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Plasmon comments on The 5-Second Level - Less Wrong
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If the message you intend to send is "I am secure in my status. The attacker's pathetic attempts at reducing my status are beneath my notice.", what should you do? You don't seem to think that ignoring the "attacks" is the correct course of action.
This is a genuine question. I do not know the answer and I would like to know what others think.
I think the real message is "The attacker's attempt to reduce my status is too ineffective to need a response".
On a good day I'd say "okay" so he knows I heard him, and then start a conversation with someone else, unless there's some instrumental value in confronting him or continuing the conversation given that I now know he's playing status games. I don't know a good way to carry on a useful conversation with someone who is playing status games, so I'm stuck in that situation too.
Sarcasm.
Ignoring the attempts is a good default. It gives a decent payoff while being easy to implement. More advanced alternatives are the witty, incisive comeback or the smooth, delicately calibrated communication of contempt for the attacker to the witnesses. In the latter case especially body language is the critical component.
My opinion? I'd not lie. You've noticed the attempt, why claim you didn't? Display your true reaction.
Noticing the attempt and doing nothing is not a lie. It is a true reaction.
I'm referring to that. Sending that message is an implicit lie -- well, you could call it a "social fiction", if you like a less loaded word.
It is also a message that is very likely to be misunderstood (I don't yet know my way around lesswrong well enough to find it again, but I think there's an essay here someplace that deals with the likelyhood of recipients understanding something completely different than what you intended to mean, but you not being able to detect this because the interpretation you know shapes your perception of what you said).
So if your true reaction is "you are just trying to reduce my status, and I don't think it's worth it for me to discuss this further", my choice, given the option to not display it or to display it, would usually be to display it, if a reaction was expected of me.
I hope I was able to clarify my distinction between having a true reaction, and displaying it. In a nutshell, if you notice something, you have a reaction, and by not displaying it (when it is expected of you), you create an ambiguous situation that is not likely to communicate to the other person what you want it to communicate.
implicit lie vs. social fiction
I don't think these are normally useful ways of thinking about status posturing. Verbalising this stuff is a faux pas in the overwhelming majority of human social groups.
I'm not sure if I disagree with you on whether the message is "very likely" to be understood. In my limited experience, and with my below average people reading skills, I'd say that most status jockeying in non-intimate contexts is obvious enough for me to notice if I'm paying attention to the interaction.
The post you meant is probably Illusion of Transparency. I contend that it applies less strongly to in person status jockeying than to lingual information transfer. I suggest you watch a clip of a foreign language movie if you disagree.
Yes, that's the post I was referring to. Thank you!
This can work sometimes but it in most contexts it is difficult to pull off without sounding awkward or crude. At best it conveys that you are aware that social dynamics exist but aren't quite able to navigate them smoothly yet. Mind you unless there is a pre-existing differential in status or social skills in their favour they will tend to come off slightly worse than you in the exchange. A costly punishment.