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Choose your status game wisely

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Re: Choose your status game wisely

#261

Post by ChefboyOG »

snowwrestler wrote: post #234
calcifer wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, this comment reads like something Commander Data would say in Star Trek. He would always respond to the letter of what was said, while completely missing the human context. It fascinates me that someone who read the parent comment could actually think it was about the legal rights of US citizens. You might as well be claiming it was about hummus :)

So what is it about, then?

The practical ability to move somewhere--e.g. to find a home, place an offer, have it accepted, and then peacefully coexist in the neighborhood.

These are all largely up to the discretion of individuals in the community.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#262

Post by vincentmarle »

It’s funny how everyone in here pretends to not care about status, while not realizing that you’re just playing a different status game.

I happen to enjoy playing status games and I’m fairly good at it. Even though I’m never the prettiest, wealthiest, strongest or most intelligent guy in the room, I always seem to be able to socially engineer myself to the alpha group status, regardless of what kind of social group it is.

Status games are mostly about how people perceive you and how you can manipulate it in order to belong. It reminds me of this paradox: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#263

Post by sanderjd »

Tao331 wrote: post #246

By the end I wasn't convinced why I should be playing these games. What's status for? Is it going to make you happy? Alan Watts: > We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to…

> What's status for? Is it going to make you happy?

Right, my takeaway was that status seeking is something you can use to try to achieve your personal goals, if you think conscientiously about it. It reminds me of the idea in the book Atomic Habits of first figuring out an identity, a kind of person you want to be, then identifying behaviors that would make you that kind of person, and then developing habits that reinforce those behaviors. Starting with identity works because the way we see ourselves is a powerful determinant of our behavior.

For me, I think the thing I would like to be high status in is "being useful to society". Playing that status game may not make me happy, but if it succeeded in making me useful, I think that would be a good outcome.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#264

Post by sanderjd »

angarg12 wrote: post #59

Not sure how this will sit with the HN crowd, but a couple of years back I got into menswear, and I derive some pleasure from being the "best dressed guy" at the office. Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those c…

How did you get started? I've never been able to figure out how to break into wearing nice clothes that mesh well with my age. I have tried the typical fashion-in-a-box things, but the clothes always seem (to me) to skew too young. I don't want to be a well-dressed college kid or entry-level professional...

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#265

Post by lament76 »

Status is not very important for humans, except for a minority of hypercompetitive individuals. Most people lack the nerves for status games. The collective, the community and belonging are more important than status. The problem is that the top of a large pool of people selects for competitiveness, so if you aim high you likely need to play their games. There is hardly a way around it except maybe luck, gambling or remote work.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#266

Post by dontcare007 »

tomgp wrote: post #235
bsenftner wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So don't be an idiot and "worship", be a rational balanced human and as the OP says diversify your interests. DFW tends to exaggerate to make his points, and this is an example. Nice prose, be it describes idiots and implies to the reader that everyone are such idiots.

DFW concluded that if you don’t choose what to worship it gets chosen for you. What he’s saying is that one should be conscious and deliberate, self aware. Like much of DFW there’s a strong christian undercurrent to ‘this is water’. Far from being an argument against religion and worship the message i take is that the value of religion can be that it focuses one outward, towards community and so on.

not choosing is a choice too.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#267

Post by _bfhp »

andreilys wrote: post #70
_bfhp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have come to read any statement like "we are biologically wired to X" as a declaration of nihilism and misanthropy. Wired is what a light bulb is to a switch. Individual humans are complex, beautiful and capable of overcoming pretty much anything, including biological tendencies.

Blank slatism and the ignorance of human nature has done far more harm for humans than those who acknowledge that our brains haven’t evolved much since our days as foraging tribes.

You caught me, I'm one of those blank slate extremists who say harmful and unreasonable things like "Individual humans are capable of overcoming biological tendencies." Hard to argue though that eugenics, forced sterilization, biological justification for slavery pale in comparison to the damage of various examples you've detailed

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#268

Post by [deleted] »

trh0awayman wrote: post #195

I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around. I grew up in one of the last WASP strongholds in the US and the more money you had, the smaller the house you lived in (up to a point). People could afford insanely expensive cars, but would buy tasteful ones instead (excepting kids). Most people wouldn't be caught dead in a Ra…

[deleted]

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#269

Post by lament76 »

vincentmarle wrote: post #262

It’s funny how everyone in here pretends to not care about status, while not realizing that you’re just playing a different status game. I happen to enjoy playing status games and I’m fairly good at it. Even though I’m never the prettiest, wealthiest, strongest or most intelligent guy in the room, I always seem to be able to socially engineer myself to the alpha group status, regardless of what kind of social group i…

If you always play with the alphas then it's no wonder you think everyone primarily cares about status. Most people primarily care about resources, the tribe and religion.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#270

Post by darkerside »

uhuhoo wrote: post #182
darkerside wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People make money by providing value to other people. The people who provide the most perceived value have the most money. It is a signifier of status whether you like it or not. Most people who make money are providing a service to many people, or to someone else with a lot of money (who therefore provided value previously). Care to provide a counterexample?

Bill Gates? This obviously depends on your opinion of Microsoft, but some of us still remember IE.

I get some of us don't like him, but nobody has done more to popularize personal computing. That is value creation whether you like it or not.
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