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Wei_Dai comments on Branches of rationality - Less Wrong
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You, upon learning that you're largely a status maximizer, decided to emphasize status seeking even more, by doing it on a conscious level. But that means other competing goals (I assume you must have some) have been de-emphasized, since the cognitive resources of your conscious mind are limited.
I, on the other hand, do not want to want to seek status. Knowing that I'm driven largely by status seeking makes me want to self-modify in a way that de-emphasizes status seeking as a goal (*). But I'm not really sure either of these responses are rational.
(*) Unfortunately I don't know how to do so effectively. Before, I'd just spend all of my time thinking about a problem on the object level. Now I can't help but periodically wonder if I believe or argue for some position because it's epistemically justified, or because it helps to maximize status. For me, this self doubt seems to sap energy and motivation without reducing bias enough to be worth the cost.
This is the simple version of the explicit model I have in my head at work now: I have two currencies, Dollars and Status. Every decision I make likely has some impact both in terms of our company's results (Dollars) and also in terms of how I and others will be perceived (Status). The cost in Status to make any given decision is a reducing function of current Status. My long term goal is to maximize Dollars. However, often the correct way to maximize Dollars in the long term is to sacrifice Dollars for Status, bank the Status and use it to make better decisions later.
I think this type of thing should be common. Status is a resource that is used to acquire what you want, so in my mind there's no shame in going after it.
How do time constraints play into this model?