Non-zero sum status is “I’m the best left-handed minor league pitcher by allowed runs”
How is that non-zero-sum?
There are real examples of “non-zero-sum status”—e.g. you might feel inferior to an anime character—but the examples you give aren’t that. The sum of many small zero-sum games is still zero-sum.
It would be non-zero-sum if, for example, you’re the only person in the world who cares about “I’m the best left-handed minor league pitcher by allowed runs”. By thinking up new status positions that only you care about, or that you care about more than others, you can gain more value than other people lose.
It may be sensible, after all, to describe this sort of status as “non-zero-sum”, if such contexts satisfy these criteria:
Status within some context subjectively matters as much as status outside the context would, in the absence of the context (or in lack of participation in it)
There is no limit on the number of such independent contexts that may be created
How is that non-zero-sum?
There are real examples of “non-zero-sum status”—e.g. you might feel inferior to an anime character—but the examples you give aren’t that. The sum of many small zero-sum games is still zero-sum.
It would be non-zero-sum if, for example, you’re the only person in the world who cares about “I’m the best left-handed minor league pitcher by allowed runs”. By thinking up new status positions that only you care about, or that you care about more than others, you can gain more value than other people lose.
It may be sensible, after all, to describe this sort of status as “non-zero-sum”, if such contexts satisfy these criteria:
Status within some context subjectively matters as much as status outside the context would, in the absence of the context (or in lack of participation in it)
There is no limit on the number of such independent contexts that may be created
What I am describing here is discussed in detail in another gwern classic: “The Melancholy of Subculture Society”.