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My Status Circles

overcomingbias.com

26 pointsgalfarragem12 comments

This blog post seems to be slightly on the rambling end of the spectrum, which leads me to suggest that he would get a lot of value out of doing some more research; such as a pleasant browse through Wikipedia. There are surely well-recognised terms for the things he is describing and there'll be a lot of literature available if he uses them. For example, it looks to me like there is overlap between this article and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_states_theory or the concept of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_group so I'd expect the terms to come up. That wouldn't necessarily change the article but it'd give him a more robust mental framework to analyse these topics.

Also, the lead paragraph seems a bit incongruous. I mean, sure throwing in a random political jab will get people's attention but it lacks follow up analysis. Care is one of the least useful forces out there for making the world better. We've got so much more value out of harnessing greed and activating selfishness that it might be all we need to run a prosperous society. And hence the greedy are much more important to my wellbeing then nebulous people who care about me from a great distance. Most of my material wealth came from people who not only didn't care but also didn't care about me or even know I even existed. It was acquired on a strictly transactional basis to the benefit of everyone involved. That aligns the incentives to make wealth generation sustainable and available.

Your first paragraph is spot on. Your second has no follow up analysis. It's interesting that you say greed (i.e. self interest) has made the world a better place and then tacitly admit that what you mean by that is a better place for you. I don't think any of the truly important advances of the last hundred years came about by harnessing greed, quite the opposite in fact.

Advances that don't get wide adoption may as well not exist. Except for a few privileged people. Capitalism has been shown to drive wider adoption of advances more so than a lack of capitalism.

Is the latter part your second paragraph a serious?

“We've got so much more value out of harnessing greed and activating selfishness that it might be all we need to run a prosperous society”

1. who is this we? are you in the circles of mister jeffrey bezos? if you are talking about the U.S. lower to middle class, I doubt it.

2. When you look at “we” at a global scale where every person matters equally, cause we are all people, DEFINITELY not. No question about it. Forms of slavery are used to keep the entire Western world afloat, technology can only be this cheap because of the people slaving away for pennies in these far away countries.

3. If we were to harness greed to our full extent once again, all together, slavery would make a worldwide comeback. Just think of how profitable it is. If you don’t “care” and just want profit, it’s like the best way to make money.

1. Everyone.

2 & 3. Seems to me like you're overestimating the institution of slavery; outside of a couple of rare edge cases it is uncompetitive. Wikipedia estimates [0] that globally it generates around $150 billion annually vs around $115,500 billion for free labour. Ie, the global economic value add of slavery rounds to 0%.

There is a reason no-one advocates to bring it back - it doesn't work. If slavery was legal the path to wealth for a rational slaveholder would be to immediately sell the slaves to someone a bit more silly and use the money to set up a company that pays people to do the work. Greedy people don't work with slaves because slaves cap out on value add extremely quickly. Said people would much rather be working in insurance and banking.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century#St...

We are quite lucky that slavery dosen't work out then, but there's nothing to say future innovations won't change the calculus that slavery wins out in opportunity cost compared to other activities. What would you do then?

Besides, the long term incentives for Climate Change or Global Trade Balance or Housing Prices might align, but the short term often dosen't, and greedy very much then can walk down the path to their own destruction. Greed can't solve the Prisoner's Dilllema.

> Greed can't solve the Prisoner's Dilllema.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but greedy people can easily solve the iterated prisoners dilemma. Everyone cooperates. You get the Nash & global equilibrium where everyone maximises their long term outcomes. A classic "greedy" strategy wouldn't work, but greedy people don't usually choose that strategy because it is naive and the point is to end up well off.

"Greedy" people sacrificing their short-term, even their generational self interest for the long term doesn't looks like to me that it fills in the conventional definition.

"Social dynamics from first principles" posts always grind my gears. It's a timid, egotistical landgrab, planting a flag on well-trodden ground.

The OG sociologists navigated with more humility. They accepted the role of observer + tourist. I liked Stigma by Erving Goffman.

I think this is the thesis:

> By telling the world directly what your community respects, you might induce them to change what they respect, or to join your community.

I think we're all pretty clear what different communities value, by the way those communities communicate, the way they act, and who they vote for as representatives. That's how you directly communicate what your community respects, the sum total of your words and actions, and actions count extra.

The thing is, telling doesn't do shit. How many communities will say value a good virtue, while their actions are literally the opposite of what their story has been for the past centuries?

Words are cheap, judge their actions. Are they more charitable? How do they treat the weak or their enemies? Etc.

Based on the title, I was hoping this would be about some sort of personal metrics system, with a "circle" or gauge style graph for several categories, such as "Mental health", "Physical health", "Relationships", "Education", "Work satisfaction", etc.

Could be a fun app to make.

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