Pursuing status will never bring true happiness
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But on the other hand, I think it's possible that an Ivy League educated founder/VC partner/executive coach might not be in the best position to see the whole picture. To paraphrase the Aviator[1], you don't care about status because you've always had it. I think that for many people who have experienced precarity, rather than being driven by vanity, this pursuit of status is a rational way to increase security.
The one thing I always cared more about than a lot of kids was money but not status. People who grow up poor tend to really be aware of how much it sucks to not have money. You see it in entrepreneurs in China or former Eastern bloc countries. People who grew up in insecurity tend to be very conscious about access to resources and are very competitive.
But status is a different thing. Most people who come from precarious backgrounds in my opinion hate status games because the people who play them the most are anxious upper-middle class people afraid of falling downwards. I think I've probably harmed my career prospects by just being allergic to networking or not going to posh events because of how fake they seem.
Also important to point out that status is a complex thing in the sense that a lot of high status people are "performatively broke" because that's paradoxically the only way to flex even more if you're rich (tech CEOS living in crap houses and sleeping on old mattresses etc), so that makes advice like this even more complicated because it's difficult to tell if it's genuine.
I think at core most of advice from haves to have nots has different effect on smart vs average have nots. Smarts tend to see a kind of hypocrisy in these proclamations. Whereas average folks just see the real world the way it is. So these advise seems useful info coming from important people.
I agree, I would recommend increasing security as the priority, not status. Status doesn't pay the bills necessarily when the recessions hit, security does. If you can get security without status, that's better than status without security.
Doesn't sound very secure to me.
Until a year or so ago, a cushy career at Facebook seemed like a pretty sure thing and the opposite of risky. To others, any single source of income is a massive risk.
A lot of it is centered around money, such is our society.
A lot of things are fleeting, so it is important to also live in a country where the government won't take everything away from you because they don't like your opinion, or living in a country where war is less likely. (There are ways to mitigate these risks).
For example - "I choose to take the kids to school and then do some woodworking today".
The fancy cars, big houses, exotic vacations aren't that great. The lack of slavery is.
Status is being liked, respected, included, looked up to, followed, listened to. Which is a different category than having enough money to do things you want to do. One might lead to the other (in either direction), but some people can definitely have a lot of one and little of the other (also in either direction) as well.
Now, listing those "status" category things -- of course a person might want/need some of those things some of the time, having none of those things any of the time would be challenging, for sure. I don't think the OP's claim necessarily denies that either.
I think that's the point, the former is all about status, but the real goal is not to show off but be relatively free, you still need money for that but that's not the same thing.
I don't think we need these messages. They're a mix of humble brag, virtue signalling and self-marketing for all I can tell, and don't hold any insights that you won't find on one of those One Inspirational Quote Per Day calendars.
The people who are in it for happiness tend to be ascetics.
This is why people are so easily manipulated: they're beholden to something that is easily gamed by the world at large. And that's exactly what it does.
That's why the advice is so good: it's meant to rattle them and make them start to question those beliefs.
Buddhism is at its heart a serious journey in search of peace and (as far as they accept it exists) happiness. The monks generally own one bowl, up to 3 robes and a few other things. If your goal is "true happiness" then people really don't need much except to spend time being practising being happy with what they have.
True happiness is an evolutionary dead end though, so most people pursue status, like owning a big car. That isn't going to make anyone happy though, it is going to make them look like they have money. Otherwise, a small car is more effective and no car is much more relaxing.
Obviously there are limits (ie governors running for president aren't doing it for additional security), but I think it is true for many.
[1] "They begin by trying to get into a top-tier investment firm. Once they accomplish this, they find a hierarchy to navigate within the fund, then realize that the real inner ring in VC is occupied by the investors who land the hottest deals."
They now sit within, or atop the current one, but it's often something they themselves have created to a greater or lesser degree.
There's a huge lesson there, I think. Being in that position in the current status system is not and never was their goal. It came as a consequence of acheiving real goals, real success. It was a reality they created.
If you want to emulate them, you won't do it by 'getting in' to that current system, that's for sure. Instead focus on doing your own thing, and maybe one day finding yourself within or atop a new one.
The concept of "ʿasabiyyah" (Arabic: "tribalism, clanism, communitarism", or in a modern context, "group feeling" , "social cohesion", "solidarity" or even "nationalism") is one of the best known aspects of the Muqaddimah. As this ʿasabiyyah declines, another more compelling ʿasabiyyah may take its place; thus, civilizations rise and fall, and history describes these cycles of ʿasabiyyah as they play out.
Ibn Khaldun argues that each dynasty has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. He explains that ruling houses tend to emerge on the peripheries of great empires and use the unity presented by those areas to their advantage in order to bring about a change in leadership. As the new rulers establish themselves at the center of their empire, they become increasingly lax and more concerned with maintaining their lifestyles. Thus, a new dynasty can emerge at the periphery of their control and effect a change in leadership, beginning the cycle anew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah
From studying history a bit, I do agree that it's striking how often new powerful civilizations are formed from groups of people that existed on the periphery and had very little institutional power a generation or two beforehand. The Mongols, the Ottomans, and Napoleonic France are just a few examples.
More recently, Hegel made the same point.
Hegel, on the other hand, is very much wrapped up in the "progress" concept:
Hegel’s dialectical method leads to concepts or forms that are increasingly comprehensive and universal. As Hegel puts it, the result of the dialectical process, "is a new concept but one higher and richer than the preceding—richer because it negates or opposes the preceding and therefore contains it, and it contains even more than that, for it is the unity of itself and its opposite."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-dialectics/
Here's a (PDF) paper comparing the two thinkers: https://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/2196
But within the world of VC-backed tech companies, I do think “traditional” status markers are still very influential, and that when you dig into the About pages, the majority of founders/investors/current-high-status individuals come from high status backgrounds.
A Yale degree is not the end-all be-all, and “Ex-Google” is not a magic key. But I do think it’s important to acknowledge that a lot of people in tech (myself included!) benefit from very, very privileged backgrounds.
lol, made me smile. from your bio.
its also important to acknowledge privilege is valuable but not necessary. i know we're saying the same thing but it's important for the people on the other side to see and say it from the other side.
yale, xoogler are more bits of information the gatekeepers use. but not having those bits doesn't exclude oneself from the game. it's hard, being on the outside, i just want to make sure to say it. play another game. make another door. people like brand names. i get it it's a thing. it's just not the only thing.
we choose to all play the same games using the same signals in the same way. looking backwards for trends forward. only we don't have to. because the future is unknown.
I could see brand new status systems existing for, say, a new video game. Everyone starts out equally as newbies and works their way up. Maybe someone could leverage their position in a current status system (such as wealth or free time) to boost their potential in this new system.
Brand new industries could create new status systems, though I don't know how often they really do (for instance, the female programmers of the early computer era tended to bring their lower status into the system, not get status from the new system).
I suffer from the problem of not paying attention to status. Which kind of puts me on the outskirts of any status system, or at the very least not able to recognize my status within current systems.
> I suffer from the problem of not paying attention to status.
Are you sure? Maybe you just don't pay attention to conventional status markers. But you are still competing in a status silo (such as a contest here on HN for points?), just an unorthodox one.
And of course the organizers of chess tournaments also have status. Just as the people who can get things from the outside would have status in a prison.
> Are you sure?
I mean I'm sure I notice it at times. It is nice when others pay positive attention to what I post. Or in real life when people positively value my contributions.
> Maybe you just don't pay attention to conventional status markers.
That would be it. I think it's the "status hierarchy" that I don't pay attention to. My interpersonal status seeking and status noticing is not comparative. One person really valuing something from me is as good as 100. I notice when these hierarchies are pointed out, but I don't find value in them when they're pointed out. And credentialism pisses me off.
I think this happened to a lot of typically very regular low status arenas when the "Influencer" was born, and being good at something non-profitable could now be turned into views, advertising and thus money and fame.
Now every grassroots arena can be converted into a vehicle for money and fame, and you have people famous for lots of non-competitive arenas. Like modifying cars, cycling for fun not racing, just generally being fit... there are people famous for making How To Make a Game videos who are considered authorities on the topic, who have never actually made a game.
And the VC system arguably evolved from the system that funded whaling voyages, though I really think it dates back to the joint stock limited liability corporation.
I mean, look at this article’s comments: defense after defense of status as the most important thing.
Bluntly: this article isn’t for you if you’re so invested in the idea of status. Given the quasi-finance values that tech represents now, I can’t say I’m super surprised. The author speaks of a life beyond such pursuits.
In the 50's, the peak of this, it seemed like many people got a 'deal' that went something like this: you & your work colleagues could afford a house, car, and the costs associated with several children, starting in your 20's. All of those things at a pretty high level actually (ie not a terrible unsafe house, not a broken down jalopy, etc.) In fact, only one of you in a marriage would have to work: one salary was enough.
In that situation - and this is where a lot of these attitudes to status first evolved - high status can be treated as a "who cares?" thing. You and the 1950's CEO making 5x as much as you do both have a few well fed & healthy kids, right? In a hand-wavey sense you can say you're 'the same.'
Well, times have changed.
Now the fight is a lot more desperate. Higher status can be the difference between affording a house, or not; having kids, or not. The ability to live a middle class life is much more on the line.
So while in the 50's, the advantages to being more high status seemed almost cosmetic, today, they're anything but.
Is this the same Fifties with white and colored water fountains, and where women had to leave office jobs when they married?
Higher wealth disparity, based on its impact on social stability, measured independently, is bad. Racism/sexism are bad. The impact of things must be measured separately, so our ideas regarding how to improve society are higher resolution and more accurate.
Trying to spark introspection about how all of these things are interrelated, but clearly only to some of us.
The point of the original post was the general lower severe economic disparity in the United States in the 50s vs today. Since the 1980s the Gini coefficient in the United States has raised rapidly across all racial groups. Just because things are better for all deprivileged groups doesn't mean the American people, as a whole, aren't getting screwed over more via the increase in income inequality.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/07/12/income-...
There is such a thing as missing the forest for the trees. Socioeconomic status is intersectional.
It doesn't. It's crucial to understand how the socioeconomic landscape was shaped in context. Policies and historical movements are relevant to the analysis. Social factors such as racism/sexism are considered in "socioeconomic" analysis.
> Is that what you believe
No, I don't follow your reasoning. From an analysis perspective, you claimed that society would benefit from ignoring racism/sexism (social factors) in evaluating "amenities" associated with socioeconomic status. I think this provides lower resolution into issues plaguing society, not higher resolution.
My single point is that status being cosmetic for Americans in the 1950s only makes any sense if you exclude many Americans from consideration.
> So while in the 50's, the advantages to being more high status seemed almost cosmetic, today, they're anything but.
The “deal” you are referring to was largely codified racism. [1]
And only cosmetic inasmuch as being granted pollution-free, affordable housing based on skin color would be considered “cosmetic.”
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-02/how-the-f...
I disagree. There's plenty of people who are secure in their finances that you would never know about just by looking at them or hearing their name. Status is for the ego, security is way more important. You can go for status after you've achieved financial security if you so desire. The only status you need is when someone asks someone you worked with if you are good at your vocation, they say yes. If you are honest, they say yes. If you are a good person, they say yes.
This is a tragic statement on the way we've made abundance illegal and mandated scarcity instead—points further articulated in more detail here: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...
> Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103627387813888
> Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.
From @naval’s Twitter thread “how to get rich (without getting lucky)”
https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103360646823936
My note: wealth is options; options are freedom, and buying your time back. Only play status games if you’re playing for fun, but don’t confuse it with success and freedom.
Got it. Puts on Google here we go.
Not really something I'm interested in having an extensive debate about though. The reason I asked is I suspect the metaphor means something different from how I've interpreted it.
Some also posses political forms of power, influence, and status disconnected from wealth. Gandhi for example was never weathly or rich in money or assets.
Appears to me that status is an abstract thing, albeit correlated with wealth.
Money is not the ultimate status game, even though it is an important ingredient in most status-seeking activities.
plenty of people are simply not impressed by money. it's not even really a concerted thought, it's just a matter of different strokes for diff folks. people have all sorts of tribes. money is really just one. just a gawdy obnoxious one.
We have a whole mechanism in our brain dedicated to chasing status — harness it!
Yes. The part of our brain that we have in common with monkeys.
Nietzsche gives the example of the self-renouncer, who might seem to go beyond status games by renouncing material things. But this renunciation of one status game is just replaced by another. It's the same desire for status, but aimed at a different object. The self-renouncer's object is the status of being seen as the exalted person who soars above everyone else, free from vulgar worldly desires.
> What does the self-renouncer do? He strives after a higher world, he wants to fly longer and further and higher than all men of affirmation—he throws away many things that would burden his flight, and several things among them that are not valueless, that are not unpleasant to him: he sacrifices them to his desire for elevation. Now this sacrificing, this casting away, is the very thing which becomes visible in him: on that account one calls him the self-renouncer, and as such he stands before us, enveloped in his cowl, and as the soul of a hair-shirt. With this effect, however, which he makes upon us he is well content: he wants to keep concealed from us his desire, his pride, his intention of flying above us.—Yes! He is wiser than we thought, and so courteous towards us—this affirmer! For that is what he is, like us, even in his self-renunciation
I can recommend the book The Status Game by Will Storr if you want to read more about status.
“But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth”
It helps if you’re familiar with the analysis, but I think the idea translates. The teaching being that if you’re going to be charitable, you shouldn’t do it as a means to advance your status. The people who give simply for recognition aren’t being charitable at all, they’re seeking status in the same way everyone else does.
All that really matters is what others think of us. The main thing you have to figure out is _which_ status hierarchy you want to compete in, not _if_ you want to compete in a status hierarchy.
Even people who claim not to care about what people think, actually do care what _some_ people think.
I always am reminded of billionaire heirs, who shirk status games and give false last names to be treated as a normal person instead of a valuable business contact or such
While it's not 100% certain, the fact that there appears to be a biological adaptation that makes us seek status and avoid losing status strongly suggests that the author is underestimating the importance of status in human society.
For example: "we find that status is significantly associated with men’s reproductive success, consistent with an evolved basis for status pursuit."
When exposed to modern/ internet-scale communities, it could be that there are so many false-positive threats to one’s status that the advice to (generally) not worry too much about it is good advice.
Our innate desire for sweets comes to mind.
However, the author just assumes that is maladaptive, and that's a big and largely unwarranted assumption to make, particularly considering the presence of a biological adaptation. (I also didn't see internet communities as the main focus of the article, it seemed about status in general and in all contexts)
Also, just because something is maladaptive in some ways or some parts of the environment does not mean it is maladaptive overall. Nature makes compromises in her creature all the time, she has to! For an extreme example, look up female Hyenas...
https://africageographic.com/stories/good-bad-gory-birth-hye...
As a personal exercise I find it useful to trace my behavior to end goals (and back the other way), and then disregard false goals/traps while problem solving other obstacles.
I suspect the common real goal on the other side of status from one’s behavior is to be loved. All humans share this goal with widely varying strategies, and some of those strategies expose the individual to the status trap. The most effective means to overcome this trap is to accomplish the real goal, and in the case of being loved one convenient solution is to appreciate the people in our lives, from acquaintances to close family. From appreciation comes kindness and openness, and from there we experience love and feelings of belonging. Status then becomes either irrelevant, or a tool one can now effectively wield.
Kind of like sports, where maybe both teams play really well, but only one is going to win. But at least that's just entertainment at the end of the day.
Every time we applaud some student who got accepted into Harvard, we are implicitly degrading the quality of all schools below it. Even if we lived in an ideal world where every school were equivalent to Harvard, we would cease to care about admittance to any of them except for the one deemed "the best".
I've read stories about people having "glow ups" and realizing they really were attractive all along, an inspiring tale that requires this lucky individual be placed above every unfortunate ugly person who didn't miraculously grow into their features. The point being that the ostensible value of this kind of story, whenever I read it, seems to be not that the individual "made it" by merit of becoming more attractive than their past self, but rather their success is only valid if they become attractive relative to others.
This kind of thinking is pervasive, yet thematically addictive. The climb above others seems to be self-evidently desirable.
A house, a car, a family. Most people want that. If they don't have that, they will almost certainly be unhappy. If they do have it, they may still be unhappy, but for different reasons.
The perversion is that somehow having basic 20th century necessities such as a house and a family is now seen as some sort of privilege. If you believe that, you've been brainwashed.
Strictly, yes, it doesn't flow from the stars, someone has to build and produce the structure, but ideas that people should simply be okay sharing accommodation / living in micro flats / eating bugs / foregoing children to 'save the planet' etc are simply misguided in a world in which a huge number of people (not some microscopic elite, but like, half of the UK, US, etc) have more than that and treat more than that as being a basic standard.
I say that because that’s what many i know have realized once they (we) didn’t have to work.
I suspect the personality of engineering types likes puzzle solving, and is inclined to find some class of puzzles to “work” on.
Boredom sounds like a nice "problem" to have.
The best position in academia is “emeritus professor”.
Retiring also doesn’t mean you can’t program.
for some it means having a source of income that isn't tied to working so that they can do anything including 'working' on things they like without worry of it being a money generating activity.
for others retiring means stopping to work in the broadest possible meaning of the term.
Reading Impro by Johnstone and Inner Ring by C.S. Lewis yourself is central to understanding this topic.
First thing to understand is that status follows power law dynamic, instead of being normally distributed. Thus, in social status games, there is typically winner-take-all mentality. The bigger the game, the more the distribution is skewed.
You can easily understand why, if you think about blogs. The first blogs have a huge advantage. Everybody wants to link from the popular ones, so they befriend the people maintaining those blogs. So if you are already popular, people will want to connect to you, so you will get even more popular, as more people join the community.
It is easier to talk about this in the context of social dancing, because the feedback on your status is more immediate and visible. If you have high social status, you are sought after as dance partner by the opposite sex. If you have less than high social status you are either not sought after, or even avoided as dance partner. Interesting thing is that your social status is dynamic, it depends on status of others.
For example, in some dance parties I may be one of the high status males. In other dance parties I can be some of the medium status males. Sometimes I may even be a low status male. If I don't know anybody in a place, then women might be less than willing to take a risk and dance with me. If I cannot easily find a partner, and I am left without a partner, women start thinking there is something wrong with me, and start actively avoiding me. So there is negative status spiral as well.
The thing to understand here is that nothing in my skill has changed. Only the environment has changed. People are highly influenced by the environment. People use the interest of others (i.e. status) as a heuristic to gauge whther they should be interested in somebody (i.e. grant them status).
However, the inner truth here is that ultimately none of this really matters. I am not kinesthetically gifted, my dancing is not visually very attractive, so I cannot get high status by showing off.
My strength is that I appear to be a little bit more emotionally open so that something I call "emotional connection" in the dance happens more often and is deeper. The dancers who are emotionally more open in this sense is actually the circle of "sound craftsmen" which C.S. Lewis talks about. And they recognize each other, regardless of social status. And "emotional connection" is something that really brings happiness in the dance.
People and marketing mix happiness with joyfulness, which fades into emptiness thus requiring increasingly stronger stimulants.
One test of happiness might be sitting on the grass looking at e.g. the trees or the sea for one hour. If you can't, you are stressed. If you can for ten hours you are depressed.
In my experience, you can work hard, be smart, work smart, and that still doesn't necessarily equate into money or status. This is more true the more that the system you're operating in is broken or corrupt.
At some point you question what it is you're doing, and what the payoffs are or whether or not they're worth it. Maybe getting to retirement financially is better done through a different circle with different status markers.
The thing about status is it's inherently heterogeneous. Although there are ideas of status that are more or less prevalent, everyone has a different idea of what status means at some level. I can think of very concrete, real examples that are objectively very high status under very reasonable definitions, but to me come across as gauche, immoral, and unintelligent.
>Status, like money and power, is a form of capital. If we can learn to tolerate our feelings of “not-enoughness,” we can then use status in service of what we care about, rather than being addicted to it as an end in itself.
If we can tolerate 'not-enoughness', what would be there that needs change? As a society, don't we have to tolerate addiction because that's the loop that drives our progress?
>Casey Rosengren is a founder and executive coach based in New York. If you’d like to learn more about ACT and values-oriented coaching, drop him a note.
'founder' - Does he use the title 'in service' or is he still trapped in the status game? In the latter case, is his advice still valid?
This brought up a lot of insecurity....Comparing myself to them, I felt like an outsider—like we were missing something or approaching the business wrong.
I can see how status would be at play here, but if I were a founder whose market had just been crashed by a competitor that raised a ton more money, I'd mostly be worried. Even if I thought I was smart for taking a bootstrapped approach, I'd be concerned that having a well-funded competitor would make life much harder.
That's certainly true for things that you can buy with a lot of money, such as marketing. On the other hand, having such a competitor forces you to think really hard about how to help customers and what makes your company different.
But it’s still interesting to think about those who chase status, and what their lives must be like.
It just helps you not have to worry about a lot of things that other people do have to worry about (like making rent, or surviving tomorrow’s bombardment).
Your biggest worries will become things that other people can only dream of worrying about, but they won’t be any less terrible for you.
Here’s the harsh reality. Many people judge and make decisions based on status. You can purport be above it and bootstrap and work as hard as you want but that one guy with status will get the raise he needed and now you don’t have. You can then try to lie to yourself that that is just superficial status. But it’s not. That guy can now use those resources to get ahead and you can’t.
Bootstrapping can become a toxic independence mentality that focuses on lying to yourself on how self sufficient you are — all while you are going nowhere fast.
Reality is harsh and doesn’t go by pat philosophies.
Also go ask a low status person in society how much status “doesn’t matter” and you’re gonna get some very real answers. Mostly I find people who already have high status are the ones that rant about how it doesn’t matter.
Now that I'm recovered, I should mention status seeking is also a well known problem in the spiritual community. You've probably noticed people who have a big ego about being "awakened and enlightened"
The article is really about chasing status as a goal, rather than as a means to an end. Open ended goals are good for giving continuous purpose, but staking your identity on achieving something that is ultimately unachievable is bad for your mental health.
Status, like it or not, is a huge determining factor in opportunities. You can do the right thing all you want but if people think nothing of you, you might not get very far.
This is coming from someone who doggedly believes in doing the right thing and lost status many times for doing what I thought was right. It doesn’t always work out.
Along these lines, in many systems or subcommunities, many of these status markers reflect something inherently broken about the system, often at a very deep or fundamental level. So do you just ignore this and climb up them? Sometimes, for whatever reason, you can change things, but other times it becomes impossible to do so, and you're left with the choice of playing the game and winning, or just exiting altogether and trying a different game somewhere else.
Sometimes that exiting comes across as sour grapes revisionism, but sometimes it's very real. It can be frustrating to know that your odds of achieving success are dependent on doing something immoral, corrupt, or, at best meaningless, or to know that it involves a huge amount of pure luck or systemic pathology that is never acknowledged. Sometimes you can just go with the flow, but if doing so starts to have notable costs in itself, it poses significant problems.
For example "has 2 years of dev experience" is a status.
So you can aim for this status, then change jobs to get
"paid over X a year" status.
This status then is seen by the mortgage company.
Then there is the TEDx talk, 10000 start github repo, well know youtuber etc.
These can be carefully crafted stepping stones.
Status as an intermediate goal can be a good thing to use.
Status as FOMO is probably not.
It’s ill-advised to chase status as a goal in itself.
And it seems to me there's a lot of middle ground between those two things.
The article doesn't say you shouldn't work on projecting status for specific outcomes. If you want to raise money from venture capitalists, you should try to present yourself in a way that venture capitalists perceive as worthy of investment. If you think that VCs invest based on Ted talks or viral tweets, then do that.
There's a world of difference between executing a social media strategy to support your fund raising efforts and desperately trying to appear high status on Twitter to soothe your feelings of inadequacy.
The value of the decision rights or autonomy can vary from person to person.
But status is not reported acuratly but whichever metric it is of consideration of.
and the status we think is appraised high might be a status that has actually a low apprasial.. Like being a porn star or a hollywood actor unlike Robin Williams. Or being a philisophical considerer- it might not be seen as of a high status but yet this underpins how we meet our death very much.
downvote for all the reasons