Nice post, thanks.

"In this model, people aren't just seeking status, they're (also? instead?) seeking a state of affairs that allows them to believe they have status."

1. Replace also or instead with rather. That is, the default state of mind is that individuals believe they have status. This might be through the regular strategy of seeking social wealth (icons, respect, position, possessions), as well as through invisibles (A Big Idea, the truth, The Secret). The status is always self-assigned; think of those who do do not accept the status conferred upon them. Which leads to...

2. I am specifically interested in individuals who are not playing the status game, who consider themselves end-nodes, nobody's, or self-less. Consider Mother Teresa as an example perhaps. How does your model deal with this? (This line of thinking might parallel altruistic behaviour, which might be a useful space to connect up.)

3. More needs to be said about relative scale, that is cultures and subcultures, families and tribes. There are multiple superimposed groupings going on in any specific individual's life (daughter, sister, wife, mother, colleague, friend, consumer, etc), and I look forward to reading this.

"A rat isn't exactly seeking an optimum level of food, it's seeking an optimum ratio of ventromedial to ventrolateral hypothalamic stimulation, or, in rat terms, a nice, well-fed feeling."

So if I move my hand away from a hot pan, am I actually seeking to: "move my hand away from a hot pan" or

"avoid touching the pan" or

"avoid being burnt" or

"avoid pain receptors in my hand being activated" or

"avoid neural signals in my brain that correspond to pain" or

"avoid the feeling of pain"?

Someone needs to do some buck-stopping or else the master-slave model will turn into a master-slave1-slave2-slave3... model. Although come to think of it, that might me more correct. (EDIT: Note to self, line spacing is weird, I'm off to look in the wiki)

as i am sure we are all aware forums are structured linear-wise and even branching in comments

the wiki tends to crystalisation of knowledge devoid of the subjectivity and their perspective...

imho the meta site you talk of is the trust network of contributors that is the real people nominalised as Eliezer_Yudkowsky or psychohistorian etc

i have just found this site forgive the potentially premature comment ||

just an observation: this kind of discussion lacks temporal accuracy

there still seems to be a fundamentalist position implicit in the discussion and examples

that is an attempt to produce a methodology independent of the person speaking or author writing

(oh... i will have to change my style of writing since single line entries are ignored in the comment box... my apologies:)

cool :)