shminux comments on Useful Concepts Repository - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Qiaochu_Yuan 10 June 2013 06:12AM

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Comment author: shminux 10 June 2013 07:56:03AM *  15 points [-]

I never really consciously thought about the idea of status until I came across it in this forum. It helped me identify and understand some behaviors in myself and others which puzzled me before.

Comment author: Thomas 10 June 2013 09:17:03AM -2 points [-]

Yes, me too. But it is Hanson's idea as far as I know. From now lesswrong's sister forum.

Comment author: gjm 10 June 2013 11:58:38AM 7 points [-]

I'm pretty sure the idea has been around since long before Robin Hanson started writing about it.

Comment author: Thomas 10 June 2013 12:07:46PM 0 points [-]

I wouldn't be surprised either way. That it was, or that it wasn't around before. Still, this status-signaling view may be wrong sometimes. Or useless.

Comment author: jmmcd 10 June 2013 02:41:34PM 5 points [-]

Status is far older than Hanson's take on it, or than Hanson himself. But the idea of seeing status signalling everywhere, as an explanation for everything -- that is characteristically Hanson. (Obviously, don't take my simplification seriously.)

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 10 June 2013 06:05:35PM *  7 points [-]

The idea of talking about seeing status signaling everywhere is characteristically Hanson. I would not be surprised in the least if many smart politicians and socialites throughout history had also observed this but had the good sense not to talk about it in public.

Comment author: DerBerggeist 12 June 2013 03:19:50AM *  0 points [-]

Haven't pickup artists been explicitly discussing status signalling in the context of day-to-day, person-to-person interactions since the late nineties? And biologists have noted its pervasiveness all through the mid-to-late 20th centuries, at least. I'm sure cultural anthropologists too, but I'm not as familiar with that literature. Nor am I, however, with any of Hanson's posts on the subject, but a quick glance at the links on the LW wiki's page puts them all in the mid 2000s, with nothing popping out as unusual. But I also couldn't find anything of his that suggested status to be "an explanation for everything" (I'm guessing everything here means all human behavior? Though that too seems really unlikely), so maybe I wasn't looking in the right places.