8 ms·

Persuasion and the Prestige Paradox (2021)

94 points by rzk 5y ago

photochemsyn 5y ago
Great article, it really focuses on how state/corporate propaganda tends to be most intensely focused on the wealthier and more highly educated segments of society. Additionally, this group (which includes corporate middle managers etc.) is most at risk of losing their position in the social system by expressing contrary opinions. This bit in particular is interesting: > "In short, people have a mechanism in their minds. It stops them from saying something that could lower their status, even if it’s true. And it propels them to say something that could increase their status, even if it’s false. Sometimes, local norms can push against this tendency. Certain communities (e.g., scientists) can obtain status among their peers for expressing truths. But if the norm is relaxed, people might default to seeking status over truth if status confers the greater reward." Consider the role of 'cultural fit' in hiring in the software development world as an example of this phenomenon. If we take two people with equivalent technical skills in competition for a job, almost certainly the one with the better 'cultural fit' will be hired. 'Cultural fit' is an eyebrow-raising phrase for those with some knowledge of this phenomenon because the specifics, the desired cultural qualities, are almost never explicitly spelled out. Doing covert surveillance on a prospective employer to determine what their expected cultural norms are is not a bad idea if one really needs a job and is willing to swing like a weathervane. It's also fun to imagine what political views would cause the most pushback at any given time. Right now, anyone saying that the USA should treat the Russia-Ukraine conflict with the same indifference that the USA treats the Saudi-Yemen conflict, i.e. continuing to do business with both Russia and Saudi Arabia without restriction, is going to be turned on with howls of outrage across the board. Regardless, Putin's behavior is rather similar to that of Saudi prince MBS, they seem quite friendly as well: https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-mohammed-bin-salman-high-five-at-g20-summit-2018-11?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-mohammed-bin-salman-hi... If you then point out that Saudi Arabia deposits its oil money in Wall Street banks, while Russia certainly does not, and note that this explains the differential treatment, well, prepare to be excommunicated.
bsenftner 5y ago
I've been saying it forever: prestige is the #1 driver of human motivation, and because of this humans do not scale. The prestige party destroys forward progress with empty displays of acquired crap.
- nuancebydefault 5y ago
  What do you mean by humans do not scale?
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
    I think he was referring to this part of the article: "The psychology professor Geoffrey Miller suggested that as intelligent species become technologically advanced, they spend more time entertaining themselves than on interstellar space travel. Rather than actually going to Mars, they spend more time pretending to go to Mars via movies and video games and VR."
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      True, but to a limited extent. Recent successess of SpaceX, RocketLab etc. seem to have reinvigorated interest of the young engineering generation in space exploration to a degree unseen in the 1990s. Working on a Mars rocket is much cooler than working on user tracking systems in some giant tech corporation. Watching something like Starship really launching from the Earth beats hundreds of hours of video games squarely.
      - oriolid 5y ago
        This sounds a lot like the people at SpaceX, RocketLab, etc are actually building rockets to entertain themselves.
        inglor_cz 5y ago
        Yes, and the point is that this entertainment isn't virtual and that it actually pushes the entire civilization forward instead of causing a hedonistic stagnation.
Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
"In short, people have a mechanism in their minds. It stops them from saying something that could lower their status, even if it’s true. And it propels them to say something that could increase their status, even if it’s false."
- chrischattin 5y ago
  This was on full display re covid over the last two years.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
    Indeed.
- donatj 5y ago
  This is why Twitter is so vicious.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- 21723 5y ago
  I've seen this play out over and over in the corporate world--and, yes, the "educated" white-collar people are the worst; 90% of them are sheep. It's why these companies can continue to assert their own meritocracy. No one wants to become that bitter guy who complains about the promotion he didn't get and how unfair the system is--even though he knows the company better than the true believers. I don't often find myself agreeing with Quillette (it's a conservative publication, and I'm a leftist) but this article is spot-on in its veiled critique of the centrist-liberal ("neoliberal") elite. A small number of people have managed to dominate the culture and economy by convincing us that everything is complex and that we're just not smart enough to understand anything--and, while they're not entirely wrong on the matter of complexity, I've met so many of them I can say with confidence that none of them understand what's going on either (as Covid has proved).
deebosong 5y ago
Anecdotally, I've seen this play out at religious communities (though I'm not at all in doubt that this phenomenon is commonplace and prevalent everywhere). I've often noted to myself when core beliefs that were expressed/ leaked, revealed that rather than being rooted in the Bible for instance (interpretations of which are highly debated), many people's beliefs in said community were often about furthering and advancing the self (as in, for the glory and expansion of self, rather than the glory and advancement of God on God's terms according to certain interpretations of the Bible). And often, these beliefs, when called into question, were supported by famous people, celebrities, scholars that confirmed their biases, and also just groupthink. I know religion, and in particular, Christianity, may not at all be in vogue in this neck of the woods. But I've been thinking from time to time how inconsistent people from certain religious Christian communities are in their core beliefs, and how much they rely on social status, consensus (including the consensus of those who vocally decry Christianity and demonstrate no interest in following or upholding its tenets), and the peripheral method of coming to conclusions about what is true and what is not. Def appreciate the article and the concepts laid out in a clear way, that rings true for me in a very specific social slice (regardless of what others may think about said social slice).
- mattgreenrocks 5y ago
  Discussing Christian Culture (capital C) in the context of this is particularly apt, because it is supposed to be about walking and growing in Christ, yet it often ends up being about...other things. Certain parts of Christian Culture are just downright weird in their emphasis on hypermasculinity ("Jesus is a warrior who is coming back!"), wealth/success ("God's blessings!"), cultural influence ("we need to fight in the culture wars!"), etc. Or, the never-ending dialogue about what it means to be a Real Man (for your wife and children, of course!). Note that all of those examples I mentioned are status symbols in the secular culture at large. IMO, we've failed at making an alternative, superior culture, despite having the exact model given. Instead, Christians just seem to soft-fork secular culture, change a few things, slap some Bible verses on it, ship it, and then act surprised when non-believers see right through it.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
freewinz 5y ago
Great article. Really applies to so much happening during the covid times, and explains why there seems to be so much cognitive dissonance with the educated population.
- bsenftner 5y ago
  There is also another major factor behind why there is so much disagreement between the educated population: there are multiple ways to solve most situations, but there is only one way to tow the line. Republican strategy is to tow the line, whatever that line is, so they are consistent. While the opposition seeks an optimal solution, and that process appears as in-fighting.
  - tdehnel 5y ago
    in this comment you are doing the exact thing the article talks about, positioning groups as good guys/bad guys and thus signaling your status as either a good guy or someone who at least knows the difference.
    - carapace 5y ago
      Aren't you doing the same thing too?
      - mathematicaster 5y ago
        And you as well, Sir ... ... oh, wait ...
    - Taywee 5y ago
      I don't think that it's good vs bad, but that a fundamental part of conservatism is keeping things the same, or returning to some sort of prior tradition. That is going to be more cohesive and consistent by its very definition. It's not a value statement at all.
friesfreeze 5y ago
So does good society happen when prosocial truths are high status and antisocial truths are low status? Edit: and the same for lies I suppose.
trabant00 5y ago
> “People are limited in their capacity to process information, so they take shortcuts whenever they can.” > We are lazy creatures who try to expend as little mental energy as possible. > And people are typically less motivated to scrutinize a message if the source is considered to be an expert. We interpret the message through the peripheral route. What are the alternatives though? Dig ever deeper into every piece of information until you get stuck on what fundamental particle/laws is the universe made of? Trust your taxi driver on what is wrong with your health rather than your doctor? Trust neither and spend 20 years in school to understand why your stomach hurts today? All articles about biases, mental shortcuts, preconceived ideas and so on miss on offering a real alternative. And guess why, because there is none. It's the best we have, as imperfect as these mechanisms are.
- photochemsyn 5y ago
  My concern is that this can too easily result in disaster like a herd of cattle stampeding over a cliff. Everyone's rushing along together, everyone's safe in the herd, and then, oops, goodbye herd. We need more people willing to say "hey you idiots, you're all heading for a cliff". The problem is that anyone saying that will become persona non grata... maybe the really smart cattle just extract themselves from the stampede, thinking, "too bad for you fools, it's a Darwin moment, guess that means more grass for me." Unfortunately that strategy doesn't really work when humans are stampeding for nuclear war and climatic destruction, there won't be any grass left for anyone.
  - bsedlm 5y ago
    this is why some of us have a natural resistance to going with the flow. I know I do but it's individually very costly but I like me this way (after many years of feeling bad for having 'poor social skills'). I like to think this strengthens the group even if it's costly to the individual
  - trabant00 5y ago
    How do you know you're not the one heading for a cliff? And anyway, that is why we have multiple herds and some individual rebels. Our entire history was this way, when one herd goes of a cliff another herd profits.
robertlagrant 5y ago
> This isn’t a partisan issue, either. Gibson and Sutherland report that, “The percentage of Democrats who are worried about speaking their mind is just about identical to the percentage of Republicans who self-censor: 39 and 40 percent, respectively.” It may not be partisan in that sense, but today's fear is still coming from one side's extreme.
- dorchadas 5y ago
  You obviously don't live in a red state. I was a leftist teacher in a very red state (as in, it was called from Trump within a minute of the polls closing, while half the state still had open polls). There's many times I had to watch what I said around people and not speak my mind for fear of possible backlash if students told their parents or if news got out among the community of some of my beliefs.
slothtrop 5y ago
One thing I infer is that the college educated are overconfident, sometimes classist. In aggregate they rely on short-cut heuristics like anyone else, with the benefit of believing they are more rational by virtue of class clout (their own, and of pundits they listen to). I've also seen the disdain for the tradesmen and non-educated, not just general misanthropy as alluded to in the article. It's a bit unnerving to see them tip-toe around their in-group society, while being absolutely vicious espousing white-listed thoughts.
bsedlm 5y ago
> We are lazy creatures who try to expend as little mental energy as possible. but I take this as a virtue, not as a vice. we are efficient, we (as life) do not like to toil needlessly nor wastefully. (IMO, the viciousness comes from an extreme posture in either direction) but also I want to remark that efficiency is never the goal. is not even a means to the end (of living), it's merely a choice, a preference, an intelligent style favored by a large variety of living things and physical phenomena.
motohagiography 5y ago
> Dunking on social media tells our monkey brain that we are rising in prominence, even though by next week people will have forgotten and moved on to the next round of gossip. Advanced tech exploits the brains of ideologues, who then create a culture where others spend too much time pledging fealty to ideologies rather than developing new ideas and technology for the benefit of humankind. The word "ideologue," is key because it's a thought terminating cliche we use as an epithet to describe the people we don't agree with, instead of what it precisely is - a pattern of thinking that iterates the logic of an underlying idea. It may not even be on a chosen belief, but just a symbol for something we picked up and used as a stub for a concept. I just assume people persecute each other because they love it, and instead, I index on finding people who aren't as addicted to that kind of conflict, as there are enough people in the world that arguing with any one of them is an opportunity cost against living. Maybe this is the real impact of the internet - when your potential Dunbar number and opporutunity now seems infinite, we can replace any person we have a conflict with, with just another more agreeable and validating avatar on the screen. That fast, swipe-left culture filter not only rewards intolerance, but even imposes opportunity costs on tolerance because tolerance consumes time that could be applied to swiping until you get validation, and exposes you to defending against the infinite persecution of whomever you are tolerating. I'd be concerned about what human quality is atrophying as a result of not exercising the experience the tech has automated and replaced. It's not empathy, it's something more real and consequential like courage, dignity, or compassion. The article is important, but I don't think there is a back or an undo we can reason ourselves back to as a culture. It's just a matter of finding new minds to equip with freedom and set to building again.
tppiotrowski 5y ago
Feels like "likes/upvotes" serve to inform you of what is important, but also causes you to gauge the crowd and censor your dissent. Though an elegant argument is usually welcome in all quarters...
karmakaze 5y ago
Why does the article interleave prestige/high-status and intelligent/educated as if they refer to the same thing? Is it trying to say two things that could be related but making one argument? I was all ready to believe what I thought I already agreed with until I found these patterns of faulty persuasion. Luckily, even if the argument is faulty it doesn't preclude truths being present.

94 points by rzk 5y ago

Great article, it really focuses on how state/corporate propaganda tends to be most intensely focused on the wealthier and more highly educated segments of society. Additionally, this group (which includes corporate middle managers etc.) is most at risk of losing their position in the social system by expressing contrary opinions. This bit in particular is interesting: > "In short, people have a mechanism in their minds. It stops them from saying something that could lower their status, even if it’s true. And it propels them to say something that could increase their status, even if it’s false. Sometimes, local norms can push against this tendency. Certain communities (e.g., scientists) can obtain status among their peers for expressing truths. But if the norm is relaxed, people might default to seeking status over truth if status confers the greater reward." Consider the role of 'cultural fit' in hiring in the software development world as an example of this phenomenon. If we take two people with equivalent technical skills in competition for a job, almost certainly the one with the better 'cultural fit' will be hired. 'Cultural fit' is an eyebrow-raising phrase for those with some knowledge of this phenomenon because the specifics, the desired cultural qualities, are almost never explicitly spelled out. Doing covert surveillance on a prospective employer to determine what their expected cultural norms are is not a bad idea if one really needs a job and is willing to swing like a weathervane. It's also fun to imagine what political views would cause the most pushback at any given time. Right now, anyone saying that the USA should treat the Russia-Ukraine conflict with the same indifference that the USA treats the Saudi-Yemen conflict, i.e. continuing to do business with both Russia and Saudi Arabia without restriction, is going to be turned on with howls of outrage across the board. Regardless, Putin's behavior is rather similar to that of Saudi prince MBS, they seem quite friendly as well: https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-mohammed-bin-salman-high-five-at-g20-summit-2018-11?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-mohammed-bin-salman-hi... If you then point out that Saudi Arabia deposits its oil money in Wall Street banks, while Russia certainly does not, and note that this explains the differential treatment, well, prepare to be excommunicated.

bsenftner 5y ago

I've been saying it forever: prestige is the #1 driver of human motivation, and because of this humans do not scale. The prestige party destroys forward progress with empty displays of acquired crap.

nuancebydefault 5y ago
What do you mean by humans do not scale?
- Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
  I think he was referring to this part of the article: "The psychology professor Geoffrey Miller suggested that as intelligent species become technologically advanced, they spend more time entertaining themselves than on interstellar space travel. Rather than actually going to Mars, they spend more time pretending to go to Mars via movies and video games and VR."
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    True, but to a limited extent. Recent successess of SpaceX, RocketLab etc. seem to have reinvigorated interest of the young engineering generation in space exploration to a degree unseen in the 1990s. Working on a Mars rocket is much cooler than working on user tracking systems in some giant tech corporation. Watching something like Starship really launching from the Earth beats hundreds of hours of video games squarely.
    - oriolid 5y ago
      This sounds a lot like the people at SpaceX, RocketLab, etc are actually building rockets to entertain themselves.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        Yes, and the point is that this entertainment isn't virtual and that it actually pushes the entire civilization forward instead of causing a hedonistic stagnation.

Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago

"In short, people have a mechanism in their minds. It stops them from saying something that could lower their status, even if it’s true. And it propels them to say something that could increase their status, even if it’s false."

chrischattin 5y ago
This was on full display re covid over the last two years.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
  Indeed.
donatj 5y ago
This is why Twitter is so vicious.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
21723 5y ago
I've seen this play out over and over in the corporate world--and, yes, the "educated" white-collar people are the worst; 90% of them are sheep. It's why these companies can continue to assert their own meritocracy. No one wants to become that bitter guy who complains about the promotion he didn't get and how unfair the system is--even though he knows the company better than the true believers. I don't often find myself agreeing with Quillette (it's a conservative publication, and I'm a leftist) but this article is spot-on in its veiled critique of the centrist-liberal ("neoliberal") elite. A small number of people have managed to dominate the culture and economy by convincing us that everything is complex and that we're just not smart enough to understand anything--and, while they're not entirely wrong on the matter of complexity, I've met so many of them I can say with confidence that none of them understand what's going on either (as Covid has proved).

deebosong 5y ago

Anecdotally, I've seen this play out at religious communities (though I'm not at all in doubt that this phenomenon is commonplace and prevalent everywhere). I've often noted to myself when core beliefs that were expressed/ leaked, revealed that rather than being rooted in the Bible for instance (interpretations of which are highly debated), many people's beliefs in said community were often about furthering and advancing the self (as in, for the glory and expansion of self, rather than the glory and advancement of God on God's terms according to certain interpretations of the Bible). And often, these beliefs, when called into question, were supported by famous people, celebrities, scholars that confirmed their biases, and also just groupthink. I know religion, and in particular, Christianity, may not at all be in vogue in this neck of the woods. But I've been thinking from time to time how inconsistent people from certain religious Christian communities are in their core beliefs, and how much they rely on social status, consensus (including the consensus of those who vocally decry Christianity and demonstrate no interest in following or upholding its tenets), and the peripheral method of coming to conclusions about what is true and what is not. Def appreciate the article and the concepts laid out in a clear way, that rings true for me in a very specific social slice (regardless of what others may think about said social slice).

mattgreenrocks 5y ago
Discussing Christian Culture (capital C) in the context of this is particularly apt, because it is supposed to be about walking and growing in Christ, yet it often ends up being about...other things. Certain parts of Christian Culture are just downright weird in their emphasis on hypermasculinity ("Jesus is a warrior who is coming back!"), wealth/success ("God's blessings!"), cultural influence ("we need to fight in the culture wars!"), etc. Or, the never-ending dialogue about what it means to be a Real Man (for your wife and children, of course!). Note that all of those examples I mentioned are status symbols in the secular culture at large. IMO, we've failed at making an alternative, superior culture, despite having the exact model given. Instead, Christians just seem to soft-fork secular culture, change a few things, slap some Bible verses on it, ship it, and then act surprised when non-believers see right through it.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago

freewinz 5y ago

Great article. Really applies to so much happening during the covid times, and explains why there seems to be so much cognitive dissonance with the educated population.

bsenftner 5y ago
There is also another major factor behind why there is so much disagreement between the educated population: there are multiple ways to solve most situations, but there is only one way to tow the line. Republican strategy is to tow the line, whatever that line is, so they are consistent. While the opposition seeks an optimal solution, and that process appears as in-fighting.
- tdehnel 5y ago
  in this comment you are doing the exact thing the article talks about, positioning groups as good guys/bad guys and thus signaling your status as either a good guy or someone who at least knows the difference.
  - carapace 5y ago
    Aren't you doing the same thing too?
    - mathematicaster 5y ago
      And you as well, Sir ... ... oh, wait ...
  - Taywee 5y ago
    I don't think that it's good vs bad, but that a fundamental part of conservatism is keeping things the same, or returning to some sort of prior tradition. That is going to be more cohesive and consistent by its very definition. It's not a value statement at all.

friesfreeze 5y ago

So does good society happen when prosocial truths are high status and antisocial truths are low status? Edit: and the same for lies I suppose.

trabant00 5y ago

> “People are limited in their capacity to process information, so they take shortcuts whenever they can.” > We are lazy creatures who try to expend as little mental energy as possible. > And people are typically less motivated to scrutinize a message if the source is considered to be an expert. We interpret the message through the peripheral route. What are the alternatives though? Dig ever deeper into every piece of information until you get stuck on what fundamental particle/laws is the universe made of? Trust your taxi driver on what is wrong with your health rather than your doctor? Trust neither and spend 20 years in school to understand why your stomach hurts today? All articles about biases, mental shortcuts, preconceived ideas and so on miss on offering a real alternative. And guess why, because there is none. It's the best we have, as imperfect as these mechanisms are.

photochemsyn 5y ago
My concern is that this can too easily result in disaster like a herd of cattle stampeding over a cliff. Everyone's rushing along together, everyone's safe in the herd, and then, oops, goodbye herd. We need more people willing to say "hey you idiots, you're all heading for a cliff". The problem is that anyone saying that will become persona non grata... maybe the really smart cattle just extract themselves from the stampede, thinking, "too bad for you fools, it's a Darwin moment, guess that means more grass for me." Unfortunately that strategy doesn't really work when humans are stampeding for nuclear war and climatic destruction, there won't be any grass left for anyone.
- bsedlm 5y ago
  this is why some of us have a natural resistance to going with the flow. I know I do but it's individually very costly but I like me this way (after many years of feeling bad for having 'poor social skills'). I like to think this strengthens the group even if it's costly to the individual
- trabant00 5y ago
  How do you know you're not the one heading for a cliff? And anyway, that is why we have multiple herds and some individual rebels. Our entire history was this way, when one herd goes of a cliff another herd profits.

robertlagrant 5y ago

> This isn’t a partisan issue, either. Gibson and Sutherland report that, “The percentage of Democrats who are worried about speaking their mind is just about identical to the percentage of Republicans who self-censor: 39 and 40 percent, respectively.” It may not be partisan in that sense, but today's fear is still coming from one side's extreme.

dorchadas 5y ago
You obviously don't live in a red state. I was a leftist teacher in a very red state (as in, it was called from Trump within a minute of the polls closing, while half the state still had open polls). There's many times I had to watch what I said around people and not speak my mind for fear of possible backlash if students told their parents or if news got out among the community of some of my beliefs.

slothtrop 5y ago

One thing I infer is that the college educated are overconfident, sometimes classist. In aggregate they rely on short-cut heuristics like anyone else, with the benefit of believing they are more rational by virtue of class clout (their own, and of pundits they listen to). I've also seen the disdain for the tradesmen and non-educated, not just general misanthropy as alluded to in the article. It's a bit unnerving to see them tip-toe around their in-group society, while being absolutely vicious espousing white-listed thoughts.

bsedlm 5y ago

> We are lazy creatures who try to expend as little mental energy as possible. but I take this as a virtue, not as a vice. we are efficient, we (as life) do not like to toil needlessly nor wastefully. (IMO, the viciousness comes from an extreme posture in either direction) but also I want to remark that efficiency is never the goal. is not even a means to the end (of living), it's merely a choice, a preference, an intelligent style favored by a large variety of living things and physical phenomena.

motohagiography 5y ago

> Dunking on social media tells our monkey brain that we are rising in prominence, even though by next week people will have forgotten and moved on to the next round of gossip. Advanced tech exploits the brains of ideologues, who then create a culture where others spend too much time pledging fealty to ideologies rather than developing new ideas and technology for the benefit of humankind. The word "ideologue," is key because it's a thought terminating cliche we use as an epithet to describe the people we don't agree with, instead of what it precisely is - a pattern of thinking that iterates the logic of an underlying idea. It may not even be on a chosen belief, but just a symbol for something we picked up and used as a stub for a concept. I just assume people persecute each other because they love it, and instead, I index on finding people who aren't as addicted to that kind of conflict, as there are enough people in the world that arguing with any one of them is an opportunity cost against living. Maybe this is the real impact of the internet - when your potential Dunbar number and opporutunity now seems infinite, we can replace any person we have a conflict with, with just another more agreeable and validating avatar on the screen. That fast, swipe-left culture filter not only rewards intolerance, but even imposes opportunity costs on tolerance because tolerance consumes time that could be applied to swiping until you get validation, and exposes you to defending against the infinite persecution of whomever you are tolerating. I'd be concerned about what human quality is atrophying as a result of not exercising the experience the tech has automated and replaced. It's not empathy, it's something more real and consequential like courage, dignity, or compassion. The article is important, but I don't think there is a back or an undo we can reason ourselves back to as a culture. It's just a matter of finding new minds to equip with freedom and set to building again.

tppiotrowski 5y ago

Feels like "likes/upvotes" serve to inform you of what is important, but also causes you to gauge the crowd and censor your dissent. Though an elegant argument is usually welcome in all quarters...

karmakaze 5y ago

Why does the article interleave prestige/high-status and intelligent/educated as if they refer to the same thing? Is it trying to say two things that could be related but making one argument? I was all ready to believe what I thought I already agreed with until I found these patterns of faulty persuasion. Luckily, even if the argument is faulty it doesn't preclude truths being present.