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True, but those are bad things to want: Status -- those to whom we accord the highest status seem to be people who genuinely don't care about status; Money --

True, but those are bad things to want: Status -- those to whom we accord the highest status seem to be people who genuinely don't care about status; Money -- companies which aim only for profit become incapable of change. Presumably something similar applies to individual fat cats; Stability -- societies which aim for stability get wiped out by the next invasion or natural disaster. ...which is perhaps why most people don't work so hard! So what are good things to want?

lsc 9y ago
>Status -- those to whom we accord the highest status seem to be people who genuinely don't care about status; I think you are confusing people who don't care with people who don't seem fearful of losing status. As far as I can see, all "Leaders" are hyperaware of status and spend a lot of time managing their own status and the status of their peers and underlings. As far as I can tell, the further up the chain you go, the more aware you are supposed to be of status, and the more complex the status rituals go, but even at my level (and right now, I'm IT support for an organization of very advanced electrical engineers... so I'm fairly low status, compared to those I work around and compared to other positions I've had) - there are rituals and norms that need to be respected. That said, as far as I can tell, acting fearful (especially acting fearful of losing status) is one of the quickest ways to lose status, so I suppose that could contribute to them looking like they don't care... but from what I've seen, balancing status is a lot of what managers do... maybe most of what they do. And it's a difficult job (and it's super interesting watching someone who used to be technical who get promoted to management try to manage status; they are often a lot more explicit about it than managers who grew up in management, for whom the whole thing looks natural)
- tremendulo 9y ago
  Totally agree that executives and so on are hyper-vigilant about status. However it's possible to be aware of status without aiming to increase it. Those whom I had in mind are religious leaders like Jesus or the Buddha. They apparently saw no difference between people in their essence. Engineers work with objective reality and so they are humble at least with respect to knowledge. This will be evident from their behaviour in most cases but there will be some who are appear arrogant yet competent. I would conclude that they are humble in private. >That said, as far as I can tell, acting fearful (especially acting fearful of losing status) is one of the quickest ways to lose status Yeah, good point.
  - lsc 9y ago
    >Totally agree that executives and so on are hyper-vigilant about status. However it's possible to be aware of status without aiming to increase it. Those whom I had in mind are religious leaders like Jesus or the Buddha. They apparently saw no difference between people in their essence. I think "leaders" and "prophets" or "people who inspire" are very different animals. Leaders talk about inspiring, but... I really think leadership is about convincing, not about inspiring. >Engineers work with objective reality and so they are humble at least with respect to knowledge. This will be evident from their behaviour in most cases but there will be some who are appear arrogant yet competent. I would conclude that they are humble in private. many of our arguments have testable answers, yes, or to put it another way, our theories are usually more easily testable than those of management, but... status still plays into it, really in similar ways too, I think, management; You gain status as an engineer at least in part by being technically right; you gain status as a manager at least in part by convincing people of things. Do you see the similarity? People who are good at a job generally value other practitioners in how good they are at that job; it's engineering's job to be technically correct; it's management's job to convince people.

lsc 9y ago

>Status -- those to whom we accord the highest status seem to be people who genuinely don't care about status; I think you are confusing people who don't care with people who don't seem fearful of losing status. As far as I can see, all "Leaders" are hyperaware of status and spend a lot of time managing their own status and the status of their peers and underlings. As far as I can tell, the further up the chain you go, the more aware you are supposed to be of status, and the more complex the status rituals go, but even at my level (and right now, I'm IT support for an organization of very advanced electrical engineers... so I'm fairly low status, compared to those I work around and compared to other positions I've had) - there are rituals and norms that need to be respected. That said, as far as I can tell, acting fearful (especially acting fearful of losing status) is one of the quickest ways to lose status, so I suppose that could contribute to them looking like they don't care... but from what I've seen, balancing status is a lot of what managers do... maybe most of what they do. And it's a difficult job (and it's super interesting watching someone who used to be technical who get promoted to management try to manage status; they are often a lot more explicit about it than managers who grew up in management, for whom the whole thing looks natural)

tremendulo 9y ago
Totally agree that executives and so on are hyper-vigilant about status. However it's possible to be aware of status without aiming to increase it. Those whom I had in mind are religious leaders like Jesus or the Buddha. They apparently saw no difference between people in their essence. Engineers work with objective reality and so they are humble at least with respect to knowledge. This will be evident from their behaviour in most cases but there will be some who are appear arrogant yet competent. I would conclude that they are humble in private. >That said, as far as I can tell, acting fearful (especially acting fearful of losing status) is one of the quickest ways to lose status Yeah, good point.
- lsc 9y ago
  >Totally agree that executives and so on are hyper-vigilant about status. However it's possible to be aware of status without aiming to increase it. Those whom I had in mind are religious leaders like Jesus or the Buddha. They apparently saw no difference between people in their essence. I think "leaders" and "prophets" or "people who inspire" are very different animals. Leaders talk about inspiring, but... I really think leadership is about convincing, not about inspiring. >Engineers work with objective reality and so they are humble at least with respect to knowledge. This will be evident from their behaviour in most cases but there will be some who are appear arrogant yet competent. I would conclude that they are humble in private. many of our arguments have testable answers, yes, or to put it another way, our theories are usually more easily testable than those of management, but... status still plays into it, really in similar ways too, I think, management; You gain status as an engineer at least in part by being technically right; you gain status as a manager at least in part by convincing people of things. Do you see the similarity? People who are good at a job generally value other practitioners in how good they are at that job; it's engineering's job to be technically correct; it's management's job to convince people.