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It's incredibly liberating to realize that you can stop caring what people think about you, it's like killing a long running rogue prices eating up your resources... We all have access to neuroplasticity if we can challenge the fixed mindset

Not sure if this is true. If you are high status you can easily afford this as you don't feel any repercussions at all. If you are low social status you might feel the effects of being at that status and probably start caring greatly!

What repercussions do you imagine for someone you wouldn't think is high status?

Some of these points are perceived situations in which social status affects its outcomes without proof but here they are. The main point is that if you have low status you will be treated differently which greatly changes your interactions with others.

1. You won't get treated fairly, someone with perceived high social status will get fairer treatment. This I personally witnessed in a hospital setting where the sole presence of someone "important" was notified in advance and they got more attention which means probably better attention to detail and therefore outcome in treatment. You might also receive worse service, such as in restaurants, flights, hotels. As people want to court and leave a better impression with someone in a social status

2. People will not respect you. As the article said status comes with respect. You might not judge others by their status but others will for sure judge you. They will talk behind their back about you and this will negatively affect any encounters with other people. Even if you don't judge others low social status will negatively discolor your interactions with others.

3. Also cause and effect might be inverted here. Low skill and ability in a specific domain usually leads to low status. Therefore other's treat you worse as your skills are of relative little importance in the domain. If someone in a tech setting can't solve trivial problems they will aquire low status and suffer in a multitude of ways. In the best case you will be ignored and assigned to tasks with relative little value. In the worst case you can't continue to work there. Just the fact that you have low social status should get you to worry. If you had better skill your social status would actually improve, at least to people that are in the same domain and value the particular skills needed there.

Either you suffer repercussions due to your low social status or you suffer repercussions due to the factors that lead to your status.

I don't think you're really addressing the question with the hospital example nor the others. I could be the senior engineer of Amazing Inc., as well as a jacked high level MMA fighter and gracious altruist - beloved by all known to me - but if someone who knows the hospital admins walks in they are of course going to get some preferential treatment. This sort of "I know a guy" status that gives you a leg up on other people _regardless_ of their status doesn't really capture the essence here, I think.

I had an absolutely massive post written but I think it might be easier to ask, what do you think a low status person is?

EDIT: I meant someone with 'vip' status, not someone just known to the admin stuff. That still does not invalidate my point.

I think my examples address the questions or what do you think they miss? You suffer either because of low status or you have low status because you suffer of some deficiencies that other people think you have. For sure low status can also be arbitrary in many cases but it still has consequences.

What is someone with vip status? I could be an anti-social weak willed loser respected by nobody, but if I have good health insurance in the US I'm going to get preferential treatment over someone with worse health insurance regardless of whatever other social status goings on there are. Is having good health insurance social status? Or is it just having good health insurance?

I'm not from the US so the hospital example doesn't really apply to me, it's far more egalitarian here, but even in the US I think the above counterexample shows some cracks in the notion.

Furthermore, I don't think a lack of advantages are the same as repercussions. Repercussions are active negatives, where lack of advantages are inactive positives. This is specifically what I was asking about, and why I don't feel like these examples are getting at "repercussions".

I don't see the connection with health insurance itself. I agree that this has nothing to do with status. My comparison does not include domeone with healthcare and someone without.

Being treated worse is a repercussion. Being actively denied them is a repercussion and also an active negative in your definition. If you are keen on this distinction you can ignore the health care example. But the social consequences fall definetely in this category.

That homeless man who was strangled to death on the NYC subway a few weeks ago comes to mind. I saw an incredible amount of argument that the strangling was justified based on assumptions likely due to his social status.

I'm sure that had far more to do with the threats he was shouting at the other passengers than his social status

During recent protests in California, a white couple waved guns at the protestors. It was clearly, they had higher status, rich, white, and thus got a slap on the wrist. Black man on subway, yells, and dies. Very different outcomes. White, can wave guns around and make threats, its ok. Black, can raise voice, get killed, the killing is viewed as ok.

It's quite easy to spin a false narrative when you cherry-pick cases, misrepresent facts, and leave out important context.

> a white couple waved guns at the protestors

If this is the case I'm thinking of, the protesters had broken down a gate and were trespassing on their property. What were they supposed to do in that situation? Risk their lives and property by putting themselves at the mercy of the mob?

> Black, can raise voice

That's a hell of a euphemism for "threatening to kill people". Apparently the subway riders felt that he was a real threat, because he was restrained by 3 people, and all of the passengers that have spoken up about it seemed to think it was necessary

I was wrong, it was St Louis.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57521756

Mr Callahan described the demonstrators as a "racially mixed and peaceful group, including women and children", who had made a wrong turn on the way to their protest. There was no evidence the group was armed, he said.

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/video-shows-gate-was...

Video shows gate was intact when St. Louis couple pointed guns at protesters Videos and photographs show the couple pacing on their Portland Place property, periodically pointing the weapons at the crowd

For the Yelling I've seen a lot of people yelling about killing people. People act out, 'verbally'. Typically they calm down. Yelling didn't use to be a crime, especially with a death sentence.

Do you think the propensity to shout threats at people would affect one's social status?

So do you think that anytime anyone ignores the social hierarchy they will be strangled?

Nobody is saying that social hierarchy doesn't ever matter, just that it can be largely ignored with minimal consequences.

Using a "so you're saying..." comment attached to a straw man might goad me on some days, but I'm not particularly feeling it today. Take it from someone who has felt the consequences of ignoring the social hierarchy on occasion that there are indeed consequences.

My point is that the fact that there can be consequences is different from there are always consequences. The fact that there can be consequences is also different from claiming that the consequences can't be accepted or ignored.

I'm not goading you with a straw man. You are the one that made it.

Exactly. Someone has to already be high status, or somehow independently wealthy, to even have the opportunity to ignore others. This ability to ignore others is an indicator of already being high status.

Nonsense. There is an abundance of people across the social status Spectrum that ignore others. Sometimes doing so comes with cost, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Hello status person being rude to a high status person is not prohibited by the laws of physics.

> "comes with cost"

The point is the cost. There is a cost. If you are hungry and living on the margin, then the cost could be great enough you will die, then that behavior gets weeded out. If you are already high status enough to not worry about the cost, then you have enough resources, and 'higher' status.

Think you are still thinking about the modern age, can you get a minimum wage job and completely ignore everyone and still survive? Maybe. Is that living?

It is only a recent development where there are plentiful resources where this is possible. There is some arguments that people have made, that the modern glut of resources does lead to behaviors like this, because there are no longer the consequences of dying.

I guess I don't understand what you are saying. anti social humans and animals exits, but the behavior comes at a cost.

It seems like you were saying that it is impossible to ignore social hierarchy and status, which simply isn't true.

>can you get a minimum wage job and completely ignore everyone and still survive? Maybe. Is that living?

By definition, yes, living is living. There are lots of assholes in this world, and they don't drop dead from ignoring social hierarchy.

>Someone has to already be high status, or somehow independently wealthy, to even have the opportunity to ignore others. This ability to ignore others is an indicator of already being high status

By your definition, the bum yelling at people on the street must be high status. Terrorists and criminals must also have high status, because they too chose to ignore social power structures. These are extreme examples obviously.

To read these comments, you think it would be impossible to go through life ignoring social status when in fact it's commonly done. You can make it pretty far in life by simply treating people with human decency, but not granting special defference to people with social power. Ignoring social hierarchy doesn't mean you have to punch your boss or a police officer in the face, it means treating them like you would any other person

Guess we need to re-set and go back to what the article is about. That over millennia -> humans have evolved -> that humans live in groups -> and group cooperation leads to better survival as a whole -> within groups there are hierarchies in the form of status -> higher status typically means more access to resources and mating -> typically the higher the status the more you don't have to care about others with lower status.

But, also, the GROUP has a lot of control and feedback. If one dominant high status leader, turns into a bully, and irritates and pisses of enough members of the group, then the entire group can collectively take action and kill/banish/etc.. the bad leader.

So there are competing drives. The group can turn on bad actors. But also there is a fight for dominance in the group.

So over thousands of years, the behavior of humans has evolved, and tended towards more egalitarian societies.

It appears from your response, that you are viewing this through the lens of the modern world were we have fluid groups, resources, modern weapons, etc.. Which all tilt the balance of what is possible. The modern world then is different from how we evolved, but our evolution still built into us, the idea of status and egalitarianism.

To the point that it is possible to go through life ignoring social status, it is not common and is so wrong I think what is actually happening is you are not aware when it is happening to you and thus think it is not occurring. Especially since "Treating people with common decency" is the actual point, that is an evolved behavior based on status in a group.

>It appears from your response, that you are viewing this through the lens of the modern world were we have fluid groups, resources, modern weapons, etc.. Which all tilt the balance of what is possible. The modern world then is different from how we evolved, but our evolution still built into us, the idea of status and egalitarianism.

I understand the historic difference, but my point is that people are making conclusions of what behavior is and is not possbile TODAY, in the modern world, which I think is erroneous.

>To the point that it is possible to go through life ignoring social status, it is not common and is so wrong I think what is actually happening is you are not aware when it is happening to you and thus think it is not occurring. Especially since "Treating people with common decency" is the actual point, that is an evolved behavior based on status in a group.

The position that I am disagreeing with is that modifed behavior in response to social status is not abosulte. It is likely evolutionarily and socially encouraged, but not deterministically impossible to avoid. Individuals can and do show a wide range in how much they modify their behavior based on the social status of others. Some individuals are flatterers, kiss-asses, and subservient. Some individuals do not modify their behavior based on social status. Treating people with common decency, is not an evolved behavior or necessarily dependent on status. It isn't universal behavior, and highly dependendent on individual choice and conditioning.

It is reductionist and detached from reality to think people must act a certian way because of their status or that of others. All you have to do is look around at the real world and see a wide variety of behavious to disprove such bold claim. Not all low status people act the same, not all high status people act the same, and the degree to which they change their behavior based on the status of others varry wildly from individual to individual.

To say that nobody can resist modifying their behavior based on the status of the person they are interacting is simply incorrect.

I see, you are taking a more 'we decide our own responses' view than I was. That we can decide not to respond to status.

I am coming from more deterministic view. That all of the examples you gave are some form of response to status, even decency. The brain evolved with some group behaviors built into the architecture, but it is also very adaptable. All of the huge variety of behaviors you are outlining as choices (ass kisser, flatter...all), I am saying are pre-determined through evolution, and the environment the brain was raised in (culture, nature, etc..). In todays world there are too many variables to make 100% predictions, so it looks chaotic and like there are choices. It is super complex to map out those responses, because the brain as system is modifiable, and todays world inputs a lot of seemingly random variables.

I'd say all behavior, status, or decency, is programmed by evolution, as we evolved to live in groups. Because, where else would it have come from? But, the brain is also adaptable, so this 'pre-programming' isn't an easy black/white formula.

Re-reading your note. I think what you said here "likely evolutionarily and socially encouraged, but not deterministically" is it. We are agreeing, but on a sliding scale on one variable 'status'. I'm saying it is a stronger variable than you are. But now we are splitting hairs.

This is typically what I come back to, eventually we will boil down human responses to some chemistry and neuroscience. And then we'll know, but until then we are coming up with these 'speculative' models to see what fits.

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. Schopenhauer

Maybe we are splitting hairs, but I think you are giving evolution far too much credit.

>All of the huge variety of behaviors you are outlining as choices (ass kisser, flatter...all), I am saying are pre-determined through evolution, and the environment the brain was raised in (culture, nature, etc..). In todays world there are too many variables to make 100% predictions, so it looks chaotic and like there are choices.

I am saying that most of what we see IS chaotic and emergent behavior, not behavior that was selected for. Most of human complexity and experience is artifacts and unintended results from an evelutionary perspective.

By way of example, the human brain "architecture" was evolutionarily selected to be able to make simple tools and get more calories. The fact that we build spaceships, the internet, and videogames is emergent phenomenon arising from our "architecture", but not selected for.

Styling many (if not most) aspects of human behavior, especially specific ones, to evolutionary fitness or purpose is overfitting or over-applying a huristic. It mostly 2nd, 3rd, or 100th order results of something that was selected for evolutionarily.

>I'd say all behavior, status, or decency, is programmed by evolution, as we evolved to live in groups. Because, where else would it have come from?

Evolution doesn't build or require organisms behave in an optimal way. Evolution simply favors ogranisms with behavior that, on net, is just the slightest bit better than chance.

It doesnt matter if 99% of behavior is random noise, and 1% helpful. It doesnt matter if 49% is actively detrimental, if 51% is advantageous.

You could asky why people find nicotine additictive. The "deterministisic" answer is beer must be evolutionarily advantageous and be programmed for. A closer answer would be that it is random chance that nicotine triggers some biological pathways designed for a different purpose entirely.

I think the vast majority of human behavior and experience is simply evolutionarily unintended consequenses interaction and running away with eachother. Like I said above, 1% advantage and 99% random noise is completely compatible with evolutionary theroy.

I agree with all of that. Maybe we are splitting hairs between 'evolution' as a selection process (and we are singling out humans to discuss), and the environment as a total system that is in constant flux and development with evolution as the rule. And in this large system, there is a lot of chaos, but each part does follow evolution to adapt to the chaos.

Thus everything is evolution, regardless of if it was emergent or artifacts. We exist because we got here by evolving along with everything else in our environment. Sure some things aligned in our favor and it looks emergent. But the base system had to exist for something to emerge from.

So for humans specifically, we can see that group behavior can lead to individual success, groups with more success (more calories) because of some group behavior would survive, and whatever brain architecture lead to that behavior would be the surviving trait. Yes, there is a lot of theories, or models that overfit what was are trying to talk about, like status. But there are human behaviors, and we can study them, even if our early attempts have some faults.

And, with all of what you said, and I said. It is true that there are so many variables that we have evolved/adapted for (including behaviors), that in the modern world we have shifted all of the inputs so that our evolved brain is basically thrown into a blender and it all looks like chaos. And now we are trying to develop models based on the outputs of chaos.

I just happen to be hopeful we will be able to tease it out. The human animal has behaviors and traits just like flocking birds, we can study flocking, we can study humans forming groups. Chimps, Lion Prides, all very stable group dynamics that follow the same pattern over and over. Humans are just another animal to study. And it seems like human primates do pay a lot of attention to status.

I think we are just arguing over the sliding scale of 1%-99% what is random.

For beer. That is curious case. Animals all the way back to the fruit fly have mechanisms for processing alcohol. Even animals very far away on the evolutionary tree can get drunk. So that ability has been around, I think it has something to do with using calories. There are calories in alcohol, so this had an advantage, and getting drunk is the artifact.

Things like Nicotine, cocaine, heroin, trigger things in the brain that are totally random, not evolved FOR. If anything we should evolve the ability to defend against the detrimental effects. Maybe that would happen if we didn't have technology to save people and they died out.

See also: Be Wary of Imitating High-Status People Who Can Afford to Countersignal https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/the-perils-of-imitating-high...

I don't think they are claiming that Liberation comes without cost or repercussions.

> I spend approximately no time per day judging others or interrogating my social status. I of course think about other people, but there are many ways to think about others. There are many ways to think about yourself.

Agreed; I can't think of a more boring way to spend my time. However, their writing allowed me to finally model why overt racists might spend their time being racist: self-gratification.

Either way, it honestly blows my mind to find out people spend their time thinking about social hierarchy this much; go use that time to create something instead ffs.

This actually made something click for me, I had been observing a lot of drama recently related to one of my hobbies and i was confused by the "energy level" of racist people. Seemed hard to believe people were actually truly this upset over something so trivial. Your comment helped me realize it's actually about self gratification, the underlying issue barely matters

The quote “Play wealth games, not status games.” comes to mind.

https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103627387813888

> You must own equity - a piece of a business - to gain your financial freedom.

But, unless you already have wealth, you need social status to get to a place of owning significant equity.

You need peers willing to work with you as co-founders on a new venture.

You need to impress investors, unless you're self sustaining from the start.

Once you start to grow, your business needs to be a place employees want to work.

Especially early on, your connection with customers and gaining their trust and enthusiasm will be a big part of convincing them to buy your product.

Reputation for good customer service and quality products is also an aspect of social status.

In other words, you need some forms of social status to bootstrap wealth accumulation.

> Left to your own devices, with no task demanding your immediate concentration, you tend to spend a good deal of time thinking about other people—your judgments of them; their evaluations of you.

That one kind of baffles me as well. Left to my own devices, I create more devices. I inspect things, I wonder about how things are made. And, yes, like you, there are times when I do think about other people. And also, like you, I am not intending on judging or interrogating my social status.

But, I recognize that I likely have certain social behaviors that limit me professionally. And they are likely related to my lack of concern for the trappings of status. I've lived a good portion of my life believing that doing excellent work would bring excellent rewards. And for a good portion of my life, that has not been true. Status is not merit based.

So I believe there is likely something to this. It's likely not the whole story, but it is at least a chapter. Maybe we should be thinking about status a little more.

this is just my hugely biased opinion, but I honestly think the world might be a little nicer if more people were like you and less people spent a bunch of time thinking about status.

That's probably because some status games are counter to cooperation and niceness. Because in some situations, the way to get or preserve status is to cause friction for others.

> I spend approximately no time per day judging others or interrogating my social status.

Professional success, education, social skills, and hence money are also related to social status. I think only a few monks are not occupied with social status. (But probably not even them because I wouldn’t be surprised if they look to each other to see who is best in meditation.)