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Choose your status game wisely

330 points by throw0101a 5y ago

ca98am79 5y ago
I like and can relate to the first part of this article a lot, but the solution ("Outsmarting the Status Game") just seems to be doing more of the same. Doesn't feel like a real solution. I think the real solution is to drop out of the status game and not play at all. Forget what the others think. I've come to realize that all I really care about is what I think of myself, and what my wife and kids think of me. Another goal, and the ultimate root of all goals, is Peace of Mind. This is the one and only game to play - status is just a mirage when what the person is really trying to get is Peace of Mind. I think this is the most important thing in life and I try to teach my kids this.
mherdeg 5y ago
I always wonder why folks with 9-figure net worth (or high 8) keep doing any job at all. People do not get very many quality-adjusted life years -- why would you spend 8+ hours per day doing CEO work when you could spend that time with family and friends?
- csdvrx 5y ago
  What if they prefer work to family and friends? A lot of people seem to prefer contributing to wikipedia or writing free software to partying, so it doesn't seem far fetched.
- slivanes 5y ago
  I'm guessing because not many family and friends would have the same net-worth to have the spare time time to hang out all day. I think of Notch as an example, I'm pretty sure he got quite lonely once he got paid out for Minecraft.
- patches11 5y ago
  The article offers some potential explanations. As they achieve more status their peer group changes and they desire more status relative to their new group. They are looking for that huge exit or massive success. Alternatively you just don't see the people who retire and spend time with family and friends. They don't post here, they don't have blogs, they don't have articles posted about them. They are just living life.
  - gigaflop 5y ago
    > the people who retire and spend time with family and friends That's the ideal way to go, imo. I'm trying to slowly figure out what I need to live that kind of life, so that I can become some sort of cyberpunk mountain man when I reach financial independence. Identify what makes me happy, what I need for those happiness-generating activities, etc, and make sure that I'm set up to enjoy myself.
- georgeecollins 5y ago
  Work can be really enjoyable if you have more power to control how your time is spent. No one has complete control of how their time is spent, but that is true of life. If you aren't working you are still going to need to structure your time around activities like hobbies. At this point in my life work is one of my favorite hobbies.
- petercooper 5y ago
  I used to wonder that too. Having got to know a handful of people who've become very wealthy through their own efforts, though, I suspect being proactive is enjoyable for them ("thrill of the chase" and all that) in a way that undirected leisure is not. Some business people seem to be as compelled to strike deals or build companies in a similar way to how prolific authors or artists feels compelled to engage in their art.
- brimble 5y ago
  They probably enjoy it. Being a CEO or whatever doesn't look like sitting in a cubicle all damn day. Even the latter's much better if you know you have the money to quit whenever you feel like it. That alone makes a big difference, but they also have a lot more say in how they spend their time, and do completely different stuff. Making the big calls, having people who'll go do all kinds of stuff when you ask them to, meeting and hanging out with other important people, et c., probably feels awesome, and if you've got enough money socked away to never need to work again, all the "risk" is as real as playing poker with pennies.
  - fdgsdfogijq 5y ago
    I was going to say this. It's fun when you are that high up.
    - brimble 5y ago
      It's also the case that someone with quite a bit of money doesn't have as much non-work work to do. If you can afford to pay someone to do: all shopping (that you don't enjoy doing), all cooking (ditto), all cleaning (doing the laundry including putting it away, doing the dishes, cleaning your house, cleaning your car[s]), to drive you around so that time's not lost, et c., that recovers a ton of time. You can put quite a bit of that back into your job and still come out ahead in leisure and family time, compared with a worker bee who still has to do all that shit themselves, outside work hours.
      - gigaflop 5y ago
        Even with work-from-home, I can see how more money == more better in life. My dream home would need space for a home gym, workshop, and small office. Having a home, a home big enough for all of that, and then getting all of that would not be cheap, but it would mean dead-simple access to things I need and things that make me happy and fulfilled, which would mean more time spent fulfilling myself.
      - hallway_monitor 5y ago
        I can't believe I never thought about this. You don't have any drudgery and it doesn't really matter if you lose your job so your work is your leisure time. You're just playing. Okay, time to get rich.
- csa 5y ago
  > why would you spend 8+ hours per day doing CEO work when you could spend that time with family and friends? Your family and friends are usually busy working. The only exception is if you roll with other wealthy (early) retirees. If you have ever spent time around these folks, you might see why it’s not necessarily that compelling. I would humbly suggest that it’s easier to meet and hang out with interesting people under the guise of owning or working in some sort of business. If you actually like that business (many people do), then it’s a double win.
- sacrosancty 5y ago
  I hear this often. How about why do people in countries with good social welfare bother to work at all? Just sit in your free house eating your free food until you die of old age. Easiest life ever! Obviously, the answer is that people get satisfaction from working beyond simply what they can spend the money on.
- yojo 5y ago
  I’ve always figured it was some combination of selection and survivorship bias. Selection because only workaholics or super-strivers generally make it to that level. Survivorship because the only ones you see working are by definition the ones that didn’t quit. It is possible that many people who made that kind of money have quit and are just being quiet about it.
- jlokier 5y ago
  I've thought about this a few times. If I struck rich or won the lottery, I'd want to start doing CEO work, while funding my own rather ambitious projects. It would be unlikely to be someone else's company, but perhaps if I met the right person(s). Most likely, I'd hire a bunch of people, and they would help me with big R&D projects. Why would I want to waste 8+ hours a day hanging out with family and friends? I mean, I like family and friends. It's nice to spend time with them. I love them, and life would be missing something important without them. But it's not fulfilling to do it all the time. I'd really like to use my time here figuring out and building things, and the things I'd like to build are too big and adventerous to do by myself. They're also too big and adventurous to do putting in only a small fraction of the day: I'd either need to put in a lot of time, or there's no point. It doesn't come from just wanting to do the work. It also comes from imagining looking back on life when older. When I imagine looking back on a life of hanging out with family and friends, having fun, having big personal moments, ups and downs, all those memories, remarkable times, that seems very special, magical even. Very special! But I have to admit, not enough by itself. Given the chance, it's also motivating to want to be able to look back and see some of my grander dreams realised in some form. I can't explain why; it feels like an intrinsic motivation, and quite a burden really, because truth is, that's unlikely to happen. But seems worth trying. I imagine at least some well-off CEOs who are managing something big, even if it's not their own company, must be getting a similar sense of satisfaction from some internal drive to do something like that.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  There have been surveys where they ask people how much money they would need to feel comfortable and the usual answer is about 50% more than they currently have.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  CEOs don’t work, they exercise power. It’s a completely different concept from working and it’s totally fun. It’s the thing you do when you are bored with vacationing and spending time with friends.
scandox 5y ago
> I know some of you will say “Just ignore the status game altogether,” but this is easier said than done. Like many other animals, we are biologically wired to respond to status. Ignorance is not the way out. It's not ignorance to overcome our biology. It is possible to control our desire for status and to live better lives and be happier as a result. Also different cultures are much more competitive about status: America is pretty extreme in this respect.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  Status is a temporal, worldly thing. Among the better ways to "win" this game is to seek status in the metaphysical. In a way, this is "winning" through "not playing". By some measures, I'm doing OK at it, if money is the scoring basis. OTOH, I've lived with the same house/car/wardrobe for a couple of decades. Do these oligarchs/celebrities really have more joy than I? Maybe.
  - quinnjh 5y ago
    Is this the same logic as religiously shunning wealth for returns in the afterlife/spiritual realm? Maybe this is how you counter the maybe?
- _bfhp 5y ago
  I have come to read any statement like "we are biologically wired to X" as a declaration of nihilism and misanthropy. Wired is what a light bulb is to a switch. Individual humans are complex, beautiful and capable of overcoming pretty much anything, including biological tendencies.
  - qwertygnu 5y ago
    > Wired is what a light bulb is to a switch. lol this is a good one. might have to steal it ;)
  - andreilys 5y ago
    Blank slatism and the ignorance of human nature has done far more harm for humans than those who acknowledge that our brains haven’t evolved much since our days as foraging tribes.
Flankk 5y ago
You should do what makes you feel fulfilled in life. If that thing is status, I question your motivation. People like that are conceited.
- sacrosancty 5y ago
  I think it's rarely status on its own, but people keep seeming to turn activities into status competitions. Even something humble like a retired man doing woodturning wants to make a more beautiful piece that people appreciate.
- alar44 5y ago
  Feeling fulfilled doesn't pay the bills, unfortunately.
  - Flankk 5y ago
    False dichotomy, it usually does. One day you will die. You won't be thinking about bills.
    - retrac 5y ago
      "Who will look after my dependents or children? Will they be safe and comfortable?" is one of the main worries for people when they die, I figure.
    - alar44 5y ago
      And if you spent your life in poverty trying to be an artist, you might think "would have been nice to not have been scraping by my whole life". I did the passion project thing for 15 years. Much happier with a stable income and not worrying about money.
ambicapter 5y ago
> instability is hell for high status individuals I feel like this explains a lot about how power structures fight so hard to stay in power--they're biologically wired to suffer more when they lose out than those at the bottom. This is both something "everyone knows" and refreshing to finally see put in print.
- insickness 5y ago
  Beyond that, the gratification from accomplishing something is short-lived. If your last book sold a million copies and your new book only sells 500k, you may feel like a failure even though 500k is a lot of books. In some ways, success only adds to the pressure to keep succeeding. This isn't to say you shouldn't try to succeed, but it certainly explains why so many famous or successful people deal with problems like depression and drug addiction.
- octoberfranklin 5y ago
  It also conveys a benefit to those of low status. High-status individuals' job is to produce stability. Read Chimpanzee Politics; it will completely change the way you see human interaction and power.
derbOac 5y ago
There's some wisdom in this post but it kinda sidesteps for me one of the biggest problems I see with status seeking, which is at some point it seems to -- or at least can -- increasingly involve randomness, corruption, or increasingly unsubstantiable goals. It's like a variant of Goodhart's Law or Campbell's law, but involving randomness and invalidity in addition to corruption, and where those laws also become more important the further you go up the metric dimension. Even putting aside the issues of value, in the sense of "should I value status in this area", there's this other issue: if you have a metric that's, say, correlated .2 or .3 with some underlying attribute, then almost by statistical definition as you start splitting hairs more and more you're splitting up more and more noise. As you chase status further and further, you're dealing with that more and more. Maybe this is the same thing as his analogy about instability in hierarchies at some level. But if so I'm not sure the implications are followed as far as they could be.
swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
Who is more cool? Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc... Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves? There's a minority of people who go by their own compass. The things that gratify status seekers don't do it for them. That's not to say they don't have needs. They need friends, stimulation, hobbies, achievements. But they recognize it as a personal thing. There's also people who are so far down the status chain that they don't relate to it any more, and have stopped trying.
- phpnode 5y ago
  > Who is more cool? > Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc... > Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves? The first one. It's the first one.
  - sneak 5y ago
    My face when I realized that a combover, power tie, fake tan, and trophy wife is really all it takes to sell a median person on it (oh, and millions of dollars).
    - avereveard 5y ago
      Millions of dollars optional, they can be borrowed dollars, access to which seem easier if you are connected and signalling good status
    - mattgreenrocks 5y ago
      Next question: why are you seeking being seen this way from a random person?
      - sneak 5y ago
        I'm not, but then again I don't wish to be the president of the United States. It just strikes me as silly that the traditional status game is so easily gamed (demonstrably effectively).
deleted 5y ago
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LAC-Tech 5y ago
Honestly I wish I had paid a bit more attention to status in my life. Our culture tells you don't need to follow the crowd or play the game and you can march to the beat of your own drum. But honestly, that's overrated.
- awgm 5y ago
  Same with going along with the crowd
- fullshark 5y ago
  Everyone realizes their world view as an adolescent was incomplete as they get older, doesn't matter if it’s "status doesn't matter personal/relationship happiness is all that matters" or "accruing status is crucial for personal/relationship success and therefore happiness" or whatever. They are all overly simplified.
- balaji1 5y ago
  What do you wish you had more of in terms of status? Or where you wish you had followed the crowd?
  - LAC-Tech 5y ago
    Just wish I'd played the game more. Focused on grades, internships, prestigious companies. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a sob story. I'm just very career & success focused in my 30s, and was too school for cool up until my mid 20s.
    - balaji1 5y ago
      Not about a sob story. But it seems like a lot of people wish they had not been too cool for school. Many times, too cool for school phase also includes rebelling against parents. There is a lack of enough guidance or mentors for youngsters. So if the youngster doesn't have enough self-discipline and a vision, he/she is going to be confused. And a mentor has to be a wholistic mentor for many facets of life. Also not enough parents are looking out for their kids through adulthood and having their backs. Elders are not able to allocate enough time for their adult children. Their priorities are spread too thin. They struggle to communicate with the children.
f0e4c2f7 5y ago
Sometimes you see articles like this that insist that you have to play a status game of some kind etc etc. The hacker in me sees that as even more reason to look for examples of ways alleviate myself of such nonsense. If you read books like "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" you run across stories of him playing with Status games and poking fun at them. Though I'm sure one could argue Feynman had status games he played in his own way. In any case thats always the attitude I've preferred to take towards status. I just don't know how anyone can take themselves so seriously in a world where the highest paid and smartest among us wear rainbow hats with propellers. Don't take life so seriously and goof around a little more. Thats how you turn up interesting ideas anyway, not by playing status games.
- sacrosancty 5y ago
  Status usually represents having done some social good. The more good you do, the higher your status. If you look at it as a measure of how much good a person has done, then it might not seem so contemptable. Who did more good for more people - a hermit or Bill Gates?
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    His kids will have higher status than most people, what did they do?
    - FredPret 5y ago
      They inherited the DNA of a guy who did lots of good, thus leading our lizard brains to suppose that they, too, have potential
  - joshuacc 5y ago
    Many cultures and religions would say that the hermit did, or at least might have. :)
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > Status usually represents having done some social good. For whatever value of "good" applies in that particular social network, yes. But that value of "good" might not be anything we would call "good" in ordinary language. For example, Bill Gates does have high status, but he has it because he is rich, not because of the particular things he did that made him rich. Those things happened to be reasonably beneficial (how much so depends on your opinion of Windows and Microsoft, and opinions on that can...vary), but many other rich people got that way by doing things that were not. Yet they still get status according to their wealth.
lordnacho 5y ago
The thing I do is I keep many social circles. Family groups, friends from different language groups, work groups, educational groups, interest groups, kids' friends' parents, and so on. That way there's really no hierarchy, it's like being a contractor at a business or an acquaintance at a party. People will still find you interesting but not threatening. Weirdly they also find you familiar despite you not being there all the time. I guess it's decreasing marginal returns. If you have some time to waste, look at one of those Real Housewives of X shows. They love having rivalries, but they're only fighting each other because it's such a closed group. Having lots of groups also lets you take off some of the intensity of your relationships. You don't have a sole provider of entertainment or warmth or intellectual stimulation, so you don't have to do everything their way. You can take a break from any particular person. And you get a lot of invitations. I'm even a bit suspicious of people who seem to have exactly one group of friends that they're always with and have always been in. Often I find there's some sort of blockage there in their maturation, making it hard for them to communicate.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  I would advise against looking for anything real on Real Housewives of X
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Interestingly, I kind of do the opposite. I have one tiny social circle, basically my immediate family (wife and two kids). I work to make money, then spend that money on my family and my hobbies, which are all solo endeavors. I don’t socialize outside of that, really. I play video games once a week with my high school friends online. My hobbies aren’t involved in my status because I don’t really talk to anyone about them. I build things for myself, I create things that I never show anyone, just because I enjoy doing it. I play with my kids, and talk with my wife. Don’t really have a desire to do much else.
- jkaptur 5y ago
  I'm a huge fan of the Real Housewives of X for two reasons - first, like you say, they're fantastic petri dishes of relationships and status games. But even beyond intellectual curiosity, they also give you a useful topic of conversation when you take your advice and socialize beyond the Hacker News / Silicon Valley bubble.
jakub_g 5y ago
The story about monkeys shifted all the time between groups, and the status-seeking ones being most stressed, made me think about my experience changing teams/jobs. I'm generally not a status seeking person, I don't care about promotions etc. as long as job/team/pay is good. I consider myself ok programmer but not top one. When I join a new team, I don't want status per se, but I want people to know that I don't suck. Which is in fact status seeking. Typically first year in a new team is kinda exhausting each time due to ramping up a lot of new knowledge and trying to prove my value. (That's why I try to only change ~every 3 years; to have enough breathing room, but when I get tired of a project, I need to change).
_def 5y ago
Thinking about this stuff seems like a waste of time to me. If you think status makes you happy, I assume there are still some things you need to figure out for yourself. But maybe it's the other way around, who knows. Still, I don't care. :)
- hallway_monitor 5y ago
  I think part of the point is that you actually do care and you need to care and this is healthy. For instance, if you dressed in dirty clothes and didn't take care of yourself that would be very low status. Anyone coming in contact with you would smell your low status immediately and treat you accordingly. So, if you bathe, shave, and wear clean clothes then you are already playing the status game. And that's great!
  - Jordrok 5y ago
    Not necessarily. I would argue that plenty of people bathe and wear clean clothes more for their own comfort rather than that of others. The fact that these things can be interpreted as status signals has nothing to do with the motivation for taking these actions in the first place.
skmurphy 5y ago
this reminded me of the "This is Water" commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. Key graf: "In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive." Full talk available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
- neilv 5y ago
  Yeah, this part of TFA sounded like it might almost be a reference to the DFW speech: > This is why you have to choose your status game wisely. Because whatever status game you choose in life ultimately determines what you optimize for. Choose money and you’ll end up working all the time. Choose beauty and you’ll always want to look better. Choose fame and you’ll constantly be seeking attention.
  - allenu 5y ago
    The inverse to this is the old quote attributed to Joe Biden: “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” If you want to see what someone values, look at where they spend their time, money, resources, etc.
    - edmundsauto 5y ago
      Don’t tell me what your system diagram says, show me your data models.
  - skmurphy 5y ago
    Nick Maggiulli vectors people to https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata to comment on his posts. Alex Hardy commented two days ago https://twitter.com/CantHardyWait/status/1508789463664709646 https://twitter.com/CantHardyWait/status/1508789463664709646 “There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” I did not see this when I left my comment here. But Maggiulli responded https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/1508815480466849794 https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/150881548046684979... DFW is a major influence [I am inferring DFW = David Foster Wallace]. Bryce Thornton https://twitter.com/brycethornton/status/1508788922624716802 https://twitter.com/brycethornton/status/1508788922624716802 pointed to the YouTube video and Maggiulli replied https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/1508815519532699667 https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/150881551953269966... "It's so good" I would have thought he would have done more to credit Wallace as an influence. I had blogged about the Foster commencement speech at https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2012/05/27/david-foster-wallace-the-only-choice-we-get-is-what-to-worship/ https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2012/05/27/david-foster-wallac... which is why I saw the resonance. Wallace offered an appropriate antidote to a model for entrepreneurial motivation that aspires to make enough money to do whatever you want. He outlines some of the risks in failing to align your life with a higher spiritual purpose.
angarg12 5y ago
Not sure how this will sit with the HN crowd, but a couple of years back I got into menswear, and I derive some pleasure from being the "best dressed guy" at the office. Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those categories, but bringing both together makes you stand out more.
- chadcmulligan 5y ago
  I have observed multiple times if I 'suit up' at work it's like I'm wearing a shield, it's a strange game. It has to be a good suit though, naturally enough. Edit: this is when dealing with the business folk that is, techies don't care.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - rufus_foreman 5y ago
    Also good to do it from time to time out of nowhere and then take a long lunch. If they want to keep you, you'll get a raise. You'll probably also want to make sure your Linked In profile has been updated recently.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Or they'll assume you're leaving and choose not to compete to retain you. Then all the bonus etc gets funneled to the other coworkers.
- epgui 5y ago
  I actually feel pressure to dress down in my role as a SWE: hoodies and jeans seem like the norm, and forget about wearing a suit (lol!) or even a dress shirt. I've found black/grey turtlenecks to be a nice middle ground, and apart from the occasional "one more thing" (Steve Jobs) or Elizabeth Holmes comment, those tend to work well.
blymphony 5y ago
I'm surprised people in this thread are so opposed to trying to gain status. It took me too long to realize, but status, like money, is just a tool at your disposal in society. You can be too obsessed with status, just like you can be too obsessed with money, and use them for the "wrong" reasons. But there are things money lets you do that you couldn't do otherwise, like buying a home for your family or bootstrapping a company. For status, it's the same. Going to X school gives you an easier chance of getting into X company. Knowing X amount of people gives you more opportunities to meet other well-connected people, allowing you to gain more diversified interactions and/or spread your own influence. Having a trustworthy reputation gives people a reason to give you a minute of their time, and sometimes that first impression is all you need to start a relationship or get funding for your company. Finally, there are things that status gives you that all the money in the world won't.
- abhaynayar 5y ago
  > Going to X school gives you an easier chance of getting into X company. Unless the school and company are the same, it should be Y company. > Knowing X amount of people N would be a nice sounding variable here.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    Nitpicking is low status.
Animats 5y ago
One can sometime make quite a bit of money by running status games for profit. Here's the pitch deck for Bored Ape Yacht Club.[1] This is for investors, and they are very clear about how they are exploiting their customers. Rolex is in that business. Rolex watches cost 5x what they cost in the 1960s, adjusted for inflation. A CEO of Rolex, Andre Heiniger, "We are not in the watch business. We are in the luxury business." There was a flap a few years ago when someone found fake Rolexes with authentic movements. Turns out the mechanics were outsourced until 2004. [1] https://twitter.com/LeonidasNFT/status/1505058932758360064 https://twitter.com/LeonidasNFT/status/1505058932758360064
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Years ago I did a small project for Harrods.[1] I have never had such an abusive and dysfunctional client, before or since. I have a suspicion that all the luxury brands are the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods
ZYinMD 5y ago
It's a sad truth but for most of us, when it comes to "decide which status game to play", you're simply aiming for money no matter what you choose. Money is the overarching metric that already incorporates everything else. The "weightlifting status" or the "content creator status" mentioned in the article are just money status in disguise. Ask yourself: if you won a big lottery tomorrow, would you still keep doing what you do today? If the answer is no, then you've been playing the money game all along.
- rubidium 5y ago
  And then suffer a life on the hedonic treadmill dying smug and somehow all alone.
- williamtrask 5y ago
  Overnight fame can be just as disruptive
  - bruce511 5y ago
    I don't get the attraction of fame at all. Money, yes, money allows me to do what I _want_ to do, it would give me time that I otherwise have to spend working. But fame _reduces_ what I can do. Famous people can't just pop down the local for a pint (in whatever city they happen to be in that week), famous people attract paparazzi - they're harrased by strangers... Like I say, I don't get the appeal..
    - rufus_foreman 5y ago
      "I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job." -- Bill Murray
- nine_zeros 5y ago
  > Ask your self: if you won a big lottery tomorrow, would you still keep doing what you do today? If the answer is no, then you've been playing the money game all along. It doesn't end there. For people who really want the monetary status, there is a point where chasing more money doesn't cut it. They change their status game to something else at that point, say fame and connections with an elite group of people e.g. selective cliques or investing in a football team.
thenerdhead 5y ago
I learned a bit about status when doing comedy improv. I think status in theory can be seen as a gradient and shift to one extreme at any time. Keith Johnstone is famous for his thoughts on status in his book, but here’s a snippet that complements the article: https://www.respect4acting.com/status1.html https://www.respect4acting.com/status1.html
kstenerud 5y ago
Ugh. This is why I hate living among people: everyone is playing these stupid status games, and assumes that you are as well. I was happiest living in the middle of nowhere, where the only status I had was being the weirdo who never speaks to anyone. Can't wait to get enough money together to retire that way again.
fargle 5y ago
This is so cringey. Please don't behave as this would suggest. In technical and scientific areas as most of our HN friends are likely to be, seeking status, measuring status, cultivating and being concerned with it is just a negative. It's true that there is status, but that status should be honestly earned and it's definitely not a game to "play". This is a constant source of miscommunication between the social and political factions inside and outside of work vs. the hard-core engineer technocrats. The people-people think that we make decisions and take actions, or have opinions because we are playing the game - and we're not playing it right! Or worse are playing with the wrong team. Backing the wrong horse, refusing to "play along", etc. Troublemakers! But see it's just that we're not playing a game. We actually did the research and just honestly think that thing X is not the best thing (even though it's the bosses bosses pet project). We're independently and internally motivated, and don't give a jot what others think (so we think). Conversely we often think the lovely people-people are idiots because they pick the wrong solutions, don't back doing it "the right way", etc. Because we sometimes don't understand that they are playing a game. This means we underestimate them and their motives, as well as misunderstand the invisible rules and potential consequences. The best engineering cultures are those that keep and encourage those like-minded, non-game-playing folks together and happy and far, far away from those politics and games. They need savy honest management to insulate them from that stuff and to translate between the cultures. And to weed out fakers who are trying to play games amongst those naive to it.
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I’ve never encountered such a good explanation of why privileged people should care about the concept of privilege but here it is. This is the Rosetta for those who want it. It’s exactly the same thing.
paulpauper 5y ago
Ppl keeping repeating that Scott Adams intersection tip as if it's useful or clever , and it's not. Being mediocre at two things and combining them just makes you mediocre. The third skill that results from the combination of two skills still has its own learning curve and hierarchy. Things don't just get easier. It just means you're just playing a different game that has different challenges.
powerslacker 5y ago
> I know some of you will say “Just ignore the status game altogether,” but this is easier said than done. Like many other animals, we are biologically wired to respond to status. Ignorance is not the way out. > The way out is building a solid foundation of status in multiple things. It’s about becoming diversified in your life, not just your portfolio. You don't have to pursue status. You can be aware of your innate desire to pursue status and then avoid doing it as much as possible.
- adamredwoods 5y ago
  Or better yet, don't let social status affect your mental status. I believe contentness and acceptance is the better path. I feel this article was specifically written for people that care about their social status. It can be healthy to be somewhat competitive, but unhealthy when it becomes obsession. The author also fails to recognize the people who fail trying to reach this 'status' objective. What happens then? Try to find a new status to conquer? Why? Where does it end? Tonya Harding?
tomcam 5y ago
> It was heavy metal or bust and I didn’t care what anyone else thought. Status among my friends was determined not by how popular you were, but by your music abilities These statements appear to be in conflict
ehnto 5y ago
It's worth noting what arena you are playing in too. The issue with status these days is that the internet has us all performing on a world stage. Relative to everyone in my real life community, I usually have an edge when it comes to fitness. Relative to the world? I may as well be a mouse! I am pretty quick on the bike, second fastest on strava yesterday at my local, and a pretty nifty bike! But relative to instagram? I am slow as a slug, and I may as well have found my bike in a dumpster, with these 20k rigs that get all the attention. So I guess my approach is to try and stay on local communities, or niche online communities. Not to be the best in them, just because I am not the best and don't need to be to enjoy my life and improve, so it's more relatable than the exceptionalism on the broader net.
xenocratus 5y ago
> Choose money and you’ll end up working all the time. Choose beauty and you’ll always want to look better. Choose fame and you’ll constantly be seeking attention. This is straight-up paraphrasing David Foster Wallace in This Is Water, just that DFW was talking about these things as de-facto personal religions that we're usually unconscious of. So the "choose" part isn't nearly that explicit in his view. The bit in This Is Water: > If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you... Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.
- bsenftner 5y ago
  So don't be an idiot and "worship", be a rational balanced human and as the OP says diversify your interests. DFW tends to exaggerate to make his points, and this is an example. Nice prose, be it describes idiots and implies to the reader that everyone are such idiots.
  - tomgp 5y ago
    DFW concluded that if you don’t choose what to worship it gets chosen for you. What he’s saying is that one should be conscious and deliberate, self aware. Like much of DFW there’s a strong christian undercurrent to ‘this is water’. Far from being an argument against religion and worship the message i take is that the value of religion can be that it focuses one outward, towards community and so on.
    - dontcare007 5y ago
      not choosing is a choice too.
graderjs 5y ago
Heh :) I love this piece. It's so intelligent!
trh0awayman 5y ago
I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around. I grew up in one of the last WASP strongholds in the US and the more money you had, the smaller the house you lived in (up to a point). People could afford insanely expensive cars, but would buy tasteful ones instead (excepting kids). Most people wouldn't be caught dead in a Ralph Lauren polo, but would happily wear a bleach-stained, rumpled Brooks Brothers shirt. Outside of special occasions, people didn't dress nice at all - they dressed like they just came back from sailing. Engineering, medicine, and law were not considered high-status. Well, if you wanted to work a job, I guess they were - but they were considered ordinary. It was better to own something (but not work), run a non-profit, or have a PhD (in the classics, or whatever). Most parents told their children "I don't care what you do - but do something interesting!". Being an artist was considered good, too. Fame, and appearing in the media, were about the worst things you could achieve. The biggest status indicator was how well read you were. It is so deeply ingrained in me, that I still find myself more impressed by well read people than almost anything else, and I haven't lived there in over a decade. There are a couple of these strongholds remaining, where even the wealthiest people are not allowed to move to because they don't have the right last name, or can't trace their lineage to the Mayflower. If you removed these people and put them anywhere else, you'd think of them as low status and strange.
- giantg2 5y ago
  What is WASP? My search results seem to have a lot of noise, like wasps, the insects.
  - mcmullen 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants
  - hcho 5y ago
    white anglo-saxon protestant. old money types in US context.
  - deleted 5y ago
polypodiopsi 5y ago
"For example, if you are a competitive powerlifter, your status is determined by how much you can lift (strength) and how many competitions you have won (competitiveness). If you are a VC, your status is determined by what companies you have invested in (network) and how well those companies have performed (money). I could go on, but you get my point." I would have liked to see him go on... Money and strength... I see where this guy is coming from: The dog bro cage of american highschool stereotypes. Peak shallowness.
firstSpeaker 5y ago
I work in an enterprise and have loads of meeting with folks that are wearing suits while I am in the technical side of the house. I could clearly see that the approach changed when I started wearing suit pants (trousers?) and well ironed shirt and oxford into the meetings than my usual tshirt and jeans. As someone else said in the thread, it works like a shield and also a projection of authority somehow in those meetings. When I realised that I started building my closet up with shirts and trousers and retiring my tshirts and jeans for work outfit.
nathias 5y ago
Choose not to play status games and you’ll always want to escape society.
sputr 5y ago
The text does not mention, in my opinion, the most toxic status game: moral superiority. If choosing money leads to working all the time, and beauty to mental problems, choosing moral superiority leads to what you started out fighting against - an immoral person. This, in my opinion, happens through radicalization, which is a result of the fight to be "more ideologically pure" than others. The worst thing is, this game seems to be the dominant status game of the western society right now. And we thought the "who has more money" was bad. We should have counted our blessings. Nothing is worse than a fervent believer in the pureness of their own moral standing, who decides that yours is lacking. I used to, wrongly, believe that this level of fervent belief in ones own moral superiority only happens among the religious (with the well documented atrocities that follow). But, unfortunately, political ideology is not much different.
zeckalpha 5y ago
> I grew up in the middle class and everyone I knew was in the middle class (or close to it) as well. Therefore, the only time I saw status was on television. This may be a fish out of water thing, but to many, the middle class is a higher status (hence in the middle). Many in the working class would aspire to the opportunities this person had by high school.
Tao331 5y ago
By the end I wasn't convinced why I should be playing these games. What's status for? Is it going to make you happy? Alan Watts: > We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played. Maybe status gets you a big fancy grave and a televised funeral. Maybe even a "legacy" that can be tracked by structures named after you: ranging from park benches to libraries to aircraft carriers.
- sanderjd 5y ago
  > What's status for? Is it going to make you happy? Right, my takeaway was that status seeking is something you can use to try to achieve your personal goals, if you think conscientiously about it. It reminds me of the idea in the book Atomic Habits of first figuring out an identity, a kind of person you want to be, then identifying behaviors that would make you that kind of person, and then developing habits that reinforce those behaviors. Starting with identity works because the way we see ourselves is a powerful determinant of our behavior. For me, I think the thing I would like to be high status in is "being useful to society". Playing that status game may not make me happy, but if it succeeded in making me useful, I think that would be a good outcome.
- zdbrandon 5y ago
  My takeaway (not necessarily from the article, but from pondering on it) is that status is a lure. It has a certain gravity, and pulls others toward you who are playing in that same specific status game. It makes people want to be around you. Yes, you will feel this at first. So my next question was, why would I want people around me for my status? I think then, the trick is to use this lure to actually make more friends with people you wouldn’t otherwise have met. No longer because of your status, but because of all the qualities of true friendship (spending time together, self-disclosure, support in times of need, etc). With that you may lead a more fulfilling life. Would this be possible completely ignoring status? Is it even possible to completely ignore status? (Not just pretending not to play the game, but actually never thinking of how you’re perceived by others.) I guess my answer is, status == gravity. Gravity leads to more connections. Connections to friends if you work at it. Friends to a better life.
boh 5y ago
The writer is referring to perception, not status. Ultimately our modern society doesn't actually offer what has been traditionally called status. While perception is determined by consumer choices, performance, charisma or social competence, it is ultimately shallow, fickle, and limited. Status is far more durable. If you were the king of England in the pre-industrial age, it didn't matter if you were a failure, unattractive, unlikable, weak, unintelligent, accomplished nothing, you were still the king of England. In todays modern world, high "status" positions, whether you're the CEO of a company or a celebrity for instance, are temporary roles that require persistent effort to maintain. Once those roles are lost through retirement, expulsion, or irrelevance, the person loses whatever status it conferred. In the past, being a duke or count was a permanent status that remained regardless of your fortunes. There is no modern equivalent (at least in America where aristocratic titles are irrelevant). Ultimately we may be living in a world of unequal distribution of wealth, but we live in a world of equal status, since no one really has any.
- alecbz 5y ago
  I think I’d phrase it as “status used to be more stable”. I don’t see why we wouldn’t call social positions that are perceived to be desirable as “high-status” just because they can change. All social status is based on social perception, regardless of how stable it is. And I think it’s not as cut and dry as you’re making it sound. Dukes and lords (and probably even kings sometimes) could still lose status by, e.g., losing battles or territory, or not navigating the royal social hierarchy well. And having been a CEO continues to confer some amount of status even after you’ve left the position.
- erikerikson 5y ago
  I think you're distinguishing between held and assigned status leaning into a "realpolitik" of status. You're wrong about there being no modern equivalent. Today we talk about the owner class. Those who own income streams which is equivalent to having the "right" to continuous tax incomes. I would caution that wealth is only a single system to having your needs and desires met farmers can sustain themselves and others, academics actually develop superior knowledge which has transferable value (but less than academia will tell you), and so on.
ripvanwinkle 5y ago
This is equivalent to "choose your peer group/tribe/cohort wisely" Whatever you pick for your status game needs to align with your "tribe" to ensure you feel respected and connected even as you pursue your "status game". You might as well choose the crowd you feel most aligned with deep down and then pick a status game that most resonates for you and that "tribe". Because you have an affinity to that crowd it's likely there's one or more "status games" you all value. I think I've seen this advice earlier but can't recall where.
vincentmarle 5y ago
It’s funny how everyone in here pretends to not care about status, while not realizing that you’re just playing a different status game. I happen to enjoy playing status games and I’m fairly good at it. Even though I’m never the prettiest, wealthiest, strongest or most intelligent guy in the room, I always seem to be able to socially engineer myself to the alpha group status, regardless of what kind of social group it is. Status games are mostly about how people perceive you and how you can manipulate it in order to belong. It reminds me of this paradox: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
- lament76 5y ago
  If you always play with the alphas then it's no wonder you think everyone primarily cares about status. Most people primarily care about resources, the tribe and religion.
lament76 5y ago
Status is not very important for humans, except for a minority of hypercompetitive individuals. Most people lack the nerves for status games. The collective, the community and belonging are more important than status. The problem is that the top of a large pool of people selects for competitiveness, so if you aim high you likely need to play their games. There is hardly a way around it except maybe luck, gambling or remote work.
yourpalkeith 5y ago
I found this discussion of “the status game” and its variants to be really interesting and wanted to pass it along to those who find there way here: https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/who-wants-to-play-the-status-game-agnes-callard/ https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/who-wants-to-play-the-...

330 points by throw0101a 5y ago

I like and can relate to the first part of this article a lot, but the solution ("Outsmarting the Status Game") just seems to be doing more of the same. Doesn't feel like a real solution. I think the real solution is to drop out of the status game and not play at all. Forget what the others think. I've come to realize that all I really care about is what I think of myself, and what my wife and kids think of me. Another goal, and the ultimate root of all goals, is Peace of Mind. This is the one and only game to play - status is just a mirage when what the person is really trying to get is Peace of Mind. I think this is the most important thing in life and I try to teach my kids this.

mherdeg 5y ago

I always wonder why folks with 9-figure net worth (or high 8) keep doing any job at all. People do not get very many quality-adjusted life years -- why would you spend 8+ hours per day doing CEO work when you could spend that time with family and friends?

csdvrx 5y ago
What if they prefer work to family and friends? A lot of people seem to prefer contributing to wikipedia or writing free software to partying, so it doesn't seem far fetched.
slivanes 5y ago
I'm guessing because not many family and friends would have the same net-worth to have the spare time time to hang out all day. I think of Notch as an example, I'm pretty sure he got quite lonely once he got paid out for Minecraft.
patches11 5y ago
The article offers some potential explanations. As they achieve more status their peer group changes and they desire more status relative to their new group. They are looking for that huge exit or massive success. Alternatively you just don't see the people who retire and spend time with family and friends. They don't post here, they don't have blogs, they don't have articles posted about them. They are just living life.
- gigaflop 5y ago
  > the people who retire and spend time with family and friends That's the ideal way to go, imo. I'm trying to slowly figure out what I need to live that kind of life, so that I can become some sort of cyberpunk mountain man when I reach financial independence. Identify what makes me happy, what I need for those happiness-generating activities, etc, and make sure that I'm set up to enjoy myself.
georgeecollins 5y ago
Work can be really enjoyable if you have more power to control how your time is spent. No one has complete control of how their time is spent, but that is true of life. If you aren't working you are still going to need to structure your time around activities like hobbies. At this point in my life work is one of my favorite hobbies.
petercooper 5y ago
I used to wonder that too. Having got to know a handful of people who've become very wealthy through their own efforts, though, I suspect being proactive is enjoyable for them ("thrill of the chase" and all that) in a way that undirected leisure is not. Some business people seem to be as compelled to strike deals or build companies in a similar way to how prolific authors or artists feels compelled to engage in their art.
brimble 5y ago
They probably enjoy it. Being a CEO or whatever doesn't look like sitting in a cubicle all damn day. Even the latter's much better if you know you have the money to quit whenever you feel like it. That alone makes a big difference, but they also have a lot more say in how they spend their time, and do completely different stuff. Making the big calls, having people who'll go do all kinds of stuff when you ask them to, meeting and hanging out with other important people, et c., probably feels awesome, and if you've got enough money socked away to never need to work again, all the "risk" is as real as playing poker with pennies.
- fdgsdfogijq 5y ago
  I was going to say this. It's fun when you are that high up.
  - brimble 5y ago
    It's also the case that someone with quite a bit of money doesn't have as much non-work work to do. If you can afford to pay someone to do: all shopping (that you don't enjoy doing), all cooking (ditto), all cleaning (doing the laundry including putting it away, doing the dishes, cleaning your house, cleaning your car[s]), to drive you around so that time's not lost, et c., that recovers a ton of time. You can put quite a bit of that back into your job and still come out ahead in leisure and family time, compared with a worker bee who still has to do all that shit themselves, outside work hours.
    - gigaflop 5y ago
      Even with work-from-home, I can see how more money == more better in life. My dream home would need space for a home gym, workshop, and small office. Having a home, a home big enough for all of that, and then getting all of that would not be cheap, but it would mean dead-simple access to things I need and things that make me happy and fulfilled, which would mean more time spent fulfilling myself.
    - hallway_monitor 5y ago
      I can't believe I never thought about this. You don't have any drudgery and it doesn't really matter if you lose your job so your work is your leisure time. You're just playing. Okay, time to get rich.
csa 5y ago
> why would you spend 8+ hours per day doing CEO work when you could spend that time with family and friends? Your family and friends are usually busy working. The only exception is if you roll with other wealthy (early) retirees. If you have ever spent time around these folks, you might see why it’s not necessarily that compelling. I would humbly suggest that it’s easier to meet and hang out with interesting people under the guise of owning or working in some sort of business. If you actually like that business (many people do), then it’s a double win.
sacrosancty 5y ago
I hear this often. How about why do people in countries with good social welfare bother to work at all? Just sit in your free house eating your free food until you die of old age. Easiest life ever! Obviously, the answer is that people get satisfaction from working beyond simply what they can spend the money on.
yojo 5y ago
I’ve always figured it was some combination of selection and survivorship bias. Selection because only workaholics or super-strivers generally make it to that level. Survivorship because the only ones you see working are by definition the ones that didn’t quit. It is possible that many people who made that kind of money have quit and are just being quiet about it.
jlokier 5y ago
I've thought about this a few times. If I struck rich or won the lottery, I'd want to start doing CEO work, while funding my own rather ambitious projects. It would be unlikely to be someone else's company, but perhaps if I met the right person(s). Most likely, I'd hire a bunch of people, and they would help me with big R&D projects. Why would I want to waste 8+ hours a day hanging out with family and friends? I mean, I like family and friends. It's nice to spend time with them. I love them, and life would be missing something important without them. But it's not fulfilling to do it all the time. I'd really like to use my time here figuring out and building things, and the things I'd like to build are too big and adventerous to do by myself. They're also too big and adventurous to do putting in only a small fraction of the day: I'd either need to put in a lot of time, or there's no point. It doesn't come from just wanting to do the work. It also comes from imagining looking back on life when older. When I imagine looking back on a life of hanging out with family and friends, having fun, having big personal moments, ups and downs, all those memories, remarkable times, that seems very special, magical even. Very special! But I have to admit, not enough by itself. Given the chance, it's also motivating to want to be able to look back and see some of my grander dreams realised in some form. I can't explain why; it feels like an intrinsic motivation, and quite a burden really, because truth is, that's unlikely to happen. But seems worth trying. I imagine at least some well-off CEOs who are managing something big, even if it's not their own company, must be getting a similar sense of satisfaction from some internal drive to do something like that.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
There have been surveys where they ask people how much money they would need to feel comfortable and the usual answer is about 50% more than they currently have.
ModernMech 5y ago
CEOs don’t work, they exercise power. It’s a completely different concept from working and it’s totally fun. It’s the thing you do when you are bored with vacationing and spending time with friends.

scandox 5y ago

> I know some of you will say “Just ignore the status game altogether,” but this is easier said than done. Like many other animals, we are biologically wired to respond to status. Ignorance is not the way out. It's not ignorance to overcome our biology. It is possible to control our desire for status and to live better lives and be happier as a result. Also different cultures are much more competitive about status: America is pretty extreme in this respect.

smitty1e 5y ago
Status is a temporal, worldly thing. Among the better ways to "win" this game is to seek status in the metaphysical. In a way, this is "winning" through "not playing". By some measures, I'm doing OK at it, if money is the scoring basis. OTOH, I've lived with the same house/car/wardrobe for a couple of decades. Do these oligarchs/celebrities really have more joy than I? Maybe.
- quinnjh 5y ago
  Is this the same logic as religiously shunning wealth for returns in the afterlife/spiritual realm? Maybe this is how you counter the maybe?
_bfhp 5y ago
I have come to read any statement like "we are biologically wired to X" as a declaration of nihilism and misanthropy. Wired is what a light bulb is to a switch. Individual humans are complex, beautiful and capable of overcoming pretty much anything, including biological tendencies.
- qwertygnu 5y ago
  > Wired is what a light bulb is to a switch. lol this is a good one. might have to steal it ;)
- andreilys 5y ago
  Blank slatism and the ignorance of human nature has done far more harm for humans than those who acknowledge that our brains haven’t evolved much since our days as foraging tribes.

Flankk 5y ago

You should do what makes you feel fulfilled in life. If that thing is status, I question your motivation. People like that are conceited.

sacrosancty 5y ago
I think it's rarely status on its own, but people keep seeming to turn activities into status competitions. Even something humble like a retired man doing woodturning wants to make a more beautiful piece that people appreciate.
alar44 5y ago
Feeling fulfilled doesn't pay the bills, unfortunately.
- Flankk 5y ago
  False dichotomy, it usually does. One day you will die. You won't be thinking about bills.
  - retrac 5y ago
    "Who will look after my dependents or children? Will they be safe and comfortable?" is one of the main worries for people when they die, I figure.
  - alar44 5y ago
    And if you spent your life in poverty trying to be an artist, you might think "would have been nice to not have been scraping by my whole life". I did the passion project thing for 15 years. Much happier with a stable income and not worrying about money.

ambicapter 5y ago

> instability is hell for high status individuals I feel like this explains a lot about how power structures fight so hard to stay in power--they're biologically wired to suffer more when they lose out than those at the bottom. This is both something "everyone knows" and refreshing to finally see put in print.

insickness 5y ago
Beyond that, the gratification from accomplishing something is short-lived. If your last book sold a million copies and your new book only sells 500k, you may feel like a failure even though 500k is a lot of books. In some ways, success only adds to the pressure to keep succeeding. This isn't to say you shouldn't try to succeed, but it certainly explains why so many famous or successful people deal with problems like depression and drug addiction.
octoberfranklin 5y ago
It also conveys a benefit to those of low status. High-status individuals' job is to produce stability. Read Chimpanzee Politics; it will completely change the way you see human interaction and power.

derbOac 5y ago

There's some wisdom in this post but it kinda sidesteps for me one of the biggest problems I see with status seeking, which is at some point it seems to -- or at least can -- increasingly involve randomness, corruption, or increasingly unsubstantiable goals. It's like a variant of Goodhart's Law or Campbell's law, but involving randomness and invalidity in addition to corruption, and where those laws also become more important the further you go up the metric dimension. Even putting aside the issues of value, in the sense of "should I value status in this area", there's this other issue: if you have a metric that's, say, correlated .2 or .3 with some underlying attribute, then almost by statistical definition as you start splitting hairs more and more you're splitting up more and more noise. As you chase status further and further, you're dealing with that more and more. Maybe this is the same thing as his analogy about instability in hierarchies at some level. But if so I'm not sure the implications are followed as far as they could be.

swagasaurus-rex 5y ago

Who is more cool? Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc... Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves? There's a minority of people who go by their own compass. The things that gratify status seekers don't do it for them. That's not to say they don't have needs. They need friends, stimulation, hobbies, achievements. But they recognize it as a personal thing. There's also people who are so far down the status chain that they don't relate to it any more, and have stopped trying.

phpnode 5y ago
> Who is more cool? > Somebody who makes it clear they're wealthy or well connected or attractive or smart or etc... > Or somebody who is upbeat and friendly with no desire to display anything about themselves? The first one. It's the first one.
- sneak 5y ago
  My face when I realized that a combover, power tie, fake tan, and trophy wife is really all it takes to sell a median person on it (oh, and millions of dollars).
  - avereveard 5y ago
    Millions of dollars optional, they can be borrowed dollars, access to which seem easier if you are connected and signalling good status
  - mattgreenrocks 5y ago
    Next question: why are you seeking being seen this way from a random person?
    - sneak 5y ago
      I'm not, but then again I don't wish to be the president of the United States. It just strikes me as silly that the traditional status game is so easily gamed (demonstrably effectively).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

LAC-Tech 5y ago

Honestly I wish I had paid a bit more attention to status in my life. Our culture tells you don't need to follow the crowd or play the game and you can march to the beat of your own drum. But honestly, that's overrated.

awgm 5y ago
Same with going along with the crowd
fullshark 5y ago
Everyone realizes their world view as an adolescent was incomplete as they get older, doesn't matter if it’s "status doesn't matter personal/relationship happiness is all that matters" or "accruing status is crucial for personal/relationship success and therefore happiness" or whatever. They are all overly simplified.
balaji1 5y ago
What do you wish you had more of in terms of status? Or where you wish you had followed the crowd?
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  Just wish I'd played the game more. Focused on grades, internships, prestigious companies. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a sob story. I'm just very career & success focused in my 30s, and was too school for cool up until my mid 20s.
  - balaji1 5y ago
    Not about a sob story. But it seems like a lot of people wish they had not been too cool for school. Many times, too cool for school phase also includes rebelling against parents. There is a lack of enough guidance or mentors for youngsters. So if the youngster doesn't have enough self-discipline and a vision, he/she is going to be confused. And a mentor has to be a wholistic mentor for many facets of life. Also not enough parents are looking out for their kids through adulthood and having their backs. Elders are not able to allocate enough time for their adult children. Their priorities are spread too thin. They struggle to communicate with the children.

f0e4c2f7 5y ago

Sometimes you see articles like this that insist that you have to play a status game of some kind etc etc. The hacker in me sees that as even more reason to look for examples of ways alleviate myself of such nonsense. If you read books like "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" you run across stories of him playing with Status games and poking fun at them. Though I'm sure one could argue Feynman had status games he played in his own way. In any case thats always the attitude I've preferred to take towards status. I just don't know how anyone can take themselves so seriously in a world where the highest paid and smartest among us wear rainbow hats with propellers. Don't take life so seriously and goof around a little more. Thats how you turn up interesting ideas anyway, not by playing status games.

sacrosancty 5y ago
Status usually represents having done some social good. The more good you do, the higher your status. If you look at it as a measure of how much good a person has done, then it might not seem so contemptable. Who did more good for more people - a hermit or Bill Gates?
- lordnacho 5y ago
  His kids will have higher status than most people, what did they do?
  - FredPret 5y ago
    They inherited the DNA of a guy who did lots of good, thus leading our lizard brains to suppose that they, too, have potential
- joshuacc 5y ago
  Many cultures and religions would say that the hermit did, or at least might have. :)
- pdonis 5y ago
  > Status usually represents having done some social good. For whatever value of "good" applies in that particular social network, yes. But that value of "good" might not be anything we would call "good" in ordinary language. For example, Bill Gates does have high status, but he has it because he is rich, not because of the particular things he did that made him rich. Those things happened to be reasonably beneficial (how much so depends on your opinion of Windows and Microsoft, and opinions on that can...vary), but many other rich people got that way by doing things that were not. Yet they still get status according to their wealth.

lordnacho 5y ago

The thing I do is I keep many social circles. Family groups, friends from different language groups, work groups, educational groups, interest groups, kids' friends' parents, and so on. That way there's really no hierarchy, it's like being a contractor at a business or an acquaintance at a party. People will still find you interesting but not threatening. Weirdly they also find you familiar despite you not being there all the time. I guess it's decreasing marginal returns. If you have some time to waste, look at one of those Real Housewives of X shows. They love having rivalries, but they're only fighting each other because it's such a closed group. Having lots of groups also lets you take off some of the intensity of your relationships. You don't have a sole provider of entertainment or warmth or intellectual stimulation, so you don't have to do everything their way. You can take a break from any particular person. And you get a lot of invitations. I'm even a bit suspicious of people who seem to have exactly one group of friends that they're always with and have always been in. Often I find there's some sort of blockage there in their maturation, making it hard for them to communicate.

oneoff786 5y ago
I would advise against looking for anything real on Real Housewives of X
cortesoft 5y ago
Interestingly, I kind of do the opposite. I have one tiny social circle, basically my immediate family (wife and two kids). I work to make money, then spend that money on my family and my hobbies, which are all solo endeavors. I don’t socialize outside of that, really. I play video games once a week with my high school friends online. My hobbies aren’t involved in my status because I don’t really talk to anyone about them. I build things for myself, I create things that I never show anyone, just because I enjoy doing it. I play with my kids, and talk with my wife. Don’t really have a desire to do much else.
jkaptur 5y ago
I'm a huge fan of the Real Housewives of X for two reasons - first, like you say, they're fantastic petri dishes of relationships and status games. But even beyond intellectual curiosity, they also give you a useful topic of conversation when you take your advice and socialize beyond the Hacker News / Silicon Valley bubble.

jakub_g 5y ago

The story about monkeys shifted all the time between groups, and the status-seeking ones being most stressed, made me think about my experience changing teams/jobs. I'm generally not a status seeking person, I don't care about promotions etc. as long as job/team/pay is good. I consider myself ok programmer but not top one. When I join a new team, I don't want status per se, but I want people to know that I don't suck. Which is in fact status seeking. Typically first year in a new team is kinda exhausting each time due to ramping up a lot of new knowledge and trying to prove my value. (That's why I try to only change ~every 3 years; to have enough breathing room, but when I get tired of a project, I need to change).

_def 5y ago

Thinking about this stuff seems like a waste of time to me. If you think status makes you happy, I assume there are still some things you need to figure out for yourself. But maybe it's the other way around, who knows. Still, I don't care. :)

hallway_monitor 5y ago
I think part of the point is that you actually do care and you need to care and this is healthy. For instance, if you dressed in dirty clothes and didn't take care of yourself that would be very low status. Anyone coming in contact with you would smell your low status immediately and treat you accordingly. So, if you bathe, shave, and wear clean clothes then you are already playing the status game. And that's great!
- Jordrok 5y ago
  Not necessarily. I would argue that plenty of people bathe and wear clean clothes more for their own comfort rather than that of others. The fact that these things can be interpreted as status signals has nothing to do with the motivation for taking these actions in the first place.

skmurphy 5y ago

this reminded me of the "This is Water" commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. Key graf: "In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive." Full talk available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/

neilv 5y ago
Yeah, this part of TFA sounded like it might almost be a reference to the DFW speech: > This is why you have to choose your status game wisely. Because whatever status game you choose in life ultimately determines what you optimize for. Choose money and you’ll end up working all the time. Choose beauty and you’ll always want to look better. Choose fame and you’ll constantly be seeking attention.
- allenu 5y ago
  The inverse to this is the old quote attributed to Joe Biden: “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” If you want to see what someone values, look at where they spend their time, money, resources, etc.
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    Don’t tell me what your system diagram says, show me your data models.
- skmurphy 5y ago
  Nick Maggiulli vectors people to https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata to comment on his posts. Alex Hardy commented two days ago https://twitter.com/CantHardyWait/status/1508789463664709646 https://twitter.com/CantHardyWait/status/1508789463664709646 “There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” I did not see this when I left my comment here. But Maggiulli responded https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/1508815480466849794 https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/150881548046684979... DFW is a major influence [I am inferring DFW = David Foster Wallace]. Bryce Thornton https://twitter.com/brycethornton/status/1508788922624716802 https://twitter.com/brycethornton/status/1508788922624716802 pointed to the YouTube video and Maggiulli replied https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/1508815519532699667 https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/status/150881551953269966... "It's so good" I would have thought he would have done more to credit Wallace as an influence. I had blogged about the Foster commencement speech at https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2012/05/27/david-foster-wallace-the-only-choice-we-get-is-what-to-worship/ https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2012/05/27/david-foster-wallac... which is why I saw the resonance. Wallace offered an appropriate antidote to a model for entrepreneurial motivation that aspires to make enough money to do whatever you want. He outlines some of the risks in failing to align your life with a higher spiritual purpose.

angarg12 5y ago

Not sure how this will sit with the HN crowd, but a couple of years back I got into menswear, and I derive some pleasure from being the "best dressed guy" at the office. Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those categories, but bringing both together makes you stand out more.

chadcmulligan 5y ago
I have observed multiple times if I 'suit up' at work it's like I'm wearing a shield, it's a strange game. It has to be a good suit though, naturally enough. Edit: this is when dealing with the business folk that is, techies don't care.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rufus_foreman 5y ago
  Also good to do it from time to time out of nowhere and then take a long lunch. If they want to keep you, you'll get a raise. You'll probably also want to make sure your Linked In profile has been updated recently.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Or they'll assume you're leaving and choose not to compete to retain you. Then all the bonus etc gets funneled to the other coworkers.
epgui 5y ago
I actually feel pressure to dress down in my role as a SWE: hoodies and jeans seem like the norm, and forget about wearing a suit (lol!) or even a dress shirt. I've found black/grey turtlenecks to be a nice middle ground, and apart from the occasional "one more thing" (Steve Jobs) or Elizabeth Holmes comment, those tend to work well.

blymphony 5y ago

I'm surprised people in this thread are so opposed to trying to gain status. It took me too long to realize, but status, like money, is just a tool at your disposal in society. You can be too obsessed with status, just like you can be too obsessed with money, and use them for the "wrong" reasons. But there are things money lets you do that you couldn't do otherwise, like buying a home for your family or bootstrapping a company. For status, it's the same. Going to X school gives you an easier chance of getting into X company. Knowing X amount of people gives you more opportunities to meet other well-connected people, allowing you to gain more diversified interactions and/or spread your own influence. Having a trustworthy reputation gives people a reason to give you a minute of their time, and sometimes that first impression is all you need to start a relationship or get funding for your company. Finally, there are things that status gives you that all the money in the world won't.

abhaynayar 5y ago
> Going to X school gives you an easier chance of getting into X company. Unless the school and company are the same, it should be Y company. > Knowing X amount of people N would be a nice sounding variable here.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  Nitpicking is low status.

Animats 5y ago

One can sometime make quite a bit of money by running status games for profit. Here's the pitch deck for Bored Ape Yacht Club.[1] This is for investors, and they are very clear about how they are exploiting their customers. Rolex is in that business. Rolex watches cost 5x what they cost in the 1960s, adjusted for inflation. A CEO of Rolex, Andre Heiniger, "We are not in the watch business. We are in the luxury business." There was a flap a few years ago when someone found fake Rolexes with authentic movements. Turns out the mechanics were outsourced until 2004. [1] https://twitter.com/LeonidasNFT/status/1505058932758360064 https://twitter.com/LeonidasNFT/status/1505058932758360064

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Years ago I did a small project for Harrods.[1] I have never had such an abusive and dysfunctional client, before or since. I have a suspicion that all the luxury brands are the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods

ZYinMD 5y ago

It's a sad truth but for most of us, when it comes to "decide which status game to play", you're simply aiming for money no matter what you choose. Money is the overarching metric that already incorporates everything else. The "weightlifting status" or the "content creator status" mentioned in the article are just money status in disguise. Ask yourself: if you won a big lottery tomorrow, would you still keep doing what you do today? If the answer is no, then you've been playing the money game all along.

rubidium 5y ago
And then suffer a life on the hedonic treadmill dying smug and somehow all alone.
williamtrask 5y ago
Overnight fame can be just as disruptive
- bruce511 5y ago
  I don't get the attraction of fame at all. Money, yes, money allows me to do what I _want_ to do, it would give me time that I otherwise have to spend working. But fame _reduces_ what I can do. Famous people can't just pop down the local for a pint (in whatever city they happen to be in that week), famous people attract paparazzi - they're harrased by strangers... Like I say, I don't get the appeal..
  - rufus_foreman 5y ago
    "I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job." -- Bill Murray
nine_zeros 5y ago
> Ask your self: if you won a big lottery tomorrow, would you still keep doing what you do today? If the answer is no, then you've been playing the money game all along. It doesn't end there. For people who really want the monetary status, there is a point where chasing more money doesn't cut it. They change their status game to something else at that point, say fame and connections with an elite group of people e.g. selective cliques or investing in a football team.

thenerdhead 5y ago

I learned a bit about status when doing comedy improv. I think status in theory can be seen as a gradient and shift to one extreme at any time. Keith Johnstone is famous for his thoughts on status in his book, but here’s a snippet that complements the article: https://www.respect4acting.com/status1.html https://www.respect4acting.com/status1.html

kstenerud 5y ago

Ugh. This is why I hate living among people: everyone is playing these stupid status games, and assumes that you are as well. I was happiest living in the middle of nowhere, where the only status I had was being the weirdo who never speaks to anyone. Can't wait to get enough money together to retire that way again.

fargle 5y ago

This is so cringey. Please don't behave as this would suggest. In technical and scientific areas as most of our HN friends are likely to be, seeking status, measuring status, cultivating and being concerned with it is just a negative. It's true that there is status, but that status should be honestly earned and it's definitely not a game to "play". This is a constant source of miscommunication between the social and political factions inside and outside of work vs. the hard-core engineer technocrats. The people-people think that we make decisions and take actions, or have opinions because we are playing the game - and we're not playing it right! Or worse are playing with the wrong team. Backing the wrong horse, refusing to "play along", etc. Troublemakers! But see it's just that we're not playing a game. We actually did the research and just honestly think that thing X is not the best thing (even though it's the bosses bosses pet project). We're independently and internally motivated, and don't give a jot what others think (so we think). Conversely we often think the lovely people-people are idiots because they pick the wrong solutions, don't back doing it "the right way", etc. Because we sometimes don't understand that they are playing a game. This means we underestimate them and their motives, as well as misunderstand the invisible rules and potential consequences. The best engineering cultures are those that keep and encourage those like-minded, non-game-playing folks together and happy and far, far away from those politics and games. They need savy honest management to insulate them from that stuff and to translate between the cultures. And to weed out fakers who are trying to play games amongst those naive to it.

eyelidlessness 5y ago

I’ve never encountered such a good explanation of why privileged people should care about the concept of privilege but here it is. This is the Rosetta for those who want it. It’s exactly the same thing.

paulpauper 5y ago

Ppl keeping repeating that Scott Adams intersection tip as if it's useful or clever , and it's not. Being mediocre at two things and combining them just makes you mediocre. The third skill that results from the combination of two skills still has its own learning curve and hierarchy. Things don't just get easier. It just means you're just playing a different game that has different challenges.

powerslacker 5y ago

> I know some of you will say “Just ignore the status game altogether,” but this is easier said than done. Like many other animals, we are biologically wired to respond to status. Ignorance is not the way out. > The way out is building a solid foundation of status in multiple things. It’s about becoming diversified in your life, not just your portfolio. You don't have to pursue status. You can be aware of your innate desire to pursue status and then avoid doing it as much as possible.

adamredwoods 5y ago
Or better yet, don't let social status affect your mental status. I believe contentness and acceptance is the better path. I feel this article was specifically written for people that care about their social status. It can be healthy to be somewhat competitive, but unhealthy when it becomes obsession. The author also fails to recognize the people who fail trying to reach this 'status' objective. What happens then? Try to find a new status to conquer? Why? Where does it end? Tonya Harding?

tomcam 5y ago

> It was heavy metal or bust and I didn’t care what anyone else thought. Status among my friends was determined not by how popular you were, but by your music abilities These statements appear to be in conflict

ehnto 5y ago

It's worth noting what arena you are playing in too. The issue with status these days is that the internet has us all performing on a world stage. Relative to everyone in my real life community, I usually have an edge when it comes to fitness. Relative to the world? I may as well be a mouse! I am pretty quick on the bike, second fastest on strava yesterday at my local, and a pretty nifty bike! But relative to instagram? I am slow as a slug, and I may as well have found my bike in a dumpster, with these 20k rigs that get all the attention. So I guess my approach is to try and stay on local communities, or niche online communities. Not to be the best in them, just because I am not the best and don't need to be to enjoy my life and improve, so it's more relatable than the exceptionalism on the broader net.

xenocratus 5y ago

> Choose money and you’ll end up working all the time. Choose beauty and you’ll always want to look better. Choose fame and you’ll constantly be seeking attention. This is straight-up paraphrasing David Foster Wallace in This Is Water, just that DFW was talking about these things as de-facto personal religions that we're usually unconscious of. So the "choose" part isn't nearly that explicit in his view. The bit in This Is Water: > If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you... Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.

bsenftner 5y ago
So don't be an idiot and "worship", be a rational balanced human and as the OP says diversify your interests. DFW tends to exaggerate to make his points, and this is an example. Nice prose, be it describes idiots and implies to the reader that everyone are such idiots.
- tomgp 5y ago
  DFW concluded that if you don’t choose what to worship it gets chosen for you. What he’s saying is that one should be conscious and deliberate, self aware. Like much of DFW there’s a strong christian undercurrent to ‘this is water’. Far from being an argument against religion and worship the message i take is that the value of religion can be that it focuses one outward, towards community and so on.
  - dontcare007 5y ago
    not choosing is a choice too.

graderjs 5y ago

Heh :) I love this piece. It's so intelligent!

trh0awayman 5y ago

I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around. I grew up in one of the last WASP strongholds in the US and the more money you had, the smaller the house you lived in (up to a point). People could afford insanely expensive cars, but would buy tasteful ones instead (excepting kids). Most people wouldn't be caught dead in a Ralph Lauren polo, but would happily wear a bleach-stained, rumpled Brooks Brothers shirt. Outside of special occasions, people didn't dress nice at all - they dressed like they just came back from sailing. Engineering, medicine, and law were not considered high-status. Well, if you wanted to work a job, I guess they were - but they were considered ordinary. It was better to own something (but not work), run a non-profit, or have a PhD (in the classics, or whatever). Most parents told their children "I don't care what you do - but do something interesting!". Being an artist was considered good, too. Fame, and appearing in the media, were about the worst things you could achieve. The biggest status indicator was how well read you were. It is so deeply ingrained in me, that I still find myself more impressed by well read people than almost anything else, and I haven't lived there in over a decade. There are a couple of these strongholds remaining, where even the wealthiest people are not allowed to move to because they don't have the right last name, or can't trace their lineage to the Mayflower. If you removed these people and put them anywhere else, you'd think of them as low status and strange.

giantg2 5y ago
What is WASP? My search results seem to have a lot of noise, like wasps, the insects.
- mcmullen 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants
- hcho 5y ago
  white anglo-saxon protestant. old money types in US context.
- deleted 5y ago

polypodiopsi 5y ago

"For example, if you are a competitive powerlifter, your status is determined by how much you can lift (strength) and how many competitions you have won (competitiveness). If you are a VC, your status is determined by what companies you have invested in (network) and how well those companies have performed (money). I could go on, but you get my point." I would have liked to see him go on... Money and strength... I see where this guy is coming from: The dog bro cage of american highschool stereotypes. Peak shallowness.

firstSpeaker 5y ago

I work in an enterprise and have loads of meeting with folks that are wearing suits while I am in the technical side of the house. I could clearly see that the approach changed when I started wearing suit pants (trousers?) and well ironed shirt and oxford into the meetings than my usual tshirt and jeans. As someone else said in the thread, it works like a shield and also a projection of authority somehow in those meetings. When I realised that I started building my closet up with shirts and trousers and retiring my tshirts and jeans for work outfit.

nathias 5y ago

Choose not to play status games and you’ll always want to escape society.

sputr 5y ago

The text does not mention, in my opinion, the most toxic status game: moral superiority. If choosing money leads to working all the time, and beauty to mental problems, choosing moral superiority leads to what you started out fighting against - an immoral person. This, in my opinion, happens through radicalization, which is a result of the fight to be "more ideologically pure" than others. The worst thing is, this game seems to be the dominant status game of the western society right now. And we thought the "who has more money" was bad. We should have counted our blessings. Nothing is worse than a fervent believer in the pureness of their own moral standing, who decides that yours is lacking. I used to, wrongly, believe that this level of fervent belief in ones own moral superiority only happens among the religious (with the well documented atrocities that follow). But, unfortunately, political ideology is not much different.

zeckalpha 5y ago

> I grew up in the middle class and everyone I knew was in the middle class (or close to it) as well. Therefore, the only time I saw status was on television. This may be a fish out of water thing, but to many, the middle class is a higher status (hence in the middle). Many in the working class would aspire to the opportunities this person had by high school.

Tao331 5y ago

By the end I wasn't convinced why I should be playing these games. What's status for? Is it going to make you happy? Alan Watts: > We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played. Maybe status gets you a big fancy grave and a televised funeral. Maybe even a "legacy" that can be tracked by structures named after you: ranging from park benches to libraries to aircraft carriers.

sanderjd 5y ago
> What's status for? Is it going to make you happy? Right, my takeaway was that status seeking is something you can use to try to achieve your personal goals, if you think conscientiously about it. It reminds me of the idea in the book Atomic Habits of first figuring out an identity, a kind of person you want to be, then identifying behaviors that would make you that kind of person, and then developing habits that reinforce those behaviors. Starting with identity works because the way we see ourselves is a powerful determinant of our behavior. For me, I think the thing I would like to be high status in is "being useful to society". Playing that status game may not make me happy, but if it succeeded in making me useful, I think that would be a good outcome.
zdbrandon 5y ago
My takeaway (not necessarily from the article, but from pondering on it) is that status is a lure. It has a certain gravity, and pulls others toward you who are playing in that same specific status game. It makes people want to be around you. Yes, you will feel this at first. So my next question was, why would I want people around me for my status? I think then, the trick is to use this lure to actually make more friends with people you wouldn’t otherwise have met. No longer because of your status, but because of all the qualities of true friendship (spending time together, self-disclosure, support in times of need, etc). With that you may lead a more fulfilling life. Would this be possible completely ignoring status? Is it even possible to completely ignore status? (Not just pretending not to play the game, but actually never thinking of how you’re perceived by others.) I guess my answer is, status == gravity. Gravity leads to more connections. Connections to friends if you work at it. Friends to a better life.

boh 5y ago

The writer is referring to perception, not status. Ultimately our modern society doesn't actually offer what has been traditionally called status. While perception is determined by consumer choices, performance, charisma or social competence, it is ultimately shallow, fickle, and limited. Status is far more durable. If you were the king of England in the pre-industrial age, it didn't matter if you were a failure, unattractive, unlikable, weak, unintelligent, accomplished nothing, you were still the king of England. In todays modern world, high "status" positions, whether you're the CEO of a company or a celebrity for instance, are temporary roles that require persistent effort to maintain. Once those roles are lost through retirement, expulsion, or irrelevance, the person loses whatever status it conferred. In the past, being a duke or count was a permanent status that remained regardless of your fortunes. There is no modern equivalent (at least in America where aristocratic titles are irrelevant). Ultimately we may be living in a world of unequal distribution of wealth, but we live in a world of equal status, since no one really has any.

alecbz 5y ago
I think I’d phrase it as “status used to be more stable”. I don’t see why we wouldn’t call social positions that are perceived to be desirable as “high-status” just because they can change. All social status is based on social perception, regardless of how stable it is. And I think it’s not as cut and dry as you’re making it sound. Dukes and lords (and probably even kings sometimes) could still lose status by, e.g., losing battles or territory, or not navigating the royal social hierarchy well. And having been a CEO continues to confer some amount of status even after you’ve left the position.
erikerikson 5y ago
I think you're distinguishing between held and assigned status leaning into a "realpolitik" of status. You're wrong about there being no modern equivalent. Today we talk about the owner class. Those who own income streams which is equivalent to having the "right" to continuous tax incomes. I would caution that wealth is only a single system to having your needs and desires met farmers can sustain themselves and others, academics actually develop superior knowledge which has transferable value (but less than academia will tell you), and so on.

ripvanwinkle 5y ago

This is equivalent to "choose your peer group/tribe/cohort wisely" Whatever you pick for your status game needs to align with your "tribe" to ensure you feel respected and connected even as you pursue your "status game". You might as well choose the crowd you feel most aligned with deep down and then pick a status game that most resonates for you and that "tribe". Because you have an affinity to that crowd it's likely there's one or more "status games" you all value. I think I've seen this advice earlier but can't recall where.

vincentmarle 5y ago

It’s funny how everyone in here pretends to not care about status, while not realizing that you’re just playing a different status game. I happen to enjoy playing status games and I’m fairly good at it. Even though I’m never the prettiest, wealthiest, strongest or most intelligent guy in the room, I always seem to be able to socially engineer myself to the alpha group status, regardless of what kind of social group it is. Status games are mostly about how people perceive you and how you can manipulate it in order to belong. It reminds me of this paradox: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

lament76 5y ago
If you always play with the alphas then it's no wonder you think everyone primarily cares about status. Most people primarily care about resources, the tribe and religion.

lament76 5y ago

Status is not very important for humans, except for a minority of hypercompetitive individuals. Most people lack the nerves for status games. The collective, the community and belonging are more important than status. The problem is that the top of a large pool of people selects for competitiveness, so if you aim high you likely need to play their games. There is hardly a way around it except maybe luck, gambling or remote work.

yourpalkeith 5y ago

I found this discussion of “the status game” and its variants to be really interesting and wanted to pass it along to those who find there way here: https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/who-wants-to-play-the-status-game-agnes-callard/ https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/who-wants-to-play-the-...