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wedrifid comments on Social status hacks from The Improv Wiki - Less Wrong Discussion

41 Post author: lsparrish 21 March 2012 02:56AM

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Comment author: Will_Newsome 21 March 2012 09:38:38AM *  51 points [-]

(There seems to be a sort of assumption 'round these parts that high status is better than low status and that dominance is better than submission. I think that this should not be unquestioningly assumed. There are many goals that can usually be more easily achieved by someone in a lower status position, e.g. discovering truth or learning from people. There are many exceptions, but high status tends to make people prideful, petty, unreflective, stupid, unwilling to change, unwilling to compromise, incautious, overconfident, &c. The benefits of material wealth, better mating options, better ally options, &c., are not obviously worth the costs; sometimes there are ways to get those things without risk. One would be wise to worry about slippery slopes and goal distortion.)

Comment author: wedrifid 21 March 2012 11:44:04AM 19 points [-]

I have to concur and further emphasize that the most impressive people aren't those that rigidly lock themselves into the high status mode in every transaction. Sure, being limited to only high status moves is better (for most people in circumstances we are familiar with) than being limited to only low status moves but being able to use either as the situation arises is far more useful. And I don't just mean being able to submit to the more powerful, for all that is useful.

Comment author: XFrequentist 23 March 2012 06:06:09PM *  5 points [-]

(This and the grandparent strike me as quite important and counter a very deep unstated assumption in most every discussion of status I've seen on LW. I think that this is top level post material!)

Comment author: Mycroft65536 23 March 2012 03:09:14AM 2 points [-]

Are you of the opinion that people on this site, in their daily lives, are erring on the side of implementing too many high status moves? Or that the people you met in SF while at the mega-camp were doing this stuff too much (Michael Vassar and Eliezer aside)? I agree that the optimum isn't either extreme, I think the nudging should be towards high status behavior.

And does anything in the original post endorse the high status behaviors over the low status ones?

Comment author: wedrifid 23 March 2012 03:15:04AM 1 point [-]

Are you of the opinion that people on this site, in their daily lives, are erring on the side of implementing too many high status moves?

No.

Or that the people you met in SF while at the mega-camp were doing this stuff too much (Michael Vassar and Eliezer aside)?

On average no. Some possible exceptions.

I agree that the optimum isn't either extreme, I think the nudging should be towards high status behavior.

Yes.

And does anything in the original post endorse the high status behaviors over the low status ones?

To precisely the extent that my reply to Will suggests that it does. (Um, no?)