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> How can you make a better experiment than that? You would need to make real, deep friendships with high status individuals over a long period of time and obs

> How can you make a better experiment than that? You would need to make real, deep friendships with high status individuals over a long period of time and observe how they behave, what motivates them, what they have access to and what constrains them. And you'd need to do it while you're both still young and formative life experiences are still being made. It might be too late for you to do this because the best time to do this is as early in life as possible, through formative social experiences: high school, then college (not as ideal), then early career (under 25 -- even less ideal). At each of these points, people and their social groups are progressively more crystallized, and your likelihood of making friends with someone outside of your class decreases precipitously. Your "experiment" (I would hesitate to call it that) is really just two separate experiences held by one person. In all likelihood, the things that are held invariant there (you, the person) including strengths, weaknesses, formative social bonds, socioeconomic class that you were born into -- all those have much more of an effect on your outcomes than anything else, and even if you do see slightly higher social status as an army officer, it's not truly high status, the way examples I gave (billionaires, investors, children of nobility, famous artists and musicians) indicate. They live differently. They inherited their already high status, and continue moving savvily to increase it further. They are the results of many generations of this. If you're not friends with them, you won't get invited to their parties and you won't see their world. You won't understand. Their world is /completely/ different than yours. Theirs is ruled by tradition. They have obscene amounts of resources. They can do whatever they want. They maintain their position. You cannot experiment in any way possible that would imply anything about the way they live their lives; to think otherwise would be very naive and simply at odds at reality. If it seems like that's unfair and that makes it tough or impossible for you to experimentally verify: I'd say I agree with you, but that it was designed that way on purpose over thousands of years. And don't take my word for it. Make friends with these people, if you can. See how they see their world and move inside of it. Your priors might change. I know mine did.

deleted 6y ago
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chrisseaton 6y ago
> You would need to make real, deep friendships with high status individuals over a long period of time This is backwards - in order to see how people treat people based on their profession, you can't make friends with them... because then they aren't judging you on your profession any more, are they? If the exact same person is treated in two different ways, and absolutely nothing changes except their profession, then the profession is the only possible cause of the difference. You try it! Go into an environment presenting with one profession, then another, and see the difference! Book into a hotel describing yourself as 'doctor' and you'll get treated differently than when you book in as 'mister'. You can try it yourself and it's plainly obvious that society sees a difference. > it's not truly high status I think you're possibly lost track of where this started - I said A was lower than the B. You're trying to argue with me that B isn't the highest, but I never said that - you're arguing against something nobody said in the first place.
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  > This is backwards - in order to see how people treat people based on their profession, you can't make friends with them... because then they aren't judging you on your profession any more, are they? > I think you're possibly lost track of where this started - I said A was lower than the B I think you're unintentionally making my point for me. You may be missing the limitations of your singular example, and the archetype to which it belongs. The reason you think that your vocation has anything to do with it is because you lack charisma to such a degree that the miniscule surface level that vocation affects how you are perceived has a significant effect on how how you perceive others to perceive you. You don't seem to understand that there are people out there who are extremely well off and very charming and who can make friends with anyone within half an hour such that whatever their profession is simply does not matter. Vocation is optional for them. The world is a playground for their charisma. Would they play alone? Of course not. The world is a playground for many with charisma, resources or not. For you, the much more likely scenario is that your example is a common scenario for those that lack charisma, often those whose identity can be reduced to their vocation. But this is obviously not universal. For you to say A is lower than B when for all intents and purposes both your A(x) and B(x) are lower than either my A(y) and B(y) doesn't mean that A < B or A > B -- it could easily mean that x << y and that A(z) = z and B(z) = z. And if that were the case, you would never know unless you broadened your sample, and quite frankly, your viewpoint for how things work for others. Is charisma highly variable within members of a vocation and within the general population? I would say yes, and trivially so.

deleted 6y ago

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chrisseaton 6y ago

> You would need to make real, deep friendships with high status individuals over a long period of time This is backwards - in order to see how people treat people based on their profession, you can't make friends with them... because then they aren't judging you on your profession any more, are they? If the exact same person is treated in two different ways, and absolutely nothing changes except their profession, then the profession is the only possible cause of the difference. You try it! Go into an environment presenting with one profession, then another, and see the difference! Book into a hotel describing yourself as 'doctor' and you'll get treated differently than when you book in as 'mister'. You can try it yourself and it's plainly obvious that society sees a difference. > it's not truly high status I think you're possibly lost track of where this started - I said A was lower than the B. You're trying to argue with me that B isn't the highest, but I never said that - you're arguing against something nobody said in the first place.

yowlingcat 6y ago
> This is backwards - in order to see how people treat people based on their profession, you can't make friends with them... because then they aren't judging you on your profession any more, are they? > I think you're possibly lost track of where this started - I said A was lower than the B I think you're unintentionally making my point for me. You may be missing the limitations of your singular example, and the archetype to which it belongs. The reason you think that your vocation has anything to do with it is because you lack charisma to such a degree that the miniscule surface level that vocation affects how you are perceived has a significant effect on how how you perceive others to perceive you. You don't seem to understand that there are people out there who are extremely well off and very charming and who can make friends with anyone within half an hour such that whatever their profession is simply does not matter. Vocation is optional for them. The world is a playground for their charisma. Would they play alone? Of course not. The world is a playground for many with charisma, resources or not. For you, the much more likely scenario is that your example is a common scenario for those that lack charisma, often those whose identity can be reduced to their vocation. But this is obviously not universal. For you to say A is lower than B when for all intents and purposes both your A(x) and B(x) are lower than either my A(y) and B(y) doesn't mean that A < B or A > B -- it could easily mean that x << y and that A(z) = z and B(z) = z. And if that were the case, you would never know unless you broadened your sample, and quite frankly, your viewpoint for how things work for others. Is charisma highly variable within members of a vocation and within the general population? I would say yes, and trivially so.