= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
DeVliegendeHollander comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - 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 (350)
I don't understand this actually lost at conscpicuous leisure. The point of status games is to signal power that could destroy a potential opponent. Wearing a heavy gold necklace does it (it could pay for hit men). Having a lot of leisure time not. Maybe I am just too used to people playing the aggressive kinds of status (gym-grown muscles are another good example of a could-destroy-you signal) but a signal without teeth - a signal lacking the demonstration of potentially dangerous power - does not seem like something to me that is supposed to work. What am I missing? Why didn't all those conspicuous leisure guys (or later contrarians or authentics) just walk around with gold jewelry for example?
It signals wealth and security. Obvious signals of power also signal some level of insecurity. The one going around instilling fear is himself afraid. Criminals know how precarious their own positions are. The boss realizes that a lot of his underlings are just waiting for a moment of weakness so they can stab him in the back. In one sense, appearing not to care can send a signal that you're powerful enough that others don't even register as threats.
this is my point. multi-level signals. where leisure = money and time for leisure = money and time.
If you think status signalling reduces to a threat of force, you are missing out on the most important parts. Cooperative signalling and in-group/out-group signaling are extremely important.
Gold chains are a lousy symbol as they are easy to fake and actually pretty cheap by first world signalling standards. Hence they are currently only used by underclass people or those not long removed from the underclass.
In the past, leisure demonstrated ownership of capital (i.e. I don't have to constantly be working because my money makes money.) Leisure activities can also demonstrate social group membership (going to a yacht regatta vs. going to an avant-garde fashion show.)
If the people with the highest social popularity are "authentic" then being "authentic" is a signal for other people that you have high social popularity.
Outside of the ghetto popular men don't wear gold chains, so it's not a signal of high social popularity.
I can also simply that you can help your friends and family. A medical doctor doesn't have his social status only because he's rich. He's also a go to person to ask for medical advice.
My point is precisely that I think status is not popularity but more like power. In fact, it surprises me to even consider status as popularity. Al Capone type criminals were not liked, but feared. Fear can elicit more respect(ful behavior) than liking. Wait, now I am seriously confused, I always assumed people behaving high status should come accross at least slightly scary to others, even a genuine achievement as "oh, he can do something I never will", could it really be that acting high status is more often liked than feared? A classic example of high-status signal is correcting other people's grammar. That cannot possibly make one popular, but a bit feared yes, as it conjure childhood memories of teachers.
For Americans, Meryl Streep may be far more popular than Vladimir Putin, but that does not translate into a corresponding hierarchy of fears.
It's a common error of too many parents to believe that fear brings respect. In my experience, fear brings hatred. Only the self-preservation parts of the reaction to fear are often mistaken for gestures of respect. Again, my experience is that true respect comes from admiration.
But again the problem is that does status mean popularity? What does that mean? It is not that I think popularity creates fear, I think status as such does not equal popularity, it is more like being seen a BIG, not popular, and t this may or may not create fear.
As for fear and respect, this is highly complicated IMHO. As far as I can tell, there are some people who genuinely respect those who scare them because they admire their fearsomeness. I think at our school the bully type guys genuinely respected the scariest male teachers as basically they saw them a role model on how to be a bigger bully. I think there is something true about the cliche "these villains only respect violence" type stuff from movies. Basically it means, often when people were hurt a lot, they will turn very defensive and the best defense is an offense and thus adopt a hard, tough "don't try messing with me" frame. At that point, those who are more fearsome may be genuinely respected and imitated. This is pretty common with males of lower-class background, the most dangerous looking MMA guys having the most respect.
Needless to say, I don't consider it healthy. I mean, not healthy for children. As for adults... I would say, for most people, by the time we turned 30, unless we lived in very sheltered circumstances, we probably developed a darker, harder, "don't try messing with me" side just as a cumulative effect of conflicts and bullying received and all that. And thus we may respect scary dominant people. It is probably part of the normal cumulative emotional scarring going on with life. Well, or mine is abnormal.
That's respect that leads to avoiding conflicts with those people. On the other hand we usually don't build relationships with them that are about exchanging favors.
Is status about favor exchange? I really would like a definition of what status is and isn't. My go-to definition is that it is about being "big". This is primitive, but that is the whole point, it has to be.
Status is about access to resources and control for resources. A person who gets favors from other people can access more resources.
Having the ability to physically beat up a doctor isn't likely to give you any preferential treatment from the doctors. Other forms of social status do.
You got the causation the wrong way around. The point of a signal isn't that the signal itself makes you popular it's that the signal goes along with status.
Few people correct the status of people they consider to be higher status then themselves. The only way that a low status people corrects a high status person is that the person is completely clueless.
Correcting a high status person can mean losing their support.
There are social interactions where people I driven by mainly by fear but that's not the kind of environment in which you want to be.
Popularity means that you can get help. We aren't in the early environment any more, and I don't think we have quite the same reflexes.
Also note that if violence is a possibility, older men get safety and dominance by their ability to recruit younger men, not by their ability to do their own fighting.
Have another angle-- in civilization, winning means coming out ahead while cooperating.