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I didn't miss that argument. I just believe it is irrelevant. Status is still zero sum. Creating arbitrary criteria for status does not mean said criteria are n

by tabeth 10y ago

I didn't miss that argument. I just believe it is irrelevant. Status is still zero sum. Creating arbitrary criteria for status does not mean said criteria are not zero sum. As for the hypothetical situation you mentioned -- no, everyone would not be high status. Say you had three people who liked running, football and computer science respectively. It may be true that they do not "compete" with each other for status, but assuming they're in a system in which there is at least one other player in their respective fields: running, football and computer science, status would still be zero sum. In the situation in which they are the only player, that would mean the status that they are deriving is not coming solely from what they are doing, because if it was, there simply would be no status to begin with. --- Of course this premise that you can get your status solely from a single thing with no residual effects from the "greater life" or context itself is pretty ridiculous. So in the case with the running and football, they're both athletes, so even though they're different sports, they still share the status pool. Similarly, computer science and athletics are both school extracurriculars. Expand out until you get to humanity. Zero sum persists.

smallnamespace 10y ago
No, I think you're missing the beauty of the system, which is that although there might be a global average status that is truly zero-sum (you can't increase your global rank without pushing someone else down a position), if status is indeed multidimensional, then every person can search for some community or group that will give them status within that community. In in practice that is the case. Most people in the world won't care to have this particular discussion with me, but here in HN I can find like-minded people and hopefully get sweet posting karma. That allows people to focus less on the global zero-sum status game, and more on finding a community or group that they can usefully contribute to.
- literallycancer 10y ago
  What use is a high status in a (hypothetical) group with effectively zero influence? One's status is only as useful/important as the people who ascribe it to them.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    People care about status in groups that they either care about or benefit them, and that is sometimes independent of that group's 'global' influence. The most simple hypothetical example: There are only two people in the world, Adam and Jane, and they form two 'groups', A and B, with 2 members each. If Adam values group A more than group B, and Jane conversely, then we can see that the most efficient 'status allocation' is for each to work for higher status in their respective groups. This avoids the zero sum situation where both Adam and Jane care equally about their status in the same group. You can see this in practice playing out -- every person is nominally a member of many different groups (their PTA, their HOA, country, city, family, company, work team, etc.), but they're ok with being low or average status in most of them and put their energy in status in groups that really benefit them in some direct way.
    - literallycancer 10y ago
      I'm not sure I get your example. If groups A and B have 2 members each, but one of the members cares about the group status, while the other one doesn't, don't they effectively have only 1 member? I.e. group of "me and someone who doesn't care" would just be a group of "me". Then that group isn't useful to be high status in, since it doesn't offer any extra benefits (a group of "me" can't do more than just me). If the weights weren't 1 and 0 for A and B respectively, but something like 1 and 0.5, then the group's value would just be (status within the group) * sum(participants sans self * their weight * their influence). (assuming influence can be quantified somehow) Then if I gain status in a group, and other members of the group lose a bit of their status, I can evaluate the gains and losses and the sum will be 0. To get the global status I just sum the results for all the groups I'm part of, and compare to other people. So a person A can be highly regarded in a paper airplane folding club, but unless there's a surprising number of top politicians/lobbyists/whatever who care about the club a lot, person B who plays golf with Donald Trump will probably have higher global status. ----- Looking at it now, I guess you could say that the global status is technically non-zero sum, since it will inflate with creation of new groups. Maybe the weights representing how much people care should need to sum to 1 for every person, that would solve the inflation? Then it only inflates when new people appear. Anyway, the global status is just a ranking showing who can "move the most pieces", as it were.

by tabeth 10y ago

smallnamespace 10y ago

No, I think you're missing the beauty of the system, which is that although there might be a global average status that is truly zero-sum (you can't increase your global rank without pushing someone else down a position), if status is indeed multidimensional, then every person can search for some community or group that will give them status within that community. In in practice that is the case. Most people in the world won't care to have this particular discussion with me, but here in HN I can find like-minded people and hopefully get sweet posting karma. That allows people to focus less on the global zero-sum status game, and more on finding a community or group that they can usefully contribute to.

literallycancer 10y ago
What use is a high status in a (hypothetical) group with effectively zero influence? One's status is only as useful/important as the people who ascribe it to them.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  People care about status in groups that they either care about or benefit them, and that is sometimes independent of that group's 'global' influence. The most simple hypothetical example: There are only two people in the world, Adam and Jane, and they form two 'groups', A and B, with 2 members each. If Adam values group A more than group B, and Jane conversely, then we can see that the most efficient 'status allocation' is for each to work for higher status in their respective groups. This avoids the zero sum situation where both Adam and Jane care equally about their status in the same group. You can see this in practice playing out -- every person is nominally a member of many different groups (their PTA, their HOA, country, city, family, company, work team, etc.), but they're ok with being low or average status in most of them and put their energy in status in groups that really benefit them in some direct way.
  - literallycancer 10y ago
    I'm not sure I get your example. If groups A and B have 2 members each, but one of the members cares about the group status, while the other one doesn't, don't they effectively have only 1 member? I.e. group of "me and someone who doesn't care" would just be a group of "me". Then that group isn't useful to be high status in, since it doesn't offer any extra benefits (a group of "me" can't do more than just me). If the weights weren't 1 and 0 for A and B respectively, but something like 1 and 0.5, then the group's value would just be (status within the group) * sum(participants sans self * their weight * their influence). (assuming influence can be quantified somehow) Then if I gain status in a group, and other members of the group lose a bit of their status, I can evaluate the gains and losses and the sum will be 0. To get the global status I just sum the results for all the groups I'm part of, and compare to other people. So a person A can be highly regarded in a paper airplane folding club, but unless there's a surprising number of top politicians/lobbyists/whatever who care about the club a lot, person B who plays golf with Donald Trump will probably have higher global status. ----- Looking at it now, I guess you could say that the global status is technically non-zero sum, since it will inflate with creation of new groups. Maybe the weights representing how much people care should need to sum to 1 for every person, that would solve the inflation? Then it only inflates when new people appear. Anyway, the global status is just a ranking showing who can "move the most pieces", as it were.