I was asking because I published 14,000 words on the phenomenon of human status-seeking lastweek. :-P I agree that there have been many oversimplified accounts of how status works. I hope mine is not one of them. I agree that “status is not a single variable” and that “deference tree” accounts are misleading. (I think the popular lesswrong / Robin Hanson view is that status is two variables rather than one, but I think that’s still oversimplified.)
I don’t think the way that “lesswrong community members” actually relate to each other is “ruthless sociopathic businesspeople … command hierarchy … deference tree” kind of stuff. I mean, there’s more-than-zero of that, but not much, and I think less of it in lesswrong than in most groups that I’ve experienced—I’m thinking of places I’ve worked, college clubs, friend groups, etc. Hmm, oh here’s an exception, “the group of frequent Wikipedia physics article editors from 2005-2018” was noticeably better than lesswrong on that axis, I think. I imagine that different people have different experiences of the “lesswrong community” though. Maybe I have subconsciously learned to engage with some parts of the community more than others.
I was asking because I published 14,000 words on the phenomenon of human status-seeking last week. :-P I agree that there have been many oversimplified accounts of how status works. I hope mine is not one of them. I agree that “status is not a single variable” and that “deference tree” accounts are misleading. (I think the popular lesswrong / Robin Hanson view is that status is two variables rather than one, but I think that’s still oversimplified.)
I don’t think the way that “lesswrong community members” actually relate to each other is “ruthless sociopathic businesspeople … command hierarchy … deference tree” kind of stuff. I mean, there’s more-than-zero of that, but not much, and I think less of it in lesswrong than in most groups that I’ve experienced—I’m thinking of places I’ve worked, college clubs, friend groups, etc. Hmm, oh here’s an exception, “the group of frequent Wikipedia physics article editors from 2005-2018” was noticeably better than lesswrong on that axis, I think. I imagine that different people have different experiences of the “lesswrong community” though. Maybe I have subconsciously learned to engage with some parts of the community more than others.