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Choose your status game wisely

ofdollarsanddata.com

330 pointsthrow0101a333 comments

I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around.

I grew up in one of the last WASP strongholds in the US and the more money you had, the smaller the house you lived in (up to a point). People could afford insanely expensive cars, but would buy tasteful ones instead (excepting kids).

Most people wouldn't be caught dead in a Ralph Lauren polo, but would happily wear a bleach-stained, rumpled Brooks Brothers shirt. Outside of special occasions, people didn't dress nice at all - they dressed like they just came back from sailing.

Engineering, medicine, and law were not considered high-status. Well, if you wanted to work a job, I guess they were - but they were considered ordinary. It was better to own something (but not work), run a non-profit, or have a PhD (in the classics, or whatever). Most parents told their children "I don't care what you do - but do something interesting!". Being an artist was considered good, too.

Fame, and appearing in the media, were about the worst things you could achieve.

The biggest status indicator was how well read you were. It is so deeply ingrained in me, that I still find myself more impressed by well read people than almost anything else, and I haven't lived there in over a decade.

There are a couple of these strongholds remaining, where even the wealthiest people are not allowed to move to because they don't have the right last name, or can't trace their lineage to the Mayflower.

If you removed these people and put them anywhere else, you'd think of them as low status and strange.

What is WASP? My search results seem to have a lot of noise, like wasps, the insects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants

white anglo-saxon protestant. old money types in US context.

I don't know, I don't think they would appear low status. Your whole description screams wealth and aristocracy, just not the in your face kind. They probably wouldn't be liked, but I doubt they would appear low status elsewhere.

I guess they would soon adapt to fit in in the new place, and change their status games.

But just for a short while, maybe they'd give an unusual impression?

>where even the wealthiest people are not allowed to move to because they don't have the right last name

How is this carried out in practice?

I'm reasonably sure the author is just making this up. As a US citizen you have wide discretion on where you live, even extending to several other small nations that have signed agreements with the US.

If you're renting or selling property, most of the discretion that used to be afforded to buyer's is now outlawed. But it would require someone willing to pursue a case if they felt they were not sold a home because of their race or whatever.

I'm pretty sure GGP did not mean they literally could not move there. They could move there and be shunned by society if that's what they are into. But why else would you want to be there except for the society?

Funny, this comment reads like something Commander Data would say in Star Trek. He would always respond to the letter of what was said, while completely missing the human context.

It fascinates me that someone who read the parent comment could actually think it was about the legal rights of US citizens. You might as well be claiming it was about hummus :)

So what is it about, then?

They could legally move there, but they would be shunned from the community, and indeed it may be hard for them to find someone willing to even sell them a house.

The practical ability to move somewhere--e.g. to find a home, place an offer, have it accepted, and then peacefully coexist in the neighborhood.

These are all largely up to the discretion of individuals in the community.

No, this is real. There are some small old money communities in the Northeast that behave in very unusual ways. I've spent time in one.

Many homes are never sold, but are passed from one generation to the next. When homes are sold, they are first offered informally to other members of the community before being listed, so they are sold before ever being listed. If people locally have enough money (able to do an all-cash deal quickly) and if it's a nice enough place to live that local demand exceeds supply, the majority of homes might be sold without ever being listed.

If the home is listed, it is listed with one of a few local realtors, who can very subtly steer certain buyers towards and away from certain properties. Even if legal lines are crossed, it's very difficult to prove that laws were broken. It happens less often than it used to, but it still happens. US Senator Corey Booker has at various times shared this story about his family that sheds a bit of light on the phenomenon:

https://www.facebook.com/corybooker/photos/id-like-to-share-...

That's old money. they have had money in their family so long, it is like the air. They display their status by rejecting conspicuous consumption in all but a few instances. The families tend to be extremely protective. In social settings the conversation can appear like active college professors debating, their educations being really what the spend their time honing.

It’s not just old money that this affects - I’ve noticed that new money, once it achieves a certain degree of security (i.e. enough that you don’t have to work, you won’t lose it or find your needs not met bar some catastrophic world-ending or life-ending circumstance), adopts much the same values. I’ve spent most of my life surrounded by wealth and privilege of various different flavours, and you can practically smell the haves and the have-nots - the latter tend to really care, and conspicuously so, about conventional status ladders. The former… give the appearance of not caring about status at all. It isn’t that they don’t, it’s just that they know they’re at the top of the economic tree, and don’t feel the need to compete in that dimension. The well-read/educated thing is more of a status derived from demonstrating how little you care about conventional status ladders, and the less you care, the higher your status, as if you care so little you must be very secure indeed.

This reminds me much of the Dutch society. Although I'm not Dutch, I've lived there twice, and I frequented both old, new and no money circles. What struck me the most among Dutch was how similar a blue collar worker and the president of KLM would look riding a bike down the street.

> people are not allowed to move to because they don't have the right last name, or can't trace their lineage to the Mayflower… If you removed these people and put them anywhere else, you'd think of them as low status and strange.

I’ve gotta say, an attitude that someone can’t be your neighbor because their ancestors didn’t have a ticket on some boat is definitely strange, and imo low status, no matter how well read they are.

> I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around.

This is counter-signalling. "I don't have to dress like a high-status individual, because I'm so high status that my high status is clear either way." It's why somewhat intelligent people use big words, but very intelligent people speak plainly: they are so intelligent their intelligence is clear even without the big words, and they want you to know that.

Or extra words and fancy words are just a waste of everyone's time.

What are some big words? I'm not a native speaker

Intelligence is generally correlated with the size of their vocabulary thought.

This is obliviously just a rule of thumb but if you take a pool of 100 well spoken individuals and 100 ... Not well spoken and then give them all some kind of intelligence test, the first group will definitely score significantly higher then the latter.

Yes, I'm aware that non native speaker (I am one of these), but they'd be statistically irrelevant in the context of the general population

Maybe I need to stop using “tautological”, “orthogonal”, etc in my speech… they are so ingrained into me from academic settings but in hindsight and in a professional context there are definitely people politely nodding and either thinking “I’ll look that up later” - or more commonly they’ll know the words just fine and instead it’s “why not just say ‘obvious’ / ‘unrelated’ / etc”.

I like trying to be precise but I think it’s coming at the cost of actual understanding/conveying the wrong status-signal (I don’t want an elitist vibe at work either!)

Some people born with money don't like to think that the only thing that makes them special is the money they have, but didn't earn. Avoiding common endeavors, getting an engineering degree instead of being an artist or running a profitable company instead of a non-profit is a good way of not confronting the reality that in a competitive setting they would be crushed. I know it's a generalization as there are plenty of hard working people born in wealthy families that take advantage of it, as they should, without deluding themselves.

> Choose money and you’ll end up working all the time. Choose beauty and you’ll always want to look better. Choose fame and you’ll constantly be seeking attention.

This is straight-up paraphrasing David Foster Wallace in This Is Water, just that DFW was talking about these things as de-facto personal religions that we're usually unconscious of. So the "choose" part isn't nearly that explicit in his view.

The bit in This Is Water:

> If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you... Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.

The speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

fantastic talk, thank you.

So don't be an idiot and "worship", be a rational balanced human and as the OP says diversify your interests. DFW tends to exaggerate to make his points, and this is an example. Nice prose, be it describes idiots and implies to the reader that everyone are such idiots.

DFW concluded that if you don’t choose what to worship it gets chosen for you. What he’s saying is that one should be conscious and deliberate, self aware. Like much of DFW there’s a strong christian undercurrent to ‘this is water’. Far from being an argument against religion and worship the message i take is that the value of religion can be that it focuses one outward, towards community and so on.

not choosing is a choice too.

His point, I'd say, is that whatever the choice (including not choosing something consciously) should be done consciously. I.e. You should be aware that you aren't choosing anything, or that you want to pursue money, or fame, or whatever.

Can one really not chose in this situation? What one worships is somewhat synonym with what one values the most. How can a man ever not have something that he values more than other things? On what basis would he act?

DFW claims religion is immune to this effect but to me it seems like another statement to add could be: “worship god and you’ll feel like a sinner”

> worship god and you’ll feel like a sinner

Especially if you pick the wrong God.

> Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

I wonder if this is an explanation for impostor syndrome. Every time I read about it, it comes from people working in intellectual professions. Those people probably value their intellect a lot, possibly more than money, status or things like that. Thus their insecurities manifest themselves as impostor syndrome.

Interesting thoughts.

I think the impostor syndrome is more related to fear of failing the others trust, regardless of what field we have in mind.

Let's say your friends want you in their ... volleyball team. They think you're good.

And now you start worrying about making them disappointed.

Although you're the best they know, for real.

That'd be the impostor syndrome, but in this case unrelated to intelligence. Instead, a social thing, related to ... Fear of losing some of one's status? (Whatever that status is about.)

> "I think the impostor syndrome is more related to fear of failing the others trust..."

And why might one fear betraying the trust of others in ones intellect?

Could it have something to do with being viewed as less capable, less intelligent?

I think for some it could be. Earlier in my life I know it was for me (this exact circular spiral as described above)

Not sure how this will sit with the HN crowd, but a couple of years back I got into menswear, and I derive some pleasure from being the "best dressed guy" at the office.

Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those categories, but bringing both together makes you stand out more.

I actually feel pressure to dress down in my role as a SWE: hoodies and jeans seem like the norm, and forget about wearing a suit (lol!) or even a dress shirt.

I've found black/grey turtlenecks to be a nice middle ground, and apart from the occasional "one more thing" (Steve Jobs) or Elizabeth Holmes comment, those tend to work well.

Being well dressed isn't about dressing in fancy or expensive clothes; It's about looking good in clothes.

So difficult. Used to be easy. Stopped caring. Want to care. But black tshirts and air force ones are just so easy.

As long as they fit well you're probably doing perfectly fine.

And the colors match. Also, remember, don't use more than 2-3 colors ... At least when designing a website?

If you are wealthy enough, you can hire a personal stylist. Outsource that work.

There’s a status game for streetwear too but afaik it involves rare sneakers with expensive basics.

> I actually feel pressure to dress down in my role as a SWE: hoodies and jeans seem like the norm, and forget about wearing a suit (lol!) or even a dress shirt.

If Vint Cerf can wear a three-piece suit, so can you!

Agree wholeheartedly

Vint Cerf godfathered the Internet, he is a three piece suit.

You are correct! He does dress well and formally. Combined with his friendliness and general cheerfulness, he makes a great impression.

At two consecutive remote jobs with a lot of zoom time, I had the habit of wearing Tommy Bahama shirts - these are Hawaiian style shirts (or some of them are) that are expensive and perfectly made (e.g., the pattern matches perfectly on both sides of the buttons). My wife made sure I had a diverse collection.

Me too. If I wear a simple blue button down, there’s a 100% chance it gets commented on. And I work full time remote…

I feel like if I wore that to a software engineering interview I’d run the risk of being judged as just not really getting the culture.

lol, i think that's why i failed my first interview or two. dressed down for my last one and got hired no problem

Am I the only person who thinks it’s very plausible that that was indeed a factor, and also that it’s crazy for that to be the case?

I've been directly and loudly laughed at by a room of engineers for wearing a suit to an interview. People often get their hackles up about it, but we have a dress code as strict as any 1960s office, it's just a different set of clothes.

Wow you're right! It's like an informal dress code.

As I get older I found the nicer fabrics and older style more fitting.

The ritual of steaming, prepping while listening to podcast is great.

The suited look is usually common among management and that layer usually isn't highly respected by engineers. So that brings a bit of negative perception by association.

Screw that! For my interviews.i always wear a suit.

If they can't appreciate the effort. That's on them.

I have a bunch of nice clothes, life is too short to limit myself to just one style. Not extravagant of.course.

My first job out of college had a strict(er) dress code. It also had the lowest average competence of any company I've worked for, by a large margin.

The places that have been the least strict about supposedly "professional" things like dress code, hours worked (etc.) have all been the most professional in terms of quality of work and mutual respect.

From that perspective, dressing more formally can be considered a signal of having the wrong priorities.

That said, while I don't think I would necessarily wear a suit to work, I want to use my dress-code freedom to dress up a bit, in a way that I think looks flattering.

Paradoxically, I would maybe shy away from the suit during the interview, but switch to it once you've been hired and established your credibility.

> black/grey turtlenecks

Jobs bought lots of them for everyone at Apple to wear, nobody accepted, and he kept them for himself.

I dont know if this is a joke or an actual thing he did, but there is a story that he came back from visiting Sony in Japan with the idea that Apple employees should have a uniform, like some kind of Bond villain.

Knitwear in general (sweatshirts, cardigans, sweaters, even t-shirts) is a good fit for the tech office because it is the quintessential casual-yet-refined garment. I've experimented with different types.

Dark jeans can be fairly dressed up, but chinos are also a good option.

You can always go hipster. 'Finance-bro' well dressed may be harder to pull off in tech. But, 'thrift store cashier' well dressed is very doable. East-Asian fashionable is also totally fine.

Well the flip side is that when we want to dress nice, it's because we like to be dandy going to a concert, and aren't trying to compete with coworkers or anyone else.

This is quite common for women in tech (particularly engineering), I've heard. If you look "too attractive" as a female engineer, you'd more likely not be taken seriously, not to mention attract unwanted attention by being a woman in a male-dominated field.

At the end of the day, every group of people -- all the way from ethno-national levels to your particular niche in industry -- have their social signalling implements, and clothing/appearance happens to be a very common implement.

What do you do when you bump into an equally well dressed person who just happens to be more physically attractive than you?

The trick is to develop enough of an ego for this event to never occur.

"Yeah well I'm 5'11 and a half..."

This is literally my height. Repeating it, is about as effective as you'd expect, especially since my son topped six feet.

Sometimes you can spot sour grapes at 50 paces.

Just saying that's a concern that just doesn't resonate with those of us at or above tall height. The preening, the studying others, all these things necessary to be a cut above the other people with small type physique are actually communicating a signal in itself by making the gesture to that degree.

This is why models don't try to look or dress hot, they just are. Dressing nice is one thing but putting on the r/MFA uniform is a signal.

This reminds me of a phrase "he is smart when he applies himself". Well good for him, but there are people who are smart even when they aren't trying - and those are the smart people.

Intraday height variation and slight changes in posture mean that your height can't really be specified to the half inch.

I'm hoping the half was not maximum height measure

A wise man once told me "Six inches is six inches."

But five and a half inches is five inches.

This doesn't match my experience, because the nurses who've measured me specified it to the half inch, and they did it consistently.

I was genuinely hoping they'd respond.

Rule 42 says smooching

I don't understand the question - what if you dress casually and bump into someone more attractive that dresses the same as you?

OP isn't trying to just dress nicely, (s)he's trying to be the best dressed. If you were competing on looks, as OP suggests they are, and you were attempting to be the Most Casually Dressed person, or something like that, then I would be interested to know what happens when you met a more attractive version of yourself, too. When your goal is vanity, but you're outdone by nature, what happens to you in your mind? Just curious.

The business card scene in American Psycho comes to mind.

Smile that dominate smile while indicating the anaconda in my pants.

Menswear as metrosexual hipster or as in MFA and /f/ lurker?

Probably the latter, my guess.

I started into menswear last year and I find it deeply fascinating, but hard to fit into the very casual tech office culture.

What's a typical outfit look like for you? Do you have a "uniform"?

Some guys pulled it off, by doing it "ironically"

Hoodie under a suit jacket.

1960s programmers : white shirt, black tie With yeezyz.

I go with a " spezzato", which is pants and blazer of different fabric and/or color. Less formal than a suit and allows for more creativity. Neapolitan blazers look especially good on fit people. If tailored or made to measure, don't forget to unbutton the last button on the sleeve, a top player move. Most, if not all, of my colleagues dress in sweatshirts and ill-fitting jeans. I'm sure some of them see me as "eccentric" or "aloof" or someone who wants to stand out. And they would be right (not aloof though).

Interesting! I still try to keep things fairly casual. If I do some sort of "jacket", it usually a pretty casual sport coat with a crewneck underneath, paired with dark jeans or chinos.

Assuming you're not showing up in something undeniably "dressy," like a dark-colored suit with a white shirt with French cuffs, being "casual" is more about your attitude with your clothes, how you wear them, than the clothes themselves.

Assuming you're wearing the same clothes in both situations, does it look like you're ready for a wedding or that you found the first few clothes in your closet with your eyes half closed and somewhat magically the color and fabric combination is eye-catching?

I have observed multiple times if I 'suit up' at work it's like I'm wearing a shield, it's a strange game. It has to be a good suit though, naturally enough.

Edit: this is when dealing with the business folk that is, techies don't care.

Also good to do it from time to time out of nowhere and then take a long lunch.

If they want to keep you, you'll get a raise.

You'll probably also want to make sure your Linked In profile has been updated recently.

Or they'll assume you're leaving and choose not to compete to retain you. Then all the bonus etc gets funneled to the other coworkers.

Worked with a guy who wore a suit to the office as a 2-year experience dev and he was always taken into client meetings last minute when they needed someone. Helped his career a fair bit I think!

Opposite here. My office had people wearing dress pants and dress or polo shirts. I decided to add a tie. I was taken aside and told not to do that since it made me seem out of touch with the culture. Seemed like a pretty small step up from the based line to me. So much for dress for the job you want, or next job up BS...

I think how the experts play this game is by buying a very expensive well-fitting designer polo shirt. The trick is to impress people in a way that seems that you are not trying hard. Trying hard is low-status, just being "naturally" impressive is high-status.

The rules of the game are not mentioned publicly, so that people who know them can feel superior to those who don't. The mere knowledge of the rules signals good upbringing or great social skills.

I definitely ribbed him a bit in the pub for it, as we all did, but it was a consultancy and we had academic & old-school style clients who came in suits themselves so it was probably more accepting than brogrammer startups or whatever

My career advice to nearly everyone starting out these days is to bring different professional interests together if they have more than one.

There's thousands of specialists in most fields, but not nearly as many generalists or people who can walk in two interconnected worlds.

Finding a niche can be very valuable to oneself and others.

One way to carve that out is by going deeper than one's peers in a specialization, but another (sometimes more often overlooked) way is bridging the gap between two different ones.

As someone who has been trying to convince hiring managers of this very thing (dual major in electrical and mechanical engineering) it's harder than it sounds to find a job that crosses the bridges. Just my two cents.

I work for a small product development and contract engineering firm - a dual major in EE and MechE would be a big plus in our eyes. Not sure if that’s the type of job you want, but there’s definitely such firms scattered across the US (assuming you’re based in the States).

"There's thousands of specialists in most fields, but not nearly as many generalists or people who can walk in two interconnected worlds."

Ugh, my advice is the opposite. You'll never really fit in if you're in two worlds. Most places don't want generalists. They want specialists who can crank out code quickly without asking too many questions.

In my experience, if you have too much business acumen, you end up asking questions that the business people can't answer, or don't want to answer. Things about business process flow, legal review, corporate strategy, and general process efficiency/improvement. Then they hate you for it, or at least think you're too "head in the clouds".

I have a fair chunk of knowledge in many diverse domains. Besides people occasionally finding one interesting (like people at work finding it interesting that I forage for mushrooms), they don't benefit me at all. In fact, I believe it hurts me (career wise).

I'm at the point where people (managers mostly) are starting to view me negatively. "What's this guy doing as a midlevel after 10 years here and a masters degree?", type of stuff.

> In my experience, if you have too much business acumen, you end up asking questions that the business people can't answer, or don't want to answer.

Depends on context.

“How does governance oversee the regulatory aspect of this process?”: who is this annoying busybody?

“You asked me to automate this part of the flow, but it can get gummed up whenever the auditors request a six month look back. That happens about a couple dozen times a year, and the system we’re all designing so far doesn’t hold the governance information to automate this when that happens, are you folks okay with the process going to manual intervention about half the year?”: damn, he just saved our bacon, drinks are on us next time we go

Please readers following this advice: make one of those multiple professional interests you cultivate be better communication skills and public speaking. The number of developers that can only explain weakly, or one way, or get confrontational when questioned is far far too many. Learn how to communicate and doors open, as far too many developers simply cannot explain to others such that they can then duplicate or follow or want to.

What is your best advice for quality menswear?

How did you get started? I've never been able to figure out how to break into wearing nice clothes that mesh well with my age. I have tried the typical fashion-in-a-box things, but the clothes always seem (to me) to skew too young. I don't want to be a well-dressed college kid or entry-level professional...

Find a well dressed celebrity your age, and mimic their style.

Find good lookbooks to derive a sense of good fit and what range of styles exist, how you personally like them, and how the fit in different social contexts. The Permanent Style blog has a bunch on this; the Sartorialist has pictures from a very broad range of styles.

Peruse clothing from high-quality shops and try out a _lot_ of things to get a feel for how clothes fit you and what fabrics you like. Clothing look good because it fits you and goes well with your style and palette and makes you feel comfortable. You'll likely find soon enough that expensive clothes are generally expensive for good reason.

Find a good tailor (or a couple) and develop a simple wardrobe that can be combined easily. From then on be willing to experiment a bit and spend some money trying out a few things a bit further outside your comfort zone.

> Peruse clothing from high-quality shops

How does one know what shops are high-quality? I'm sure price is one place to start, but I doubt that all expensive shops are high quality. How do you tell the difference between the two?

Good question. I don't have a general answer; I have a lot of interest in tailoring and formal menswear, where you generally get what you pay for with few exceptions and where you can definitely see the difference in quality of fabrics and fit and finish.

Sometimes you see articles like this that insist that you have to play a status game of some kind etc etc. The hacker in me sees that as even more reason to look for examples of ways alleviate myself of such nonsense.

If you read books like "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" you run across stories of him playing with Status games and poking fun at them. Though I'm sure one could argue Feynman had status games he played in his own way.

In any case thats always the attitude I've preferred to take towards status. I just don't know how anyone can take themselves so seriously in a world where the highest paid and smartest among us wear rainbow hats with propellers.

Don't take life so seriously and goof around a little more. Thats how you turn up interesting ideas anyway, not by playing status games.

It seems strange to me to use a Nobel prize-winning physicist as an example of someone who didn't play status games

Feynman's secret is that he was a legitimate super-genius with the charisma of a normal guy who happened to luck into all his achievements. In reality it couldn't be farther from the truth, but there's nothing more appealing to an average person than an exceptional person who gives the impression that being like him is achievable.

Feynman was not really framing himself as normal guy who happened to luck into achievements. Nor came accriss as one. His writings are very carefully written and makes you know and feel he is awesome. The way he describes his own dialogs with others also let's everyone know he is super smart and awesome.

Feynman’s thoughts on the Nobel prize: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vvrdJXRe5KE

But I’m sure he secretly enjoyed the praise somewhat.

He played the science game and was so good at he obtained a Nobel Prize.

> rainbow hats with propellers

Would you call such a thing a status symbol? Something glorified in certain circles and disregarded in others?

The author clearly explained that removing yourself from status games just ends up putting you in a different status game (his metalhead days).

The reality is that you have many statuses irrespective of whether you want it or not merely as a function of being in a group. I suppose by not being in any groups you would accrue status among people that value that too.

Status usually represents having done some social good. The more good you do, the higher your status. If you look at it as a measure of how much good a person has done, then it might not seem so contemptable. Who did more good for more people - a hermit or Bill Gates?

His kids will have higher status than most people, what did they do?

They inherited the DNA of a guy who did lots of good, thus leading our lizard brains to suppose that they, too, have potential

Many cultures and religions would say that the hermit did, or at least might have. :)

> Status usually represents having done some social good.

For whatever value of "good" applies in that particular social network, yes. But that value of "good" might not be anything we would call "good" in ordinary language.

For example, Bill Gates does have high status, but he has it because he is rich, not because of the particular things he did that made him rich. Those things happened to be reasonably beneficial (how much so depends on your opinion of Windows and Microsoft, and opinions on that can...vary), but many other rich people got that way by doing things that were not. Yet they still get status according to their wealth.

I think maybe GP was talking about what Bill Gates chose to do with his money and influence once he had them. In terms of the number of lives saved and improved, Bill Gates has had more impact than most of us could ever hope to.

> In terms of the number of lives saved and improved

But Bill Gates did that after he already had status. He didn't gain status by doing that.

Arguably he did gain status. He did just what the writer of the article suggested. Instead of putting all of his effort into 'richest person in the world' status, he picked another thing to be high status in. Seems to have worked. He's not the richest guy in the world any more (admittedly he ain't far off, either), but he's arguably worth more respect than Bezos or Musk. Unless you're against microchips in vaccines, of course.

There’s no doubt Mackenzie Scott has gained a huge amount of status through how she’s dealt with acquiring enormous wealth. For me at least, she has way more respect than Gates Bezos and Musk combined…

He was trying to launder his reputation after all the stuff that came out in the trials, his connections to Epstein (which went back to before E’s first arrest) etc.

Whatever positive effect his philantropy has, it has to be offset by the damage he's done to the world, by slowing down progress (famous asshole predatory behaviour of MS of the nineties) in order to make his money in the first place. Only then we can try to assess if Bill Gates' overall impact on the world was actually positive.

Just noting that apparently you're assuming that another company, who had been there instead of MS, would have acted in better ways

Looking at Apple, Oracle, Google etc -- how likely does that seem

Mafia bosses have high status in their orbit, so yes.

> how much so depends on your opinion of Windows

It depends on the version of Windows as well.

People make money by providing value to other people. The people who provide the most perceived value have the most money. It is a signifier of status whether you like it or not.

Most people who make money are providing a service to many people, or to someone else with a lot of money (who therefore provided value previously). Care to provide a counterexample?

Bain Capitol is a classic example. They bought companies, sold off their assets, wrote themselves huge bonuses, bankrupted the companies, and wrote them off as losses to avoid paying taxes on any of the above. They made their money by destroying value, not providing any.

And then there's multigenerational wealth. Rich brats don't provide intrinsic value, but they're born rich. They don't get that way by providing value. Their ancestors may have stolen their wealth, so they didn't get there by providing value either.

I remember the hysteria about vulture capitalism. Even vultures play a valuable role in their ecosystem. Companies don't sell themselves to a private equity shop because they are thriving and healthy. If they were more valuable in parts than their sum, it says something about the company.

Can't say much about the hypothetical wealth stealing since it's completely hypothetical.

"It says something about the company" might be a moral salve in your eyes, but you have not established that they provide value to anybody but themselves. Specifically: how does pilfering pension funds, and then declaring bankruptcy provide "value" in any meaningful sense? It provides greater wealth to the already filthy-rich and destroys the considerable investment that life-long workers have earned, sending those who would be retiring comfortably into poverty -- which then taxes the public support systems. A huge negative for hundreds or thousands of people, for what? A marginal increase in wealth for the already wealthy. Where's the value?

>pilfering pension funds, and then declaring bankruptcy

That's a bit of a straw man there.

The classic target for these corporate raiders is a business whose capital (real estate, equipment, IP etc.) is worth more than the total market cap of the business itself (which, for most established businesses is a proxy for profit).

In this way, the typical corporate raider buys up a business who is using a valuable asset inefficiently, sells their capital to other businesses who can make more productive use of it, and line their pockets with the value differential they created.

In the process, they'll generally fuck over a whole lot of workers, but there is real economic value (not necessarily social good) in this process of capital redistribution.

> That's a bit of a straw man there.

No, it isn't. See below.

> In the process, they'll generally fuck over a whole lot of workers

The only way they can do that, since the workers' pensions were an obligation of the company that got broken up, is to declare that company bankrupt and void the obligation. But bankruptcy is not supposed to be a way to make money by voiding a company's obligations and then selling off its capital. The net value of the company is its assets minus its obligations; the process of cashing out the company should involve paying the obligations, not voiding them.

> there is real economic value (not necessarily social good) in this process of capital redistribution

Now who is using a straw man? Again, the "economic value" in a company is its assets minus its obligations. Cashing in on the assets while voiding the obligations is not creating "real economic value". It's stealing it from the people to whom the obligations were owed.

It's a straw man because literally nobody here was arguing that there is value created in the nullification of employee pensions.

No, it's absolutely not a straw man. The destroyed pensions are theft, which must appear on the balance sheet when you claim that vulture capitalism creates value. The loss of pension has direct impact on those owed: they are being deprived of money that they earned by providing value.

>No, it's absolutely not a straw man.

I repeat: nobody was arguing that people losing their pensions was a good thing. Nobody. Absolutely nobody. Literally no-one.

I don't even know what you're referencing, or how it's even possible for Private Equity to pilfer workers' pension funds. If anything, it's the funds themselves that own/invest in Private Equity.

Yet still, you and the other poster have brought it up as if stealing pension funds (how?) is somehow "what Private Equity does".

You might as well be arguing that Private Equity destroys value because it's immoral to fuck a dog. I'm sure Carl Icahn-esque character has tried it before.

No, you claimed that wealth is proof of created value. I'm refuting that with counterexamples.

As for how pension heists are accomplished, read up: https://sandiegofreepress.org/2012/07/how-mitt-romney-drove-...

Why rule out the rich kids so glibly?

Wealth preservation is something that doesn’t get talked about - imo this is what the rich kids should be schooled in assuming they aren’t good enough to multiply their wealth like Elon. They keep it together for a future generation to take advantage of.

Value that was created in the past is still value, is it not? Parent post created a conflated straw man of ancestors stealing wealth plus inheritance. So what if you are rich because your parents created value? Did the value they created die with them?

> Value that was created in the past is still value, is it not?

That's your claim, not ours. Cotton plantation owners made obscene profits from the literal blood of slaves. Did the plantation owners create the value? No, the slaves did. Did the slaves enjoy multiple generations of exponential growth of their net worth? No, the plantation owners were paid reparations, and the slaves got nothing. Descendents of plantation owners are strongly represented in Southern business and politics to this very day. Not because their ancestors made value but because they took it.

You seem to confuse "money" with "value."

> Did the plantation owners create the value? No, the slaves did.

I am 100% against slavery, period.

Who invented the incandescent lightbulb and the iPhone? The mass market automobile? Who built the railroads? None of these things can be fully credited to the small number of people at the top of the corporations responsible, but we can say fairly confidently they wouldn't have happened without a visionary leader aggregating the efforts of many into a final product.

I agree slaves were deprived of freedom and wages, which is not right. And that wealth is stolen.

That is different from the fact that it's been passed down through generations. I don't quarrel with the children of entrepreneurs having wealth passed down in the same way.

Conflating two arguments makes discussion more difficult.

Money and value are directly related. Money is just score keeping for value created. People pay money for things they value. That's not always going to be the case, but I think treating it as a rule with exceptions is a better heuristic than... what is your definition of value versus money?

Money can be used to measure value. If I offer you a billion dollars to chop off your arm and eat it raw, then your response to that offer indicates to me how much you value your health. But, if I'm a trillionaire, that billion dollars represents 0.1% of my total wealth, so the marginal cost to me is negligable. The perceived value of a dollar is proportional to the observer's wealth. Are they related? Sure, but it's way more complicated than that.

> Money is just score keeping for value created.

Yes and no. It's way more complicated than that. As demonstrated with the slavery example (nobody accused you of being pro-slavery, please chill), money is often score-keeping for handling money. People with power who participate in large transactions take a cut for themselves. In the case of slavery, the plantation owners got rich by what we consider outright theft today. Money and power follows their descendants, and for what? Did they create value? No, they're just rich off the proceeds of slavery.

Take Mozilla for example: developers are, by and large, the greatest value-creators at the company. So why does Mitchell Baker make $2.5M a year? What great value is she creating? Is she secretly an honest-to-goodness 10x developer? I see no evidence of such -- but because she's closest to the money, she makes decisions about the money, and folks at the board (who are, typically, CEOs at other orgs) agree that people who are closest to the money deserve to get the most money. In this example, the accumulation of wealth is not a record of created value but it's a record of power.

My definition of value is rather irrelevant. There is no universal definition, and I'd say that any precise definition is flawed. Especially one so simple as "value == money".

A flawed definition is superior to the absence of one.

You don't think the CEO of Mozilla is providing value?

I realize I'm sitting in idealistic terms, and it's to describe a point of view I'm not sure you fully understand. But at this point, I don't think it's that you don't understand it, you just don't care for the framework I'm describing. Perhaps you feel it's not important or useful to your life. I have found it to be a helpful lens, while certainly not all encompassing of the truth.

I had a more nuanced point I was going to make about slavery, hence the preface, but I realized it was probably not the right time or place.

> A flawed definition is superior to the absence of one.

I wholly disagree. According to the money=value definition, if I sell identical items at two prices, the one with the higher price is the better value. This is patently stupid. And people fall for it in droves, so I think it's dangerously stupid.

> You don't think the CEO of Mozilla is providing value?

In my personal opinion, I think she's driving the ship to ground; I'm fairly convinced that actions by the company under her watch have steeply reduced the value of the company. But, that isn't really what I said previously: I question if she's providing 10x the value of a senior developer -- this is a general question applicable to most executive salaries today. In the money=value paradigm, she's being paid that much and therefore she's obviously that valuable. Which, I hope you see why I think that's laughably foolish.

Bill Gates? This obviously depends on your opinion of Microsoft, but some of us still remember IE.

I get some of us don't like him, but nobody has done more to popularize personal computing. That is value creation whether you like it or not.

For sure. But have you worked at any non-profits? Most of the folks I know who do have a hard time, to put it mildly.

I've done my share of social-good tech companies, as well as engineer's dream-job stuff. After reflecting on this article, I realized that:

1. I finally enjoy my tech job after I stopped chasing the status game in tech.

2. I finally enjoy my hobbies after I stopped chasing the status game in those hobbies too!

I wish things were different on the social-good front. I just try to do good whenever I can in the regular day-to-day world, plus some donations here and there.

Probably most of the social good you do is the paid work for your tech job. Unless you work at some social-harm-causing company. Giving to charity is nothing compared to giving up most of your life's limited capacity to do high-value productive work. It's easy to forget that work is mostly really really good for the people you're doing the work for or their customers or someone down the chain who's ultimately paying you.

No way. Status is a proxy for access to resources. It has NOTHING to do with doing good by it’s nature. The doing good thing is a VERY recent phenomenon (like within living memory).

I agree. I can understand that the article is focused on pointing out that everyone seems status in some way or another, but I think it is fair to say that somethings shouldn’t really be considered status. Working for money, fame, influence. Those are pursuits some people have no interest in, I don’t think it’s fair to say someone who cares about their family, or hanging out with friends view those activities with the same lust people chasing money, power, etc, do. Maybe there is more to be said about how individuals view their “status” pursuits then labeling everyone as animals pursuing status.

Somewhat ironically, refusing to acknowledge or honor conventional status games is itself a status increasing play among hackers, which invalidates the spirit of the advice if not the advice itself! This is also probably terrible advice for a different milieu.

yeah, you assert your status by being able to ignore cultural/office norms.

That generally will make you look like an asshole and can be a substantial career stopper.

As you get older, you find that the active refusal of status games as a countercultural ploy just gets tired and makes you seen a someone hard to deal with. Learn to dress well and talk well to play the game, then be able to revert to your own self with no shame.

"status games" might be in the same class of things as "don't think about x". Even by not playing... You're just playing on a different level (lower or higher).

IMO the point of the article is you're playing a status game either way.

> the highest paid and smartest among us wear rainbow hats with propellers.

It works because they enjoy status from performance and accomplishments. Also suiting up often becomes a negative sign in our circles, and getting away with rough presentation can be a sign of status.

>Don't take life so seriously and goof around a little more. Thats how you turn up interesting ideas anyway, not by playing status games.

Reading your comment, it sounds like you've got a decent amount of social status without needing to explicitly pursue it.

While that's great for you, don't forget that for others, increased status can mean:

- No longer being treated like shit by people who get away with it

- A social circle that doesn't constantly try to take advantage of you

- Security in your job, as well as greater opportunities for promotion

- Positive attention from the opposite sex

- Peer acceptance for your children

This is a very interesting comment. At first I found myself in strong agreement with GP (believing people chasing status are probably misguided), but after reading your comment I realized that it might have to do with my current status (independently wealthy in a first world country).

In places like China or India, there is indeed a very big difference in QoL between those who have status and/or social power and those who do not.

That being said, it might be better to change your environment (and the people who you surround yourself with), because that will change your status as TFA outlines — without you having to go out of your way to change who you are and what you do.

Easier said than done when this involves changing countries, but it's a long-term strat.

>Easier said than done when this involves changing countries, but it's a long-term strat.

Independent of changing countries, this can be hard to do. Changing peer groups means being accepted by the new group you want to join. For example (within a first-world country), a lower middle-class person looking to join an upper middle-class group will find that they have the wrong taste in clothes, food, books and films, live in the wrong postcode and most likely not have the economic means to "keep up with the Joneses" the way upper middle-class people do.

God knows what someone from, say, the tribal regions of Pakistan would need to do to be accepted as middle-class in a first-world country. It's more than a plane ticket - it's a complete lack of exposure to Western media/culture.

Dressing down and/or breaking social norms is another type of status flex - it's because you're a high paid engineer working at a top tech company that you can more or less do whatever you want in a way a more typical employee couldn't, or couldn't without being taken seriously.

> where the highest paid and smartest among us wear rainbow hats with propellers.

Are you sure about this though? It seems like you are referring to a bunch of Software Engineers. That's nowhere near wealthiest.

Who is more cool?

Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc...

Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves?

There's a minority of people who go by their own compass. The things that gratify status seekers don't do it for them. That's not to say they don't have needs. They need friends, stimulation, hobbies, achievements. But they recognize it as a personal thing.

There's also people who are so far down the status chain that they don't relate to it any more, and have stopped trying.

> Who is more cool?

> Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc...

> Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves?

The first one. It's the first one.

My face when I realized that a combover, power tie, fake tan, and trophy wife is really all it takes to sell a median person on it (oh, and millions of dollars).

Millions of dollars optional, they can be borrowed dollars, access to which seem easier if you are connected and signalling good status

Next question: why are you seeking being seen this way from a random person?

I'm not, but then again I don't wish to be the president of the United States.

It just strikes me as silly that the traditional status game is so easily gamed (demonstrably effectively).

I'm surprised too (or was in the past). Nice looking clothes and saying that one's work is going great, wow. I didn't try this but I know others who do

These groups are not mutually exclusive. Is the wealthy person an asshole? Is the upbeat person poor? How poor? How much of an asshole? It's a silly example.

> Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves?

Just because a person isn't outwardly status-seeking doesn't mean they don't display anything about themselves. They may seem like they don't care what anyone thinks about them, but if everyone thought they were a pedophile, they would hate it, regardless of the legal ramifications. It's human nature to care about what others think about us. We all 'display' in some sense or another, whether it's how we dress, what we accomplish or how we want others to perceive us. Humans are extremely social creatures.

I was just thinking the same thing. Acting as if you don't need to make status displays is itself a status display: it is a show of confidence.

On the other hand, if you don't signal your intelligence and connections, how is anyone supposed to know they can depend on your intelligence and connections? There's definitely a balance.

Instead, they can even come to think about you as incompetent and delusional, if you're, say, creating a startup, building tech, seemingly making no progress.

The parent comment hints at another interpretation of status, which is also used in improv. The status you “play” in your interaction with others, which can be different from your social status (https://www.respect4acting.com/status1.html)

This kind of status is much more dynamic and it’s also something you can choose to give or take, balance or clutch (although the latter might end up having the opposite effect).

It’s more uplifting to me to think of a “status game” this way. It’s a bit of a competition but we’re also the judges. Status doesn’t just manifest, it has to be granted by someone who is also playing the game.

The second one, but this is a false dichotomy. If you are smart, educated, wealthy, or have a prestigious job you have claim to high status, no matter how humble or boastful you are about it. If you don't, you are faking it until (and if) you make it.

True status doesn't rely on how much you flaunt it.

This is the problem with the dreaded humblebrag - it's usually when people try to combine the two - complain about their expensive vacations, how much their dream job sucks etc. - they try to appear down to earth while at the same time rubbing in others' faces how much better they are.

Seeking status is a low status activity. A high status activity it to seem like you don't care about what other people think about you.

People I know who actually go by their own compass are seen as weird and don't have much status.

People I know who have cultivated a person of someone who goes by their own compass do tend to have a lot of status.

I view the reliance upon the idea of status as a low-status activity. Low status or high status only emanate when you're playing the status game, but it's not a game that you necessarily need to play.

And if you're not playing the game, low-status or high-status doesn't matter; they're just different colors.

Nothing wrong with playing the game either.

The worst part about status is mostly how seriously people take it.

If you’re on either extreme, then, yeah, your life is different. But the nature of status is that it is statistically impossible for everyone to be high status. Thus, it is a zero sum game, and one which is usually rigged against you, and full of people who aren’t smart enough to realize this + are willing to give up more than you are. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

A small amount of self care and knowledge of oneself and how the world works is all you need to pass as mid-status.

And, it turns out, this is more conducive to increasing your status.

Beyond the signalling games, it's reality that confers status. Consider...

Would you rather look rich or be rich? Would you rather look like you can do mostly whatever you want or actually do mostly whatever you want?

Exactly. And once you internalize this mindset, you see that status is a game that is hard to win in absolute terms, but is easier to manipulate than it would seem.

More importantly, you’re content enough to not fall into the hole of lifelong grasping at more status. And then you’re free to be yourself. Able to play the game well enough when necessary, but no longer bound by feelings of needing to 24/7.

Status is about what people think about you, with a special focus on what other people think other people think about you.

And many things people want in life are dependent on what others think of them.

If you're looking for a promotion what your boss thinks about you and how others will perceive your promotion matters, when you're looking to raise money, looking for a co-founder, convincing your co-founders you would be the best CEO, convincing a girl she should come hang out at your table and talk to you.

Status matters, and choosing not to play means giving up a lot.

Let's agree that status is about what people think (other people think) about you. Are all people's opinions equal, or are some people's opinions worth more than others? Furthermore, does it matter how many people think you're high status vs low status? Is your status a scalar measure, and if so how is it calculated?

If you accept all of this, you'll get the following surprising results:

1. If status is about what other people think about you, then your status can change extraneously without you making any changes, by a single person's opinion about you changing based on new info they receive. If status is a discrete or binary measure, then apply marginal status change along with the intermediate value theorem and there will be a point where your status changes by a single person's arbitrary flux in opinion about you or people like you.

2. If status can be modeled as some sort of scalar dot product (as a weighted measure of people's opinions about you), then your status can change extraneously without you making any changes, without any other person's opinion about you changing, simply by having another person get to know you (and thereby tipping your status scale in one direction or another).

3. If status is also about what other people think that other people think about you, then your status can change extraneously without you making any changes, or anyone that knows you making any changes or changing any opinions, simply by having their status change according to someone else's opinion of them (and you may not even know this person). Which leads to the counterintuitive result that you can be in a room with everyone you know having a great time, but you suddenly go from high-status to low-status because someone outside of that room changes their opinion about someone else inside that room.

4. If status is a global measure (everyone's opinion of yourself and everyone else matters), then your status can change without you making any changes, without anyone you know making any changes or changing any opinions about themselves, and furthermore, without anyone else in the world making any changes or changing any opinions about anyone else in the world. This would happen if aliens were watching us and had opinions about our status.

A rebuttal might be that status is not a global measure, but a local one--only certain people matter within a certain space-time boundary. Fine, then if you stop caring or thinking about what those people think you can stop worrying about status.

If you take the localization principle of status to its conclusion, the only person's opinion of your status that actually matters is your own. So if you stop caring or thinking about status, it doesn't matter.

A rebuttal to that might be that status determines what you can do among or get from other people (i.e. what your boss thinks about you determining your promotion). Fine, then try and associate with people that don't care about status and it won't matter.

A rebuttal to that might be that regardless of whether people think about status, you'll still be judged on SOMETHING for your compensation, raises, promotions, etc. At this point I would concede that your ability to get things done, to be a likeable person, to add value, to communicate, to organize, to bullshit, etc all matter. But there is no simple measure of this (like how well-dressed you are, whether you look rich/poor and are actually poor/rich, whether you counter-signal, etc), except maybe for beginners that need a simple model of social interaction to get started.

My own belief is that status is nothing more than a game that only has meaning when you are playing with others who are playing the same game as you. It does not have any global meaning in and of itself (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy)). Sometimes I play it for fun and sometimes I don't, but I don't place any real value in it. Maybe doing this makes me a (low|high) value individual. Who cares?

A lot of those unintuitive results are based on idealized modeling status.

And also having a quick status flip happens all the time. You see this when someone gets accused of racism or a sexist activity. Some of this status flip comes from the actually bad behavior. But most of the time the bad behavior occurred multiple times and was well known. What changes is what people think of what other people think of the person, which can change dramatically and quickly.

I just can't stand upbeat and friendly. So, my answer would be false dichotomy.

> Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc...

> Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves?

It's the one who can run the faster mile, if you ask the people at my running club.

> I know some of you will say “Just ignore the status game altogether,” but this is easier said than done. Like many other animals, we are biologically wired to respond to status. Ignorance is not the way out.

It's not ignorance to overcome our biology. It is possible to control our desire for status and to live better lives and be happier as a result.

Also different cultures are much more competitive about status: America is pretty extreme in this respect.

Status is a temporal, worldly thing.

Among the better ways to "win" this game is to seek status in the metaphysical. In a way, this is "winning" through "not playing".

By some measures, I'm doing OK at it, if money is the scoring basis.

OTOH, I've lived with the same house/car/wardrobe for a couple of decades.

Do these oligarchs/celebrities really have more joy than I?

Maybe.

Is this the same logic as religiously shunning wealth for returns in the afterlife/spiritual realm? Maybe this is how you counter the maybe?

I have come to read any statement like "we are biologically wired to X" as a declaration of nihilism and misanthropy. Wired is what a light bulb is to a switch. Individual humans are complex, beautiful and capable of overcoming pretty much anything, including biological tendencies.

> Wired is what a light bulb is to a switch.

lol this is a good one. might have to steal it ;)

Blank slatism and the ignorance of human nature has done far more harm for humans than those who acknowledge that our brains haven’t evolved much since our days as foraging tribes.

You caught me, I'm one of those blank slate extremists who say harmful and unreasonable things like "Individual humans are capable of overcoming biological tendencies." Hard to argue though that eugenics, forced sterilization, biological justification for slavery pale in comparison to the damage of various examples you've detailed

Communism is based on a blank slatist definition of humans and has led to millions being suppressed, starved, slaughtered, or ethnically cleansed.

Hey, humans are wired for nice things, not just bad stuff.

Quoting @insickness above:

> Our minds are wired to get pleasure from working with others and being validated and appreciated for our work. That is part of status

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30883314

And for helping and being kind to others.

> It is possible to control our desire for status

This is a narrow view of status. In many ways, any type of validation you get from working with others can be considered status. Most animals achieve status through physical aggression, while humans (and chimps) achieve status through cooperation and contributing to the group. Our minds are wired to get pleasure from working with others and being validated and appreciated for our work. That is part of status. If you enjoy doing the work you do and it makes you happy, that's because your brain is wired for status. Nothing wrong with it. There are of course negative sides of status like conspicuous consumption, social media addiction, etc. But just because you learn to avoid the pitfalls of status doesn't mean you aren't playing the game.

I always find that people who claim that they or a geography have fewer/no status sports are only referring to the “popular” games. There is always an alternative game.

People in Europe claim it. I have lived in Africa, Europe, US and the Middle East. The only difference I saw is the type of games people generally engage in.

Geeks claim it, because they don’t engage in the typical meat world status game. But again, we just usually play a different game.

…

elvis10ten, you're dead on the money! You are playing it with your comment, and likewise mysameself with mine.

And if none of the games are for you, dear reader, perhaps invent your own game.

It's a false dichotomy. There is a lot of space between 'clout whore' and 'rugged contrarian' and you don't have to commit your life to either. People who aren't trying to dominate in some status jockeying game aren't ignorant.

this reminded me of the "This is Water" commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. Key graf:

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."

Full talk available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/

Yeah, this part of TFA sounded like it might almost be a reference to the DFW speech:

> This is why you have to choose your status game wisely. Because whatever status game you choose in life ultimately determines what you optimize for. Choose money and you’ll end up working all the time. Choose beauty and you’ll always want to look better. Choose fame and you’ll constantly be seeking attention.

Nick Maggiulli vectors people to https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata to comment on his posts.

Alex Hardy commented two days ago https://twitter.com/CantHardyWait/status/1508789463664709646 “There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

I did not see this when I left my comment here. But Maggiulli responded https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/150881548046684979... DFW is a major influence [I am inferring DFW = David Foster Wallace].

Bryce Thornton https://twitter.com/brycethornton/status/1508788922624716802 pointed to the YouTube video and Maggiulli replied https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/150881551953269966... "It's so good"

I would have thought he would have done more to credit Wallace as an influence.

I had blogged about the Foster commencement speech at https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2012/05/27/david-foster-wallac... which is why I saw the resonance.

Wallace offered an appropriate antidote to a model for entrepreneurial motivation that aspires to make enough money to do whatever you want. He outlines some of the risks in failing to align your life with a higher spiritual purpose.

> It's funny, Nick Maggiulli doesn't allow comments but vectors people to https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata

Why is that "funny"? Running a decent commenting system on the modern Internet is not easy, especially if you're not a coder/techie. The dude already has full time job.

The inverse to this is the old quote attributed to Joe Biden: “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”

If you want to see what someone values, look at where they spend their time, money, resources, etc.

Don’t tell me what your system diagram says, show me your data models.

Ah yes, the long history of religious worship definitely having no negative consequences whatsoever to individuals, their communities and wider geopolitics.

No one ever has been sacrificed or convinced they just sacrifice in the name of their god. Never.

Wallace also offers "an infrangible set of ethical principles" as an option. His point is to avoid feeding your ego. Which is the same point that Maggiulli is making.

Those aren’t true believers. Either the executioners or the victims, take your pick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

(Saint) Thomas Aquinas several hundred years considered the main Earthly goods that many people hold up as the Highest Good as: wealth, honour, glory/fame, power, pleasure.

* https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm

See also Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

That's making the broad assumption that religion won't "eat you alive".

My personal experience deeply contradicts that.

My perspective is that atheism is not a lack of worship, but a lack of faith.

Faith requires you suspend critical thinking on a predetermined set of claims. Atheism, to me, is the rejection of faith; to direct critical thought to all claims.

Taking that to its conclusion, I worship critical thinking. I can't think of a better way to avoid being eaten.

> My perspective is that atheism is not a lack of worship, but a lack of faith.

Can you define what you mean by "faith"?

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z4wKCsD59Q

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_4PSgFjtvI

> Faith requires you suspend critical thinking on a predetermined set of claims.

People like Thomas Aquinas would disagree.

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6963088-aquinas

* https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/07/first-way-some-backgrou...

Faith was always described to me as a belief in something that cannot be proven. In my experience, however, especially in terms of Christianity, faith is a belief in something that cannot be proven, and - crucially - can be disproven. To put it more clearly, faith detaches a claim from reality, and puts it into a realm above criticism.

As a small example, the idea that the first human male was created directly by a deity contradicts the existence of early hominids, cannot account for retroviral DNA sequences present in both humans and apes, etc.

St. Thomas Aquinas was an excellent philosopher, whose contributions to human thought will likely continue to be studied for generations to come; whether or not they are based in reality or abstraction. My disagreement with Aquinas is that the ideas of Christianity that are based in the abstract are expressed as literal fact, even though such "facts" and their origins are deeply contradicted by evidence. There is a name for the inability to criticize Christianity for contradicting with evidence: "faith".

My experience with faith is a little closer to this century: Mormonism. A flavor of Christianity invented by Joseph Smith, who founded his church in upstate New York in 1830. As a decedent of several Mormon "Pioneers", I was raised in that church. I had deeply held faith in its claims, and even "served" a mission; going door-to-door sharing my beliefs with anyone willing to listen.

Later on, I learned a more complete history of the Mormon (LDS) Church, and for the first time applied critical thinking to what I had until then held out of reach with "faith". If you want a picture of what this experience is like, I would recommend this heartfelt letter[1] to a stubbornly faithful spouse. It both expresses the emotional journey of leaving the Mormon faith, and provides detailed information and context on the subject.

I haven't spent as much effort deconstructing Christianity on the whole, but there are no doubt similar resources available to the subject. Suffice it to say, after becoming familiar with faith, I see the same pattern applied with all religion.

[1] https://www.letterformywife.com/the-letter

With all respect to Mormons and LDS. It is not a flavor of Christianity

I walked around with a King James Bible every time I went to church. I spent a year learning about The Old Testament in seminary, and another year learning about The New Testament. The Book of Mormon itself directly quotes the King James Bible, errors included. It absolutely is a flavor of Christianity, no matter how unappetizing you find it.

The entire story in The Book of Mormon is about Jews who fled the old world, settled the Americas, and worshiped Jesus. The only substantive divergences from Christianity that Mormonism has are additions.

But go ahead and detach my criticisms from your religious belief. After all, that is what faith is all about.

You start getting into 'no true Scotsman' arguments at this point. Is the only "true" Christianity that which professes the Nicene Creed? Teaches the Real Presence? Other?

However, just because the Mormons are using the same words (from the same book) does not necessarily mean that they have the same theological concepts:

> This brings me to an example which does involve error of a sort sufficient to make successful reference to the true God doubtful. In the post on Geach linked to above, I cited the 2001 decision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that Mormon baptisms are not valid even though they seem at first glance to make use of the correct Trinitarian formula. The reason for the decision is that the Mormon conception of God is so radically different from the Catholic one that it is doubtful that the words truly invoke the Trinity. It is not Trinitarianism per se that is the issue, though, but rather the radical anthropomorphism of the Mormon conception of God. As an article in L'Osservatore Romano summarized the problem at the time:

[…]

> The Mormon conception of deity, then, makes of God something essentially creaturely and finite, something which lacks the absolute metaphysical ultimacy that is definitive of God in Catholic theology and in classical theism more generally. Even Arianism does not do that, despite its grave Trinitarian errors. To be sure, Arianism makes of the second Person of the Trinity a creature, but it does not confuse divinity as such with something creaturely. On the contrary, because it affirms the full divinity and non-creaturely nature of the Father, it mistakenly supposes that it must deny the full divinity of the Son. It gets the notion of divinity as such right, and merely applies it in a mistaken way. Mormons, by contrast, get divinity as such fundamentally wrong. Hence their usage of “God” is arguably merely verbally similar to that of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, et al. They can plausibly be held not really to be referring to the same thing as the latter, and thus not worshipping the same God as the latter.

* https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/12/christians-muslims-...

There's some 'inside baseball' differences on what people's practical day-to-day beliefs are, and what the actual theological underpinnings are. Most folks will not know about them.

Your argument is that because Mormons don't believe in the Trinity, that they don't believe in omnipotence and omnipresence.

This argument is false. Mormons believe that the Trinity is two living immortal men (Elohim and Jesus), and one omnipresent spirit.

They are also very inconsistent with the idea, since originally they did believe in the Trinity, but later Joseph started preaching the three beings doctrine, and had the Book of Mormon edited to reflect it.

But all of this is splitting hairs. There is no point arguing whether Mormons worship the wrong version of God, because God is fiction in the first place.

The definition of faith as believing in something that can be disproven is a contradiction. You believe your religion is disproven, that is why you no longer have faith in it.

“Can’t be proven” and “can be disproven” are not the same thing. There’s a whole range of concepts that are unfalsifiable, and religion is the typical example of this.

I absolutely did have faith in my religion, despite the fact that it can be (and had been) thoroughly disproven. Mostly because I simply wasn't aware of that fact.

The LDS (Mormon) church, like most religious groups, put a lot of effort into insulating itself from criticism. It presented me a narrative about itself that is contradicted by historical record, most of which is published, albeit less energetically, by that very same church.

> Faith was always described to me as a belief in something that cannot be proven.

That is certainly one way to define it. Faith is the sibling/cousin of trust as the first two videos go over. If US Census Bureau says the population of the US is 331M, you are trusting them, putting your faith in their methods, that they are getting it right:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States#Population

> In my experience, however, especially in terms of Christianity, faith is a belief in something that cannot be proven, and - crucially - can be disproven. To put it more clearly, faith detaches a claim from reality, and puts it into a realm above criticism.

Most Christians simply have faith / trust that God does exist. Most Christians also trust, have faith, that when they wake up in the morning and reach for the light switch the room will get brighter, and when they turn the faucet water will come out. Some Christians will have understanding of how and why these things happen (and what could be the causes if things stay dark and/or dry).

To take your day-to-day knowledge of "faith", or what most people think as "God", is to a certain extent looking at a straw man. Most folks don't have time or energy (and in many cases the intellectual horsepower) to get into the steel man version of the idea. Not many folks are going to bother with analyzing, e.g., Aquinas' argument that God is "ipsum esse subsistens," translated by Bishop Robert Barron as "the shear act of 'to be' itself": the idea of God not simply as a noun but as an action (i.e., verb). Something very different than the Sky Father With a Beard image that most many probably visualize.

Further the question of whether, in the case of the Christian God, it is something that can be (dis)proven is completely separate than the definition of "faith". The two books by Edward Feser linked to give proofs—in reason/logic sense, not the proverbial sense of (physical) evidence—for the existence of God. None of which involve any religious texts or revelation.

> My disagreement with Aquinas is that the ideas of Christianity that are based in the abstract are expressed as literal fact, even though such "facts" and their origins are deeply contradicted by evidence. There is a name for the inability to criticize Christianity for contradicting with evidence: "faith".

The arguments for a {g,G}od (in the general sense) existing are different than those than the argument(s) for any particular God (Christian or otherwise). Aristotle put forward the argument (see the third link) that there must logically be an Unmoved Mover in ~350 BC for example.

Your argument illustrates exactly what I'm talking about.

If it's just a belief in God, then why call it Christianity? Does the historicity of the Bible have no bearing on what it means to be Christian?

Instead of confronting the origins of the claim of God's existence, you carefully dodge it by saying I can't disprove the existence of God.

Of course I can't disprove the existence of some ethereal diety, but I can disprove the existence of Jaweh and Jehova, at least as they are described in the Bible.

So if the story of God in the Bible isn't history, then why should I fall back on a belief of God in the abstract? If I can illustrate the origins of the Christian God as fraudulent, then I see no reason to assume the existence of a God anywhere outside fiction.

The devils greatest achievement is taking God's one true gift, our rational mind, and convincing people they need to use faith, a direct rejection of our rational capabilities, do be close to God. So beautiful in its sublime deception. So powerful, it insidiously destroys the most intelligent minds.

What an elegant self-contradictory statement.

I seriously hope there's more context in the full talk because that quote alone is absolute nonsense.

The thing I do is I keep many social circles. Family groups, friends from different language groups, work groups, educational groups, interest groups, kids' friends' parents, and so on.

That way there's really no hierarchy, it's like being a contractor at a business or an acquaintance at a party. People will still find you interesting but not threatening. Weirdly they also find you familiar despite you not being there all the time. I guess it's decreasing marginal returns.

If you have some time to waste, look at one of those Real Housewives of X shows. They love having rivalries, but they're only fighting each other because it's such a closed group.

Having lots of groups also lets you take off some of the intensity of your relationships. You don't have a sole provider of entertainment or warmth or intellectual stimulation, so you don't have to do everything their way. You can take a break from any particular person. And you get a lot of invitations.

I'm even a bit suspicious of people who seem to have exactly one group of friends that they're always with and have always been in. Often I find there's some sort of blockage there in their maturation, making it hard for them to communicate.

I would advise against looking for anything real on Real Housewives of X

Interestingly, I kind of do the opposite. I have one tiny social circle, basically my immediate family (wife and two kids). I work to make money, then spend that money on my family and my hobbies, which are all solo endeavors. I don’t socialize outside of that, really. I play video games once a week with my high school friends online.

My hobbies aren’t involved in my status because I don’t really talk to anyone about them. I build things for myself, I create things that I never show anyone, just because I enjoy doing it. I play with my kids, and talk with my wife. Don’t really have a desire to do much else.

I'm a huge fan of the Real Housewives of X for two reasons - first, like you say, they're fantastic petri dishes of relationships and status games.

But even beyond intellectual curiosity, they also give you a useful topic of conversation when you take your advice and socialize beyond the Hacker News / Silicon Valley bubble.

It's a sad truth but for most of us, when it comes to "decide which status game to play", you're simply aiming for money no matter what you choose. Money is the overarching metric that already incorporates everything else. The "weightlifting status" or the "content creator status" mentioned in the article are just money status in disguise.

Ask yourself: if you won a big lottery tomorrow, would you still keep doing what you do today? If the answer is no, then you've been playing the money game all along.

And then suffer a life on the hedonic treadmill dying smug and somehow all alone.

Overnight fame can be just as disruptive

I don't get the attraction of fame at all. Money, yes, money allows me to do what I _want_ to do, it would give me time that I otherwise have to spend working.

But fame _reduces_ what I can do. Famous people can't just pop down the local for a pint (in whatever city they happen to be in that week), famous people attract paparazzi - they're harrased by strangers...

Like I say, I don't get the appeal..

"I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job."

-- Bill Murray

> Ask your self: if you won a big lottery tomorrow, would you still keep doing what you do today? If the answer is no, then you've been playing the money game all along.

It doesn't end there. For people who really want the monetary status, there is a point where chasing more money doesn't cut it. They change their status game to something else at that point, say fame and connections with an elite group of people e.g. selective cliques or investing in a football team.

I started doing whar I do before I knew it also pays money. So yeah I’d probably keep coding and writing about coding.

Would be nice to not need money though. Then I could go coding things that are less certain to result in money. I miss the days when I could just work on projects for no reward other than working on the project.

Maybe. From your examples, though, if you think you're going to make any money whatsoever from the "weightlifting status" game you are in for a rude surprise. Similar to other examples from the article (softball team, nightschool classes).

It depends on the person. Some people see net worth as an ends in itself (boring, IMO). However, for other people, the point of more money is really to play other status games exponentially better.

For example, money in itself won't make you a famous actor, an award-winning musician, a bestselling author, a renowned artist, or an Olympian. But it will open the path to such goals by giving you leisure time to pursue them without worrying about pure survival.

More directly, it's extremely easy to transmute money into status via vacations, ownership of desirable real estate, expensive cars, etc. I would submit that it's generally not the money being coveted here, but the lifestyle it allows.

>The "weightlifting status" or the "content creator status" mentioned in the article are just money status in disguise.

Nice argument, care to back it up with your deadlift?

Arnold has a really good quote about this:

"A well-built physique is a status symbol. It reflects you worked hard for it; no money can buy it. You cannot borrow it, you cannot inherit it, you cannot steal it. You cannot hold onto it without constant work. It shows discipline, it shows self-respect, it shows patience, work ethic, and passion. That is why I do what I do."

Really makes you think. Not a whole lot of things out there with all of those properties

Being cultured and well read is very similar, I think

The main difference is that a physique is more immediately recognized; all you have to do to recognize Arnold is huge is look at him. But you'd have to listen some (and have enough cultural baggage yourself) to recognize that Chomsky is intelligent

Also - perhaps as a consequence - being physically fit is objective. Who would argue Arnold is _not_ huge? But I'm sure you'll find at least one person arguing "Chomsky is an idiot"

> being physically fit is objective

The perception of what constitutes fit is to a large extent subjective. A steroid and clen using bodybuilder with <4% might look very fit. But their blood panel and cardiogram will probably say something else entirely.

Does that one person, most obviously being Alan Dershowitz, even count given that he is nuts and/or of questionable ethics? :D

I love the quote, but I'll offer another perspective. I had a pretty significant physical transformation over the last few years. It's the result of work I did and I feel very proud of what I've built.

But! I did it after starting to work for a big tech company. The company covered weekly therapy where I ended up doing a lot of work on my relationship with food and physical activity, the company subsidized a personal trainer in company gyms, the company provided balanced meal options at the office, the company paid me enough to spend whatever I wanted on food at home as I figured out a healthier diet and to set up a home gym during a pandemic, and my position was flexible enough or me to schedule all of these things while still advancing in my career. All of this together made it easier to imagine a future for myself and to invest in it.

I think what I've done would have been possible without these (and other) privileges, but I do feel that when I show off my fitness I am displaying a partially economic status symbol given the opportunities it created in my particular case and the pace at which it's allowed me to go. Not sure how well this extrapolates (if at all) but it does seem like it's an advantage to have the resources to make space for fitness and to optimize within that.

You’re saying that having a lot of money helped you have a great body. That’s true of course but the relationship is also true in reverse. You can leverage a great body into making a lot of money. Great examples are Arnold or the Rock who became big action movie stars based on their physique. Also, of course athletes.

So I don’t think “money is the key to success in every other aspect of life” is true since the relationship is bidirectional

Nitpick: it’s not as straightforward to leverage a great body towards money as it is to leverage money towards a great body. Arnold and Dwayne Johnson are outliers. Many athletes struggle financially.

For other reasons I agree with your end point in that money isn’t strictly necessary for success everywhere else, but please don’t suggest that money isn’t uniquely useful when put to the task.

In fact, powerlifting and bodybuilding are notorious for being money drains for people who are competing but aren't in a very tiny proportion of top performers.

> don’t suggest that money isn’t uniquely useful when put to the task

I'm going to be completely honest with you - I just don't believe this, which was the point I was trying to make

I think you are someone who is holding a hammer, and is very skilled at using it, and thus everything looks like a nail to you.

There's a lot of muscle being built in prison cells at this very moment with no gym equipment whatsoever.

If you want to do it, you can do it.

You don't need to be granted privileges. No one can stop you.

"Starving artists" have long been romanticized, for one example of there being non-money games out there.

Usually after they're dead and the art community has reached an agreement that they were pretty great, though; it's not much of a status game if it doesn't bear fruit while you're around to enjoy it.

No, that is when they are monetized, and it’s part of the romanticization — the idea of a tortured soul finding glory but only after death is part of the appeal.

Thomas Aquinas several hundred years ago: "Article 1. Whether man's happiness consists in wealth?"

* https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2002.htm

He then goes on to consider honour, glory/fame, power, pleasure.

> if you won a big lottery tomorrow, would you still keep doing what you do today? If the answer is no, then you've been playing the money game all along.

That's implying playing the money game is voluntary.

There’s a monk out there somewhere that would say it is.

> If the answer is no, then you've been playing the money game all along.

I’ve wondered about this for some time now. If I won the lottery, I would quit software engineering in a heartbeat.

But it’s not software engineering that I want to quit. I love writing software and having computers do my bidding automatically and elegantly.

What I loathe is all the BS around work, the posturing, the being told to drive the bus into the wall, being told when/if I can take my few weeks of PTO each year, and the spending my health and time making someone else richer.

If I could, I’d stop working today. It’s the working that kills me. And there is nothing I can do about it because without working I can’t pay my bills and I don’t think I’d be happy homeless or living on a shoestring. And software engineering is the best paying skill in my skill set, so I keep doing it. Even though it’s sucking my soul a little at a time.

I'd quit too but keep working on my side projects. in between vacations

The 'Office Space' scenario might be more interesting/fun, keep working and ignore the BS, worst case you get fired and at least you learn you were right to follow the rules, best case you get to keep the good (actually writing code) and lose the bad. Normally you can never find out where the line is without crossing it.

Nah, screw that noise. If I could stop working today and have enough money to last the rest of my life, I’d quit and you’d never catch me in an office again.

It requires a lot money to be able to be the 'top' of any status game.

I don’t think money is as big a deal as people think, but you only realize this after you’ve made a good amount (income, not wealth) while being unhappy with your work.

One can sometime make quite a bit of money by running status games for profit. Here's the pitch deck for Bored Ape Yacht Club.[1] This is for investors, and they are very clear about how they are exploiting their customers.

Rolex is in that business. Rolex watches cost 5x what they cost in the 1960s, adjusted for inflation. A CEO of Rolex, Andre Heiniger, "We are not in the watch business. We are in the luxury business." There was a flap a few years ago when someone found fake Rolexes with authentic movements. Turns out the mechanics were outsourced until 2004.

[1] https://twitter.com/LeonidasNFT/status/1505058932758360064

Years ago I did a small project for Harrods.[1] I have never had such an abusive and dysfunctional client, before or since. I have a suspicion that all the luxury brands are the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods

Honestly I wish I had paid a bit more attention to status in my life.

Our culture tells you don't need to follow the crowd or play the game and you can march to the beat of your own drum.

But honestly, that's overrated.

Same with going along with the crowd

Everyone realizes their world view as an adolescent was incomplete as they get older, doesn't matter if it’s "status doesn't matter personal/relationship happiness is all that matters" or "accruing status is crucial for personal/relationship success and therefore happiness" or whatever. They are all overly simplified.

What do you wish you had more of in terms of status? Or where you wish you had followed the crowd?

Just wish I'd played the game more. Focused on grades, internships, prestigious companies.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a sob story. I'm just very career & success focused in my 30s, and was too school for cool up until my mid 20s.

Not about a sob story. But it seems like a lot of people wish they had not been too cool for school. Many times, too cool for school phase also includes rebelling against parents.

There is a lack of enough guidance or mentors for youngsters. So if the youngster doesn't have enough self-discipline and a vision, he/she is going to be confused. And a mentor has to be a wholistic mentor for many facets of life.

Also not enough parents are looking out for their kids through adulthood and having their backs. Elders are not able to allocate enough time for their adult children. Their priorities are spread too thin. They struggle to communicate with the children.

Not my personal experience, but that of some people I have known:

Accruing status typically also means accruing wealth and / or connections. At any point in time, you have options. You might have a legacy of influence you have spread.

It is easier to focus and work harder when you are younger. Getting a new career off the ground when you have kids is easier if you've built up a nest egg, which is easier if you've moved up the chain early.

Marching to your own drum, deviating from society's expectations might leave you with a legacy of "he went to various places, looked at the things there, and made short term friends along the way" can, at a certain point in your life, feel quite unfulfilling. You end up having passed up the opportunities to put away for the future, or failed to establish a longer term network.

At the end of the day, there are both extremes, and everything in-between, and then some more. Every choice comes with trade-offs.

There's some wisdom in this post but it kinda sidesteps for me one of the biggest problems I see with status seeking, which is at some point it seems to -- or at least can -- increasingly involve randomness, corruption, or increasingly unsubstantiable goals. It's like a variant of Goodhart's Law or Campbell's law, but involving randomness and invalidity in addition to corruption, and where those laws also become more important the further you go up the metric dimension.

Even putting aside the issues of value, in the sense of "should I value status in this area", there's this other issue: if you have a metric that's, say, correlated .2 or .3 with some underlying attribute, then almost by statistical definition as you start splitting hairs more and more you're splitting up more and more noise. As you chase status further and further, you're dealing with that more and more.

Maybe this is the same thing as his analogy about instability in hierarchies at some level. But if so I'm not sure the implications are followed as far as they could be.

This is so cringey. Please don't behave as this would suggest. In technical and scientific areas as most of our HN friends are likely to be, seeking status, measuring status, cultivating and being concerned with it is just a negative. It's true that there is status, but that status should be honestly earned and it's definitely not a game to "play".

This is a constant source of miscommunication between the social and political factions inside and outside of work vs. the hard-core engineer technocrats. The people-people think that we make decisions and take actions, or have opinions because we are playing the game - and we're not playing it right! Or worse are playing with the wrong team. Backing the wrong horse, refusing to "play along", etc. Troublemakers!

But see it's just that we're not playing a game. We actually did the research and just honestly think that thing X is not the best thing (even though it's the bosses bosses pet project). We're independently and internally motivated, and don't give a jot what others think (so we think).

Conversely we often think the lovely people-people are idiots because they pick the wrong solutions, don't back doing it "the right way", etc. Because we sometimes don't understand that they are playing a game. This means we underestimate them and their motives, as well as misunderstand the invisible rules and potential consequences.

The best engineering cultures are those that keep and encourage those like-minded, non-game-playing folks together and happy and far, far away from those politics and games. They need savy honest management to insulate them from that stuff and to translate between the cultures. And to weed out fakers who are trying to play games amongst those naive to it.

By the end I wasn't convinced why I should be playing these games. What's status for? Is it going to make you happy?

Alan Watts:

> We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.

Maybe status gets you a big fancy grave and a televised funeral. Maybe even a "legacy" that can be tracked by structures named after you: ranging from park benches to libraries to aircraft carriers.

> What's status for? Is it going to make you happy?

Right, my takeaway was that status seeking is something you can use to try to achieve your personal goals, if you think conscientiously about it. It reminds me of the idea in the book Atomic Habits of first figuring out an identity, a kind of person you want to be, then identifying behaviors that would make you that kind of person, and then developing habits that reinforce those behaviors. Starting with identity works because the way we see ourselves is a powerful determinant of our behavior.

For me, I think the thing I would like to be high status in is "being useful to society". Playing that status game may not make me happy, but if it succeeded in making me useful, I think that would be a good outcome.

My takeaway (not necessarily from the article, but from pondering on it) is that status is a lure. It has a certain gravity, and pulls others toward you who are playing in that same specific status game. It makes people want to be around you. Yes, you will feel this at first. So my next question was, why would I want people around me for my status?

I think then, the trick is to use this lure to actually make more friends with people you wouldn’t otherwise have met. No longer because of your status, but because of all the qualities of true friendship (spending time together, self-disclosure, support in times of need, etc).

With that you may lead a more fulfilling life. Would this be possible completely ignoring status? Is it even possible to completely ignore status? (Not just pretending not to play the game, but actually never thinking of how you’re perceived by others.)

I guess my answer is, status == gravity. Gravity leads to more connections. Connections to friends if you work at it. Friends to a better life.

I'm surprised people in this thread are so opposed to trying to gain status. It took me too long to realize, but status, like money, is just a tool at your disposal in society.

You can be too obsessed with status, just like you can be too obsessed with money, and use them for the "wrong" reasons.

But there are things money lets you do that you couldn't do otherwise, like buying a home for your family or bootstrapping a company.

For status, it's the same. Going to X school gives you an easier chance of getting into X company. Knowing X amount of people gives you more opportunities to meet other well-connected people, allowing you to gain more diversified interactions and/or spread your own influence. Having a trustworthy reputation gives people a reason to give you a minute of their time, and sometimes that first impression is all you need to start a relationship or get funding for your company.

Finally, there are things that status gives you that all the money in the world won't.

> Going to X school gives you an easier chance of getting into X company.

Unless the school and company are the same, it should be Y company.

> Knowing X amount of people

N would be a nice sounding variable here.

Nitpicking is low status.

It's worth noting what arena you are playing in too. The issue with status these days is that the internet has us all performing on a world stage. Relative to everyone in my real life community, I usually have an edge when it comes to fitness. Relative to the world? I may as well be a mouse! I am pretty quick on the bike, second fastest on strava yesterday at my local, and a pretty nifty bike! But relative to instagram? I am slow as a slug, and I may as well have found my bike in a dumpster, with these 20k rigs that get all the attention.

So I guess my approach is to try and stay on local communities, or niche online communities. Not to be the best in them, just because I am not the best and don't need to be to enjoy my life and improve, so it's more relatable than the exceptionalism on the broader net.

> instability is hell for high status individuals

I feel like this explains a lot about how power structures fight so hard to stay in power--they're biologically wired to suffer more when they lose out than those at the bottom.

This is both something "everyone knows" and refreshing to finally see put in print.

Beyond that, the gratification from accomplishing something is short-lived. If your last book sold a million copies and your new book only sells 500k, you may feel like a failure even though 500k is a lot of books. In some ways, success only adds to the pressure to keep succeeding. This isn't to say you shouldn't try to succeed, but it certainly explains why so many famous or successful people deal with problems like depression and drug addiction.

It also conveys a benefit to those of low status.

High-status individuals' job is to produce stability.

Read Chimpanzee Politics; it will completely change the way you see human interaction and power.

The story about monkeys shifted all the time between groups, and the status-seeking ones being most stressed, made me think about my experience changing teams/jobs.

I'm generally not a status seeking person, I don't care about promotions etc. as long as job/team/pay is good. I consider myself ok programmer but not top one.

When I join a new team, I don't want status per se, but I want people to know that I don't suck. Which is in fact status seeking. Typically first year in a new team is kinda exhausting each time due to ramping up a lot of new knowledge and trying to prove my value. (That's why I try to only change ~every 3 years; to have enough breathing room, but when I get tired of a project, I need to change).

> The way out is building a solid foundation of status in multiple things. It’s about becoming diversified in your life, not just your portfolio.

You don't have to pursue status. You can be aware of your innate desire to pursue status and then avoid doing it as much as possible.

Or better yet, don't let social status affect your mental status. I believe contentness and acceptance is the better path.

I feel this article was specifically written for people that care about their social status. It can be healthy to be somewhat competitive, but unhealthy when it becomes obsession.

The author also fails to recognize the people who fail trying to reach this 'status' objective. What happens then? Try to find a new status to conquer? Why? Where does it end? Tonya Harding?

I always wonder why folks with 9-figure net worth (or high 8) keep doing any job at all.

People do not get very many quality-adjusted life years -- why would you spend 8+ hours per day doing CEO work when you could spend that time with family and friends?

What if they prefer work to family and friends?

A lot of people seem to prefer contributing to wikipedia or writing free software to partying, so it doesn't seem far fetched.

I'm guessing because not many family and friends would have the same net-worth to have the spare time time to hang out all day. I think of Notch as an example, I'm pretty sure he got quite lonely once he got paid out for Minecraft.

The article offers some potential explanations. As they achieve more status their peer group changes and they desire more status relative to their new group. They are looking for that huge exit or massive success.

Alternatively you just don't see the people who retire and spend time with family and friends. They don't post here, they don't have blogs, they don't have articles posted about them. They are just living life.

> the people who retire and spend time with family and friends

That's the ideal way to go, imo. I'm trying to slowly figure out what I need to live that kind of life, so that I can become some sort of cyberpunk mountain man when I reach financial independence. Identify what makes me happy, what I need for those happiness-generating activities, etc, and make sure that I'm set up to enjoy myself.

Work can be really enjoyable if you have more power to control how your time is spent. No one has complete control of how their time is spent, but that is true of life. If you aren't working you are still going to need to structure your time around activities like hobbies. At this point in my life work is one of my favorite hobbies.

I used to wonder that too. Having got to know a handful of people who've become very wealthy through their own efforts, though, I suspect being proactive is enjoyable for them ("thrill of the chase" and all that) in a way that undirected leisure is not. Some business people seem to be as compelled to strike deals or build companies in a similar way to how prolific authors or artists feels compelled to engage in their art.

They probably enjoy it. Being a CEO or whatever doesn't look like sitting in a cubicle all damn day. Even the latter's much better if you know you have the money to quit whenever you feel like it. That alone makes a big difference, but they also have a lot more say in how they spend their time, and do completely different stuff.

Making the big calls, having people who'll go do all kinds of stuff when you ask them to, meeting and hanging out with other important people, et c., probably feels awesome, and if you've got enough money socked away to never need to work again, all the "risk" is as real as playing poker with pennies.

I was going to say this. It's fun when you are that high up.

It's also the case that someone with quite a bit of money doesn't have as much non-work work to do. If you can afford to pay someone to do: all shopping (that you don't enjoy doing), all cooking (ditto), all cleaning (doing the laundry including putting it away, doing the dishes, cleaning your house, cleaning your car[s]), to drive you around so that time's not lost, et c., that recovers a ton of time. You can put quite a bit of that back into your job and still come out ahead in leisure and family time, compared with a worker bee who still has to do all that shit themselves, outside work hours.

Even with work-from-home, I can see how more money == more better in life.

My dream home would need space for a home gym, workshop, and small office. Having a home, a home big enough for all of that, and then getting all of that would not be cheap, but it would mean dead-simple access to things I need and things that make me happy and fulfilled, which would mean more time spent fulfilling myself.

I can't believe I never thought about this. You don't have any drudgery and it doesn't really matter if you lose your job so your work is your leisure time. You're just playing.

Okay, time to get rich.

Don't you run the risk of having liability (e.g. neglect, oversight, mistake, or, yes, temptation, can cause you to be held responsible for a disastrous event) which might put your "net worth" at risk in ways that you wouldn't if you just retired?

> why would you spend 8+ hours per day doing CEO work when you could spend that time with family and friends?

Your family and friends are usually busy working.

The only exception is if you roll with other wealthy (early) retirees. If you have ever spent time around these folks, you might see why it’s not necessarily that compelling.

I would humbly suggest that it’s easier to meet and hang out with interesting people under the guise of owning or working in some sort of business. If you actually like that business (many people do), then it’s a double win.

I hear this often. How about why do people in countries with good social welfare bother to work at all? Just sit in your free house eating your free food until you die of old age. Easiest life ever! Obviously, the answer is that people get satisfaction from working beyond simply what they can spend the money on.

I’ve always figured it was some combination of selection and survivorship bias.

Selection because only workaholics or super-strivers generally make it to that level.

Survivorship because the only ones you see working are by definition the ones that didn’t quit. It is possible that many people who made that kind of money have quit and are just being quiet about it.

I've thought about this a few times.

If I struck rich or won the lottery, I'd want to start doing CEO work, while funding my own rather ambitious projects. It would be unlikely to be someone else's company, but perhaps if I met the right person(s). Most likely, I'd hire a bunch of people, and they would help me with big R&D projects.

Why would I want to waste 8+ hours a day hanging out with family and friends? I mean, I like family and friends. It's nice to spend time with them. I love them, and life would be missing something important without them. But it's not fulfilling to do it all the time.

I'd really like to use my time here figuring out and building things, and the things I'd like to build are too big and adventerous to do by myself. They're also too big and adventurous to do putting in only a small fraction of the day: I'd either need to put in a lot of time, or there's no point.

It doesn't come from just wanting to do the work. It also comes from imagining looking back on life when older.

When I imagine looking back on a life of hanging out with family and friends, having fun, having big personal moments, ups and downs, all those memories, remarkable times, that seems very special, magical even. Very special!

But I have to admit, not enough by itself. Given the chance, it's also motivating to want to be able to look back and see some of my grander dreams realised in some form. I can't explain why; it feels like an intrinsic motivation, and quite a burden really, because truth is, that's unlikely to happen. But seems worth trying.

I imagine at least some well-off CEOs who are managing something big, even if it's not their own company, must be getting a similar sense of satisfaction from some internal drive to do something like that.

There have been surveys where they ask people how much money they would need to feel comfortable and the usual answer is about 50% more than they currently have.

CEOs don’t work, they exercise power. It’s a completely different concept from working and it’s totally fun. It’s the thing you do when you are bored with vacationing and spending time with friends.

It’s funny how everyone in here pretends to not care about status, while not realizing that you’re just playing a different status game.

I happen to enjoy playing status games and I’m fairly good at it. Even though I’m never the prettiest, wealthiest, strongest or most intelligent guy in the room, I always seem to be able to socially engineer myself to the alpha group status, regardless of what kind of social group it is.

Status games are mostly about how people perceive you and how you can manipulate it in order to belong. It reminds me of this paradox: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

If you always play with the alphas then it's no wonder you think everyone primarily cares about status. Most people primarily care about resources, the tribe and religion.

Ugh. This is why I hate living among people: everyone is playing these stupid status games, and assumes that you are as well.

I was happiest living in the middle of nowhere, where the only status I had was being the weirdo who never speaks to anyone. Can't wait to get enough money together to retire that way again.

Thinking about this stuff seems like a waste of time to me. If you think status makes you happy, I assume there are still some things you need to figure out for yourself. But maybe it's the other way around, who knows. Still, I don't care. :)

I think part of the point is that you actually do care and you need to care and this is healthy. For instance, if you dressed in dirty clothes and didn't take care of yourself that would be very low status. Anyone coming in contact with you would smell your low status immediately and treat you accordingly. So, if you bathe, shave, and wear clean clothes then you are already playing the status game. And that's great!

Not necessarily. I would argue that plenty of people bathe and wear clean clothes more for their own comfort rather than that of others. The fact that these things can be interpreted as status signals has nothing to do with the motivation for taking these actions in the first place.

"For example, if you are a competitive powerlifter, your status is determined by how much you can lift (strength) and how many competitions you have won (competitiveness). If you are a VC, your status is determined by what companies you have invested in (network) and how well those companies have performed (money). I could go on, but you get my point."

I would have liked to see him go on... Money and strength... I see where this guy is coming from: The dog bro cage of american highschool stereotypes. Peak shallowness.

The writer is referring to perception, not status. Ultimately our modern society doesn't actually offer what has been traditionally called status. While perception is determined by consumer choices, performance, charisma or social competence, it is ultimately shallow, fickle, and limited. Status is far more durable. If you were the king of England in the pre-industrial age, it didn't matter if you were a failure, unattractive, unlikable, weak, unintelligent, accomplished nothing, you were still the king of England. In todays modern world, high "status" positions, whether you're the CEO of a company or a celebrity for instance, are temporary roles that require persistent effort to maintain. Once those roles are lost through retirement, expulsion, or irrelevance, the person loses whatever status it conferred. In the past, being a duke or count was a permanent status that remained regardless of your fortunes. There is no modern equivalent (at least in America where aristocratic titles are irrelevant). Ultimately we may be living in a world of unequal distribution of wealth, but we live in a world of equal status, since no one really has any.

I think I’d phrase it as “status used to be more stable”. I don’t see why we wouldn’t call social positions that are perceived to be desirable as “high-status” just because they can change. All social status is based on social perception, regardless of how stable it is.

And I think it’s not as cut and dry as you’re making it sound. Dukes and lords (and probably even kings sometimes) could still lose status by, e.g., losing battles or territory, or not navigating the royal social hierarchy well. And having been a CEO continues to confer some amount of status even after you’ve left the position.

I think you're distinguishing between held and assigned status leaning into a "realpolitik" of status.

You're wrong about there being no modern equivalent. Today we talk about the owner class. Those who own income streams which is equivalent to having the "right" to continuous tax incomes. I would caution that wealth is only a single system to having your needs and desires met farmers can sustain themselves and others, academics actually develop superior knowledge which has transferable value (but less than academia will tell you), and so on.

I learned a bit about status when doing comedy improv. I think status in theory can be seen as a gradient and shift to one extreme at any time.

Keith Johnstone is famous for his thoughts on status in his book, but here’s a snippet that complements the article:

https://www.respect4acting.com/status1.html

> I grew up in the middle class and everyone I knew was in the middle class (or close to it) as well. Therefore, the only time I saw status was on television.

This may be a fish out of water thing, but to many, the middle class is a higher status (hence in the middle). Many in the working class would aspire to the opportunities this person had by high school.

The text does not mention, in my opinion, the most toxic status game: moral superiority.

If choosing money leads to working all the time, and beauty to mental problems, choosing moral superiority leads to what you started out fighting against - an immoral person.

This, in my opinion, happens through radicalization, which is a result of the fight to be "more ideologically pure" than others.

The worst thing is, this game seems to be the dominant status game of the western society right now. And we thought the "who has more money" was bad. We should have counted our blessings.

Nothing is worse than a fervent believer in the pureness of their own moral standing, who decides that yours is lacking. I used to, wrongly, believe that this level of fervent belief in ones own moral superiority only happens among the religious (with the well documented atrocities that follow). But, unfortunately, political ideology is not much different.

I like and can relate to the first part of this article a lot, but the solution ("Outsmarting the Status Game") just seems to be doing more of the same. Doesn't feel like a real solution. I think the real solution is to drop out of the status game and not play at all. Forget what the others think. I've come to realize that all I really care about is what I think of myself, and what my wife and kids think of me.

Another goal, and the ultimate root of all goals, is Peace of Mind. This is the one and only game to play - status is just a mirage when what the person is really trying to get is Peace of Mind. I think this is the most important thing in life and I try to teach my kids this.

This is equivalent to "choose your peer group/tribe/cohort wisely"

Whatever you pick for your status game needs to align with your "tribe" to ensure you feel respected and connected even as you pursue your "status game".

You might as well choose the crowd you feel most aligned with deep down and then pick a status game that most resonates for you and that "tribe". Because you have an affinity to that crowd it's likely there's one or more "status games" you all value.

I think I've seen this advice earlier but can't recall where.

I work in an enterprise and have loads of meeting with folks that are wearing suits while I am in the technical side of the house. I could clearly see that the approach changed when I started wearing suit pants (trousers?) and well ironed shirt and oxford into the meetings than my usual tshirt and jeans.

As someone else said in the thread, it works like a shield and also a projection of authority somehow in those meetings.

When I realised that I started building my closet up with shirts and trousers and retiring my tshirts and jeans for work outfit.

Status is not very important for humans, except for a minority of hypercompetitive individuals. Most people lack the nerves for status games. The collective, the community and belonging are more important than status. The problem is that the top of a large pool of people selects for competitiveness, so if you aim high you likely need to play their games. There is hardly a way around it except maybe luck, gambling or remote work.

Ppl keeping repeating that Scott Adams intersection tip as if it's useful or clever , and it's not. Being mediocre at two things and combining them just makes you mediocre. The third skill that results from the combination of two skills still has its own learning curve and hierarchy. Things don't just get easier. It just means you're just playing a different game that has different challenges.

I found this discussion of “the status game” and its variants to be really interesting and wanted to pass it along to those who find there way here:

https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/who-wants-to-play-the-...

I’ve never encountered such a good explanation of why privileged people should care about the concept of privilege but here it is. This is the Rosetta for those who want it. It’s exactly the same thing.

Choose not to play status games and you’ll always want to escape society.

> It was heavy metal or bust and I didn’t care what anyone else thought. Status among my friends was determined not by how popular you were, but by your music abilities

These statements appear to be in conflict

You should do what makes you feel fulfilled in life. If that thing is status, I question your motivation. People like that are conceited.

I think it's rarely status on its own, but people keep seeming to turn activities into status competitions. Even something humble like a retired man doing woodturning wants to make a more beautiful piece that people appreciate.

Feeling fulfilled doesn't pay the bills, unfortunately.

False dichotomy, it usually does. One day you will die. You won't be thinking about bills.

"Who will look after my dependents or children? Will they be safe and comfortable?" is one of the main worries for people when they die, I figure.

And if you spent your life in poverty trying to be an artist, you might think "would have been nice to not have been scraping by my whole life".

I did the passion project thing for 15 years. Much happier with a stable income and not worrying about money.

Heh :) I love this piece. It's so intelligent!

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