All humans care profoundly about prestige and status—the esteem of members of their peer group that they in turn hold in esteem. What humans differ widely in i

All humans care profoundly about prestige and status—the esteem of members of their peer group that they in turn hold in esteem. What humans differ widely in is which status markers they hold as important. You're right that leverage and energy are what really matter, but those can take a long time to discover correctly. Some people might do you a little favor now but turn out to generally be unreliable or not have much capacity to help over the long time. Someone might make you feel amazing right now, but it's because they are a charismatic charlatan and not an actual good person who will lift you up. Status markers exist to be heralds of the long-term value that a person offers to their tribe. Good status markers are accurate predictors of those properties, and when we disagree about status markers, we're mostly disagreeing about how predictive we think they are and in what contexts they are reliable.