I very rarely hear anyone say that left-wing opinions are powered by hate. Its not a question that comes up. The converse comes up very frequently.

My tentative hypothesis: the less difference there is, the more important it becomes to signal it.

Me too.

I noticed that at least here in Germany childrens toys are presented much more gender specifically than they used to - think pink ponys and armed space rangers. But also boys books and girls books. I think this is more than just improved marketing. The entire domains of boys toys and girls toys diverge. Previously often one set of toys was sold for and used by boys and girls alike. The play differentiated along roles but still overlapped. But ot any longer. I wondered: Why is that?

TLDR: When roles do no more work to match expectations of the other gender the need to do so is satisfied by choosing other aspects of interests and behavior that pattern-match against these expectations.

My reasoning was as follows:

Assume that there are optimum male and female stereotypes with respect to preferrability and that these are known to both genders. Stereotypes mean combinations of observable properties or behaviors that pattern-match against the optimum stereotype.

This is plausible: At least for body attractiveness preferences are closely modelled by the other gender according to this study so I'd guess that basically the same holds for other aspects of preferrability (and status in case status being gender-specfic).

Traditionally many properties did align with (gender-specific) roles - roles actually being kind of stereotypes - or more precise: The optimum stereotypes projected down to the properties captured by the roles. So matching a role automatically netted you a fair match on the optimum stereotype.

But if roles do no longer work as a vehicle for this pattern-match because the roles are stripped of their differentiation potential via societies changed perception of roles - by precisely taking gender out of the roles the remaining pattern-match is weak. But the need to learn and aquire a match of the optimum stereotype doesn't go away. The pressure just goes to other areas - interests, preferrences - that pattern-match against the stereotype (which presuably also slowly changes).

Side-note: In the toy-case whether this pattern-matching was done by children or by their parents doesn't matter much for this discussion.

What does it mean for a person to be an end?

It means that this person's happiness/wellbeing is your terminal goal.

But more deeply, I have a transactional attitude towards my relationship with my fiancee. I'm with her because she makes me happy, and because I enjoy spending time with her, and because she seems like a good investment.

Suppose she gets hit by a bus and is now disabled. You calculate that she is no longer a good investment. Do you shrug and write her off as degraded capital? A healthy attitude to a relationship makes the other person an end in herself.

What is an end in itself? Well an end in itself (abbreviated simply as End from this point forwards) is something that is not pursued because of some motive, but that is itself a motive with no further reasons. [...] I think that many people pursue Ends other than happiness, such as the happiness of people they care about, certain life goals, and so on. Now some will say that these things are pursued only because they make the person pursuing them happy, meaning that you work towards the happiness of some other person only because doing that makes you happy. And this may be true for some people, but I doubt that it is true for everyone.

Perhaps it is worth noting that many people associated with the PUA/redpill/manosphere subculture are hostile to the notion that people can ever have a non-transactional relationship. But I put very little stock in their opinions.

Also, especially when monogamy is a strong social norm, prostitutes break up a wife's monopoly on sex for her husband.

What I can't figure out is why some noticeable proportion of heterosexual men hate prostitutes.

an armed group such as occupiers or raiders who kept forcibly taking resources from the native population would be high status among the population, which seems clearly untrue.

Maybe that's still the same kind of status, but it is in regards to a different domain. Perhaps an effective understanding of status acknowledges that groups overlap and may be formed around different resources. In your example, there is group (raiders and natives) which forms around literal physical resources, perhaps food. In this group, status is determined by military might, so the raiders have a higher status-as-it-relates-to-food.

Within this group, there is another subgroup of just the villagers, which the raiders are either not a part of or are very low-status in. This group distributes social support or other nice things like that, as the resource to compete over. The group norms dictate that pro-social behavior is how you raise status. So you can be high-status in the group of natives, but low status in the group of (natives and raiders).

In our daily lives, we are all part of many different groups, which are all aligned along different resources. We constantly exchange status in some groups for status in others. For instance, suppose I'm a pretty tough guy, and I'm inserted into the previously discussed status system. I obviously want food, but I'm not stronger than the raiders. I am, however, stronger than most of the villagers, and could take some of the food that the raiders don't scavenge for. If strength was my biggest comparative advantage, and food was all I wanted, then this would definitely be the way to go.

Suppose though that I don't just want food, or I have an even larger comparative advantage in another area, such as basketweaving. I could join the group of the villagers and raise my status within the group. Other villagers would be willing to sacrifice their status in the (raiders and villagers) system in exchange for something they need, like my baskets. This would be me bartering my baskets for food. Here, we can see the primary resource of the (raiders and villagers) group thrown under the bus for other values.

If I raise my status in the group far enough by making good enough baskets, then in terms of the (raiders and villagers) system I will be getting a larger piece of a smaller pie, but it might still be larger than the amount I would get otherwise. Or maybe I'm not even too concerned about the (raiders and villagers) system, and view status within the village group as a terminal value. Or maybe I want to collect villager status to trade for something even more valuable.

tl;dr: There are a lot of different groups optimizing for different things. We can be part of many of these groups at once and trade status between them to further our own goals.

The way status works looks analogous to the way Schelling points work: members of the group expect the other members to act a certain way towards member X, and also expect that everyone will expect everyone else to expect that, and so on. This is clearly how authority works (each grunt obeys the boss because he expects the other grants to obey and punish him if he doesn't, which is what all of them are thinking), and I suspect it might be a special case of the general case of status.

The value of strength, wealth, talent and etc. for high status would then go beyond their inherent usefulness in influencing people, by also acting as salient features that are more likely to become Schelling points. At the other end, each person would know not to ally with a coward because "nobody follows a coward", which would be a pretty natural Schelling point, but a similar behavior can arise if "it is known" that people born under the full moon are unlucky, and therefore nobody expects anyone else to follow someone born under a full moon...

This accords well, I believe, with the common observation that acting as one who expects to be assigned high status is an effective way to indeed be assigned high status.

A possible distinction between status and dominance: You are everybody's favourite sidekick. You don't dominate or control the group, nor do you want to, nor do you even voice any opinions about what the group should do. You find the idea of telling other people what to do to be unpleasant, and avoid doing so whenever you can. You would much rather be assigned complex tasks and then follow them through with diligence and pride. Everyone wants you in the group, they genuinely value your contribution, they care about your satisfaction with the project, and want you to be happy and well compensated.

By no means would I consider this role dominant, at least not in terms of controlling other people. (You might indeed be the decisive factor in the success of the group, or the least replaceable member). But it is certainly a high-status role; you are not deferred to but you are respected, and you are not treated as a replaceable cog. The president or boss knows your name, knows your family, and calls you first when something needs to be done.

I think many people aspire to this position and prefer it over a position of dominance.

A low-status person on this scale would be somebody ignored, disrespected, or treated as replaceable and irrelevant. You are unworthy of attention. When it is convenient others pretend you don't exist, and your needs, desires, and goals are ignored.

I think almost everyone desires high status by this measure. It is very different than dominance.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the mystery of people wanting to be low status appears to vanish if we don't think of binary high/low status, but as a continuum going from highest to lowest status. Then we can see people not wanting to go for highest status (including, perhaps, because they don't think they can manage it), but that doesn't mean they want to be low status.

I find it useful to see status as "fuzzily ordinal", in that it's often possible to identify one or some higher status members of a group, one or some lower status members (or maybe "would-be members"), as well as some in the middle, even if it's not possible to order them precisely.

I really like Venkat's illustration of this in his Gervais Principle (as in "it's interesting and aesthetically pleasing", not necessarily as in "I have high confidence in its accuracy"), especially in this post.

Look at the probability of the outcome, given the speech - if it's high enough that you can ignore the receiver of the message as an independent agent whose response generates uncertainty, the causation looks pretty direct.

Example 1: shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. Are you quite sure the crowd will stampede? or they'll look at you like you're an idiot and tell you to shut up?

Example 2: Russel and Hugh are two best mates living in Australia. Russel says: "An election is coming and I have to vote. I don't care about them slimy politicians and I'll vote for whoever you tell me". Hugh says "Sure, mate, this time vote for the Wombat!". Is Hugh's speech protected?