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> evolution had humans use their absolute income/wealth to judge their relative status This is false thru history. A noble man could be higher status than a ri
by ElViajero 5y ago
> evolution had humans use their absolute income/wealth to judge their relative status
This is false thru history. A noble man could be higher status than a rich merchant, to not talk about race.
The article gets what could be some reasonable conclusion from wrong data. It seems that the author started from an opinion, and then build a case around it.
> low level workers are often well advised to “keep *their* head down”, and just do their job.
> *we* all tend to rise in status when we seem to influence the behavior of others, but fall when lower status others seem to influence us.
Also, from the article I have an strong feeling that the author thinks of himself as high-status.
- notahacker 5y agoA more fundamental criticism is that "status" itself is a subjective, cultural and temporally unstable concept so I don't see how humanity can collectively "overestimate" our status simply because it doesn't accord with a particular economic measure of it. (It may be related to the old observation that the American poor see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", but it's a massively overstated, stretchy version of that idea) There are plenty of reasons to see our "status" as closer to peers of Jeff Bezos or the Duke of Westminster than serfs deserving only to serve them (not least Jeff and the Duke probably seeing it that way too!) and I'm not sure the size of the economic gap corrects that perception, which is based mostly on other measures of self worth
- ansible 5y ago> Also, from the article I have an strong feeling that the author thinks of himself as high-status. It is Robin Hanson, so... yeah, that's exactly the thought process.