NancyLebovitz comments on A Rational Education - Less Wrong

12 Post author: wedrifid 23 June 2010 05:48AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 28 June 2010 05:06:45PM *  5 points [-]

My preferred definition for status is "the ability to control (or influence) the group",

That is a great measure of status but at as a definition it is just wrong. While strongly correlated these two concepts are not the same. I can think of ways to influence a group while still having low status. And I can think of situations in which it is better to stay low status even though group influence is still desirable.

Examples that are not necessarily practical but which unambiguously demonstrate that the two concepts are different:

  • Sabotage media sources (which can be either in group or out of group) that do not support whatever policy you prefer.
  • Poison people.
  • Plant bombs.
  • Essentially anything that can kill or influence the behavior of other people without being traceable to you.
  • Advanced techniques of influence that maximise the desirable alteration of the brain state of others without raising your state. (Optimal use of priming and suggestion, etc.)
  • Be the example. If five people are littering that encourages other people to do it. If one person is littering and getting visibly punished socially for it that is an extremely strong way to discourage other people from littering. (Has been studied. Reference probably in Cialdini.)
  • Pay prostitutes. (In general, pay people to do stuff when to do so lowers status.)
  • Make (apparent) attempts to influence the group. If you do so when you have low status then other people (typically those from the middle of the pack) will take the excuse to crush you and in so doing demonstrate their dominance. This can be used to exploit the influence of others but actually lowers your status.

There are examples that are much less extreme than the above (which means less useful as definitive demonstration). I will say that I routinely sacrifice dominance in order to win. Most people focus more on dominance than winning. This can be exploited. This winning is obviously integrally tied up with influence.

Conclusion: Make a post on the ability to influence the group and perhaps show how it relates (both ways) to status. But definitely do not waste the insights you would be expressing in the post by premising them on a false definition.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 28 June 2010 05:31:52PM 7 points [-]

It's also common, if low status people attempt to influence a group, for their ideas to not be heard until the idea is picked up by a higher status person. The low status person never gets credit, but has influenced the group.

I was in a pagan group for a while which met at somewhat irregular times and places. A high status person in the group would call people to tell them about when and where.

I later found out that one of the reasons the group eventually dissolved was that the low status person who'd been reminding the high status person to do the phone calls had moved out of the area.

I don't know how common that sort of thing is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's an important but almost invisible feature of how things work.

Comment author: wedrifid 28 June 2010 05:36:02PM 0 points [-]

I don't know how common that sort of thing is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's an important but almost invisible feature of how things work.

I suspect extremely high. Social dominance independent of domain knowledge and competence is common and in a subset of such cases the group still functions.

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