrying about whether they can make next month's rent because a freelance client just dropped them. But this doesn't mean they don't have the same cognitive mechanisms that you and I have.

Animal psychology is a proxy for human psychology just as animal biology is a proxy for human biology, which is why we first test human medicine in mice. There are obvious cognitive similarities between domesticated dogs and wolves in the wild even though there are obvious differences. We can study one to learn about the other.

Agreed that being a CEO is probably a high stress job. But I think you nailed it when you said that being poor is really stressful. Saying that lower status individuals experience more stress doesn't mean that some very high status people don't experience more stress. If you're a world-famous rock star or athlete, I'm sure you experience a tremendous amount of stress. But on average, the lower your status, the more powerless you feel, the more stress you experience. You have less control over your life. But I might be wrong. Maybe it's different in humans. If you're not convinced by ethological studies, one could study cortisol levels in human beings and gauge relative status to see if stress correlates. My point being: there are ways to prove evolutionary psychology hypothesis.

Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#39

Post by marcus_holmes »

insickness wrote: post #38
marcus_holmes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not chimps. Our society does not resemble that of chimps. Chimps don't go to work. They don't marry. They don't have mortgages. They don't have churches, or governments, or human rights, or school, or police forces. Chimps don't find themselves awake at 4am worrying about whether they can make next month's rent because a freelance client just dropped them. I can perfectly well believe that lower-status chimps…

Indigenous people don't have mortgages. They may not have churches, governments or police forces. They don't find themselves awake at 4am worrying about whether they can make next month's rent because a freelance client just dropped them. But this doesn't mean they don't have the same cognitive mechanisms that you and I have. Animal psychology is a proxy for human psychology just as animal biology is a proxy for huma…

I would disagree about the difference that culture makes to psychology. I've travelled a bit, and people in other cultures behave differently, and think differently about the world. I don't think we can talk blandly about "human psychology", let alone "evolutionary psychology".

This is a known problem in Psychology as a field, I gather. Because of the ready availability of psychology students, the field tends to study the psychology of western educated affluent 20-somethings. The arrogance of then saying "everyone is like this" is typical ;)

Re: We moderns are status-drunk

#40

Post by Tycho »

digital-cygnet wrote: post #4

Honestly, this did not resonate with me at all. It seems like more of a just-so story than a coherent argument commensurate with his sweeping hypothesis (that much of human history can be explained by our erroneously using absolute wealth to judge relative status). I'm not sure why we need this 'status theory' to tie together the trends of modern history that he describes ("rising lifespans, lower fertility, falling…

I think his general argument is that the trends of modern history are not adequately explained by the obvious factors you mention, and that a single hypothesis that logically explains these effect-behaviour gaps is preferable to lots of ad hoc explanations around each individual trend.

With respect to obsession vs perception, he's saying that it only makes sense to pursue more status if you are already high status. Greater status is not attainable for most. If you mistakingly think you are high status, you will accomplish little except wasting your time. Case in point: useless advanced degrees.

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