Edit: Original version moved to karma sink to hide it away and leave it available for reference. New version:

Is what we refer to as "status" always best thought of as relative? Is a person's status like shares in a corporation or money in an economy, where the production of more diminishes what they have and does not create wealth? Is it an ability to compel others and resist compulsion? Or is it more like widgets, where if I happen to lose out from you getting more widgets, it is only because of secondary effects like your ability to out-compete me with your widgets?

I am not trying to find a really true definition of "status". To some, it seems right to answer the question "Is status all relative or is status not all relative?" with "It depends on which reasonable meaning of status you mean." Everyone (?) agrees that a valid way of discussing status is to talk about something like what portion of the total (subcategory of) status a person has.

Not everyone agrees that there is a reasonable meaning by which one might speak of non-relative status, other than the one that is shorthand for ignoring small or infinitesimal losses by others. In the same way we may say "The government printed one million dollars and gave it to an agency, no one else lost or gained anything." It's fine to say that, but only because: a) the inflation caused by printing a million dollars is miniscule, b) we can count on the listener to infer that increasing money does not increase wealth in that way.

So if one's answer is "It depends," then one thinks it is more than just linguistically valid to think about status in terms of an absolute that can be increased or decreased, but literally, logically, true. Not everyone agrees with that, and the poll is to get a general feel for how many here think each way.

So, as a hypothetical: A person in a room magically becomes awesome - say a guy has knowing kung fu downloaded into his brain, and he tells everyone, and they believe him. Does it make any sense at all to say that the status of others has not changed, other than in a way susceptible to a money/inflation/wealth (simple truth sheep/rock) metaphor?

Poll:

Status all is relative

Status is not all relative