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nyan_sandwich comments on A Protocol for Optimizing Affection - Less Wrong
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IIUC, you are saying that status games are the current reality, and playing them is instrumental. I'll take your opinion seriously. I'll learn how to play this status thing better.
The other question is, is it the best we could be doing? If we could choose how to organize our communities and our minds, would we put this status game in? If no, it seems that alongside learning to deal with the current reality, we should spend some resources figuring out how to change it.
Yes, but not merely.
There are aspects of the specific ways status games are played by humans, and humans in my culture and subcultures specifically that are arbitrary and undesirable and that I would change if I could. However the game itself is playing a critical role of solving a complex cooperation problem in a way that doesn't end up with everyone dead. You don't just arbitrarily discard your entire power structure because having power structures is unpleasant. Because everyone dies, nothing works and power - and something analogous to status - still exists so long as there are multiple agents around that can make decisions that impact each other.
Of course we shouldn't just be idiots about it. I am reminded of Bob Dylan's "don't criticize what you can't understand" and random internet parable "If you don't know what the fence is for, I cannot allow you to remove it."
But if a large part of our daily lives seems unpleasant and we have reason to believe it is nonoptimal, it's worth looking for how can we do at least incrementally better.
Is that metaphor actually a random Internet thing? I normally attribute it to Chesterton.
Good to know the proper attribution. To me it's just another meme. Doesn't matter who said it.
I had exactly that parable in mind while I was responding. Like it.
Totally agree. Want a hug?
Internet Hug Protocol, v0.1
INTERNET HUG!!!!