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Comment by johngossman | Hacker News Reader

Robert Sapolsky’s book “A Primate’s Memoir” is about the importance of status in baboon tribes. High status males and females are more successful at reproducing, healthier, and have lower levels of stress hormones. That said, some individuals have found alternative strategies that also work. After reading that book, I’ve never been able to take status games among humans so seriously.

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> High status males and females are more successful at reproducing, healthier, and have lower levels of stress hormones.

If those truly are the stakes, it seems like something worth taking more seriously, not less. No?

I hope we’ve moved past that. And even some of the baboons opted out.

Read the book Johnstone: Impro and you will see that we have not moved past that.

If those are the stakes, are they linear with status, or do those inside the baboon inner ring enjoy them, while those baboons trying to break into the inner ring have much higher levels of stress and not appreciably better health or reproductive opportunities than mid-level baboons?

(If one doesn't assume the narrator is telling the complete truth, 1984 can be read as a book in which an outer party member —who is in the outer, not inner, party based on his middling A-levels— violently attempts to buck the system. Keep in mind that when Blair went to private school, he was an "outsider", there on a nearly-free ride to keep the school's test scores up [as the rich and the thick do with boffins to this day], and boy, did the insiders ever let him know his place.)

My interpretation isn't cause and effect but rather effect and cause (in the simple sense, though it is a flywheel where they build upon one another). High Status is a lot easier to achieve when you don't tire easily, don't get headaches or bloat easily, and lack pains that put you in a sour mood.

Whether it be genes or lifestyle, social status does seem to reward those who find a way to live their lives better. I, certainly, am always ranking higher those who seem happier and healthier than their counterparts.

While primate studies are useful to understand some of the human behavior I question their use to explain all human behavior.

I would like to think that we have evolved new ways to live in complex societies.

We have non-primitive languages for instance.

If you ever regard wide-audience advertising, most of it is devoted to status games; imx breakfast cereal ads are the only ones that seriously resist such low-effort interpretation.

The issue seems to be more subtle. Nobody is trying to explain all of human behavior with primate studies. Rather, to establish that there are still traces of our animal nature visible in human behavior.

We tend to believe we are no longer influenced by our animal nature. But without accepting that part of our construction, it not possible to understand human behavior, because that part is essential. Usually, statements like "primate studies cannot explain all human behavior" are used to de-legitimize some studies, in order to protect the taboo.

If you think that not all of human behavior is influenced by our animal nature, then certainly you can name some behavior that you believe is influenced by our animal nature. So start by asking yourself, what is such a behavior.

Health and low stress levels are probably easier achieved in other ways than status, fortunately!

But is it easy to avoid status if you are healthy and low stress?

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