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Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

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Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#221

Post by jdmoreira »

User23 wrote: post #218
lftl wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think attractiveness confounds a comparison between Brad Pitt/Leonardo DiCaprio with Zuckerberg, Bezos and Gates. Is there an actor who isn't considered highly attractive that you think the average person would hold in significantly higher regard than successful tech entrepreneurs?

Jack Nicholson comes to mind. And Mick Jagger is ugly as sin and that doesn’t hurt his status.

I'm sorry but none of them are even remotely classifiable as ugly. Have you seen photos of younger Mick Jagger?

Young Mick Jagger could be a successful female model in 2020

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#222

Post by larrik »

lftl wrote: post #203
User23 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A successful entrepreneur is probably the highest status role possible in modern society (think Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates) maybe even rivaling POTUS. Not even close. Regardless of the high esteem we may hold them in, the average person just sees them that you list as rich dorks. Compare and contrast with say Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio who, to use a stock phrase, men want to be and women want to be with.

I think attractiveness confounds a comparison between Brad Pitt/Leonardo DiCaprio with Zuckerberg, Bezos and Gates. Is there an actor who isn't considered highly attractive that you think the average person would hold in significantly higher regard than successful tech entrepreneurs?

Tom Hanks?

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#223

Post by javiramos »

OJFord wrote: post #55
javiramos wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 2020 has been a tough year for everyone

I think if you started speculative stock-picking in March (as it seems many did) then it's quite likely you did pretty well. If you (that person) got out ~now, it's probably been a.. well, at least a year with a nice silver lining. (If you that person carried on it's not necessarily bad of course, but then you're just any old investor, it was a good year and maybe you'll have more good and more bad.)

Stock portfolios aside, it has still been a tough year -- lots of negative emotions and vibes.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#224

Post by germinalphrase »

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #119
pengstrom wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an unfair argument if you're not acknowledging how media is designed to be addictive. Even we technical folk are susceptible. It's a convenient fantasy that the downtrodden deserve their place for being lazy.

That's just one data point. I could go on and on about how people make obviously bad decisions. Take college major choice. Why do so many people get worthless degrees? They can do a simple google search to see how much people with X major make as salaries. It's not hidden or even a remote mystery. I won't get in to how people finance their education (not even reading the terms of their loans which are invariably awfu…

While I don't disagree with the spirit of your post, moving to an entirely different region of the country is not always an easy or obvious choice for people.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#225

Post by fierarul »

laurent92 wrote: post #90
m_eiman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as "the right parents", which in many cases is a pretty efficient gate keeper.

The social elevator can take 2 generations. And that is ok. There is a lot of things to learn. It gives hope to one’s dad. Sadly inheritance is looked down upon, and people would like every citizen to be born with the same information, and this information being delivered by public education. Sadly, parents teach much better than teachers when it is about the little things that make a life successful. There will neve…

+1.

These concepts are hard to understand for a hyper-individualistic person that lives in an eternal present.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#226

Post by fierarul »

ryandrake wrote: post #212
dfxm12 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression, and indeed my personal issue with inheritance, is financial inheritance. According to this study[0], at least 50% of wealth persistence is accounted for by direct transfers from parents, i.e. financial inheritance, while earnings and education are only able to explain 25%. 0 - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecoj.12535

Education is often a financial inheritance in disguise. If dad pays for your K-12 private schooling and entire Harvard education, how is that practically different than a direct cash transfer?

Would you want to live in a society where a parent would definitely not pay for better education? What kind of people would those be!?

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#227

Post by gamblor956 »

paulsutter wrote: post #84

Folks in the status professions (banking, law,..) often tell me they want to become an entrepreneur. I always tell them, you wont do it. They attended the right school, joined the right firm, attained that corner office. As a founder they would give up all that, and their family and friends will tell them that they've made a massive mistake, for years, while it appears that nothing is happening. Then they sheepishly…

That's ironic because most of the tech founders I meet these days do it for the status, and just pretend to be entrepreneurs.

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#228

Post by bumby »

klmadfejno wrote: post #220
paulsutter wrote: post #84

Folks in the status professions (banking, law,..) often tell me they want to become an entrepreneur. I always tell them, you wont do it. They attended the right school, joined the right firm, attained that corner office. As a founder they would give up all that, and their family and friends will tell them that they've made a massive mistake, for years, while it appears that nothing is happening. Then they sheepishly…

I'm in a relatively high status career, followed that just right path, and more or less planned it all out since middle school. For what its worth, I don't give a crap about status. I think most of my peers don't either, at least relative to the past. I think materialism and arbitrary status seeking is one the decline for the young professional. High end professional fashion and fancy watches are nowhere to be seen i…

>High end professional fashion and fancy watches are nowhere to be seen in my office

Do you think the status drive is the same, just replaced with different signals?

I've often wondered if a lot of it is almost generationally defined. Boomers grew up in a time where cars were a major status symbol, but there's a high percentage of younger generations that don't even care to own a car. Based on what you stated, I wonder if the materialism has just been replaced by an experiential sense of status (e.g., who has the best Instagram-worthy vacation to share, or who has the coolest start-up story to tell, or the most 'artisan' career). I'm not claiming to know, just curious if these are just different means to the same end defined as the esteem of our collegues

Re: Underrated predictor of success: willingness to be low-status

#229

Post by gonehome »

rektide wrote: post #216
gonehome wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably a lot of people are driven to be entrepreneurs because of the status. The issue with the bankers is that they’re trapped in a local maximum. A successful entrepreneur is probably the highest status role possible in modern society (think Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates) maybe even rivaling POTUS. I don’t buy that entrepreneurs are not interested in status, they’re just making a longer term status play (and taking on…

> I don’t buy that entrepreneurs are not interested in status, they’re just making a longer term status play (and taking on more financial risk to do so). Trying to group all entrepreneurs together, I think, is a huge mistake. I've definitely seen status driven entrepreneurs. Some of them are amazing. But the ones that fill me with joy are the ones that clearly were sick of the world being incredibly bad at things, t…

> But the ones that fill me with joy are the ones that clearly were sick of the world being incredibly bad at things, that could not accept humanity embarrassing itself so poorly, and who could not live with a planet that had so much wasted potential.

Yeah me too, Eliezer Yudkowsky comes to mind - there may be others but I think they're quite rare. Even in these cases I suspect status is some component though not the driving force (how much of a role it plays I think varies depending on the person and what they value).

People want to do something important/have purpose - I think it's hard to disentangle this from status because it's so tied up in how we see ourselves and what we often consider important. Millions of years of selective pressure and social behavior/hierarchies of intelligent primates can't really just be ignored.

There are some outliers, but I'm generally skeptical. I tend to think often the DNGAF persona is done because it's a signal of high status to not care about your status. I suppose at some level it's real though.

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