status motivations/dynamics are active whether or not you consciously think of them
It’s more useful to frame this in terms of particular norms, because different contexts activate different norms. It’s possible to deliberatively cultivate or suppress specific norms in specific contexts (including those that take the form of status calculations, which is not all of them), shaping them in the long run rather than passively acknowledging their influence.
This is very indirect and so the feedback loops are terrible, it seems that usually you’d need to intervene at the background dynamics that would encourage/discourage the norms on their own (such as prevailing framings and terminology, making different actions or incentives more salient), not even intervening by encouraging/discouraging the norms directly.
I’m skeptical that it’s possible to use norms to suppress status calculations, and even more skeptical that it’s possible without huge cost/effort, beyond what typical LW members would be willing to pay. It’s hard for me to think of any groups or communities whose members have managed to suppress their status motivations/calculations. (It seems a lot more feasible/productive to exploit or redirect such motivations in various ways.) But if you have more to say about this, I’d be very curious to hear you out.
Not suppress status calculations of course, my point is about uses of being specific about particular norms that contribute to such status calculations (as well as norms that are not about status calculations). This should enable some agency in shaping incentives (by influencing specific norms according to their expected effects), rather than settling to cynically pointing out that status calculations are an immutable part of human nature, at least for most people. That is, the content of the status calculations is not immutable.
(It seems a lot more feasible/productive to exploit or redirect such motivations in various ways.)
Probably you are thinking about a particular application of norm-shaping that wouldn’t work, while I was responding to what I perceived as a framing suggesting a general dismissal of norm-shaping as a useful thing to consider. This parenthetical sure seems to thicken the plot. (Maybe you are somehow intending the same point, in a way I’m not seeing, while also being skeptical of me making the same point, meaning that you are not seeing that I’m making the same point, possibly because it wouldn’t be a good response to your own intended point that I’m misunderstanding...)
It’s more useful to frame this in terms of particular norms, because different contexts activate different norms. It’s possible to deliberatively cultivate or suppress specific norms in specific contexts (including those that take the form of status calculations, which is not all of them), shaping them in the long run rather than passively acknowledging their influence.
This is very indirect and so the feedback loops are terrible, it seems that usually you’d need to intervene at the background dynamics that would encourage/discourage the norms on their own (such as prevailing framings and terminology, making different actions or incentives more salient), not even intervening by encouraging/discouraging the norms directly.
I’m skeptical that it’s possible to use norms to suppress status calculations, and even more skeptical that it’s possible without huge cost/effort, beyond what typical LW members would be willing to pay. It’s hard for me to think of any groups or communities whose members have managed to suppress their status motivations/calculations. (It seems a lot more feasible/productive to exploit or redirect such motivations in various ways.) But if you have more to say about this, I’d be very curious to hear you out.
Not suppress status calculations of course, my point is about uses of being specific about particular norms that contribute to such status calculations (as well as norms that are not about status calculations). This should enable some agency in shaping incentives (by influencing specific norms according to their expected effects), rather than settling to cynically pointing out that status calculations are an immutable part of human nature, at least for most people. That is, the content of the status calculations is not immutable.
Probably you are thinking about a particular application of norm-shaping that wouldn’t work, while I was responding to what I perceived as a framing suggesting a general dismissal of norm-shaping as a useful thing to consider. This parenthetical sure seems to thicken the plot. (Maybe you are somehow intending the same point, in a way I’m not seeing, while also being skeptical of me making the same point, meaning that you are not seeing that I’m making the same point, possibly because it wouldn’t be a good response to your own intended point that I’m misunderstanding...)
Ok, I think we’re not disagreeing, I just misunderstood your comment. Thanks for clarifying.