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Pursuing status will never bring true happiness

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Re: Pursuing status will never bring true happiness

#101

Post by nvartolomei »

gumby wrote: post #77
keiferski wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ibn Khaldun's 1377 work Muqaddimah is a very old book that essentially says this. The concept of "ʿasabiyyah" (Arabic: "tribalism, clanism, communitarism", or in a modern context, "group feeling" , "social cohesion", "solidarity" or even "nationalism") is one of the best known aspects of the Muqaddimah. As this ʿasabiyyah declines, another more compelling ʿasabiyyah may take its place; thus, civilizations rise and fa…

> Ibn Khaldun argues that each dynasty has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. More recently, Hegel made the same point.

I’m curious about a reference for this.

Re: Pursuing status will never bring true happiness

#102

Post by baxtr »

speakfreely wrote: post #88
baxtr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s “security”? Money in the bank?

I would define financial security as the ability to pay for your desired lifestyle with minimal perceived risk. Some risk always exists, but it's your perception of it that either puts you at ease or stresses you out. Until a year or so ago, a cushy career at Facebook seemed like a pretty sure thing and the opposite of risky. To others, any single source of income is a massive risk.

Thanks. I have to admit it makes sense. But I'm having a hard time making it concrete like "money in the bank". Could you give an example?

Re: Pursuing status will never bring true happiness

#103

Post by anonymouskimmer »

ehnto wrote: post #82
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please show me a new status system. Not just different people on top of an already existing one. I could see brand new status systems existing for, say, a new video game. Everyone starts out equally as newbies and works their way up. Maybe someone could leverage their position in a current status system (such as wealth or free time) to boost their potential in this new system. Brand new industries could create new st…

Calisthenics was not previously the realm of social status, money or prestige, but there is an industry that "gives" people at the top a place to hold status, both social and financial. I think this happened to a lot of typically very regular low status arenas when the "Influencer" was born, and being good at something non-profitable could now be turned into views, advertising and thus money and fame. Now every grass…

These are some very good examples.

Re: Pursuing status will never bring true happiness

#105

Post by atleastoptimal »

jgil wrote: post #93
atleastoptimal wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting, fallacious take. Basically: one thing about some time in the past was bad, thus everything about it was bad. Higher wealth disparity, based on its impact on social stability, measured independently, is bad. Racism/sexism are bad. The impact of things must be measured separately, so our ideas regarding how to improve society are higher resolution and more accurate.

The widespread racism and sexism of the 50’s was not “one thing” and it’s not just in the past. There is such a thing as missing the forest for the trees. Socioeconomic status is intersectional.

The point of the original comment that certain common positive aspects of 50s American life, namely single family home ownership, one-income households, and lower CEO/worker pay ratios are less common now. To bring up the point of racism and sexism seems to imply that those amenities were only possible due to racist and sexist structures. Is that what you believe, that the lack of home ownership, massive CEO/worker pay gap and necessity for most households to be 2 income to support a family are a necessary consequence of achieving gender equality and civil rights?

Re: Pursuing status will never bring true happiness

#106

Post by brazzy »

magic_hamster wrote: post #99
tqi wrote: post #55

On the one hand, sure, status probably is a trap and won't bring "true happiness." And I think this is well meaning advice. But on the other hand, I think it's possible that an Ivy League educated founder/VC partner/executive coach might not be in the best position to see the whole picture. To paraphrase the Aviator[1], you don't care about status because you've always had it. I think that for many people who have ex…

Status is a completely artificial construct that completely melts away the minute you run out of money. It's an unfair advantage, but it offers no security whatsoever.

Status is a social construct, and we are social animals. So it really, truly does matter. And money is not the only thing that can convey status.

Re: Pursuing status will never bring true happiness

#107

Post by hackerlight »

fogzen wrote: post #26
toomuchtodo wrote: post #7

https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103497725173760 > Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy. https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103627387813888 > Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games. From @naval’s Twitter thread “how…

Material wealth is status. Money is status. Assets that earn while you sleep is status. Money is arguably the ultimate status game.

Money isn't all there is to status. A surgeon has higher status than a lottery winner or heir to a fortune. So Naval's point is that a desire for status can sometimes conflict with getting money, because it pushes you down a conventional path which is competitive and therefore unlikely to make you rich.

Re: Pursuing status will never bring true happiness

#108

Post by atleastoptimal »

yieldcrv wrote: post #83
atleastoptimal wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting, fallacious take. Basically: one thing about some time in the past was bad, thus everything about it was bad. Higher wealth disparity, based on its impact on social stability, measured independently, is bad. Racism/sexism are bad. The impact of things must be measured separately, so our ideas regarding how to improve society are higher resolution and more accurate.

Is this the 50s where you couldn't get any credit or open a brokerage account even with your good enough single salary if you weren’t white and male, heterosexual? Trying to spark introspection about how all of these things are interrelated, but clearly only to some of us.

Are you implying that the much higher home cost/average income ratio, CEO/worker pay ratio and necessity for households to be dual income to raise families nowadays vs the 50s are due to a lack of racism, sexism, and homophobia from lenders and brokers?

The point of the original post was the general lower severe economic disparity in the United States in the 50s vs today. Since the 1980s the Gini coefficient in the United States has raised rapidly across all racial groups. Just because things are better for all deprivileged groups doesn't mean the American people, as a whole, aren't getting screwed over more via the increase in income inequality.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/07/12/income-...

Re: Pursuing status will never bring true happiness

#109

Post by keiferski »

nvartolomei wrote: post #101
gumby wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ibn Khaldun argues that each dynasty has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. More recently, Hegel made the same point.

I’m curious about a reference for this.

I am not an expert in Hegel or Ibn Khaldun, but I'm not sure that they're making the same point. I don't think Ibn Khaldun means that this process leads to progress; it's just a description of changes over time. The new civilization isn't necessarily superior or somehow more developed than the previous one.

Hegel, on the other hand, is very much wrapped up in the "progress" concept:

Hegel’s dialectical method leads to concepts or forms that are increasingly comprehensive and universal. As Hegel puts it, the result of the dialectical process, "is a new concept but one higher and richer than the preceding—richer because it negates or opposes the preceding and therefore contains it, and it contains even more than that, for it is the unity of itself and its opposite."

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-dialectics/

Here's a (PDF) paper comparing the two thinkers: https://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/2196

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