I think it's a grave mistake to equate self-esteem with social status. Self-esteem is an internal judgment of self-worth; social status is an external judgment of self-worth. By conflating the two, you surrender all control of your own self-worth to the vagaries of the slavering crowd. Someone can have high self-esteem without high social status, and vice versa. In fact, I might expect someone with a strong internal sense of self-worth to be less interested in seeking high social status markers (like a fancy car, important career, etc.).

Yeah, I was using the term self-esteem in a specific sense to mean "the result of some primitive algorithm in the brain that attempts to compute your tribal status". I tried to find some alternative term to call the result of this algorithm to prevent this exact confusion, but everything I could come up with was awkward. Maybe "status meter"? I agree with you in that I think there's only a moderate correlation between the result of this algorithm and a person's self-worth as it's usually understood.

I just don't think the relationship is at all deterministic, and an individual can work to decouple them in his own life by developing an internal sense of self-worth.

I don't really agree with this, assuming that I'm right in reading you as saying "A low-status person can hack their brain into running off the high-status algorithm by developing a strong sense of self-worth." At least it's not true for me personally. To be completely honest, I think I'm very intelligent and creative, and I do spend a sizeable chunk of every day working on my major life goals, which I enjoy doing. But at the same time, I would definitely say I'm running off of a low-status algorithm in most of my interactions.

And even self-esteem purely in social interactions doesn't really seem to help my "status meter". For example, when I lost my virginity, I thought that it would make talking to girls much easier in the future. But this didn't really happen at all.

Last thing: I think that social status should not be equated with a direct dominance relationship between two people. Social status seems like a more pervasive effect across relationships, while direct social dominance might play a bigger role in deciding which algorithm to use. If someone big and threatening gives you an order (like "hand me your wallet"), it might activate the "Do what you're told" algorithm regardless of your general social status.

Yeah, now that I think about it, this seems like the weakest link in my argument. I imagine most people fluidly switch from low status to high status algorithms on a regular basis depending on who they're interacting with. But maybe there's also a sort of larger meter somewhere in the brain that maintains a more constant level and guides long-term behavior? I don't know.

Thank you for your response, though - this is definitely the most interesting response I've gotten for this comment. :)