Comment by wolfgke | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wolfgke | Hacker News Reader

I am very skeptical when there is a claim of some "objective status [of a person]" (in this case in the model assumption "In the simulation, men make their mate selection decisions by minimizing over the age of their prospective partners, whereas women maximize over the status of the men in their accessible vicinity." - which requires that there is some "objective" status hierarchy of men).

My counterclaim is that there is no objective status, but each person (in this case men) has a different status in different "communities" (it is intended that I leave it rather open what "community" encompasses here).

To give examples:

While "under 'ordinary' people" it is a sign of low status not to have a mobile phone/Facebook account/..., this is a sign of very high status and commitment in privacy-conscious communities such as civil rights activists, hacker/cypherpunk communities, ...

Similarly not owning a car can (depending on the community) both be a sign of low status (cannot afford) and very high status (in environment-conscious communities and people who love to be associated with being environment-conscious it is a sign of strong commitment and thus status).

A third example: Before it was paid very well, being a "computer science proramming nerd" had a very low status in general society. On the other hand being a good programmer/hacker could mean high status among nerds/hackers (again some specific community)/

I hope this clearly outlines why one rather should consider "status in a respective community" instead of some fictional "objective status metric".

While many cultures are different, I think we can talk about average culture, especially given certain selections. Average culture of people who use a dating app is likely different than average culture of people who scorn dating apps, and we can talk about what happens in each. There will be exceptions, but this seems true of any psychological/sociological statements. When we are talking about cultural norms, we are talking about averages recognizing there are sub-cultures and counter-cultures which can be quite different.

Take doing interviews (since I think that will be less controversial of a median to talk in). There is general advice on what one should do for an interview. It may be that you will be interviewing with someone whose opinion of you will go up when the see you in a t-shirt and flip flops, but when asked advice on what to wear to an interview we still tend to give advice based on the averages of wearing somewhere between business casual to business formal. We even stereotype different types of business culture (mobile startup vs international bank), and rarely do people point out a lack of peer reviewed studies or that there will be exceptions (or if they point out exceptions, they do it in addition to, instead of as a counter of, the standard advice).

>Before it was paid very well, being a "computer science programming nerd" had a very low status in general society.

Being very stereotypical and based on anecdotal evidence, but it still seems pretty low status (in the overall culture) despite the money to be made.

Yes, in order to paint a picture, one must draw the odd brush stroke. I'm a privacy-conscious, non-car owning urbanite programmer, but I accept and am comfortable with that most people (particularly in the US for car ownership) regard having a Facebook account and owning a car as indicators of some minimum amount of social status.

I love not having a car, and think Facebook is for people with lots of spare time, but this doesn't invalidate at all the results of the survey.

Personally I think more people would be turned off by the fact that someone thinks they are a "loser" for having a Facebook account. Though it's a bit harder to quantify personality.

I referred to using FB regularly, not having an account, but I've edited the above to be more what I meant (wasting time on FB).

> A third example: Before it was paid very well, being a "computer science proramming nerd" had a very low status in general society. On the other hand being a good programmer/hacker could mean high status among nerds/hackers (again some specific community)/

> My counterclaim is

How many people listen to it? If it's any, you probably have some of this fictitious status. Ever listened to a vagrant's claims? Would the average person of lower virtue?

> A third example: Before it was paid very well, being a "computer science proramming nerd" had a very low status in general society. On the other hand being a good programmer/hacker could mean high status among nerds/hackers (again some specific community)/

You tried very hard to make 'computer science programming nerd' not roll off the tongue, just sayin'... I liked programming way more before computer science, and got a lot more girlfriends before I had a mortgage. Not sure I've ever met a CSPN :)

Status is real because programming is real, but humans are infinitely creative and can make their own status by writing their own program.

> You tried very hard to make 'computer science programming nerd' not roll off the tongue, just sayin'

This was a pun that "for the average person" computer science, programming and nerds are "all the same" (and they don't care the slightest what this is all about - they just pack all these esoteric things together into one package).

"objective status" is usually "net worth" (aka "life score") which has many readily evident indicators like clothes, car, house, jet, private island, etc.

I think the parent's point is that, for example, having a nice car is going to attract a specific demographic of mate, while speaking at a conference on marine ecology might be highly desirable to a different demographic.

> "objective status" is usually "net worth" (aka "life score") which has many readily evident indicators like clothes, car, house, jet, private island, etc.

I disagree that "net worth" is a measure that is applied in all communities. For example bohemian societies were even somewhat proud not to have a lot of money, because the members saw themselves as artistic avant-garde that is not understood by "the ordinary world".

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