= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
handoflixue comments on What if "status" IS a terminal value for most people? - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (111)
Well, observation. If a person routinely acquires status even though it DOESN'T further any of their goals, they presumably value status as a terminal value. If someone only acquires status WHEN it's instrumentally valuable, then it's presumably not a terminal goal.
Sort of like how I eat chocolate because it's pleasant, not because I'm hungry :)
A lot of the examples you gave are instrumentally valuable. From someone trustworthy, I prefer criticism because it helps me improve, but praise is important for gauging that I HAVE improved and I'm not just wasting effort.
Being useful to others makes them useful to me. I state this explicitly to my friends - I am generous because it encourages them to be generous back. I also find that it's simply EASIER to be generous, because I like happy friends more than disappointed friends, and because "yes" rarely gets me pestered to change my mind.
I would be annoyed if I was forced to make a suboptimal decision between delegating and DIY, because I value efficiency. I also really, really, hate being forced to do stupid things. I've enjoyed delegating but I largely prefer DIY, which is why I'm not a manager anymore.
I'm near-asexual, so being denied sexual partners doesn't bother me. Rape would provoke serious violence, it's not something I associate with low status.... (I'm simplifying vastly here, since a full discussion seems irrelevant :))
This seems slightly circular to me. For both of the observations to work, you'd already have to know some of the person's terminal values. I believe this doesn't get any easier even if you're observing yourself.
For the other points, I appreciate your elaboration, but I was more like hoping to invoke the consideration that social status is a very fuzzy concept, and probably too high level to be optimized by evolution anyway. Once you invent the concept, then I guess you can shortcut some social computation... and get some cognitive biases as a side effect.
Status is fuzzy, but so is intelligence. Given that dominance and hierarchies are important to many primates, I'd consider the DEFAULT assumption to be that humans DO value all of that, and you'd need to present evidence that humans are somehow exceptional...