As an aside, I’m not sure that status-derived happiness is always zero-sum. Imagine a society where everyone considers themselves worthless compared to Cthulhu. You can make everyone feel better about their status by explaining that Cthulhu doesn’t exist. You can do the same in our world as well, by substituting “Cthulhu” with “photoshopped supermodels”.
Agreed. The main caveat I had in mind is that communities are not fixed- it’s easy for everyone to be a big fish in a little pond if there are lots of little ponds and people weight most of their time towards the ponds in which they are big. See the Loser section of the Gervais Principle, but also note the caveat there that there are big status competitions that it’s problematic to try to opt out of.
Yeah. I sometimes find that I really like the old-fashioned words for some emotions, like “envy” or “sloth”. Kinda puts them in their proper perspective.
Yeah, point taken.
As an aside, I’m not sure that status-derived happiness is always zero-sum. Imagine a society where everyone considers themselves worthless compared to Cthulhu. You can make everyone feel better about their status by explaining that Cthulhu doesn’t exist. You can do the same in our world as well, by substituting “Cthulhu” with “photoshopped supermodels”.
Agreed. The main caveat I had in mind is that communities are not fixed- it’s easy for everyone to be a big fish in a little pond if there are lots of little ponds and people weight most of their time towards the ponds in which they are big. See the Loser section of the Gervais Principle, but also note the caveat there that there are big status competitions that it’s problematic to try to opt out of.
Or you could even invent a new anti-Cthulhu for everyone to feel better than.
This solves a surprisingly high proportion of personal problems, I’ve found.
Yeah. I sometimes find that I really like the old-fashioned words for some emotions, like “envy” or “sloth”. Kinda puts them in their proper perspective.