The funny thing about status is that you can actually get a lot more done if you have it. It's useful.
Admitting that is the first step to gaining status ethically, without shame. Reputation and status are joined at the hip, and while it's really easy to destroy one of these, it's probably very, very difficult to build them in the first place.
Nice post, but under this framing is *everything* status seeking? And if everything is status seeking, how much relevance does such a determination really have?
Nice essay. As a status seeking commenter, this is almost too meta to even comment on.
Status is tied to self/group awareness, consciousness itself, sure. Short of a special lobotomy, we're stuck performing for each other.
Why wouldn't we want to learn from the people best at finding food, making things, sheltering, healing?
I strongly agree, a species threatening set of conditions probably warrant a better status symbol set. But, our very nature makes that symbol set prone to variance. Babylon.
This is fascinating, but a bit dispiriting. Do you think there's any comfort to be found in the notion that some people's personalities predispose them to be somewhat less status-focused than others (ie differences in the Big Five personality/dark triad traits) or is that grasping at straws?
Your comment on purposeful status-games makes me think about religion. I haven't examined this thought very closely, but as a first pass religions seem to fill the social niche of "useful" status game. They categorize the rules of the game, assign an arbiter of the winners of the status game (God/gods and their representatives), and are remarkably sticky. The status of the game "disciple of Christ" has been around for millennia, and though there are innumerable fractal status games being played with Christendom over that time, the innate game of who can gain status by being visibly more like Christ seems to be pretty stable. I need to think about it more, but I'm curious about your take on the role of religion in status games specifically.
I don’t entirely agree with the idea that revealing something is a status game causes it to collapse. You could reveal that sports, music, writing, etc. are status games and people would still partake in these things. You could reveal that volunteering at the homeless shelter is a status game and people would still do it. I think it mainly applies to status games that are “fashions” - signals that almost anyone can put out. Examples are stylish clothes and stylish opinions. Over time, these status games tend to burn out either because they become so saturated that there is little status to be gained from partaking or because rivals successfully portray them as low status.
First we need to agree on what status is though, I've yet to find someone define status in a way my mind simply clicks around the concept better than my own, so here's my attempt:
Status is 'the amount to which other people will support or be influenced by this person'
If we can agree on this definition, I don't find it particularly 'sinful' or 'evil' for someone to be visibly eliciting support from other people, or convincing them accepting their influence would be to their benefit, in other words to be openly playing a status game.
Your assertion that you can't play status games if you know you're playing it for status, or that you lose the game if you realize you're playing it, is only true for a subset of status games that include the rule that you don't know it's a status game in the first place - plenty of other status games exist.
For example, take a company's sales team where the culture accepts and celebrates money motivation. It is celebrated when one closes a deal, everyone knows that everyone's competing with each other to hit the top of the leaderboard, and when someone wins, everyone respects them and this person understands that they're fighting for recognition & respect. They're all in the same boat, fighting for the same thing: status (and income, but we all know it's status.)
With this in mind, imagine a society where mass education of our primal tendencies is widespread & well known. Everyone knows that everyone else is vying for status. Sure it's recursive, as one's status would also be defined by.. one's success in building status... but I see a stable system at the end of the day.
That's the ideal outcome, because then we can direct these status games to actually improve our living conditions in the first place, because no one cares about status when they're starving. We still have base-layer needs that need to be solved in this world, and we should be caring about that more.
Apologies if I seem a bit simple about this, but isn’t status useful? Looks a lot like a ticket to a networking event. Paying to much attention to the collapsing and reemergence of status and anti status games could distract from what could be the actual goal of gaining status in the first place, which to my mind is to get something! I suppose knowing that the status games morph can be advantageous!
Aug 2, 2023·edited Aug 2, 2023Liked by David Pinsof
Great piece. In school, I was first the bullied intellectual type, as a coping mechanism I became an outsider: whenever I saw others playing a status game I immediately rejected it and played my own anti-status game. I think I still do this, reading Substacks and writing my own is actually my current anti-status game.
My biggest anti-status game was freestyle scootering in the early 2000s (riding kick scooters in skateparks). Now this sport is popular with young kids but back then literally no one did it, we were the first ones. I was delusioning of how one day when the sport blows up big and mainstream (like skateboarding) we all will have high status as champions and founding fathers - obviously none of this ever happened.
Having played many anti-status games that failed to replace any actual status games I see that being an outsider and playing your own anti-status games CAN get you some status, but only so much: its slightly better than sucking at the mainstream status game but far worse that winning it. Or maybe what I've just said is some bullshit self-delusion I am feeding myself to avoid feeling low status. Who knows, either listen or don't listen to me.
To me, it seems like status signalling is subject to fads and trends much like music, fashion and everything else in our culture. Its very high status to actually start a new trend/fad, it's also high status to be able to spot a new trend early on and jump on the bandwagon before everyone else does. Conversely, hanging on to a dying trend/fad is cringe and low status. Ew.
However, fads and trends come and go, and unless you are a highly talented prodigy and/or already have a high status in a given industry, it is very hard to influence mainstream fads and trends. Which brings me to the question: should we even bother to attack/defend the big, mainstream status games? We usually have very little impact, but on the other hand maybe it's like democracy: one vote doesn't change much, but every vote counts?
Alternatively, maybe we should focus on attacking/defending 'small' status games played in our local community / social circle? In my anti-status game player career I rejected many trends/fads that actually were status games my social circle played (e.g. running, climbing, archery, racing cheap sport cars, going on boat trips etc), but in this setting I think I could have had some impact if I attacked or defended any of them - instead, almost always I chose to opt out.
Thanks David. My status is enlightened and energized but confused from reading this, as usual. Do I understand correctly that the status game you've chosen to play is fighting bullshit status games? Is there then a holy, pure, un-bullshit status game that you want to recruit us to play instead? Can we play it in full awareness that we are doing so?
Asking because I suppose if I knew a better game that I could consciously play, maybe I wouldn't suck so much at it.
The funny thing about status is that you can actually get a lot more done if you have it. It's useful.
Admitting that is the first step to gaining status ethically, without shame. Reputation and status are joined at the hip, and while it's really easy to destroy one of these, it's probably very, very difficult to build them in the first place.
Nice post, but under this framing is *everything* status seeking? And if everything is status seeking, how much relevance does such a determination really have?
Nice essay. As a status seeking commenter, this is almost too meta to even comment on.
Status is tied to self/group awareness, consciousness itself, sure. Short of a special lobotomy, we're stuck performing for each other.
Why wouldn't we want to learn from the people best at finding food, making things, sheltering, healing?
I strongly agree, a species threatening set of conditions probably warrant a better status symbol set. But, our very nature makes that symbol set prone to variance. Babylon.
The self-help side of this is shame. Funny.
This is fascinating, but a bit dispiriting. Do you think there's any comfort to be found in the notion that some people's personalities predispose them to be somewhat less status-focused than others (ie differences in the Big Five personality/dark triad traits) or is that grasping at straws?
Your comment on purposeful status-games makes me think about religion. I haven't examined this thought very closely, but as a first pass religions seem to fill the social niche of "useful" status game. They categorize the rules of the game, assign an arbiter of the winners of the status game (God/gods and their representatives), and are remarkably sticky. The status of the game "disciple of Christ" has been around for millennia, and though there are innumerable fractal status games being played with Christendom over that time, the innate game of who can gain status by being visibly more like Christ seems to be pretty stable. I need to think about it more, but I'm curious about your take on the role of religion in status games specifically.
I don’t entirely agree with the idea that revealing something is a status game causes it to collapse. You could reveal that sports, music, writing, etc. are status games and people would still partake in these things. You could reveal that volunteering at the homeless shelter is a status game and people would still do it. I think it mainly applies to status games that are “fashions” - signals that almost anyone can put out. Examples are stylish clothes and stylish opinions. Over time, these status games tend to burn out either because they become so saturated that there is little status to be gained from partaking or because rivals successfully portray them as low status.
I'm going to challenge you on this.
First we need to agree on what status is though, I've yet to find someone define status in a way my mind simply clicks around the concept better than my own, so here's my attempt:
Status is 'the amount to which other people will support or be influenced by this person'
If we can agree on this definition, I don't find it particularly 'sinful' or 'evil' for someone to be visibly eliciting support from other people, or convincing them accepting their influence would be to their benefit, in other words to be openly playing a status game.
Your assertion that you can't play status games if you know you're playing it for status, or that you lose the game if you realize you're playing it, is only true for a subset of status games that include the rule that you don't know it's a status game in the first place - plenty of other status games exist.
For example, take a company's sales team where the culture accepts and celebrates money motivation. It is celebrated when one closes a deal, everyone knows that everyone's competing with each other to hit the top of the leaderboard, and when someone wins, everyone respects them and this person understands that they're fighting for recognition & respect. They're all in the same boat, fighting for the same thing: status (and income, but we all know it's status.)
With this in mind, imagine a society where mass education of our primal tendencies is widespread & well known. Everyone knows that everyone else is vying for status. Sure it's recursive, as one's status would also be defined by.. one's success in building status... but I see a stable system at the end of the day.
That's the ideal outcome, because then we can direct these status games to actually improve our living conditions in the first place, because no one cares about status when they're starving. We still have base-layer needs that need to be solved in this world, and we should be caring about that more.
Apologies if I seem a bit simple about this, but isn’t status useful? Looks a lot like a ticket to a networking event. Paying to much attention to the collapsing and reemergence of status and anti status games could distract from what could be the actual goal of gaining status in the first place, which to my mind is to get something! I suppose knowing that the status games morph can be advantageous!
Interesting take. Thanks David.
Great piece. In school, I was first the bullied intellectual type, as a coping mechanism I became an outsider: whenever I saw others playing a status game I immediately rejected it and played my own anti-status game. I think I still do this, reading Substacks and writing my own is actually my current anti-status game.
My biggest anti-status game was freestyle scootering in the early 2000s (riding kick scooters in skateparks). Now this sport is popular with young kids but back then literally no one did it, we were the first ones. I was delusioning of how one day when the sport blows up big and mainstream (like skateboarding) we all will have high status as champions and founding fathers - obviously none of this ever happened.
Having played many anti-status games that failed to replace any actual status games I see that being an outsider and playing your own anti-status games CAN get you some status, but only so much: its slightly better than sucking at the mainstream status game but far worse that winning it. Or maybe what I've just said is some bullshit self-delusion I am feeding myself to avoid feeling low status. Who knows, either listen or don't listen to me.
To me, it seems like status signalling is subject to fads and trends much like music, fashion and everything else in our culture. Its very high status to actually start a new trend/fad, it's also high status to be able to spot a new trend early on and jump on the bandwagon before everyone else does. Conversely, hanging on to a dying trend/fad is cringe and low status. Ew.
However, fads and trends come and go, and unless you are a highly talented prodigy and/or already have a high status in a given industry, it is very hard to influence mainstream fads and trends. Which brings me to the question: should we even bother to attack/defend the big, mainstream status games? We usually have very little impact, but on the other hand maybe it's like democracy: one vote doesn't change much, but every vote counts?
Alternatively, maybe we should focus on attacking/defending 'small' status games played in our local community / social circle? In my anti-status game player career I rejected many trends/fads that actually were status games my social circle played (e.g. running, climbing, archery, racing cheap sport cars, going on boat trips etc), but in this setting I think I could have had some impact if I attacked or defended any of them - instead, almost always I chose to opt out.
Thanks David. My status is enlightened and energized but confused from reading this, as usual. Do I understand correctly that the status game you've chosen to play is fighting bullshit status games? Is there then a holy, pure, un-bullshit status game that you want to recruit us to play instead? Can we play it in full awareness that we are doing so?
Asking because I suppose if I knew a better game that I could consciously play, maybe I wouldn't suck so much at it.
Let’s get unflattering about this game and play the game. To watch the game and play the game is a different mode of being.