16 ms·

Who wants to play the status game?

• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• Hokusai 7y ago
  There are good ideas in the post. For me, it shows the different understandings of the current politic climate. Some people things on creating a common ground where everybody has the same value. Other people want to have a clear hierarchy that states what is your place in society. I am clearly biased to choose the common ground approach. I have grown suspicious with the people that look for a clear hierarchy because usually they also couple that with them being at the top. If you want to have a clear hierarchy, that may be useful, you need to be able to agree to be at the bottom. But, to look at the different perspectives may help to understand each other better and create a way to work out solutions that are acceptable for everybody.
• noelwelsh 7y ago
  This has given me food for thought. My kids go to school in an area that has a mix of incomes. My average day might involve working from home, or it might involving traveling internationally to visit $PROMINENT_BRAND_NAME to deliver consulting. When I talk to the other parents I want to reveal some aspects of my life so we have something to talk about. However I can easily come across as boasting (and, to some extent, I guess I am) if I name drop trips and clients. The Leveling Game is similarly tricky. Though I would happily criticize the current government, in my area the majority voted for them (sigh.) Also, grumbling isn't really my jam. I don't want to base my relationships on it.
  • Insanity 7y ago
    For what it's worth - if the other parents bring up the conversation of what you do or what you did that week, that's fine in my opinion. It's hardly boasting and you're not the one who initiated the topic anyway. If you're always the one bringing up your trips to fancy clients, that's a different story. :P
    • bob33212 7y ago
      Consulting is an interesting one because there are people who would pity you for having to be away from your family dealing with corporate politics. Others may feel jealous of you high profile and high salary.
  • tobbe2064 7y ago
    You can still complain about the Government just focus on the promises they aren't keeping :)
  • fma 7y ago
    Ask them about their kids and just let them do the talking. A natural conversation usually flows from there.
    • glup 7y ago
      Ya, just ask about their kids' business empires, newly-founded non-profits, and recent publications in high-impact journals!
    • noelwelsh 7y ago
      I'm agreed that talking about kids is a good way to get conversations started with strangers (or pets, if not kids). In this case we're relatively new to the area but I know most people's backgrounds now. It's more a case of someone initiating conversation with a casual "what have you been up to?" to which I can respond, say, "Oh, just got back from a week at $MEGACORP", which might taken as a status play but at least gives something to start a conversation about, or a conversation killing "Oh, not much. Just the usual work stuff."
      • whatshisface 7y ago
        I don't think it's a status play to namedrop a "megacorp," because for all they know you could be doing data entry. There's a spectrum of business consulting advancedness. It would be boasting to say "I delivered a report directly to the CEO," not to say "I did a one week contract for Walmart." The look on your face when you say it (snide, "I'm better than you," resigned to a life in airplane seats, pained from a life in airplane seats...) will convey most of the message.
      • therealdrag0 7y ago
        A good move is to leave out the $CORP and just say "Got back from a week of traveling for work." It's obvious you're leaving out information; and it sorta nods to your choice not to boast (play status game), and instead lets them ask follow up questions if they are interested.
  • 52-6F-62 7y ago
    > might involving traveling internationally to visit $PROMINENT_BRAND_NAME to deliver consulting Totally tangential and I apologize for that—but I read your profile and it made me curious what you're consulting on. Would you share [in some sense, even vauge] what kind of thing you consult on, or am I out of bounds? No names needed. I'm just very interested when software meets music, and in many facets of that meeting.
    • noelwelsh 7y ago
      The companies I work for are https://www.inner-product.com/ https://www.inner-product.com/ (US) and https://underscore.io/ https://underscore.io/ (UK). Scala is our main focus. I'm afraid it's not as exciting as software + music. Mostly web services or data engineering.
      • 52-6F-62 7y ago
        No that still completely answered my question! Many thanks.
• scoutt 7y ago
  The downside might be that when you are aware of this, it may create a prejudice when meeting new people. Somehow I know (or think I know) that most people won't meet my interests to settle a common ground. It's not that my interests are better, it's just I am not into common things like TV shows, politics, sports, religion, etc. This keeps me from talking to people except those who I already know (perhaps from a time when the prejudice was not so influential). I don't want to play status games because I have no interest to begin with. Of course, the above excludes these tangential thoughts that one may share on HN :)
  • luckyscs 7y ago
    To be fair, I am into TV shows politics sports and religion and have a hard time finding people who are thinking about and discussing these things in a way that I appreciate.
• roenxi 7y ago
  Part of what this is getting to is that the elites are, in a sense, unmoored. I can't speak for what they individually feel but there must be some acceptance that Facebook and Google just don't measure up to Standard Oil or Toyota in terms of real world impact. The electronic companies can measure up, but they are becoming more of an Asian phenomenon. Maybe the drug companies. I have a half-formed view that many of societies elites are trying to pretend that they are something else because they don't know how to handle the responsibility of maintaining the complex machinery of society. They don't want to actually let go of their power and status though.
  • tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    It's interesting you compared to Standard Oil and Toyota, to me the founders of those two organisations couldn't be more different in terms of their status seeking. There might be something to what you say though, my gut feeling is Google and Facebook are yet to show any longevity. They could disapear as quickly as they arrived.
    • goatinaboat 7y ago
      They could disapear as quickly as they arrived. Let’s hope so anyway.
  • SuoDuanDao 7y ago
    I suspect that to the elites, the world today is as scary and uncertain as it is for the rest of us. I always get a kick out of watching the Davos videos - this convention of world leaders reminds me of nothing so much as my small-town elementary school, what with all the fads, cliques, and isolation from the wider world. I'd be scared too. I suspect for example that most of the Davos set truly believes in and is worried about climate change, but also knows that anything they try to do in response will be ineffectual within one election cycle. I imagine a scene where some respected member of their inner circle admonishes them that they need a populist of their own to sell their solutions, and they quietly agree but can't get along with anyone who would actually be popular.
    • 7y ago
• zxcmx 7y ago
  Thank goodness for status ambiguity. It's possible to be rich, yet a terrific bore; a talented golfer who is a mean drunk; a world class programmer who can't weld for beans; or a respected judge who nonetheless commits a faux pas at a society event. We can all be switching statuses all the time and (to an extent) we get to choose which ones, if any, matter to us. I think this makes life immensely more rich and tolerable than the self promoters of this world would have us believe.
  • stared 7y ago
    It is closely related to the "scalar fallacy" (see http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2011/01/scalar-fallacy.html; http://observationalepidemiology.blogspot.com/2011/01/scalar... the quotation from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8132525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8132525): > The scalar fallacy is the false but pervasive assumption that real-world things (hotels, sandwiches, people, mutual funds, chemo drugs, whatever) have some single-dimension ordering of "goodness". > When you project a multi-dimensional space down to one dimension, you are involving a lot of context and preferences in the act of projecting.
    • dmos62 7y ago
      Single dimension fallacy might be a good alternative name. I'd add that often things don't have a single ordering of goodness at all. Like a tomato sauce: some people like it thick, others watery, others chunky; so it actually has at least 3 orderings.
      • moron4hire 7y ago
        A scalar is a single dimension
        • andrewprock 7y ago
          I love that this is both technically correct, and at the same time is a "move" in the "status game".
• yunusabd 7y ago
  I love how the author casually puts herself up there with Kant, Aristotle and Nietzsche. I guess she's playing the importance game too :) "And no philosopher — not Kant, not Aristotle, not Nietzsche, not I — has yet figured out how to construct a moral theory that allows us to say both of those things."
  • SQueeeeeL 7y ago
    Also like how they completely ignore Marx/philosophers who actually study societial inequality, with those who studied logic. Also the whole Ubermensch thing is basically a solution to this, by essentially fixing the whole system with an ideal person.
    • mapcars 7y ago
      >fixing the whole system with an ideal person. How can non-ideal persons define what an ideas person is? This is just a mental game.
      • czbond 7y ago
        I don't see why non-ideal cannot define ideal, but within a small standard deviation is possible.
        • mapcars 7y ago
          Because these non-ideal "definers" have their own limitations which they are not aware of, otherwise they would fix themselves and already be ideal. These limitations will inevitably get into the designing process and the result. In other words you can not prepare for something you have no idea about.
  • dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
    I assumed she was winking at the reader here.
  • jb775 7y ago
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• BjoernKW 7y ago
  "[...] has yet figured out how to construct a moral theory that allows us to say both of those things." Oh, but Nietzsche has. This is what master morality vs. slave morality is about.
• ath0 7y ago
  The trade in status - what this article calls “the importance game” and “the leveling game” - are a core part of what makes conversation hard. If you want to learn more - or are having trouble getting the feel for examples of why this is so important in practice and how to use it - a book recommendation: A previous gig gave us Keith Johnstone’s book for theater actors and writers _Impro_ as part of our onboarding. Chapter 2, “Status”, is entirely on this concept, and how status exchanges are a key part of what makes scenes interesting and relatable for viewers. At the time it felt like an odd choice for an engineering role, but after reading the detailed examples of status exchanges and how they work, they became impossible to unsee. And that was great, because I gotta tell you, HN: applying this skill has made me a much more effective technical leader. Wishing for status exchanges not to happen isn’t helpful - they’re happening whether you see and intend them or not, so learning how to spot and use (or avoid them) effectively made it, maybe paradoxically, much easier to have difficult, important, multi-layered conversations with people - other engineers, other departments, customers - about hard problems and get them to a good resolution. As the industry does some soul-searching about the way power is perceived and used differently by different groups, understanding this topic should be seen as core to leveling up.
• afpx 7y ago
  Another "more advanced game" is the collaboration game. In this game, the players determine their common ground. The players evaluate each other and think, "Hey this person seems to be good at X and knows a lot about Y. I know a lot about Z. Maybe we can join forces." They then identify common goals that they can work on together. I don't know about most people, but I'm definitely more interested in playing the collaboration game. And, I tend to overlook people who aren't into it. Also, it's unfortunate if many people are influenced by Aristotle and "see human political organization as fundamentally hierarchical." Anthropologically, Humans tend to follow those whom they respect, not those they are told to follow.
  • chrisweekly 7y ago
    Great points! Tangent: I wish more games were explicitly collaborative. Some competitive games can easily be adjusted, others not so much. Games like "Forbidden Island" represent, for many, a completely foreign paradigm where everyone's in it together. Shame that's not more common.
    • majos 7y ago
      +1, I used to play random DotA pub games and got a huge kick out of the occasions when a team of strangers would click and work together. I sort of replicated that with pick-up basketball but topped out at below average. If anybody has team game recommendations like Forbidden Island I'd like to hear them.
      • chrisweekly 7y ago
        DotA?
        • majos 7y ago
          Defense of the Ancients, originally a Warcraft custom map, now it's own game. Two teams of 5, you level up and train and try to kill the other team's base, a good game is maybe an hour. "Pub game" is short for public game, just groups of strangers matched to play online.
• mapcars 7y ago
  The guy thinks morality is required, but it is not.
• herghost 7y ago
  "we need worth to come for free, and we also need it to be acquirable." The more I think about this single sentence, the more I feel like it's holding so much more than it first appears to be.
• werber 7y ago
  This feels so empty, what the article thinks is the status game just sounds like normal meeting new people stuff. Obviously there are always status indicators tied to interests, but I feel like I’m playing the make a new friend game not some philosophical keeping up with the Joneses
  • Loughla 7y ago
    But that's exactly what it is. When you meet people who may be in your social sphere, inherently these people may have connections to your professional sphere. Therefore, your status indicators and signals may have an impact on both your personal and professional life. As a concrete example: I was recently passed over for a promotion, for which I am supremely qualified. The reason being, the person selected plays the status game better. They network better. They have the connections to people who are in places of power. And I refuse to play the status or any other social games. I believe merit, in and of itself, is the way to achieve. And I am wrong, often. Anyway, I digress. The reason that it may just feel like the 'make a new friend game' is because you 'fit' already. You may not have to think about the keeping up with the Joneses bit, because you are the Joneses. This way of interacting with new people may just be how you were raised and a part of your culture, so ingrained that it seems just a part of natural society. Do you think that's the case?
    • werber 7y ago
      I think that's partially true, I feel like I find the weirdos like me wherever I go and we just get on. I'm also not great at climbing the corporate ladder, but, I really don't care as long as I'm growing in what feels like a positive direction for my life as a whole.
• keiferski 7y ago
  Alternatively, opt out of the status game and try to construct and pursue your own definition of excellence, rather than simply defining it in terms of your position in the social hierarchy. "Main deficiency of active people. Active men are usually lacking in higher activity-I mean individual activity. They are active as officials, businessmen, scholars, that is, as generic beings, but not as quite particular, single and unique men. In this respect they are lazy. It is the misfortune of active men that their activity is almost always a bit irrational. For example, one must not inquire of the money-gathering banker what the purpose for his restless activity is: it is irrational. Active people roll like a stone, conforming to the stupidity of mechanics. Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar." - Nietzsche
  • bobbydroptables 7y ago
    Moneygathering is highly rational for essentially anyone but especially for the banker whose entire social sphere is structured around his skills as a moneygatherer. Active men are active because they know and enjoy activity. The thrill of the pursuit and all that.
  • lazyjones 7y ago
    Nietzsche famously didn't understand one thing: women / mating strategies. The banker's purpose isn't meaningless, it's a means to an end (even if not always consciously pursued that way) and generally works very well.
    • throwlaplace 7y ago
      people say this all the time but poor people are having kids at a much higher rate than rich people so the theory doesn't pan- if your goal was to have kids you'd stay with your high school sweetheart. and now you'll say "but the banker is trying to attract a high quality mate" to which I'll say that's circular as "quality" here is a synonynm for status. celibate or not I wouldn't discount Nietzsche; he was pretty insightful.
• czbond 7y ago
  This is an absolute engineer thing to say in the realm of efficiency, logic, and disliker-of-the-boredom-smalltalk-is, but I cannot wait until can meet and through a digital display see, then have matched our common interests. That way I don't have to pretend to care about a football game if I have nothing to add about it, if we can connect over something we both are passionate about.
• code4tee 7y ago
  Status only matters if the other party cares about it. The ultimate status game is truly showing that you don’t care that the other person is X, has done X, their dad/uncle is X, wants you to think X but rather are dealing with the person in front of you right then and there and what they are able to bring to the table at that time. The reverse is incredibly powerful too. Those that have been most impressive to me throughout life are when they seemed like a totally “normal” person and then later I found out something about their “status” that others would have gloated endlessly about.
  • saiya-jin 7y ago
    This mindset brings such a peace of mind. You can't impress me with anything payable in money, empty statements, family credentials etc. Only your actions define your relationship with me. If you mess it up, I will act with you accordingly. If I will consider you a bad influence to my kid, you 2 will simply not meet, even if you would be his grandparent. To make things even easier, I apply this to absolutely everybody, friends, family, colleagues, unknowns. For some reason, not many people are willing to do so, and always have double 'meter' for ie close family. Maybe I am a bit broken with this, but damn it makes life simple, honest and steady, relationships are crystal clear. My opinions on persons don't change, unless they change (which they don't because frankly nobody really does, at least not enough to change overall attitude).
    • rglover 7y ago
      Much respect for this point of view. I've recently adopted a similar stance on relationships and while it's irked some folks, it's made life incredibly peaceful. No drama, no manipulation, just spending time with folks who are great company and discarding the rest.
  • thrwaway69 7y ago
    To be fair, given my diverse internet usage. I am sure someone famous and special has replied or argued to me before. They probably also experienced reading my dumb comments. :) Do I get extra status for this?
  • 7y ago
• friendlybus 7y ago
  The article contradicts itself. It calls for an end to status games and at the same time holds up the class system as an easy out for determine status because the class takes care of it for you. That is still a status game. The class system does not substitute individual status relations for an institutional approach, it just ignores them. I lived and worked in London for 5 years and used to an individualistic perspective I found it very difficult when you spend years sticking your neck out for people and doing the right thing is rewarded with institution incompetence and staff that will let you down you for a broken system and marginal personal gain. The society becomes so stratified that any reasonable increase or decrease on your hierarchical position means to completely change your social circle and living circumstances. Hearing a coworker show off by misnaming the area she lived in so she could self correct multiple times demonstrating how close she lived to an area slightly higher up the chain than she really lived is something I could do without. With individual status and addressing you know where you stand with people. The class hierarchy leads to slavish wonderment in the presence of the higher classes even if they spit in your face or verbally abuse you. Please sir may I have some more? No oliver, not today.
  • hashkb 7y ago
    The article explores the issue but doesn't take a strong position. Your attack on it isn't coherent. What point are you trying to make? Seems like you've got a grudge against... society?
    • friendlybus 7y ago
      The article takes a strong position. The article devalues finite status games based on victimhood or individual merit. It goes on to suggest hierarchy as a direct counterpoint and goes on to articulates the virtues of a class based system. It claims as it's final conclusion left with the reader that there is a conflict between needing to value someone's life in terms of worth at the bottom of society and at the top. Something only a hierarchy can solve or would even attempt to order the world that way. A hierarchy can solve this because it is a unified system of receivership centered on a common purpose. At every level it is the same purpose executed better or worse, differing on the properties of the person involved. A hierarchy supports the concept of a 'best', an 'elite' rather than merit and hides all counter-veiling evidence under a shroud of embarrassment. The UK has implemented a hierarchical class system. I am articulating what happens when you live in a class system. A lot of things people don't talk about. Some people want to live in the shade of a great tree, and I'm okay with that. I don't.
• bullen 7y ago
  What is value? What is money! What is energy...
• leelin 7y ago
  My undergrad was a super nerdy school grinding largely solo in the CS lab. Later I did an MBA program to take me completely out of my comfort zone. I gravitated to those who were chill, and perplexed anyone who tried to play the Status Game by losing on purpose. If it was the chess equivalent, I fall into Fool's Mate on move 2. Unfortunately, there ARE times when it helps to be able to quickly convey to new acquaintances that you are legitimate and worthwhile for further collaboration. But most of the time, best to turn it off.
  • justzisguyuknow 7y ago
    From the article: > It is much easier to mock others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game than to acknowledge one is doing it. If you think that playing 'to lose' is somehow opting out then you're fooling yourself. The point us that we are always playing.
    • celticmusic 7y ago
      nah, people like us just value different things. I can tell you I grew up extremely poor, to the point of homelessness, and if you think for a second I give a shit what bob thinks of me, you're wrong. Those sorts of experiences give you a different perspective. It's one of the major reasons why I've situated my life in such a way that these same people's disapproval isn't going to affect me. In fact, I had a company inadvertently learn that lesson late last year, and it hurt them way more than it hurt me. They made the mistake of evaluating my worth by how I play that game.
      • luckyscs 7y ago
        We all value different things, but we all have the same core needs that make us value security. Food, water, shelter. In my head right now I cant think of one status signifier that doesn't also signify security. Gold toilets included.
        • celticmusic 7y ago
• kstenerud 7y ago
  > but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. Why do we need this? Is the author suggesting that without an externally provided target, none shall be inspired? The status game is inherent to all socially cooperative creatures. It's not a morality thing; it's an evolutionary thing. It's nothing we can legislate or moralize or shame away; all you can do is push it underground (as in, "I'm so important that I don't even need to play" or "I disdain all who play, and am therefore superior to the rabble who do"), which doesn't solve anything. In truth, we've already reached a pretty decent point in countering the game's worst effects. When someone demands "just who do you think you are?", I can simply respond "I am a free man." And that's that. They'll usually have no recourse to harm me for such insolence, and their bruised ego is of little concern in the majority of cases. Long gone are the days where insulting a Lord would get you run through. Of course, if you want to enlist the work of others by means other than coercion or bribes, the status game (i.e. charisma, popularity, respect) is the only way to do it. So for some occupations, it is essential.
  • petra 7y ago
    This is a good analysis, going to the core of the issue.but: >> all you can do is push it underground (as in, "I'm so important that I don't even need to play" or "I disdain all who play, and am therefore superior to the rabble who do"), which doesn't solve anything. It's possible to teach people humility. And it's not pushing it underground - It's a good social skill to have if you want to collaborate with other people.
  • pdonis 7y ago
    > if you want to enlist the work of others by means other than coercion or bribes, the status game (i.e. charisma, popularity, respect) is the only way to do it No, it isn't. You can simply trade something valuable to them that you have, for something valuable to you that they have.
  • lawnchair_larry 7y ago
    > Why do we need this? To get to the moon.
• Whygul 7y ago
  I dug the assessment of the "advanced games" while reading this (and questioning the degree of my own participation in said games), but felt a little hard pressed with the soggy take that the 'right' is the party of populism whereas leftism is for the elite. The left has hsitroically been a well for a lot of pro-public/populist ideas, like shorter work days, ending child labor, unionizing, supporting public transit, and rent control, to name a few. I guess it's kind of a modern American 'democrat' ≠ left thing.
• m0llusk 7y ago
  This analysis is shallow because it fails to connect status competition among people to the larger games we play. Society processes raw materials in order to produce goods and services which generate security for people. Ultimately all status games between people relate back to some aspect of the systems that support society. Are you good at resource extraction? Are too many resources or the wrong resources being extracted? One might be a great parent but a terrible cook or the other way around. What exactly that means and is worth depends on the context and the people. This is one of the reasons that the great divide is so brutal. One side is competing based on openness, exploration, and understanding while another is identifying authority based on measures of sanctity and staying loyal to what they find is true.
• mark_l_watson 7y ago
  Status signaling is complicated and I have been thinking lately how inconsistently I signal. On one hand, I feel very happy with my career and hobbies like writing books and I signal this to people when I first meet them. I try to not be obnoxious, but human nature is human nature. On the other hand, I live in a small town and last spring when I shipped my car across the country as a gift to my granddaughter, I decided to not buy myself a new car. I did this for several reasons: environmental, force myself to walk and get more exercise, and it lets me joke about being poor. For some perverse reasons, I like signaling a lack of material wealth.
  • Aardwolf 7y ago
    Not signaling is also a form of signaling.
    • dumbfounder 7y ago
      Yes it isn't.
    • whatshisface 7y ago
      I think this grammatically puts the agency on the wrong people. It's not that you have to always be signaling, it's that other people are always judging you and interpreting everything you do. You can transmit no information, but everyone will catch a case of apophenia and see shapes in the TV static nonetheless.
• athenot 7y ago
  > There is a philosophical conundrum at the root of all this: morality requires we maintain a safety net at the bottom that catches everyone—the alternative is simply inhumane—but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. The way the author frames this, status is a requirement for "excellence, creativity and accomplishment". But there are other motivators for excellence, creativity and accomplishment. Some may have an intrinsic yearning to do what they perceive is the right thing. Others may be motivated by love and ready to set aside their own interests for the good of someone else, or for a higher ideal. Still others may be compelled to act by empathy, by seeing others push their own boundaries and step in to reduce their load. Competition is only one motivator.
• chadlavi 7y ago
  This is a really fucking grim view of humanity! Is it not possible for someone to just want to find common positive interests hobbies and goals with a stranger so they can make a connection and be friends? Does it have to be back-stabby position jockeying and dick-measuring? We don't live in an Aaron Sorkin universe. Sometimes smalltalk is just small talk.
  • hashkb 7y ago
    She's observing a common phenomenon. I don't think she's saying all human interaction is a status negotiation.
• willemlabu 7y ago
  I once attended a talk by a man who was head of a creative marketing agency. He also had a side gig of being a presentation consultant. I forget his name and agency, but I don't think I could forget what he said. He would lead his company's pitches to new clients, and would turn up to the presentation wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops; tattoos all over his arms and neck, and thereby set the expectations of the room quite low. He would then continue brazenly with his presentation – charming, intelligent, and confident – and by the end of the pitch would hopefully have won the prospective clients with this wit. His logic was that everyone plays the status game, but to be remembered you need to change people's perception of your status drastically. Setting expectations low, and then making them feel foolish for misjudging you. In his words: it had varied success.
  • kristianc 7y ago
    > Setting expectations low, and then making them feel foolish for misjudging you. It's a risky game. People tend to make their first impressions within seconds, and then spend the rest of the time looking for evidence to validate that assumption.
    • asdfman123 7y ago
      Not really. As a shy person, I've been playing it my whole life. For some reason, people meet me and assume... I dunno, that I'm just someone who can be swept aside. I let them believe that. But I'm a lot more capable than people give me credit for being, and I'll be honest, a part of me enjoys it when that realization starts to set in. It's not really a machiavellian ploy on my part to optimize some kind of social outcome, just a pattern I've settled into. It's fine for most aspects of my life. Good for poker games with strangers. Bad for first dates and FAANG-style job interviews, where I excessively downplay my abilities. However, I think generally in life you shouldn't try to "be" anything except healthier and kinder. You were given a role in life, and it is up to you to play it to your best ability. I'm paraphrasing Kurt Vonnegut, I think, when I say be careful who you pretend to be -- because that might be the person you become. Consciously playing social games is foolish. What you really want in life is inside of you. Strive to be better, not to find artificial ways to dominate others.
• punkbrwstr 7y ago
  Which game is it where you drop the word "otiose" in the second paragraph?
  • haecceity 7y ago
    It's the "I read a lot of books and I want people to know" game.
• 3dprintscanner 7y ago
  This reminds me a lot of the idea of Transactional Analysis. It's a study of the Ego state of people interacting with the world around them and whether they act as a figurative Parent, Adult or Child in a certain situation and can explain why people might play a particular status game in some situations and not in others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis
• kerkeslager 7y ago
  > It is much easier to mock others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game than to acknowledge one is doing it. And it's critical to realize: mocking others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game is just a way of engaging in the Importance Game. This is an even stranger game than Nuclear War: it sometimes seems that the only winning move is not to play, but not to play isn't really an option.
  • toasterlovin 7y ago
    > And it's critical to realize: mocking others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game is just a way of engaging in the Importance Game. I grew up in Los Angeles and now live in Portland, OR. People in LA play the status game rather brazenly and are roundly mocked for it. But the exact same game is played by everyone doing the mocking here in Portland. Except, instead of buying luxury automobiles and extremely expensive clothes, as people in LA do, people here signal status using markers of enlightenment and moral purity such as diet, meditation, political positions, etc. I’m conflicted. In some ways, I appreciate the honesty of the LA approach. But I also appreciate the more subtle nature of the Portland approach.
    • kerkeslager 7y ago
      I think this gets at something I hinted at in my other post on this thread: It's important to master both the Importance Game and the Leveling Game because they're subgames in the Self-Actualization Game. Both are necessary parts of interacting with people. Mastery of the Importance Game and Leveling Game involves reading the situation: when in Rome, play as the Romans do. The ultimate master of these games can play them effectively in both LA and Portland, but I think realistically, a proficient player chooses which stage in which to play based on their own strengths and goals.
    • kerkeslager 7y ago
      Honesty might seem like an escape from the Importance and Leveling Games: you say the truth, so you're not basing what you say on an attempt to get status, so you've exited the game, right? Well, that doesn't quite work out in practice: First, you can only be as honest with others as you are with yourself, and being honest with yourself is hard: you just end up playing the games unintentionally. Second, honesty is never complete by the simple nature that you don't have time to say everything, so the things about yourself that you choose to be honest about create a picture that has implications for the Importance and Leveling Games. Third, lying isn't the only way to change what you say: you can change what you say about yourself by changing yourself. If you do different things, you can say different things about yourself without lying, and your actions can be motivated by the Importance/Leveling Games. And as a sub-point of that: being honest is a choice of actions that's usually geared toward winning the Importance Game.
• asdfman123 7y ago
  I get the sense that the conflict the author describes is a problem in American culture, because most of us want to believe in a classless society, yet at the same time, class is everywhere. I feel in many cultures it's far more explicit and tolerated. You know who your "betters" are. In America, you'd never acknowledge that. I'm not saying that a rigid social hierarchy would be better -- but our approach to society is to try to downplay social hierarchies, while in some sense they're inescapable.
  • 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
    Another way it’s hidden is in the way we project our status. It’s not tasteful here to have something that’s just “expensive” anymore. They’ll create more expensive versions of everything (such as iPhones). Ostensibly to give better features, but the “higher end” things tend to simply be a way to show wealth.
  • rapnie 7y ago
    In Dutch society there is a saying "Act normal, then you are crazy enough". Showing ones wealth and status is not done and seen as flashy and arrogant, something to be ashamed of really. Edit: Good examples of where this leads to is the Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte visiting the King by bike [0] or cleaning up his own spilled coffee by himself [1] while the cleaners are watching. [0] https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/dutch-pm-forms-new-government-rides-his-bike-to-the-palace-to-tell-the-king-and-even-locks-it-up-355466 https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/dutch-pm-form... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/06/06/after-mopping-up-spilled-coffee-dutch-leader-mark-rutte-becomes-a-symbol-of-etiquette/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/06/06...
    • JackFr 7y ago
      Or your king flying planes for KLM.
    • blululu 7y ago
      As someone who really admires Dutch culture, I would just add that in my experience "you are crazy enough" is more true in the Netherlands than elsewhere ;) It's probably not for nothing that such a small country has had such an outsized impact on the history of Science and Technology...
• smallcharleston 7y ago
  Christianity already solved this. There is a hierarchy but it’s invisible and you can’t access it. The one you see is not especially relevant to anything except social custom and determining your responsibilities.
• majos 7y ago
  Reminds me of something I read in Impro (recommended by someone on HN, and a readable-if-totally-anecdotal collection of writings on status): a marker of friendship is the ability to deliberately and enjoyably play status games.
• zweep 7y ago
  I find myself playing the Leveling Game with cleaners, drivers, etc. and talking about the football team or similar. But it also feels the most preening kind of status assertion — like Harvard grads telling you they went to school “in Boston.” The worst offender is Warren Buffett, whose self professed lifestyle of a $100K house and McDonalds which is just a way of saying “I’m so superior to you that the granite countertops and Michelin restaurants you lust over and will never afford are so meaningless to my amazingly enlightened soul that I could have them for free and don’t bother.”
• cousin_it 7y ago
  Status sucks. The greatest invention of civilization is trade, which makes status obsolete. In a society that upholds property rights of everyone, even the lowest can get ahead without being seen as superior or excellent. Just offer something that other people want to have, and ask for a little money in return. The result of that process - that a low-status-looking, fat, filthy, cowardly trader ends up driving a BMW - is hated by the public, who would rather see a proud warrior in that BMW, winning it through status instead of lowly trade. But fuck that. I hope trade keeps ascending, and people who are disliked but provide good things to others - cowardly traders, smelly nerds, the whole sad group that I identify with - keep getting more good stuff in lieu of status competition.
  • leftyted 7y ago
    > The greatest invention of civilization is trade, which makes status obsolete. In a society that upholds property rights of everyone, even low-status "omegas" can get ahead without ever being seen as superior or excellent. Just offer something that other people want to have, and ask for a little money in return. "Trade" doesn't let you escape status. "Omegas" who get ahead by being smart are competing for status and are "seen as superior or excellent". Humans have built all this stuff because we have been able to invent arbitrary status games. If our status games were only about some combination of physical size and cunning, we'd still be living in a "state of nature".
    • cousin_it 7y ago
      Trade is the opposite of a zero-sum status game: it creates gains and shares them among participants. (Gains from trade exist whenever Alice and Bob have different rates of exchange between good X and good Y.) Success in trade doesn't come from being better than others and making them less successful, it comes from trading with others and making them more successful.
      • CraigJPerry 7y ago
        How do you reconcile corporate software sales with that world view? Trade is entirely predicated upon status and status is only partially predicated upon trade.
• bustedtin2017 7y ago
  I love to play this game by taking the oneupmanship to an absurd level. If someone is humble bragging about stressing over a speaking engagement, I’ll causally mention that the student organizations that book speakers at Yale can be difficult to work with. If they start talking about their Tesla, I’ll work in a mention about how tragic it is that Fedship isn’t committing enough resources to electric conversions. I was at a work function and a colleague was going on about Zenga suits, I then started complaining that Zilli hasn’t opened enough boutiques in North America. I don’t even own a car or a suit, much less a superyacht or far-end men’s couture. I don’t play in bad faith like this if I value the input of the people I’m talking to. I definitely smile and nod if I like or need something from someone playing this game. I suppose by displaying awareness of the brands I’m also engaging in the game on the same side of the spectrum as the folks who actually wear a Rolex/Patek watch. Anywho, if you find yourself In a conversation with someone bitching about how the tax benefits of a third vacation home aren’t what they used to be, you might be talking to me.
• leftyted 7y ago
  > There is a philosophical conundrum at the root of all this: morality requires we maintain a safety net at the bottom that catches everyone—the alternative is simply inhumane—but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. In other words, we need worth to come for free, and we also need it to be acquirable. And no philosopher—not Kant, not Aristotle, not Nietzsche, not I—has yet figured out how to construct a moral theory that allows us to say both of those things. Maybe it's true that no philosopher has adequately solved this problem. But that doesn't seem to matter. Most of us live in societies that provide a safety net while also providing hierarchies to climb. The fact that there's no clear philosophical grounding for this doesn't seem to bother us.
  • 09bjb 7y ago
    > There is a philosophical conundrum at the root of all this: morality requires we maintain a safety net at the bottom that catches everyone—the alternative is simply inhumane—but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. In other words, we need worth to come for free, and we also need it to be acquirable. And no philosopher—not Kant, not Aristotle, not Nietzsche, not I—has yet figured out how to construct a moral theory that allows us to say both of those things. * When your worth is already infinite, you are free to aspire to whatever accomplishment you choose, knowing that it'll be the same in the end whether you get there or not. * When your worth does not change when it is compared to another's "excellence, creativity, and accomplishment" at some superior "top", you don't have a moral conundrum (or an inferiority complex). * The "conundrum" becomes non-sensical when you can celebrate the accomplishments of others with the same enthusiasm as your own. * Worth is not "acquirable": it is something you always have but have to discover. Hoping that comparative excellence, creative output, and worldly accomplishment will provide it for you will simply cost you time. So I would argue that the real game here is widening your sense of identification to include all players of the game. And once you're there, maybe you'll have a lighthearted, arbitrary aspiration to see that that point of view is spread... Who wants to play the love game?
    • mikelyons 7y ago
• Gimpei 7y ago
  I struggle a bit with pieces like this because I genuinely am not trying to establish or gauge another person's status when I first meet them. And I really don't think I'm in denial on this. Outside of a business context, it doesn't feel all that important, nor does it feel in any way clear cut. What qualifies as higher status anyway? It's going to vary based on idiosyncratic values whether you are more impressed by a painter or a CEO or an academic or an activist or a caregiver etc.
• ahi 7y ago
  Of course this is written by an academic. Most of the rewards and penalties of academia are status related. No one besides the football coach is making private sector money, and no one gets fired for anything less than a felony. There are large portions of the ivory tower that do nothing more than burnish the self-importance of other status seekers; armies of Associate Dean of Innovative Circle Jerks attending pointless conferences. This is largely unavoidable in large organizations. As another article recently posted here described, it's a natural consequence of hierarchical layers never interacting with people doing the work (the bottom) or the people ultimately accountable (the top). The real danger comes when status seeking culture overwhelms the organization as it has a tendency to be infectious. Status becomes the currency as well method of getting ahead. "Surely I am entitled to this position of importance and compensation. I am not full of shit for if I was, I would not deserve this position of importance and compensation." Actual competence and efficacy are existential threats to these people, so they further reward those below them who excel stroking their ego and bullshitting. No, not everyone is trying to establish status in every interaction. In polite company we call those people shitheads. Shitheads have a tendency to believe everyone else is also a shithead. Some of us are actually trying to get things done, and play their silly games only because it gets them out of our office.
  • qnsi 7y ago
    so you like to play equality game?
  • sangnoir 7y ago
    > Of course this is written by an academic I see you are truly gifted at this game - that is a sublime opening gambit.
• zweep 7y ago
  I remember hearing a story about Walmart founder Sam Walton at an annual vendors meeting. He walked up onto the stage and pulled his glasses out of his pocket and a bunch of his personal effects got pulled out and spilled on the floor and he got on his hands and knees to pick them up before going on stage. Then in another meeting with a completely different set of people he did the same exact thing. The guy who told me the story asked him what was going on and he said that the vendors in the room were making American median income and he was one of the richest guys in the world and he had to bring himself down a notch if he was going to connect with them. This kind of stuff is harder to do now, since the first one would have been on Twitter within minutes.
• deleted 7y ago
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